The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the financial figures were not disclosed by either side. The Spurs, who went to the NBA Finals this past season behind the All-NBA center and unanimous Defensive Player of the Year, announced that Wembanyama had signed, simply saying the sides agreed on “a multi-year contract extension.”

"Spurs family, I’m here to stay," Wembanyama wrote on social media Friday. “Whatever it takes."

The agreement comes at a discount; Wembanyama could have agreed to a deal that would have topped $300 million over five years — but chose a lesser amount to help give the Spurs flexibility going forward with their young core and in anticipation of the contracts some of those budding stars will be eligible for in coming years, the person said.

And that was the only detail really for the sides to hammer out. The 22-year-old Wembanyama is already considered one of the game's most dominant players, and it was a no-brainer that the Spurs would offer an extension. The only question was whether Wembanyama would accept a deal that starts with him making 25% of the salary cap figure, or if he'd hold out to see if he could initially make 30% of the cap.

ESPN first reported the agreement.

Wembanyama will make about $16.8 million this coming season, the last under the terms of his rookie contract. The newly signed deal kicks in for 2027-28 and will start with a salary of around $43.5 million, then keep rising from there. The 7-foot-4 center from France would have a $57.5 million option for 2031-32.

Wembanyama was the Most Valuable Player of the Western Conference finals this past season, finished third behind Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver's Nikola Jokic in the overall MVP voting for the season, and has led the league in blocks per game in all three of his NBA seasons so far.

He averaged 25 points and 11.5 rebounds this past season, leading San Antonio to a 62-20 record, the No. 2 seed in the West and a berth in the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks. The Spurs lost that series in five games.

“It’s painful. It’s painful,” Wembanyama said a few minutes after the finals ended. “But I’m not running away from that. I’m using it to fuel me. ... I’m not satisfied with not winning. But as I said, this is the biggest lesson of my life. As a team, there’s no better experience than what we just lived.”

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

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who was retained by the family of Nolan Xavier Wells earlier this week, has said the family has concerns about the investigation and planned to conduct an independent autopsy. Wells travelled by boat to Horn Island, Mississippi, on July 4 with a group of friends, but did not make the return trip with them that afternoon. His body was found early Monday morning, more than a day later.

While Jackson County Sheriff’s Office officials said investigators don't suspect foul play in the Black college student's death, the sheriff has asked for any witnesses or people with video from the popular beach island about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) off the coast of Mississippi to come forward to help shed light on the moments before Wells' disappearance and death.

Wells' death has galvanized the Black community. Actor and producer Tyler Perry is helping pay for Wells’ funeral, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is helping pay for his independent autopsy and filmmaker Spike Lee showed up to the news conference to show support for Wells’ family.

Wells, who would have turned 19 next month, attended Southwest Mississippi Community College, where he played wide receiver on the football team. His family members have raised concerns, saying they’ve seen video of a fight allegedly involving their son, and saying that as an elite athlete he was able to swim.

Wells was left without his phone or keys, lawyers say

Attorneys said Friday that the friends who left Wells on the island took his phone and keys when they departed. Crump said Wells' family used an app to track his phone, and a friend went to where it was on land to pick it up.

“What teenager would leave their phone behind if they’re going to stay on this island? What teenager wouldn’t take their phone? It’s not adding up at all," Crump said.

He added that the family believes text messages from social media apps had been deleted from his phone when they got it back, and they plan to employ experts to try to retrieve all the data they can.

A photo posted to social media, allegedly from the boat ride to the island, shows Wells with his arms around three white, male friends. Speculation and suspicion about the teen’s death have been rampant online, as people grapple with the state’s history of racial tension and what it means to be a Black person in a majority white space.

Wells' mother, Christine Wonsley, looked to the sky several times as lawyers spoke Friday, to hold back tears. When she spoke, she said this was not how she wanted the world to know her son.

Wonsley said they had taught him about history, but he was a peacemaker who didn't like division, and wanted everyone to be included.

“We just wanna know what happened,” she said, through tears. “And why our baby didn't come home.”

Family demands thorough investigation into Wells' death

Crump called for a thorough investigation, saying to law enforcement, "They want to know that you have not taken the path of least resistance.”

“If the roles were reversed and you had three young Black men on a boat with a young white man and that young white man ended up dead, what kind of investigation would be conducted by the Mississippi law enforcement officials? How many times would those three young Black men be interrogated?” he added.

It's the second case that Crump has taken on in the state in recent months. He also was recently retained by the family of a Mississippi 1-year-old who was killed when police fired into a moving car.

Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said earlier this week that Wells' mother had called to report him missing around midnight into the morning of July 5. Crews from multiple local and state agencies began an extensive search Sunday of the island and surrounding waters. His body was recovered early Monday, family members confirmed.

An official autopsy was conducted Tuesday, though officials have said it could be weeks before results are released. Ledbetter said Wells’ friends were cooperating with the investigation.

“From the people we’ve talked to, it sounds like he chose to stay on the island with the assumption that he was going to ride back to the mainland with someone else,” Ledbetter told The Associated Press earlier this week.

Crump and Wells' family said some of those details didn't seem to add up either, saying from the videos they had seen Wells was one of, if not the only, Black person on the island where there were around 200 people celebrating the holiday. They said the girl the friends said Wells was speaking to gave a different story about him leaving with those friends. They raised questions about why no one would have given him a ride home if he chose to stay.

“If he’s drowning, nobody sees him drown? Nobody offers assistance? Nobody tries to help? I mean, obviously he stands out. I think he’s the only Black person I saw when I’m looking at the videos,” Crump said.

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AP reporter Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.

The Spain goalkeeper had kept a clean sheet for a record 650 minutes — the tournament's longest scoreless streak — before Belgium ended it in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Charles De Ketelaere got in front of Pau Cubarsi to head in Timothy Castagne's cross in the 41st minute, making the score 1-1. Spain won 2-1 to advance to the semifinals next Tuesday against France.

Belgium became the first team to score against La Roja at this year's World Cup, snapping their tournament record of six consecutive clean sheets.

Spain’s streak began with a 0-0 draw in the round of 16 at the last tournament in 2022, when Morocco advanced after a penalty shootout. There was also a surprising scoreless draw against Cape Verde to open group play this year, followed by four consecutive shutout victories to advance to the quarterfinals.

Simón broke the previous record of 517 consecutive scoreless minutes during a 3-0 win over Austria to open the knockout round. Italy goalkeeper Walter Zenga set the previous mark in 1990 with five consecutive clean sheets at his home World Cup.

The 29-year-old Simón’s shutout streak started in 2022 in Qatar when he entered a 2-1 loss to Japan in group play.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

A mere four days after Merino scored a clutch goal as a substitute in injury time to beat Portugal, he found himself in the right spot again in the quarterfinals when Belgium's backup goalkeeper spilled the ball into his path.

Merino booted it home in the 88th minute, sending Spain to a 2-1 victory Friday and into a titanic semifinal showdown with tournament favorite France.

“I’ve done this again, and it’s happened to me again, so it would seem that coincidence exists,” a smiling Merino said. “If you’re ready and you try, I guess it can happen for you.”

Already a versatile contributor in any role he can get as a depth player for his country or English club Arsenal, the multi-positional Merino has transformed into the ultimate super-sub while providing exactly what Spain needed to survive two knockout matches against top opponents.

Merino has scored two goals in his first World Cup — and they're both historic.

“Honestly, it’s crazy to be able to help the team once again,” he said. “This time in a different way, but at the same time to believe and trust that the opposing goalkeeper could make a mistake and to stay alert. ... I prepare for when the moment comes, and hopefully they keep coming.”

Merino is the first to admit he also needed luck, and Belgium keeper Senne Lammens provided it after he was forced into his first World Cup match in the 71st minute by an injury to starter Thibaut Courtois.

Merino came on in the 86th minute and scored on his second touch of the match, charging into the box and pouncing after Lammens lost control of Pau Cubarsí’s long shot.

Fabián Ruiz scored a rebound goal in the 30th minute for Spain, but Belgium forward Charles De Ketelaere evened it with the first goal allowed by the Spanish team in the entire World Cup in the 41st minute.

Merino's clutch goal against an upset-minded Belgium sent La Roja to the semifinals for the first time since they won the World Cup in 2010. A powerhouse matchup with France has been anticipated since the draw was announced late last year, and Spain was grateful to secure its spot.

“We came here for this, to play against the best teams in the world,” Merino said. “We are confident in our possibilities, at the same time respecting the opposition. This is one of those games that you dream of when you’re a kid, and now we have the chance to compete against a massive rival. Hopefully we’ll get the win.”

Spain and France will meet Tuesday in Arlington, Texas, in a matchup anticipated for years. Neither team has lost at this year's World Cup.

“It will be a clash of giants,” Spain coach Luis De La Fuente said through a translator. “We are capable of winning this game — and not just now, but I would have said this a few weeks ago as well. They are a great giant of football, but I trust our team.”

Courtois made four saves, but the Real Madrid keeper went down to the grass in the second half after a long kick. He received treatment during the hydration break, but broke down in tears when coach Rudi Garcia removed him moments later.

Only Germany's Manuel Neuer has played more World Cup matches than Courtois' 21. Lammens, the capable Manchester United keeper, was forced to become the first goalkeeper other than Courtois to play for Belgium in the last four World Cup tournaments — and he wasn't able to make the play that would have kept it level.

“We were on equal footing with Spain, and we have nothing to feel bad about,” Garcia said. “In the first half, they only had one chance, but they were very efficient. Unfortunately, to beat a team of this caliber, you need luck on your side as well, and it was too much for us to get into the semifinals.”

Belgium desperately pressed for an equalizer in the final minutes with substitute forward Romelu Lukaku leading the effort, but Aymeric Laporte acrobatically volleyed the best chance out of the box in the second minute of injury time.

“We knew how we could hurt them, and I think we did this today," Belgium defender Brandon Mechele said. "It’s a pity that it ended like this, but I think we can be proud of the tournament we played.”

Spain remained unbeaten in 37 straight competitive matches since March 2023, while Belgium's streak of 18 consecutive unbeaten matches across all competitions ended.

Spain didn’t allow a goal in its first five matches at this year's tournament, and goalkeeper Unai Simón hadn’t conceded in a World Cup-record 650 minutes dating to Qatar.

The streaks abruptly ended when De Ketelaere muscled past Cubarsí and headed home a cross from Timothy Castagne for Belgium’s tying goal.

Belgium hadn’t generated anything close to a strong scoring chance before the latest big moment for De Ketelaere, the Atalanta forward who scored two goals in Belgium’s 4-1 rout of the co-host U.S. on Monday.

Belgium captain Youri Tielemans was removed from the starting lineup after getting injured during warmups. He joined injured defender Amadou Onana on the sidelines.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

FIFA, accused of charging high prices for this year's tournament in the United States, is selling the grass that will be used for the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey at $450 per piece.

FIFA's store says each segment of turf is 17.5 by 17.5 by 17.5, although it doesn't specify whether that figure is inches, centimeters or millimeters. Soccer's governing body did not immediately respond to an email requesting detail of the dimensions.

“Own a genuine piece of football history with an authentic 2026 FIFA World Cup Piece of the pitch, permanently preserved in a premium acrylic with a USB keepsake,” the website says. “Each piece contains an original fragment of the iconic Final playing surface, making it a unique collectible that celebrates one of the world’s greatest sporting events.”

FIFA said “the acrylic USB features an authenticity film, while offering a sleek, contemporary display piece. Presented in a premium hinged shoulder box with striking spot UV detailing, this exclusive item is designed for collectors, fans, and football enthusiasts alike.”

FIFA is making the turf available to send only to addresses in the United States and Europe.

“Orders will not be shipped until after the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final,” the governing body said.

Players and coaches have criticized the quality of the field at MetLife, which usually uses an artificial surface for NFL games of the New York Giants and Jets.

FIFA is selling regular tickets for the final at up to $32,970 for the final and is asking $34,500 and $32,500 for hospitality tickets that include food and drinks.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The fire broke out on the second floor of the complex at 2994 S. Rio Grande Ave. Crews knocked it down and had it fully extinguished. No injuries were reported.

Entire building condemned after blaze

Code Enforcement condemned the entire building following the fire — not just the units directly affected by the flames.

So far, nine adults and one minor are confirmed displaced. But Orlando Fire said not all occupants have been notified yet, meaning that number could climb.

Red Cross working to find temporary housing

Orlando Fire Department, property management, and the Red Cross are working together to determine the total number of displaced residents and find appropriate temporary housing.

Anyone displaced by the fire is encouraged to contact the Red Cross for assistance.

The incident happened on a morning flight from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen, near Munich, operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget carrier.

Ryanair said in a statement the flight “returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window dislodged in-flight.”

The 61-year-old passenger, who was not identified by name, suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns, according to a Greek hospital official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

It was not immediately clear if the injured passenger remained in hospital later Friday.

Passengers told Greek media that they heard a loud bang, oxygen masks dropped and the plane began to lose altitude.

One passenger, identified only as Christina, told Radio Thessaloniki that some passengers panicked and screamed and that one passenger was partially sucked out of the window.

“His whole head, neck, shoulders” were pulled out of the window, she said, adding that those seated near him pulled him back in.

“Most people had fallen asleep, we had closed our eyes. We heard a sound, I’d describe it like a tire bursting … but very loud,” she said. “We knew straight away we lost pressure because we lost altitude."

She said there were "screams, shrieks, shouting.”

The airline has not said what caused the window to dislodge, but the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was notified that the flight turned back because of “a right engine issue and cabin decompression.”

Ryanair did not immediately respond to an email request seeking comment on the engine issue.

The NTSB, the U.S. federal agency that investigates aviation and other major transportation incidents, said it was standing by to assist the investigation. It said the probe will be led by the Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation Committee of the Republic of North Macedonia, which under international aviation rules takes the lead because the incident occurred in that country's airspace.

The agency in North Macedonia, which borders Greece to the north, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A series of short videos recorded from inside the plane and shared by Radio Thessaloniki showed passengers wearing oxygen masks after the cabin lost pressure. Another appeared to show the blown-out window, with a man seated nearby wearing an oxygen mask. A third video, apparently filmed after the aircraft landed, showed first responders working in the aisle.

Shye Gilad, a former airline pilot who teaches at Georgetown University’s business school in the United States, said the incident underscored the importance of keeping seatbelts fastened while seated. A rapid decompression can create a brief but powerful suction effect near a breach in the cabin before the cabin's pressure stabilizes, he said.

“The seatbelt can help in those first few seconds. It’s a difference maker and people should keep their seatbelts fastened at all times,” Gilad said, adding that events such as Friday's incident are “a very rare” because “it takes a lot to breach a cabin.”

The aircraft was a Boeing 737-800, which can seat up to 189 passengers. The narrow-body plane was delivered new to Ryanair in 2008, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

Flight records show that the aircraft climbed past 15,000 feet (4,570 meters) about six minutes after departure and then immediately descended to about 6,000 feet (1,830 meters) “to burn fuel for 30 minutes” before returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after taking off, Flightradar24 said.

The plane landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal, and one passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki, the airline said in a statement. A replacement aircraft was later provided to fly the passengers to Germany.

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Yamat, AP's airlines and travel writer, reported from Las Vegas.

Apple said in the lawsuit filed in a California federal court that OpenAI encouraged Apple employees it was recruiting to share confidential information, even guiding how to avoid scrutiny when taking jobs at the other company.

“This case is about Apple’s former employees stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI,” the filing says. “Apple brings this suit to put a stop to it.”

Two former Apple employees who now work for OpenAI are also named as defendants. One is Tang Tan, who helped design the iPhone, Apple Watch and iPod and is now OpenAI’s chief hardware officer. The other is Chang Liu, a former electrical engineer Apple says it entrusted with some of its most sensitive product development efforts before Liu left Apple to join OpenAI earlier this year.

OpenAI said it is still reviewing the filing, but spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement Friday that OpenAI has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

The suit accuses OpenAI of seeking shortcuts on hardware

OpenAI has never said exactly what type of device it is building, but has described it as an effort to find a new way to interact with AI that goes beyond “traditional products and interfaces.” It’s part of a broader push to create a physical embodiment of the latest AI advances, a decade after Amazon and Google introduced screen-free talking speakers into homes.

The lawsuit claims the effort was built partly on knowledge stolen from Apple.

“OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets,” the lawsuit says.

Apple said it began investigating whether some of its confidential information was compromised and “uncovered a pattern of theft” of Apple’s trade secrets by former employees who moved on to positions at OpenAI.

The lawsuit alleges both Liu and Tan accessed Apple’s confidential company information and files while working at OpenAI. Among the allegations, Apple claims Liu accessed and downloaded several confidential hardware-related files on an Apple-issued device he kept after departing. It also alleges Tan directed job candidates who were still working for Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews at OpenAI.

Apple said in the lawsuit that it reached out to OpenAI in February to raise its concerns early in its investigation, but said that OpenAI did not respond.

An Apple spokesperson said in a statement Friday that the company will “always defend our teams’ hard work and innovations, and we are taking all appropriate steps to do so.”

A partnership with Apple has edged toward rivalry

Apple sought help from OpenAI several years ago as it was behind in the AI race sparked by ChatGPT’s arrival. The two companies partnered in 2024 to use ChatGPT as an AI-powered “answer engine” on the iPhone when the built-in Siri technology couldn’t satisfy user needs. More recently, the partnership has veered toward rivalry.

As part of its expansion efforts, OpenAI recruited former Apple designer Jony Ive to oversee a project to build an AI-powered device that many analysts believe could eventually challenge Apple’s products.

Last year, OpenAI announced it was working on a secret hardware collaboration with Ive to pioneer a new way of communicating with artificial intelligence. As part of the collaboration, OpenAI acquired io Products, a product and engineering company co-founded by Ive, Tan and two others, in a deal valued at nearly $6.5 billion.

That led a little-known tech startup iyO Inc. to sue Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for trademark infringement due to the similar-sounding name and the firms’ past interactions. The startup also sued one of its own former employees for allegedly leaking a confidential drawing of iyO’s unreleased product, and it later added trade secret theft claims against Tan to the lawsuit.

Apple’s lawsuit also names io Products as a defendant. Lawyers who previously represented the firm and Tan referred The Associated Press to OpenAI for comment.

Apple’s lawsuit comes as OpenAI has been exploring whether to go public on Wall Street and faces heightened competition from rivals including Anthropic and Google.

OpenAI winnowed down some of its business ventures earlier this year to focus on its core product, ChatGPT, but has continued to pursue a device, the company’s chief financial officer told The Associated Press this spring.

“We have consumer hardware that will come towards the end of this year,” CFO Sarah Friar told the AP in April.

Marquaious Tayvon Wheaton, 26, appeared in court on Friday, where a judge denied bond.

According to a Seminole County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit, SCORE agents — the agency’s Collaborative Opioid Response Effort unit — were surveilling Wheaton’s black BMW on Tuesday because of his history of armed fentanyl trafficking. When an agent activated blue lights and a siren to pull him over on State Road 417, Wheaton sped away.

Deputies tracked the BMW as it drove on the wrong side of the road, passed cars on the shoulder, and ran red lights. The vehicle reached speeds over 110 miles per hour before the crash, the affidavit states.

The BMW slammed into the driver’s side of a brown Mazda at U.S. Highway 17-92 and Sunnytown Road. Brothers Christopher and Tyler Marier were inside. Both were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

[RELATED: How Seminole County deputies tracked, responded to fatal Casselberry crash]

Wheaton was pulled from the overturned BMW and transported to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

Court records show Wheaton was on felony probation at the time of the crash — convicted of robbery with a firearm and tampering with a witness in Seminole County. His criminal history dates back to 2016.

The Casselberry Police Department is continuing its traffic homicide investigation.

Wheaton faces nearly a dozen charges, including two counts of vehicular homicide, two counts of third-degree murder, and fleeing law enforcement. He is being held without bond.

A GoFundMe was created for the family of Christopher Marier to help cover the cost of funeral and living expenses.

Judge Tony Graf said he will decide if the case against Tyler Robinson should advance to trial after hearing again from the two sides on Sept. 1.

Kirk, a 31-year-old confidant of President Donald Trump, was killed as he spoke to a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. Robinson is charged with aggravated murder and could face the death penalty.

Friday's proceedings capped a week of preliminary testimony and brought an emotional moment for Kirk's family: The court played surveillance video that prosecutors said showed Robinson on the rooftop where he allegedly fired a single bullet that hit Kirk in the neck.

Kirk's widow, Erika, clutched a tissue and watched intently as a person said to be Robinson ran across the roof. When the figure dropped to a crawl near the roof's edge, she turned and embraced Kirk's mother, Kathryn, who was crying. They held each other and kept their heads down until the video was almost over.

Defense questions reliability of evidence

Prosecutors this week presented a recorded interview with Robinson's former roommate, who said the 23-year-old defendant expressed remorse for the shooting before turning himself in. Lawyers from the Utah County Attorney's Office also offered DNA analysis that investigators said linked Robinson to both the suspected murder weapon and a tool he allegedly used to etch messages onto bullet cartridges.

Robinson's team did not offer alternative theories for Kirk's death. But one of his attorneys, Michael Burt, repeatedly questioned the reliability of DNA tests and other evidence from prosecutors.

“If you had a lot of DNA on your hand, we shook hands and I went to pick up an exhibit, a gun, and I touched the trigger of it, your DNA could be on that trigger, right?” Burt asked Caitlin Oliver, a forensic biologist with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal law enforcement agency.

“It is possible. Yes,” Oliver replied.

The defense attorney noted that government policies don’t allow analysts to say that DNA evidence is “infallible” or that it has a “zero error rate.”

Experts say the science behind DNA testing is sound.

Chief Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander questioned the relevance of bringing in Oliver as a witness. He suggested prosecutors met the burden of proof needed to advance the case to trial.

“Your honor's heard four days of testimony now. The evidence is overwhelming. It’s devastating," Grunander said.

Robinson did not testify at the hearing. One of his attorneys told the judge they had advised him not to. He has not entered a plea.

Kirk family thanks supporters

Kirk’s family released a statement Friday expressing gratitude for the support and prayers they've received.

"We pray that truth will continue to be heard through a process that is fair, transparent, and grounded in the facts,” the statement said.

The video that prosecutors said showed Robinson running across a roof at Utah Valley University was played for the court gallery at the request of Kirk's family. Portions of the recording were zoomed in to better show the figure on the roof, and red circles were added to some images to direct the viewer's attention.

An unaltered version of that video was shown earlier.

Prosecutors on Thursday aired portions of an April 20 interview with Robinson's roommate, Lance Twiggs, who also was his reported romantic partner. The day after Kirk was shot in the neck, Robinson allegedly cried and told Twiggs “he wishes he hadn’t done it,” a recording played in court revealed.

Later that same day — and only about an hour before turning himself in — Robinson posted “it was me at UVU yesterday,” in a chat room on the Discord instant messaging platform, according to investigators and messages shown by prosecutors.

Defense attorneys unsuccessfully fought the public release of Twiggs' statements and the chat room messages. They argued prosecutors would characterize the material as a confession, undermining Robinson’s right to a fair trial.

Roommate: Robinson never talked about Kirk

Prosecutors contend the shooting endangered others at Kirk’s campus event — an aggravating circumstance that could make the crime punishable by death under Utah law. Robinson also faces possible sentence enhancements based on claims by prosecutors that he targeted Kirk because of his political views.

Twiggs said in the April interview with prosecutors and investigators that Robinson sometimes talked about politics, including Trump. But Twiggs said he never heard Robinson talk about Kirk before the shooting. The defendant also did not talk much about gender issues or LGBTQ rights, Twiggs said.

The weeklong preliminary hearing attracted intense media coverage and spectators who lined up — sometimes overnight — for one of 14 seats in the courtroom reserved for the public.

Preliminary hearings typically don’t last so long. Legal experts said the slow pace reflects a cautious approach by Graf and the large volume of evidence.

Conjecture over that evidence has fueled unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that there might have been a second shooter or that Kirk's death was staged.

“I think that the prosecution wanted to dispel those theories by putting out into the public record the overwhelming case that it possesses against Robinson,” said Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and former federal judge.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.

It comes as U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated on social media Friday that he views the interim ceasefire deal as “OVER!” But he said the U.S. would continue talks aimed at putting a permanent end to the war.

The officials said Friday that Trump is giving U.S. negotiators limited time to reach a deal with Iran, but, in a sign of the challenges ahead, they underscored that the president had a wide range of options if talks fall apart. They also said a power struggle was playing out in real time in Iran after U.S. and Israeli strikes at the start of the war killed its longtime leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran says it wants to control Strait of Hormuz ‘exclusively’

The U.S. is working on pressing Iran to make a public statement that the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for world energy markets, is open and free to ships to transit, the officials said.

On a call with reporters, the officials suggested that leaders in Iran even told their U.S. counterparts that the ship strikes were a mistake and the country hoped to continue negotiations despite that.

Trump didn't care that the firing on ships came from a hard-line faction and responded with more powerful counterattacks, showing Iran that there would be consequences no matter who was behind it, the officials said.

But moments before the U.S. officials spoke, Tehran’s diplomat at the United Nations told reporters that any activity in the Strait of Hormuz, including its opening or demining operations, “rests exclusively with Iran.”

“Any attempt, by external actors, to interfere with or establish a power arrangement would violate the (interim deal), and undermine its implementation, delay the restoration of normal commercial navigation, jeopardize maritime safety, and increase regional tensions,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said outside the U.N. Security Council.

Iran has said the strait must now be under its sole control and that vessels should begin to pay fees to Tehran — even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began.

Iran's grip on the strait during the conflict led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.

Any nuclear deal will require Iran to turn over enriched material

The U.S. officials said to reporters Friday that any deal on Iran's nuclear program would require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. If the U.S. does not reach a deal with Iran to turn over its nuclear material, it has military options to ensure that it remains buried underground forever, the officials said. They did not detail those options.

The highly enriched material that could potentially be used to make a nuclear weapon is believed to be buried after strikes the U.S. launched on Iran last summer. Iran says its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes.

The officials said they would never reach a nuclear deal with Iran if it would not first abide by terms of the ceasefire deal and stop renewed attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

That struggle underscores the long-term challenges the Trump administration faces in the wake of the war it started and expected to wrap up months ago. Trump in late February broke off talks with Iran over its nuclear program and launched the military campaign, saying he was taking the action because Tehran was attempting to rebuild its program and develop long-range missiles.

He faces political pressure in the U.S. to bring the conflict and its economic impact to a close and avoid the kind of prolonged Middle East conflict he had campaigned against.

Unclaimed strikes came after US ended its attacks

No one claimed responsibility Friday for airstrikes that hit Iran after the U.S. said it finished its attacks, leaving questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic.

On Friday, Iranian state media quoted Esmail Kousari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee and a former commander in the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as warning the UAE would “pay the price for its cooperation with the United States.” He accused the Emirates of having a “behind-the-scenes” role in the recent U.S. attacks.

U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said there were “no operational updates” after Trump’s pronouncement about the ceasefire.

Gulf Arab states, which Iran has targeted repeatedly since the war began Feb. 28, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday about the strikes. Israel, which took part in the Iran war, also has not claimed any recent attacks on Iran.

The strikes Thursday, just as Iran prepared to bury the late Khamenei, hit areas across southern Iran. The country’s theocracy hasn’t directly blamed anyone, though one lawmaker warned the United Arab Emirates about allegedly providing support to the U.S. campaign against Iran.

Iran responded to the strikes Thursday by launching a wider volley of attacks across the Mideast, targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. One person was reportedly hurt in Kuwait as air defense systems targeted the incoming fire across the region.

Mediators and allies regroup after strikes

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi plans to discuss the strait with his Omani counterpart at a meeting Saturday in Oman, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his country’s state broadcaster TRT that he believed “a solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman, which lie on opposite sides of the narrow waterway.

The U.S. continues to urge mariners to travel on a southern route through Oman’s territorial waters to avoid Iran.

The leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, traveled to Kuwait immediately after the Iranian attack for a meeting with the small, oil-rich nation's ruling emir. Gulf Arab countries also held calls with Qatar's foreign minister. He has been deeply involved, along with Pakistan, in mediating Iran-U.S. talks.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he spoke separately Friday with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and with Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and stressed to both the need for restraint and diplomacy.

Israel's government said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Trump on Thursday night, with Trump updating Netanyahu “on American moves in the Gulf.”

Israel Katz, Israel's defense minister, also renewed threats that his nation stood ready to confront Iran if needed.

"If we will have to return, we will return with even greater force,” Katz told a military ceremony.

___

Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report. Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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

The children’s father, an off-duty Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputy, was cleaning his personal firearm when it discharged a single round, according to the sheriff’s office.

Both children were taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, where they are listed in stable condition.

The investigation is ongoing. The sheriff’s office said no additional details are available at this time.

According to the Clermont Police Department, Christina Alcalde and Jennifer Jimenez were arrested last weekend for “DUI-related offenses” and taken to the Lake County Jail.

According to the arrest affidavits, the two women were together in the same car early Sunday morning, and both were intoxicated.

An officer arrested Jimenez, who was the driver.

However, police say that hours later, Alcalde was pulled over while driving drunk in a different car. That’s when she was arrested.

Police say both women told them they were principals at Pinecrest Lakes Academy Charter School in Minneola.

News 6 checked and as of Friday evening, Alcalde is named and pictured as the school’s principal, but Jimenez is not listed as a staff member.

We called and emailed the school several times throughout the day for a comment, but the people who answered the phone said they didn’t have time to speak with us.

Dennis McGrath-Wagner said his displays are a “labor of love” and his way of spreading cheer.

“I get Christmas gifts people bought me. I got Easter gifts. I have Valentine’s Day gifts. People come and thank me for my decorations,” McGrath-Wagner said.

But some neighbors say the decorations have gone too far. Noel Hanson, who filed a complaint with the Community Development District board along with several other residents, said the displays feel excessive and have created tension in the neighborhood.

“He does say derogatory things to other people, and people have become afraid to be out and around this area,” Hanson said.

Neighbors raised concerns at Tuesday’s District 11 Community Development District board meeting. The board unanimously approved new outdoor lighting rules aimed at reducing nuisance lighting while still allowing reasonable seasonal and holiday displays. Homeowners who fail to comply after receiving notice could face fines of up to $500 per day for repeat violations.

McGrath-Wagner said he believes he has been operating within the rules and criticized the restrictions.

“In a communist country we all have to do the same exact stuff. In America we’re allowed to be ourselves, and they don’t want me to be myself,” McGrath-Wagner said.

We reached out to the district board to ask whether there have been any violations involving McGrath-Wagner’s property and what his compliance history shows.

The CDD sent a response on Friday, saying McGrath-Wagner’s property had been the subject of 78 complaints for “various deed compliance concerns.”

“Thank you for reaching out to the District 11 Board of Supervisors.

“The Village Community Development District No. 11 Board of Supervisors has adopted rules, as authorized by Chapter 190, Florida Statutes, that establish enforceable community standards, including provisions such as seasonal displays and lighting. All properties within the community are subject to a recorded Declaration of Restrictions.

“Any proposed rule adoption or amendment requires a noticed public hearing held during an advertised meeting. As a local government entity, all of the District’s meetings are open to the public and each agenda includes a designated time for audience comments.

“Deed compliance is a complaint-driven process centered on education and voluntary compliance. Formal enforcement is a final step, reserved for cases that remain unresolved after a public hearing before the District’s Deed Compliance Hearing Officer. At that hearing, the Hearing Officer determines whether a violation exists based on testimony from staff, the homeowner, and any directly impacted neighbors. If a violation is found, the Hearing Officer may allow a period of time to correct it; if it is not corrected within that period, an order of enforcement may be entered, fines assessed, and a lien placed on the property.

“To date, 78 complaints have been submitted regarding this property for various deed compliance concerns, dating back to August 2025.”

Community Development District 11

Sweltering heat continues for the weekend as a ridge of high pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere and Saharan Dust create the perfect recipe for high heat.

Overnight lows will only drop into the upper 70s to low 80s under mostly clear skies thanks to the dust drying out our atmosphere. We will keep a few isolated showers early evening, mainly around the I-75 corridor, until around 9-10pm. Rain chances nose dive after that.

Our scorching temperatures continue this weekend as we get a thicker plume of Saharan dust working in, in-tandem with our upper level ridge. Highs will once again climb into the mid-upper 90s with our “feels like” temperatures up to 112ºF. Heat advisories are likely Saturday.

One difference is a slight bump in moisture thanks to a cold front moving into the panhandle, allowing for slightly higher rain chances to cool us off. Due to the dust and high pressure, showers will fire up a little later than usual, sparking mid-afternoon and lasting a little after sunset. Coverage will peak at around 40% by 5pm.

By Sunday, a thicker plume of Saharan Dust will have made its way into Central Florida. This will keep our temperatures scorching and help to curb widespread shower chances. Due to moisture over the panhandle from the front, it will be a battle of moisture vs dust to see who wins. Moisture looks to be mostly contained Marion County northward, rain chances look lower the farther south you go as dust continues to work in. Highs will hit the mid 90s with heat index values up to 108ºF.

Police say surveillance video shows the occupants inside a black car and a black SUV shooting at two people on scooters at the Pendana at West Lakes Club Apartments on Orange Center Boulevard.

No one was hurt.

Officers quickly located the black car and took two people into custody, identified as 20-year-old Jacorey Lowery and 18-year-old Quincy Desponosse.

When police tried to stop the black SUV the driver refused. Police used the Orange County Sheriff’s Office helicopter to follow the SUV, who eventually parked the vehicle in Altamonte Springs and ran away. Orlando police officers say they were able to catch that person, identified as 17-year-old Semaj Blackshear.

Lowery is facing attempted felony murder charges, while Desponosse and Blackshear are facing principal to attempted felony murder with a firearm charges.

Blackshear is also facing charges of fleeing and eluding law enforcement at high speed, resisting an officer without violence, and violation of probation as a juvenile.

OPD says the investigation is still ongoing and anyone with information should call Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477).

The blaze, one of Spain's deadliest wildfires, broke out late Thursday in a semi-arid area near the Sierra de Los Filabres mountains in Almeria province, as the country has been dealing with soaring temperatures.

Most of the victims died after ignoring shelter-in-place instructions, said Antonio Sanz, head of Andalusia’s emergency services. Some tried to escape via a dry riverbed that “turned into a death trap,” he said.

Four victims were believed to be British nationals because the steering wheel of their burned-out car was on the right side, as with British vehicles, regional authorities said. Other unspecified nationals also were believed to be among the dead, and the death toll was expected to rise, authorities said.

Seven people died while on foot after abandoning their cars, Sanz said, adding that most of the deceased were believed to be foreign nationals.

Dean Taylor, a resident who divides his time between Spain and the U.K., said he managed to just barely escape the neighborhood by using back roads to get out.

“It was quite terrifying,” Taylor said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It's a very sad day, isn’t it? It’s devastating, really."

The blaze is a challenge for firefighters

The fire was still burning as of Friday afternoon. Some 150 firefighters and 220 soldiers from Spain’s military emergency unit were battling the blaze, which had consumed more than 3,200 hectares (7,900 acres) of forest and farmland.

Moreno, the Andalusian regional leader, said containing the fire was difficult because of the steep, dry terrain.

“It consists mainly of scrubland and esparto grass,” Moreno said. “Everything is extremely dry due to the heat waves, making it the perfect fuel; combined with the wind, it’s a ticking time bomb.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his condolences. “Immense sadness and desolation in the face of the terrible consequences of the fire affecting the province of Almeria,” he wrote on X.

Europe battles intense heat again

Spain has battled frequent and severe heat waves in recent years, with temperatures often exceeding 40 C (104 F). Wind, high temperatures and little rainfall help small wildfires grow into unchecked blazes.

In June, Spain experienced several days of record-setting heat, with over 1,000 excess deaths attributed to heat.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Parts of Western Europe are facing their third heat wave in six weeks. Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, bringing several intense heat waves across Europe.

France also at risk of wildfires

France is experiencing the peak of its third heat wave of the summer, with temperatures reaching 40 C (104 F) across western and central areas and around 37 C (98 F) in Paris.

French authorities have also warned of a very high wildfire risk, as large fires in the south have already scorched thousands of hectares this week, disrupting the Tour de France cycling race and stretching firefighting resources.

The largest wildfire, in the eastern Pyrenees near the Spanish border, had decreased in intensity by Friday, authorities said. But it has burned about 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) and forced the temporary evacuation of more than 10,000 people from nearly villages.

Last month was France’s hottest June on record, with deaths surging by nearly a third during the hottest week.

Scientists warn that climate change caused in part by the burning of fuels like gasoline, oil and coal is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness, making certain regions more vulnerable to wildfires.

Spain and Portugal have faced deadly fires before

Spain is no stranger to wildfires, with last year's fire season burning more than 393,000 hectares (almost 1,520 square miles), according to the European Forest Fire Information System, an area twice as large as London. Four people died.

Spain's deadliest wildfire was in 1979 when 21 people perished in Lloret de Mar, a coastal town about an hour north of Barcelona.

In 2017, a wildfire in neighboring Portugal left 66 people dead in Pedrogao Grande, located 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Lisbon. In that blaze, 47 people died on one road while similarly attempting to flee in their cars.

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Associated Press journalist Sylvie Corbet, in Paris, contributed.

“I was looking for, like, a personal revolution,” Waterhouse said. Putting the words together for “Loveland,” the album's wistful penultimate track, helped her get there. “It’s always amazing to me how, you kind of write the album and you become it. You become somebody new from it.”

True to that spirit, Waterhouse worked with new collaborators on the project — including songwriter Amy Allen and producer Aaron Dessner, a member of the rock band The National and a frequent collaborator of pop-crossover artists including Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams and Noah Kahan. Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac put down a drum track for “Morals” — a fun twist after Waterhouse acted in the limited series “Daisy Jones & the Six,” based on a Taylor Jenkins Reid novel widely considered to be inspired by the band’s origins.

“Maybe that’s what made me think to reach out,” Waterhouse, said. “I thought, you know, maybe he’s seen the show. It might help me get in the door.”

Waterhouse spoke to The Associated Press about making “Loveland” and exploring the evolution she has felt since welcoming her daughter with partner Robert Pattinson. She also teased future projects. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: When announcing the album, you wrote that this project was “born in the space between who I was and who I’m becoming.” How did you attempt to capture the emotions of that experience in the album?

WATERHOUSE: A revelation I've had for myself recently is that there is inherently a friction there, that I think has been really deepened by becoming a parent. I think before I had much more of a kind of wild abandon, where my whole life was my work and my artistic life. And now that I have this beautiful gift that's been given to me — my daughter and this responsibility, and also how present I feel in her life, and want to be — I had a lot of insecurity and fear and doubt about how I was going to still have these two things exist at once. So it's funny, I don't think the record is like a record, really, about me, you wouldn't listen to it and be like, “Oh, this is a 'she's just become a mum' record" but it's the things I know about it that are laced deep within it. There are certain songs where I address that very rawly, I think in the song “Weirdo” especially.

AP: On songs like “Weirdo,” or “Notting Hill,” how do you navigate interrogating your personal experiences and emotions, while also maintaining your privacy?

WATERHOUSE: When I’m writing I don’t really think about that much at all because I also know that not everything that I write has to go on an album and be released into the public. There's things that you can write that can just be for yourself, and kind of like help you externalize a feeling that’s unexplainable.

It’s interesting, it’s like two different parts of my brain: The part that doesn’t care what anybody thinks and is just writing so freely, and then, later on, when you're like choosing the singles, or choosing what's going to be on the record, this other voice comes in and it's not a purist. It’s much more like, I want people to like this and I want to be loved. You’ve got the two different voices warring with each other, and it’s hard to get them to speak to each other, or know which voice should succeed.

I’m always mining from my own past in a way, and “Notting Hill” was really about mourning a place, but also memorializing it. I sold my apartment and never really said goodbye to it because I had a baby in America. And I, you know, fell in love in that apartment, had some of the worst nights of my life, some of my best. And then suddenly you outgrow somewhere so quickly and you’re having a baby in a different country, and it’s a walk-up and you’d never be able to get a stroller in there, and it's like full of everything in your 20s. It's giving its flowers to this place that raised me.

AP: I saw that Mick Fleetwood played drums on “Morals.” I’m curious how that came to be.

WATERHOUSE: That was a fun way to collaborate. When we got a response from Mick Fleetwood, I was kind of amazed. We struck an agreement that he would drum on “Morals” — I got like a billion videos of him in a studio in Hawaii playing all these incredible takes and I was just blown away that the whole thing was happening. And then I recorded a song for his record, that is with Amy Allen. He’s been working on a record for quite some time. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say about it, but it was a very cool thing to have happened.

AP: When we last talked, you were preparing to bring your daughter, then 6 months old, with you on tour. Has she heard the new album?

WATERHOUSE: She knows now what I do, it's funny. I was reading to her the other night and there was a “choose, what would your world be like? and where would you live? the mountains?" and we were kind of like picking things and there were a bunch of jobs and I said, “Which one does mommy do?” and she pointed to the woman with the guitar. So it’s kind of crazy. She's almost 2 1/2 now, so she’s really switched on, like knows what we’re doing, I can explain it to her much better. I’m just like in heaven with her, just enjoying her so much and I feel so deeply grateful that I get to bring her with me.

Platner’s paperwork was received by the Maine secretary of state's office and reflected shortly thereafter in its online withdrawal list.

In a letter to the secretary of state's office, which Platner also posted on social media, he wrote that the Mainers who had nominated him “voted for a new kind of politics” that is “representative of people down here in the real world — not billionaires, oligarchs, or the political establishment.” It was the same outsider chord that had been a trademark of his tumultuous campaign, in which Platner drew backing from progressive leaders including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California.

“I seek to further the movement we have built together and the future we believe in,” he went on, without detailing what that meant.

Maine is considered a key state for control of the narrowly divided Senate, and Democrats were desperate for a candidate capable of defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

The formal withdrawal comes two days after Platner said he would quit the race, facing an allegation of sexual assault that he has denied. Maine Democrats are seeking a new nominee, and several hopefuls have already begun jockeying for position.

State law includes a provision for Democrats to replace Platner before the general election but the replacement must by named by July 27.

Just before Platner’s Wednesday announcement, more than 100 state Democratic Party committee members signed off on holding a nominating convention, in the event of his withdrawal, to choose the nominee. The state party has not publicly released details of when the convention will be held. Officials with the party did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Several Democrats have announced runs for the Senate nomination this week. They include three candidates who lost the June primary for the governor nomination — former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson.

Others who have announced runs include Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban; former 2nd Congressional District candidates Jordan Wood and Paige Loud; and former Maine Senate candidates David Costello and Andrea LaFlamme. State Rep. Valli Geiger has also expressed interest in the post but has not formally announced.

___

This story has been corrected to show that state Rep. Valli Geiger has expressed interest in running but has not formally announced.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, say they are making progress negotiating with top Iranian leaders. But the U.S. officials said they want Tehran to issue a statement saying Iran’s forces will stop attacking ships in the strait to help ensure that negotiations move forward.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has chosen not to sign a sweeping housing affordability bill in protest of Congress not approving a strict voter ID bill that lacks sufficient support to pass.

The housing measure will become law without Trump’s signature because he didn’t veto it. Still, the president’s rejection of the legislation cuts short the GOP’s efforts to address a key voter concern about rising costs, exacerbating tensions with his own party in a midterm election year.

Here's the latest:

US officials send mixed signals on Iran’s enriched uranium

Senior U.S. officials said that any agreement with Iran over its nuclear program will require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

But on a call with reporters, the officials suggested they were not confident Iran would honor that part of the agreement until the country first heeds the terms of the ceasefire deal and stops renewed attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

If the U.S. does not reach a deal with Iran to turn over its nuclear material, it has military options to ensure that it remains buried underground forever, the officials said. They did not detail those options.

The highly enriched material that could potentially be used to make a nuclear weapon is believed to be buried after strikes the U.S. launched on Iran last summer.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran.

— By Michelle L. Price

US officials say new attacks in the Strait of Hormuz came from an errant part of Iranian political system

Senior U.S. officials are blaming a power struggle in Iran for that country’s latest attacks on ships in the waterway.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said U.S. negotiators are making progress talking to Iranian leaders.

But they said there are hard-line officials in Iran who are looking to undermine the ceasefire — and have helped spur a new round of attacks in the strait.

The officials said Trump has initiated new strikes on Iran in the meantime.

The president is aware of the power struggle issue, they say, and is giving officials space to get on the same page. But he won’t wait forever.

Part of the reason Iran now faces a power struggle, however, was strikes by the U.S. and Israel that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei early in the war.

— By Michelle L. Price

US wants Iran to publicly guarantee that the Strait of Hormuz is open and safe for ships

Senior U.S. officials are demanding that Iran’s leadership publicly state that ship traffic in the strait has been fully restored.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, say they are making progress negotiating with top Iranian leaders.

But the U.S. officials said they want Tehran to issue a statement saying Iran’s forces will stop attacking ships in the strait to help ensure that negotiations move forward.

Moments before the U.S. officials spoke, however, Tehran’s diplomat at the United Nations struck a more defiant tone, telling reporters that any activity in the strait “rests exclusively with Iran.”

— By Michelle L. Price and Farnoush Amiri

US imposes sanctions on Iranian financier

The U.S. on Friday imposed sanctions on Iranian financier Ali Ansari, who Treasury says oversees a global network of assets benefiting Iran’s leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

Ansari, who is already under U.K. sanctions, is accused of diverting public funds into real estate holdings outside of Iran to benefit himself and Iranian leadership.

“Treasury will continue using every tool at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system,“ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. ”We will preserve these assets for the Iranian people.”

Prime minister affirms Pakistan’s readiness to broker peace

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday to discuss regional developments.

The conversation came as Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership has been encouraging the United States and Iran to return to the negotiating table and discuss issues covered under the memorandum of understanding that Islamabad helped broker to help end the regional conflict.

In a post on X, Sharif said they discussed the evolving regional situation and stressed the need for restraint, dialogue and diplomacy to preserve the hard-earned peace gains of recent months.

“I reaffirmed Pakistan’s readiness to continue playing its role as an honest and sincere mediator for lasting regional peace,” Sharif wrote.

US lawmakers cite ‘significant progress’ on a Russia sanctions bill

U.S. lawmakers leading an effort to sanction countries purchasing Russian oil say they have reached an agreement with the Trump administration to move forward with an updated bill.

The original bill was unveiled about a year ago and has languished in the Senate as the sponsors worked to win full backing from the White House.

“We are very pleased with this significant progress and expect to roll out the legislation very soon,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The original bill called for a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports. It targeted nations like China and India, which account for roughly 70% of Russia’s energy trade and bankroll much of its war effort.

The four senators announcing the progress on their effort are Republicans Lindsey Graham and Roger Wicker, and Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Jeanne Shaheen.

Reflecting Pool is getting another draining

Crews are again draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as Trump’s problem-plagued efforts to revamp it push well past his goal of having it ready by July Fourth to mark the nation’s 250th birthday.

The president at first suggested his renovations would last a century. But, within weeks of the project originally reaching completion last month, the water was covered by algae and pieces of the new coating appeared to be peeling off the bottom.

Trump has blamed the peeling on vandals, though critics contend it’s from shoddy repair work.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a podcast interview released this week that the new round of draining was planned and that the water might contain debris from the Independence Day fireworks over the National Mall.

“Drain the water, clean up the fireworks stuff,” Burgum said. “Repair the vandalism that was done. Fill it back up again.”

▶ Read more

DC calls on Michigan and the US Virgin Islands to bring their troops home

Washington, D.C., council members have added their voices to a chorus of groups asking Michigan and the U.S. Virgin Islands to bring their National Guard units home.

“Temporary, event-specific assistance for a major national celebration is fundamentally different from an open-ended military presence in District neighborhoods,” reads a letter sent Thursday that was signed by all 13 council members.

A coalition of groups previously sent a similar letter to Michigan raising questions about how troops sent to help with the July 4 celebration were diverted to a surge in President Donald Trump’s crime-fighting initiative in the nation’s capital.

“DC residents have been saying for 11 months straight that we need the National Guard and federal surge forces out of our communities immediately,” Keya Chatterjee, executive director of the group Free DC, said in a statement.

No immediate change in US military operations following end of ceasefire

Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said there were “no operational updates at this time” when he was asked about the end of the ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump in a social media post earlier Friday.

Trump said in a post on his social media platform that the United States told Iran “in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!”

When asked if the end of the ceasefire would mean a restart to the air bombing that was the mainstay of the conflict, Hawkins said he wouldn’t forecast future operations.

Hawkins did say that U.S. forces in the region “remain vigilant, lethal, and prepared to execute operations directed by the Commander in Chief.”

Critics accuse Trump of damaging voters’ trust

On Capitol Hill, the leading Democrats with election oversight responsibility said Trump, rather than bolstering U.S. election integrity, is further politicizing the voting process.

“President Trump is trying to dismantle yet another independent guardrail of our democracy designed to keep elections fair and secure,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-New York. “Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference.”

Padilla is the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee and Morelle is ranking member of the House Administration Committee.

A US license could let Ukraine produce Patriot missiles, but it won’t be simple or quick

President Trump’s pledge to give Ukraine a license to produce Patriot air-defense systems could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv, but experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into real weapons would likely take years.

Speaking Wednesday alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Trump said the United States would allow Ukraine to make the U.S.-designed systems Kyiv has long sought to shield its cities and infrastructure from Russian missiles and drones.

“We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said. “I think they can produce them pretty quickly.”

But the statement left open a crucial question: What exactly would Ukraine be allowed to produce?

▶ Read more

Trump says talks with Iran to continue despite ceasefire ending

The president posted Friday on social media that Iran had “asked us to continue ‘talks’” and his administration has agreed to do so.

But Trump added that “in no uncertain terms” that the ceasefire is no longer in place.

It’s unclear how productive talks can be to end the war with Iran so long as the status of the Strait of Hormuz is uncertain and attacks could supersede any commitments made in negotiations.

Trump’s decision on housing bill comes more than a week after he canceled plans to sign it

He announced then that he was using it as leverage in his push for a strict voter ID bill.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to lower the cost of housing and spur more home construction. It’s the broadest federal effort in decades to address America’s housing affordability problems, as state and local regulations have made it difficult to build in many of the communities that are also sources of job growth and economic opportunity. White House economists estimated earlier this year a national shortage of 10 million homes and the bill could help to close a portion of that gap.

But Trump called the bill “a yawn” and “so unimportant” compared to legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters.

He surprised Republican lawmakers June 24, when, shortly before a planned signing ceremony at the Capitol, he announced he wouldn’t approve the bill until lawmakers first passed the voting legislation.

▶ Read more

Stocks and oil prices drift as global markets continue to calm

U.S. stocks and oil prices are drifting toward a quiet finish of the week Friday following earlier fireworks on worries about how the war with Iran will affect the global flow of crude.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and was on track to close out a fourth winning week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 65 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.

Oil prices were holding relatively steady, even after a series of unclaimed airstrikes hit Iran after the U.S. said it finished its attacks. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 0.2% to $76.47.

That’s above the $72 it was at the start of the week, when it was back below its level from before the war with Iran, but it’s still well below its wartime peak of nearly $120.

▶ Read more

Trump won’t sign housing bill but will let it become law

Trump has chosen not to sign a sweeping housing affordability bill Friday, in protest of Congress not approving a strict voter ID bill that doesn’t have enough support to pass.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump posted on social media.

The housing measure will become law without Trump’s signature. He had 10 days to issue a veto and stop the measure, which he chose not to do.

Trump’s rejection of the bipartisan housing legislation exacerbates tensions with his own party in a midterm election year and cuts short their efforts to address a key voter concern about rising costs.

Trump ousts election commission members in latest push to reshape US voting process

Trump has ousted members of the bipartisan Federal Election Commission that resisted his efforts to require would-be voters to document their U.S. citizenship before registering.

The White House on Friday confirmed the executive action against members of the Election Assistance Commission, which distributes federal grants to states, oversees the testing of voting systems and maintains the national voter registration forms.

It’s the latest move in the Republican president’s effort to expand White House influence over how U.S. elections are conducted and comes after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave the president new personnel authority to fire members of independent agency boards.

▶ Read more

Unclaimed airstrikes target Iran after US attacks, raising questions of who launched them

The series of unclaimed airstrikes that hit Iran after the U.S. said it finished its attacks have again raised questions of who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic.

The strikes Thursday, just as Iran prepared to bury the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hit areas across southern Iran. The country’s theocracy hasn’t directly blamed anyone for the strikes, though one lawmaker issued a warning to the United Arab Emirates over allegedly providing support to the United States in its campaign against Iran.

Gulf Arab states, which repeatedly have been targeted by Iran since the war began Feb. 28, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday over the strikes. The attacks come as they and the U.S. insist the Strait of Hormuz must be open and free to ships to transit.

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The local prosecutor said the cost of medical care required also for one of the defendants alone would have bankrupted Vinton County, which led the court to change the grandfather's bond and release him from jail on his own recognizance for care at a hospital so the county didn't have to pay for it. Meanwhile, the county sought help from other prosecutors on the criminal case and is counting on approval next week of $1 million from the state to assist with care for the children, including some who have medical needs or are unable to speak.

Vinton is Ohio's smallest county and one of its poorest, a rambling 415 square miles (1075 square kilometers) of isolated Appalachian terrain with one traffic light and a single grocery store. That makes the case of the Siders family “an unprecedented child welfare crisis” there, state officials said.

Affording it is requiring the actions of both local and state officials.

One defendant was released to avoid more costs

On Tuesday, 73-year-old Gary Siders Sr. was released from jail after his bond was adjusted to not require up-front payment, and he was moved out of the county for medical care.

Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer Jr. said Siders had fallen at the jail and it became apparent that he “has a serious medical condition that requires specialized care.” In the regional jail, the costs of that care would fall on the county, Archer said.

“Based on the information the county was provided, his medical care could potentially bankrupt Vinton County,” Archer told reporters Wednesday. “We were not going to put that burden also on our local taxpayers.”

Siders is charged with felony child endangerment. Also charged were his 67-year-old wife, Christina Siders; son Gary Siders Jr., 36; and daughter-in-law, 33-year-old Elizabeth Siders, the children's mother. They have pleaded not guilty, and some of their attorneys cautioned against drawing conclusions before more is known about what happened.

Vinton County Common Pleas Judge Laina Fetherolf Rogers made clear in her order that should the elder Siders' health improve enough to leave the hospital, the GPS tracking device he'll be required to wear also will be “paid for at the State's expense.”

“A lot of small counties like us, we’re in the same boat as Vinton,” said Mike Davis, prosecutor for Pike County, another financially-strapped southern Ohio county. “If a person has a medical issue, do we pay the medical bills and keep them in jail and blow our budget, or do we let them out and risk something happening that’s worse?”

Archer emphasized that authorities determined the strategy didn’t put the public at risk in Gary Siders Sr.'s case, given his health condition and the fact the case strictly involved family members.

Other prosecutors are helping with the criminal case

The judge agreed this week to Archer's requests to bring on three special prosecutors — Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson, Assistant Attorney General Kara Keating and Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins, an expert in child abuse cases — to share the load of the case “without compensation.” That means their offices will cover their own costs.

Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain also has requested assistance from the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation, according to records released by Wilson's office, which is not unusual.

“Money’s green and it’s absolute. You either have it or you don't,” said Davis, who said he could relate to Archer after Pike County had to grapple with a major criminal case of its own: the 2016 Rhoden family murders.

He said the demands of a significant criminal prosecution are felt across a small county's entire government operation, as workloads are shifted among government office staffs of oftentimes just one or two people and larger spaces and reliable internet service have to be secured for the influx of investigators and out-of-town media outlets.

The county is expecting $1 million for children's services

Removing the 16 siblings from their home also instantly more than doubled the number of children in temporary custody in Vinton County — a daunting prospect for a county with about 12,600 residents and the smallest budget among Ohio’s 88 counties.

On Monday, a state legislative panel is expected to approve a request from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth to provide $1 million in additional state cash to Vinton County to help it cope with the “emergent and developing child protection crisis.”

The Siders children ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years, and some were described as “feral” and unable to speak. Authorities said their medical conditions varied and alleged that they had been kept in about a 12-foot-by-12-foot room for several years. Two were flown for hospital care.

Archer did not elaborate but said this week that all the children are “safe and being cared for.”

The eldest was born in May 2008, two months after then-18-year-old Gary Siders Jr. and Elizabeth, who was 15, crossed the state line to get married at the Mason County Courthouse in West Virginia with the consent of Elizabeth's parents, according to court records. She's had pregnancies most years since then, the records show.

The 16 Siders siblings at the center of the endangerment case were all born in hospitals, according to birth certificates reviewed by The Associated Press on Friday. Among them are three sets of twins. Elizabeth Siders also had a fourth set of twins in 2022, records show, who died hours after birth.

The state Department of Children and Youth estimates that placement costs for the siblings will run between $150 and $250 per child per day. That adds up to roughly $850,000 a year, or more than three times the amount generated by Vinton County's levy that's split between children's and senior services.

South Central Ohio Job & Family Services is consulting with its attorneys about setting up a trust for the children after an influx of financial and other types of donations poured in following news of the case, the agency said on Facebook.

The state cash headed to Vinton County will allow the agency to “ensure vulnerable children receive the safety, treatment, and support they urgently require,” the funding request said. Additional expenses, such as court costs and police overtime associated with the case, can also be covered with the state money.

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Associated Press reporter Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

Widdecombe, 78, was found dead on Thursday in her Haytor Vale home on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in southwest England after sustaining what police said were “serious injuries.”

The killing was not believed to be an act of terror and there was no information to suggest it was politically motivated, Devon and Cornwall Police Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman said.

Longman did not discuss a possible motive but said the suspect was in custody as the investigation continues.

“This is really shocking news, and my thoughts, I think all of our thoughts, will be with the family and friends of Ann Widdecombe at this awful time,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. “Ann was a distinguished politician over many, many years with many achievements, and it’s a huge, huge loss.”

Widdecombe found fame after leaving Parliament as a contestant on the Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother reality television shows. She later joined the Brexit Party and became a spokeswoman for the anti-immigration Reform UK party.

She served in the House of Commons as an MP from 1987 to 2010 and was known for socially conservative views opposing abortion rights and expansion of LGBTQ rights.

Starmer said the security of lawmakers was “of the utmost importance” as he urged people to rise above political differences.

Security has been tightened for politicians after the murders of two serving members of Parliament in the past decade. Labour lawmaker Jo Cox was shot and stabbed in 2016 by a far-right extremist, and Conservative David Amess was stabbed in 2021 by an attacker inspired by the Islamic State group.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, said he was deeply upset over Widdecombe's death and noted that “things have become even more dangerous” for people in public life.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Widdecombe a “heroic Brexiteer and a great speaker who could move Tory audiences to such ecstasy that she was a very hard act to follow."

The management company that represented her after she left politics said her life and career were driven by strong Christian values and a commitment to public service.

“She loved the cut and thrust of political debate and, 16 years after leaving Parliament, was still actively campaigning for Reform UK and offering forthright views on the hot topics of the day,” Cloud9 Management said.

“As Ann once said...‘we get one go this side of eternity, one go. Life is not a dress rehearsal, you take opportunities that you like and you go for it, that’s my philosophy’.”

The shooting Tuesday during an attempted traffic stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Houston has revived critical voices deriding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and how ICE operates. Immigration arrests around the country recently surged to 10,000 over a five-day period, fueled in part by massive Congressional funding.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released no evidence to support the officer's story that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo ignored their commands and rammed into an ICE vehicle with his white van, or that the officer fired in self-defense.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia has said the acting director of ICE told her officers thought someone in the van, but not Salgado Araujo, had a final order of removal but did not share a name.

The officers were not wearing body cameras and neither ICE nor DHS have released photos, videos or other evidence from the scene.

The men tell an attorney that the ICE story is untrue

Salgado Araujo was a 52-year-old homebuilder who was shot and killed as he was driving his crew to a construction site. His family said he had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed.

ICE detained the other three men in the van and they all told a lawyer that no officer was in front of the van or even in danger.

“After speaking with these men, I have no doubt that what they’re saying is the truth. I know that these agents — the agency — is going to try to cover it up,” attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said during a news conference.

Images of the van after the shooting appear to show no damage, he said.

ICE has not released the names of the detained men, but family members said they have been able to briefly talk with them. Salgado Araujo's brother was among those arrested.

Garcia said at the same news conference it was unsurprising that Salgado Araujo drove off when ICE tried to stop his vehicle, given that their vehicles were unmarked and had no lights.

“What would you do if you were being followed by someone and the cars were unmarked?” Garcia said.

Salgado Araujo was at least the eighth person to die during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign. No immigration officers have been charged in the killings and video footage in several previous shootings has contradicted the accounts of federal officers.

The detained men say ICE is pressuring them to self-deport

ICE is pressuring the men to self-deport, which would make it harder for them to share their version of events with investigators or others, said Juana Degollado, who said her stepfather Daniel Tirado Pantoja is among the detained men. She said he has no legal permission to live in the U.S. but has no criminal record.

“It is extremely important that we preserve the integrity of this investigation,” Balderas-Ibarra said. “That will all be out the window if they are deported.”

DHS said allegations that the men have been pressured to leave the country are “categorically false.”

DHS said Thursday that officers investigating a tip weeks earlier saw two white vans at the address of a target. While heading to that address Tuesday, officers saw a white van and someone inside who resembled the person they were looking for, the department said in a statement.

“No one in that van had warrants or any legal problem,” Degollado told The Associated Press in a text message.

ICE refuses to release officer's name or other information

DHS said it will not release the officer’s name because they could face threats and violence and their family could be at risk.

DHS also has not responded to requests for other information, including how long the officer has worked for ICE or whether anyone involved in the shooting is on administrative leave.

Unlike some previous deaths involving federal immigration officers, few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since Salgado Araujo's death.

The League of United Latin American Citizens offered a $5,000 reward for video or other evidence, but the positions of the vehicles means surveillance cameras in the area were blocked from recording the shooting, CEO Juan Proaño said.

Local prosecutors are talking to witnesses

Local prosecutors were not invited into the investigation by federal officials but have spent the past three days in the Houston neighborhood looking for surveillance footage and talking to witnesses, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said.

Teare said anyone with video or other information must share it with his office so the truth about the shooting can be determined.

“We will go to the ends of the earth to collect all the evidence, so that we can eventually let the public know what happened,” Teare said.

The FBI is tightly controlling the evidence in the case, but Houston Mayor John Whitmire said he wants a local independent investigation and the police chief will meet with federal investigators next week to see what can be done.

“We recognize that it is a federal police agency that was out of control Tuesday morning,” Whitmire said.

Houston police do not work with ICE and the mayor said he found out about the shooting from the media.

Salgado Araujo's family said they found out he was dead through the ICE statement instead of directly from the agency. Garcia said officers kept his belongings and sent him to the hospital where he died without including his name.

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Brook reported from New Orleans and Foley from Iowa City, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Rebecca Santana in Washington; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.

The drop, which the agency expects to amount to about 1 million barrels per day in 2026, is due to higher oil prices and disruptions to physical supply that weighed heavily, but unevenly, on various parts of the world, the report said.

The supply disruptions were caused by the war between the U.S. and Iran, which left ships loaded with crude oil stranded in the Persian Gulf for more than three months, unable to safely travel through the Strait of Hormuz, a major route for oil and gas shipments.

“The future of Hormuz is probably more uncertain today than it was at the beginning of the war," said Jim Burkhard, vice president and head of crude oil research at S&P Global Energy.

Burkhard said Iran is still trying to control the strait, while the U.S. has not been able to fully restore normal operations, making a return to prewar conditions unlikely.

Global oil demand averaged just 97.9 million barrels per day in May, down 5.3 million barrels per day from a year earlier. Much of the decline was in Asia, which relies heavily on oil from the Middle East.

China’s decrease of 1.5 million barrels per day, representing a 9% decline, was by far the largest globally, the report said.

But the main exception to the global slump in oil usage was in the U.S., where gasoline use increased in the second quarter of 2026, despite the fact that pump prices were about 50% above their prewar levels in May, the report said.

How China's actions are keeping oil prices from spiking higher

China decided to massively cut down on purchasing oil from the global market as the price rose during the spring, reducing its consumption by almost 6 million barrels per day, Burkhard said.

“What China said is, ‘You know what, prices are high, there’s a crisis. We have this huge inventory stock, we can sustain demand. We’re just going to cut by 50% the amount of crude oil we buy,’” Burkhard said.

One way China cut back its consumption was to temporarily stop filling up its strategic petroleum reserve, which it had been adding to at a rate of nearly 1 million barrels per day, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

The crisis also accelerated China's saving of road transportation fuels as its use of electric vehicles grew, he said. “What we’re tracking so far, at least since the crisis began, is China is probably on track to see somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 barrels per day worth of demand losses for gasoline and diesel. So that’s pretty significant,” Sternoff said.

Why oil prices aren’t higher after renewed tension between the U.S. and Iran

A fragile ceasefire enabled some ships to exit through the Strait of Hormuz in June, which allowed more oil on the market. That led to lower oil prices.

But even after tensions escalated between the U.S. and Iran earlier this month, prices didn't spike.

“This gray zone conflict that the U.S. and Iran are in, it’s not really a shock to the oil market,” Burkhard said. “It can push prices up and down a few dollars like it did the other day, but it’s not the same shock that it was in early March when Iran did what many thought was unthinkable.”

Another reason oil prices didn't spike very high after recent military strikes is that there were fewer buyers available to scoop up the supply that had become available, experts said.

On top of China dramatically reducing consumption, several refineries in Russia were unable to process crude after being damaged in drone hits from Ukraine, and refineries in the Middle East remained damaged from the war, Burkhard said. As a result, prices for gasoline, diesel and other refined products have stayed inflated longer than oil prices, he said.

“There’s this gush of supply of crude oil being made available to the market, and there’s simply less demand for that crude oil,” Burkhard said.

In the US, high gas prices didn't keep drivers home

Gasoline prices surpassed $4.50 on average for a gallon of regular in the U.S. in May, rising more than 50% since the start of the war, according to AAA data. But that didn't stop drivers from hitting the road; in fact, gasoline consumption rose in the U.S. during the second quarter of the year.

One reason may be because the percentage of household income spent on gasoline in the U.S. has been declining for years, Sternoff said. Plus, many people have been transitioning from remote work to in-office jobs, he added.

“Even though it’s a really political price that people pay a lot of attention to, if you are in the higher quintiles of income in the U.S., you might grumble about it, but you’re not really driving less just because of that increase in prices,” Sternoff said.

The company is already one of the largest in South Korea, along with Samsung Electronics, and is a member of the Kospi index. Even with a recent pullback, the country's Kospi index is up 77% so far this year and SK Hynix shares have more than tripled.

SK Hynix priced its American depositary receipts, or ADRs, at $149 each Thursday. They opened Friday at $170 and closed at $168.01. The offering of 177.9 million ADRs raised proceeds of $26.5 billion, making it the biggest-ever initial share sale in the U.S. by a foreign company. An ADR is issued by a bank or broker and is a simplified way for U.S. investors to own foreign stocks through the U.S. markets.

SK Hynix is going public in the U.S. amid a surge in IPO proceeds. There were 48 IPOs raising a total of $104.8 billion during the second quarter, according to Renaissance Capital. It is the biggest quarter for deal proceeds in five years, in large part because of SpaceX raising $75 billion. Many of the companies going public are capitalizing on the demand for all things AI.

SK Hynix has a dominant position globally for high bandwidth memory, which is essential for the development of advanced AI technology. The company recently entered a partnership with Wall Street’s most valuable company, Nvidia, for advanced memory chips as AI infrastructure expands globally.

Increasing demand for AI has been driving a surge in profits for chipmakers. Memory chips have become more expensive as demand outpaces supply along with the advancement of artificial intelligence technology. Technology giant Apple recently announced an increase in prices for Macs and iPads because of the jump in price for memory chips.

The U.S. is SK Hynix’s largest market, accounting for 68.8% of its revenue last year. It is planning an expansion that includes building its first U.S. production facility, located in Indiana. Overall, the company had revenue of just under $65 billion in 2025. That helped profits double to about $28 billion.

The company recently joined with Samsung and the government in announcing plans to invest a combined 800 trillion won ($518 billion) in building a new computer chipmaking hub in South Korea’s southwest region, part of national efforts to expand investment beyond the greater Seoul metropolitan area, the country’s economic center and heart of its semiconductor sector.

The promise of growing profits has catapulted stock prices within the tech sector, particularly for chipmakers. Micron Technology's stock value more than tripled in 2025 and is on pace to more than triple again in 2026. Nvidia's stock had similar growth several years ago and notched more relatively modest gains in 2025.

Big chipmakers have become the most valuable and influential companies on Wall Street. Their high stock values give them outsized influence over Wall Street and major indexes have been setting records mostly because of the tech sector.

Shares in SK Hynix traded in Seoul slipped 0.3% on Friday.

The president at first suggested his renovations would last a century. But, within weeks of the project originally reaching completion last month, the water was beset by an algae bloom and pieces of the new coating appeared to be peeling off the bottom.

Trump has blamed the peeling on vandals, though critics allege it's from shoddy repair work.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose agency oversees the National Park Service, told conservative podcaster Katie Miller in an interview released earlier this week that the new round of draining was planned. He also said that the water might still contain debris from an extensive Independence Day fireworks display over the National Mall.

“Drain the water, clean up the fireworks stuff,” Burgum told Miller, who is the wife of deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller. “Repair the vandalism that was done. Fill it back up again.”

The work on the Reflecting Pool is just one of a number of projects Trump has spearheaded across the nation's capital. Most prominently, he demolished the White House’s East Wing to build a $400 million ballroom and plans to build a towering arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

He initially announced his intentions to beautify the Reflecting Pool this spring, saying he wanted it completed before the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations.

Water was drained and Trump directed that the bottom be painted what he called “American flag blue.” In May, the president posted on his social media site of the pool: “The goal is to have it done, at this higher level, prior to July 4th — We are ahead of schedule!”

But problems began quickly after the initial work was finished. Trump blamed vandals, and court documents later showed that the National Park Service reported to the U.S. Park Police a June 9 incident in which a sharp knife or razor cut the pool’s new liner.

On Thursday, former Olympic canoe racer David Hearn pleaded not guilty in D.C. Superior Court to deliberately damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn has said he reached inside the pool to examine the peeled sealant and let go of a chunk when he was told to by a park worker.

His attorneys and other Trump administration critics have derided the case as an abuse of prosecutorial power and maintain he is being scapegoated for the poor job done fixing up the Reflecting Pool.

At least three other people have been charged in the same court with misdemeanors for allegedly removing pieces of paint from the Reflecting Pool, according to online court records. All three pleaded not guilty during their initial court appearances Wednesday.

The pool was closed for the Independence Day celebration, which featured what Trump said was the largest fireworks display in the world. The president had said that the pool would have to be drained anew as part of the new round of repairs.

Burgum has also said that the Trump administration won't seek bids for the new rounds of repairs. He told CNN's “State of the Union” last weekend: “We’ll use the same company because they did a fantastic job."

Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract to install a water-purification system in the Reflecting Pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.

Democratic senators and House members are investigating the pool project, including seeking answers about how much taxpayer funding is involved.

The sources were not authorized to publicly disclose the deal before a formal announcement.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for early June was postponed after the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority said the two countries needed more time to resolve “outstanding issues.” The delay followed President Donald Trump’s earlier threats to block the bridge’s opening.

Commercial traffic is now expected to begin before Aug. 1, according to two officials, though a date for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony has not yet been set.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers referenced the deal during an interview Friday.

“I had a conversation with the secretary yesterday, Secretary of Commerce Lutnick, and the deal will be announced in the next few days,” Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers said Friday on WJR radio. “This is getting wrapped up. That bridge is going to get open.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, congratulated those who have worked to open the bridge.

“This bridge is a testament to the enduring partnership between Michigan and Canada and what we can get done when we think big and bet on our shared future together,” she said in a statement.

The delay in opening the Gordie Howe International Bridge became an issue in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races. Democratic candidate Mallory McMorrow, who has since dropped out, tried to turn the controversy into a political liability for Trump and Republicans.

The 1.5-mile-long (2.4-kilometer-long) bridge, which spans the Detroit River and connects the Motor City with Windsor, Ontario, was slated for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 12. It was abruptly postponed after officials said the U.S. and Canada were still working to resolve “outstanding issues.”

The dispute gave Democrats a rare opportunity to tie Trump directly to a project with visible economic consequences in a battleground state.

In February, Trump demanded in a social media post that Canada hand over at least half ownership of the new bridge to the U.S. government and accept other unspecified demands, part of his broader clashes with Canada over trade.

Canada financed the bridge’s construction. The project was negotiated by Rick Snyder, the former Republican governor of Michigan, and work has been underway since 2018 and cost close to $4.4 billion.

Named after the late Canadian hockey great Gordie Howe, who spent 25 seasons leading the Detroit Red Wings, the bridge is expected to be another vital economic artery between Canada and the United States.

The toll bridge, jointly owned by Canada and Michigan, is expected to help ease congestion at the existing Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. Work has been underway since 2018.

Detroit and Windsor have been neighborly for generations, with residents in both countries frequently crossing the shared river border for entertainment and shopping. Windsor’s population in 2021 was about 230,000. Like Detroit, the Canadian city’s economy has a strong focus on manufacturing and the auto industry.

Commercial trade between the two cities primarily has been across the nearly century-old and privately-owned Ambassador Bridge, which is closer to downtown Detroit than the Gordie Howe Bridge.

The Moroun family are owners of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor. Federal campaign finance records show Matthew Moroun donated $1 million to Trump’s super PAC earlier this year.

Jordanish Torres-Garcia is facing several charges, including carjacking resulting in death, and kidnapping resulting in death.

[WATCH: Shocking twists in carjacking homicide case near Winter Springs]

In April 2024, a bystander shot video as a gunman carjacked Katherine Aguasvivas near Winter Springs. Her body was later found inside a burning vehicle in Osceola County.

The subsequent investigation into her death led to a drug ring, according to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators believe Aguasvivas came to Seminole County from South Florida to pick up some $170,000, which were proceeds from illicit drug trafficking.

However, investigators believe four men, including the one who was supposed to give her the money, conspired to rob her later on.

[RELATED: Everyone in the brazen Winter Springs carjacking, murder case]

Investigators believe Jordanish Torres-Garcia was the man who held Aguasvivas at gunpoint during the carjacking.

According to the Notice of Intention to Seek the Death Penalty, federal prosecutors also believe Torres-Garcia “intentionally killed” Aguasvivas.

[WATCH: Agencies explain how they unraveled deadly carjacking case]

Prosecutors also filed notice of their intention not to seek the death penalty against two other suspects in the case: Giovany Crespo Hernandez, and Dereck Rodriguez Bonilla.

Investigators say Crespo Hernandez planned the carjacking and robbery to get the $170,000 back from Aguasvivas.

Investigators believe Rodriguez Bonilla recruited Torres-Garcia to help with the carjacking and provided the gun.

Both have been indicted for carjacking resulting in death and kidnapping resulting in death.

The Dodgers added that Ohtani would not make his scheduled start on the mound against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night, but would continue to start at designated hitter throughout the weekend.

Ohtani has been dealing with discomfort in his left knee for at least a month. The right-hander had an outing cut short against the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 11 because of inflammation in the knee.

The Dodgers said that after their series against the D-backs ends on Sunday, Ohtani will have some “interventions” done on the knee to get ready for the second half of the season, which will cause him to miss the All-Star Game.

The four-time MVP has once again been one of the best players in the big leagues this season and stands alone as a two-way player.

Ohtani is batting .290 with 20 homers and 56 RBIs and is 8-2 on the mound with a 1.79 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 85 2/3 innings.

Ohtani's absence will be a blow for baseball's midsummer showcase at Citizens Bank Park. The Japanese star — who turned 32 earlier this week — is among the game's most popular players and led MLB in jersey sales last year.

He hit his 300th career homer on Tuesday night, a leadoff shot against Colorado's Michael Lorenzen that made him the first Japanese-born player in the majors to reach the milestone.

The Dodgers are the two-time defending World Series champions and has baseball's best record at 61-33 entering Friday.

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The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to close out its fourth winning week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 149 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.3%.

SK Hynix, a giant South Korean maker of memory chips, shone in the debut of its stock trading on the Nasdaq. After raising roughly $26.5 billion by selling American depositary shares at a price of $149 each, it jumped immediately after trading began in the midday hours and finished with a gain of 13.1%.

SK Hynix’s stock in Seoul has already surged 634% over the last year thanks to euphoria around AI. The boom has created real profits due to surging demand for computer memory. But it’s also raised worries that AI stock prices have shot have too high and that all the world’s spending on chips and data centers won’t be able to produce enough productivity and profit growth to make it worth it.

That’s led to sharp recent swings for AI stocks, which have grown into some of Wall Street’s most influential because of their huge sizes.

Nvidia was the strongest single force lifting the S&P 500 Friday after rising 4%.

Beyond the uncertainty about AI, the focus on Wall Street is shifting to the upcoming reporting season for companies’ profits during the spring.

Delta Air Lines said it was able to absorb higher fuel prices from April through June because of strong demand from customers to fly, including a wide range of corporate travelers. That helped it report profit and revenue for the spring that topped analysts’ expectations, and it gave a forecasted range for upcoming profit in the summer whose midpoint was above analysts’ expectations.

Delta’s stock fell 1.8%, though, after coming into the day with a strong 28.2% rise for the year so far.

Companies across industries will need to produce big growth in profits to justify the big moves for their stock prices, which are broadly near records. Next week will feature earnings reports from many of the biggest U.S. banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo on Tuesday alone.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Circle Internet Group rose 5%. The company behind the USDC cryptocurrency, which is supposed to keep the value of $1, said it won U.S. regulatory approval to establish a bank. It will operate under the name Circle National Trust, and CEO Jeremy Allaire said the move “marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system.”

WD-40’s stock jumped 10.6% after reporting much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 31.75 points to 7,575.39. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 149.60 to 52,367.01, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 74.72 to 26,281.61.

In the oil market, prices continued to pare jumps from earlier in the week on worries about how the war with Iran will affect the global flow of crude.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, dipped 0.4% to $76.01.

That’s above its $72 price from the start of the week, but it’s still well below its wartime peak of nearly $120. The worry is that continued fighting could block oil tankers from the Strait of Hormuz and prevent the delivery of crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.

President Donald Trump said on his social-media platform that he agreed to continue talks with Iran but also that the United States told Iran “that the Cease Fire is OVER!”

In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.56% from 4.54% late Thursday.

High yields have weighed on financial markets worldwide. Yields have climbed on worries about expensive oil and high inflation, which could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates.

Higher rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.5%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% for two of the world’s bigger moves, but stocks fell 1% in Shanghai.

___

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

General. By submitting an entry to the [The Florida Lottery and WKMG Watch to Win]sweepstakes (“Sweepstakes”), brought to you by [WKMG] (“Sponsor”) and [THE FLORIDA LOTTERY] the “Co-Sponsor”), entrant acknowledges and agrees that entrant has read, understands, and agrees to be bound by these official Sweepstakes rules (“Official Rules”). By entering the Sweepstakes, entrants agree to waive any right to claim any ambiguity or error in these Official Rules, or the Sweepstakes itself, and agree to be bound by all decisions of the Sponsor, whose decisions are binding and final in all matters related to the Sweepstakes. Failure to comply with these Official Rules or any Sponsor instructions relating to the Sweepstakes’ Official Rules may result in disqualification from the Sweepstakes.

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Prize(s) [5 WINNERS WILL RECEIVE: $300 WORTH OF FL LOTTERY SCRATCH-OFF TICKETS. 1 GRAND PRIZE WINNER WILL RECEIVE A $500 ELECTRONIC STORE GIFT CARD]. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of prize 1: $[300]. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of prize 2: $[500]. Unless otherwise stated, subject to winner verification and compliance with these Official Rules, all prizes will be [AVAILABLE FOR PICK UP AT SPONSOR LOCATION]. Sponsor and Co-Sponsor not responsible for loss, delay, or damage in shipping. There will be no substitution, transfer, or cash equivalent for prizes, except at the sole discretion of Sponsor, which may substitute prizes of comparable value. Limit one prize per person and per household. Payments of all federal, state, and local taxes related to the award of the prize are solely the responsibility of the winner. Prizes may not be sold, bartered, or auctioned. Prize is awarded “as is” with no warranty or guarantee, either express or implied. All properly claimed prizes will be awarded provided a sufficient number of eligible entries are received, but in no event will Sponsor award more prizes than are provided for in the Official Rules. Unclaimed prizes will not be awarded. For tax purposes, the winner of a prize with an ARV of at least $600 will be required to accurately complete and submit IRS Form W-9 to the Sponsor and Sponsor will arrange to issue an IRS Form 1099 MISC to winner reflecting the value of the prize.

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Nearly half a year later, after another shooting death under disputed circumstances blamed on the department, the promise still hasn't been fully met — prompting outrage from critics who say the cameras are a chance at accountability for officers enforcing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers involved in the Houston shooting death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man who lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, were not wearing body cameras, Homeland Security has said.

No evidence has emerged to support DHS’ version of events — that an officer opened fire at Salgado Araujo after he rammed an ICE vehicle chasing his van. Witnesses deny those claims. Cameras could have helped shed light on what exactly took place.

The shooting has opened ICE up to fresh scrutiny over its tactics at a time when arrests have ticked up and as DHS is flush with billions of dollars from an infusion granted by Congress — some of which was earmarked to outfit officers with body cameras.

“Even after we’ve given ICE specifically $20 million for body cameras and Kristi Noem promised in February of this year that she was going to purchase them and get them in the field, that here we were in Houston that the agents didn’t have them,” said Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat from Houston, during a news conference Friday.

Body cameras, and the lack of them, a key issue in Trump's second term

Days after Alex Pretti was killed while protesting ICE activity in Minneapolis in January, Noem announced that every Homeland Security officer on the ground there would be issued body-worn cameras. Noem said it was the beginning of a nationwide effort to get them to every officer around the country as funding becomes available.

“We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country,” Noem, who has since been replaced by Markwayne Mullin, said in a social media post.

Homeland Security said Thursday that body cameras have been deployed to more than half of ICE field offices around the country and that the remainder would get them in the next 60 days.

Garcia said she told the acting head of ICE, David Venturella, during a phone call that she was outraged over the lack of body-worn cameras. She said Venturella told her that less than a third of officers nationally have been issued body cameras. He promised her that all officers would get them by the end of July, she said.

“Trust me, I will hold him to it, and I will make sure that all my colleagues in Congress and the Democratic caucus hold him to it,” she said.

Michelle Gross, president of the Minnesota-based advocacy group Communities United Against Police Brutality said ICE shouldn't conduct enforcement operations until all officers are equipped with body cameras.

“If they’re going to be running around with guns and stopping people, you damn well better have some body cameras," she said. “This is an agency that's soaking up an incredible amount of tax dollars and we can’t have any accountability?"

In earlier shootings, some officers wore cameras — but not all

Homeland Security said at the time of the Pretti shooting that four of the Border Patrol agents were wearing cameras. Investigators from Customs and Border Protection were able to use video from those cameras as well as other sources to determine that more than one officer on the scene fired shots during the Pretti death.

The department has not said whether any of the ICE officers on the scene of the killing of 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good earlier in January were wearing the cameras. Bystander video of both shootings was highly scrutinized and fanned public outrage over the incidents.

The former acting head of ICE, Todd Lyons, said while testifying to Congress in the aftermath of the Minneapolis events that the body camera footage would eventually be released to the public but it so far has not. Lyons has since retired.

Lyons and his counterpart at CBP, Rodney Scott, testified at the time that thousands of their officers were already outfitted with body cameras, with more to come.

“That’s one thing that I’m committed to is full transparency. And I fully welcome body cameras all across the spectrum in all of our law enforcement activities,” Lyons said.

In a January court filing, at a time when roughly 2,000 ICE officers were deployed to Minnesota, a senior ICE officer said in a court deposition that body-worn cameras had not been deployed to deportation officers working out of the St. Paul office. Samuel J. Olson, the head of the St. Paul field office, said the agency would need roughly half a year to do all the equipping and training needed to roll out body cameras to all the ICE law enforcement officers in the state.

The body camera issue has come up at other times during Trump's second term as growing numbers of ICE and CBP officers are enforcing the president's mass deportation agenda.

In Chicago, as Homeland Security officers were out in force as part of “Operation Midway Blitz," a judge required federal immigration officers to wear body cameras, saying that they would provide evidence to back up how agents handle confrontations with protesters.

Homeland Security blames Democrats for slow rollout but Dems push back

Homeland Security officials have blamed Democrats for the fact that not every officer has cameras yet.

“The officers involved in the incident in Houston had not been issued body-worn cameras due to back-to-back Democrat shutdowns," the department said.

Those shutdowns were fueled by Democrats' anger over President Trump’s immigration crackdown and demands to force reforms on Homeland Security.

In the wake of the Pretti and Good shootings, the one area where Republicans and Democrats appeared to agree was the need for widespread adoption of body cameras for officers taking part in immigration enforcement tasks. In April, Congress gave Homeland Security $20 million for “the procurement, deployment, and operations of body-worn cameras” for officers carrying out immigration enforcement tasks.

Garcia called the accusation that Democrats were to blame for the officers not having body cameras “ludicrous.”

“That’s just a freaking excuse, because the bottom line is they made a commitment,” said Garcia.

The 39-year-old Djokovic enjoyed a warm, smile-filled embrace with his 24-year-old opponent at the net after the 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 defeat Friday, quickly packed up his tennis bags and then waved to the boisterous crowd as he held one hand to his chest to show his appreciation as he walked off.

Will the seven-time Wimbledon champion ever be back to play on these hallowed lawns again?

Only time — something that Djokovic is running out of — will tell.

It's been nearly three years since Djokovic won his record-extending 24th Grand Slam singles title at the 2023 U.S. Open. And despite reaching the semifinals at all four Grand Slams last year and reaching a final and another semi in two of three Slams this year — he acknowledges that's not enough.

“For 99% of the players, that would be a very good Grand Slam result,” Djokovic said. “For me, it’s good but not good enough, because I’m blessed and cursed to be used to something of a highest degree in terms of results and achievements.

“I always have the highest expectations for myself," Djokovic added. "So it’s kind of that internal battle really of what I’ve been through for the 20-plus years of my career, what the goals were always, the expectations, and trying to balance it out and really be a little more humble in that sense.”

Still, Djokovic expressed interest in playing Wimbledon when he’s 40: “I would like to, at least one more time,” he said.

“I feel when I’m healthy," Djokovic added, “I’m still able to play as a top-five player, still able to compete at the highest level.”

For Sinner, it was a measure of revenge after Djokovic won their last meeting in five sets in this year’s Australian Open semifinals.

“Playing against Novak,” Sinner said, “what he’s still showing is true inspiration.”

Aiming to defend his title at the grass-court Grand Slam, the top-ranked Sinner will face second-seeded Alexander Zverev in Sunday’s final.

Zverev ended the “Ferytale” run of British wild card Arthur Fery with an overpowering 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-4 victory earlier as the star-studded crowd on Centre Court witnessed two one-way contests.

Zverev will be playing for another major trophy a month after winning his first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros.

If there were any lingering questions over Sinner’s physical status after his meltdown at the French Open, they should be answered now.

Sinner blasted his way past Djokovic and showed off the kind of dominance he displayed before that second-round defeat in Paris.

“I knew mentally,” Sinner said, “that today I had to raise my level, which I’ve done.”

Andre Agassi attributed Sinner's performance in part to Djokovic: “What these guys can do now is all because he has shown them what’s possible,” Agassi said on the BBC.

No heat issues for Sinner

It was another warm day in southwest London, with the temperature rising to about 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 Celsius). It was also breezy, though, and a bit cloudier than in recent days.

Still, it felt nothing like the suffocating heat and humidity in Paris when Sinner wasted a big lead against Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who was ranked No. 56, and had his 30-match winning streak ended.

Djokovic was coming off the longest quarterfinal in Wimbledon history, when he outlasted Felix Auger-Aliassime after 5 hours, 15 minutes on Tuesday.

Sinner, by contrast, hadn’t lost a set since he was pushed to five by Miomir Kecmanovic in the first round.

From the start, Sinner pushed Djokovic back with his powerful groundstrokes and came up with big serves in big moments.

When Sinner faced his only break point of the match early in the third set as late-afternoon shadows started creeping across the court, he produced an ace.

Sinner has won 9 straight vs. Zverev

Zverev, whose breakthrough at Roland Garros came in his fourth Grand Slam final, is attempting to become the first man in the professional era (since 1968) to win his second major title at the next event immediately after his first.

Sinner has won his last nine meetings with Zverev and 14 straight sets.

“I have to trust myself and I have to believe that I can win and that’s what I’m going to do,” Zverev said before he knew who his opponent would be.

The 114th-ranked Fery, who grew up five minutes from the All England Club and played at Stanford University, was attempting to become the first wild card to reach the final since Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001.

Zverev did well not to let the pro-Fery crowd get behind the local player too much and a double fault from Fery early in the first-set tiebreaker put Zverev in control.

British cheering

The British spectators did their best to encourage Fery early on, chanting his name between points as they sipped their Pimm’s under their wide-brimmed hats.

When it was over, Fery walked off to a standing ovation and applauded the crowd in return.

“I know that 99.99% of the stadium was wanting Arthur to win," Zverev said. “But it was still such an incredible atmosphere. It was such a fair crowd as well.”

The women’s final on Saturday features two Czech players, Karolina Muchova against Linda Noskova.

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AP Sports Writer Ken Maguire contributed to this report.

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

The exact source of one of the nation's largest outbreaks in years of cyclospora infections is still not known. And it can be hard to figure out what food sick people had in common because sometimes it’s a single ingredient that might be common in multiple recipes — like basil or cilantro.

Luckily cyclospora infections are generally treatable with antibiotics and rarely cause serious complications.

And there are ways to avoid getting it altogether.

Here are tips for reducing the risk:

Cyclospora can be tricky to investigate

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 1,500 people in Michigan have been diagnosed with the parasitic infection and investigations into similar illnesses have been going on in 30 other states, making it the largest such outbreak in state history and one of the nation’s largest in years. No deaths have been reported.

Cyclospora surges can be tricky to investigate, and food poisoning sources can be hard to establish. Investigations can take months and sometimes never find a clear source.

In the past, people have been infected by consuming fruits or vegetables that were exposed to feces-contaminated irrigation water. Also, it’s possible that food distributors may channel contaminated foods to both grocery stores and restaurants, making it hard to discern where tainted food came from.

Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.

The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces.

Food safety tips

While the source of the outbreak is unknown, it's a reminder to always practice basic hygiene, including washing hands with soap and water after using the bathroom and before handling food, said Dr. Erika Noel, an assistant professor at Hawaii's medical school and a pediatrician on the island of Kauai.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers don't kill cyclospora, but soap and water are highly effective at killing or removing the parasite from hands.

Previous outbreaks have been linked to raspberries, basil, cilantro, snow peas and salad mixes.

Noel has some tips for washing produce: When washing items like cilantro and basil, separate the leaves. For green onions, cut off the roots, remove the outer layer and run them under water while rubbing the surface. Cooking produce to an internal temperature of 158 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius) or higher will kill cyclospora.

Research shows that washing fruits and vegetables in vinegar can be helpful. Vinegar won't kill the parasite but can help remove it. Noel recommends submerging produce in a bowl filled with three parts water and one part vinegar and swishing it around for a few minutes. Using a salad spinner to rinse with water can help get rid of the vinegary taste.

Instead of purchasing pre-mixed salad and washing individual leaves, opt for a head of lettuce and removing the outer layer.

For melons, scrub the outside before cutting through as the knife can carry germs from the rind into the fruit inside.

Peel fruits and vegetables as much as possible.

Don't forget to wash cutting boards and countertops.

Some produce can be challenging to clean

Anything with tight crevices or fragile skin can be challenging to clean, like broccoli and cauliflower. Because berries are challenging, Noel recommends cooking them in pies or making jam instead of eating them raw.

Anything grown underground and covered in thick dirt are also tough to clean, such as root vegetables like carrots, potatoes and radishes.

If using pre-mixed salads that have labels that indicated the items have been washed, it's best to wash them again in water and vinegar.

'We don't need to panic'

Noel doesn't want the outbreak to lead to people avoiding eating fruits and vegetables; the health benefits outweigh the risks.

“We don't need to panic,” she said.

Just be aware and ensure basic hygiene habits, which is always a good practice.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the club had not announced the extension.

The Cardinals picked Wetherholt seventh overall out of West Virginia two years ago in the first-year player draft, and he rocketed through their farm system. The 23-year-old made his major league debut on opening day and was hitting .267 with 13 homers and 36 RBIs and nine stolen bases going into Friday night's game against the Atlanta Braves.

The advanced metrics also have graded Wetherholt as one of the best defensive second basemen in baseball this season.

The emergence of Wetherholt in the middle of the St. Louis infield is a big reason the club has been one of the surprises of the first half of the season. The Cardinals were 48-44 and three games out of an NL wild-card spot heading into the weekend.

The deal is one of the first big signings for St. Louis since significant changes were made to the top of the organizational ladder.

Last September, Chaim Bloom took over as the Cardinals' president of baseball operations, replacing longtime general manager John Mozeliak. Then last month, Bill DeWitt III took over as chief executive officer, though Bill DeWitt Jr. has continued as its chairman and principal owner with a hand in baseball and business matters.

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

The project is expected to take 10 to 20 years to complete, but visitors will be able to park inside the gates and access trails and the St. Johns River by December 2026.

“We have 224 acres of park here that’s got two miles of riverfront,” said Carmen Rosamonda, DeBary city manager.

The city’s vision is to turn Alexander Island into a one-of-a-kind nature park focused on river access — without the need for a boat.

“Our focus is to have folks enjoy this particular park and enjoy the river without needing a boat and that just doesn’t happen here in the state of Florida,” Rosamonda said.

The city bought the land for $3.5 million in 2023 to save it from residential development. Since then, grants and funding have continued to pour in. Volusia County contributed $2.5 million two years ago, and the state just awarded another $2.5 million this week — bringing the total funding to $5 million to get the project off the ground.

“The 2.5 million that the Florida legislature gave us this year and the governor will go towards all the water amenities, the boardwalks and everything else along the river,” Rosamonda said.

Rosamonda first walked News 6 through the area in 2024, when the park was little more than a vision.

He recently returned to show the progress — parking areas, retention ponds and trailheads are now going in.

“One of our visions obviously is to turn this into one of the most premiere nature parks in all of Florida, right on the St. John’s River,” Rosamonda said.

Just outside the entrance is the end of a trail that connects to the DeBary SunRail station and the future Main Street the city is currently building as part of a planned downtown.

[WATCH: DeBary’s walkable downtown district is set to go vertical with construction starting]

As comfortable as McIlroy looked, Scheffler struggled from the start and wound up with a 72 to miss the 36-hole cut for the first time in nearly four years. He had made 78 cuts in a row, the longest streak since Tiger Woods set the record (142) more than 20 years ago.

“Got off to a poor start and after that, I didn’t really it close enough to give myself a bunch of looks,” Scheffler said. “That’s how you shoot over par.”

Jordan Smith of England had the low score of the tournament with a 63 and was the first to post at 9-under 131, joined by the resurgent Tom Kim (66) and McIlroy, who has not won since going back-to-back in the Masters in April.

“It would have been nice to be a couple better,” McIlroy said. “But it’s obviously another good day and in good position.”

But the most surprising development at The Renaissance Club was Scheffler. Instead of heading to the range after his round, he was making plans to head south earlier than he imagined for his title defense in the British Open at Royal Birkdale.

He had not missed the cut since the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship.

Scheffler had company that was equally surprising. Patrick Cantlay and Bernd Wiesberger became the first players since Jordan Spieth at the 2023 Sony Open to share the 18-hole lead and then miss the cut. Cantlay shot a 74, while Wiesberger shot 43 on the back nine for a 78.

Brooks Koepka, who was one shot off the lead going into Friday, also missed the cut.

McIlroy, who won the Scottish Open three years ago, found a new wedge to help him with firm turf at Renaissance and next week at Birkdale. He still faces a busy leaderboard going into the weekend.

Smith ran off four straight birdies early on the back nine, all of them inside 10 feet. Kim, who tied for third in the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, holed a 40-foot eagle putt on the par-5 seven and finished with two birdies on his last five holes.

Kim fell out of the top 100 in the world before steadily climbing back up. The U.S. Open was a big step, and it eventually got him into the British Open next week.

“I think being under the radar was kind of nice, just be able to work on my game and keep getting better,” Kim said. “Not being in the spotlight all the time, you don’t see everything, you don’t see all the good stuff. I knew I was really, really close. And I’m still working towards trying to be the best I can be. But all those little things kind of kept adding, kept adding, and I think it’s shown the last couple weeks.”

Matt Fitzpatrick had a 65 and was one shot out of the lead along with Min Woo Lee. The group at 133 included defending champion Chris Gotterup and Scotland's own Robert MacIntyre, who thrilled the gallery in the arena around the par-3 15th with a 30-foot birdie putt. The cheer was so loud he raised his putter to salute them.

Gotterup, who played alongside McIlroy and MacIntyre, was one shot out of the lead playing the 18th when he drove right into high, wispy grass. With the wind at his back, his iron bounced hard and rolled close to 100 yards, onto and through the green and against a television tower.

He chipped beautifully from the drop area, but failed to convert the par. Even so, he was only two back going for his fourth win of the year. Gotterup is coming off a victory last week in the John Deere Classic.

The British Open is offering three spots to the leading finishers not already qualified. Among those in position at the halfway point was Nicolai Von Dellingshausen of Germany, at No. 258 in the world who won his first European tour event last year in the Austrian Open.

“Honestly, I was nervous,” he said. “This is the best player field I've played during the year. There are a couple good names out there. Trying not to look too much into it and playing my own game.”

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

Government spokesman Bayo Onanuga did not specify the total number of students rescued, but authorities said at the time of the abductions on May 15 that more than 40 people had been abducted. One of the teachers abducted alongside the students was killed shortly afterward.

Eight militants were arrested as part of the operation, while an unspecified number of the militants were killed, Onanuga said.

The abductions in a southern state had represented an escalation of the country’s security crisis because most such abductions previously had taken place in the north.

“This successful military operation has ended the siege and standoff of over 50 days and has brought relief to the entire nation and the affected families in particular," Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said in a statement.

In the same week as the Oyo abduction, dozens of children were kidnapped in Borno, the epicenter of Nigeria's security crisis.

Abductions at schools are common in Nigeria, where militant groups target them to put pressure on the government and extract ransoms.

Willie J. Carpenter, 68, was arrested on Thursday by the U.S. Marshals Service North Carolina Regional Task Force and charged with first-degree murder.

Matthews was found murdered Sept. 8, 1988, inside the answering service where she worked at 227 N. Magnolia Ave. in downtown Orlando. Police said her injuries were so severe she was unrecognizable, though an employee identified her by her hair.

Police collected physical evidence — including fingerprints and DNA — but at the time, DNA technology was not routinely used in criminal investigations. The case eventually went cold.

More than two decades later, investigators got a significant break. Carpenter’s DNA was entered into the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, following an unrelated arrest in North Carolina for a sexual offense involving an underage female. That DNA was flagged as a potential match to biological evidence from the Matthews investigation.

Detectives interviewed Carpenter in 2013, but he denied knowing Matthews and refused to provide a DNA sample. When re-interviewed in 2024, Carpenter voluntarily provided a sample. Additional testing through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement finalized results in 2025, further linking him to evidence from the crime scene, police said.

Detectives then spent months reviewing evidence, consulting prosecutors and ruling out other potential suspects before seeking an arrest warrant in 2026.

Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith credited the department’s resolve in closing the case.

“Time does not diminish our commitment to justice. No matter how many years pass, the Orlando Police Department’s Homicide Unit will continue to pursue the truth until every possible avenue has been exhausted and those responsible are held accountable,” Smith said.

Carpenter is awaiting extradition to Orlando.

A brutal crime that haunted co-workers for decades

Irene Simon, a retired co-worker who knew Matthews personally, said the violence of that night has stayed with her for nearly four decades.

“He went up to the second floor, where Diane was working, and she realized that he should not be there,” Simon said. “She tried to close the door of the office, but he kept pushing — and he kept pushing her into the wall — so she had her body print embedded into the wall.”

‘It took so long’

For Simon, who said she often thought about Matthews over the years and wondered if her killer would ever be caught, news of the arrest brought an emotional release.

“I felt very, very relieved,” Simon said. “Well, naturally I was very happy. It took so long. You know, Diane died in really bad hands — and very brutal.”

Harry, Meghan and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, met with the king and Queen Camilla at Highgrove House, a country estate west of London, Buckingham Palace confirmed.

The Duke of Sussex had arrived Monday in his homeland for a number of charity events that were overshadowed by speculation of whether he would meet with his father.

British tabloids and news broadcasts were filled with speculation about whether Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, would accompany him and, more importantly, whether they would bring their two children so they can finally get to know Grandpa Charles.

However, the monarch’s schedule is often years in the making, with events penciled in long before they take place. An opportunity to hold such a meeting would have been fleeting, particularly because the children would need to return to school in the fall and because they live in California.

The wish to seize the moment fueled tensions between Harry and royal officials earlier this week. That was highlighted by embarrassing scenes when royal officials first invited Harry to stay at Buckingham Palace, then rescinded the offer after the prince didn’t accept it in a timely manner.

Harry’s visit also coincided with him losing his final lawsuit in his quest to tame the British tabloids. A judge ruled that he failed to prove his privacy invasion claims against the publisher of the Daily Mail.

His legal battles have been a source of friction with his family, however. Harry has said he wants to reconcile with his 77-year-old father, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.

Harry and Charles met briefly for a cup of tea in September during a short visit in London, the first time they’d seen each other in well over a year.

But the prince has also wanted his children to see the monarch, whom they first met during celebrations for the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

The royal children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, are now old enough to remember meeting their grandfather, and will certainly hope for pictures with the king, though the event was deemed private and no images will be publicly released.

Tensions within the House of Windsor have heightened ever since Harry and Meghan gave up their royal duties and moved to California to pursue lucrative media deals, free from the pressures of royal life in London.

They reached a new low after Harry published an explosive memoir that included unflattering depictions of the royal family and damning allegations of a toxic relationship between the monarchy and the press.

Harry’s description of royals leaking information about other family members in exchange for positive coverage of themselves is just one of the tawdry allegations in his book, “Spare.” The prince was especially scathing about Camilla, accusing her of feeding private conversations to the media as she sought to rehabilitate her image after her longtime affair with Charles when he was heir to the throne.

After losing a court battle over his security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family, even as he suggested that the royals had sought to prevent him from receiving police protection to punish him for walking away from royal duties.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

The visit Friday is a step toward mending those fences.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 23-year-old Robinson decided not to testify in the hearing. He's charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. State District Judge Tony Graf didn't say when he would rule.

Robinson’s lawyers called a final witness in an attempt to raise doubts about DNA evidence in the prosecution’s case. The defense previously challenged the reliability of ballistics tests on a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body and fought the release of a recorded interview with Robinson’s roommate.

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Some emotional final moments in the courtroom for the Kirk family

At the end of the day’s proceedings, the judge allowed Kirk’s family and the rest of those in the courtroom to view an edited, enhanced version of the surveillance video that prosecutors said showed Tyler Robinson at the time of the shooting.

Graf agreed to show the video in court — but out of view of the media camera’s livestream — after Jeffrey Neiman, the Kirk family’s attorney, argued that they had a right to see evidence the judge would consider when deciding whether to send Robinson to trial.

The video then played, showing someone on the rooftop where Robinson allegedly fired a single bullet that hit Kirk in the neck.

Kirk’s widow, Erika, watched intently as the person ran across the roof, but when the figure dropped to a crawl near the roof’s edge, she turned and embraced Kirk’s mother, who was crying. They held each other and looked away until the video was almost over.

Kirk family calls preliminary hearing a ‘step forward in the pursuit of justice’

Kirk’s family released a statement shortly after the court session ended expressing gratitude for the support and prayers offered to them and saying the preliminary hearing “marks an important step forward in the pursuit of justice for Charlie.”

“As difficult as these last few days have been, it brings our family comfort to know that the world has witnessed the overwhelming evidence of what occurred to Charlie that day,” the family wrote.

“Nothing will ever undo the loss of our beloved Charlie. As this case moves into its next phase, we pray that truth will continue to be heard through a process that is fair, transparent, and grounded in the facts.”

Attorney Jeffrey Neiman, who represents the Kirk family, left the courthouse without answering questions.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee says evidence against Robinson is ‘damning’

The Republican senator attended Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing on Thursday, along with far-right influencer Jack Posobiec.

“It’s damning,” Lee said in a video he posted to the social media site X. “It contains multiple confessions by the defendant Tyler Robinson acknowledging not only that he killed Charlie Kirk, but acknowledging that he did so having planned it in advance in great detail and acknowledging at one point that he was motivated by hate.”

Preliminary hearing is done for now, final arguments will be in September

Both sides are done presenting evidence for the preliminary hearing and State District Judge Tony Graf has adjourned.

The hearing won’t resume until Sept. 1, when both sides will make their final arguments to the judge about whether Tyler Robinson should stand trial.

The long break is intended to give the attorneys time to write legal briefs.

Analyst says rifle DNA testing was at least ‘1 trillion times more likely' to support inclusion of Tyler Robinson

The ATFE forensic biologist said under cross-examination that testing on swabs taken from several parts of the rifle and ammunition supports the conclusion that the DNA found was primarily contributed by Tyler Robinson.

DNA from more than person was found on some of the items, Oliver told Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride. The testing also looks for the highest concentration of the DNA found on an item in order to help determine the “major contributor” of that DNA profile.

The DNA samples on some parts of the rifle were at least 1 trillion times more likely to have been contributed by Tyler Robinson and one other unrelated person, than they were to have been contributed by two unknown, unrelated people, Oliver said.

Defense questions forensic biologist about DNA testing techniques

Caitlin Oliver, a forensic biologist at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is testifying about the DNA techniques used in the case.

Items tested for DNA include a towel and rifle found in a wooded area near the Utah Valley University campus after the shooting and a rotary tool that Tyler Robinson’s roommate told investigators the defendant used to engrave messages on bullets.

Prosecutors tried to preemptively strike Oliver’s testimony, saying the evidence is already overwhelming and devastating for the defense, but the judge wanted to hear it.

Defense attorney Richard Novak asked Oliver about industry recommendations for describing DNA results, ways DNA samples are extracted and different testing methods. Oliver said her lab uses “likelihood ratios” and doesn’t definitively conclude that a person’s DNA was on an object.

“So from a scientific standpoint, you couldn’t ... blast a headline in the media, ‘Mr. Robinson’s DNA found on this item,’?” Novak asked.

Correct, Oliver said.

Judge says news media camera can stay, but can’t record video of evidence today

Graf said after reviewing livestream recording that it’s clear the news media camera operator caught the issue first, about 14 seconds before the judge himself spotted it and asked that the exhibit be taken down.

“Compliance with court orders is essential in all proceedings,” Graf says, and protecting the constitutional rights of both defendant Tyler Robinson and Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk is “paramount.”

Transparency for the public is also important, Graf said.

Defense attorney Richard Novak wanted the judge to bar the news media camera from the courtroom for the rest of the preliminary hearing as well as for a Sept. 1 proceeding, when both sides will present final arguments over whether the case should go to trial.

But Graf said the camera can stay, as long as it doesn’t record video of any evidence presented. He later noted that the livestream’s audio can capture discussion about such evidence.

Media attorney says courtroom livestreams are a team effort

Typically, an announcement is made that an exhibit is going to be shown on the courtroom screen. That gives the camera operator a moment to redirect the camera or to wait a beat before focusing in, depending on what the judge has ordered.

But in this case, prosecutors showed the exhibit with no warning, news media attorney Michael Judd said.

Judd said the camera operator quickly realized what had happened and moved the camera away within about two seconds.

Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride agreed that the image should not have appeared on the livestream, but told the judge the text of the messages — if not the actual image — had already been made public in law enforcement documents.

Graf said he wants to review the livestream recording before deciding how to handle the violation.

Judge is deciding how to handle a violation of an order barring some evidence from public view

Graf is taking a break to review livestream footage from Thursday, because a piece of evidence that was supposed to be kept from public view was briefly shown on camera.

The evidence — an image of written communication between Tyler Robinson and his then-roommate and romantic partner — has been published and is even able to be purchased as photographic prints, defense attorney Richard Novak told the judge. He said the publication violated Robinson’s fair-trial rights, and he wants the judge to issue sanctions, a kind of legal punishment.

The judge allowed prosecutors to display an image of the evidence on Thursday, but said it could only be shown to the courtroom gallery. Later, prosecutors put up a side-by-side comparison of that image with another photo, and the side-by-side view was briefly caught by the news media camera operator, who quickly panned away.

Salt Lake City woman came bearing gifts for the Kirk family

Tiani Shoemaker drove about an hour from her Salt Lake City home bearing gifts for Charlie Kirk’s mother and hoping for a seat in the courtroom. Security turned her away.

Shoemaker said she brought a hat decorated with the words, “love like a mother,” and a note expressing her condolences and admiration for Kathryn Kirk.

The note was to tell Kirk that “the whole world’s hurting because of the loss of your son,” Shoemaker said, adding that she wanted to be “a part of history.”

“This really is like the whole world is focused on little Provo, Utah right now,” she said.

Shoemaker said some of her friends and extended family members witnessed the shooting and were left traumatized. “They couldn’t even be in large crowds for a while. It’s really — it’s upsetting, you know?”

Zoomed-in version of ‘sniper’s perch’ video to be shown in court

The judge said at the close of Thursday’s hearing that at the request of Kirk’s family, he would allow to be shown inside the courtroom an altered version of a campus surveillance video that prosecutors said shows Robinson crawling out to a rooftop “sniper’s perch” before shooting Kirk.

The unaltered video was previously shown. The altered version includes footage that zooms in on a figure that prosecutors said was Robinson and red marks that were added to the video.

Court is in session

Graf is again reminding attendees of his courtroom rules, including restrictions on electronic devices for many attendees.

Court security director says courtroom visitors shouldn’t look at the parents

Chris Palmer, Court Security Director at Utah State Courts, spoke outside the courthouse as people lined up again hoping for a spot in the courtroom. He warned them that people in the gallery should not make the parents of Charlie Kirk or Tyler Robinson feel uncomfortable by looking at them during the hearing.

“These people come here to get justice, and they don’t need to feel like they’re under a microscope from somebody sitting behind them or ahead of them,” Palmer said.

Joshua Carr of Provo, Utah, was among those in the gallery and said “People were pretty respectful.”

“I wasn’t seeing people turning their heads. Again, we have the — the public was there. We had the Robinson family in front of us, we had the Kirk family behind us.”

Would-be court watchers hope persistence will pay off

Billie Webb of Salt Lake City was among the people who slept outside the courthouse all night hoping to get one of the few public seats inside the hearing.

“I’ve tried to go every single day,” Webb said Thursday night. “Today I wasn’t able to get in once again. I did get in yesterday for the first time. I did get in yesterday for the first time and I am absolutely determined to be there tomorrow.”

“Showed up at 3 a.m. Today for this one. Still did not get in. I was 16th and there’s 14 spots. So I will be camping all night here today. Probably 12 hours. 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.,” she said.

Score. Friday morning, Webb got the pink wristband she needed for a spot inside.

There are only 14 seats for the public in the courtroom

People have been lining up early — sometimes sleeping outside the doors overnight — in hopes of getting a wristband for a seat in the courthouse this week. Only 14 wristbands are given out each day, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Chris Palmer, the court’s director of security, warned Thursday morning that tents and other camping supplies won’t be allowed as people seek a seat for the final day of the hearing Friday. He also warned against jumping in line or saving spots for someone else.

Earlier in the week, court security said it discovered some people had bought colored wristbands to try to sneak in.

Defense tries to sow doubt about ballistics evidence

One of Tyler Robinson’s attorneys, Michael Burt, tried to inject doubt into the prosecution’s case by challenging the reliability of ballistics tests on a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body.

Authorities sought to tie the fragment to the suspected murder weapon, but the results were inconclusive.

“Saying anything but inconclusive was inappropriate,” said Samantha Karner with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The defense earlier in the week had questioned the reliability of DNA evidence that investigators said linked Robinson to the scene. Experts say the science behind DNA testing is sound.

Robinson’s attorneys plan to have a second person from ATF testify Friday.

The prosecution ended its presentation Thursday afternoon.

Testimony in five-day preliminary hearing wraps Friday

After testimony in the preliminary hearing ends Friday, State District Judge Tony Graf will rule whether prosecutors have shown enough evidence to proceed to trial. But a decision from Graf won’t come immediately.

Attorneys on both sides say they’d like the benefit of seeing the court transcript of the preliminary hearing and want to submit written briefs before Graf weighs in.

That will take weeks to play out. Graf set oral arguments on the evidence presented in the preliminary hearing for Sept. 1.

Graf tends not to make immediate rulings.

Scheffler missed two key putts in the final three holes Friday in the Scottish Open, the last one from 6 feet for par that gave him a 2-over 72 to miss the 36-hole cut by two shots.

“Got off to a poor start and after that, I didn’t really it close enough to give myself a bunch of looks,” Scheffler said. “That’s how you shoot over par.”

Instead of trying to make up ground on the weekend at The Renaissance Club, Scheffler was making plans to head to Royal Birkdale earlier than he expected to prepare for the British Open.

Scheffler had made 78 consecutive cuts dating to the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship. It was the longest streak on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods set the record of 142 cuts in a row from February 1998 to May 2025.

The cut fell at 2-under 138 when the potential for stronger afternoon wind didn't materialize. Scheffler finished at even-par 140 after his early start, and already was looking ahead to his title defense at the British Open at Royal Birkdale, a links course he has not played.

“A little different than I was planning,” Scheffler said. “Figure out how I get down to Birkdale and go from there.”

Scheffler's cut streak included 25 tournaments that had no 36-hole cut. Woods played in 31 such tournaments during his streak. Byron Nelson held the previous record at 113 in a row during an era where players had to finish in the money — typically the top 20 except the majors and a few other events — for it to be considered making the cut.

“It’s a little different now with some of the signature events not having cuts,” Scheffler said. “But I don't think I finished outside of the top 20 or something like that many times this year. I’m definitely proud of the consistency, and wish I had a couple days over the weekend to make up some ground.”

Scheffler was three shots out of the lead when he started Friday morning. He missed a 3 1/2-foot par putt on No. 11, his second hole. On the par-5 12th, his chip out of high grass to a back pin caught a ridge and rolled into a bunker, leading to a second straight bogey.

He holed a 30-foot birdie putt after making the turn at the par-5 first — his only birdie on a par 5 this week — and had one birdie chance inside 20 feet over the next five holes.

His last big hope was the par-5 seventh, when Scheffler said he caught a gust that caused his second shot to come up just short and roll back off the front. He pitched nicely to 7 feet and missed the birdie chance.

Then, his tee shot on the eighth found a divot in the middle of the fairway and he hit a clunker low and to the right into a pot bunker. He splashed that out to 20 feet and holed it for par to keep alive his chances.

“I felt like I needed at least a birdie coming in on my last few holes. I felt like the cut was going to be 2 or 3 under,” Scheffler said. “I know I had to make the putt on 8 and I had to make birdie, I felt, on 9. Just hit a good iron shot just a little short.”

His 7-iron hit the slope in front of the green with a front pin, his chip was weak and came up 6 feet short and he missed the putt.

Scheffler also missed the cut in the Scottish Open in 2022 a week before the Open at St. Andrews. He then missed the cut at the FedEx St. Jude Championship — the last year it had a full field with a 36-hole cut — and had not missed one since.

“For whatever reason, I just haven’t played my best golf on this course," said Scheffler, who has only two top 10s in his five appearances at The Renaissance Club.

“It could be one of those things where you just get over jet lag, get used to new style of golf, new types of grasses, and maybe I just haven’t adjusted as quick, or maybe this golf course just doesn’t suit my eye much,” he said. “I’ll reflect on that at the end of the year and assess what my plans are going into next season.”

Xander Schauffele had his streak of 72 straight cuts end at Torrey Pines in January. The longest active streak now belongs to Matt Fitzpatrick at 29 in a row.

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

According to AAA, the national average for regular unleaded was $3.88 per gallon on Friday.

Jose Springhoff was among several other drivers filling up in Seminole County on Friday and said the cost is becoming unbearable.

“I don’t know how we’re going to keep up. It’s too expensive. Life is expensive,” Springhoff said.

Gas prices spiked and have remained unpredictable after the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Iran in March.

Jen Kersey lives in Sanford and said she’s growing weary of the roller coaster in prices at the pump.

It’s sad. We should be back to where we were at the beginning, when the prices made sense. Now, it’s like you don’t know what’s going to happen," Kersey said.

The unpredictability can also influence buying habits for drivers who have been doing whatever they can to save money.

“I don’t know how people are going to afford it,” Kersey said. “With the gas going up, groceries. People just can’t afford it.”

For details on three apps to save money at the pump, click here.

Schwarber joins his teammate Bryce Harper in the eight-man field and the pair will try to put on show for the home crowd at Citizens Bank Park. Boston’s Willson Contreras, Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, St. Louis' Jordan Walker and the New York Yankees’ Ben Rice will also be part of the competition.

One other participant hasn't been announced.

The 33-year-old Schwarber enters Friday's games with 32 homers, which leads the big leagues. The four-time All-Star has been one of baseball's elite home run hitters for several seasons with 219 long balls since 2022, trailing only Aaron Judge (227) over that span.

This is Schwarber's third appearance in the derby. He made the finals in 2018 before losing to Harper at Nationals Park and was also part of the 2022 derby, losing in the first round to Albert Pujols.

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

The site TickPick listed the lowest price for the Spain-Belgium game on Friday at Inglewood, California, at $1,381, down from $3,261 before the U.S. lost to Belgium in the round of 16.

The lowest price for the England-Norway match at Miami Gardens, Florida, on Saturday was $2,049, down from $3,866 before England defeated Mexico to reach the quarterfinals. It listed the lowest price for the Argentina-Switzerland game at Kansas City, Missouri, at $1,142, down from $2,381 before the round of 16.

Standing outside SoFi Stadium on Friday, Jake van Baarsel said he bought tickets two days earlier. The 65-year-old from Riverside, California, said he hadn’t previously planned on attending because he knew ticket prices were so high. But when his son called to tell him he obtained seats at a lower price, he decided to pay for two at $1,000 each to share the moment with his 13-year-old grandson.

“It’s one of those things — it’s a memory maker for my grandson and me,” he said. “So how much money do you put on a memory?

“So yeah, it’s steep for a game, but we enjoy.”

Others who bought tickets well ahead of Friday’s quarterfinal match paid far more.

Lisandro Pineda, 70, of East Los Angeles, said he paid about $2,200 a month ago.

“The price was too high, I think, but it’s a resale, remember,” he said. “I didn’t want to be left out. I’ve never been to a World Cup. I didn’t go to the one we had before. So I figured, I have the money, I have the time, what the heck, buy the ticket, so here we are.”

Kourosh Modarress, 68, of Los Angeles, said his family bought hospitality tickets at $7,000 each after they failed to obtain other tickets in one of FIFA's sales rounds.

“I think it’s highway robbery,” he said.

FIFA had nearly 1,200 category two tickets priced at $7,380 on sale Friday for the World Cup final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The governing body's last-minute tickets sales site, which at times had listed the game as sold out, had 1,178 seats available across five sections of the top deck along the sidelines: 282 in section 344, 299 in section 343, 139 in section 335, 443 in section 334 and 15 in section 333.

FIFA also was selling 68 front category one tickets in the lower deck at prices ranging from $19,995 to $32,970 and had remaining hospitality tickets in its Trophy Lounge and Trophy Lounge+ sections priced at $34,500 and $32,500, including food and drinks.

Soccer's governing body did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the additional tickets had become available.

Resale tickets for the final were available on FIFA's marketplace at prices from $7,440.50 to $11,499,998.85.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

In the standings? Of course not.

Led by All-Star third baseman Miguel Vargas, the White Sox have emerged as one of the top surprises and are in AL Central contention after enduring three straight 100-loss seasons.

In the MLB draft? The White Sox have the No. 1 pick in the draft for Saturday's event in Philadelphia as part of All-Star Game weekend festivities.

The No. 1 pick belongs to Chicago — after it lost 102 games last season and won the draft lottery — and perhaps a future star that can help the White Sox win their first World Series title since 2005 will get selected in the top spot.

There are no clear-cut No. 1 picks in this year's draft much like current Philadelphia Phillies slugger and 2026 All-Star Bryce Harper was in 2010.

The White Sox will likely pick one from the following three players: UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson or Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey.

MLB said Friday no amateur players are scheduled to attend the draft, which is the same as last year.

Here's a look at the most enticing prospects for the White Sox and the rest of the teams drafting early in the first round.

— Cholowsky. A 6-foot-2 right-handed hitter, he was a Golden Spikes finalist at UCLA and had a 1.088 OPS with 21 homers and 60 RBIs in his junior season.

— Lackey. The 21-year-old catcher didn't receive any Division I offers until his senior year of high school and has since blossomed into one of the top catching prospects in the draft out of Georgia Tech. The 6-foot-2, 215-pounder showed some versatility by also playing third base.

— Emerson. Just 18 years old, the 6-3, 185-pound shortstop bats left, throws right and is widely considered the best all-around player in the draft.

The White Sox are in win-now mode after years of rebuilding and could lean toward a college player such as Cholowsky. Cholowsky is a proven prospect with plenty of seasoning at a major college program and could help the White Sox faster, even maybe this season — except for the pitchers they may draft.

“Most of the guys we take, even if they played in college versus a high school pick, they haven’t thrown competitively in a while," White Sox director of player development Paul Janish said. “You have the draft in July, the minor-league season is over in early September. There’s not a huge window. You take all those things in consideration, really the motive is health. We’re going to get you as ready as you can be for next spring training to have a good first full pro season.”

Like father, like son

Jim Thome helped changed the perception of the Phillies from long-time losers to championship contenders when he left Cleveland and signed a six-year, $85 million ahead of the 2003 season. Thome hit 47 homers in his first season, his 400th career homer the next in Citizens Bank Park's first season and now can enjoy another milestone in the city — his 18-year-old son, Landon, is a likely first-round pick.

The Nazareth Academy (Illinois) infielder, who is committed to Florida State, is ranked among the top 50 prospects.

“All the hard work, which at the end of the day, they do it all. As a dad, you sit back, you watch the journey," the elder Thome told MLB Network.

There are more familiar names that could be called during the draft.

Rutgers outfielder Peyton Bonds is MLB's career home run leader Barry Bonds' nephew. Houston first baseman Carsten Sabathia III is the son of Hall of Fame pitcher CC Sabathia. Gulliver Prep (Florida) shortstop Jacob Lombard is considered one of the top five available prospects and is the son of Detroit Tigers bench coach and former major leaguer George Lombard.

The draft order

Here's the rest of the top 10 following Chicago for the start of the draft Saturday.

Tampa Bay picks second and Minnesota is third. San Francisco is fourth and Pittsburgh fifth. Kansas City, Baltimore, the Athletics, Atlanta and Colorado round out the top 10.

Potential draft changes

Baseball owners proposed banning high school players from signing with major league teams, raising the age for international amateurs and slashing the money spent on signing bonuses as part of the recent negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.

The amateur draft for players residing in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico would be cut from 20 rounds to 12 beginning in 2027 under the proposal Major League Baseball made during a bargaining session with the players’ association. An identical 12-round draft would be started for international prospects, a proposal the union has rejected in the past.

Starting in 2028, a prospect for the amateur draft would have to be at least 20 years old by the Sept. 1 of his signing year and two years removed from the graduating year of his high school class — a restriction that also would eliminate players who completed their first year of junior college.

Cooperstown calls

Since the draft began in 1965, more than 50 Hall of Famers have been selected by the team that eventually signed them. The Hall of Fame class of 2026 features two former draft picks: Jeff Kent was taken in the 20th round in 1989 by the Toronto Blue Jays; and Carlos Beltrán was a second-round pick by the Royals in 1995. The 1989 draft has now produced five future Hall of Famers, the most of any single draft in history, with Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell, Trevor Hoffman, Jim Thome and Kent having been selected.

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

Ward, 28, who starred in the Netflix crime drama “Top Boy,” sobbed after a jury in Snaresbrook Crown Court found him not guilty of two counts of rape, two counts of assault by penetration and one count of sexual assault.

Ward has appeared in films including “Blue Story,” “The Book of Clarence” and last year's American political satire “Eddington,” alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal.

In 2020, he won the Rising Star award at the British Academy Film Awards, or BAFTAs. He was nominated for an acting BAFTA for Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light” and for a BAFTA television award for the Steve McQueen-directed series “Small Axe.”

Ward had denied the charges and said he had “full faith” he’d be cleared of the charges. He testified at trial that he met the woman at a party and that they had consensual sex.

Defense lawyer Humzah Ilyas said Ward had put his life on hold for more than three years and was “looking forward to getting back to doing the work he loves.”

“This case was always about two courageous young girls who simply wanted the same opportunities as their peers to participate in school life,” their lawyer, Chris Erchull of GLAD Law, said in a statement Thursday. “Their willingness to stand up to extraordinary hostility made clear the human cost of laws that target transgender youth.”

The teenagers, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, took on Trump’s executive order last year, amending their 2024 complaint against New Hampshire's law on banning transgender girls from school sports. A federal judge had granted a court order allowing them to play as the case proceeded.

For Tirrell, it meant being able to keep playing on her high school girls’ soccer team. For Turmelle, it was having a chance to try out for different sports.

Both sides agreed to pause the case and wait for a ruling from the Supreme Court as it considered similar state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school and college athletic teams in Idaho and West Virginia. Last month, the court upheld the laws. It also said that barring transgender girls and women doesn’t run afoul of the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

One teen and her family decided to move from New Hampshire

Turmelle and her family moved out of New Hampshire last summer following proposed legislation against transgender people. One measure signed into law by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte last year prohibits medical professionals from providing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy to new transgender patients under age 18.

“Though there may be a carve-out for people already receiving gender-affirming care, that is way too close a call for us to risk staying,” Turmelle's mother, Amy Manzetti, wrote in an op-ed piece at the time. “Other New Hampshire laws also seek to erase her.”

Most Republican-controlled states in the past five years have adopted laws or policies limiting gender-affirming care for transgender minors and limiting which school bathrooms transgender people can use, as well as sports restrictions. The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that about 3% of youth ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender.

“The challenges with relocation are significant and burdensome — this includes having to find new employment, buying and selling homes, packing and moving possessions, integrating kids with a new school system, losing access to longstanding family and friends, and potential loss of income,” Corinne Goodwin, the executive director of Eastern PA Trans Equality Project in Pennsylvania, said in an email.

"But these families do so because they love their kids and know that supporting them with the care and opportunities they need is critical to their long-term success and happiness.”

The other teen gave up playing soccer at high school

Tirrell, 17, began her junior year last fall on the girls' junior varsity soccer team. Things were fine at first, and each time she scored a goal, she got a round of ice cream from her parents. But a few weeks into the season, she decided to stop playing.

“With all of the political stuff going on, soccer wasn't just about the game anymore,” her mother, Sara Tirrell, told The Associated Press in an interview.

It became more about preparing for the possibility of conflict.

“Were there any local Facebook groups where they were sort of agitating about potential protests and how do we prepare, and what are we walking into, and we never kind of knew,” she said. “We were on a lot of pins and needles, especially after the previous season."

She was referring to a controversy at an away game where two dads from an opposing team were banned from school grounds for wearing pink wristbands marked “XX” to represent female chromosomes. They sued the school district and a judge ruled against them. They have appealed their case.

Last fall, there was an increased presence of school administrators at the games and bus drivers pulled in closer to the field so the students weren’t in the parking lot, she said.

“Parker didn’t talk about it a lot, but I think she could see that stress for everybody — for her, for her teammates, for her coaches,” Sara Tirrell said. "She felt kind of bad about pulling them all into that circus again. And so she ultimately said, ‘This isn’t fun anymore and I don’t want to do it.’”

Parker’s father described the atmosphere as “palpable tension.”

Even playing on her own turf, “there would typically be a couple of police officers at the home games where there weren’t previously,” Zach Tirrell said.

In the past, Parker also played soccer in a recreation league and could still do so.

“But I think it all kind of still sort of weighs on her,” her mother said. "It's the same group of kids that she plays with who, honestly, have been very supportive and love to have her on the team and have expressed that to her many times over. But I think she still has that worry in her brain around, ‘What are other people going to say and do if I show up at a game?’”

Parker's parents hope she'll return to playing soccer some day. In the meantime, “she plans to be around and use her voice to continue standing up to discrimination,” her mother said. “In some ways she’s had to grow up a lot faster than some of her peers.”

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Associated Press reporter Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, contributed to this article.

In courthouses and public squares, they marked the nation's 250th anniversary with a dire warning: The rule of law in America is in grave danger. They delivered a similar message at a library in Grosse Pointe just outside Detroit — the last stop on an extraordinary tour to defend judicial independence and bolster trust in courts.

Americans' confidence in the court system and democracy has dipped in recent years. The country is more polarized, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the fairness of the judicial system.

Some judges on the tour said in phone interviews this week that the United States was at a precipice.

“Looking back in history, we have teetered," former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly said. "This is a moment where we can decide to reinstill those beliefs that we are a country of laws and not of men.”

Judges step off the bench

The four-day tour through the Rust Belt is a sharp departure for a typically reserved and insular branch of government. Federal judges in particular largely limit their comments to the courtroom and written decisions, focusing on the facts of individual cases.

But that restraint is loosening amid a barrage of attacks by Trump and other White House officials, the administration's rampant defiance of U.S. district court orders and its expansive view of executive power. Trump has called a district judge who ruled against one of his immigration moves “crooked” and suggested with no evidence that Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs were motivated by foreign interests.

More federal judges have recently begun talking about receiving death threats and profane messages, though they have not blamed Trump or any other officials. Some have blasted administration policies in sharply worded opinions that strayed beyond the legal dispute before them. Even U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has weighed in.

In an appearance in March, Roberts said personal criticism of federal judges was dangerous and had to stop. The rare rebuke from the head of the nation's top court came two days after Trump's remark about a “crooked” judge, though Roberts didn't mention Trump or anyone else by name.

The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats against federal judges in the government fiscal year that ended in September, up from 509 the year before.

“I don’t want to say we have moved into an era of lawlessness, but it sometimes feels that way,” said former U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts, who joined the bus tour in Michigan.

Timothy Lewis, another former federal judge on the tour, said his concerns about the politicization of the judicial branch reached a tipping point a decade ago, when Senate Republicans thwarted President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Today, the rule of law is facing an "existential threat" from an ongoing breakdown of norms, according to Lewis, who spent seven years on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“I have fundamental concerns," he said, “about where we are headed as a nation.”

Their route has been varied

The tour started Tuesday in the western Pennsylvania town of Greensburg — once the hub of a thriving coal industry that now lures visitors from nearby Pittsburgh for highland recreation and a historic downtown.

Judges mingled with customers at a coffee shop before speaking at the domed, ornate Westmoreland County Courthouse. Then it was off to Washington, also in western Pennsylvania. The town of 13,000 people, where about 15% of the population is Black, was a key stop on the Underground Railroad and a regional base for the Civil Rights Movement.

From there, the bus headed west for events Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, and the city of Wooster in Amish country. The judges stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the way. They spent Thursday in Cleveland before circling Lake Erie north to Michigan.

The two groups that planned the tour — dubbed “Justice in Motion” — say they were inspired by a similar campaign in Poland in 2021 after that country's governing party took control of key judicial institutions.

Independent Polish judges visited scores of towns to promote the rule of law and teach voters about the country's constitution. The U.S. tour also aims to educate people.

An effort to combat misinformation about what they do

Maureen O'Connor, a former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, said judges risk ceding the narrative about their roles and motives to “voices of misinformation” if they don't speak up.

A letter she received years ago, and still keeps, reminds her of that danger. The writer accused O'Connor, a Republican, of betraying her party when she repeatedly struck down Republican-drawn legislative maps as illegal gerrymanders. “There was just a basic misunderstanding of what my role was as a judge,” O'Connor said.

O'Connor is among roughly 30 judges, including two former federal judges and two current federal judges, who participated in the tour. One of the federal judges was nominated by a Democrat, the other three by Republicans. The state judges, some of whom are also still on the bench, represented both parties.

They were joined by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, former Ohio attorneys general and a few lawyers. The event was put together by the Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic, nonpartisan advocacy groups.

Organizers say they chose stops that would get the judges in front of as many people as possible to build connections and trust. The judges embraced that mission.

“The lifeblood of the judiciary is public confidence,” Donnelly, the former Ohio Supreme Court justice, said. “If you lose that, it’s very difficult to get it back.”

British actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugh Laurie and Damian Lewis watched from the Royal Box, as did fashion designer Tom Ford and Anna Wintour.

Tendulkar, considered one of the greatest cricketers ever, retired in 2013 after playing in his 200th test match. Wimbledon called him “ cricket royalty.” Another former cricket star, Brian Lara of the West Indies, was also in the Royal Box, an area reserved for special guests invited by the All England Club.

Netherlands defender and Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk was also a guest. The Dutch were eliminated at the World Cup in the round of 32.

The 88-year-old Hoffman wasn't in the Royal Box, though he was a guest there in 2024.

Earlier on Centre Court, Alexander Zverev advanced to Sunday's final by beating British wild card Arthur Fery.

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

Merlier was moved into position to attack by his Soudal Quick-Step team and timed his move well to clinch his fourth Tour stage win.

“I'm delighted. When I launched my sprint I didn't know how far it was," Merlier said. “But I made it, thanks to the team, it was great work from them. After all the hard work two days ago and today it feels good to know I could repay the guys.”

Four-time Tour champion Pogacar finished safely in the main pack along with two-time winner Jonas Vinegaard, his closest rival. He maintained his lead of 2 minutes, 42 seconds over second-placed Vinegaard in the overall standings.

Pogacar reclaimed the yellow jersey from Norwegian rider Torstein Traeen with a typical attacking masterclass in the mountains of the Pyrenees on Thursday.

Traeen crashed in that stage and, although he completed it, he pulled out of the Tour after medical tests revealed multiple rib fractures and concussion.

Stage 7 took riders on a mostly flat 175-kilometer (109-mile) route from Hagetmau to the wine-loving city of Bordeaux.

In sweltering conditions hitting 36 degrees (97 F) during an ongoing heatwave in the country, Frenchman Baptiste Veistroffer formed a two-man breakaway with Czech Jakub Otruba. They were caught with 18 kilometers left by the chasing pack as teams looked to place their leading sprinter in position to contest the victory.

Veteran Mathieu van der Poel rode hard and put Jasper Philipsen at the front with 250 meters to go, but Philipsen could not sustain his attack and was overtaken by Merlier.

“With 600 meters to go I got boxed in," Merlier said. “But I told myself I would fight until the finish.”

Norwegian Soren Waerenskjold finished second and Eritrean Biniam Girmay placed third.

All three crossed the line in 3 hours, 44 minutes, 20 seconds.

Stage 8 on Saturday is also made for sprinters and ends in the southeastern city of Bergerac.

The race concludes with its traditional finish in Paris on July 26. ___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

But eight months after its first mention and after repeated promises it was being drafted, the so-called MAHA agenda is nowhere to be found. When asked for a status update this week, an EPA spokesperson said MAHA is an ongoing effort, not a single report.

The apparent reversal on the release of a formal environmental health agenda is the latest in a cascade of disappointments for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s MAHA movement, who say they've lost faith that the Trump administration will take any significant action on pesticides, chemicals or other issues they view as key to address America's chronic disease epidemic. It also reflects the EPA's relentless rollback of environmental regulations even in the face of pressure from an important voting bloc that has supported President Donald Trump.

“I had really hoped that there would be specific steps that were taken through a MAHA agenda,” said activist Kelly Ryerson, whose social media account “Glyphosate Girl” focuses on nontoxic food systems. “We haven’t had any of the wins that we were requesting.”

Many in the diverse coalition of MAHA activists that Trump credits for helping him win back the White House say they plan to vote on issues over party in November's congressional elections, raising the political stakes of their increasingly public tensions with the Republican administration.

“People are done with the profits of corporations being prioritized over public health,” said Alexandra Muñoz, a molecular toxicologist who collaborates with activists on certain issues. “And I think that will have an important role in the midterms.”

MAHA is frustrated with EPA's actions

“Trump’s EPA,” as Zeldin frequently calls the agency, has vigorously pursued a deregulatory agenda. Earlier this year, Zeldin proposed overturning the landmark finding that climate change is a threat to human health. He moved to roll back dozens of environmental regulations in what he called “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” froze billions of dollars for clean energy and upended agency research.

At the same time, Zeldin has touted multiple “MAHA wins," some of which activists say are anything but. For example, he said the agency intends to regulate some chemicals called phthalates for environmental and workplace risks, but didn’t address the thousands of consumer products that contain the ingredients.

This week, the EPA diverted from past assurances that the MAHA report was in its “final stages,” telling The Associated Press in an email that the EPA’s actions should speak for themselves.

“The notion that MAHA is a single document waiting to be unveiled fundamentally misrepresents how we operate,” an agency spokesperson said, adding that work on MAHA priorities is “active and expanding every day.”

Ryerson and other MAHA activists said they've engaged with agency officials about changes they'd like to see, and occasionally succeeded. Her network of farmers worked with the administration on a recent executive order to advance regenerative agriculture. But she said EPA then used the order to justify new proposed uses for various herbicides, a move she called a “slap in the face.”

The same week, the Supreme Court dealt another blow to the MAHA cause in siding with pesticide maker Bayer in a ruling related to its legal liability for alleged harm caused by its Roundup weedkiller. The Trump administration had backed the company in the case.

Environmental activists say the rise of Kennedy and his MAHA mission has rippled across the administration, raising the public's awareness of pesticides — and expectations that Trump's administration would act.

“If RFK and the MAHA movement hadn’t put that issue in the center of the public spotlight, no one would be scrutinizing this nearly as closely," said Sarah Starman, a senior food and agriculture campaigner at the nonprofit Friends of the Earth.

EPA says getting microplastics out of drinking water is complicated

In a well-publicized gesture aimed in part at the MAHA movement, Zeldin in April included microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants that could be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Activists had pressured Zeldin for months to crack down on microplastics and other environmental contaminants.

But in a reversal in late June, the EPA did not include microplastics or pharmaceuticals on a list of chemicals it plans to test for under a mandatory program used to collect information about concerning chemicals in drinking water that could be harming human health.

The move rendered the EPA's earlier public health promises "functionally toothless,'' said Betsy Southerland, a former senior official in EPA’s water office.

Zeldin said on social media that “the technology to test and treat for microplastics in drinking water is still in development.” The EPA said in a Federal Register notice that it was “not feasible to develop a drinking water analytical method within the statutory timeframe.”

After making “a big splash in the press” on microplastics, "EPA has quietly stalled that momentum," said Southerland.

A White House Make America Healthy Again Report, released a few months into Trump’s second term, identified long-term exposure to environmental chemicals — including those widely found in plastics — as a leading cause of chronic disease in children.

Former industry lobbyists now have leading roles at EPA

Jeremy Symons, a senior adviser at the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees and political appointees who are critical of the Trump administration, said Zeldin “pays lip service to MAHA, but sadly he is actually making Americans less safe from toxic chemicals.''

Alongside MAHA's influence on the Trump administration, industry lobbyists have made inroads at the EPA.

Kyle Kunkler, a former lobbyist for the soybean industry, leads pesticide policy at the EPA. The agency recently allowed continued use of dicamba, a weedkiller that has been linked to increased risk for some cancers.

Zen Honeycutt, a MAHA activist and founding executive director of Moms Across America, said the move is “what happens when the EPA allows itself to be pressured by corporations and by business.”

EPA also employs other former industry insiders. Nancy Beck, a former executive at the chemical lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, is a top official in EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Lynn Dekleva, another former chemistry council executive, serves as a Beck deputy.

The EPA said Kunkler and other political appointees have consulted with agency ethics officials to resolve any potential conflicts of interest. The MAHA movement has “driven this agency's work since President Trump's first day in office," a spokesperson said in an email, citing various initiatives including $945 million in grants to help states and communities cut “forever chemicals” known as PFAS in drinking water and identifying 30 drinking water contaminants proposed for nationwide monitoring.

On Thursday, the agency announced it was teaming up with Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect consumers from heavy metals and other contaminants in food.

But for Ryerson and others, the lack of a promised MAHA agenda reads as a tactic to escape accountability.

“It absolves them of any failures, especially when it comes to midterms,” Ryerson said. “They won’t have to point to some list that they haven’t been able to achieve really anything on.”

OCPS has already signed a lease for 100 new apartments on a nearby 8.5-acre lot, an area currently zoned for single-family homes. The project may be allowed under a state law known as the Live Local Act, which can override some local zoning rules for certain affordable housing developments.

On Thursday, the Isle of Catalina Homeowners Association held a meeting to discuss the proposal. The HOA said both the school board and the developer Warwick Commons were invited but did not attend.

“Did OCPS and Warwick Commons say why they were unable to come?” Ashley Garrett asked. “They did not,” an HOA representative responded.

A major concern residents brought up was traffic, especially with the complex proposed near already-busy Gulf Stream Road.

Some residents also questioned the financial arrangement behind the deal.

“How does the school board benefit? They’re offering up land and paying the developer?” one resident asked during the meeting.

Residents were told the project is intended to help teachers find more affordable places to live, but that explanation drew immediate pushback from others in the crowd.

OCPS says a public meeting is now scheduled to give people living in the area a chance to be heard and to further explain the plan.

That meeting is set for July 23 at 5:30 p.m. at Catalina Elementary, in the media center.

This week, my Florida Foodie adventure didn’t take me to a restaurant. It took me meat shopping — and I left with a cart full of ideas for everyday dinners and that “please invite me to every cookout” energy that Memorial Day weekend is made for.

If Winter Park isn’t close to you, Wild Fork also has Central Florida locations in Dr. Phillips and Lake Nona, so you can make a quick stop no matter what side of town you’re on.

Wild Fork is the kind of one-stop shop that works for pretty much any type of shopper. If you’re trying to keep dinner simple (and affordable), you can grab everyday cuts that can beat the prices at the big-name stores. If you’re shopping for a special occasion, there are premium options that feel like a splurge without the restaurant markup. And if you like to have a little fun in the freezer aisle, they’ve even got exotic meats that make you do a double take.

I’ll be honest: when a store is mostly frozen, my brain immediately goes to “freezer burn” and “this is going to taste like the inside of a cardboard box.”

Wild Fork made me rethink that — because their whole thing is blast freezing. The short version is that blast freezing happens quickly, which helps protect texture, flavor and nutritional value better than slow freezing.

So instead of frozen being a compromise, it’s more like… the strategy.

And from a shopper perspective, it keeps costs and waste low.

Also: I’m a big believer that the sides can make or break a meal.

And this is where Wild Fork really fits how I actually shop, because it’s not the kind of place where you grab the meat… and then realize you still have to hit a second store for everything else (which I hate). They’ve got sides, vegetables, herbs, seasonings, dessert — all the supporting characters you need to turn a protein pick into a full meal.

Most of the time, grocery shopping feels like a trade-off. If you’re saving money, you’re bracing yourself to give up quality.

What surprised me about Wild Fork is that it didn’t feel like I had to choose.

I could shop for everyday dinners, keep it affordable, and still walk out feeling like I got something high quality. And if I wanted to go premium for a summer cookout? That option was right there too.

And if you’re in the mood to be a little chaotic — or you just want a conversation starter for your next BBQ — I’m not saying you should treat yourself to kangaroo… but I’m also not saying you shouldn’t.

Duran devoted his life to serving others. While his watch has ended early, his legacy continues to inspire first responders and residents throughout the region. The 2650 Foundation was established in his honor to support first responders, their families, and the community Austin loved.

The weekend begins Saturday at 7 a.m., with the Duran: 2650 Community Workout at 3710 Jason Dwelley Pkwy. in Apopka. The event brings participants together through fitness, teamwork and fellowship while celebrating Austin’s life and service. The workout will last 26 minutes and 50 seconds.

The observance continues Sunday with the first Run for Hope 5K, which begins at 6:45 a.m. Hundreds of runners, walkers and supporters are expected to participate in an event that honors Austin while raising awareness for the foundation that carries on his legacy and sends other firefighters to advanced training.

As part of this year’s coverage, I welcomed Michael Duran, Austin’s father, aboard Results-1 for an episode of Trooper Steve on Patrol.

During our conversation, Michael shares memories of Austin as a son, firefighter, and friend while reflecting on how unimaginable loss has grown into a mission centered on hope, service, and supporting others. We also discuss the work of The 2650 Foundation and the importance of this weekend’s events in ensuring Austin’s legacy continues to make a difference.

The conversation offers viewers an opportunity to hear directly from the Duran family about the impact Austin continues to have on the community and why these events remain so important years later.

Whether you’re participating in the community workout, running the 5K, volunteering or simply sharing Austin’s story, every act of support helps continue a mission rooted in service, sacrifice and community.

For event details or to register, click here.

The Orlando Soccer Celebration runs now through July 19, transforming Pointe Orlando into a festival-style destination for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Organizers say the event will feature live viewings of all 104 matches, plus an immersive fan experience with live music and entertainment, global food and beverage offerings, appearances by Orlando City and Orlando Pride players, club legends and the team mascot, Kingston, along with an official pop-up store.

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The primary, “always-on” hub for match viewing will be Sports & Social – Live! at Pointe Orlando, located on the venue’s second floor. In addition, organizers say a minimum of five larger-scale events will take place in Pointe Orlando’s outdoor plazas, featuring live entertainment, interactive areas, giveaways and marquee match viewings.

Pointe Orlando, an open-air entertainment complex in the heart of Orlando’s Convention District, spans 17 acres and includes more than 20 restaurants, bars, lounges and entertainment concepts across three main plazas, with over 2,500 parking spaces on site.

Fan Zone dates

A centrally located Fan Zone between the two main viewing areas on the first floor will “come alive” on five marquee dates with interactive experiences, prizes and giveaways, according to the club:

• June 25
• June 27
• July 19 (Final)

How to get more information

For the latest schedule, RSVP information and event details, visit Orlando City’s official page: www.orlandocitysc.com/soccercelebration

The heat wave will start this weekend and last at least a week, with some areas feeling its effects until the end of the month, meteorologists said. Temperatures will be 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (8 to 14 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal in many areas, including at night, they said. Hotter nighttime temperatures are especially bad for both human health and efforts to tamp down an already active wildfire season.

“This upcoming heat wave does look pretty remarkable,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. “This is going to be a long duration, widespread and high-intensity heat event that’s going to affect millions of people for over a week.”

Trapping hot air, threatening records

A dome of high pressure — which traps hot air like a pot lid while blocking cooling winds and rain — will initially park over the Northern Plains, but it will be so big that it will trap sweltering temperatures across as much as two-thirds of the continental United States, three meteorologists told The Associated Press. While it will initially miss the East Coast, the heat dome will shift and wobble, maybe even spreading from coast-to-coast over the next 10 days or more, they said.

Forecasters are expecting record triple-digit highs this weekend in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The weather service is predicting more than 90 U.S. local temperature records will be tied or broken through Wednesday, with two-thirds being overnight heat records that can hinder how the human body recovers from broiling days.

“Nights can be just as dangerous as days. If you don’t get heat relief at night, that’s going to spill out into your daytime experience and become extremely dangerous,” said meteorologist Bob Henson with Yale Climate Connections. “Heat is not to be played with. It’s just as dangerous as a tornado or hurricane that can kill you just as easily, just in a quiet and different way.”

Heat wave will be bigger, longer-lasting and stronger than most

Swain said what makes this heat wave so different is how big a warm shadow it will cast and how long it will persist.

In the past couple of weeks, major heat waves have caused extensive suffering in Europe, the U.S. East Coast and most recently the U.S. Southeast. Now any place in the United States that escaped the earlier July heat waves will get this one, Swain said.

Rain is likely to sneak below the southern edge of the heat dome and douse the U.S. Southeast during the daytime, setting up something strange, Climate Central meteorologist Shel Winkley said. Because of the added moisture and humidity, the Southeast could get record-shattering nighttime heat but below-normal daytime warmth, he said.

The weather service is predicting record nighttime heat in a number of locations from Texas to Florida to North Carolina on Saturday. Temperatures won't drop below 80 degrees (27 degrees Celsius) at night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Miami; Tampa, Florida; Galveston, Texas; and Charleston, South Carolina, according to the forecast.

While heat domes are not unusual in the summer, Winkley said this one stands out because of how strong it is, likely to set records for the amount of high pressure that it will contain. It's especially unusual for being so far north, he said.

It’s likely to persist so long because drought-stricken areas have less soil and air moisture that would normally slow the warming of the air, Swain said. The drier, hotter air then worsens the drought conditions and stokes more heat in a vicious cycle, he said.

This will add to wildfire risk, already bad because of the drought, he said.

Climate change is worsening the heat

The El Nino that recently formed is too young to have a pronounced impact on this heat wave, but climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas clearly does, the three meteorologists said.

“We know that heat waves are becoming more intense, they’re lasting longer, they’re covering larger areas than they used to because of human-caused climate change,” Swain said. “And so when we see an event like this, we know there is at least a partial contribution by the long-term warming trend.”

Climate Central uses 20 different computer models to compare what's forecast to what would be expected in a world without greenhouse gas-caused warming as part of its Climate Shift Index. A 20,000-square-mile (52,000-square-kilometer) swath of the country from Southern California to northern Minnesota where 24 million people live this weekend will have warmth reaching the highest level on that index, meaning the heat is at least five times more likely because of climate change. Their analysis produced similar readings for the East Coast heat wave over the July 4 weekend and the recent Southeast heat wave.

“Using attribution science we know that those temperatures would be virtually impossible without the influence of climate change,” Winkley said.

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

The White House on Friday confirmed the executive action against members of the Election Assistance Commission, which distributes federal grants to states, oversees the testing of voting systems and maintains the national voter registration form.

Though the move likely won't have major effects on the November midterms, it's the latest instance of the Republican president trying to exert White House influence over how U.S. elections are conducted, and it's the first test of his newly expanded presidential power after the Supreme Court ruled recently that the president can fire members of independent agency boards without cause.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so,” said a White House statement to AP.

The president removed the four-seat commission's two Democratic members, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. The panel's Republican member, Christy McCormick resigned. Former Republican commissioner Donald Palmer already had left his post voluntarily earlier this year. The changes were first reported by VoteBeat, a news outlet that covers elections and voting across the U.S,

Trump has repeatedly tried to reshape voting regulations, even though the U.S. Constitution grants control of elections to the states and not the president. Citing that separation of powers, courtshaveblocked most of Trump's two executive orders that sought to reshape voting. Trump has also launched an investigation of his 2020 loss, which he continues to falsely insist was due to fraud, and this week his administration threatened states if they did not try to purge what federal officials believe are noncitizens from their voter rolls.

Still, Trump has largely been powerless to change election processes through executive fiat and David Becker, a former Department of Justice attorney who runs the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said his purge of the EAC wouldn't alter that.

“This doesn't really change anything about how our elections will be run, and how states are successfully ensuring secure, convenient, safe elections,” Becker wrote on the social media site BlueSky Friday morning.

Critics accuse Trump of damaging voters' trust

On Capitol Hill, the leading Democrats with election oversight responsibility said Trump, rather than bolstering U.S. election integrity, is further politicizing the voting process.

“President Trump is trying to dismantle yet another independent guardrail of our democracy designed to keep elections fair and secure,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-New York. “Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference.”

Padilla is the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, and Morelle is ranking member of the House Administration Committee.

The lawmakers noted that the Supreme Court's conservative majority enabled Trump's move with its decision to “upend decades of executive power to appease the President.”

Staff at the Election Assistance Commission did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on the agency's operations moving forward.

While the White House statement did not offer a specific reason for Trump's action, the commission has previously declined to change the national voter registration form to require documentation of an applicant's U.S. citizenship, as Trump's urged in a sweeping March 2025 executive order on U.S. elections. Though the form itself does not require citizenship documents, voter registration materials from the agency do state clearly that it already is illegal to falsely claim U.S. citizenship to vote.

A federal judge blocked the order, ruling it exceeded the president's authority since the U.S. Constitution grants authority over elections management and oversight to Congress and the states. The administration has indicated it will appeal.

Trump hasn't said whether he'll pick new members

It was not clear whether Trump planned to nominate new members immediately or leave the positions vacant — a move that, months ahead of midterm elections, could prevent the agency from distributing new grants to state or local elections offices and perhaps complicate its role in overseeing testing and certification of voting systems around the country.

“The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections,” the White House said.

Congress created the commission as part of the Help America Vote Act, a bipartisan law signed by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002. The act requires the commission to include two Democrats and two Republicans, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Hicks and McCormick were appointed by President Barack Obama. Trump appointed Hovland during his first presidency.

According to VoteBeat, Hicks and Hovland were notified of their removal by an email signed by Morgan DeWitt Snow, the deputy director of presidential personnel in the Executive Office of the President.

More court fights are always possible

Hicks and Hovland could challenge their dismissals, but that ultimately could require the Supreme Court to revisit two decisions it just issued on the president's power over independent agencies.

The court ruled 6-3 last month in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter that Trump had wide executive authority to fire political appointees of independent executive agencies. Trump had fired Slaughter without cause despite a provision of federal law that required a reason and a nearly century-old Supreme Court precedent insulating independent agency heads from presidential whims.

The court's six conservatives said that the previous restrictions on presidential prerogatives violated the Constitution's separation of powers. The logic extends to other agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump also has fired board members.

In the separate case of Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, whom Trump had tried to fire, a 5-4 majority deviated from the Slaughter decision and ruled that the president could not fire central bank governors without cause. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the court's three liberals in the Cook case. They justified their exception to their Slaughter reasoning by citing the central bank's unique structure as congressionally chartered but independent, quasi-private institution whose “appearance of independence is key to the Federal Reserve’s design” and its role in setting monetary policy that shapes the U.S. and world economy.

Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

Greetings, friends. It’s Haley.

When Universal Epic Universe opened its doors, it immediately set a new standard for theme park experiences.

But there was one thing missing: a fitting finale to close out the night in style.

I was invited to experience the debut of Universal Celestial Goodnight.

Like Epic Universe itself, the show blends groundbreaking technology, stunning visuals, and immersive storytelling into an unforgettable experience.

The show runs approximately 10 minutes — shorter than the typical 20-minute nighttime spectacular — but manages to hold attention from start to finish.

Fireworks are woven throughout the entire show rather than saved for a single grand finale. The result is a consistent, powerful display that keeps energy levels high from the opening seconds to the closing burst.

Pretty much any spot in Celestial Park offers a solid view of the show, but the terraced seating near the Cosmos Fountain — facing the Helios Grand Hotel — delivers the full experience.

Check out some of the pics from Celestial Park on our PinIt page!

I attached the full video of Celestial Goodnight in this web story.

Leading up to the show, I spent a decent amount of time obsessing over the sunset due to the Saharan dust haze.

Epic nights and deals 🎟️

Beyond the debut of Celestial Goodnight, Universal Orlando is packing the rest of 2026 with reasons to visit.

Florida residents can snag an unlimited-days ticket, and a brand-new after-hours event at Epic Universe will definitely interest fans.

Click here for a breakdown of the new ticket options.

SeaWorld Orlando

Haunts and thrills return 👻

SeaWorld Orlando’s Halloween event is returning for its sixth year.

Taking over the park on select nights starting in September, Howl-O-Scream will have five haunted houses, six scare zones, five themed bars, two live shows — and a brand-new haunted house.

Right now, Tickets are on sale through the limited-time Sinister Sale.

As always, keep me in the loop through my email or reach out to me on X or Instagram.

See you next week!

- Haley

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump posted on social media.

Trump had 10 days until the Friday deadline to sign the bill, issue a veto, or allow the measure to take effect without his signature. He has chosen to let the measure become law without his express approval, undercutting his administration's claims that he considers it a priority to combat inflation.

Trump’s rejection of the bipartisan housing legislation exacerbates tensions with his own party in a midterm election year and cuts short their efforts to address a key voter concern about rising costs. His post comes more than a week after he canceled plans to sign the bipartisan legislation, announcing he was using it as leverage in his push for a strict voter ID bill.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to lower the cost of housing and spur more home construction. It’s the broadest federal effort in decades to address America’s housing affordability problems, as state and local regulations have made it difficult to build in many of the communities that are also sources of job growth and economic opportunity. White House economists estimated earlier this year a national shortage of 10 million homes and the bill could help to close a portion of that gap.

But Trump called the bill “a yawn” and “so unimportant” compared to legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters.

He surprised Republican lawmakers on June 24, when, shortly before a planned signing ceremony at the Capitol, he announced he would not approve the bill until lawmakers first passed the voting legislation.

That bill, the SAVE America Act, doesn’t have enough Republican support to pass.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after submitting the housing bill to the White House that he told Trump he should get the “fattest black marker you have, and sign your name really big on that.”

“I hope he does sign it,” Johnson told reporters at the time. “If he doesn’t, it’s still law. We’ll still celebrate it.”

He said he also understood Trump was trying to make a point that the elections bill is the top priority. “And I think he’s making it very effectively,” Johnson said.

Still, Trump’s decision not to sign the bill gave Democrats an opening to criticize him on the issue of affordability.

“His priorities couldn’t be clearer: higher cost for families and more power for himself,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on X.

The housing bill passed the Senate on an 85-5 vote and the House approved it with an 358-32 vote.

That legislation seeks to cut federal housing rules, slim-down environmental reviews, make it faster to build homes and limit the ability of corporations to buy single-family homes.

The bill does not address all of the causes of the country’s housing woes, including a shortage of construction workers, climbing insurance costs and wages that have not risen fast enough for renters and buyers.

But the bill has drawn support from the real estate industry and housing advocates.

The U.S. housing market has been a driver of recent affordability challenges as skyrocketing prices have kept aspiring buyers out of the market. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that the median sales price increased 1.8% in June from a year earlier to $440,600, an all-time high on data going back to 1999.

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Associated Press reporter Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

Leading this year’s lineup is an all-new haunted house, “Everything Must Stay.” The attraction follows a suburban home that has sat unsold for six years, where every open house ends the same way — with terrified buyers fleeing from unexplained forces.

Tickets are on sale now through the limited-time Sinister Sale, with prices starting at $34.99 — a savings of up to 70%. Annual Pass Members can save up to 75%, with tickets starting at $29.99.

Guests can also ride SeaWorld Orlando favorites Mako, Ice Breaker, Pipeline: The Surf Coaster and Expedition Odyssey: Fire & Ice under the cover of darkness during the event.

Additional haunted houses, scare zones and entertainment will be revealed in the coming weeks.

For tickets and more information, click here.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research points to how Jewish adults’ attitudes toward their own personal safety have changed over a relatively short period as more Americans became critical of the United States' close alliance with Israel. The war in Gaza sparked U.S. protests over Israel’s military actions against the Palestinians in Gaza, and coincided with an increase in violent attacks against U.S. Jewish communities.

The findings highlight the vulnerability that many Jewish adults in the U.S. feel as bipartisan support for Israel erodes and significant divides emerge within the Jewish community about what constitutes antisemitism — particularly when it comes to protesting Israel.

A significant share of Jewish adults, about 3 in 10, say they or someone in their household has experienced physical assault, verbal abuse, online harassment or damaged property because of their Jewish background over the last year, according to the survey.

Hal Guberman, a 30-year-old in New Jersey, wears a kippah with some trepidation ever since a stranger in a passing car yelled a slur at him when he was walking down the street last year.

“That person, they don’t know anything about me. They don’t know my politics. They don’t know my beliefs. They don’t know my viewpoints,” Guberman said. “But they saw me being visibly Jewish, and they made an opinion about me.”

Jewish adults see prejudice against Jews as a serious problem, and many feel unsafe

About 6 in 10 Jewish adults say that prejudice against Jewish people is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in the United States today, a view that is heightened among Jewish adults who say they are “extremely” or “very” emotionally attached to Israel.

About one-third of Jewish adults say they feel “very” or “somewhat” safe as a Jewish person in the U.S. today, while about one-third feel “very” or “somewhat” unsafe. The remaining roughly 3 in 10 say they feel neither safe nor unsafe. Those with a close connection to Israel or who identify as Jewish by religion — instead of saying they are religiously unaffiliated with a cultural, ethnic or family connection to Judaism — are more likely to feel threatened in the current environment.

About 6 in 10 Jewish adults say they feel “less safe” as a Jewish person in the U.S. than they did before Hamas' 2023 attack, including about 7 in 10 of those who are religiously Jewish. About one-third of Jewish adults say they feel “about as safe” and very few feel safer.

Erin Baskin, a 36-year-old in Pennsylvania, said the Oct. 7 attacks didn't change how safe she feels because she had her own experiences with prejudice before then.

“I’ve always grown up with antisemitism,” she said. “Among the rural community I’m in, they conflate Judaism with Zionism all the time. Unfortunately, that’s kind of been my experience. It’s nothing new.”

Some Jewish adults have grown wary of outwardly identifying themselves as Jewish following the Oct. 7 attacks, the survey found.

About 4 in 10 Jewish adults say they are “less likely” to wear, carry or display things that might identify them as a Jewish person than they were before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. About half say they are “about as likely” and about 1 in 10 say they are “more likely.”

Caitlin Rosendorn, a 24-year-old in Illinois, said they used to wear a Star of David necklace, but now worries that wearing it could give people the incorrect impression that they support Israel's attacks against the Palestinian people.

“I don't want to wear a Star of David to work if that's going to alienate somebody who sees the Star of David as a symbol of Israel as opposed to a symbol of Judaism,” Rosendorn said. “I don't want people to get the wrong idea about my views.”

Many Jews report physical assault, property damage or harassment

About 1 in 10 Jewish adults say that in the past year, they or someone in their household has been physically assaulted. A similar share had property damaged or destroyed specifically because of their Jewish background.

About 2 in 10 Jewish adults say they or someone in their household has been called a slur, threatened, verbally harassed or verbally abused. Similarly, about 2 in 10 say they experienced online harassment or cyberbullying. Overall, about 3 in 10 of Jewish adults say that they or someone in their household has experienced at least one of these incidents because of their Jewish background.

Jewish adults who attend religious services at least once a month are much likelier than Jewish adults overall to say they or someone in their household has experienced attacks or harassment over their Jewish background — a finding that comes as there have been several targeted attacks on Jewish religious spaces in recent years.

Slightly less than half of Jewish adults who frequently attend religious services say they or someone in their household has faced verbal harassment. A similar share experienced online harassment, and about one-quarter have dealt with physical attacks or property damage.

Jon Kessler, 38, of California, who grew up in the Conservative tradition of Judaism, believes non-Jews might be surprised at the extent to which Jewish adults have to consider security at community events.

“Most people when they go to church don’t have armed security, but every synagogue has an armed security guard," Kessler said. "My son’s Jewish daycare has an armed security guard.”

Jews are divided over whether protesting Israel is a form of antisemitism

Protests surrounding speakers tied to Israel — whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanahyu’s address to Congress or college speakers seen as either too supportive or too critical of the country — became more common following the backlash over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Jewish adults, in particular, are divided over whether protesting an event related to Israel is an act of prejudice against Jewish people generally. About half of Jewish adults say anti-Israel protests are not a form of antisemitism, but roughly 4 in 10 say they are.

Many anti-Israel protests have been tied to criticism of Israel’s military action in Gaza. More than 73,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since Israel retaliated against Hamas’ attack in 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilian and militant deaths.

About two-thirds of Jewish adults say criticizing Israel for its military actions is not a form of antisemitism, but Jewish adults with a close emotional connection to Israel are more likely to say that criticism of Israel’s military actions is antisemitic. That said, relatively few Jewish adults say it’s antisemitic just to criticize Israel for “any reason.”

Americans overall are less likely to say it’s antisemitic to protest an event that is supportive of Israel, or to criticize Israel’s military actions — but they are also much less likely to have an opinion.

Jewish adults are more unified in deeming some actions as definitively antisemitic. The overwhelming majority say vandalizing synagogues or Jewish-owned businesses because of Israel’s actions is antisemitism. The same goes for denying the reality or scope of the Holocaust, putting responsibility for Israel’s actions on Jewish people in the United States, saying Israel shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state or claiming American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the U.S.

There is less consensus among non-Jewish U.S. adults on whether some of these actions constitute antisemitism, with many saying they’re not sure.

Amanda Goldsmith, 53, who lives in Chicago, believes people have become too comfortable expressing antisemitic views online — something that she previously thought only existed in extremist spaces.

“Now, it seems like there was an undercurrent, and it’s a free-for-all, and everyone is free to say what they want,” she said. “The freedom with which people say horrible things about Jewish people is appalling.”

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This story has been corrected to show that Caitlin Rosendorn uses they/them pronouns.

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Associated Press writers Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis and Peter Smith in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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The AP-NORC poll of 3,040 adults was conducted June 11-17 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll included interviews with 1,022 Jewish adults. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points and the margin of sampling error for Jewish adults is plus or minus 5.0 percentage points.

The unconventional gift from the host of this week's NATO summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was meant to showcase his country's growing defense industry.

But it left officials across the alliance scratching their heads. Some were forced to leave their gifts behind due to gun laws in their countries, while others donated theirs to museums.

“It struck me that ⁠my gift of maple syrup kind of undermatched,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters, adding that the firearm was now in police possession. “I would like to reassure Canadians, they keep guns away from me.”

The revolvers were engraved with leaders' names

“An unusual gift from President @RTErdogan at the NATO Summit: a Magnum revolver with ammunition, engraved with my name,” Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar said on X, posting a photograph of a display box containing the revolver and six cartridges.

It was not immediately clear what he did with the gift.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union commission president, thanked Erdogan for the gift, which will be decommissioned and donated to a military museum, her spokesperson said.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters that the gift bag included a note waiving export controls. Still, he left his behind to be decommissioned, because it would be illegal to import it into Britain.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever handed his revolver to airport police upon arrival. The revolvers gifted to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten were left at their countries’ embassies in Ankara and would also be taken out of service, officials said.

“My first reaction was, this is something a bit different to the box of syrup waffles that we gave out at the NATO summit in The Hague,” Jetten said Friday. “I think the Turkish president wanted to underscore what we saw during the NATO summit, namely that the Turkish defense industry is among the best in the world.”

Croatian President Zoran Milanović said he only found out after his return from the summit that Erdogan had given him a gun. His office said it would probably be handed over to a police museum.

“I didn’t take it. I shoot from different weapons,” Milanovic said, referring to his political style.

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about Erdogan's gifts.

On a visit to New Zealand last year, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed.

The gift was aimed at highlighting Turkey's growing defense prowess

Erdogan's office has not commented on the gift. Turkish media reports identified the revolvers as the Gumusay .357 Magnum, a vintage six‑shot revolver produced by the Turkish state arms manufacturer, MKE.

Reports said the gun aimed to highlight Turkey's defense industry, which in recent decades has transformed from a major importer into an increasingly self‑reliant producer of advanced military systems, including drones and warships. It is in the process of developing its own next‑generation fighter jet.

Gun culture is deeply rooted in Turkey, and the gift hardly triggered any reaction in the country. Umut Vakfi, a foundation campaigning for gun control, says incidents of armed violence have reached alarming levels, reporting more than 2,700 last year in the country of 86 million people.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said participants at the summit were also given a more conventional gift: a copy of Erdogan's biography, titled: “The politics of courage: Erdogan and the rise of Türkiye.”

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Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Stefania Dazio in Berlin, Mike Corder in The Hague, Sylvain Plazy in Brussels and Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed.

The 71-year-old Jesus has coached several Portuguese clubs, including Benfica and Sporting Lisbon. His last job was with Al-Nassr in the Saudi Arabian league, where he coached Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo.

The experienced Portuguese coach will replace Spaniard Roberto Martinez after Portugal lost 1-0 to Spain in the round-of-16 of the World Cup.

The Portuguese national team wrote on X on Friday that “A new journey begins today. Welcome to the National Team, Mister Jorge Jesus.”

The hiring of Jesus as coach came two days after the Portuguese federation said it was parting ways with Martínez.

Portugal's underwhelming run at the World Cup sparked a debate among fans and media regarding the role of the 41-year-old Ronaldo. Many questioned Martínez still playing him major minutes at striker and focusing the team's attack on trying to find the aging scorer.

Ronaldo, the leading scorer for men’s international soccer with 146 goals, said that this was his final World Cup. But the global star has yet to say when he plans to retire from international play. He will be 43 by the time the 2028 European Championship, the next major tournament, rolls around.

Jesus, who called Ronaldo a “symbol” of Portuguese sports on Friday, said that he still needs to talk with him about his future.

“That’s a conversation we’re both going to have. What does he want to do for the future of his career?” Jesus told reporters at his presentation that was held shortly after the announcement of his hiring.

Ronaldo is under contract with his Saudi club through 2027.

Whether Ronaldo continues to play for his nation, Jesus inherits a talent-packed team, especially at midfield with Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha and João Neves.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Authorities said Marquavious Wheaton sped away from a traffic stop, setting off a 35-minute aerial surveillance operation that ended when he slammed into an SUV on U.S. 17-92 at Sunnytown Road.

Why deputies didn’t chase

Despite Wheaton’s reckless driving, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office says deputies intentionally did not pursue him on the ground.

Instead, a sheriff’s helicopter tracked his movements from above while multiple law enforcement agencies coordinated from the ground.

News 6 Traffic Safety Expert Trooper Steve Montiero said avoiding a traditional pursuit reduced the danger to the public.

“There’s no law enforcement behind him. They’ve chosen not to pursue because having that helicopter is the safest way possible,” Steve explained, pointing 

To some of the other factors that play in the decision-making process not to chase a suspect in a patrol vehicle.

• Public Risk vs. Reward: Researchers shows a significant percentage of pursuits end in collisions, with some resulting in fatalities. If a suspect flees for a minor traffic violation, or a drug-related concern, agencies determine that a high-speed chase through a crowded area poses a greater threat to public safety than the suspect remaining at large temporarily. 
• Environmental and Traffic Conditions: Officers and supervisors, as noted in the helicopter video, continually evaluate conditions. Chases are often called off in heavy traffic, school zones, severe weather, or densely populated areas to prevent catastrophic accidents. 
• Alternative Apprehension Methods: Police are shifting away from direct, high-speed chases, while shifting toward safer alternatives like surveillance tech.  Officers gather license plate numbers, vehicle descriptions, and suspect identities to arrest the individual later, often using spike strips or air support to safely intercept. 
• Legal and Liability Concerns: Law enforcement agencies face massive civil liabilities and lawsuits if a fleeing suspect crashes into a third party. To avoid tragic outcomes and legal complications, departments mandate officers disengage. 
• Officer Discretion: Supervisors actively monitor the situation and have the authority to terminate pursuits immediately if the risks become unacceptable. 

Video shows dangerous driving

The helicopter footage captures Wheaton repeatedly putting other drivers at risk.

According to Trooper Steve, the video shows Wheaton:

• Running multiple red lights.
• Driving more than 100 mph.
• Weaving through traffic.
• Jumping medians.
• Driving into oncoming lanes.
• Sideswiping another vehicle.

At times, Wheaton even slowed down and stopped behind traffic as if nothing was happening.

Trooper Steve believes Wheaton may not have realized the helicopter was directly overhead and was attempting to blend in with surrounding traffic.

Agencies worked together in real time

As the helicopter followed Wheaton, dispatchers and multiple law enforcement agencies coordinated ahead of his route, using their knowledge of local roads to anticipate where he would go next.

That communication allowed officers to prepare without engaging in a dangerous high-speed chase.

Deadly impact

The pursuit ended on U.S. 17-92 near Sunnytown Road, where investigators say Wheaton crashed into an SUV carrying two brothers, killing both.

Trooper Steve said under normal circumstances, a driver making a left turn must yield to oncoming traffic.

However, he says Wheaton’s extremely high speed likely created a false sense of safety for the victims.

“They had a false sense of clearance and couldn’t see him,” Trooper Steve explained.

Investigation continues

The deadly crash remains under investigation as authorities continue reviewing the events that led to the collision. Officials have emphasized that the decision to rely on aerial surveillance rather than a ground pursuit was made to minimize the risk to the public, even as Wheaton continued driving recklessly across Seminole County.

A GoFundMe was created for the family of one of the crash victims, Christopher Marier, to help cover the cost of funeral and living expenses.

"Effective immediately, the suspension of all involved South Carolina pilots has been lifted," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote Friday morning on social media. “Carry on Patriots.”

The suspension followed "Salute from the Shore," a July 4 tradition honoring servicemembers in South Carolina since 2010 that features vintage and modern military aircraft flying along the 187-mile length of the state’s shoreline, with the intent of sparking patriotism among thousands of beachgoers gathered for the holiday.

This year’s salute included F-16s with the South Carolina Air National Guard’s 169th Fighter Wing out of McEntire Joint Base, as well as a C-17 from the 437th Airlift Wing based at Joint Base Charleston. For the first time, Apache helicopters joined the air parade, which also featured civilian-owned vintage planes like T-34s and T-6s.

Numerous attendees often post video on social media of the display, but this year, online images of the Apaches flying at what appeared to be a low height over crowded beaches sparked concern with the South Carolina National Guard, which launched a review of the event and temporarily suspended the eight pilots from flying duties while that was ongoing, later clarifying the suspension was “a routine, non-punitive safety measure, not a disciplinary action.”

Late Thursday night, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth noted on social media that the Pentagon was getting involved, writing, “We’ll fix this. Carry on, Patriots.”

The message was similar to one issued by Hegseth in March, after the lifting of a suspension for a pair of Army pilots who hovered two AH-64 Apache helicopters near Kid Rock’s Tennessee home during a training run while he clapped and saluted.

“No punishment. No Investigation. Carry on, patriots,” Hegseth said then in a social media post, less than three hours after the Army announced its review. Kid Rock, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, said he thought it was “really cool” that the pilots stopped to hover at his house.

South Carolina Republicans rebuked the suspension of its Guard pilots. Rep. Russell Fry, who represents the Myrtle Beach area, said Thursday that the pilots "should be celebrated, not sanctioned.”

Ahead of Parnell's post noting the suspension had been lifted, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster — who serves as commander-in-chief of the state's National Guard — said he trusted the pilots' acumen, writing in a social media post that Guardsmen fly in wartime.

“Surely, they know how to safely navigate the coast of South Carolina — and her scores of cheering residents and tourists on our 250th anniversary," McMaster wrote.

McMaster's office said Friday the governor was pleased the suspension had been lifted. Asked whether the governor — a longtime Trump ally — had directly intervened, a spokesperson said the office “remains in regular communication with state and federal partners as part of its routine operations.”

The Pentagon declined to comment beyond Parnell's statement. Maj. Lisa Allen of the South Carolina National Guard confirmed in an email Friday that the suspension had been lifted but did not respond to a question over whether the Guard were still conducting an internal review.

___

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

It also highlighted the complex engineering behind adaptive reuse projects, which have become increasingly popular as officials try to tackle a nationwide housing shortage by transforming offices that have sat underused since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plans call for turning two office buildings — one built in 1909, the other in the 1960s — into about 1,600 apartments by adding more than a dozen stories atop the older structure and redesigning and expanding the other. The buckling occurred on the 21st floor of the newer structure, and crews have installed temporary supports as officials investigate.

Engineering experts said the conversion project is complex and poses many challenges, which include making sure older buildings can safely support new loads and carving up office floors to accommodate residential living.

But none said the high-profile setback should make people doubt the ability of engineers to complete such projects.

“I don’t think it really brings into question our understanding of how to do something like this,” said Ben Schafer, a structural engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University.

How do you build a new tower on top of an old one?

On its website highlighting the midtown project, adaptive reuse firm Collaborative Construction Management says the nine-story building from 1909 will be “threaded through” with a new addition of about 30 stories of poured concrete.

Schafer, who is not involved with the undertaking, said the likely approach is to have the century-old building continue to carry its own weight while building a new structural system to support additions.

“My interpretation would be that they’re going to leave that building carrying its own load, and they’re just going to poke holes in it so that they can take the load from the building that they’ve put above it and bring it all the way down to the foundation,” Schafer said.

Schafer said construction on the other tower presents a different challenge: punching holes in the existing floor plate to bring light into apartments, while also ensuring that the steel frame can support the newly added loads.

City officials have not determined what caused the columns to buckle. But both Schafer and Emily Guglielmo, a San Francisco-based structural engineer, believe the failure likely resulted from the added load.

Spokespersons for MetroLoft, the project developer, didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday. But Nathan Berman, the firm’s founder, acknowledged in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the added weight from widening the top 15 or so floors of the building likely caused the damage.

Guglielmo thinks that either the original design assumptions were misunderstood, something went wrong during the design or construction process, or construction crews overloaded or weakened the structure.

Adding stories to existing buildings is common in dense urban areas where land is scarce, she said, but it requires reviewing original construction documents and inspecting the building before determining how additional floors will affect the structure.

“In cities and towns that don’t have that available geography, you’re going to see a lot more of this type of a design where there’s an adaptive reuse to an existing building,” Guglielmo said.

Why not just create a new building from scratch?

To many structural engineers, demolition should occur only as a last resort.

“Tearing buildings down is a terrible waste,” Schafer said, pointing out that buildings and the construction sector are responsible for about 40% of the world’s energy-related carbon emissions. “From a sustainability standpoint, that’s a disaster.”

Beyond the environmental costs, demolishing and hauling away the remnants of huge buildings is especially expensive in dense cities such as New York.

If an existing structure can safely be reused, engineers generally prefer that.

James LaFave, a structural engineering professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said a steel-framed building from the 1960s, like the former Pfizer structure, would typically be a “very good” starting point for a conversion.

Does the scare in New York call into question other adaptive reuse projects?

In recent years, officials across the country have embraced office-to-housing conversions as a potential lifeline for downtown business districts that have struggled since the pandemic.

New York, especially, has embraced this push, as officials have made zoning changes and enacted tax incentives to spur housing production. A report from the New York City comptroller's office last year noted there are 44 adaptive reuse projects in the city that, as of early 2025, had either been completed, were underway or could move forward.

Pfizer moved out of the building in 2023 after opening a new office near Penn Station, leaving the property vacant. Construction on the property began in 2024.

Joshua Harris, director of Fordham University’s Real Estate Institute, said office-to-residential conversions are a key part of solving the housing shortages in New York and other cities, even if they come with risk.

“In a certain sense, it’s not terribly surprising that this happened, and we should have a little bit of grace,” he said. “These are very, very complicated surgical procedures being done to very old buildings.”

“This is part of the reality of fixing the housing crisis,” Harris continued. “Things like this can happen. It doesn’t look as complex as putting a rocket into space, but, in a real estate sense, construction in an environment like Manhattan on 42nd Street and Second Avenue is very complex.”

Guglielmo, the California engineer, said a combination of building codes, inspections and experienced construction crews makes failures like this rare.

“We’re very fortunate here in the United States that we are not seeing these types of failures on a day-to-day basis,” she said. “We’re privileged to have really robust building codes that explain to us as engineers how to do our designs in a way that’s safe.”

Still, Harris said it is likely a gut check for the industry, as office conversions transform once sleepy business districts across the city into 24/7 neighborhoods, like parts of Wall Street in recent years.

“If this building has a problem, all the other projects that have been sort of greenlit, they’re going to want to review to make sure that it’s not something similar,” Harris said.

___

Rico reported from Atlanta and Hill reported from Las Vegas.

Speaking Wednesday alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Trump said the United States would allow Ukraine to make the U.S.-designed systems that Kyiv has long sought to shield its cities and infrastructure from Russian missiles and drones.

“We’ll give them the right to make Patriots. We’ll show them how to do it,” Trump said. “I think they can produce them pretty quickly.”

But the statement left open a crucial question: What exactly would Ukraine be allowed to produce?

“America has recognized Ukraine as a country that is ready to do this,” Zelenskyy told reporters Thursday, adding that Ukrainian and U.S. diplomats and defense officials must now work “without pauses” to finalize the licensing arrangements.

A license might not cover the complete Patriot system

Patriot interceptor missiles, which are fired to shoot down incoming missiles, drones and aircraft, are produced by U.S. defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, part of RTX.

A production license would not automatically allow Ukraine to manufacture complete Patriot batteries — including launchers, radar systems, command posts and missiles — from scratch. It could instead cover narrower parts of the system, such as interceptor missiles, final assembly from imported component kits or production of selected components.

Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, said a U.S. license would typically come with technical documentation, training for specialists, supplier contacts and foreign consultants to help launch manufacturing.

Other experts say the first step would likely be more limited than full domestic production.

Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, development director of the Fly Group Ukraine defense company, said Trump’s wording was ambiguous because he referred broadly to producing “Patriots,” without specifying whether he meant missiles, launchers, radar systems, command centers or components.

Missile production alone involves a vast supply chain, Khrapchynskyi said, with hundreds of companies making parts such as control surfaces, engines, guidance systems and communications equipment.

The Trump administration has not offered details about the Ukraine license, but an administration official said the U.S. is significantly accelerating and expanding Patriot production to meet growing demand and is forming industrial partnerships with allies and partners globally to deliver Patriots. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Any additional Patriot systems would enter a war that has shown how quickly weapons production can expand when a country receives designs, technical support and access to components. Ukraine has become a leader in the manufacture of cheap, expendable drone systems. Russia has scaled up domestic production of Iranian-designed Shahed-type attack drones, known in Russia as Gerans, at a factory in Tatarstan.

But experts say Patriot interceptors are far more complex, requiring precision guidance, advanced radar technology, solid-fuel rocket motors, military-grade electronics and strict certification standards.

Full production could take years

Yehor Chernev, deputy chairman of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said the legal and bureaucratic process could be launched within months, but implementing production would take years.

Even if Ukraine received complete component kits from abroad, Chernev said, it would likely need at least 18 to 24 months to launch its first pilot production line, followed by more time to complete the first weapons.

The PAC-3 missile, designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles, is among the most sophisticated parts of the Patriot family. Producing a PAC-3 MSE missile in the United States takes about 24 months, and producing its solid-fuel rocket motor requires around 30 months, he said.

Chernev said some technology, especially the missile’s active radar seeker, is so sensitive that Washington would be unlikely to transfer full documentation for Ukraine to manufacture them from scratch. That means Ukraine might have to import some of the most complex components and focus first on assembly, integration or less sensitive parts of the supply chain.

Dr. Thomas Withington, an analyst specializing in electronic warfare, radar and military communications at the Royal United Services Institute, said expectations should be managed.

Ukraine’s existing defense industry could help, Withington said, but the country would still need time to set up facilities, train workers and secure the necessary supply chains.

“This is not going to be a fix for the air-defense threats Ukraine is going to face tomorrow.”

Other countries have produced Patriot systems

The United States has allowed Patriot-related production abroad before, and experts say those examples show that licensed production is possible but slow.

Japan has produced Patriot missiles under license for decades. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has assembled PAC-3 missiles under a licensed agreement with Lockheed Martin, and Japan later loosened its postwar arms export restrictions to allow the sale of U.S.-designed Patriot missiles back to the United States — a move that could indirectly help replenish stocks used to support Ukraine.

Germany offers a more recent example. Raytheon and MBDA Deutschland announced in 2022 a plan to produce Patriot GEM-T missiles in Germany. A major NATO procurement contract followed in 2024 for up to 1,000 missiles, and a new production facility in Schrobenhausen is expected to play a role in supplying Ukraine and replenishing European inventories.

But Ukraine would face an additional challenge that Japan and Germany did not: Russian strikes.

Khrapchynskyi said any facility helping Ukraine defend its airspace would become a priority target for Moscow. Production would have to be placed in protected locations, potentially underground or inside shelters, he said.

That makes the license more of a long-term strategic step than an immediate battlefield solution. If implemented, it could help Ukraine become a future producer of air-defense weapons and reduce dependence on allies whose own stockpiles are under strain.

“It would not solve the current missile shortage in 2026,” he said, “but it would lay the foundation for Ukraine to become one of Europe’s leading producers of air-defense systems in the future.”

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Associated Press journalists Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine; Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo; Stefanie Dazio in Berlin; and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

Police say 26-year-old Marquaious Wheaton is the man who fled a traffic stop, causing the crash that killed two people.

Police have identified the victims as 42-year-old Christopher Marier, and 40-year-old Tyler Marier.

Footage from the scene on U.S. 17-92 near Sunnytown Road, just north of State Road 436, showed a car that had run into a pole and looked to be completely destroyed.

A second car could also be seen, flipped over on its roof. Multiple fire engines and an ambulance responded.

All lanes on U.S. 17-92 south were blocked at Triplet Lake Drive.

The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office says this all began in Sanford when deputies attempted to stop a vehicle on 25th Street near State Road 417 whose driver was suspected of trafficking fentanyl. The suspect, now identified as Wheaton, fled the area.

“Sheriff’s deputies did not pursue the vehicle out of concern for public safety and to reduce the risk of harm to innocent motorists and other potential victims. Instead, they allowed the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office Aviation Unit to maintain continuous aerial surveillance from a safe distance,” according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office says the suspect was seen speeding down U.S. 17-92, at times going at least 100 mph, before entering Casselberry.

Deputies say the suspect’s vehicle crashed into another vehicle near Sunnytown Lane just after noon, killing Christopher Marier and Tyler Marier.

A GoFundMe was created for the family of Christopher Marier to help cover the cost of funeral and living expenses.

Christopher Marier was an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at UCF. The school issued the following statement:

“We extend our deepest condolences to Dr. Marier’s family, friends, students, colleagues, and all who knew him. Although his time at UCF was brief, Dr. Marier quickly became a valued member of our community. Through his teaching, scholarship, and mentorship, he inspired students and made meaningful contributions to the Department of Criminal Justice. We are grateful for the impact he made on our students and our community, and our thoughts are with those grieving his loss.”

You are also welcome to use this statement from Dr. Gene Paoline, professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice.

“Our department is deeply saddened by this tragic and senseless loss, and our hearts are with Chris’ loved ones. He was a bright, accomplished, and thoughtful scholar who cared deeply about his students and colleagues. We are grateful for the time we had with him and the lasting impact he made on our department.”

UCF spokesperson

One minute you’re enjoying summer, and the next you’re staring at a long supply list, wondering how to get it all done without draining your wallet or your time.

But it doesn’t have to be stressful. Erica Rodriguez Knight, a busy mom of two boys and former coupon pro, has learned a few tricks over the years to keep costs and chaos under control.

Here are a few of her favorite tips to make your back-to-school shopping a little smoother and a lot more affordable.

[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]

[VIDEO BELOW: Parents shop early to make most of budget]

Start at home

Before you head to the store, take inventory. You might be surprised at what you already have.

“Oh, look, jackpot!” Rodriguez Knight said, finding unused folders from previous school years. Dig through drawers, bins, and closets for gently used or even brand-new supplies left over from last year. No need to buy what you already own.

Load up your online carts early

Many retailers track what’s in your cart, and they want you to finish that order. That means you might get alerts when prices drop or even be offered discounts to complete your purchase.

Bonus tip: Some store apps already have local school supply lists loaded in, so you can compare prices across sites like Amazon, Target, and office supply chains without jumping between tabs.

What we found: Target’s back-to-school sale prices closely matched Walmart’s everyday low prices. Surprisingly, some dollar stores had higher prices, since they don’t offer seasonal back-to-school discounts.

Buy in bulk

See a great deal on crayons or glue sticks? Grab a few extras.

Buying in bulk can save money, especially if you split the cost with other families.

Even better? Donate the extras to a local school supply drive.

“It’s a small way to help kids whose parents might be struggling to afford everything,” Rodriguez Knight said.

Wait for tax-free season

In Florida, school supplies are tax-free all August long, so make sure to use it to your advantage.

Many stores offer extra deals, knowing more people will be shopping tax-free.

Erica plans ahead by filling her cart early and checking out during the tax-free window, saving up to 7% on her total.

“That’s when I pull the trigger,” she laughs.

Stick to the list

It’s tempting to let your kid toss in glitter pens or a superhero pencil case, but those extras add up fast. Teachers create those supply lists for a reason, and sticking to them helps keep your budget in check.

With a little planning and a few smart strategies, back-to-school shopping doesn’t have to break the bank or your schedule.

• Most food date labels are about quality, not safety.
• Confusion over date labels contributes to billions of dollars in food waste each year.
• California just became the first state to standardize food date labels.

Stop me if this sounds familiar.

You’re back from a vacation and open your fridge to grab a glass of milk. You pause for a second because it’s been a while since you bought the carton. Just to make sure it’s still OK, you glance at the date on the label.

The date on the carton had passed five days earlier.

The milk smells fine. It looks OK. But five days old? You don’t want to take the chance and pour it down the drain. You may have just thrown away perfectly good milk, mostly because you didn’t completely understand what you were looking at.

And you’re not alone. Was it a “Use By” date or a “Sell By” date? Is there a difference?

The USDA estimates that about 30 to 40% of the U.S. food supply goes uneaten – as much as 20 pounds of food per person per month. What’s that worth? About $165 billion in food each year.

Confusion over date labels is considered one of the biggest contributors to consumers throwing away edible food.

Most shoppers talk about “expiration dates” as if every date means the same thing.

They don’t. In fact, most aren’t expiration dates at all.

Here’s the first thing to understand: most food date labels are about quality, not safety. Manufacturers use many of these dates to tell you when a product is expected to have its best flavor, texture or freshness. Consumers, however, often assume the date means the food has become dangerous.

Manufacturers care about quality. Consumers care about safety. Those are two very different things.

And can the average shopper really tell the difference?

The biggest misconception of food labels is that they tell you when your food has expired and is dangerous to consume. Generally – no. While some labels will tell you when food expires, most, believe it or not, don’t.

Before expiration dates, there was Budweiser

Believe it or not, one of the best-known early examples of freshness tracking didn’t come from a dairy company – it came from a brewery.

In the 1970s, Anheuser-Busch printed coded markings on the sides of its beer labels. On the left side of the label were six dashes (representing January through June) and on the right side, six more (July through December).

A notch on the upper half of a dash meant the beer was brewed during the first half of the month. A notch on the bottom half meant it had been brewed in the second half. The year was encoded too: a single notch represented an odd-numbered year, while a double notch represented an even-numbered year.

Most consumers had no idea those notches were there, but retailers knew exactly what they meant. The codes told retailers how fresh the beer was and when it should be pulled from the shelf.

A close friend of mine had this very job in the 1990s.

If he found beer that had exceeded the company’s freshness standards, he would replace it with a same-day delivery of fresh inventory. In some cases, if it was only a small amount that didn’t warrant a delivery truck restock, my friend would buy the beer on the spot, head to a kitchen or bathroom, and pour it down the sink.

All that wasted beer…

Consumers never saw those codes because they weren’t meant for consumers – they were meant for retailers. The system worked, but food freshness was communicated behind the scenes, using codes that only stores and manufacturers understood.

As supermarkets expanded and packaged foods became more common during the 1970s, manufacturers gradually began supplementing retailer-only codes with what the USDA calls “open dating” – calendar dates printed directly on packages for consumers to read.

Budweiser itself embraced that idea when it launched its 1996 “Born On Date” consumer campaign.

The idea was simple: give consumers more information. But the problem wasn’t the dates – it was that every manufacturer seemed to use different ways to label them.

Why are there so many different labels?

According to one research paper, there are roughly 50 different date-label phrases used to communicate freshness, quality, or recommended use. The source: Sielicka-Różyńska and Samotyja, “Confusion of food-date label with food safety,” 2022.

Sell by. Use by. Best before. Enjoy by. Freshest before. Pull date. Pack date. Freeze by. Guaranteed fresh date.

The list goes on and on because the United States has never adopted a single national standard for food date labels. Here are four of the most common:

• Best if Used By: Also known as a “Best By” label, this date generally indicates when the manufacturer believes the product will be at its best flavor, texture, or quality.
• Sell By: This date has more to do with retailers than with you, the consumer. Sell By dates help retailers know how long to display a product for sale. Depending on the retailer, products that reach or pass their Sell By date may be marked down, removed from shelves, donated if still wholesome, or discarded. Yes – the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service says it is OK to donate food after a Sell By date if it doesn’t show any signs of spoilage.
• Use By: This is the manufacturer’s recommended last date for using the product while it is still at peak quality. For most foods, federal law does not require an expiration date at all. The major exception is infant formula. The FDA requires a “Use By” date on infant formula because the nutrients must remain at the levels listed on the label.
• Freeze By: Tells you when to freeze a product if you don’t plan to use it before then. Freezing by this date helps preserve flavor and texture. Food frozen by this date can often be safely stored for much longer. And like “Best By,” it is a quality date, not an expiration date.

The one exception: Infant formula

By now, you’ve probably noticed one word keeps appearing throughout this story: most.

Most food date labels are about quality. Most aren’t expiration dates. Most foods can safely be consumed beyond the printed date if they’ve been properly stored and show no signs of spoilage.

Infant formula is the exception.

Unlike almost every other food sold in the United States, federal law requires infant formula to carry a “Use By” date. Why? It’s because the date isn’t just about taste or freshness. Federal law requires manufacturers to guarantee that infant formula contains the nutrient levels listed on the label through the “Use By” date.

In other words, if you’re looking for a true federally regulated food expiration date, infant formula is it. For everything else, understanding the label matters just as much as understanding the date.

California has chosen clarity over confusion

If all of this sounds confusing, California lawmakers thought so, too. In an effort to reduce consumer confusion and food waste, beginning July 1, 2026, California became the first state in the nation to standardize consumer-facing food date labels.

Assembly Bill 660 (AB 660) was introduced in 2023 by Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D–Thousand Oaks). The measure was approved by both chambers of the California Legislature in 2024, and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law on September 28, 2024.

California lawmakers concluded consumers didn’t need dozens of different date labels to answer a simple question: “Is this food past its best quality, or is it no longer safe to eat?” Instead of trying to standardize dozens of phrases, lawmakers reduced them to two simple categories: one for quality and one for safety.

So, under California’s new law, most consumer-facing food date labels now fall into two simple categories:

• Best if Used By: A quality date. The food is expected to have its best flavor and texture before this date.
• Use By: A safety date. This label is intended for foods that should not be consumed after the date has passed.

One important point: California’s new law doesn’t require manufacturers to place date labels on food. Instead, it simply standardizes the language if manufacturers choose to use date labels. The goal isn’t to tell people to ignore food labels – it’s to make those labels easier to understand.

California’s law only applies within the state, but because California is one of the nation’s largest consumer markets, manufacturers may decide it’s easier to use the same simplified labels nationwide rather than produce different packaging for different states.

New York state lawmakers recently approved a similar law that is awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature. And legislation addressing food labeling also has been proposed in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and South Carolina.

California has already started a national conversation about whether food labels should be easier to understand. If more companies adopt California’s simplified system, shoppers across the country may eventually see fewer confusing labels – and throw away less perfectly good food.

So the next time you open your refrigerator, don’t just look at the date.

Read the label.

More often than not, it’s telling you about quality – not whether the food is suddenly unsafe to eat. That small distinction could save you money, reduce food waste and keep perfectly good food out of the trash.

And one more thing – you can download a free infographic we’ve created to help you keep track of different kinds of food date labels.

Once downloaded, print it out and keep it near your refrigerator.

Dollars & Sense Decoding Expiration Dates by Christie Zizo

The first stage of a Long March-10B rocket separated from the second stage after liftoff and returned to a platform in the sea, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

It was the first time China recovered the first stage of a rocket. America's SpaceX has been doing so for several years to drive down launch costs by reusing the booster that helps lift the satellites or whatever the rocket is carrying into space.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been recovering their rockets since 2015, saving vast amounts of money by recycling them rather than ditching them after liftoff. SpaceX leads the pack with more than 600 landings of its first-stage Falcon boosters, steering them to ocean barges as well as landing zones near the launch pads. Just this week, SpaceX launched a booster for the 36th time, a new record.

For SpaceX’s bigger and more powerful Starships making test flights out of Texas and soon to expand to Florida, the company is working to capture the returning rockets with giant mechanical arms at the launch pad.

Blue Origin started out by landing its New Shepard boosters in Texas following short flights to the edge of space, and has since recovered its bigger New Glenn boosters on a floating platform off the Florida coast.

Now that China has joined the rocket recycling boom, Japan is up next with a launch and landing attempt this weekend.

The Long March rocket was launched from China's Hainan Island, a popular beach destination off the country's southern coast.

The rocket's reusable configuration can launch a payload of up to 16,000 kilograms (35,275 pounds) into what is called low Earth orbit, Xinhua said.

The maximum payload of the SpaceX Falcon 9 is 22,800 kilograms (50,265 pounds), according to the SpaceX website. The Falcon rockets transport astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.

For her, this World Cup couldn't make more sense.

Hallam is among a sizable number of English-speaking people in the U.S. who are doing something these days that might be considered a bit surprising: They're watching broadcasts of World Cup matches in Spanish on Telemundo, even though they have little idea — or in some cases, no idea — what the announcers are saying.

“I can’t really understand everything they’re saying on Telemundo because they’re speaking in Spanish,” Hallam said. “But you understand what’s going on.”

The math is simple. Census figures show that about 20% of the U.S. is Hispanic, yet Telemundo points to Nielsen ratings to show that roughly half the World Cup viewers in the U.S. have watched at least some portion of some matches in Spanish. Every match of the tournament has been available for U.S. viewers in English on Fox or FS1, on Telemundo or Universo in Spanish, and there are streaming options such as Fox One or Peacock.

Among the reasons commonly cited by viewers who spoke with The Associated Press in recent days: A fascination with famed broadcaster Andrés Cantor's “¡goooooool!” call. Telemundo doesn't cut away for commercials (as Fox does) during the much-maligned hydration breaks. The broadcasts, some simply find, are more entertaining. And in other cases, it's a cost-based decision: Peacock, which includes Telemundo, is lower-priced than Fox One.

Soccer as a global language, transcending a limited vocabulary

Jackson Braunius is a Michigan native who watched a U.S. game last week from a bar seat at a steakhouse in Miami Lakes, Florida. He said he speaks almost no Spanish — “I know ‘cerveza,’” he said, tapping his beer glass — but didn't mind watching on Telemundo whatsoever.

“I figured out the science here,” Braunius said. “When they’re not talking too loud, nothing is happening. When they get loud, there’s a chance. When they get real loud, it’s probably going to be a goal.”

Comedian Trevor Noah has been hosting World Cup watch parties on YouTube. He's made the switch to Spanish-language feeds, and the hydration break issue was a huge part of that decision.

“We’re seeing the players on the pitch discussing what’s happening. You see which coach is more stressed. Some players are tapping each other on the back. This is part of the game,” Noah said on one of his YouTube streams. “I feel like when you cut to ads, you lose this — you lose the stress, you lose the joy, the anticipation. So, shout out again, Telemundo: Really, really amazing coverage.”

Telemundo is hearing the praise, and has thanked English-speakers — as well as Noah directly — for lauding its coverage.

The good news for everyone is this: There seems to be more than enough viewers to go around right now. And the success of this tournament could lead to a bidding war for the 2030 World Cup, with some reporting the rights for English-speaking and Spanish-speaking television will be packaged together in that deal. That wasn't the case for this World Cup.

Fox Sports said that Monday night's Belgium-U.S. match saw a peak viewership total of around 41 million at one point, making it the “most-watched soccer telecast in U.S. history,” the network said. In other words, the final U.S. game in this World Cup had more viewers than anything in this country since the Super Bowl — with at least 45 million viewers, on average, between Fox (33 million) and Telemundo (an estimated 12 million). The most recent Super Bowl drew an average of about 125 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.

Anglophones become hooked on Telemundo

William Kennedy of Miami is married to a Colombian woman, whose native language is Spanish. He says he knows only enough Spanish to be able to order meals in restaurants. And yet, he finds himself often watching World Cup matches on Telemundo.

If Colombia was on, the Kennedy house was watching Telemundo. If Colombia — which was ousted in penalty kicks by Switzerland on Tuesday — isn't on, Kennedy finds himself usually making his way to Telemundo anyway.

“When the American commentators are doing the game, I don’t know what game they’re watching. I just don’t,” Kennedy said. “I’d rather get the excitement in Spanish because essentially what happens is they’re talking, and then they’re talking really, really fast, and then they’re getting loud and your brain is just like, ‘Oh, something’s happening — even if I don’t know what’s happening.’”

Hallam — who finds the World Cup has been a great way to bond further with her Spanish-speaking students — only became a big soccer fan a few years ago, when her daughter decided she wanted to play in a recreational league for elementary kids. The league needed coaches, so Hallam literally checked out a “coaching for dummies” book and began teaching herself the game.

She kept coaching her daughter all the way through high school. Now, she's hooked on soccer and hooked on Spanish-speaking broadcasts — and plans to keep watching, even when the World Cup ends.

“It’s just very comforting,” Hallam said. “We're really enjoyed it and I hope we get to continue. The next World Cup, we’re going to watch it just like this.”

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Lamy reported from Indianapolis.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

A judge denied bond to Marie Carenan and Ronald Pack on Thursday.

The state argued Carenan and Pack are a danger to the community — and that what investigators found inside their facilities was not simply an operation falling short of standards, but more like a prison.

Carenan and Pack are accused of operating nine unlicensed facilities in Polk and Osceola counties under the names “Cherish Home Care” and “Cherish Independent Living Care.”

The sheriff’s office says more than 300 calls for service came from these homes over several years.

Photos taken by the sheriff’s office show locks on windows, doors, refrigerators, and other cabinets used to store food for residents. Investigators say there was no lifesaving equipment on site and no licensed nurses available for bedridden residents.

The Department of Children and Families removed 38 residents from the facilities last month.

Both Carenan and Pack have pleaded not guilty. They are due back in court next month.

Eddy Noelsaint, 54, was found guilty this week of four counts of sexual battery against a member of his church. The assaults occurred in 2022 after the woman joined his congregation and was assigned a “spiritual godmother” — Noelsaint’s wife — as part of her baptism.

The victim told investigators that Noelsaint first raped her while she was staying at his home as part of her spiritual revival. She said he gave her pills, then forced himself on her while she was unable to fight back. Noelsaint raped her again several months later, she told investigators.

State Attorney Monique Worrell thanked the victim for her strength throughout the process following the verdict.

“This verdict represents justice for a survivor who showed tremendous courage in coming forward and trusting the criminal justice system,” said State Attorney Monique Worrell. “This conviction ensures that a sexual predator has been held accountable for his crimes.”

Noelsaint is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

The Wolfsburg, Germany-based company said group sales fell 8.6% in the second quarter to just under 2.1 million vehicles, with sales in China alone plummeted by more than one-third.

After a board meeting on Thursday, Volkswagen said its “fundamental realignment” over the last three years had reached its next phase, announcing plans to streamline the model lineup by up to half, without providing specifics.

CEO Oliver Blume laid out plans to make VW faster and more competitive through less complexity, focused technologies, better alignment across regional markets and reduction of overcapacities, among other things, citing an “increasingly demanding environment.”

Among its main brands, the core Volkswagen unit saw deliveries of slightly over 1 million vehicles in the second quarter, a drop of 14% from a year earlier. Deliveries at Audi declined 8% and those at Porsche fell 18%.

Lamborghini, Skoda and the trucks unit reported upticks, and sales grew in the Americas and Europe.

Volkswagen cited dramatic change over the last year, including geopolitical tensions, rising costs mainly through tariffs, and increasing regulatory requirements alongside growing competition.

As recently as December, Volkswagen was betting big on China, where electric cars have been taking a greater market share and competition is stiff.

Research firm BernsteinSG, in a note after Thursday's announcement, expressed skepticism. “VW stated that it is extending its technology leadership, a claim that will likely raise eyebrows given the pace of innovation among its Chinese competitors,” it said.

Also Thursday, hundreds of employees led a protest outside the Volkswagen plant in Zwickau to demand protections for jobs and voice opposition to plans to close the site. The factory has fully switched to making electric cars.

The vote was 4-1, with Councilmember Jeff Boddiford casting the lone dissenting vote. The ordinance would need to pass a second reading at an upcoming public hearing this month in order to get the referendum in front of voters this fall.

What the amendment would do

The proposed change — Ordinance No. 1774 — would require four of the five city council members to approve any annexation of land within the Seminole County Rural Area into Oviedo’s city limits. Currently, a simple majority of three votes is sufficient.

The higher threshold would apply only to land within the rural boundary as it existed on July 4, 2026. Annexations of land in unincorporated urban areas adjacent to the city would still require only a simple majority.

“For the five people on the council, it would take four affirmative votes in order to annex land into the city of Oviedo that is behind the rural boundary,” said Councilmember Alan Ott, who championed the amendment.

Decades of rural protection

The Seminole County Rural Area has been a cornerstone of local land-use planning for more than three decades. In 1991, the Seminole County Board of County Commissioners adopted the Rural Boundary as part of the county’s Comprehensive Plan, creating the Rural Area in eastern Seminole County to preserve agricultural land, protect natural resources, and maintain low-density development.

In 2004, voters strengthened those protections by approving a Home Rule Charter Amendment that formally placed the Rural Area and Rural Boundary into the county charter — and established the Board of County Commissioners as the final decision-maker for any Future Land Use changes in the Rural Area, whether on unincorporated land or land inside a city.

Then in 2024, voters went further, approving two additional charter amendments requiring at least four of five county commissioners to vote in favor of removing property from the Rural Area or changing the use of county-designated Natural Lands.

David Bear, an advocate with Save Rural Seminole, said those votes reflect something rare in today’s political climate.

“80-20 issues don’t really exist in politics very much anymore,” Bear said. “But this was one. The Seminole County residents overwhelmingly said ‘yes’ — we want to put this extra protection on the county level for the rural boundary.”

The Oviedo amendment, Bear said, is the next logical step — extending that same kind of supermajority protection to the city level.

Bear described the rural boundary as the line that has kept eastern Seminole County from being paved over in the decades since it was established.

“The rural boundary has served as basically the bulwark stopping perpetual urban sprawl from going out east, past the Econlockhatchee River, all the way to the St. Johns River,” Bear said.

Why it matters to Oviedo

Ott noted that Oviedo’s geography puts it at the front line of any development pressure from the east. The city’s eastern boundary runs nearly parallel to the Seminole County Rural Boundary for much of its length, meaning Oviedo would absorb the most direct impact — particularly in traffic — if rural land to the east were developed.

“If the rural boundary were to be developed, Oviedo would bear the brunt of all the traffic — people from the east coming through Oviedo to get to the 417,” Ott said, referencing State Road 417, the primary highway artery running through that part of Seminole County.

“What we are saying is if people want to move here, we want the additional residential units to be built up in a certain way — not sprawling out in perpetuity forever — because sprawl has cost,” Bear said.

Those costs, he explained, are both personal and public.

“If you buy a house out in Geneva, you’re adding 30 minutes on the road,” Bear said. “That’s a personal cost, but it’s also a county cost because the county has to build those roads. You want to flush toilets? Then the county has to build those pipes out there.”

The Tallahassee threat

Both Ott and Bear pointed to growing pressure from the state legislature as the driving force behind the amendment’s urgency. Under current law, even if a city annexes land inside the rural boundary, Seminole County retains land-use decision-making authority over that property — a protection established by the 2004 charter amendment. But that protection could change.

“Tallahassee and the lobbyists up there have gone on a binge of efforts to take away our home rule abilities to protect our own cities and counties,” Bear said. “One of the ideas they had was to make it such that rural boundaries would be gutted — by the counties no longer being able to retain that land use decision if a city annexed it.”

Ott said the amendment is meant to get ahead of that kind of legislative move.

“Home rule is under assault in Tallahassee,” Ott said. “They’re trying a lot of different ways to take away the power of local governments — and they’re starting to say it out loud.”

He described one scenario the amendment is designed to prevent: a developer gets rural land annexed into Oviedo, then uses its status inside city limits to argue it should be treated as urban property — and lobbies Tallahassee accordingly.

“Now it’s rural but urban,” Ott said. “And they could lobby Tallahassee to say, well, if you’re in this specific category, then maybe you get treated some new way that doesn’t exist now.”

At this week’s meeting, Deputy Natalie Teuchert, who voted in favor of the amendment, noted the measure may have limited immediate effect — but that could change quickly if the state acts.

“If the state legislature goes through and gets rid of that control, that’s when this would come into effect,” Teuchert said. “My goal here would be that this never even applies.”

The debate on the dais

Not all council members were fully comfortable with how the amendment came together. Councilmember Jeff Boddiford voted against advancing it, questioning whether the process was too rushed and whether the council was bypassing the Charter Review Committee’s established role.

“It just seems kind of rushed to me,” Boddiford said. “And we have the ability — we can put it out when we need to, when we fully vet it.”

Ott acknowledged the process was faster than ideal but said the timeline was driven by practical realities. The city holds odd-year elections and had no city election in 2025. The next realistic opportunity after 2026 could be 2028. He also noted that while a special election is technically possible, it would carry significant costs and is unlikely to be called.

“The idea came up just very recently,” Ott told News 6. “I wish it had come up earlier. But it just didn’t work out that way.”

Ott noted that he did reach out to Charter Review Committee members by email and got an affirmative response from a majority of them.

Deputy Mayor Teuchert said the amendment’s deep roots in community history made it a justifiable exception to the normal process.

“I also had a lot of issues with how this came to be,” Teuchert said at the meeting. “I fully believe in passing everything our charter review committee says straight to the ballot without any input. So, I don’t like that we superseded that.”

Teuchert said this may be the one exception she could be okay with.

“And the reason is because residents have voted on this. We do have extensive history with this exact legislation. We’ve had this come through with an 84% vote.”

What happens next

If the second public hearing proceeds as scheduled on July 20 and the council approves the measure, it will appear on the November ballot. Voter approval would amend the city charter and take effect immediately.

Ott framed the question for voters plainly.

“Government derives its power from the consent of the governed,” Ott said. “What this does is it allows the governed to determine what kind of power, and in what way, they want to give the government on this issue.”

A heat advisory remains in effect Friday as heat index values soar as high as 110 degrees, while rain chances slowly begin to rebound this weekend after several drier days.

Adding another wrinkle to the forecast, a plume of Saharan dust will continue moving across Florida, helping suppress widespread storms while also creating hazy skies and lower air quality levels through the weekend.

FRIDAY

The heat advisory runs from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. Friday for all of Central Florida. Afternoon temperatures will climb to near record highs in the mid to upper 90s. But when combined with Florida’s humidity, it will feel more like 105 to 110 degrees in many communities.

Rain chances remain lower than normal Friday, with only isolated storms expected (20-30%) west of Interstate 4.

WEEKEND

That begins to change late this weekend as deeper moisture returns to Central Florida by Sunday. Rain and storm coverage is expected to increase back to more typical July levels, with scattered (5-60%) afternoon and evening storms developing.

Meanwhile, Saharan dust moving over the state will continue to play a role in the forecast. The dry, dusty air helps limit widespread thunderstorm development and is one reason rain chances have remained lower than normal this week.

The dust may also lead to hazier skies and colorful sunrises and sunsets, but it is expected to contribute to moderate air quality levels across Central Florida through the weekend, which could impact people who are especially sensitive to air pollution.

NEXT WEEK

Looking ahead, another surge of moisture associated with a front stalling to our north could boost rain chances Tuesday and Wednesday (50-60%) while knocking temperatures down slightly.

The EU's executive arm issued a fresh set of charges against Meta Platforms as part of its investigation under the 27-nation bloc's strict digital rule book known as the Digital Services Act. The sweeping set of regulations from Brussels requires tech platforms to protect internet users under threat of hefty fines.

The European Commission said Meta failed to properly assess the risks its design features pose to the physical and mental health of users, including minors. And while the company has tools and controls to help manage Facebook and Instagram use, it said they were easily overridden, dismissed, or technically challenging to use.

Meta “needs to implement design changes” to Instagram and Facebook, such as disabling “key addictive features” like autoplay of videos and infinite scroll so they’re not turned on by default, the commission said in its preliminary findings.

Meta now has the chance to respond and defend itself before the commission issues its final decision, which could result in a fine worth up to 6% of the company’s global annual revenue.

Meta said Friday that the preliminary findings do not recognize the steps that the company has already taken to protect teens.

“Since this investigation began, we rolled out Teen Accounts that automatically protect teens and put parents in control - allowing them to block access to Instagram at night and cap daily screen time at just 15 minutes,” Meta said in a prepared statement. "We share the European Commission’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive online experiences and will continue to engage constructively with them.”

Europe is committed to enforcing its legislation that holds platforms accountable for addictive design features, said Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice-president at the commission overseeing tech.

“Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms,” Virkkunen said in a written statement.

Facebook and Instagram design features, including personalized recommendations and push notifications, serve up an endless stream of content, putting users' brains on “autopilot” and fueling compulsive use, the commission said.

Meanwhile, screen time controls that parents can impose on their teens' devices can be “easily dismissed” and don't result in a meaningful reduction of use, the commission said. And the controls are undermined by the technical expertise, time and effort that parents need to understand and use them, it said.

The commission's proposed design changes also included finding better ways to encourage screen time breaks, and changing the content recommendation system so that it’s less “engagement-oriented.”

The preliminary findings are the latest charges since Brussels opened its investigation in 2024 over concerns that the social media giant wasn't doing enough to protect children online.

The EU said earlier this year that Meta had failed to prevent children under 13, the company's minimum age to use Facebook and Instagram, from signing up. It also said Meta was not doing enough to identify and remove underage users after they had opened accounts.

The video, posted to TikTok before it was later deleted, has received more than 1 million views and prompted multiple complaints from members of the public, according to FWC.

In the video, a woman in a pink bikini can be seen extending her arm from a kayak and appearing to touch the back of an alligator while paddling through the spring. Another video posted to the same TikTok account, which received nearly 2 million views, shows an alligator swimming close to the kayak before making a sudden movement toward it.

News 6 provided FWC with a link to the video. In a statement, the agency confirmed it has opened an investigation.

“The FWC is aware of the video and is investigating. This is an active investigation, and there is no further information to provide.”

FWC also reminded the public that anyone who is not a licensed alligator trapper or hunter is prohibited from feeding, harassing or capturing alligators.

Wildlife officials warn that feeding or closely interacting with alligators can cause the animals to associate people with food, increasing the likelihood of dangerous encounters.

According to Silver Springs State Park, swimming is prohibited in the springs because of hazards in the water, including wildlife. Visitors are allowed to explore the area by boat, kayak and canoe.

News 6 reached out to the woman through her TikTok account seeking comment about the video but had not received a response as of Thursday.

Typhoon Bavi, with maximum sustained winds of 155 kph (96 mph), was first expected to pass north of Taiwan, bringing heavy rains to the island of 23 million people from Friday night into Saturday.

Schools were closed Friday in Taipei, the island's capital, and fishing boats have been tied up close together in ports in northern Taiwan. Many flights to Japan, Hong Kong and other destinations have been canceled through Saturday, though some were still scheduled, Taiwan's Central News Agency said.

The typhoon's current northwest track would take it over some remote Japanese islands before passing north of Taiwan on Saturday. It is forecast to make landfall in China on Saturday night south of Shanghai, near the border between Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.

More than 17,000 people have been evacuated in Zhejiang and 170,000 rescue workers placed on standby, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Fujian has suspended some ferry routes because of strong winds and rough seas and called for fishing boats to return to port.

Bavi has weakened from supertyphoon strength earlier this week, when it brought violent winds to Saipan and other U.S. territories in the Pacific.

In southern China, authorities announced Thursday that 39 people had died in flooding from Tropical Storm Maysak, which drenched parts of the Guangxi region for days with record rainfall.

The rains breached reservoirs, including the dramatic collapse of part of a dam in Hengzhou that inundated a wide area with fast-flowing muddy water. The floods stranded people on the second and higher floors of buildings for days, many without power, until rescuers could reach them.

Another 11 people died in central China when severe thunderstorms and tornadoes wreaked havoc in Hubei province on Monday night.

Separately, a landslide killed 21 forestry workers in western China's Gansu province on Tuesday in a disaster that was not storm-related.

The ship, the Mayuree Naree, was hit by a projectile north of Oman on March 11, killing three people. The remaining 20 crew members were rescued and returned to Thailand about a week later.

Former crew members Panithi Tumkaew, Noppadon Wongsuvan and Surades Manpuen filed the lawsuit against Precious Shipping Co. as well as two affiliated companies and the ship’s captain.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants endangered their lives by sailing through the strait despite the security risks, according to their lawyer Kunpat Singhathong.

Kunpat said the three men were also dismissed before the completion of their nine-month employment contracts after the attack rendered the ship inoperable. He said they received compensation equivalent to two months’ salary.

The compensation was inadequate because they have since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, leaving them unable to continue working as sailors for the foreseeable future, he said.

“We tried to negotiate with the company, but it denied responsibility, so we believe the matter should be brought to the court,” Kunpat said before filing the case with the Central Labor Court in Bangkok.

He declined to identify the amount of compensation they are seeking, only that it would be over a million baht ($30,000) per person.

Panithi, who said he had worked for Precious Shipping for more than a decade, said his wife encouraged him to seek medical treatment after noticing changes in his behavior.

“When there are loud noises, I’ll get startled," he said. “I can’t work now, and I have to take medication.”

Precious Shipping did not respond to requests for comment.

The remains of the three crew members killed in the attack were repatriated to Thailand earlier this month.

In a statement on July 3, Precious Shipping thanked everyone involved in the repatriation process and expressed its condolences to the victims’ families. The company said it “remains committed to providing full assistance, care, and support to bereaved families throughout this difficult time.”

On Thursday, the United States launched new airstrikes against Iran, which responded by targeting American allies in the Middle East. The exchange of fire threatens an interim deal intended to help end the Iran war.

The conflict has choked off the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for about a fifth of global trade in crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Most of this was bound for Asia, which has struggled with a continentwide energy shock since the war began on Feb. 28.

The safety of stranded seafarers in the Persian Gulf has been a source of concern among Asian nations — like India, the Philippines and Thailand — whose citizens make up a significant portion of ship crews.

“This is not simply a matter of shipping statistics,” said Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary-general of the United Nations' International Maritime Organization in a statement Wednesday. “Behind the figures are seafarers, and in some cases their families, who continue to bear the human cost of this conflict.”

In scenes like a heist movie in reverse, the priceless medieval artwork was spirited into the British Museum on Friday in the dead of night, after a high-tech, tight-security operation where any slip-up could have spelled disaster.

On loan from its home in France, the tapestry will go on display at the London museum from Sept. 10 until July 2027. It's a public homecoming for a vivid visual record of the 1066 Norman invasion, the last successful conquest of England.

The tapestry's arrival in London has been widely anticipated, but due to security concerns all details of when and how it would arrive were kept under wraps.

“It feels extraordinary that after so much work and planning and care and thought that it’s actually happening,” British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan said as he waited outside the museum in the dark.

“It’s the first time in 1,000 years that such an important piece of British — French too — history is going to be on these shores,” he said. “It’s incredibly exciting.”

The 70-meter (230-foot) tapestry was folded accordion-style in a climate-controlled case that was placed inside a shock-absorbing cradle. That went into a truck that crossed from France on a vehicle shuttle train through the Channel Tunnel.

After an 11-hour, 350-mile (560-kilometer) trip, escorted by police, the truck backed slowly into a loading bay at the museum, where workers gingerly eased the container, the size of a small car, to the ground. Museum staff and British and French diplomats who had been watching in hushed silence broke into applause.

The priceless cargo will spend several days acclimatizing before it is carefully unpacked and unfolded for an exhibition that the museum expects to be one of the most popular in its 267-year history. Some 100,000 tickets were sold in their first day on sale this month.

“It was like trying to get tickets to Glastonbury,” Cullinan said. “I don’t take for granted that people care that much about a 1,000-year-old embroidery. I think that’s an amazing thing.”

The tapestry is a symbol of Anglo-French relations

Stitched in wool thread on linen fabric — technically an embroidery, rather than a tapestry — the artwork depicts events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy defeated King Harold’s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion ended Saxon rule, made William the Conqueror the first Norman king of England and bound Britain and France more closely together.

Historians believe the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half brother, and was probably sewn by women in England — possibly nuns — before being taken across the Channel. It has spent most of the last millennium in the town of Bayeux in northwest France, apart from two short periods at the Louvre in Paris.

The tapestry symbolizes the sometimes fractious, intertwined histories of France and Britain, and securing the loan was a high-stakes diplomatic mission. It was announced during a state visit to the U.K. by French President Emmanuel Macron in July 2025.

The loan coincides with renovations at the museum in Bayeux that houses it.

In return, the British Museum will loan treasures from the Sutton Hoo hoard — artifacts from a 7th-century Anglo Saxon ship burial — and other items to museums in Normandy.

Macron said in an article for Friday's Times of London that “our two countries are not merely lending each other artworks: they are sharing the great narratives of European history’s origins.”

Retired British diplomat Peter Ricketts, who helped cement the deal as the U.K.’s special envoy for the tapestry, said “it’s an extraordinary mark of friendship and confidence in the U.K. to entrust this object to us for a year.”

“Macron, when he offered us the tapestry, I think he understood that it would have far more impact in the U.K. than it does in France, because it’s more fundamental to our national story,” he said. "Everybody (in Britain) knows 1066.”

It's a vivid record of 11th-century life and death

The tapestry features more than 620 people and 737 animals and tells its story in 58 scenes brimming with vivid and sometimes gory detail. There are scenes of hand-to-hand combat, mutilated bodies and the unlucky Harold, felled by an arrow through his eye.

“It has an emotional richness that is really difficult to get from written sources,” said Millie Horton-Insch, project curator for the British Museum exhibition. “It just brings people closer to this history than any other object can. It’s not the same as reading a text. You are looking at something that was handled by the people who lived through it and felt compelled to record these events in this way.”

She said the document’s survival for 10 centuries despite myriad dangers — “moths, mice, mold, damp, fire” — is miraculous, and may be partly due to its humble materials.

“It’s not really made of any blingy fabric,” she said. “It’s not gold, it’s not silver. There wasn’t the same temptation to cut it up and make it into vestments or repurpose it for anything.”

Some French cultural figures opposed the loan, arguing that moving the tapestry was too risky. Cullinan said the expert teams went to great lengths to ensure its safety, including making two trial runs of the journey to show it would not cause the fragile item too much stress.

“Such care has gone into it. I can’t think of a level of care for any other museum loan,” he said.

He said he understands why there are concerns.

“The tapestry arouses great interest and passion,” he said. “Which is a wonderful thing.”

“Satluj” tells the true tale of a human rights activist who investigated thousands of disappearances and extrajudicial killings during a government crackdown on a separatist insurgency in India's Punjab state in the 1980s and early 1990s.

At the screening in Gurdaspur, elderly survivors of the insurgency sat beside teenagers born years after it ended. When the screen flickered to life and “Satluj” movie began, the crowd fell silent.

Originally titled “Punjab 95,” the movie was stalled for three years after India’s censor board demanded more than 120 cuts. After failing to secure a theatrical release, it debuted on the ZEE5 streaming platform last week, but was removed in India two days later.

The takedown had an unintended consequence.

Across villages in Punjab, Sikh organizations, local activists and residents have begun organizing community screenings using copies that have circulated online. The screenings have transformed Sikh temple compounds and village halls into makeshift cinemas where audiences watch not just a film but a retelling of memories of one of India’s bloodiest internal conflicts.

Spotlight on Punjab’s insurgency

“Satluj” draws on the life of rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, whose investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings exposed one of the darkest episodes of Punjab’s insurgency. The conflict pitted Sikh militant groups seeking an independent Khalistan against Indian security forces and claimed thousands of civilian, militant and police lives.

During the insurgency, rights groups documented allegations of enforced disappearances, custodial killings and secret cremations. Khalra’s investigation alleged that thousands of people who had disappeared were cremated anonymously by police without informing their families or maintaining official records.

Khalra was abducted in 1995 and later killed. Several police officers were convicted in connection with his murder.

Although the insurgency was crushed and support for Khalistan waned within Punjab, the Indian government continues to view separatist sentiment as a national security concern. It has not publicly explained why the film was removed, but officials told local media they ordered it taken down on security grounds.

Local organized screenings

The public screenings take shape through grassroots cooperation. Residents arrange for projectors, audio speakers and power generators, Sikh temples and village community spaces become open-air theaters for an evening, and volunteers spread the word from one household to the next.

Inderjeet Singh Bains, who helps coordinate screenings in Gurdaspur district, said the initiative aimed to create spaces where people can watch together and reflect on a period of Punjab’s history that continues to resonate across generations.

“When we screen the film, we see our elders and mothers, many of them 60 or 70 years old, crying because they have lost their sons. Our people have endured immense suffering,” Bains said.

Gurmukh Singh, who attended a screening, said the film gave voice to stories the young in Punjab had heard only in fragments. For families in his village, he said, the insurgency was not history but lived experience, with many losing loved ones in the violence.

“After watching the movie, there is a feeling of the grief our earlier generations had to bear,” Singh said.

Movie fuels censorship debate

The takedown of “Satluj” has reopened a debate over artistic freedom in India, where films have increasingly run into censorship battles under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. Critics have said such cases have become more frequent and accuse Modi’s government of promoting films that align with its nationalist narrative.

“Everything happened right before our eyes, so what is there to oppose? The truth is coming to light, and people should be allowed to see it,” said Balwinder Singh, a Sikh religious leader.

The government says movie certification decisions are made independently under the law.

In a statement, ZEE5 said the film would no longer be available for viewing in India “in light of current developments.” It added that it would explore “every appropriate avenue through due process” to restore it.

Audiences revisit painful memories

Diljit Dosanjh, the lead actor who plays Khalra, said he was unconcerned about whether the film remained online because once audiences had seen it, “it cannot be erased.”

That sentiment appears to be playing out in Punjab’s villages.

Inside the temple compound in Gurdaspur, the audience watched scenes of police killings, crackdowns and families searching for answers. Afterwards, many lingered in conversation, comparing the film with the real-life memories they had carried for decades.

Pawan Deep Kaur described the film as a heartbreaking portrayal of the suffering endured by the older generation.

“It made us cry endlessly,” she said.

___

Saaliq reported from New Delhi.

But after hours of combing the Mediterranean seabed in search of yellow-painted mock mortar shells, the divers surfaced empty-handed.

It was the team's fifth diving trip in the yearslong experiment to help prepare Israel to clear part of the sea from unexploded grenades and other munitions in order to return beach area to residents. But on this day in June, the divers couldn't find the dummy mortar and artillery shells they'd planted months prior, foreshadowing the challenges that lie ahead.

“It’s really hard to find things in the sea,” said Roy Jaijel, a researcher in the marine geology and geophysics department at Israel’s National Institute of Oceanography, as he emerged from a dive.

Jaijel co-leads a project aimed at returning some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of shoreline to people living in Israel's central city of Rishon LeZion, an area that's been used as a firing range for decades. The initiative, the first of its kind in Israel, coincides with a global push to better protect the world's waters as demand increases for the use of seas and oceans for shipping, energy and recreation.

Experts say the clearance of underwater munitions has received more attention in recent years in part because of the boom in artificial intelligence, which requires millions of kilometers of underwater fiber-optic cables to allow for global connectivity.

Munitions can end up dumped into waters after wars, fall into seas during conflict or, in the case of Rishon LeZion, accumulate from firing practice. Erosion from seawater can lead toxic and explosive chemicals, along with heavy metals, to seep from the munitions, causing environmental contamination. There's also the risk of objects exploding if people step on them or children play with them, thinking they're toys.

Two years ago, Europe launched a project to better detect and clear non-military unexploded ordnance, such as from industrial or commercial sites. In a separate initiative in 2024, Germany piloted a program to recover and dispose of military waste from the North and Baltic seas, where some 1.6 million tonnes of unexploded munitions from two world wars lie, according to the German government.

Still, there's been less focus on clearing waters in the Middle East, such as the Mediterranean, which historically hasn't been the site of large dumps compared with Europe.

Leaders of the Israeli project say it's one of the first to focus on clearing smaller munitions in complicated underwater terrain, which is why many countries have avoided it.

“It's like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Israel Faintuch, head of the Maritime Division at Israel's Ministry of Defense National Mine Action Authority as he checked his oxygen tank and suited up to go underwater.

Limited beach space in Israel is the driving force behind the clearing effort

The government says nearly half the country's 194-kilometer (120-mile) coastline is off limits to civilians, used for commercial ports, power plants, desalination facilities, military bases and firing zones.

Since the country's founding nearly 80 years ago, 7 kilometers (4.3 miles), nearly the entire length of Rishon LeZion's shoreline, has been used as a firing range, launching grenades as well as small and large mortars, leaving hundreds of thousands of people crammed into a narrow strip of beach.

Launched last year, the joint research project funded by Rishon LeZion's municipality is being led by Israel’s National Mine Action Authority and researchers from the National Institute of Oceanography. It aims to localize the most impacted areas, mapping the pattern of munitions to determine how far offshore and how deep to go before the clearance team steps in.

In order to gather data, divers place various sizes of fake munitions — some equipped with motion sensors — at depths of 5, 10 and 15 meters (16, 33 and 59 feet) and up to 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) offshore. After several months, they retrieve the munitions, analyze the data and plant new ones.

In June, Associated Press journalists accompanied the team underwater as they placed new munitions for the next round of tests and attempted to find ones they'd left in January. Divers descended using a string, or measuring tape, to navigate the seabed. Tapping each other under the water, they'd point in different directions to search, rubbing their hands over the seafloor.

“You have limited air supply when you go with the divers and you have limited time in the water," said Dafna Eliahu, a graduate student at the University of Haifa working on the project. "So with actual live munition I expect it to be very difficult, very hard to locate and to actually be able to find them,” she said.

While the information, including from the sensors, is still being processed, preliminary findings show that the munitions moved less than expected, which means there might be less area that needs clearing, she said.

Israel's Defense Ministry wants to have enough data to start clearing by the end of next year and expand the shoreline by an initial 150 meters (492 feet) within a few months. Completing the project will take years and cost tens of millions of dollars. It's already been delayed due to Israel's multiple wars with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran as divers can't work when missiles are falling and could land in the sea.

During the current war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran as well as the 12-day war last June between Israel and Iran, the army said missiles aimed at larger cities like Rishon LeZion fell into the sea but wouldn’t specify how many.

Israel says no one has been injured or killed by unexploded sea ordnance, but there have been about a dozen sightings of devices in the last 20 years where the police and army were called. Most have been found on or near shore.

What's learned during the project could be useful beyond Israel

While the goal of the project is to expand parts of the shoreline, Israel also hopes its findings will yield new insights on clearing munitions from this part of the world, where there are threats but overall less is known.

According to the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, more than half of global incidents related to unexploded ordnance, such as sightings or drifting mines, were recorded in the Middle East between 2014 and 2023, with most occurring in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, largely a result of Yemen's civil war.

Pedro Basto, research and innovation program manager with the group, said it is important to keep interest high in removing underwater explosives given the increasing dependence on the seas.

“Both renewable energies based on the sea (wind turbines and harnessing water currents) and the global connectivity that most of the world relies on every minute of every day, depend massively on underwater cable laying,” he said.

As Israel's project advances, residents in Rishon LeZion say they're looking forward to being able to use more land.

Moria Malka, head spokesperson for the city's municipality, said the clearance will triple the area’s coastline and much of it will become a nature reserve as well as a residential area near the sea. For beachgoers like Mark Kostman, that is great news.

“Holidays and Saturdays, all of this place is completely crowded and too dense to even have fun,” said Kostman as he played volleyball with his children next to the firing zone. “Having it as public space for leisure and sport ... it's wonderful."

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Associated Press reporter Natalie Melzer contributed from Nahariya, Israel.

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

Back-and-forth attacks, including a day earlier, have repeatedly threatened the ceasefire. But Thursday’s appeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least three times in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters, and missiles targeting Kuwait and Qatar.

Sirens sounded Thursday afternoon in Jordan as well, where the U.S. has stationed troops and aircraft.

An Iranian official accused the U.S. of launching an airstrike later Thursday targeting the area around Iran’s sole nuclear power plant, and other explosions were reported elsewhere in the country during the afternoon.

Early Friday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was laid to rest in his hometown of Mashhad after days of public mourning. Khamenei was killed in the opening salvos of the Iran war.

The strikes came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signaled the end of a fragile ceasefire and threatened to escalate the conflict if they didn't stop. That raised concerns that the region could tip back into a war that would engulf several countries and could halt energy shipments through the strait that are crucial for the global economy.

In Iran, the two days of American airstrikes have killed at least 14 people and wounded another 78, Iran’s Health Ministry said Thursday. Most were reportedly members of the armed forces.

In Kuwait, the military said falling debris wounded one person as the nation shot down three ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and 10 drones. Bahrain said it shot down incoming fire, without elaborating, and Jordanian government spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani said all incoming fire from Iran had been intercepted. Iranian state TV said the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard fired missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan.

There was no immediate word of damage in Qatar.

US strikes hit more targets

The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit 90 targets across Iran, releasing black-and-white footage of what appeared to be strikes on an airport runway and missile launchers.

The U.S. said the strikes were intended to “further degrade” Iran’s ability “to threaten freedom of navigation” in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passed before the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28.

Traffic has picked up somewhat since a tentative deal last month included opening the waterway. Maritime data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence said Thursday that preliminary data showed at least 576 ships passed through the strait in June, compared with 233 in May. More than 3,100 transited the strait in June 2025.

Iranian state media reported explosions in several locations, including Bushehr, home to Iran’s nuclear power plant complex, and southern port cities. The state-run IRNA news agency quoted Ehsan Jahanian, a local official in Bushehr, as accusing the U.S. of striking near the plant around noon, hours after Central Command said it had ended its latest round of strikes. Asked for comment on Bushehr, Central Command referred to a press release that detailed targets but made no mention of the nuclear power plant.

Streets are jammed for Khamenei’s final funeral procession

For the first time since April, U.S. strikes also appeared to target Iranian bridges. State media reported a strike on a railway bridge in Iran’s northeastern Golestan province, and the Revolutionary Guard said two bridges were attacked on the route to Mashhad, where tens of thousands of mourners thronged wide boulevards during the final funeral procession for Khamenei on Thursday.

People pressed forward to touch a vehicle carrying Khamenei's body. Many carried Iranian flags and images of the late leader or banners evoking Shiite Islam’s long history of martyrs. Some signs called for the death of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Khamenei ruled Iran for nearly 37 years before being killed in the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes that started the war. The funeral processions began last Saturday, with authorities shutting down streets, airspace and daily life in Tehran and other cities as throngs commemorated the man who led Iran for decades with an iron fist while confronting the West.

Trump issues another warning to Iran if attacks on shipping happen again

After leaving a NATO summit in Turkey, Trump posted several videos on his social media site of what he said were explosions in Iran and issued another warning to the Islamic Republic.

“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote Wednesday, a day after three tankers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump also renewed his past threats to hit Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including electric and desalination plants, and to seize Kharg Island, through which some 90% of Iranian oil exports pass.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a key negotiator in talks seeking a permanent end to the war, was defiant in a post on X on Thursday morning: “America still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free. Let me put it plainly: If you strike, you’ll get hit.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on Telegram that he spoke by phone with his Saudi, Turkish and Omani counterparts and with Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who has been one of the main mediators in the war. The outreach suggested efforts may be underway to reduce tensions.

Talks on reaching a final deal were to begin after Khamenei's funeral

Trump said Wednesday that the interim ceasefire agreement was “over.” He said he would allow negotiations to continue but thought negotiators were “wasting their time.”

Negotiations to reach a final deal were due to start after the funeral for Khamenei.

The talks are meant to focus on the toughest matters, including fully reopening the strait and rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Friday that a search had ended while an investigation was underway into the cause of the fire Thursday that gutted the Fujian Huiteng factory in Jinjiang, a manufacturing hub for sports shoes.

According to product listings on online sales and import platforms, Fujian Huiteng makes shoes for both Chinese and foreign brands.

Local media footage showed people trapped on the roof of the five-floor building, enveloped in thick black smoke, while the spray from fire truck hoses fell short of flames showing through windows on its upper floors. Xinhua said the factory’s owner and managers were arrested and the company’s accounts were frozen.

When the fire started, 237 factory workers and two visitors were in the building. Two of the 213 people rescued from the factory were pronounced dead after being taken to hospitals. Another 26 missing people were later confirmed dead, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Work safety has been a persistent problem in China. In May, an explosion at a fireworks plant in the city of Changsha in the central province of Hunan killed at least 37 people. In 2024, a fire at a refrigeration facility under construction killed 39 people in the city of Xinyu in the southeastern Jiangxi province.

Authorities have repeatedly ordered businesses to screen for workplace hazards. Official data show 18,261 people died in nearly 20,000 workplace accidents across the country in 2025, down from the previous year.

Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded a swift investigation of the disaster and said authorities would “strictly hold those responsible accountable.”

Jinjiang has thousands of shoe factories and is considered the “shoe capital” of China, making about a fifth of all athletic shoes, more than a billion a year, according to state media and industry reports.

The area’s transformation from small workshops and factories into an export industry hub, which Xi has often referred to as the “Jinjiang Experience,” is considered a model for China’s ascent as a world manufacturing power.

CCTV said the fire started on the first level of the concrete-structured building, where a workshop and a warehouse were located.

A local fire department official said in an interview with the state broadcaster that shoe sole material piled up in stairwells hindered firefighters from reaching the flames to extinguish them. The shoe materials were highly flammable, CCTV said.

CCTV also said the fire department sent 183 people and 35 vehicles to the factory and that open flames were extinguished after about four hours. Xinhua later said more than 500 people joined the rescue and search operation.

Harper and Walker join Boston’s Willson Contreras, Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero and the New York Yankees’ Ben Rice in the competition at Citizens Bank Park. The other two participants haven’t been announced.

Harper, hitting .261 with 20 homers and 57 RBIs, was selected for his ninth All-Star Game as a Legend Pick for baseball's midsummer showcase. The 33-year-old slugger will try to become the fifth player to win multiple derby competitions. And Harper will try to do it in front of home fans — again. He last won it in 2018 in Washington while a member of the Nationals.

The 24-year-old Walker is a first-time All-Star who is having a breakout season. He hit his 22nd homer on Thursday night. The 2020 first-round draft pick is batting .294 with an .893 OPS and an MLB-leading 73 RBIs.

He'll be the eighth Cardinals player to compete in the competition, joining Jack Clark (1985), Ray Lankford (1997), Mark McGwire (1998-99), Jim Edmonds (2003), Albert Pujols (2003, 2007, 2009, 2022), Matt Holliday (2010-11) and Carlos Beltran (2012).

A Cardinals player has never won the derby. The Phillies have had two winners: Bobby Abreu in 2005 and Ryan Howard the next year.

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

The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the Houston neighborhood where the shooting occurred, said acting ICE Director David Venturella told her the agency has confirmed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “was not a target.”

Salgado Araujo was a homebuilder who had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, had no criminal record and was close to finishing the long process of obtaining legal status when he was killed early Tuesday morning, according to his family.

“We’ve got to do something. This is just one more death too many,” Garcia said in an interview with MS Now. “And if we’ve got to bring outside, independent folks to come in and look at it, we should do that."

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return an email seeking comment late Thursday.

DHS, which oversees ICE, previously said that federal officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest a person in the country without legal status when they attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Salgado Araujo. The agency has said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and that a federal officer fired a weapon in self-defense.

Asked whether ICE agents had been specifically targeting Salgado Araujo, DHS said earlier Thursday that officers had been surveilling a property where they had previously observed two white vans.

“On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop,” the department said.

The federal agents weren't wearing body-worn cameras, DHS said, and few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the days since the encounter, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.

In a statement, DHS said the agents at the scene in Houston had not yet been issued body cameras, which it blamed on Democrats and a record government shutdown that was fueled by President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, a Democrat who also represents Houston, said if the agents didn't have the devices, it was because Trump and Republican lawmakers did not want them to be carrying them.

"Houston is done accepting excuses from an agency that has more money than it knows what to do with and still can’t manage basic accountability,” he said in a statement.

The Harris County District Attorney's office said it would conduct an investigation into the shooting. The office is consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, to learn how they have navigated investigations into federal immigration agents, spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre said.

“Although access to key evidence remains under federal control, we are pursuing investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our reach,” Lemaitre said in an emailed statement.

Three men, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, were detained by ICE during the fatal traffic stop, according to Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who has been communicating with their families.

LULAC has yet to obtain video footage that clearly shows what happened during the moments of the shooting and has offered a reward of $5,000 for information from witnesses, Proaño told The Associated Press. The position of Salgado Araujo’s van and ICE vehicles has obstructed security camera footage LULAC has reviewed, he added.

“It’s going to make it even more difficult to find the truth in all this,” he said.

DHS said the ICE agents involved in the incident were expected to receive body-worn cameras in the next 60 days.

In the aftermath of the fatal Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats had refused to fund ICE and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations designed to increase accountability and transparency. Republicans in Congress eventually passed legislation funding just ICE and CBP for three years.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturns a lower court decision that found the ban unconstitutional. The 2-1 appellate decision found that the Illinois law does not violate the Second Amendment, and its restrictions are “consistent with the principles that underpin our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.”

“Whether to adopt them is thus a decision reposed in our elected representatives, and we reverse,” the appeals court said.

The majority opinion also pushes back on claims made by the plaintiffs that semiautomatic weapons are not at fault for mass shootings.

“The undisputed record evidence undercuts that claim, showing that the presence of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is strongly correlated with the severity of the societal problem,” the opinion states.

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said in a post on X that the decision is “a victory in the fight to end gun violence that helps keep our communities safe.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association seeking to stop the ban, said that it is disappointed with the decision and plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

The gun trade group said it agrees with Chief Judge Michael Brennan’s dissent in which he wrote that the country prohibits governments from banning “firearms commonly owned for self-defense.”

“Because the people have overwhelmingly chosen the AR-15 rifle and its magazine as their weapon of choice, they are protected by the Second Amendment,” the judge's dissent states.

The Protect Illinois Communities Act was signed into law in 2023 by Pritzker and bans AR-15 rifles and similar guns, large-capacity magazines and an assortment of attachments.

It came six months after a 2022 shooting in which a gunman on a rooftop in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park opened fire on a parade, killing seven people and injuring more than three dozen.

The law prompted immediate pushback from county sheriffs who said they refused to enforce what they considered an unconstitutional law, while gun owners and advocates sued.

In 2024, a federal judge overturned the ban, leaning on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that strictly interpret the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms.

The injunction was set to take effect 30 days after the judge's decision. But that same day, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a notice of appeal, which ultimately led to a stay in the injunction.

Raoul said Thursday's decision enhances public safety. “We have seen the damage that assault weapons and large-capacity magazines can inflict, and these weapons of war have no place in our communities,” he said in a statement.

Last month, the Supreme Court announced it will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the Second Amendment. In the fall, the court, which has expanded gun rights, is expected to hear appeals challenging a ban in the Chicago area, which predates the statewide law.

A goat named Goldie — short for Golden Oreo — followed firefighters for hours as they actively engaged the Rock Creek Fire in Colorado Springs and cleared brush. She even took care of some of it on her own by chomping on leaves.

The 4-year-old Nigerian dwarf goat with a brown and white coat led firefighters down a hill and followed them to their trucks. She watched as they packed up for the day, then trailed behind one truck as it drove off, said Colorado Springs Fire Department Lt. Trevor Leland.

“I don’t know that she necessarily helped with the firefighting effort, but it’s always cool to see an animal like that who doesn’t mind us being there,” he said.

Earlier Thursday, Goldie spotted a U.S. Forest Service crew member having lunch, and tried to stick her head over his shoulder to get a bite and hang out with him for awhile, Leland said.

Goldie's owner, Lindsey Glader, says she's quite the social butterfly. Or, buttergoat?

Glader said the firefighters did a phenomenal job tackling the fire that was 50% contained late Friday. Crews hope to have it fully contained Friday, said Ashley Franco, a spokesperson for the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

That fire and others across the West have kept crews busy, fueled from a record lack of snow, high temperatures and erratic winds. The crew from Colorado Springs also was called to the Aspen Acres Fire southwest of Denver that forced the evacuations of thousands of residents this month.

Goldie figured they needed an “extra boost of support” and stepped in, Glader said.

“She was able to give some comedic relief and offer some necessary levity for these guys and gals who have worked really, really hard and creating a break for this fire, and keeping a lot of people and a lot of things safe,” she said.

Lance Twiggs, who was also defendant Tyler Robinson’s romantic partner, said in an interview with law enforcement that the teary interaction with Robinson happened in their apartment in southern Utah, more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from where Kirk was shot.

Later that same day — and only about an hour before turning himself in — Robinson posted "it was me at UVU yesterday,” in a chat room on the Discord instant messaging platform, according to investigators and messages shown by prosecutors.

Robinson is charged with aggravated murder and has not entered a plea. He turned himself in a day after the Sept. 10 shooting of Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump credited with helping galvanize young voters for the Republican in the 2024 election.

Ammunition found in the gun used to kill Kirk had engravings that included “Hey Facist! CATCH!” and “If you Read This, You Are GAY,” according to prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty.

Robinson appeared to furrow his brow and smirk when text messages he sent to Twiggs about the engraved bullets were displayed in the courtroom Thursday.

Robinson's family sat behind him, and his mom cried as the Discord messages were read aloud. She rubbed the shoulder of one of Robinson’s brothers, who listened with his head bowed.

Defense attorneys unsuccessfully fought the public release of the statements from Twiggs and the chat room messages. They argued prosecutors would characterize the material as a confession, undermining Robinson’s right to a fair trial.

After prolonged debate that included an attorney for Kirk’s family arguing for the material to be publicly released, state District Judge Tony Graf allowed a redacted version of Twiggs' video interview to be played. Some parts were blacked out, with only audio.

Graf is weighing whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring Robinson to trial. He won’t rule until after both sides present arguments on Sept. 1.

Notes and text exchanges were shown in court

Robinson’s attorneys have not commented on his guilt or innocence but have sought to get the death penalty taken off the table, so far unsuccessfully.

Defense attorney Michael Burt tried to inject doubt into the prosecution’s case by challenging the reliability of ballistics tests on a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body. Authorities sought to tie the fragment to the suspected murder weapon, but the results were inconclusive.

“Saying anything but inconclusive was inappropriate,” said Samantha Karner with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal law enforcement agency.

The defense earlier in the week had questioned the reliability of DNA evidence that investigators said linked Robinson to the scene. Experts say the science behind DNA testing is sound.

Prosecutors allege Robinson confessed in a handwritten note to Twiggs that read: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.” The note, shown in full for the first time Thursday, continued, “I wish we could have lived in a world where this did not feel necessary."

Robinson also allegedly sent a text to Twiggs saying he targeted Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred.”

State Bureau of Investigation Agent Brian Davis recounted the messages exchanged between Twiggs and Robinson under questioning by a prosecutor Thursday. Included were texts from Robinson worrying about leaving fingerprints on a rifle that belonged to his grandfather, which authorities believe he used to shoot Kirk.

Twiggs spoke to authorities on Sept. 12 — two days after Kirk was assassinated while speaking to a crowd of thousands — and again on April 20, Davis said. He was given immunity for the statements, meaning what Twiggs said cannot be used against him in a potential criminal case.

Prosecutors contend the shooting endangered others at Kirk’s campus event — an aggravating circumstance that could make the crime punishable by death under Utah law. Robinson also faces possible sentence enhancements based on claims by prosecutors that he targeted Kirk because of his political views.

Twiggs said in the April interview that Robinson sometimes talked about politics, including Trump. But Twiggs said he never heard Robinson talk about Kirk before the shooting. The defendant also did not talk much about LGBTQ rights, Twiggs testified.

Kirk's friends react to new evidence

Kirk’s parents and widow, Erika, sat a few rows back from Robinson's family on Thursday. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, also was in attendance.

Brandon Tatum, a conservative media personality and close friend of Kirk, said he was “shocked at how much relevant evidence" Twiggs' shared in his interview. He left court Thursday feeling confident about prosecutors' case but had mixed feelings about the judge's decision to hold off ruling until after a September hearing.

"I think the family's waited long enough, but I'd rather it be done right and done in confidence than for it to be hastily done the next day without being thoroughly, I guess, bulletproof," Tatum said.

Another conservative activist, Jack Posobiec, said he got emotional seeing photos of the bullet fragments that hit his friend. "But you have to push through that pain and push through all of that to be able to get justice,” he said.

Investigators say Robinson went to a rooftop near where Kirk was speaking and shot him once in the neck while the activist was taking questions from a crowd of several thousand people. Kirk, 31, was declared dead after being taken to a hospital.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Democrats need to pick a candidate to replace Platner on the ballot by July 27, according to state law. Whoever is selected will have less than four months before facing longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the general election. Potential candidates had already been teasing their interest before Platner, who denies the allegation, announced he intends to drop out. Platner is expected to file paperwork to formally withdraw on Monday, the deadline to do so.

But a growing number began formally launching their campaigns Thursday.

The Maine Democratic Party has said it will hold a nominating convention to choose the replacement. The party says the convention will involve hundreds of delegates from across the state, but how and when that’ll take place remains unknown.

Maine is considered a key state for control of the narrowly divided Senate, and Democrats are desperate for a candidate capable of defeating Collins while President Donald Trump is broadly unpopular.

Gov. Janet Mills, who sought the nomination during the primary campaign and suspended her campaign in late April, has not indicated if she's interested in running.

These are some of the people who have shown interest in the Maine Senate race:

Troy Jackson

Jackson is Maine’s former state Senate president. He unsuccessfully ran to be the Democratic nominee for governor earlier this year with the backing of Platner and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Shortly after Platner said he would quit the Senate race, Jackson launched his campaign, arguing that Mainers want “a progressive fighter." Our Revolution, the organization founded by Sanders, has since said it would back Jackson, 58.

Jackson released a statement with dozens of endorsements, many from current and former state and local officials, on Thursday.

Nirav Shah

Shah, former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, announced Thursday he was vying to be the next Democratic Senate candidate. He came in second in this year’s Maine Democratic governor's primary and was seen as more of a moderate candidate compared with Jackson while running for governor. Shah held a news conference Thursday in which he encouraged Platner supporters to join him.

“You have an important place in this campaign and we welcome your voices,” Shah said. “This campaign represents the values that we all care about.”

Dan Kleban

The co-founder of Maine Beer Company, Kleban also confirmed his candidacy on Wednesday after Platner's announcement. Kleban briefly entered the Senate race last year before dropping out when Mills announced her candidacy. Kleban, 49, endorsed Mills, who later dropped out of the Democratic primary.

“I'm ready to fight for Mainers and bring a new generation of leadership to Washington,” Kleban said.

Shenna Bellows

Bellows is Maine's secretary of state. She announced Thursday that she's running for the seat, saying she's spent her career “taking on tough fights and doing the right thing," where she's served as a former civil liberties advocate and sparred with President-elect Donald Trump over ballot access.

This wouldn't be her first time running for political office. Bellows, 51, placed fourth in the state’s Democratic governor's primary in June. And in 2014, Bellows ran against Collins as the Senate Democratic nominee and lost in a landslide.

Jordan Wood

Wood, 36, initially attempted to run in the Maine Democratic Senate primary last year but dropped out to run in the state's 2nd District. He lost that race, coming in third to state Auditor Matt Dunlap. He's since said he's interested in running for the Senate again, and announced on Thursday.

“To beat Susan Collins, we need a candidate who can provide a true contrast and run an unapologetically progressive campaign: Passing Medicare for All. Stopping ICE terrorizing our streets,” Wood wrote on social media on Tuesday.

Paige Loud

Loud filed paperwork to run for the Senate seat earlier this week. The 29-year-old social worker also ran in the state's 2nd District Democratic primary, but came in last during the state's first round of ranked choice voting.

Valli Geiger

Geiger, a previous Platner supporter and a state Democratic lawmaker, is another potential candidate. She hasn't announced her candidacy, but in an interview with MS NOW on Wednesday, Geiger, 70, said she would hire Platner's staff, whom she described as “deeply impassioned and confident young people.”

David Costello

Costello ran in the June primary and finished third behind Platner, who won, and Mills, who was still on the ballot despite having suspended her campaign. Costello announced Thursday that he is back in the race. He said in a social media post that he believes he is the right candidate because his “lived experiences are rooted in the same challenges countless Mainers face every day.”

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Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I.

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

The new pledge builds on the $2.2 billion mobilized at the inaugural Africa Clean Cooking Summit in Paris in 2024, bringing total commitments to more than $3.1 billion, which will be used to expand access to cleaner cooking fuels, stoves and related infrastructure across the continent.

The funding was announced during a virtual meeting on clean cooking in Africa convened by IEA and Kenya, where leaders reviewed progress made since the last summit and outlined priorities ahead of the next gathering later this year.

Nearly 1 billion people across Africa still lack access to clean cooking, relying instead on charcoal, firewood and other polluting fuels that the IEA says contribute to an estimated 850,000 premature deaths each year.

The meeting brought together Kenyan President William Ruto, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, African Union commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy Lerato Mataboge and IEA executive director Fatih Birol, among others.

Clean cooking refers to the use of low-emission fuels and technologies, such as ethanol, biogas and electricity, instead of traditional fuels like charcoal and firewood. The transition reduces harmful household air pollution and improves health outcomes for millions of African households.

“Access to clean cooking is one of the most impactful yet overlooked challenges of our time,” said Wright, adding that it directly affects the lives of billions of people, particularly women and children.

Kenya’s Ruto said financing remained the biggest obstacle to achieving universal access to clean cooking technologies across Africa. “Ambition alone is not enough. It must be backed by investment,” he said.

Birol said the IEA's latest tracking showed that $740 million, or about one-third of the commitments announced in Paris, has already been deployed across 22 African countries.

“The additional $900 million in commitments demonstrates growing momentum, with more expected before the next summit,” Birol said.

The IEA also released a report showing governments have introduced 121 new clean cooking policies across more than 30 African countries since the Paris summit. Those countries account for about 80% of Africans without access to clean cooking.

The agency said it is working with the African Union to help governments strengthen national clean cooking policies under a continentwide strategy and action plan ahead of the next summit.

It also launched a new public-private Clean Cooking Security Programme aimed at strengthening global supply chains for cooking fuels, particularly liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG. The initiative follows shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year that affected about 30% of globally traded LPG, the agency said. More than 3.4 billion people worldwide depend on LPG as their primary cooking fuel.

The program will provide technical assistance to countries seeking to improve fuel security while exploring ways to strengthen international cooperation on clean cooking supply chains.

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The conceptual artist, who died at the age of 83, first created the Pindakaasvloer, or peanut butter floor, in 1969. The work was unveiled on Thursday at the Depot offshoot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam for a two-month show.

Schippers was a beloved non-conformist character in the Netherlands, where he also voiced Ernie and Kermit the Frog in the Dutch version of “Sesame Street,” and created absurdist and silly works that challenged conventional ideas about the meaning of art.

“Isn’t it fantastic that we are all standing here looking at peanut butter?” Schippers told journalists gathered at the Central Museum in Utrecht in 1997 where Pindakaasvloer was on display for the second time.

Schippers created the work as part of a Floor Covering Series, which also included floors covered with glass shards and salt.

The aroma, redolent of breakfasts and lunch boxes, is what lingers with many who experience the work first hand. Museum staff directed visitors for the opening to “follow the smell” which was wafting by the ticket counter, three floors below where the artwork is laid out.

“The thing I remember is the smell,” Mieke Weismann told The Associated Press. The food photographer and writer saw the 1997 exhibition as a teenager.

The art installation may not be for everybody. A sign at the museum's entrance warns visitors with peanut allergies that they might not want to enter the space.

It took two employees of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen several days to spread 40 buckets of peanut butter across a 25-square-meter (270-square-foot) hexagon last week.

“It was a lot of work,” Leon Duenk, one of the two men who installed the artwork, told AP.

The pair used drywall trowels to smear the peanut butter to a thickness of 2 centimeters (0.8 inch).

Prior to his death the museum and Schippers discussed how to recreate the work in the future, producing a 20-point plan that included the requirement to apply the peanut butter “as smoothly and boringly as possible” and that “no one is supposed to stand in, or lie down on the peanut butter.”

Schippers did not specify the size or shape of the work, but he did say it needed to be smooth peanut butter and that he preferred the Dutch peanut butter brand Calvé. The company donated 40 tubs of peanut butter for the work.

Multiple visitors stepped into the sticky artwork when it was on display in 2011. In 1997, the work was “vandalized” when a group of people placed 12 slices of bread and several bags of hagelslag — chocolate sprinkles commonly eaten on bread at breakfast in the Netherlands — on the floor.

“It doesn’t look bad,” Schippers told Dutch newspaper Volkskrant at the time. “The sprinkles have been applied with a sense of proportion and a skillful hand.”

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Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

The indictment, returned in Ohio, charges all eight in two separate conspiracies, one to provide material support to terrorists and a second to commit murder on federal government territory and to murder a federal government official.

It remains unclear from the court records how close the would-be attackers could have come to being able to carry out the plan had it not been thwarted.

According to the new indictment, the plot began in May, when the group began amassing money, firearms, ammunition, body armor, explosives, drones, medical equipment, communications equipment and other items.

It was on June 10 that law enforcement officials learned about a possible threat to President Donald Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show, four days before the mixed martial arts extravaganza was scheduled to take place.

The Justice Department last month announced a series of criminal complaints in different districts across the country in connection with the UFC plot, including from Ohio, Missouri, Washington, Nebraska and California.

The indictment announced Thursday represents an effort by the government to streamline the case and knit the defendants together into a single conspiracy prosecution in Ohio. Officials have said the group members harbored fringe conspiracy theories and hoped the attack would destabilize the government.

One of the defendants told investigators that they planned to fly explosive-laden drones into the event and then shoot panicked crowd members as they fled, according to a federal affidavit.

They communicated through online chat groups and forums and classified participants into tiers, with tier 1 participants committing “to put themselves in harm’s way, break the law, and potentially go into hiding," according to the federal indictment. Members of the group also engaged in marksmanship and combat training.

Tycen C. Proper 19, of Danville, Ohio, and four others were arrested and charged in Missouri, Nebraska and California the weekend of the cage-fighting event, called Freedom 250. Two more defendants were charged and arrested by the FBI about a week later in Washington and Missouri.

The Justice Department said an eighth man was charged this week. He is 21-year-old Chandler D. Scaggs, of Chapmanville, West Virginia, who was taken into custody in that state. Scaggs was allegedly assigned to be one of the snipers in the plotted attack, according to an affidavit.

The affidavit said Scaggs was apparently to be picked up by Proper and taken to Washington but lost contact with him after Proper was arrested, the same as the others. Scaggs allegedly signaled to the group that he was still willing to participate in the attack and arranged to travel to the event with another co-conspirator.

Scaggs' attorney, Eric Brehm, said his office was thoroughly reviewing the allegations and declined to comment further.

Conspiring to provide material support to terrorists is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, and conspiring to commit murder carries a penalty of up to life in prison.

Federal prosecutors allege that the group planned to murder Trump, Vice President JD Vance, other federal officials, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, trillionaire businessman Elon Musk and “other high value targets” at the event.

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Tucker reported from Washington.

But delivering soybean curd in all shapes and textures is only a small slice of her mission.

And it’s just that. A mission.

More than simply a vendor of healthy food, she’s also a social conduit who checks on elderly customers as she guides her pink cart, wearing a straw hat and tooting a small brass bugle to signal her arrival.

She knows the habits of many of her customers like family, and they know hers. She’s lost some elderly customers over the years who’ve died alone, which is becoming more common in Japan, which has one of the world's oldest populations.

“More than once I was the first one to find their bodies,” Sugaya explained, seated in a small store she also runs on a busy shopping street in Tokyo's Ojima neighborhood.

It's a largely residential area of small dwellings, layered with occasional strips of sprawling apartment blocks.

“In an area like this, some people just leave their doors unlocked," Sugaya said. “Or I can get access by asking the landlords.”

Uncollected newspapers and unattended laundry are telltale signs of trouble, easily seen in small houses on the street. But large apartment buildings hide these signs of possible distress.

Sugaya is a savior for many, and the job — she’s been at it for 23 years — has also strengthened her own self-worth. She feels that the job saved her.

She says she was bullied in school and fired from several jobs until she found that delivering high-quality, healthy food also nourished her own mental health and offered value to others.

“Selling tofu on a cart made me think I am OK to be myself," Sugaya explained. “I used to be repeatedly put down, but through cart-selling I built up my self-esteem.”

“I was still nervous with women around my ages,” she added. “But I felt safe when surrounded by the elderly whose smiles are warm and kind.”

Shinji Saito comes by Sugaya's shop daily. Saito, who has epilepsy, calls her accepting personality “magical.”

She’s also a link to a time when vendors walked through neighborhoods selling ramen, sweet potatoes, vegetables and other items.

“Delivery of newspapers or tofu, what used to be part of our daily lives, have been replaced by delivery apps or smart phones,” Sugaya said. “One can easily spend a day without having any verbal conversation with others.”

"When you go to a convenience store, you hit a button on a screen and don’t even say hello to anyone. It leaves you empty.”

Sugaya makes her rounds three days per week, a three-hour walk in the afternoon.

Her route twists through maze-like streets, and there are sporadic sales — and frequent conversations. A woman walks from her house to buy tofu, chats about her unruly cat and shows off a strand of wild vine growing in her garden. Another woman reminds Sugaya that cart-selling is a disappearing craft.

“Even when I'm in need of tofu, I tell myself I'd better wait for Ako-chan,” said customer Toshi Niiyama, using Sugaya's nickname. “We used to have someone coming to sell vegetables, but he stopped coming.”

Sugaya has no such plans to stop.

“I go this way on Mondays, that way on Saturdays and that way on Thursdays,” she explained. “I go even if it's raining because my customers expect to see me — or just because they want to have a talk."

Now Les Bleus have to hope he can overcome an injury that had him summoning for help and leaving the game in the 77th minute. Mbappé said the injury was minor, and he showed no ill effects while celebrating with his team after the whistle.

“I took a knock to the ankle, but I’m fine," said Mbappé, who was replaced by Jean-Philippe Mateta. “At that point, JP was in better shape than I was to play the final minutes.”

The reigning Golden Boot winner and only the second teenager — after Pele — ever to score in a World Cup final, Mbappé made up for his miss on a first-half penalty by scoring in the 60th minute. It was his 20th goal in 20 World Cup games and his eighth in 2026, equaling Argentina captain Lionel Messi for the tournament lead.

Mbappé also assisted on Ousmane Dembélé’s goal six minutes later to help the two-time champions reach the semifinals, where they will play either Spain or Belgium. France has never failed to make a World Cup final in two previous tournaments with Mbappé.

“There’s only one way to relax, and that’s by winning,” Mbappé said. “Until we’ve done that, we don’t let up. We’re in the semifinals and we’re very happy, but there’s still a long way to go. We realize that what lies ahead is even tougher than what we’ve been through, but we’re ready to face anything.”

Asked if this was his strongest France team yet, Mbappé said it has the most potential — “for the time being.”

“But I always say that the strongest teams are the ones that win,” he said. "I don’t see a World Cup next to me, so for now, we’re not the strongest team.”

Mbappé gave France fans a scare when he went to the field in pain after he was stepped on by Morocco defender Issa Diop in the 63rd minute. He remained in the game until the 76th minute, when he dropped to the turf and waved to the sideline.

After the training staff checked on him, Mbappé was subbed off — waving to the Gillette Stadium crowd as he left — and watched the end of the match from the bench with an ice pack on his right ankle.

“It's a slight pain in the ankle,” France coach Didier Deschamps said. “Nothing serious.”

Mbappé had a chance from the penalty spot in the first half after drawing a foul from Morocco defender Noussair Mazraoui in the box in the 28th minute. But goalkeeper Yassine Bounou guessed correctly, diving to his left to stop the attempt.

Mbappé said the long delay while the play was being reviewed left him wondering if he would be attempting the shot at all.

“It’s complicated, because there’s some kind of imbroglio," he said. "I let myself be de-concentrated. That’s a scenario I hadn’t experienced yet.”

But Mbappé delivered in the second half when he dribbled into the area and let loose a rocket that went just inside the post.

Messi also has scored eight goals at the tournament and Norway forward Erling Haaland has seven heading into their quarterfinal matches on Saturday. (Mbappé technically holds the Golden Boot lead because he has more assists, which is the tiebreaker.)

Mbappé's 20th goal put him one behind Messi on the all-time World Cup scoring list. Messi has 21 goals in 31 career World Cup matches over six tournaments, breaking the record of 16 that had been held by Germany striker Miroslav Klose.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here