Trump started stoking interest in the extraterrestrial in February, directing federal agencies to release their records related to extraterrestrial life and UFOs. Since then, he has built suspense with tantalizing updates, teasing an imminent release of documents never before shared by the U.S. government.

“We’re going to be releasing a lot of things that we haven't,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House event celebrating NASA astronauts. “I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people.”

Trump has relished in portraying himself as the president who spills the secrets. In the first week returning to office, he ordered the release of records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The disclosures revealed little beyond what was already known.

In the buildup to that release, Trump said “the American people deserve transparency and truth.” Now, as he turns to the sky, the president has struck a similar tone, suggesting answers to decades-old questions may be on the way. His February directive on social media called for transparency around "alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”

“The first releases will begin very, very soon,” he told supporters in April at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix. “So you can go out and see if that phenomena is correct. You’ll figure it out.”

An expert cautions against raising expectations

Even before Trump's directive, the Pentagon was years into a process to declassify and release government documents related to UFOs, now often referred to as unexplained anomalous phenomena, or UAP.

Citing concerns over national security, Congress created an office in 2022 to investigate UAP and declassify as much material as possible. The office's 2024 debut report revealed hundreds of new UAP incidents but found no evidence that the U.S. government had ever confirmed a sighting of alien technology. A second report covering more recent sightings is expected to come soon.

That agency, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, is now working with the White House to release “never-before-seen UAP information,” according to a Pentagon statement.

The office's previous director, however, said Trump's promises were bluster, a “shiny object” to distract Americans from the war with Iran. Sean Kirkpatrick, a physicist and former career intelligence officer who led the office until 2023, said he has seen the government's records and believes there are no bombshell revelations to be found.

“Readers should not get their hopes up that there’s going to be some document with photos, interviewing the aliens when they came down,” he said. “Because that just doesn’t exist.”

Videos purporting to show alien technology tend to have mundane explanations, he said. Modern infrared cameras used by the U.S. military often capture jet engines and other hot objects in a long thermal bloom, which, Kirkpatrick said, explains viral videos of speedy, pill-shaped objects.

Pentagon not forthcoming on UAP reports, GOP-led panel says

On Capitol Hill, those types of videos have caught the attention of a small group of Trump-aligned Republicans who insist the Pentagon is holding back secrets.

The Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets has been conducting its own investigation into reports of mysterious aircraft near U.S. military installations, which the panel says pose a threat to national security and the armed forces.

Last fall, the task force heard testimony from current and former service members who described UAP encounters. In one case, a senior Navy officer said he was off the coast of California in 2023 when he saw a glowing “Tic Tac” shaped object emerge from the ocean and link up with three similar objects. They sped away in an instant, he said.

Trump's interest in the subject has energized congressional Republicans, including Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, an Air Force veteran who co-chairs the task force. Luna has criticized what she calls “less than adequate” transparency from the Pentagon.

In a March letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Luna demanded dozens of UAP videos identified by whistleblowers and labeled with names such as “Spherical UAP in clouds.” Her deadline for Hegseth came and went, and no videos were produced.

Trump's entry to the UFO fray drew applause from Luna, who last year told podcaster Joe Rogan that she has seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.” The Pentagon “can’t hide from our docs request anymore!” Luna said on social media after Trump's directive.

Vance professes to be ‘obsessed’ with UFO files

Trump appears skeptical about the existence of extraterrestrial life. Addressing the Turning Point USA crowd in Phoenix, he said, “I figured this was a good crowd because I know you people, you’re really into that. I don’t know if I am.”

Why he made the revelation at that event, held at a megachurch, is unclear. A day earlier, Trump had spoken in Las Vegas, not far from Area 51, a top-secret Cold War test site that has fueled UFO conspiracy theories.

Vice President JD Vance has described himself as “obsessed” with UFO files. In March, he said he has been trying to find time to investigate Area 51 since he took office.

“I’ve still got three more years as vice president,” Vance told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson. “I will get to the bottom of the UFO files.” Invoking his Christian faith, Vance said he believes sightings reported to be aliens are actually the work of spiritual demons.

Even before Trump tackled the topic, alien buzz was already in the air.

It's back in Hollywood with an upcoming Steven Spielberg movie, “Disclosure Day.” Former President Barack Obama made a splash in February when he declared on a podcast that aliens are real. He later clarified that he had seen no evidence but that “the odds are good there’s life out there.”

Trump is hardly the first president drawn to UFO mysteries. President Bill Clinton has said he once ordered a review of the Roswell Incident — something had crashed in 1947 at a New Mexico ranch and officials later said the debris was the remnants of a high-altitude weather balloon — around its 50th anniversary in 1997. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan claimed to have seen UFOs before their time in the White House.

The U.S. government has been investigating UFO reports since the 1940s, in part to determine if they represent advanced technology from competing nations or “evidence of off-world technology,” according to the Defense Department's 2024 report.

In online communities devoted to UFOs, some see Trump's promise as a step in the right direction; others believe it will come to nothing. For people who follow the topic closely, promises of big revelations have never lived up to the hype, said Greg Eghigian, a Pennsylvania State University professor who wrote a book on the history of UFO sightings.

“There is almost no satisfaction that is possible for many of the really die-hard folks,” he said. “So in a sense, I think disappointment can almost be guaranteed to be expected no matter what comes out of this.”

HiPP, which recalled some of its baby food jars in Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic after the case came to light last month, said in a statement Saturday it was “greatly relieved” by the arrest, and would provide a further updates as verified details come in.

The Burgenland State Criminal Police Office, under the direction of prosecutors, said a probe was launched after poison turned up in a baby food jar purchased at a supermarket in the city of Eisenstadt on April 18.

It said the suspect was being questioned, and that no further details would be immediately provided. The Burgenland public prosecutor’s office has announced an investigation into suspected “intentional endangerment of the public.”

The Austrian Press Agency reported that an expert report on the toxicity of the poison was pending. A total of five tampered baby food jars were seized before they could be consumed, APA reported.

Authorities said previously they believe the tampering occurred in 190-gram (6.7-ounce) jars of baby food made with carrots and potatoes for 5-month-olds that were sold from SPAR supermarkets in Austria.

HiPP responded by recalling all of its baby food jars sold at SPAR supermarkets — which include SPAR, EUROSPAR, INTERSPAR and Maximarkt stores — in Austria as a precaution. Vendors in Slovakia and the Czech Republic also removed all of the brand’s baby jars from sale.

The company said the recall was not due to any product or quality defect on its part, and said the jars left its facility in “perfect condition.”

Police said a customer at the time of the discovery had reported that a jar appeared to have been tampered with, but no one had consumed the baby food.

Pfaffenhofen, Germany-based HiPP said it has been a “victim of extortion,” adding that an unspecified “blackmailer” sent a message to a shared mailbox in the case, prompting it to immediately inform police.

Benavidez put on a show with Alvarez sitting ringside on Saturday night, moving up 25 pounds in weight and dominating former sparring partner Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez.

He twice sent Ramirez to the canvas, including knocking him out at 2:59 of the sixth round to win the WBA and WBO cruiserweight titles and become the first boxer to win championships at 168, 175 and 200 pounds.

Benavidez (32-0, 26 knockouts) not only remained undefeated, but showed why he was a -600 favorite over Ramirez (48-2, 30 KOs).

Ramirez was taken to a hospital to receive a head scan, according to Jane Murcia, communications director for Golden Boy Promotions.

“He’s in good spirits and has a swollen eye,” Murcia said. “There’s no determination of a fracture at this point.”

In the co-main event, WBA super middleweight championship fight, Jaime Munguía (46-2, 35 KOs) upset title holder Armando Reséndiz (16-3, 11 KOs) by winning a resounding unanimous decision. Reséndiz was a -200 favorite, but Munguía — the former WBO junior middleweight champ — was the aggressor from the start and won by scores of 117-111, 119-109 and 120-108.

“It feels great to have this championship belt with me, but this is just the beginning," Munguía said. "I’m excited for what comes next. We are ready for big challenges and great fights.”

Benavidez has chased Canelo with hopes of setting up a showdown, but Alvarez never agreed to it and it has been looking unlikely to happen.

Maybe now it's different, and Benavidez didn't waste the opportunity to make the case yet again.

“I see Canelo in the building. Let me just ask the fans this. Do you guys want to see Canelo versus David Benavidez?" the man known as “The Mexican Monster” asked, drawing a roar from the crowd.

“Enough said. That means we can’t leave that fight on the table. I have respect for Canelo. He’s a great champion. I’m a great champion, too. Let’s do it.”

Benavidez said he would be willing go back down in weight to make it happen.

“I’m still champion at 175," Benavidez said. “I’m champion at 175 and 200. So if they want to come get it at 175, let’s get it at 175.”

Boxing fans, or least those who support Benavidez, haven't forgotten how Canelo has yet to take on the match. Alvarez, wearing a black Munguía T-shirt, was booed all three times he was shown on the large video board. Benavidez, who was born in Phoenix and lives in Miami, later was cheered while shown going through prefight preparations.

He then gave his fans plenty more to cheer about and they reciprocated by regularly chanting his nickname “Monstruo” in the Cinco de Mayo weekend showcase fight.

Benavidez, even when being backed down by Ramirez, delivered his signature rapid-fire combinations, usually pelting his opponent's head. A right hand to Ramirez's head in the fourth staggered him, and Benavidez went for the knockout but settled for the knockdown at the end of the round when Zurdo went down to his left knee.

Then two rounds later, Ramirez again went to a knee. This time, the fight was over.

“We came up together," Benavidez said. "We came up sparring together. I got him ready for his world championship fights. He got me ready for my world championship fights. I just want to say I love Zurdo Ramirez, but, you know, it is what it is in here. There’s only one ‘Monster.’”

And now the 29-year-old Benavidez can make a credible argument after dominating the 34-year-old Mexican that he one of the sport's best pound-for-pound boxers if not right at the top.

The statistics underscored how much Benavidez owned the fight.

According to Compubox, he landed 151 punches at a 46.2% to 89 for Ramirez, who reached his target on 19.8% of attempts. The power punches were 137-64 and the percentage 56.8-27.7.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to overpower him because it was my first time coming up to 200 pounds," Benavidez said. “So I knew I had to use the gifts that God gave me: speed, power, movement, punch selection and IQ. That’s exactly what I did.”

___

AP boxing: https://apnews.com/boxing

The shelves once laden with goods during his childhood sat nearly empty in late April, with barely anything to offer the 5,000 clients who depend on the state-run store for subsidized food.

Government ration books that once provided for a healthy diet and kept families fully fed for a month are now shrinking.

As the economy collapses and prices soar, a growing number of Cubans find themselves unable to afford alternatives to state-run stores and struggle to subsist on meager salaries in a socialist country of nearly 10 million where basic goods increasingly are sold in U.S. dollars.

“No Cuban can truly survive on the products from the ration book anymore,” Amate López said.

‘Living

off air’

Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro established the ration book — “la libreta”— in the early 1960s. It offered heavily subsidized goods ranging from milk to fish and even cigarettes. Cubans knew their assigned bodega would be stocked with everything they needed by the first of the month.

The ration book shrank during the “Special Period,” when Soviet aid plummeted in the 1990s and deprivation hit Cuba. During that time, Cubans lost an average of 5% to 25% of their body weight, according to one study published in a medical journal, with goods including bread, milk, eggs and chicken in scarce quantities.

Even so, many Cubans who lived through that period say the current situation is worse.

Amate López recalled that his assigned bodega was so full decades ago “you could barely walk.”

It’s now an empty room with dusty old posters detailing the prices and amounts of nearly two dozen goods no longer available, including yogurt, pasta and bars of soap. Two industrial freezers once packed with meat and chicken serve only to keep Amate López’s water bottle cold. In April, the only items he had available to sell were rice, sugar and split chickpeas.

Cuban teens turning 15, a landmark birthday in Latin America, used to receive cake and several cases of beer. Now they only get 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of ground beef. The government recently opted to celebrate those turning 65 by awarding them sardines, a bar of soap and a package of toilet paper. But Amate López said he doesn't have those items.

Havana resident Ana Enamorado, 68, said she only was able to buy split chickpeas and 2 pounds (1 kilogram) of sugar at her assigned bodega in April.

She struggles to buy the remaining basic goods at small, privately owned stores known as “mipymes” with her salary and pension totaling some 8,000 Cuban pesos ($16) a month.

A carton of 30 eggs costs roughly 3,000 pesos ($125), 2 pounds of meat hash are nearly 900 pesos ($37) and 1 pound of cornmeal is roughly 200 pesos ($8).

“There’s hardly anything in the ration book,” she said. “We’re practically living off air.”

Her lunches and dinners are a rotation of rice, seasoned ground meat and cornmeal, or sometimes nothing at all. She recalled once upon a time being able to eat pork, lamb, fricassee, fried plantain slices and red beans and rice.

“Now we have to cut back, have one meal a day and live on memories,” Enamorado said.

Subsidizing people in need instead of goods

Cuba imports up to 80% of the food it consumes, including goods offered at state stores that are increasingly unavailable given a lack of government resources.

“They just don’t have the money to do it anymore,” William LeoGrande, a professor at American University who has tracked Cuba for years, said about the government running out of funds. “Things come in an ad hoc way.”

LeoGrande said the government “bungled” the 2021 merging of two Cuban currencies and the resulting inflation has persisted because the state spends far more money than it takes in.

The government has to stop printing money and balance its budget without drastically cutting social services, a challenge since the bulk of state funds is spent on health, education, social welfare and food imports, he said.

“Any major cuts in state spending are going to have a profound social impact, which is why they haven’t done it,” LeoGrande said, adding that the government’s investment in tourism is “way higher” than the demand for tourism, which has plummeted.

In recent years, Cuba’s government has talked about subsidizing people in need instead of goods. That would free up money to import fuel, medicine and other items, LeoGrande said.

But many Cubans still depend on their ration books while the island's crises deepen as severe power outages, petroleum shortages and a U.S. energy blockade persist.

Cuban comedians have spoofed the ration book, creating a character named “Pánfilo" who sings a rhyming chorus in a recent video posted online: “Place the notebook in a cemetery, because it's ready to be buried.”

Struggling to buy basic goods

On a recent sunny afternoon, Lázaro Cuesta, 56, stood in line to receive a daily allowance of two small bread rolls for him and his wife.

“Before it was 80 grams and cost 5 (Cuban) cents. Now it’s 40 grams and costs 75 cents,'' he said. “And the quality is worse.”

Cuesta works in food preparation and earns 6,000 Cuban pesos ($250) a month. His wife, a retired nurse, receives 4,800 pesos in monthly pension. They also receive $200 a month from her brother and daughter who live abroad.

The remittances allow them to eat avocados, eggs and red beans and rice, Cuesta said.

“If not for the remittances,” he said as he grabbed his neck with his right hand, “hang yourself.”

Roughly 60% of Cubans on the island receive remittances, but Rosa Rodríguez, 54, of Havana is not one of them.

“Everything is scarce here — everything — even that wretched bread they give us,” Rodríguez said. She earns 4,000 Cuban pesos ($8) a month, which she said isn’t a bad salary for Cuba, but “no matter how hard you work, it’s simply not enough.”

Rodríguez said the only product she obtained at her assigned bodega in April was a donation of 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) of rice, while she struggles to buy other basic goods.

“If you buy beans, then you can’t buy sugar,” she said, noting that most of her salary is spent on a large carton of eggs. “If I retire, I die.”

___

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

It turned out to be just enough.

After debuting in Game 4 following appendectomy surgery last month, the former MVP played some of the best playoff basketball of his career over the final four games of the series to lead the 76ers to a 109-100 Game 7 victory over a Celtics team that had looked like a potential NBA title contender.

The No. 7 seed’s reward is an Eastern Conference semifinals matchup with the No. 3 seed New York Knicks that begins Monday.

In leading Philadelphia to just its second road Game 7 victory ever and first since 1982 against Boston, Embiid finished with 34 points, 12 rebounds and six assists to become the first player in NBA history to score 100 points in a playoff series despite missing the first three games.

“Sometimes I’ve been in those positions where I’ve come up short,” Embiid said. “I’ve always said it, you can’t win alone. You need a team. ... The way we’re playing right now, we’re so in sync, offensively, defensively.”

He and Tyrese Maxey (30 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists) also became the third duo in league history to each have 25 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a Game 7.

Maxey said this series demonstrated how he now knows when to be assertive and when to defer to Embiid.

“It’s a growth, because I had to learn when to be aggressive, when not to be aggressive,” Maxey said. “It got a little bit difficult in the middle of this season. I was basically being first option every single night. Then he comes back and I’ve got to find a way to do both. And he does a really good job of just keeping me engaged and keeping me confident and keep me like, ’Hey I need you to do what you do.'"

The 76ers will need everything Embiid gave and more to compete with a Knicks team that plays a much more physical game than Boston.

Nurse said he believes Embiid is up for the challenge. He was limping at times in Game 7 but then got extra treatment while on the bench just to be able to contribute late.

He had reason to be fatigued because even though nine 76ers players touched the floor in Game 7, only six logged double-digit minutes. Embiid played 39 minutes, tying his series high.

“He was doing everything he could to stay in the game,” Nurse said. “Obviously, we ran a lot of things through him and we did just enough.”

Nurse said being able to come out the hostile environment of TD Garden with a victory will serve his team well going forward.

“It’s really good for us to go through that and respond to it,” Nurse said. “It’s going to be like that in the playoffs. You’re going to be in tight games and it’s going to be super loud. ... And you just have to play through it.”

Nurse said he believes the difference was making Boston play halfcourt sets over the final three minutes after the Celtics were able to play in transition for about 12 straight minutes in the third and fourth quarters.

That’s a lesson he hopes can be applied to New York.

“In the last two (games) and portions of this one, we just guarded really well,” Nurse said.

While there was satisfaction in beating Boston, Embiid said they have loftier goals.

“One series. Got more to go,” he said.

___

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

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The walk is put together by March of Dimes and raises awareness and critical funds to tackle our country’s maternal and infant health crisis.

This year’s event highlights that every step counts in the fight. It also brings families with shared experiences together, like a high school student appropriately named Blessing, who was born pre-term.

She and her family remember their journey and always come to support the cause.

“I didn’t know she was ever going to make it,” Blessing’s mother, Lakiesha Bentley, said. “We were sad. We went through the ups and downs. It’s amazing. This entire production brings you memories. You have some parents who weren’t fortunate as myself to have their child with them, so my heart goes out to them, for sure.”

“My mom says I’m the reason why our family is still together since I brought us through the highs and lows. I’m just happy to be here,” Blessing Morgan said.

This year’s ambassador family, the Raines family, told Local 10 News that their twins, Azalea and Lilly, were born two pounds each at 29 weeks.

Today, they are healthy and thriving, and the toddlers just celebrated their second birthdays.

“It was crazy,” Marc Raines said. “They were born so early, we went to the NICU. We would probably spend seven to 10 hours almost during their journey. We knew they were in such great hands with NICU nurses and doctors.”

Speaking of the hospital heroes, doctors and nurses say this goes beyond the NICU -- it’s about supporting the families and babies they care for.

“They think, oh you do so much for us, they don’t realize they do so much for us too,” one nurse, Alexandra Rodriguez, said. “They bring joy to my life, at least, so just a way to bring back to them, celebrate them, celebrate the happy success stories, even the sad ones. You have to uplift them and it’s who we do it for.”

There’s still time to donate to the cause, and there will be another March for Babies in Miami-Dade County in two weeks, on May 16.

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Where crowds and boarding calls would typically fill the space, confusion and uncertainty took over as thousands of passengers were left stranded following the airline’s sudden shutdown after 35 years in operation.

For many travelers, the day was anything but smooth.

“It’s crazy. I don’t even know what to do,” said Melissa Puntriano, one of the many passengers trying to make sense of the situation.

Puntriano had been traveling with her two daughters and was attempting to return home to Tennessee after undergoing surgery. Instead, she found herself scrambling for answers after receiving a message early Saturday informing her that Spirit Airlines had ceased operations.

“It’s frustrating, especially that I’m sick… I counted on them,” she said.

Across the airport, similar scenes played out. Travelers who had booked with the budget carrier moved from counter to counter, searching for alternative flights, often without success.

Kendra Dixon, traveling with a group of nearly 10 family members, said the experience was overwhelming.

“Completely overwhelmed. We have a family of like 10 of us traveling. It was like chaos—everyone trying to figure out alternative plans,” Dixon said.

She had been hoping to make it to Houston for her nephew’s graduation.

Inside Spirit’s terminal, passengers were met with a stark message: the airline had ceased operations, and customer service was no longer available.

Many questioned how the shutdown was handled.

“Spirit should have just not permitted anyone to buy tickets if they knew they were going through this process,” Puntriano said.

With limited options, stranded travelers began looking to other airlines, only to encounter soaring prices and limited availability.

“I’ve been airline to airline—they don’t have space,” Puntriano said. “They are telling us they’re going to give us a discount, but when you get there, there’s no discount.”

She said she was quoted nearly $1,000 just to get her family home—far more than she could afford.

“It’s too much. I cannot afford it … that’s why I did all my accommodations before,” she added.

Others shared similar frustrations about last-minute ticket costs.

“In this economy, I know it’s cliché to say, but it’s true—the tickets are just unaffordable,” Dixon said.

As Spirit planes remained grounded just beyond the runway, the emotional impact of the shutdown was clear.

“Spirit meant a lot of things to a lot of people… dang, farewell, Spirit,” Dixon said.

While many passengers expressed frustration over what felt like an abrupt end to a long-standing airline, others reflected on its role as an affordable travel option for millions.

Now, with Spirit Airlines gone, travelers and industry watchers alike are left wondering what the long-term impact will be, especially when it comes to ticket prices and accessibility in the months ahead.

Jackson Blake also scored for Carolina, and Frederik Andersen stopped 19 shots for his second shutout of these playoffs and seventh in his postseason career.

Game 2 of the series is Monday night in Raleigh, with Carolina yet to trail in any of its five postseason games so far after jumping to a 2-0 first-period lead in this one.

“We had a good start, obviously,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “That’s what won the game.”

Carolina closed a first-round sweep of Ottawa last weekend, then had an extended break while the Flyers battled to push past Pittsburgh in overtime of Game 6 on Wednesday night. That led to rest-versus-rust conversations about how the Eastern Conference’s top seed would start Saturday night.

Instead, the Hurricanes pounced from the opening puck drop, a departure from how all four regular-season meetings went to overtime or a shootout.

Stankoven scored in each of the four wins against the Senators, then scored on a redirect from the slot just 1:31 in.

“I think you’re just trying to get it off quick,” Stankoven said. “Obviously, it’s nice to have that confidence that comes with putting the puck in the net, and yeah, you just kind of build off of it.”

Blake followed at 7:30, splitting two defenders as he entered the zone and charging in to slip a puck behind Dan Vladar.

That was more than enough offense on this night with the Flyers struggling to apply much pressure on Andersen — who opened the Ottawa series with a shutout, too.

“We definitely came ready to play,” Andersen said.

Philadelphia started its first postseason since 2020 by battling through Pittsburgh to close out a six-game series in overtime on Cam York’s Wednesday night winner. But the Flyers sputtered from the start, managing just nine shots on goal through two periods and being outshot 3-2 on their four power plays for the night.

Otherwise, they struggled to find much open ice with Carolina’s aggressive style closing in rapidly to shut down lanes toward Andersen or for the pass.

“We talked about it, we just didn’t live it on the ice,” Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said, pointing to a need to react quicker against Carolina’s pressure. “We weren’t quick enough for their speed. ... It’s a good baptism how some of our players are going to have to play.”

By the final 10 minutes, the game had turned testy with players having to be separated multiple times. That included 10-minute misconduct penalties on Philadelphia’s Trevor Zegras and Nick Seeler, along with Blake and Shayne Gostisbehere for Carolina.

Both teams were down key players. The Flyers didn’t have regular-season goals leader Owen Tippett because of an undisclosed injury, while the Hurricanes were missing defenseman Alexander Nikishin after he suffered a concussion in Game 4 against Ottawa.

Carolina veteran Mike Reilly drew in for Nikishin and had the primary assist on Stankoven’s first goal and the secondary assist on Blake’s score.

___

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

By the time the race ended, Golden Tempo won by a neck, bucking the trend of closers not being able to come from behind at Churchill Downs recently and making DeVaux the first female trainer with a Derby champion.

“That’s how he runs, so it’s not like we really did anything different than he had done in his previous starts,” DeVaux said.

While Golden Tempo got bumped by Ocelli to his outside at the break, 38-1 long shot Six Speed went to the lead out of the starting gate and was joined near the front by So Happy and Danon Bourbon. Golden Tempo could not even be seen in the frame on television as the horses rounded the first turn.

“I knew my horse was a deep closer, so I don’t have any interest in being in front early,” Ortiz said. “You can see the way I broke, (then) I go to the rail and save ground.”

Six Speed set a fast early pace, completing the first quarter-mile in 22.68 seconds. The first half-mile was done in 46.44 seconds.

“There was a lot of speed on tap on paper, and that materialized," DeVaux said.

Ortiz began making his move around the far turn and was 13th with a quarter-mile to go. He was ready to rumble and began navigating through horses one by one.

“I was hoping for a big run late,” Ortiz said. “I was hoping for a fast pace, and I’m glad we had it.”

At the top of the stretch, Golden Tempo was still 13th with 12 more horses to pass. He chose the outside lane, going around the field rather than inside.

“I don’t want to mess with the inside with (an 18)-horse field,” Ortiz said. “I’ve done it in the past. Not good.”

He set his sights on older brother Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard No. 1 Renegade, who was also traveling quickly.

“I felt like I had horse,” the younger Ortiz said. “I felt like we were moving along very nice. I felt like going outside on him wasn’t going to hurt me. I think he was the horse to beat.”

Golden Tempo turned out to be that, blowing by everyone and getting to the finish line of the 1 1/4-mile race just in time, justifying DeVaux's good feeling.

“About the 3/16 pole, I thought we’re probably going to win this,” she said. “And then I really kind of blacked out after that.”

___

AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing

The match started with immediate pressure from Miami, leading to a goal in the fourth minute from Ian Fray. It was a header into the top right corner after a precise pass from Telasco Segovia.

After the opening goal, Miami kept up the pressure, leading to a big chance missed by Germán Berterame, who scuffed his shot wide of the far post.

At the 15-minute mark, the game cooled down, with Miami maintaining control as it looked for a second goal.

After a bad pass by Orlando, Lionel Messi got the ball near the halfway line and was fouled by Robin Jansson near the edge of the box. Jansson received a yellow card for the challenge, giving Miami a dangerous free kick. Messi’s shot was saved by Orlando goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau.

The follow-up shot by Rodrigo De Paul was also saved by Crépeau, leading to a corner in Miami’s favor.

Inter Miami scored its second goal in the 25th minute after Messi found Segovia for an easy tap-in into an empty net. That gave Segovia a goal to go with his assist and gave Messi his first assist of the match.

It was total domination by Miami in the inaugural Florida derby at Nu Stadium, limiting Orlando to a single shot and 32% possession through 30 minutes.

Who else but Messi to give Miami a third first-half goal, as he took on Orlando defenders before firing a shot from outside the box into the bottom left corner. Luis Suárez was credited with the assist.

The second yellow card of the match went to Orlando City’s Adrián Marín after he fouled Suárez.

Minutes later, Orlando City got on the scoresheet in the 39th minute after a strike from outside the box by Martín Ojeda, marking just the team’s second shot of the match.

Orlando’s 18-year-old forward Justin Ellis recorded his second MLS assist of the season after holding up play for Ojeda.

After the first 45 minutes, a minimum of six minutes was added before the halftime whistle.

Right before halftime, Miami goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair received a yellow card for time-wasting.

The half ended with Miami ahead 3-1, with Messi and Segovia each recording a goal and an assist.

The second half started with Inter Miami playing more conservatively, holding on to its 3-1 lead.

The first yellow card of the second half went to Miami’s Yannick Bright for a foul on Eduard Atuesta.

After 60 minutes, the pace of the match slowed, with Miami controlling possession. De Paul also received a yellow card for dissent.

Miami’s first substitution of the half came in the 65th minute, as Fray came off for Facundo Mura.

After a quiet start to the second half, Orlando shocked Nu Stadium with a second goal by Ojeda, making it 3-2 in the 68th minute.

After Orlando’s second goal, Suarez was replaced by Tadeo Allende.

Five minutes later, Orlando nearly scored the equalizer after an Inter Miami giveaway, but St. Clair made a crucial save.

The momentum completely shifted in favor of Orlando after its equalizer, as Inter Miami found itself defending its lead with 15 minutes remaining.

After an Orlando corner, the referee pointed to the penalty spot following a foul in the box by defender Maximiliano Falcón.

Messi received a yellow card for dissent.

Ojeda converted from the penalty spot, completing his hat trick and tying the match.

Inter Miami went into full attack mode after Orlando equalized, trying to avoid a fourth straight home draw.

The match entered the 90th minute tied 3-3, with a minimum of eight minutes added.

Inter Miami continued to look for a winner through Messi, but Orlando sat back whenever Miami had possession.

In the 93rd minute, Orlando City shocked Chase Stadium with a go-ahead goal by Tyrese Spicer, giving it a 4-3 lead and completing the comeback after trailing 3-1 at halftime.

Moments later, Messi was fouled near the edge of Orlando’s six-yard box, giving Miami a dangerous free kick with a chance to equalize.

Messi’s free kick grazed the top of the net.

Crépeau received a yellow card for delaying the restart.

The referee blew the final whistle as Miami lost its first match at Nu Stadium, ending its 11-game unbeaten streak.

Inter Miami now goes four games without a win at Nu Stadium.

Miami generated three expected goals, while Orlando totaled 1.91. Miami also dominated possession with 64% but struggled against the counterattack, where Orlando scored the majority of its goals.

The Herons look to get back on the winning side as they go on the road to face off against Toronto FC on May 9 at 1 p.m.

Embiid finished with 34 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. Tyrese Maxey added 30 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists. VJ Edgecombe scored 23 points and Paul George had 13.

Philadelphia, the No. 7 seed, will visit No. 3 New York on Monday night in Game 1 of the second round.

The Sixers franchise, including its time as Syracuse Nationals, improved to 2-10 in road Game 7s. Its only other win came in 1982 at the Boston Garden. It's a small measure of revenge after Boston blew out Philadelphia in Game 7 in the second round of the 2023 playoffs.

“We had a chance to beat them three years ago, didn’t do it. We came in and got it done," Maxey said.

Embiid, who debuted in Game 4 after recovering from appendectomy surgery, is the first player in NBA history to score 100 points in a playoff series despite missing the first three games. He and Maxey also became the third duo in league history to each have 25 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a Game 7.

Jaylen Brown led Boston with 33 points and nine rebounds. Derrick White had 26 points, including five 3-pointers. Neemias Queta finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds. The Celtics struggled from the 3-point line for the third straight game, finishing 13 of 49.

Brown said Embiid changed tenor of the series.

“He put a lot of pressure on us,” Brown said. “We didn't really have the answers for him.”

Boston coach Joe Mazzulla shrugged off any notion that his team was too dependent on 3s in the series.

“I love the looks that we got. I love the process that we had.. But I hate the result," Mazzulla said.

The second-seeded Celtics made their earliest exit from the playoffs since the 2020-21 season. Boston fell to 32-1 when leading a series 3-1.

The Celtics played without Tatum after he was ruled out about 90 minutes before tipoff with left knee stiffness. Brown said he didn’t find out until about 45 minutes before the game.

“Nobody told me anything. But my mindset was the same,” Brown said.

Philadelphia led for all but 31 seconds in the game, increasing a five-point halftime edge to 18 points in the third quarter. It was down to 13 at the start of the fourth and Boston opened the period on a 16-4 run to pull within 92-91.

The 76ers were leading 101-98 when Maxey got free for a layup with 1:15 remaining. Boston missed its next four shots and Philadelphia pushed it to 105-98 on a pair of free throws by Maxey.

Mazzulla said Tatum came to the team facility Saturday with knee discomfort, and the medical team decided for him not to play. Tatum briefly left Game 6 in the third quarter for unspecified treatment to his left calf. Mazzulla downplayed the significance, saying initially Tatum would play in Game 7.

With Tatum out, Mazzulla made radical changes to the starting lineup, opting to start Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza and Ron Harper Jr. alongside Brown and White.

It was the first time that group started together this season and the Celtics quickly fell into a 9-0 hole. Philadelphia led by 15 in the first quarter and 32-19 when it ended.

Unlike in their losses in Games 5 and 6, the Celtics weren’t as quick to fire up 3s, instead opting to attack the interior of Philadelphia’s defense to get easier looks.

Boston started the second on an 18-4 run to take its first lead of the night, 37-36, on a 3-pointer by Payton Pritchard. The 76ers led 55-50 at halftime.

___

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

According to Homestead police, officers were dispatched to the parking lot at the Waterstone Plaza, located in the 3000 block of Northeast 43^rd Avenue, in reference to a shooting that was believed to have occurred on the Turnpike.

Police said they soon discovered that the victim had been grazed by a bullet during a road rage shooting in the southbound lanes of the highway, just north of Southwest 288^th Street, outside of Homestead city limits.

The victim was transported by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue to a local hospital for treatment.

FHP has since taken over the investigation.

No other details were immediately released.

At stake for the No. 1 player in women's golf is chance to win back-to-back on the LPGA and become the first player since Annika Sorenstam in 2001 to start a season with six consecutive tournaments finishing no worse than runner-up.

She has played in the final group in all six of her tournaments this year.

Equally impressive is that Korda is coming off a win at major championship, going wire-to-wire in The Chevron Championship at Memorial Park, a big course for big hitters. El Camaleon is tight with trouble on both sides, and she's navigating that just fine.

“Even though I'm coming off a major win, I took Monday off to relax. From there, I'm here to work. I'm not on vacation,” Korda said with a smile. “It's a tough golf course. Most important for me is mentally, being relaxed. I'd be lying if I said my energy level was 100%.”

Korda was at 14-under 202.

Her finish included a 9-iron into a right-to-left wind to 2 feet on the par-3 15th hole, where the green is exposed to the wind of the Caribbean Sea. This was her second straight bogey-free round — her only bogey of the tournament was on her 11th hole Thursday.

Three shots behind was Arpichaya Yubol of Thailand, whose birdie-birdie finish gave her a 66 and a spot in the final group.

“I never play with her before," Yubol said. "Nelly Korda, Lydia Ko, they both kind of like my idol because they play very good. And if I have to play with her tomorrow it's just like my dream is come true. So my life is complete right now.”

Minami Katsu had a 69 and was four shots behind.

Korda has not been to Mayakoba since her rookie year in 2017. She has experience on her side in one big area, however. As she goes for her third win of the year — and 18th of her career on the LPGA — the four players immediately behind her have yet to win on the LPGA.

Korda only had one big moment of stress on the difficult par-4 ninth, when she drove into the bunker and laid up well short of the green. She hit wedge to 8 feet behind the hole and made that to stay bogey-free.

But she smoked a 3-wood onto the green at the par-5 13th for a two-putt birdie, attacked the front pin on the 15th and saved her best for last with the 8-iron on the 18th.

“We just kind of try to avoid the mistakes as much as possible,” she said. “You’re going to hit a bad shot here and there and you’re going to find yourself in trouble, but trying to stay away from the holes that kind of lead to you trouble is the goal.”

Yubol had the low round of the day and she gets to play with one of her golfing idols on Sunday, her birthday. She turns 24.

“She’s young, but at the end of the day I’m just focused on myself, trying to get the job done and see how that day goes,” Korda said.

___

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

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According to authorities, deputies responded at around 2:45 a.m. to a ShotSpotter alert near Southwest 217th Street and Southwest 120th Avenue.

Investigators say deputies arrived and found a man suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel transported him to Jackson South Medical Center in critical condition, however he later died at the hospital.

Detectives with the agency’s Homicide Bureau are investigating.

No further information has been released.

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Miami police responded around 12:10 p.m. to reports of multiple shots being fired near Northwest 17th Avenue and Northwest 54th Street.

When they arrived, police found two men in their 20s who had been shot multiple times.

Miami Fire Rescue officials said one of the men was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.

Police said one person is in custody.

No further information has been released.

It was the third time in major league history that a team had walked that many batters consecutively — and the first time in more than four decades, according to the Elias Sports Bureau and Sportradar.

Pittsburgh also was at bat when Atlanta walked seven straight in the third inning on May 25, 1983. The only other time it happened was on Aug. 28, 1909, when the Chicago White Sox issued seven straight bases on balls to the Washington Senators.

The string of free passes resulted in the Pirates scoring five runs in the inning without a hit.

Rhett Lowder walked Brandon Lowe with one out and the bases empty. After he walked Bryan Reynolds and Ryan O'Hearn, the Reds replaced him with Connor Phillips, who also could not find the strike zone.

Phillips walked Nick Gonzales, Marcell Ozuna, Horwitz and Konnor Griffin to force in four runs, exiting after throwing five of his 21 pitches for strikes.

“Just getting on base any way possible,” O'Hearn said. “Walks, hits, whatever it takes. Our guys know what they’re doing up there. So, proud of the offense.”

Sam Moll came in and induced Henry Davis' RBI fielder's-choice grounder, then retired Oneil Cruz on a tapper fielded by catcher Tyler Stephenson.

Lowder, who took the loss, allowed eight runs in 1 1/3 innings to raise his ERA from 3.18 to 5.09. Entering Saturday, he had not pitched fewer than five innings or given up more than four earned runs in six starts this season.

___

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

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Speaking Saturday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the administration had made significant efforts to prevent the airline’s collapse, but ultimately could not keep it afloat.

“Spirit was in dire straits well before the war with Iran,” Duffy said. “Multiple times they filed for bankruptcy. Their model wasn’t working.”

Following the airline’s overnight shutdown, the Department of Transportation announced measures aimed at helping affected travelers. Several major carriers—including United, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest—are stepping in to offer reduced fares for displaced Spirit customers.

“It is normally going to be about $200 for a one-way ticket,” Duffy said. “You’ll have to provide the airline you’re now going to book with your Spirit confirmation number and proof of payment.”

Travelers currently mid-trip are being urged to act quickly and take advantage of those offers before availability runs out.

Duffy also placed blame on Democrats for blocking a proposed merger between Spirit and JetBlue, which he argued could have helped the airline survive.

“And Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, along with the Biden DOJ, decided they didn’t want that merger to take place,” Duffy said.

The Department of Justice sued in 2023 to block the merger, arguing it would reduce competition and drive up fares. In 2024, a federal judge agreed, ruling the deal violated antitrust laws.

Despite those legal hurdles, Duffy said the administration continued exploring ways to keep the airline operational.

“The president was like a dog on a bone, trying to figure out a way to keep Spirit afloat,” he said. “In the end, this was a creditor issue. They have the final say on whether they want to do a deal with the government.”

As the fallout continues, many questions remain about the long-term impact on airline competition and ticket prices—especially for budget-conscious travelers who relied on Spirit’s low-cost model.

Meanwhile, at Trump National Doral in Miami, officials were awaiting the president’s arrival. As of now, the president has not publicly commented on the airline’s shutdown.

Mientras los pasajeros enfrentan cancelaciones de vuelos, varias otras aerolíneas están interviniendo con opciones con descuento.

JetBlue ofrece tarifas de $99 USD por trayecto para viajeros que puedan mostrar prueba de un vuelo cancelado de Spirit. La oferta está vigente hasta el miércoles.

Frontier Airlines dice que está ayudando a clientes de Spirit con hasta un 50% de descuento en tarifas base. Los viajeros pueden usar el código “SAVENOW” —todo en una sola palabra— para obtener el descuento.

American Airlines dice que ha añadido “tarifas de rescate” en rutas normalmente atendidas por Spirit, aunque no ha divulgado precios específicos.

La aerolínea también dice que está trabajando para proporcionar transporte a empleados de Spirit que puedan quedar varados durante viajes de trabajo.

United Airlines ha lanzado una página web especial con opciones para viajeros afectados.

Southwest Airlines también ofrece vuelos con descuento a clientes que puedan mostrar prueba de un vuelo cancelado de Spirit, con esa oferta vigente hasta el miércoles.

Una viajera, Angela Moreno, dijo que ha estado varada tratando de volver a reservar, pero no con Spirit.

“Intentamos llamar, no había nadie en servicio al cliente. Y como lo resolvimos hoy, tratamos de comunicarnos y dijimos, qué tenemos que perder”, dijo.

Los pasajeros continúan llegando al aeropuerto en busca de respuestas. Varias personas han preguntado a los trabajadores qué está pasando, solo para que les digan que Spirit planea emitir reembolsos por los vuelos cancelados y que no es necesario ir al aeropuerto a menos que planeen volar con otra aerolínea.

Hablando el sábado, el secretario de Transporte Sean Duffy dijo que la administración hizo esfuerzos significativos para evitar el colapso de la aerolínea, pero finalmente no pudo mantenerla a flote.

“Spirit estaba en serias dificultades mucho antes de la guerra con Irán”, dijo Duffy. “Se declaró en bancarrota varias veces. Su modelo no estaba funcionando”.

Tras el cierre de la aerolínea durante la noche, el Departamento de Transporte anunció medidas destinadas a ayudar a los viajeros afectados. Varias aerolíneas importantes, incluidas United, Delta, JetBlue y Southwest, están interviniendo y ofrecen tarifas reducidas a clientes desplazados de Spirit.

“Normalmente será alrededor de $200 USD por un boleto de ida”, dijo Duffy. “Tendrán que proporcionar a la aerolínea con la que ahora reserven su número de confirmación de Spirit y prueba de pago”.

Se insta a los viajeros que actualmente están en medio de su viaje a actuar rápidamente y aprovechar esas ofertas antes de que se agoten.

Duffy también responsabilizó a los demócratas por bloquear una propuesta de fusión entre Spirit y JetBlue, lo que, según argumentó, podría haber ayudado a la aerolínea a sobrevivir.

“Y Joe Biden y Pete Buttigieg, junto con el Departamento de Justicia de Biden, decidieron que no querían que esa fusión se llevara a cabo”, dijo Duffy.

El Departamento de Justicia demandó en 2023 para bloquear la fusión, argumentando que reduciría la competencia y aumentaría las tarifas. En 2024, un juez federal estuvo de acuerdo, dictaminando que el acuerdo violaba las leyes antimonopolio.

A pesar de esos obstáculos legales, Duffy dijo que la administración continuó explorando formas de mantener operativa la aerolínea.

“El presidente estaba como un perro con un hueso, tratando de encontrar una manera de mantener a Spirit a flote”, dijo. “Al final, esto fue un asunto de acreedores. Ellos tienen la última palabra sobre si quieren hacer un acuerdo con el gobierno”.

Mientras continúan las repercusiones, quedan muchas preguntas sobre el impacto a largo plazo en la competencia entre aerolíneas y los precios de los boletos, especialmente para los viajeros que dependen de opciones de bajo costo como Spirit.

Mientras tanto, en Trump National Doral en Miami, los funcionarios esperaban la llegada del presidente. Hasta ahora, el presidente no ha comentado públicamente sobre el cierre de la aerolínea.

Donde normalmente habría multitudes y llamados de abordaje, la confusión y la incertidumbre se apoderaron del lugar mientras miles de pasajeros quedaron varados tras el cierre repentino de la aerolínea después de 35 años de operación.

Para muchos viajeros, el día estuvo lejos de ser tranquilo.

“Es una locura. Ni siquiera sé qué hacer”, dijo Melissa Puntriano, una de las muchas pasajeras que intentaban entender la situación.

Puntriano viajaba con sus dos hijas e intentaba regresar a su casa en Tennessee después de someterse a una cirugía. En cambio, se encontró buscando respuestas tras recibir un mensaje la madrugada del sábado informándole que Spirit Airlines había cesado operaciones.

“Es frustrante, especialmente porque estoy enferma… contaba con ellos”, dijo.

En todo el aeropuerto se repitieron escenas similares. Viajeros que habían reservado con la aerolínea de bajo costo iban de mostrador en mostrador buscando vuelos alternativos, a menudo sin éxito.

Kendra Dixon, que viajaba con un grupo de casi 10 familiares, dijo que la experiencia fue abrumadora.

“Completamente abrumador. Somos una familia de como 10 viajando. Fue un caos, todos tratando de encontrar planes alternativos”, dijo Dixon.

Ella esperaba llegar a Houston para la graduación de su sobrino.

Dentro de la terminal de Spirit, los pasajeros se encontraron con un mensaje claro: la aerolínea había cesado operaciones y el servicio al cliente ya no estaba disponible.

Muchos cuestionaron cómo se manejó el cierre.

“Spirit simplemente no debió permitir que nadie comprara boletos si sabía que estaba pasando por este proceso”, dijo Puntriano.

Con opciones limitadas, los viajeros varados comenzaron a buscar en otras aerolíneas, solo para encontrarse con precios elevados y poca disponibilidad.

“He ido de aerolínea en aerolínea, no tienen espacio”, dijo Puntriano. “Nos dicen que nos darán un descuento, pero cuando llegas, no hay descuento”.

Dijo que le cotizaron casi $1,000 USD solo para llevar a su familia a casa, mucho más de lo que podía pagar.

“Es demasiado. No puedo costearlo… por eso hice todos mis arreglos con anticipación”, añadió.

Otros compartieron frustraciones similares sobre los costos de boletos de último minuto.

“En esta economía, sé que suena cliché decirlo, pero es verdad: los boletos son simplemente inasequibles”, dijo Dixon.

Mientras los aviones de Spirit permanecían en tierra más allá de la pista, el impacto emocional del cierre era evidente.

“Spirit significó muchas cosas para mucha gente… caramba, adiós, Spirit”, dijo Dixon.

Aunque muchos pasajeros expresaron frustración por lo que sintieron como un final abrupto para una aerolínea de larga trayectoria, otros reflexionaron sobre su papel como opción de viaje asequible para millones.

Ahora, con Spirit Airlines fuera, tanto viajeros como expertos de la industria se preguntan cuál será el impacto a largo plazo, especialmente en cuanto a precios de boletos y accesibilidad en los próximos meses.

The Herons are still searching for their first win at Nu Stadium after drawing their first three matches there.

In the first derby of the season, Inter Miami earned a 4-2 road win in a dominant performance, with star Lionel Messi scoring a second-half brace.

Miami sits in second place in the Eastern Conference with 19 points, while Orlando City is 14th with seven points.

Entering the match, Messi has scored eight goals in five career matches against Orlando City, recording braces in four of them.

Miami has yet to win at Nu Stadium but enters the match unbeaten in 11 straight games.

With a win, Miami can tie Nashville SC for first place in the conference.

Miami’s starting XI features Messi, Luis Suárez and Germán Berterame up top; Telasco Segovia, Rodrigo De Paul and Yannick Bright in midfield; Ian Fray, Micael, Maximiliano Falcón and Noah Allen in defense; and Dayne St. Clair in goal.

The Florida derby kicks off at 7:15 p.m.

La caminata es organizada por March of Dimes y crea conciencia y recauda fondos clave para enfrentar la crisis de salud materna e infantil en el país.

El evento de este año destaca que cada paso cuenta en la lucha. También reúne a familias con experiencias compartidas, como una estudiante de secundaria apropiadamente llamada Blessing, quien nació prematuramente.

Ella y su familia recuerdan su experiencia y siempre acuden a apoyar la causa.

“No sabía si ella iba a lograrlo”, dijo la madre de Blessing, Lakiesha Bentley. “Estábamos tristes. Pasamos por altibajos. Es increíble. Todo esto te trae recuerdos. Hay padres que no tuvieron la misma suerte que yo de tener a su hijo con ellos, así que mi corazón está con ellos, sin duda”.

“Mi mamá dice que soy la razón por la que nuestra familia sigue unida porque nos llevé a través de los momentos buenos y malos. Estoy feliz de estar aquí”, dijo Blessing Morgan.

Aún hay tiempo para donar a la causa, y habrá otra March for Babies en el condado Miami-Dade en dos semanas, el 16 de mayo.

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A South Florida family is working to change that.

Andrew D’Eri is in his mid-30s and is caring, kind and a dedicated worker. But like many adults on the spectrum, he struggled to find a job in his early 20s. His brother, Thomas D’Eri, saw firsthand how limited opportunities were holding Andrew back.

“It became really clear really quickly that in order for him to lead the full adult life that we knew he was capable of, we were going to have to take action,” Thomas said.

Fresh out of business school, Thomas teamed up with his parents to buy a car wash. Their goal wasn’t just to employ Andrew, it was to create opportunities for others like him.

That idea became Rising Tide Car Wash.

Since opening in 2013, the company has grown to three locations in Parkland, Margate and Coral Springs, employing more than 90 individuals on the autism spectrum. Even more notably, more than 250 employees have gone on to secure jobs elsewhere after working there.

“Businesses like ours are an on-ramp into the workforce for many people with autism,” Thomas explained.

The model is intentional. At Rising Tide, systems are designed to be clear, structured, and easy to follow—an approach that plays to the strengths of many individuals on the spectrum.

“We design our systems to be really clear, really simple to use,” Thomas said. “It’s very process-driven and tangible.”

“You come to a car wash—you know pretty quickly whether you got good service. The car is either clean or it’s not,” Thomas added.

That clarity helps employees build confidence and pride in their work. It also fosters a strong sense of community.

“Everyone here is really close—like friends,” said employee Luke Zenda. “We’re able to work well together and handle day-to-day operations.”

Andrew agrees. “I like working with my friends here a lot,” he said.

For customers, the experience is just as meaningful. Employees greet them warmly, take pride in their service, and create an environment that feels both welcoming and genuine.

The impact extends beyond the workplace. For the D’Eri family, the business has strengthened personal bonds as well.

“I get to work with my family every day. I get to work with my brother really closely,” Thomas said. “We’ve grown tremendously in our relationship, and honestly, car washing is awesome.”

At a time when many companies struggle to find reliable workers, Rising Tide is thriving. The demand for its services—and its mission—continues to grow.

The company is now preparing to open a fourth location in Pompano Beach, expanding its reach and creating even more opportunities for individuals on the autism spectrum.

For families like the D’Eris, it’s proof that with the right approach, inclusion isn’t just possible—it’s powerful.

In addition to being the CEO of Rising Tide Car Wash, Thomas D’Eri is also the author of the best-selling book, “The Power of Potential,” published by Harper Collins Leadership, a book that highlights employment opportunities for individuals with autism and addresses common challenges businesses face.

Una familia del sur de Florida está trabajando para cambiar eso.

Andrew D’Eri, de unos 30 años, es una persona atenta, amable y un trabajador dedicado. Pero como muchos adultos en el espectro, tuvo dificultades para encontrar empleo en sus primeros años de adultez. Su hermano, Thomas D’Eri, vio de primera mano cómo las oportunidades limitadas estaban frenando a Andrew.

“Quedó muy claro rápidamente que para que él pudiera llevar la vida adulta plena que sabíamos que era capaz de tener, teníamos que tomar acción”, dijo Thomas.

Recién graduado de la escuela de negocios, Thomas se unió a sus padres para comprar un lavado de autos. Su objetivo no era solo emplear a Andrew, sino crear oportunidades para otros como él.

Esa idea se convirtió en Rising Tide Car Wash.

Desde su apertura en 2013, la empresa ha crecido a tres ubicaciones en Parkland, Margate y Coral Springs, empleando a más de 90 personas en el espectro autista. Aún más notable, más de 250 empleados han logrado conseguir trabajos en otros lugares después de trabajar allí.

“Negocios como el nuestro son una puerta de entrada al mercado laboral para muchas personas con autismo”, explicó Thomas.

El modelo es intencional. En Rising Tide, los sistemas están diseñados para ser claros, estructurados y fáciles de seguir, un enfoque que aprovecha las fortalezas de muchas personas en el espectro.

“Diseñamos nuestros sistemas para que sean muy claros y fáciles de usar”, dijo Thomas. “Todo está muy basado en procesos y es tangible”.

“Vienes a un lavado de autos, sabes rápidamente si recibiste un buen servicio. El auto está limpio o no”, añadió.

Esa claridad ayuda a los empleados a desarrollar confianza y orgullo en su trabajo. También fomenta un fuerte sentido de comunidad.

“Aquí todos somos muy cercanos, como amigos”, dijo el empleado Luke Zenda. “Podemos trabajar bien juntos y manejar las operaciones del día a día”.

Andrew coincide. “Me gusta mucho trabajar con mis amigos aquí”, dijo.

Para los clientes, la experiencia también es significativa. Los empleados los reciben con amabilidad, se enorgullecen de su trabajo y crean un ambiente acogedor y genuino.

El impacto va más allá del lugar de trabajo. Para la familia D’Eri, el negocio también ha fortalecido los lazos personales.

“Puedo trabajar con mi familia todos los días. Trabajo muy de cerca con mi hermano”, dijo Thomas. “Nuestra relación ha crecido muchísimo y, honestamente, lavar autos es increíble”.

En un momento en que muchas empresas tienen dificultades para encontrar trabajadores confiables, Rising Tide está prosperando. La demanda por sus servicios —y su misión— sigue creciendo.

La empresa ahora se prepara para abrir una cuarta ubicación en Pompano Beach, ampliando su alcance y creando aún más oportunidades para personas en el espectro autista.

Para familias como los D’Eri, es una prueba de que con el enfoque correcto, la inclusión no solo es posible, sino poderosa.

Además de ser el CEO de Rising Tide Car Wash, Thomas D’Eri también es autor del libro superventas “The Power of Potential”, publicado por Harper Collins Leadership, que destaca oportunidades laborales para personas con autismo y aborda desafíos comunes que enfrentan las empresas.

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Kassandra Seldin says she began noticing the condition of graves at Miami City Cemetery during her daily route to school.

“Every day I go to school near here I pass by the cemetery and it is just so mistreated,” she said.

Her project is part of her Girl Scout Silver Award, and over the past year she has worked to honor veterans buried there. With help from veterans and volunteers, Seldin identified and documented more than 1,700 graves at the cemetery.

“I think that it’s so wrong that these veterans served our country and helped us gain our freedom. They should be respected,” she said.

“It made me feel so happy that I could do something for someone else this special,” she added.

She worked alongside veterans and volunteers, including Lex Kruger Dobrota, a veteran and founder of the app “Badger,” which helps document and map graves.

“Seeing the other buried headstones that are underneath, buried underneath the surface of the ground, leaves covered up, grass growing, it really showed that we need to give a name to these forgotten military heroes buried in the cemetery,” Kruger Dobrota said.

Along with researching and documenting, Seldin also helped clean and care for headstones with volunteers, wiping away dirt and restoring names.

She also photographed each grave and recorded service information, building a digital map through the “Badger” app so families can more easily locate loved ones.

After more than a year of work, Seldin says this chapter is coming to a close, but the veterans she worked to honor will not be forgotten.

It didn't seem to matter, either.

Young is still in full control at Trump National Doral, after his round of 2-under 70 on Saturday got him to 15 under for the week. He had a six-shot lead over a group that includes top-ranked Scottie Scheffler into a potentially rainy final round Sunday.

“No lead is safe out here,” Young said. “I’m going to go try to execute my plan as if I’m right around the lead or just trying to have a good day out there, not necessarily with any thought toward where I’m at in the tournament.”

Young had four birdies and two bogeys on Saturday.

“The tournament’s in his hands right now,” said Scheffler, who shot a 3-under 69 to get to 9 under — but hasn’t been able to close the gap on Young. “I can go out and have a really good round, and if he has another really good round he’s going to be a tough guy to catch. All I can do is go out and try and have a great round and see where that leaves me.”

Si Woo Kim (69) and Kristoffer Reitan (69) also were 9 under. Ben Griffin 68), Nick Taylor (72) and Matt McCarty (69) were 8 under.

Catching Young will be tough in any conditions.

And nobody knows what awaits players Sunday at Doral.

A lot of rain is expected on Sunday — more than an inch, according to some forecasts, with heavy downpours predicted for the afternoon — the tournament moved up its schedule for the final round in an effort to beat the worst of the weather.

Players will go off in threesomes, from split tees, with everyone starting between 7:30-9:40 a.m. It's unknown if President Donald Trump — the course owner — will publicly appear in the final round. He was expected to be at the course Sunday, though that was before the schedule for the final round changed.

Young shared the lead through three rounds at the Masters — tying for third at Augusta National after Rory McIlroy beat him by two shots. McIlroy had a six-shot lead after two rounds there and got caught, a lesson that'll be in the back of Young's mind Sunday.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to forget,” Young said. “But it won’t change really how I play, especially the front nine. I may be a hair more conservative in a place or two, but with the weather looking the way it does, that would be how I would be playing anyway.”

Scheffler beat Young by five shots in that final round at the Masters. He'll need to do better than that at Doral if he's going to win on Sunday.

But the way he finished Saturday might have made his comeback chances a bit of a boost.

The 18th at Doral basically is two different holes — a brutal par 4 for those who don't have enough distance for a 300-plus-yard carry over water and into a wider portion of the fairway, and a slightly less brutal par 4 for those who can get it out there. Scheffler is one of those who don't have problems reaching the better spots of that fairway, and he took full advantage of that on Saturday.

His approach from 172 yards stopped 4 feet from the cup. He made the birdie — just the ninth of the week at the finishing hole.

“Just ended up in a good spot and really nice 9-iron in there to finish off,” Scheffler said. “It’s always nice to have a little tap in at the last.”

Young actually had a closer approach on the 18th, but his shot from about 165 yards was 60 feet below the hole. His birdie putt was about 8 feet short, but he saved the par to preserve the six-shot edge.

___

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

Kassandra Seldin dice que comenzó a notar el estado de las tumbas en el Cementerio de la Ciudad de Miami durante su trayecto diario a la escuela.

“Todos los días que voy a la escuela cerca de aquí paso por el cementerio y está muy descuidado”, dijo.

Su proyecto forma parte de su Premio de Plata de Girl Scouts, y durante el último año ha trabajado para honrar a los veteranos enterrados allí. Con la ayuda de veteranos y voluntarios, Seldin identificó y documentó más de 1,700 tumbas en el cementerio.

“Creo que es muy injusto que estos veteranos sirvieron a nuestro país y nos ayudaron a obtener nuestra libertad. Deben ser respetados”, dijo.

“Me hizo sentir muy feliz poder hacer algo así de especial por alguien más”, añadió.

Trabajó junto a veteranos y voluntarios, incluido Lex Kruger Dobrota, veterano y fundador de la aplicación “Badger”, que ayuda a documentar y mapear tumbas.

“Ver otras lápidas enterradas debajo de la superficie del suelo, cubiertas de hojas, con el pasto creciendo, realmente mostró que necesitamos darles un nombre a estos héroes militares olvidados enterrados en el cementerio”, dijo Kruger Dobrota.

Además de investigar y documentar, Seldin también ayudó a limpiar y cuidar las lápidas con voluntarios, quitando la suciedad y restaurando los nombres.

También fotografió cada tumba y registró la información de servicio, creando un mapa digital a través de la aplicación “Badger” para que las familias puedan localizar más fácilmente a sus seres queridos.

Después de más de un año de trabajo, Seldin dice que este capítulo está llegando a su fin, pero los veteranos a quienes honró no serán olvidados.

The team announced the news about 90 minutes before the start of the winner-take-all first-round matchup between Boston and the Philadelphia 76ers.

“He just came in today with knee discomfort. The medical team and myself decided for him not to play,” coach Joe Mazzulla said during his pregame meeting with reporters.

With Tatum out, Mazzulla made radical changes to the starting lineup for Game 7, opting to start Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza and Ron Harper Jr. alongside Jaylen Brown and Derrick White. It is the first time that group has started together this season.

Tatum averaged 23.3 points, 10.2 rebounds and 6.8 assists through the first six games of the series, while shooting 52.2% from the field and 36.5 from the 3-point line.

Tatum briefly left Game 6 in the third quarter for unspecified treatment of his calf. Tatum, of course, is just 22 games into his return from the torn right Achilles tendon injury he suffered in last season’s playoffs.

The Celtics downplayed the situation, with Tatum saying afterward that his leg was only feeling “a little stiff.” He said following a quick assessment and some time on the exercise bike he didn’t return because the game was out of hand and the starters had already been pulled.

But he was a late addition to the injury report on Saturday, listed first as questionable when the 1:45 p.m. report was released.

Tatum's return to action was carefully managed during the regular season, beginning with a slow ramp up of his minutes. He also was not allowed to play in both games of a back-to-back.

But he's had a lot less rest over the last three playoff games, playing every other night.

Saturday marks the 67th game this season that Tatum has not played.

This will be the fifth time that the 76ers have played against Boston this season with Tatum sidelined.

“Obviously, it will change the matchups and things like that,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. “Obviously, they played the majority of their season without him, and played very, very well. So, I think they've got enough games under their belt and have guys they trust and rely on and all that kind of stuff.”

___

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

Now, it’s making a comeback.

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The relaunch of the GOP club drew dozens of attendees Saturday to Santorini by Georgios, signaling renewed energy among Republicans in an area long dominated by their political rivals.

“This is an opportunity to engage, to have conversations, and to connect with other voters,” said Goran Cuk, vice chair of the Republican Club.

The revival comes amid a broader political shift in Florida and Miami-Dade County. According to the latest voter registration data, Republicans now outnumber Democrats in both the state and the county. Miami-Dade has approximately 450,994 registered Republicans compared to 405,438 Democrats—a notable reversal from past decades.

Saturday’s event emphasized party unity and featured a mix of networking and celebration, including the traditional Greek custom of plate smashing.

Headlining the gathering was Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, who addressed key issues facing voters, particularly the rising cost of living.

“We have to be efficient when it comes to building homes and building roads,” Donalds said. “Thirty percent of the cost of building a new home is government costs—government permitting, delays in permitting. All that does is increase the cost of housing, especially on young people trying to get into the game.”

Affordability has become a central issue in the race, as economic pressures continue to mount. Recent jobs data shows the unemployment rate rose to 4.7% in March. While jobs are still being added month to month, overall employment is down compared to the previous year.

Donalds acknowledged the financial strain many residents are feeling, particularly in South Florida.

“Yeah, it’s a little bit more expensive, especially here in Miami Beach. It’s a little bit more expensive than it used to be,” he said.

As the campaign season heats up, Donalds currently holds a significant lead in Republican primary polls.

The return of the Miami Beach Republican Club highlights not only a local resurgence, but also a broader shift in Florida’s political dynamics—one that could have lasting implications for future elections.

Ahora, está de regreso.

El relanzamiento del club republicano atrajo a decenas de asistentes el sábado en Santorini by Georgios, lo que refleja un renovado impulso entre los republicanos en una zona durante mucho tiempo dominada por sus rivales políticos.

“Esta es una oportunidad para participar, tener conversaciones y conectarse con otros votantes”, dijo Goran Cuk, vicepresidente del Club Republicano.

El resurgimiento se produce en medio de un cambio político más amplio en Florida y el condado Miami-Dade. Según los datos más recientes de registro de votantes, los republicanos ahora superan en número a los demócratas tanto en el estado como en el condado. Miami-Dade tiene aproximadamente 450,994 republicanos registrados frente a 405,438 demócratas, un cambio notable respecto a décadas pasadas.

El evento del sábado enfatizó la unidad del partido y contó con una combinación de convivencia y celebración, incluida la tradicional costumbre griega de romper platos.

Encabezando el evento estuvo el candidato republicano a gobernador Byron Donalds, quien abordó temas clave para los votantes, particularmente el aumento del costo de vida.

“Tenemos que ser eficientes cuando se trata de construir viviendas y carreteras”, dijo Donalds. “El 30% del costo de construir una vivienda nueva son costos gubernamentales: permisos, demoras en los permisos. Todo eso lo que hace es aumentar el costo de la vivienda, especialmente para los jóvenes que intentan comenzar”.

La asequibilidad se ha convertido en un tema central en la contienda, mientras las presiones económicas continúan aumentando. Datos recientes de empleo muestran que la tasa de desempleo subió a 4.7% en marzo. Aunque se siguen creando empleos mes a mes, el empleo general ha disminuido en comparación con el año anterior.

Donalds reconoció la presión financiera que sienten muchos residentes, particularmente en el sur de Florida.

“Sí, es un poco más caro, especialmente aquí en Miami Beach. Es un poco más caro de lo que solía ser”, dijo.

A medida que se intensifica la temporada electoral, Donalds actualmente mantiene una ventaja significativa en las encuestas primarias republicanas.

El regreso del Club Republicano de Miami Beach resalta no solo un resurgimiento local, sino también un cambio más amplio en la dinámica política de Florida, uno que podría tener implicaciones duraderas para futuras elecciones.

Television News-Executive Producer-Full Time

Responsibilities:

Oversee the preparation and execution of daily newscasts overseeing a staff of Anchors, Reporters, Producers, Associate Producers, Assignment Editors, Directors, Photographers, and Video Editors. Seeking hands on EP with solid news judgment, leadership skills, creativity and a drive for excellence. Seeking strategic thinker and someone who can plan and then execute that plan. Candidate must be a proven leader in digital efforts and social media. Candidate must have several years producing experience in major market newsrooms and EP experience. Must be able to multi task and be a team player.

Qualifications:

• Knowledge of television news
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills required
• Ability to work flexible hours including nights, weekends and holidays
• Ability to work in a fast-paced high-energy environment with daily deadlines and changing priorities
• 3-5 years experience as a producer  and/or executive producer in a commercial news operation required
• College degree in journalism or broadcasting preferred
• News computer knowledge necessary

***All of the essential functions of this position are not necessarily described in this posting.

***We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider all qualified candidates regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age gender, marital status, disability, matriculation or political affiliation. Any offer of employment is conditioned on successful completion of a pre-employment drug screening, investigative background check, employment/education verifications, and reference checks. A Valid driver’s license is required.

Please follow link below to apply for Executive Producer Position:

https://jobs.dayforcehcm.com/en-US/wplg/CANDIDATEPORTAL/jobs/8928

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Send resume to: Bill Pohovey, VP/News Director bpohovey@wplg.com

No phone calls please.

It's the third consecutive pole for the current Formula One championship leader, who blocked Max Verstappen from taking the top starting spot at Miami International Autodrome for a third straight year.

Mercedes has dominated the competition this season, with George Russell winning from the pole in the season-opening race, then Antonelli winning from the pole in the two grands prix that followed. F1 then had a five-week break when a pair of races in the Middle East were canceled because of the war in Iran.

All teams made upgrades to their cars during the break, but after Russell was fourth and Antonelli sixth in Saturday's sprint race, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff acknowledged “we are a little out of sync with our upgrades compared to other teams.”

Antonelli recovered by qualifying and turned a lap at 1 minute, 28.653 seconds to beat Verstappen of Red Bull for the pole.

“Obviously a difficult start of the day with the sprint where it didn't go our way, but super happy with the recovery,” Antonelli said. “We will do our best this week and obviously it's been a little bit more difficult for us.”

Verstappen earned his best starting spot of the season as Red Bull has seemingly improved with its car upgrades. The four-time world champion — a two-time winner at Miami — had qualified sixth in Australia, eighth in China and 11th in Japan.

His best finish of the season so far was sixth in the Australia season opener, and the Dutchman has been so frustrated with the current car regulations that he's talked about potentially leaving F1.

He was all smiles after his qualifying result.

“For sure the car has not been great in the previous races and from my side I never felt comfortable with the layout of the car,” Verstappen said. “I think over the those last few weeks the team has been pushing to try to bring upgrades to the car and making me feel more comfortable with a lot of things in the car and it really pays off.

“I feel more in control of the car again and I can push a bit more. To be on the front row is way better than I expected heading into the weekend.”

Charles Leclerc, who was third in the sprint race, qualified third for Ferrari. Lando Norris, the reigning world champion and defending Miami Grand Prix winner, qualified fourth for McLaren after winning the sprint race from the pole.

Russell was fifth, Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari was sixth and Oscar Piastri of McLaren was seventh after finishing second in the sprint race.

Both of the Cadillac drivers failed to advance out of the first round in the team's first race in the United States. Despite major upgrades made to the new car during the five-week break between the Japanese Grand Prix on March 29 and Miami, Valtteri Bottas qualified 20th and Sergio Perez was 21st.

Only Gabriel Bortoleto qualified below them, last in 22nd, because of an issue that caused his Audi to catch fire.

F1 and the FIA governing body moved the start time of Sunday's race up by 3 hours to 1 p.m. EDT because of heavy rain expected in Miami. Most of the drivers have been concerned since Thursday about the forecast, which calls for thunderstorms. The race must be paused if there's lightning in the area because conditions must be clear enough for a medical helicopter to operate when cars are on the track.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

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According to BSO spokeswoman Miranda Grossman, Amy Bedell was last seen Jan. 13 near 520 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Grossman said Bedell’s family recently reported her missing.

Authorities said Bedell is 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs about 130 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call BSO Missing Persons Det. Chris Blankenship at 954-321-4268 or the BSO non-emergency number at 954-764- HELP (4357).

Según la portavoz de BSO Miranda Grossman, Amy Bedell fue vista por última vez el 13 de enero cerca de 520 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Grossman dijo que la familia de Bedell reportó recientemente su desaparición.

Las autoridades indicaron que Bedell mide 5 pies y 3 pulgadas de estatura y pesa aproximadamente 130 libras. Tiene cabello marrón y ojos marrones.

Cualquier persona con información sobre su paradero debe llamar al detective de personas desaparecidas de BSO Chris Blankenship al 954-321-4268 o al número de no emergencias de BSO al 954-764-HELP (4357).

Trailing 6-1 in the opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, Miami clawed back in the eighth inning, scoring three runs to cut the deficit to 6-4 entering the bottom of the ninth.

They cut it to 6-5 and brought the winning run to the plate, but the rally fell short.

The Marlins (15-17) turn to right-hander Max Meyer on Saturday at 4:10 p.m. ET as they look to return to the win column.

Meyer (1-0, 3.30 ERA) allowed one unearned run over five innings in a no-decision April 26 against the San Francisco Giants.

The Marlins are 6-1 in seven day games at loanDepot park this season, with the only defeat coming April 18 vs. the Milwaukee Brewers.

Philadelphia (13-19) will start rookie right-hander Andrew Painter (1-2, 5.25), a native of Pompano Beach, Florida.

Painter attended Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Lauderdale, and the Phillies selected him with the No. 13 overall pick in the first round.

This afternoon, the Marlins selected the contract of right-hander Josh Ekness (No. 95) from Triple-A Jacksonville and optioned left-handed reliever Cade Gibson to Jacksonville.

Gibson allowed five hits and four runs, including a three-run home run by Bryson Stott in the seventh inning, over 1 2/3 innings Friday.

Ekness, 24, a 12th-round pick by Miami in the 2023 First-Year Player Draft, has recorded 21 strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings for Jacksonville this season.

He will look to become the first pitcher and second Marlin to make their Major League debut this season, joining infielder Deyvison De Los Santos

Charles Leclerc fue tercero para Ferrari en una muestra de 19 vueltas de lo que podría ser la carrera del domingo en el Autódromo Internacional de Miami, alrededor del Hard Rock Stadium.

“Fue una buena carrera, es agradable volver al escalón más alto aunque fuera un sprint”, comentó Norris, que ganó desde la pole. “Hacía calor ahí fuera, sudabas. Intentaba encontrar ese equilibrio entre empujar, pero también mantenerme relajado y no cometer errores”.

McLaren, como la mayoría de los equipos, aprovechó una pausa de cinco semanas provocada por cancelaciones de carreras en Oriente Medio debido a la guerra en Irán para introducir mejoras en sus autos. Los cambios del equipo vigente campeón del mundo mostraron claramente que ha recortado la distancia con Mercedes, que ha dominado hasta ahora esta temporada.

Antes de Miami, la campaña había sido un pleno de Mercedes, ya que George Russell y Kimi Antonelli se combinaron para ganar los tres primeros grandes premios y la carrera sprint en China. Russell ganó en Australia, mientras que Antonelli se impuso en China y Japón para colocarse al frente de la clasificación del campeonato mundial de pilotos. Russell ganó la carrera sprint en China.

La dupla de Mercedes se quedó sin podio. Russell terminó cuarto y Antonelli fue sexto después de que una penalización de cinco segundos por exceder los límites de pista lo hiciera caer por detrás de Max Verstappen en el orden final de llegada.

“Sabemos que estamos un poco desfasados con nuestras mejoras en comparación con otros equipos”, dijo Toto Wolff, director del equipo Mercedes. “Esperábamos poder mantener nuestra ventaja y, en términos de tiempos puros por vuelta, estuvimos cerca del ritmo de los de adelante en el sprint. Esta temporada va a ser una carrera pura de desarrollo y quien aporte unas décimas antes que sus competidores obtendrá una ventaja”.

Verstappen fue quinto para Red Bull y Lewis Hamilton, de Ferrari, terminó justo detrás, en séptimo lugar. Ambos tuvieron un incidente al inicio de la carrera, en el que a Hamilton se le ordenó devolverle la posición a Verstappen tras rebasarlo.

Cadillac, en su primer evento en Estados Unidos, estuvo al fondo del pelotón, con los pilotos Sergio Pérez y Valtteri Bottas terminando 16º y 18º en una parrilla de 22 pilotos.

Norris, el vigente campeón de la F1, ganó la carrera sprint en Miami por segundo año consecutivo.

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As passengers deal with canceled flights, several other airlines are stepping in with discounted options.

JetBlue is offering $99 one-way fares for travelers who can show proof of a canceled Spirit flight. The deal runs through Wednesday.

Frontier Airlines says it’s helping Spirit customers with up to 50% off base fares. Travelers can use the code “SAVENOW” -- all one word -- to get the discount.

American Airlines says it has added “rescue fares” on routes typically served by Spirit, though it has not released specific pricing.

The airline also says it’s working to provide transportation for Spirit employees who may be stranded during work trips.

United Airlines has launched a special webpage with options for affected travelers.

Southwest Airlines is also offering discounted flights to customers who can show proof of a canceled Spirit flight, with that offer running through Wednesday.

One traveler, Angela Moreno, said she’s been stuck trying to rebook -- not with Spirit.

“We tried calling, no one in customer service. And since we figured it out today, we tried to reach out and we were like, what do we have to lose?” she said.

Passengers continue showing up at the airport looking for answers. Several people have asked workers what’s going on, only to be told that Spirit plans to issue refunds for canceled flights and that there’s no need to come to the airport unless they plan to fly with another airline.

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Just before 2:30 p.m. on April 22, Miami police were called to a marina at 1160 Northwest North River Drive for a trespassing complaint. The yacht’s owner said the man, Terry Roberts, was on board without permission.

When police tried talking to Roberts, 51, of Miami, he insisted he was authorized to be on the yacht and claimed he had permission from President Donald Trump, who he claimed was the owner, authorities said. The actual yacht owner, who was at the scene, denied ever giving him permission, according to an arrest form.

According to the report, officers attempted to speak with Roberts, but he refused to cooperate and continued repeating that he had authorization from Trump. He also said he was responsible for protecting multiple yachts in the area.

Marine patrol was called in case Roberts entered the water.

Officers said they warned him multiple times that he would be arrested if he did not comply, but he continued refusing and said only the president of the United States could remove him from the boat.

At that point, officers said it was unclear whether he was armed, and he was held at Taser point while they attempted to detain him.

After he was taken into custody, the yacht owner inspected the vessel and said a bedroom door had been damaged, with repairs estimated at about $3,000. The owner also reported missing keys, according to the report.

Before Roberts was placed in a patrol car, officers found the yacht keys in his right pants pocket, authorities said.

Police said he was also wanted in connection with the theft of a motorcycle just a few days before the boat incident.

Roberts was arrested and taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

He is facing charges of burglary, grand theft and trespassing. His bond was set at $11,150.

Poco antes de las 2:30 p.m. del 22 de abril, la policía de Miami fue llamada a una marina en el 1160 de Northwest North River Drive por una denuncia de invasión de propiedad. El dueño del yate dijo que el hombre, Terry Roberts, estaba a bordo sin permiso.

Cuando la policía intentó hablar con Roberts, de 51 años y residente de Miami, insistió en que estaba autorizado para estar en el yate y afirmó que tenía permiso del presidente Donald Trump, a quien dijo era el dueño, según las autoridades. El verdadero propietario del yate, quien estaba en la escena, negó haberle dado permiso, de acuerdo con un informe de arresto.

Según el informe, los agentes intentaron hablar con Roberts, pero se negó a cooperar y continuó repitiendo que tenía autorización de Trump. También dijo que era responsable de proteger múltiples yates en el área.

La patrulla marina fue llamada en caso de que Roberts entrara al agua.

Los agentes dijeron que le advirtieron varias veces que sería arrestado si no cumplía, pero continuó negándose y afirmó que solo el presidente de Estados Unidos podía sacarlo de la embarcación.

En ese momento, los agentes dijeron que no estaba claro si estaba armado, y fue retenido bajo amenaza de Taser mientras intentaban detenerlo.

Después de que fue puesto bajo custodia, el dueño del yate inspeccionó la embarcación y dijo que una puerta de un dormitorio había sido dañada, con reparaciones estimadas en aproximadamente $3,000 USD. El propietario también reportó llaves desaparecidas, según el informe.

Antes de que Roberts fuera colocado en una patrulla, los agentes encontraron las llaves del yate en el bolsillo derecho de su pantalón, dijeron las autoridades.

La policía indicó que también era buscado en relación con el robo de una motocicleta solo unos días antes del incidente del bote.

Roberts fue arrestado y trasladado al Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Enfrenta cargos de robo, hurto mayor e invasión de propiedad. Su fianza fue fijada en $11,150 USD.

The family of late owner Peter Seidler formally announced the deal Saturday. The sale must still be approved by Major League Baseball.

The deal with private equity billionaire Feliciano and his wife took shape last month at an MLB-record valuation of $3.9 billion. The Padres' announcement of the deal didn't give specifics on the members of the investor group or the purchase price.

“The Padres are more than a baseball team; they are a unifying force in San Diego, rooted in community, connection and belonging,” Jones and Feliciano said in a joint statement. “As life and business partners, and as a family, we are honored to lead this next chapter together. We have worked hard for everything we have achieved, and we have built it together. We see that same spirit in this team and its fans, and we know what it takes to win. We are committed to showing up, listening and earning the trust of this community while building on the strong foundation established by the Seidler family.

“This is about more than baseball — it’s about boosting the pride, energy, and connection that define the Padres, investing in community, deepening belonging and ensuring this team remains accessible and endures for generations. We are all in — with the goal of bringing a World Series championship to San Diego.”

Seidler’s family began to explore a sale of the Padres last November, two years after the death of the popular Peter Seidler, who became the Padres' primary owner in 2020. His brother, John Seidler, has served as the Padres’ chairman since his death.

“When I became control person, my goal was to continue building on our recent success in pursuit of a World Series championship for the city of San Diego and our faithful fans,” John Seidler said in a statement. "As I pass the baton to Kwanza and José, I do so with full confidence that they share that vision as well as the Padres' deep commitment to San Diego. It’s what the team, our fans and the community deserve. Our family loves this team.”

Peter Seidler joined the Padres' ownership group in 2012 when John Moores sold the team for $800 million to a group headed by Ron Fowler. Seidler took over and immediately endeared himself to San Diego's fans with his aggressive financial backing of general manager A.J. Preller, who built a team that has reached the playoffs in four of the past six years.

The Padres have been a hot ticket for several years as San Diego's only team in the four biggest North American sports leagues, ranking second in the majors in attendance last season. Preller's roster is off to another strong start this season, sitting second in the NL West at 19-12 heading into a home game against the Chicago White Sox on Saturday night.

Jones and Feliciano already got a start on their new endeavor last month when they traveled to Mexico City to watch the Padres' international series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The couple was spotted sitting with Padres CEO Erik Greupner.

Feliciano will become the second Latino owner in baseball, joining Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno. Latino and Hispanic players comprise roughly 30% of major league rosters.

___

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

The incident comes four days after the four-time All-Star came off the 10-day injured list after fouling off a pitch and breaking his left big toe on April 11 in another game against the Twins.

X-rays showed no new fractures, and its not any worse than it was, manager John Schneider said after the game. He had already planned to give Springer an off day on Sunday.

Springer was hit by an 88 mph slider from Connor Prielipp and immediately went to the ground in pain. After being tended to by a couple of trainers for a few minutes, Springer gingerly walked off the field and was replaced by Jesús Sánchez.

In his sixth season with Toronto, the 36-year-old Springer is hitting .212 with two home runs and seven RBIs in 66 at-bats across 18 games.

The MVP of the 2017 World Series with Houston, Springer is in the final season of a $150 million, six-year deal with the Blue Jays.

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

He missed a 12-foot birdie putt and settled for a tap-in par on the par-5 8th hole Saturday — and that was the first par of his day at Trump National Doral, after an opening seven-hole stretch that featured an eagle, four birdies and two bogeys.

He began the day with a 9-foot putt for eagle at the par-5 opening hole, and his wild beginning was underway. The rest of his opening seven holes:

— No. 2, missed 15-foot par putt, bogey.

— No. 3, made 3-foot birdie putt.

— No. 4, missed 12-foot par putt, bogey.

— No. 5, 86-yard chip stops 8 inches from hole, birdie.

— No. 6, made 6-foot birdie putt.

— No. 7, made 4-foot birdie putt.

Going back to Friday, it was actually nine consecutive holes without a par for McCarty — who finished bogey-bogey in the second round.

He wound up shooting a round of 3-under 69, with just six pars for the day. He was at 8 under for the week going into Sunday's final round.

“Kind of roller coaster early,” McCarty said. “I played really solid.”

Even with all the everything-but-pars excitement to McCarty's round Saturday, he wasn't anywhere near close to a record for the most holes to begin a round without a par.

Since the tour began keeping such records — ShotLink didn’t start until 2004 — that record belongs to Per-Ulrik Johansson, who began his first round at the 2004 Valero Texas Open with 12 consecutive non-pars. Johansson started with a birdie, then made five bogeys, then two birdies, then a bogey, then a triple-bogey, then a birdie and finally one more bogey to start his round.

McCarty started Saturday's round in 12th place, eight shots back of leader Cameron Young. His start in the third round briefly got him as high as a tie for second.

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

The performance followed similar shows by Madonna in 2024 and Lady Gaga last year, which also were attended by huge crowds that danced on the sprawling sands. For Shakira, it was part of her “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,” or “Women No Longer Cry,” world tour named after her 2024 album.

Shakira's set kicked off around 11 p.m., more than an hour after the scheduled slot, to her fans screaming with excitement and frantic applause as skywriting drones flew overhead, spelling out in the sky, “I love you Brazil” in Portuguese.

The megastar spoke fondly about the first time she came to Brazil, some three decades ago.

“I arrived here when I was 18 years old, dreaming about singing for you,” Shakira told the crowd shortly after coming on stage. “And now look at this. Life is magical.”

The much-loved pop star sang fan favorites such as “Hips Don’t Lie,” “La Tortura” and “La Bicicleta." She ended with “BZRP Music Sessions #53/66,” which followed her separation from Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué.

She also took the time to celebrate women’s resilience during the show. “Us women, every time we fall we get up a little wiser,” she said.

One of the first places where Shakira became successful

Rio Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere said on X that 2 million people attended the performance. “The She-Wolf made history in Rio,” he posted, referring to Shakira's 2009 hit.

When Shakira first performed in Brazil in the 1990s, she established an amazing connection with the Brazilian public, according to Felipe Maia, an ethnomusicologist pursuing a doctoral degree in popular music and digital technologies at Paris Nanterre University.

That success in Brazil “has a lot to do with the fact that she comes from Colombia, a country whose culture has many similarities with Brazil,” Maia said, adding that Saturday’s performance “crowns the relationship she has had with Brazil for a very long time.”

Erica Monteiro, a 38-year-old accountant, said she has listened to Shakira since childhood.

“For me she represents the strength of our Latino community,” Monteiro said ahead of the concert. “We’re treated as if we were inferior but in fact we have much more strength.”

Heading home after Saturday's show, Hellem Souza da Silva said Shakira's performance, like Bad Bunny's concerts in Sao Paulo in February, helped consolidate Brazil's Latino identity.

These artists “are making it clear that Brazil, Puerto Rico, Colombia and other countries are part of Latin America. And that America is not the United States,” she said.

Crowds started piling onto the beach Saturday morning to nab a good spot for the show. Street vendors sold sweet corn and other Brazilian snacks, bottled water and caipirinhas, the popular Brazilian cocktail, but also toilet paper, deodorant and even bags of sand for concertgoers to stand on to get a better view of the stage set up opposite Copacabana Palace, a historic luxury hotel.

Street vendor Simone Paula da Cunha arrived on the beach on Friday evening, hoping to sell all the beer and water bottles she had bought ahead of the show and make about $100 in all.

Despite being tired, da Cunha was excited at the prospect of seeing Shakira live. “I remember her from when she still had black hair,” she said. “I'm a huge fan of hers.”

An effort to boost the city's post-Carnival economy

The free concerts are part of City Hall's attempt to boost economic activity after Carnival and New Year’s Eve festivities and before the monthlong Saint John’s Day celebrations in June.

“For us, parties are serious business. Because parties generate jobs, income, development, and identity for the city,” Cavaliere, the mayor, said on Wednesday as he presented the city’s operational plan for the event. “Our investment in this show will give us a financial return 40 times greater,” he said.

Shakira’s performance could generate around 777 million reais (around $155 million), according to a study by City Hall and Riotur, the municipality’s tourism company, thanks to the influx of tourists and cash spent in restaurants, hotels and shops.

More tourists headed to Rio in the month of May in the years with shows — 2024 and 2025 — compared to 2023, according to City Hall data. In 2024, the growth was 34.2% on May 1, just ahead of the concerts, compared to the previous year. In 2025, the increase was 90.5% compared to 2023.

Ahead of Shakira’s performance, Airbnb said in an April 22 statement that it was seeing an increase in guests expected to travel from different parts of Brazil, Latin America and even European capitals such as Paris and London.

Wanderson Andrade, a 30-year-old architect, said he flew in especially for the show from the city of Goiana in central Brazil on Saturday and planned to fly back the following day.

“I tried to get tickets to see her in Brazil last year but I didn't succeed,” said Andrade, whose first tattoo is a wolf in honor of Shakira. “Today is a dream come true.”

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

La Policía de Miami respondió alrededor de las 12:10 p.m. a reportes de múltiples disparos cerca de la avenida 17 del noroeste y la calle 54 del noroeste.

Al llegar, los agentes encontraron a dos hombres de unos 20 años que habían recibido múltiples disparos.

Miami Fire Rescue informó que uno de los hombres murió en el lugar, mientras que el otro fue trasladado al Ryder Trauma Center del Hospital Jackson Memorial en condición crítica.

La policía dice que una persona está bajo custodia.

No se ha divulgado más información.

Según las autoridades, los agentes respondieron alrededor de las 2:45 a.m. a una alerta de ShotSpotter cerca de la calle 217 del suroeste y la avenida 120 del suroeste.

Los investigadores dicen que los agentes llegaron y encontraron a un hombre con aparentes heridas de bala.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue lo trasladó al Hospital Jackson Memorial South en condición crítica, donde posteriormente murió.

Detectives de la unidad de homicidios asumieron la investigación.

No se ha divulgado más información.

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U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, known for her hundreds of bold hats and mentorship programs, has served in Congress for 15 years.

Both Democrats have been reelected through years of Florida’s several rounds of redistricting maps. But that could change with Gov. Ron DeSantis’s new Florida Congressional Districting map.

“The district I represent now is a pretty clean rectangle in South Broward. I represent 10 cities ... I will be running in a district where ... I will have an opportunity and the privilege to continue to represent my constituents in South Florida,” Wasserman Schultz, a former Democratic National Committee chairwoman, said about Florida’s 25th Congressional District.

Wilson, a Democrat from Miami’s Liberty City, represents Florida’s 24th Congressional District. After the 2010 U.S. Census, the district included North Miami, Miami Gardens, Opa-locka, and Miami Shores.

On Wednesday, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a new congressional map that Gov. Ron DeSantis is preparing to sign. Florida’s 24th Congressional District still includes Miami Shores, but it now includes areas of Broward County.

The new map also changed District 20, which has been vacant since Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned on April 21, 2026, after an ethics inquiry.

President Donald Trump, who pushed for redistricting before the midterms, recently celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act provisions that had supported District 20.

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Related stories

• Florida Republicans slice and dice congressional districts: How a new map could cost Democrats seats
• Redistricting battle intensifies in states after US Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act

Saif Abukeshek, a dual Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin, was detained for questioning in Israel on Saturday along with Thiago Ávila of Brazil. A legal aid group said both men had launched a hunger strike.

Dozens of other activists were picked up by the Greek coast guard following the Israeli action and taken to the island of Crete.

“This is a case of illegal detention in international waters, outside the jurisdiction of Israeli authorities. I have made this clear to my Israeli counterpart,” José Manuel Albares said in an interview with public radio.

An Israel-based legal advocacy group, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, or Adalah, said it had visited the two men at a detention site in the Israeli port city of Ashkelon. It said both reported being on a hunger strike after allegedly being repeatedly beaten while in custody.

“Adalah maintains that the treatment of the two activists, including the use of isolation, prolonged blindfolding and physical beatings, constitutes a grave violation of international law,” the group said.

In an online post, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Abukeshek and Ávila were being questioned for possible links to the armed group Hamas. It said the two men had been granted consular visits.

Abukeshek’s detention has further strained relations between Israel and Spain, which has been an outspoken critic of the war in Gaza and formally recognized Palestinian statehood in 2024.

On Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez took aim at his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, while speaking at a campaign event for upcoming regional elections in southern Spain.

“Now that Netanyahu has taken foreign citizens, including a Spanish national, and brought them to Israel, I have a few things to say to Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Sánchez said to applause from supporters of his Socialist party.

“First, Spain will always protect its citizens. Second, we will always uphold international law — and this is yet another violation of it,” he said. “And third, we demand the release of the Spanish citizen who has been illegally detained by the Netanyahu government.”

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Hazboun reported from Jerusalem. Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain contributed.

Charles Leclerc was third for Ferrari in the 19-lap preview of Sunday's race at the Miami International Autodrome around the Hard Rock Stadium.

“It was a good race, nice to be back on the top stair even if it was a sprint," said Norris, who won from the pole. "It was hot out there, it was sweaty. I was trying to find that balance of pushing but also staying relaxed and not making mistakes.”

McLaren, like most teams, used a five-week break caused by race cancellations in the Middle East because of the war in Iran to make upgrades to its cars. The changes for the reigning world champion team clearly showed it has closed the gap on Mercedes, which has dominated so far this season.

The Formula 1 season ahead of Miami had been a clean sweep by Mercedes as George Russell and Kimi Antonelli combined to win the first three grand prix races and the sprint race in China. Russell won in Australia, while Antonelli won in China and Japan to take the lead in the world championship driver standings. Russell won the sprint race in China.

The Mercedes duo was blocked from the podium in Miami as Russell finished fourth and Antonelli was sixth after a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits dropped him behind Max Verstappen in the final finishing order.

“We know that we are a little out of sync with our upgrades compared to other teams. We were hoping we were going to be able to hold on to our advantage, and in terms of pure lap times, we were close to the pace at the front in the sprint," Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said. "This season is going to be a pure development race and whoever brings a few tenths before their competitors will gain an advantage.”

Verstappen was fifth for Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton for Ferrari was right behind him but finished seventh. The two had an early race incident in which Hamilton was ordered to give Verstappen his position back after passing him.

Cadillac, in its first event in the United States, was at the back of the field with drivers Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas finishing 16th and 18th in the 22-driver field.

Norris, the reigning F1 champion, won the sprint race at Miami for the second consecutive year.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

But if you’ve been snagged in their now-defunct flight schedule, here are some things to know on how to get home, and get whole.

“Rescue fares,” reduced prices for new flights

Many airlines that used to compete with Spirit are now parachuting in with deals to save their travelers. Airlines including American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines are capping or reducing ticket prices for people to book new flights.

There is a limited window for this deal, which prioritizes now-stranded travelers who need to find a new way to their next destination.

For example, Southwest’s offer is only available in person at an airport ticket counter through Wednesday, May 6, according to industry trade group, Airlines for America and the U.S. Department of Transportation. United, meanwhile, is allowing such bookings for up to two weeks, which can be accessed online.

For those who were planning to fly Spirit and now need to find an alternative to the ultra low cost carrier, American, Allegiant, Frontier and Delta advertised reduced fares on the same routes Spirit once flew.

Many company announcements include maps showing where its routes overlapped with Spirits, which can help narrow the search to find a comparable flight.

“Spirit Airlines played an important role in expanding access to affordable travel and bringing more low fares to more people,” said Bobby Schroeter, Frontier’s chief commercial officer. “We recognize this is a difficult time for their customers and team members.

Get your money back in refunds

Spirit Airlines said they were prepared for an “orderly wind-down” of its operations, and that it will automatically process refunds for any flights booked on a credit or debit card.

Travelers who booked through third-party travel agencies should direct refund requests to those agents.

Anyone else who got their reservation through vouchers, credit or points will have to wait and see though Spirit’s bankruptcy process.

If there are questions about whether your money will make a safe landing back to your wallet, there are other ways to try to claw back your cash for the Spirit flight not taken.

The DOT suggests contacting your credit card company and exercising your rights under the Fair Credit Billing Act, by requesting a “chargeback” for services not rendered.

If you purchased travel insurance or it is included in your credit card’s policy and perks, call them to see if they cover “insolvency” or “service cessation.”

The last resort would be filing a bankruptcy claim but officials warn this route eats up time and money, and ultimately may only result in a partial refund.

The National Consumers League warned travelers to keep all documentation to prove they were booked for Spirit flights, including receipts, booking confirmations, cancellation notices, and any correspondence with the airline. The nonprofit watchdog organization also urged those affected to act immediately as credit card and insurance companies may have strict deadlines that can be time-sensitive.

“Not all Spirit customers should assume a refund will automatically appear,” said John Breyault, the league’s vice president of public policy, telecommunications, and fraud. “When an airline shuts down this suddenly, it’s up to travelers to take proactive steps to have the best chance of getting their money back.”

Expanding capacity and perks

American and United both said it is trying to adjust its fleet so it can help more stranded passengers. American said it is looking into tapping larger planes and United said it is potentially adding additional flights on routes where they overlapped with Spirit.

“We are reviewing opportunities to add additional capacity, including utilizing larger aircraft on critical routes — to support as many affected passengers as possible,” American said via an Airlines for America statement.

Southwest also said it will offer a status-match, by honoring Spirit’s Silver and Gold status members with its own A-List program.

The car rental company Hertz is also advertising deals for alternative transportation, offering one-way vehicles and up to 25% off for those find “the road might be the fastest way home in scenarios like this one.”

I’m an employee. Get me out of here.

Spirit crew members who are stuck at their destination should be granted airline travel benefits, including spare jump seats where available on most major carriers.

American said: “We will provide transportation for Spirit team members who have been displaced on a work trip,” according to an Airlines for America statement.

The DOT also said the other companies are offering preferential interviews to help expedite the job search for former Spirit pilots, flight attendants and other employees. American said it will be setting up recruiting events for those former employees.

Over to you, Manchester City.

In one of its most dominant performances for weeks, Arsenal overpowered Fulham in a 3-0 win on Saturday that transferred the title-race pressure to second-place City.

All of the goals came in the first half, with Viktor Gyokeres scoring twice and setting up the other for Bukayo Saka.

City has two games in hand, the first coming at Everton on Monday. Significantly, Arsenal now has a superior goal difference of 4 compared to City in a title fight that could yet come down to that tiebreaker if both teams win all of their remaining matches.

Arsenal has three left — West Ham away, Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away — in an easier run-in on paper than City's.

“We never stopped believing," Gyokeres said. “We’re not going to.”

Arsenal wrests back title momentum

It was only 10 days ago that City ended Arsenal's 200-day stay at the top of the league to become, for many, the title favorite.

Pep Guardiola's team hasn't played in the league since and the momentum might just have swung Arsenal's way after its wins over Newcastle last weekend and now a Fulham team which arrived at Emirates Stadium with aspirations of qualifying for a European competition.

Saka, making his first start in six weeks after an Achilles injury, set up Gyokeres for a ninth-minute tap-in before the roles were reversed in the 40th. Gyokeres held up the ball and slipped in Saka, who drove home a finish inside the near post.

Gyokeres grabbed his second goal — and 21st of the season in all competitions — by heading home Leandro Trossard's cross in first-half stoppage time.

West Ham loses and gives Tottenham hope

A blow for West Ham. A boost for Tottenham.

West Ham's survival bid was damaged by a 3-0 loss at Brentford, for whom Brazil striker Igor Thiago — with a penalty for his 22nd goal of the season — was among the scorers.

It meant West Ham stayed two points above Tottenham, which is in third-to-last place — the final relegation spot.

Spurs, who played in the Champions League this season and have been in the top flight since the late 1970s, visit Aston Villa on Sunday and then there are three more rounds remaining.

Brentford climbed to sixth place, seven points behind fifth-place Aston Villa. The top five qualify automatically for the Champions League.

Newcastle's losing run ends

Newcastle eased some of the pressure on manager Eddie Howe by beating Brighton 3-1 to end a four-match losing run in the league.

“It’s been hard for my family because they see the intimate side of me behind closed doors," Howe said. “I haven’t been a bundle of joy the past few weeks.”

William Osula and Dan Burn were Newcastle's scorers in the first half before Jack Hinshelwood replied for Brighton after the break. Harvey Barnes scored Newcastle's third in stoppage time.

Brighton dropped to seventh place, a point behind Brentford.

Another red card for hair-pulling

There have been three red cards for hair-pulling in the Premier League this season. Twice, the recipient of the pull has been Tolu Arokodare.

The Wolverhampton striker had his hair tugged by Sunderland defender Dan Ballard, resulting in another sending-off for an infringement that has become an increasingly common sight in soccer over the past year.

Sunderland was leading 1-0 at the time through Nordi Mukiele's header at a corner. Santiago Bueno equalized for already-relegated Wolverhampton, the league's last-place club, and it finished 1-1.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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

Once worth as much as roughly $5.5 billion on the stock market, the airline known for its bright yellow planes said Saturday it had shut down after its final flight departed from Detroit and landed safely in Dallas.

“For more than 30 years, Spirit Airlines has played a pioneering role in making travel more accessible and bringing people together while driving affordability across the industry,” CEO Dave Davis said in a statement.

The announcement comes after two bankruptcy filings in as many years that allowed Spirit to repay lenders. That was followed in recent months by a final, mad-dash scramble to save money by cutting routes, squeezing concessions from unions and pursuing a potential financing deal with the Trump administration that could have provided a lifeline had it panned out.

But in the end, higher jet fuel prices triggered by the Iran war drained cash from the business at an accelerating pace, forcing it to call it quits.

“This is tremendously disappointing and not the outcome any of us wanted," Davis said.

From chartered tours to unbundled fares

It began as Charter One Airlines, which ran vacation tours in the early 80s, then grew in popularity and profits two decades later with no-frills “unbundled” fares allowing travelers to forgo basic services — bag handling, seat selection, even the printing of tickets — or pay extra.

Proudly penny-pinching and irritatingly so for many passengers, Spirit was for years run by the famously frugal Ben Baldanza, who ordered his burgers plain, bristled at paying extra for pickles he didn't want, and flew in the same cramped seats as his customers. He was unapologetic about the airline’s nickel-and-diming them, saying the issue wasn’t that Spirit was cheap, but that passengers were seeing an itemized bill for the first time — and didn’t like it.

For all the complaints, though, Spirit’s model became so influential that giant airlines with decades more operating history and global destinations found they had to follow suit by slashing prices and introducing “basic economy” fares.

On its final day of operations, Spirit had safely flown more than 50,000 passengers, a company spokesperson said. The airline was also working to get more than 1,300 crew members back home. About 17,000 employees — some with more than 25 years at the airline — learned Friday they had lost their jobs, many finding out through media reports, the spokesperson said.

In a memo Saturday to members, the Spirit flight attendants union acknowledged the end of the airline and the toll on workers.

“While the country has had a blast making Spirit the butt of the joke, we’ve built a strength together that could withstand anything that anyone throws at us," it said. “And that is no joke.”

The provocation playbook

Despite its abrupt end, Spirit left behind a reputation that was impossible to ignore.

Kendria Talton, who flew Friday on Spirit from Dallas to Atlanta with her daughter for a dance competition, arrived at the airport Saturday trying to find a new way home.

Talton said she had flown Spirit multiple times because of the price. “Other than that, I mean nobody even likes Spirit,” she said. “They’ve always talked about Spirit for years.”

A key part of that image came from its bold, over-the-top ads that some critics slammed as tasteless and indeed sometimes backfired.

After the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, the company ran a “Check Out the Oil on Our Beaches” ad, playing on the double entendre of suntan oil and the real black stuff.

Next up was a “Weiner Sale” after New York Congressman Anthony Weiner was caught in a sexting scandal, an ad that also included the line, “fares just too hard to resist.” Later came its infamous “MILF Sale,” referring to “Many Islands, Low Fares,” but also referencing, with a wink and a nod, to the sexual acronym.

Ironically, Spirit was also taken down by its own success as more traditional airlines mimicked its offering and began to steal its customers with their own low fares.

The unraveling

Spirit had been struggling with losses for years, but its going-out-of-business announcement still came as a shock.

Just a few months earlier this year, Spirit said it would likely emerge from its second bankruptcy in the late spring or early summer after striking a preliminary deal with lenders.

Then the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran four days later, sending global crude prices soaring above $100. Gasoline prices followed closely behind and jet fuel prices more than doubled in some markets.

Spirit struggled especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, amid rising operational costs and its mounting debt. By its first Chapter 11 filing in November 2024, Spirit had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

University of Houston student Angelina Deruelle, 23, was at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport on Friday, Spirit’s final day of operations, after her flight to Texas was canceled. She said the loss of the airline as an affordable travel option would be difficult to accept.

“I feel like Spirit is just affordable, simple, nothing too fancy," she said. "It’s just like home.”

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Associated Press journalists Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Michelle Chapman in New York and Daniel Kozin in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

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Sirens could be heard as responders rushed in.

“It was a matter of seconds before the vehicle was underwater,” said Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Capt. Kevin Costa, who was off duty at the time but responded after hearing the call.

“I heard a call come in and turned on the lights in my vehicle and followed them to the call,” Costa said.

Costa, a diver with 14 years at Fire Rescue, joined two Broward County deputies, jumping into action as the vehicle sank in the canal.

“Broke the window and we were able to get the woman out of the vehicle, swam her back to shore,” he said.

The chaotic scene unfolded around 10:30 a.m. in the 2600 block of Southwest Palm Aire Drive, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. Costa said the elderly driver was still buckled in as the car was going under.

“We didn’t want to risk the chance of opening the door and her not being able to get out in time,“ Costa said. ”So the best option there was to make sure that we broke the window and we had her unclip her seatbelt and then we assisted her through that open window."

Authorities said no one else was inside the vehicle.

The vehicle was eventually pulled from the water -- a situation that could have ended much differently if not for the quick actions of first responders.

“As firefighters, whether we’re on duty or off duty, we act and there’s a level of pride all of us carry,” Costa said “We want to do the right thing.”

Se escuchaban sirenas mientras los rescatistas acudían rápidamente.

“Era cuestión de segundos antes de que el vehículo quedara bajo el agua”, dijo el capitán de Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Kevin Costa, quien estaba fuera de servicio en ese momento pero respondió tras escuchar la llamada.

“Escuché que entró una llamada, encendí las luces de mi vehículo y los seguí hasta el lugar”, dijo Costa.

Costa, buzo con 14 años en Fire Rescue, se unió a dos agentes del condado Broward, entrando en acción mientras el vehículo se hundía en el canal.

“Rompimos la ventana y pudimos sacar a la mujer del vehículo, la llevamos nadando hasta la orilla”, dijo.

La caótica escena ocurrió alrededor de las 10:30 a.m. en la cuadra 2600 de Southwest Palm Aire Drive, según la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward. Costa dijo que la conductora de edad avanzada aún estaba con el cinturón de seguridad puesto mientras el auto se hundía.

“No queríamos arriesgarnos a abrir la puerta y que no pudiera salir a tiempo”, dijo Costa. “Así que la mejor opción era asegurarnos de romper la ventana, que se desabrochara el cinturón de seguridad y luego la ayudamos a salir por esa ventana abierta”.

Las autoridades dijeron que no había nadie más dentro del vehículo.

El vehículo finalmente fue sacado del agua, una situación que pudo haber tenido un desenlace muy distinto de no ser por la rápida acción de los rescatistas.

“Como bomberos, ya sea que estemos de servicio o no, actuamos y hay un nivel de orgullo que todos llevamos”, dijo Costa. “Queremos hacer lo correcto”.

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The condition causes tissue similar to the lining of the uterus to grow in other parts of the body.

After years of uncertainty, Kerri Nasta says she finally got answers last August when she was diagnosed with endometriosis.

“Unfortunately, for many years, I went undiagnosed and suffered in silence, really,” she said.

Nasta said she experienced painful periods, severe inflammation and constant discomfort during her menstrual cycle, but believed it was normal. That changed after pregnancy losses and fertility struggles prompted her to seek further evaluation.

“It wasn’t until I went through some pregnancy losses and infertility struggles that I finally said I need to get this checked out,” she said.

At New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis, Nasta says she underwent surgery to help manage her symptoms and was also started on GLP-1 medications.

“Honestly, it was within two weeks that I felt some relief,” she said.

GLP-1 drugs are currently FDA-approved for diabetes management, weight loss and reducing cardiovascular risk. Researchers say the medications may also reduce chronic inflammation throughout the body.

“People started thinking outside the box, hey, could these help other inflammatory disease such as endometriosis,” said Dr. Virginia McLean of New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis.

Nasta’s doctors also say GLP-1 medications may help reverse progesterone resistance, a condition where the uterine lining does not properly respond to the hormone and can contribute to treatment failure in some patients.

“We see clinically as a physician that it does work,” said Dr. Pankaj Singhal of New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis.

Nasta says she is hopeful the treatment will also improve her metabolic health and help her eventually start a family.

“I do believe with continued intervention and supports, I will get there,” she said.

Doctors say the biggest challenge in using GLP-1 drugs for conditions like endometriosis is FDA approval. Without it, they say the medications are often expensive and not covered by insurance when used off-label.

La condición provoca que tejido similar al revestimiento del útero crezca en otras partes del cuerpo.

Después de años de incertidumbre, Kerri Nasta dice que finalmente obtuvo respuestas el pasado agosto cuando fue diagnosticada con endometriosis.

“Desafortunadamente, durante muchos años no fui diagnosticada y sufrí en silencio, realmente”, dijo.

Nasta dijo que experimentaba períodos dolorosos, inflamación severa y molestias constantes durante su ciclo menstrual, pero creía que era normal. Eso cambió después de pérdidas de embarazo y problemas de fertilidad que la llevaron a buscar una evaluación más profunda.

“No fue hasta que pasé por algunas pérdidas de embarazo y problemas de infertilidad que finalmente dije que necesitaba revisarme”, dijo.

En New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis, Nasta dice que se sometió a una cirugía para ayudar a manejar sus síntomas y también comenzó a tomar medicamentos GLP-1.

“Honestamente, en dos semanas sentí algo de alivio”, dijo.

Los medicamentos GLP-1 están actualmente aprobados por la FDA para el manejo de la diabetes, la pérdida de peso y la reducción del riesgo cardiovascular. Los investigadores dicen que estos medicamentos también podrían reducir la inflamación crónica en todo el cuerpo.

“La gente comenzó a pensar fuera de lo común, ¿podrían ayudar con otras enfermedades inflamatorias como la endometriosis?”, dijo la doctora Virginia McLean de New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis.

Los médicos de Nasta también dicen que los medicamentos GLP-1 podrían ayudar a revertir la resistencia a la progesterona, una condición en la que el revestimiento del útero no responde adecuadamente a la hormona y puede contribuir al fracaso del tratamiento en algunos pacientes.

“Vemos clínicamente como médicos que sí funciona”, dijo el doctor Pankaj Singhal de New York Gynecology Surgery & Endometriosis.

Nasta dice que tiene la esperanza de que el tratamiento también mejore su salud metabólica y la ayude eventualmente a formar una familia.

“Creo que con intervención continua y apoyo, lo lograré”, dijo.

Los médicos dicen que el mayor desafío en el uso de medicamentos GLP-1 para condiciones como la endometriosis es la aprobación de la FDA. Sin ella, señalan que los medicamentos suelen ser costosos y no están cubiertos por el seguro cuando se usan fuera de indicación.

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The hurricane impact glass holds. He never makes it inside.

For the building’s owner, the video speaks for itself.

“I see burglary,” said Angine Moss.

“It looked like a vengeance, like anger,” she said.

“He damaged my building.”

Moss owns the building at the corner of Pembroke Road and Southwest 56th Avenue. It houses Hosanna 4 Youth, a nonprofit that supports children and families impacted by incest, sexual abuse, human trafficking, and domestic violence.

A month after the incident, the damage is still visible.

“That’s not fair,” Moss said.

“No vandalism, no burglary, and no reparations for my door.”

“That’s going to be like $2,500 bucks as a nonprofit to come up with that. Literally the police department is telling me you got to eat it.” Moss added.

The man seen in the video was identified as 34 year old Travis Small. He was questioned by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, but no charges were filed. The case was labeled unfounded.

Moss said a detective told her the decision was based on a law allowing someone to break in if they were trying to save a life.

“We will not prosecute because of some state statute that says, if someone is trying to save a life, they have a right to enter your building,” Moss said.

But when Local 10 News obtained the police report, it did not reference any such law.

Instead, deputies say Small had witnessed a serious crash nearby involving a vehicle fire and people trapped inside. According to investigators, Small said he was trying to get into the building to find a fire extinguisher to help.

Deputies determined his intent was not criminal, and the case was classified as unfounded, meaning they concluded no crime occurred.

In the video, sirens can be heard in the background as Small continues throwing the paver at the door indicating help was already arriving.

Moss says there is no way anyone would know if there was a fire extinguisher in her building from the outside.

Local 10 News asked longtime prosecutor turned defense attorney Ken Padowitz to review the case.

“So I would say that this man committed a crime, but there is a necessity defense and there’s not a likelihood of conviction because it appears he did not have the intent to commit a crime, he had the intent to help people,” Padowitz said.

Padowitz said the case largely comes down to intent, which he described as what a person meant to do at the time of their actions.

According to Padowitz, even if someone’s actions look like a crime, investigators must consider whether the person intended to commit a crime or believed they were acting to prevent harm.

“Police officers can use their discretion and recognize even though maybe a crime was committed, that this person did not have the intent to commit a crime,” he said.

He said that distinction can determine whether a case moves forward.

“There’s not a likelihood of conviction, and the state attorney’s office would not have charged this individual with a crime,” he said.

Padowitz also said there is no Florida law that automatically allows someone to break into a building, even if they claim they were trying to save a life.

As for the sirens heard in the video, Padowitz said that is a factor investigators would consider, but not the only one.

“I think all the facts matter and I think the fact that there’s sirens in the background definitely is a factor to be considered,” he said.

Records show that less than a month after this incident, Small was arrested in a separate case nearby and charged with burglary and grand theft for allegedly stealing equipment from a construction site. Court records also show prior petty theft charges.

Those cases are not connected to this incident.

For Moss, the outcome is still hard to accept.

“I do feel like the victim,” she said.

“I do a lot out here in the city of West Park.”

“It was no rhyme or reason for him to be at my building and trying to get in.”

The case remains closed, and Moss is left to pay for the damage.

El vidrio resistente a huracanes soporta los impactos. Nunca logra entrar.

Para la dueña del edificio, el video habla por sí solo.

“Veo un robo”, dijo Angine Moss.

“Parecía venganza, como enojo”, dijo.

“Dañó mi edificio”.

Moss es propietaria del edificio en la esquina de Pembroke Road y la avenida 56 del suroeste. Alberga Hosanna 4 Youth, una organización sin fines de lucro que apoya a niños y familias afectadas por incesto, abuso sexual, trata de personas y violencia doméstica.

Un mes después del incidente, los daños aún son visibles.

“Eso no es justo”, dijo Moss.

“No hubo vandalismo, ni robo, ni reparación para mi puerta”.

“Eso va a ser como $2,500 USD para una organización sin fines de lucro conseguir eso. Literalmente el departamento de policía me está diciendo que tengo que asumirlo”, añadió Moss.

El hombre visto en el video fue identificado como Travis Small, de 34 años. Fue interrogado por la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward, pero no se presentaron cargos. El caso fue clasificado como infundado.

Moss dijo que un detective le dijo que la decisión se basó en una ley que permite a alguien irrumpir si intentaba salvar una vida.

“No procesaremos debido a algún estatuto estatal que dice que si alguien intenta salvar una vida, tiene derecho a entrar a tu edificio”, dijo Moss.

Pero cuando Local 10 News obtuvo el informe policial, no hacía referencia a ninguna ley de ese tipo.

En cambio, los agentes dicen que Small había presenciado un accidente grave cercano que involucraba un vehículo en llamas y personas atrapadas en el interior. Según los investigadores, Small dijo que intentaba entrar al edificio para encontrar un extintor y ayudar.

Los agentes determinaron que su intención no era criminal, y el caso fue clasificado como infundado, lo que significa que concluyeron que no ocurrió ningún delito.

En el video, se escuchan sirenas de fondo mientras Small continúa lanzando el adoquín contra la puerta, lo que indica que la ayuda ya estaba llegando.

Moss dice que no hay forma de que alguien supiera si había un extintor en su edificio desde el exterior.

Local 10 News pidió al fiscal de larga trayectoria convertido en abogado defensor Ken Padowitz que revisara el caso.

“Diría que este hombre cometió un delito, pero existe una defensa de necesidad y no hay probabilidad de condena porque parece que no tenía la intención de cometer un delito, sino de ayudar a las personas”, dijo Padowitz.

Padowitz dijo que el caso depende en gran medida de la intención, que describió como lo que una persona pretendía hacer en el momento de sus acciones.

Según Padowitz, incluso si las acciones de alguien parecen un delito, los investigadores deben considerar si la persona tenía la intención de cometer un delito o creía que actuaba para prevenir daño.

“Los agentes de policía pueden usar su discreción y reconocer que, aunque tal vez se cometió un delito, esta persona no tenía la intención de cometer un delito”, dijo.

Dijo que esa distinción puede determinar si un caso avanza.

“No hay probabilidad de condena, y la fiscalía estatal no habría acusado a este individuo de un delito”, dijo.

Padowitz también dijo que no existe una ley en Florida que permita automáticamente a alguien irrumpir en un edificio, incluso si afirma que intentaba salvar una vida.

En cuanto a las sirenas que se escuchan en el video, Padowitz dijo que es un factor que los investigadores considerarían, pero no el único.

“Creo que todos los hechos importan y creo que el hecho de que haya sirenas de fondo definitivamente es un factor a considerar”, dijo.

Los registros muestran que menos de un mes después de este incidente, Small fue arrestado en un caso separado cercano y acusado de robo y hurto mayor por presuntamente robar equipo de un sitio de construcción. Los registros judiciales también muestran cargos previos por hurto menor.

Esos casos no están relacionados con este incidente.

Para Moss, el resultado sigue siendo difícil de aceptar.

“Sí me siento como la víctima”, dijo.

“Hago mucho aquí en la ciudad de West Park”.

“No había ninguna razón para que él estuviera en mi edificio intentando entrar”.

El caso permanece cerrado y Moss deberá pagar por los daños.

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Kendra, an 8-month-old dog, is the latest featured pet from the Humane Society of Broward County. Shelter staff say she recently arrived from a partner rescue in Puerto Rico and has been adjusting to her new surroundings over the past two weeks.

Kendra is still a bit timid, but she’s beginning to open up. Staff say she did well during a recent car ride and has been friendly with people she meets, making her way around to greet visitors.

Because of her background, Kendra may do best in a home with another dog. Matthew from the Humane Society says dogs from the islands are often well-socialized with other animals, and having a companion could help her feel more comfortable and settle in faster. Another dog could also help guide her through basic training.

The shelter is open seven days a week, starting at 11 a.m., with animal visits available until late afternoon. Anyone interested in adopting Kendra -- or meeting other available pets including cats, rabbits and guinea pigs -- can visit in person or apply online.

Kendra, una perra de 8 meses, es la mascota destacada más reciente de la Sociedad Protectora de Animales del condado Broward. El personal del refugio dice que llegó recientemente desde un rescate asociado en Puerto Rico y ha estado adaptándose a su nuevo entorno durante las últimas dos semanas.

Kendra aún es un poco tímida, pero está comenzando a abrirse. El personal dice que se comportó bien durante un viaje reciente en auto y ha sido amigable con las personas que conoce, acercándose para saludar a los visitantes.

Debido a su origen, Kendra podría adaptarse mejor en un hogar con otro perro. Matthew, de la Sociedad Protectora de Animales, dice que los perros de las islas suelen estar bien socializados con otros animales, y tener un compañero podría ayudarla a sentirse más cómoda y adaptarse más rápido. Otro perro también podría ayudar a guiarla en el entrenamiento básico.

El refugio está abierto los siete días de la semana, a partir de las 11 a.m., con visitas disponibles hasta la tarde. Cualquier persona interesada en adoptar a Kendra, o en conocer otras mascotas disponibles, incluidos gatos, conejos y cobayas, puede visitar en persona o solicitar en línea.

Según el informe de detención, Karl Heinz Mercier, del noreste de Miami-Dade, irrumpió en el apartamento de la víctima en Park Towers, en Northwest 155th ^Lane , alrededor de las 4 de la mañana, se acostó en la cama de la víctima mientras dormía y luego metió la mano dentro de la ropa interior de la víctima y le tocó el pene.

Según los agentes, el niño gritó inmediatamente para alertar a sus padres, que dormían en una habitación aparte, pero Mercier le dijo: “No va a pasar nada. Nadie va a venir”.

Según el informe, los padres del niño se enfrentaron a Mercier cuando este intentaba huir del apartamento, y posteriormente fue detenido por los agentes que acudieron al lugar.

Los padres de la víctima dijeron a los agentes que no conocían a Mercier y que este no tenía permiso para entrar en su casa.

Según los agentes, Mercier confesó haber entrado en la casa sin permiso y haber tocado al niño.

Fue arrestado bajo cargos de robo con agresión y agresión sexual, e intento de agresión sexual a un menor.

Hasta el viernes por la mañana, permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight. Los registros penitenciarios en línea indicaban que su fianza estaba “por determinar”.

Las decisiones se dieron horas después que la Fiscalía General de la República (FGR) negó las solicitudes de detención provisional con fines de extradición de los 10 funcionarios mexicanos que pidió Estados Unidos alegando que no había motivos ni fundamentos para la urgencia de la medida.

El gobernador Rubén Rocha Moya y el alcalde de Culiacán, Juan de Dios Gámez, ambos del partido gobernante Morena, presentaron cerca de la medianoche del viernes las solicitudes de licencia para separarse de sus cargos de manera temporal a fin de facilitar las investigaciones que se iniciaron en México sobre las acusaciones anunciadas esta semana en Estados Unidos.

Ambos funcionarios presentaron sus licencias al Congreso estatal y al Cabildo de Culiacán, que elegirán sus sustitutos. El viernes fue nombrada como alcaldesa interina de Culiacán Ana Miriam Ramos Villarreal, actual síndica procuradora.

En una sesión extraordinaria, el Congreso de Sinaloa aprobó el sábado la licencia de separación de cargo por más de 30 días que pidió Rocha Moya y designó a la oficialista Yeraldine Bonilla Valverde, actual secretaria general del gobierno local, para dirigir el estado de manera interina.

Tanto Rocha Moya como Gámez perdieron la inmunidad que los protegía para no ser procesados, destacó el sábado en su cuenta de X el coordinador político del gobierno federal y expresidente de la Suprema Corte de Justicia, Arturo Zaldívar, y precisó que una persona que ya no ejerce una función pública “puede ser detenida”.

Otro de los acusados, el senador oficialista Enrique Inzunza, dijo el sábado en su cuenta de la red social que seguirá ejerciendo como congresista para enfrentar las “imputaciones falsas y dolosas”, y que acudirá a las citaciones que le formulen las autoridades mexicanas.

El miércoles, la fiscalía de Nueva York hizo pública una acusación por narcotráfico y tenencia ilícita de armas contra Rocha Moya, Gámez y otros ocho funcionarios mexicanos, entre ellos un senador de Morena, el vicefiscal de Sinaloa y policías activos y retirados.

En la acusación se señala a los 10 funcionarios de desempeñar un papel fundamental en ayudar al Cártel de Sinaloa a introducir fentanilo, heroína, cocaína y metanfetamina desde México a Estados Unidos.

“No voy a permitir que me utilicen para dañar al movimiento al que pertenezco”, afirmó Rocha Moya en un mensaje en las redes sociales, a la vez que insistió en su inocencia y sostuvo que las acusaciones en su contra son “falsas y dolosas”.

Según la acusación, algunas de las personas citadas han participado personalmente en la campaña de violencia y represalias del Cártel de Sinaloa.

La acusación alega que estaban estrechamente vinculados a la facción de ese cártel conocida como “Los Chapitos”, dirigida por los hijos de Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, el antiguo líder del cártel que actualmente cumple cadena perpetua en una prisión estadounidense.

La FGR anunció el viernes que no ejecutará las detenciones provisionales de los funcionarios mexicanos que solicitó Estados Unidos dado que “no hay ningún motivo, no hay ningún fundamento, no hay ninguna evidencia” para la medida cautelar.

Al abundar sobre la decisión, el titular de la fiscalía especializada de control competencial, Raúl Jiménez Vázquez, dijo el viernes a los medios que “no existen pruebas” en los documentos que enviaron las autoridades estadounidenses que acrediten un presunto delito para otorgar la medida de detención provisional. Tanto la presidenta mexicana Claudia Sheinbaum como la FGR han insistido en que Estados Unidos debe enviar pruebas que avalen las acusaciones.

En ese sentido, Jiménez Vázquez anunció que la cancillería mexicana solicitará a Estados Unidos las pruebas, argumentos, informes y documentos que sean necesarios, por las vías que garanticen la confidencialidad, y fijar una nueva posición.

Alterno al proceso que llevan las autoridades estadounidenses, la FGR también ha adelantando una pesquisa del caso.

Durante su habitual conferencia matutina, Sheinbaum descartó el viernes que enfrente una crisis política ante el proceso judicial que se inició en Estados Unidos contra Rocha Moya y otros miembros de su partido, y aseguró que está “fuerte, está sólida y muy segura”.

La mandataria mexicana reiteró que seguirá trabajando por la seguridad de México y cooperando con Estados Unidos, e insistió en que “nunca nos vamos a subordinar porque esto es un asunto de dignidad del pueblo de México”.

The video clip posted on the department's YouTube page Friday shows officers confronting Anthony Griffin after he had randomly slashed three people at the 42nd Street-Grand Central subway station, which connects to Grand Central Terminal.

The uniformed officers, identified in the video as detectives Ryan Giuffre and Anthony Manetta, are seen encountering the 44-year-old as he walks up a stairwell holding a large knife at around 9:40 a.m. on April 11.

They order Griffin to drop the weapon multiple times, but Giuffre draws his gun as Griffin continues to hold the knife high near his head.

Griffin then retreats back down the stairs but starts moving toward the officers with the knife still overhead when they start to pursue him.

“Nobody wants to hurt you,” Giuffre says in the video. “We can talk about it. Get down. Get down. Dude, I’m not going to ask you again. Please. Please. Please. Get down!”

But Griffin continues shouting and moving erratically toward the officers with the large blade raised up.

“I don’t want to be here. Shoot me,” he says at one point. “I am Lucifer," he says at another.

Giuffre then fires two shots at Griffin, who immediately drops to the ground. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the time of the incident that the officers ordered Griffin to drop the knife at least 20 times but he refused to comply.

“Our officers were confronted with an armed individual who had already injured multiple people and was continuing to pose a threat,” she said. “They gave clear commands. They attempted to de-escalate. And when that threat did not stop, they took decisive action to stop it and to protect New Yorkers on one of the busiest train platforms in the city.”

The three stabbing victims — an 84 year-old male, 65-year-old male and 70-year-old female — sustained injuries including “significant lacerations to the head and face” and a skull fracture, though the wounds were not considered life-threatening, Tisch said.

La representante de EE.UU. Frederica Wilson, conocida por sus cientos de sombreros llamativos y programas de mentoría, ha servido en el Congreso durante 15 años.

Ambas demócratas han sido reelegidas a lo largo de varias rondas de redistribución de distritos en Florida. Pero eso podría cambiar con el nuevo mapa de distritos legislativos de Florida del gobernador Ron DeSantis.

“El distrito que represento ahora es un rectángulo bastante limpio en el sur de Broward. Represento a 10 ciudades, , estaré postulándome en un distrito donde, tendré la oportunidad y el privilegio de continuar representando a mis electores en el sur de Florida”, dijo Wasserman Schultz, ex presidenta del Comité Nacional Demócrata, sobre el Distrito 25 legislativo de Florida.

Wilson, demócrata de Liberty City en Miami, representa el Distrito 24 legislativo de Florida. Después del censo de EE.UU. de 2010, el distrito incluía North Miami, Miami Gardens, Opa-locka y Miami Shores.

El miércoles, la legislatura de Florida controlada por republicanos aprobó un nuevo mapa legislativo que el gobernador Ron DeSantis se prepara para firmar. El Distrito 24 legislativo de Florida aún incluye Miami Shores, pero ahora incorpora áreas del condado Broward.

El nuevo mapa también cambió el Distrito 20, que ha estado vacante desde que Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick renunció el 21 de abril de 2026 tras una investigación ética.

El presidente Donald Trump, quien impulsó la redistribución de distritos antes de las elecciones de medio término, celebró recientemente el fallo de la Corte Suprema de EE.UU. sobre disposiciones de la Ley de Derecho al Voto que habían respaldado el Distrito 20.

Historias relacionadas

Republicanos de Florida dividen distritos legislativos: cómo un nuevo mapa podría costar escaños a demócratas

Se intensifica batalla por redistribución de distritos en estados tras fallo de la Corte Suprema de EE.UU. sobre la Ley de Derecho al Voto

The bombshell indictment against the 10 has shaken Mexico's political establishment.

In a short video announcement at midnight on Friday, Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya, the highest-ranking official named in the indictment, denied accusations that he protected the Sinaloa cartel and helped it smuggle vast quantities of drugs into the U.S. in exchange for political support and millions of dollars in bribes.

“My conscience is clear,” said Rocha, 76, a longtime ally of influential former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “To my people and to my family, I can look you in the eye because I have never betrayed you, and I never will.”

But he said he would take a temporary leave of absence from the position he has held for six years to defend himself against what he called the “false and malicious” allegations and cooperate with the Mexican government's investigation.

Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, the mayor of the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacán named in the indictment, also said he would take leave and denied the charges. Another defendant and member of the ruling Morena party, Sen. Enrique Inzunza, said he would continue serving in the Senate while defending himself from the accusations.

In a special vote Saturday, the state's local congress appointed as interim governor Yeraldine Bonilla Valverde, an ally of Rocha who previously served as the state's secretary of government. It approved Rocha's leave of absence for a period of 30 days.

As serving governor and mayor, Rocha and Gámez Mendívil had enjoyed immunity from criminal prosecution. But in leaving their posts even temporarily, the officials lost their blanket protection from prosecution, Arturo Zaldívar, a former Mexican Supreme Court justice who now advises Sheinbaum, posted on X.

“They can be detained like any person,” he wrote.

The president wants the trials held in Mexico

Sheinbaum has struggled to strike a balance between the interests of her progressive Morena party and pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to step up the fight against cartels.

In a nod to her party’s vow to stamp out corruption, Sheinbaum said she wouldn’t defend anyone found to have committed a crime.

But she vigorously defended Mexico's sovereignty, saying that if federal authorities uncovered “irrefutable” evidence linking the 10 indicted officials to cartel crime, the accused would be tried in Mexico, not the U.S. — a move that risks backlash from an American administration that has threatened military action against cartels on Mexican soil.

“We will never subordinate ourselves because this is a matter of the dignity of the Mexican people,” she said Friday.

Many Mexicans living cartel violence almost daily in Sinaloa said on Saturday that they welcomed news of the U.S. indictment and their governor's resignation as a step toward accountability.

“We are in an ungovernable state where the same party and the same governor essentially gave free rein to what has become a violent situation," said Raquel Campos, a 35-year-old doctor in Culiacán. “Unfortunately it was another country that had to take action.”

No arrests till the investigation is over

Pending investigation, the Mexican attorney general’s office said it would not arrest Rocha or the other accused officials, as requested by the U.S.

Rocha, a point person for the hands-off “hugs not bullets" approach to dealing with organized crime that López Obrador pioneered and Sheinbaum has since ditched, insisted in the video that the indictment represents a political attack on Morena.

“I will not allow myself to be used to harm the movement to which I belong — one that has improved the lives of millions of Mexican men and women,” he said.

Born in the same town as the notorious Mexican drug kingpin “ El Chapo,” Rocha has found himself embroiled in similar scandals before. In 2024, he was named in a published letter written by a then-Sinaloa cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders of a rival faction and handed over to U.S. law enforcement. In the letter, the capo said that he was on his way to meet Rocha when he was abducted.

“It's an open secret,” Sergio Estrella, 42, a shopkeeper in Culiacán, said of the alleged collusion between drug kingpins and senior officials. “The government needs to take a different tack, to recognize how deeply drug trafficking is embedded in politics.”

___

DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press journalist Aarón Ibarra in Culiacán, Mexico, contributed to this report.

It was a moment that set him on a path to become a civil rights lawyer and one of the first Black lawmakers elected in the state since Reconstruction.

Blackmon was part of a generation of Black Americans across the South who fought in courtrooms and in the streets to dismantle barriers to voting and achieve political representation in a region scarred by the legacy of slavery and its aftermath.

One of the crown jewels of that struggle, the Voting Rights Act, was hollowed out this week by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court's conservative majority said states should not rely on racial demographics when drawing congressional districts, a ruling that opened the door to transforming how political power is distributed and making it harder for minorities to get elected.

The majority opinion described racism as a problem of the past. Others saw the decision as another example of its resurgence — “a defibrillator to the heart of Jim Crow," as one Louisiana politician put it.

Blackmon's son, Bradford, a 37-year-old state senator in Mississippi, said how the political lines are drawn "shapes who has a real chance before anyone ever votes.”

"It’s just sad that we made progress and then they are always trying to roll it back when it shows that minorities are making more progress than I would guess that those in charge think that they’re allowed to make," he said.

The elder Blackmon, now 78, said he was resigned to the reality that the fight of his youth is not over.

“It’s just another cycle — an ongoing struggle without a foreseeable ending,” he said.

A legacy at risk

The case, involving a challenge to Louisiana's congressional map, clarified how the Voting Rights Act can be used to contest district lines that may weaken the voting power of Black residents.

For many Black Americans, the decision was a death knell for a cherished pillar of the Civil Rights Movement. Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black voters in the Deep South had no guarantee of equal access to the ballot. Within a year of its passage, more than 250,000 Black Americans had gained the right to vote. By 2024, nearly 22 million Black voters were registered nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The United States is now witnessing the unraveling of nearly a century of organizing, civil disobedience and personal sacrifice by ordinary people who helped build Black political power to heights unseen since Reconstruction. Veterans of the voting rights movement — people who bled with John Lewis on the 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, that became known as Bloody Sunday or marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — are seeing those hard-won victories stripped away from their descendants.

“I’m the first generation of Americans born with equal rights,” said Jonathan Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Illinois who is the 60-year-old son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the late civil rights leader. Jonathan Jackson said the idea that his children could grow up with fewer protections was “surreal and devastating.”

For Charles Mauldin, who was beaten by law enforcement as a teenager on Bloody Sunday, the ruling reflects a skirmish that was never as settled as some hoped.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said Mauldin, 78, of Birmingham, Alabama. “They’ve been chipping away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act for the last 60 years.”

Who holds power now

In Louisiana, younger Black politicians say the high court's ruling could reshape not just who wins elections, but whether candidates can compete at all, particularly in down-ballot races that often serve as steppingstones to higher office.

Davante Lewis, a 34-year-old Democrat who serves on the state’s utility regulatory board, said he expects districts could be redrawn in ways that make it harder for candidates like him to win.

“They can target my communities … to ensure that I can’t get to an elected office,” said Lewis, who one of several plaintiffs in the original Louisiana gerrymandering case that went to the Supreme Court.

Jamie Davis, a Black farmer in northeast Louisiana and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, said the decision risks discouraging voters already skeptical that their voices matter.

“I want to be optimistic, but how can you be optimistic when voter turnout in the past election cycles has been really low,” Davis said.

Tennessee is among the states bracing for new redistricting efforts. State Rep. Justin Pearson, who represents Memphis and is running for Congress, said people who struggled to pass the Voting Rights Act are “shocked and devastated that they’re having to relitigate the same fights that they fought 60 years ago.”

But he also predicted that efforts to reduce Black representation could “reinvigorate a civil rights movement in the South that demands equal representation, that demands fairness, that demands justice and equality.”

Supporters of the Supreme Court ruling said it reinforces a race-neutral approach to redistricting and they say political lines should not be drawn primarily based on race.

Mississippi state Rep. Bryant Clark said that view ignores how race and party align in the state. In Mississippi, where most Black voters are Democrats and most white voters are Republicans, he said the two are often indistinguishable.

“It’s just a roundabout way to basically legalize racially discriminatory redistricting in the state,” Clark said.

In 1967, his father, Robert Clark Jr., became the first Black lawmaker elected to the Mississippi Legislature since Reconstruction.

With Black residents making up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, Edward Blackmon Jr. said the current maps allow Black voters to elect candidates in some districts while keeping Republican majorities intact across much of the state.

He said lawmakers have little incentive to change that balance because moving Black voters into more districts would make those seats less reliably conservative and force candidates to compete for a broader electorate.

“Where do you think the population goes? They don’t just disappear,” Blackmon said. “What incumbent wants that type of district right now?”

Fight continues

Blackmon was raised in Canton, “when Jim Crow was in full bloom.”

Black children attended separate schools, and during cotton-picking season, classes let out early as rickety trucks with wooden sides arrived to take students to the fields, where they spent hours working.

At home, he watched those inequalities play out in quieter ways.

His father, a World War II veteran who left the sharecropping farm where Blackmon’s grandfather had worked, struggled to find steady work in Mississippi after returning from military service and becoming involved in civil rights organizing. He eventually left for New York to make a living — part of a generation of Black veterans who faced barriers to jobs and opportunities their white counterparts received.

Blackmon remembers sitting nearby as his father and other community leaders gathered on the porch, talking late into the night about forming a local NAACP chapter.

“It was embedded in my memory and experience that it was worth the struggle,” he said.

When the Voting Rights Act passed, it did not immediately change those realities. In places like Canton, federal officials set up registration tables on downtown streets so Black residents could sign up to vote without facing harassment or intimidation from local authorities.

In the years that followed, Blackmon and other lawyers used the law to challenge at-large election systems that prevented Black communities from electing candidates of their choice. Cities and counties were forced to redraw maps into single-member districts.

When those districts still diluted Black voting strength, activists returned to court.

“Without the Voting Rights Act, Mississippi would look so much different than it looks now,” Blackmon said.

___

Willingham reported from Boston, Brook from New Orleans and Amy from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Kristin Hall and Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Safiyah Riddle and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.

The Pentagon on Friday had initially announced it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but when asked Saturday about the reason for the move, Trump didn't offer an explanation and said an even bigger reduction was coming.

“We’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000," Trump told reporters in Florida.

Earlier on Saturday, Germany's defense minister appeared to take in stride the news that 5,000 U.S. troops would be leaving his country.

Boris Pistorius said the drawdown, which Trump has threatened for years, was expected, and he said European nations needed to take on more responsibility for their own defense. But he also emphasized that security cooperation benefited both sides of the trans-Atlantic partnership.

“The presence of American soldiers in Europe, and especially in Germany, is in our interest and in the interest of the U.S.,” Pistorius told the German news agency dpa.

The plan faces bipartisan resistance

The planned withdrawal faced bipartisan resistance in Washington, with swift criticism from Democrats and concern from Republicans that it would send the “wrong signal” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose full-scale invasion of Ukraine recently entered its fifth year.

Trump's decision comes as he seethes at European allies over their unwillingness to join his campaign with Israel against Iran. He has lashed out at leaders like Merz, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Merz last week criticized the war in Iran, saying the U.S. is being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and calling out Washington’s lack of strategy.

In another sign of friction, Trump accused the European Union of not complying with its U.S. trade deal and announced plans to increase tariffs next week on cars and trucks produced in the bloc to 25%, a move that would be particularly damaging to Germany, a major automobile manufacturer.

At least one EU lawmaker called the tariff hike “unacceptable” and accused Trump of breaking yet another U.S. commitment on trade.

US increased troops after Russian invasion of Ukraine

A pullout of 5,000 soldiers from Germany would amount to about one-seventh of the 36,000 American service members stationed in the country. The Pentagon offered few details about which troops or operations would be affected. When contacted after Trump's announcement of more cuts on Saturday, the Pentagon did not offer any additional details and referred back to its earlier statement.

The withdrawal of the 5,000 troops is scheduled to take place over the next six to 12 months, according to the Pentagon. Trump previously said he would pull 9,500 troops from Germany during his first term, but he didn’t start the process and Democratic President Joe Biden formally stopped the planned withdrawal soon after taking office in 2021.

More broadly, around 80,000-100,000 U.S. personnel are usually stationed in Europe — depending on operations, exercises and troop rotations. The U.S. increased its European deployment after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022. NATO allies like Germany have expected for over a year that these troops would be the first to leave.

Pistorius, in his comments to dpa, said, “We Europeans must take on more responsibility for our security,” while stressing recent efforts by Germany to boost its armed forces, accelerate procurement and develop infrastructure.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart, in a post Saturday on X, said the trans-Atlantic alliance was “working with the U.S. to understand the details of their decision on force posture in Germany.”

“This adjustment underscores the need for Europe to continue to invest more in defense and take on a greater share of the responsibility for our shared security,” she added, noting “progress” toward a target among NATO allies to each invest 5% of their economic output to defense.

A ‘thorough review’ prompted drawdown decision

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that the “decision follows a thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground.”

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the branches of the U.S. military didn’t have prior knowledge of the decision to draw down the 5,000 troops and learned about it “in real time.”

In response, the Defense Department reiterated that it conducted a thorough review of its force posture in Europe.

“The decision to withdraw troops in Germany follows a comprehensive, multilayered process that incorporates perspectives from key leaders in EUCOM and across the chain of command,” acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez wrote in an email, using the abbreviation for U.S. European Command.

Most U.S. troops in Germany come from the Army and Air Force.

Germany hosts several American military facilities, including the headquarters of the U.S. European and Africa commands, Ramstein Air Base and a medical center in Landstuhl, where casualties from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were treated. U.S. nuclear missiles are also stationed in the country.

Withdrawal of 5,000 troops — the size of a brigade combat team — from Germany would likely have limited impact on combat power, but “in terms of messaging of U.S. commitment though, it’s very different,” another U.S. defense official said.

The only permanent brigade combat team in Germany is the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, alongside an aviation brigade and other assets, which is considered to have an important role in America's — and NATO's — ability to deter threats.

GOP lawmakers voice concern about withdrawal plan

After swift pushback from Democrats on Friday, Republican leaders of both armed services committees in Congress said Saturday they were “very concerned” about the troop withdrawal.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama said the decision risked “undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin.”

They also said the Pentagon had decided to cancel the planned deployment of the Army's Long-Range Fires Battalion. Parnell's statement made no mention of that.

Wicker and Rogers said any significant change to the U.S. force posture in Europe warrants review and coordination with Congress.

“We expect the Department to engage with its oversight committees in the days and weeks ahead on this decision and its implications for U.S. deterrence and trans-Atlantic security,” they said in a joint statement.

They also noted that Germany has heeded Trump’s call to shoulder more of the burden of defense spending in Europe, while giving U.S. forces access to its bases and airspace in the war against Iran.

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Burrows reported from London and Grieshaber from Berlin. Associated Press writers Ben Finley and Michelle L. Price in Washington and Jamey Keaten in Lyon, France, contributed to this report.

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The crash happened along Northwest 22nd Avenue and 58th Street, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities say the deputy was taken to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital and is in stable condition.

Investigators say the other driver involved stayed at the scene. No other details have been released.

El accidente ocurrió en la intersección de la avenida 22 del noroeste y la calle 58, según la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade.

Las autoridades dijeron que el agente fue trasladado al Ryder Trauma Center del Hospital Jackson Memorial y se encuentra en condición estable.

Los investigadores indicaron que el otro conductor involucrado permaneció en la escena. No se han divulgado más detalles.

Access Now, the New York-based advocacy group that organizes the annual gathering, said late Friday it had canceled the RightsCon summit in Zambia that was due to take place next week after the Zambian government initially said it was postponed.

Access Now said it had been informed by Zambian officials that the government had been pressured by China over the conference “because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join us in person.” Access Now said it pushed back on any move to exclude delegates from Taiwan.

“We believe foreign interference is the reason RightsCon 2026 won’t proceed in Zambia,” Access Now said in a statement.

“What the government wanted from us in order to lift the postponement was conveyed to us informally from multiple sources: … we would have to moderate specific topics and exclude communities at risk, including our Taiwanese participants, from in-person and online participation.”

The Zambian government earlier announced it was postponing the conference because it wanted information on the themes and topics of discussion to ensure they aligned with the country's “national values, policy priorities and broader public interest considerations.”

Zambia has strong political and economic ties with China, largely through Chinese mining interests in the mineral-rich southern African nation.

RightsCon is an annual conference focused on human rights and technology and deals with issues like internet censorship, electronic surveillance and cyberwarfare. More than 2,600 participants were due to attend in Zambia, with another 1,100 attending online, Access Now said. They represented more than 150 countries.

Last year’s summit was held in Taiwan.

Taiwanese Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-jing said in a statement on Facebook on Saturday that the cancellation of the summit showed China’s unease over “the ideas of freedom, democracy and rule of law that Taiwan and RightsCon represent.”

Human Rights Watch said Zambian authorities should explain their actions.

The move by the Zambian government came just a week after Taiwan claimed that Beijing intervened to stop Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te from visiting another southern African country, Eswatini on April 22.

Lai's visit to Eswatini, the only African nation that maintains formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, was called off after the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles were pressured by China to withdraw permission for Lai's plane to fly over their territory, Taiwan said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry praised the actions of the three nations and said their “adherence to the one-China principle is in full compliance with international law.”

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its breakaway province, to be retaken by force if necessary, and prohibits countries it has diplomatic relations with from maintaining formal ties with Taipei. China has significant influence across Africa.

Taiwanese leader Lai made a surprise announcement on Saturday that he had arrived in Eswatini after the first visit was called off. This time, Lai had not announced publicly that he was traveling.

Taiwan “will never be deterred by external pressures,” Lai wrote on X.

___

AP journalist Johnson Lai in Taipei contributed.

___

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

The duck, dubbed Martha by the family, sits on her nest for about a month every spring in the tree-lined neighborhood of Eagan, Minnesota. After her eggs hatch around Mother's Day, the birds toddle away.

“It feels nice that she trusts that area, that she trusts us to be able to come back year after year,” said Deal, whose 4-year-old son Owen's first word was “Duck.”

Spring is when wildlife — everything from birds to deer to alligators — bear their young, often in locations more suitable to humans than animals. Experts maintain that with a few exceptions and some preparation, coexisting with creatures usually is easy — and often a lot of fun.

“My two biggest things are: Stay away from the nest or the little family as much as possible, and stay curious,” said Brittney Yohannes, a spokesperson for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota.

Leave it alone

Find a nest or baby animal? Wildlife experts advise leaving it alone.

Removing a nest can be illegal under federal law. If a bird has nested in a strange spot, homeowners can call their local wildlife agency for advice, said Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Beth Quillian.

Besides birds, people often find deer fawns curled up in a corner of their yard or by an air conditioning unit. The fawn may appear abandoned, but Quillian said the doe usually has hidden her babe while foraging.

“That is to protect the fawn, to leave it there, sometimes hours at a time, but the doe will come back to that fawn, and that is natural and normal,” Quillian said.

People should leave fawns alone unless there are clear signs they need help.

Protective parents

As cute as the animals may appear, people should remember that wildlife can be, well, wild.

Ducks are docile on the nest, but Canada geese and swans can be aggressive, said John Coluccy, of the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. A goose can knock a person to ground and hit them hard enough to break a bone, he said.

“They’re very, very aggressive. They’re long-lived and they protect their reproductive investment very vigorously,” Coluccy said.

Quillian noted that in parts of the West, people may encounter elk calves, usually in forested and coastal areas, but possibly even near homes. Elk can weigh 500 pounds (225 kilograms) or more, and cow elk also are incredibly protective of their young.

“It’s amazing to see wildlife, to get that opportunity, but we have to give them distance, respect their space, especially when they have young,” she said.

In Florida, alligators breed and nest from April to June. Female alligators often build nests that resemble piles of leaves, near ponds, retention basins and ditches. They aggressively guard their nests, often while hiding in water nearby, said North Florida Wildlife Center Animal Care Manager Darian Dowse.

The key is to keep your distance from mounds of leaves and to keep dogs on sidewalks, away from shorelines.

People with concerns about nests should call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Dowse said.

Dealing with problems

Sometimes animals like raccoons, squirrels or foxes will hole up with their young in spots that just don't work, such as in a covered boat.

One solution that doesn’t rely on live traps or hiring a pest control service is to install a shop lamp to flood the area with light, said Tami Vogel, executive director of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota. A mom will usually move her young within a couple days.

People can also install metal mesh to close off sheds and decks, she said.

Vogel said center staff try to educate people about their options.

“We want them to know we’re here as a safety net and what to look for if something goes wrong, and then the good news is, two weeks later, their neighbor may have a similar situation and they can pass along that information,” Vogel said.

What about pets?

Dogs and cats are predators, so the key is to keep them close.

For Deal in Minnesota, a big concern for Martha's safety revolved around her family's dog, Piper, who loves to chase animals.

Deal said the family made sure to keep Piper on a leash, and Martha didn't seem to mind.

Rabbits are incredibly prolific in the Midwest and are one of the most common subjects of calls to the Minnesota center, in part because they nest in yards, Yohannes said.

The center recommends placing a laundry basket over a nest during the day to keep dogs away, and removing it near evening so the mother can to tend to her young.

“One of the best pieces of advice I can give is just understanding that that period of coexisting with this nest or this family will be temporary,” Yohannes said.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to answer that question anymore," DeVaux said to a rousing round of applause.

DeVaux joined Jena Antonucci, with Arcangelo in the 2023 Belmont, as the only women to train the winner of a Triple Crown race. She was just the 18th woman to saddle a horse in the Derby in its 152-year history, and the gravity of the situation came into focus for her days earlier when she saw a young girl on the backstretch and realized the impact she is making.

“It really is an honor to be able to be that person for other women or other little girls to look up to,” DeVaux said. “You can dream big, and you can pivot. You can come from one place and make yourself a part of history.”

DeVaux credits growing up with seven brothers and two sisters for her toughness. After winning the Derby on her first try eight years after starting her own stable, she thanked her husband for inspiring her to give it a chance.

“I didn’t believe,” DeVaux said. “I started my career here 22 years ago as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed exercise rider. And I would not believe that I would be sitting up here today. Never in my life did I think I would.”

It came with a lot of hard work. DeVaux fielded questions this week about Golden Tempo's cracked heels, and she downplayed concerns. She put a lot of time into getting the colt into form, trying blinkers and other things to get the son of Curlin to focus.

Jockey Jose Ortiz even described Golden Tempo as lazy. But Ortiz showed what he and the horse could do Saturday, winning the Derby for the first time in his 11th try — and doing so in impressive fashion.

Ortiz navigated past 17 other horses around the final turn and made a hard charge down the stretch. With a crowd of more than 100,000 watching and roaring at Churchill Downs, Golden Tempo passed morning line favorite Renegade — ridden by brother Irad — just before the wire to win the 1 1/4-mile race in 2:02.27 at odds of 23-1.

Their parents were there to witness it.

“I get to ride it almost every year, but to get to win it, it’s just special,” said Ortiz, who also won the Kentucky Oaks on Friday aboard Always a Runner. “I just wish my grandpa was here, but I know he’s looking from heaven. Just very happy that I get my goal, my life dream goal achieved.”

Golden Tempo paid $48.24 to win, $19.14 to place and $11.90 to show. Renegade paid $7.14 to place and $5.46 to show. Ocelli — who didn’t get into the field until Thursday when Brad Cox’s Fulleffort was ruled out — paid $36.34 to show after going off at 70-1.

“He gave me a really good run and proud of his effort,” Ocelli jockey Tyler Gaffalione said. "We were just not able to get the job done but hats off to the winner and runner-up. They ran huge races.”

The 152nd Kentucky Derby went on with just 18 horses following a scary incident before the race. Great White was a late scratch by track veterinarians after flipping and throwing his jockey.

Great White’s trainer, John Ennis, confirmed to The Associated Press that the big gray gelding and jockey Alex Achard were fine.

Great White became the fifth horse scratched this week and the second Saturday. Silent Tactic was ruled out Wednesday, Fulleffort on Thursday and Right to Party on Friday, with Great White, Ocelli and Robusta getting in. The Puma was out, less than 12 hours before post time, because of a swollen leg from a skin infection, but it was too late to replace him.

Following Golden Tempo's victory in the $5 million Run for the Roses, the immediate question was whether he would run back in two weeks in the Preakness Stakes on May 16. After two of the previous four Derby winners did not participate in the Preakness, DeVaux said it would be determined in the coming days.

“We’re going to let him decide that,” DeVaux said. “We’re going to have to allow him to tell us, because the horse is first. We’re not here for ourselves. We’re not here for our egos. We’re here for the horse.”

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AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing

Yemeni coffeehouses are opening at a rapid pace across the U.S. The number of cafes run by six major chains that serve Yemeni-style drinks grew 50% last year to 136, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting company. The count doesn’t include the many smaller chains and independent cafes serving coffees and teas imported from Yemen.

Yemeni coffeehouses are meeting the moment for several reasons. They stay open late — sometimes past 3 a.m., especially during Ramadan — and provide a place to socialize for the growing number of Americans who don’t drink alcohol. Last year, a Gallup poll found that just 54% U.S. adults reported drinking alcohol, the lowest percentage in 90 years.

“Generally in the Middle East. our nightlife is coffee, right? People hang out at coffee shops, they play cards, they talk. We wanted to bring that here,” said Ahmad Badr, who owns an Arwa Yemeni Coffee franchise in Sunnyvale, California.

Another reason for the cafes’ popularity is the growing number of Americans of Arab descent. Between 2010 and 2024, the Arab American population in the U.S. rose by 43%, compared to around 10% growth for the U.S. population as a whole, according to the Arab American Institute.

While most Yemeni coffee shops are in places with high concentrations of Arab Americans, including Michigan, California and Texas, they’re also opening in locations as diverse as Alpharetta, Georgia; Overland Park, Kansas; and Portland, Maine.

A taste of home

Faris Almatrahi is the co-founder and owner of Texas-based Arwa Yemeni Coffee, a chain with 11 cafes across the U.S. and 30 more in development. He said an ongoing civil war in Yemen that began in 2014 has prevented Yemeni Americans like himself from visiting their homeland, so he has tried to evoke Yemen in his cafes.

Arwa locations are painted in natural desert tones, with archways that mimic mosques and lampshades shaped like the hats worn by Yemen’s coffee farmers.

“One of the ways to actually visit without traveling there was to bring that experience to the U.S., and that was a huge passion for us when we opened our first location,” Almatrahi said. “It was extremely emotional for all of us due to the fact that it really transported us to Yemen."

But Almatrahi noted that most of his customers aren’t of Arab descent. In fact, Americans of all backgrounds are seeking out new global flavors and authentic experiences, according to market research company Datassential. Food trends are also spreading quickly through social media.

Menus vary, but Yemeni cafes generally serve specialties like Adeni tea, a spiced tea similar to chai, and qishr, a traditional drink made from the dried husks of coffee cherries. Familiar drinks like lattes might contain special spices or honey; at Arwa, lattes features the outline of a camel stenciled in spices.

Bakery cases might contain khaliat nahal, or Yemeni honeycomb bread, a cheese-filled pastry drizzled with honey, or basboosa, a cake soaked in sugar syrup and often flavored with lemon or rose water. Many Yemeni menus also mix in more typical U.S. coffeeshop fare, like matcha lattes or berry refreshers.

Choices for coffee lovers

Peter Giuliano, a researcher with the Specialty Coffee Association, a California-based nonprofit, said culturally specific cafes have been a key growth driver in the U.S. coffee industry for the last few years. In addition to Yemeni cafes, he cited the Latin-style chain Tierra Mia in California and Nguyen Coffee Supply, a New York-based company that roasts Vietnamese beans.

A customer who visited Badr's shop in Sunnyvale for the first time said an internet search brought her there on a recent weekday. Cindy Donovan said she’s always on the hunt for good coffee and was excited by Yemeni coffees she tried.

“I think they're much more refined and mellow, and much more full of flavor than a regular cup of dark roast, for instance,” Donovan said. “The cardamom in the drinks is fantastic. Very, very flavorful, rich but not heavy.”

Most Yemeni coffee is sun-dried, which enhances its flavor and brings out undertones of chocolate and fruit, Almatrahi said. Yemeni cafes often mix coffee with special spice mixes – or hawaij – that may contain cardamon, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, coriander or nutmeg.

“Our coffee and teas are not just made through a fully automatic machine,” said Mohamed Nasser, the director of operations for Haraz Coffee House, a Dearborn, Michigan-based chain with 50 U.S. outlets and another 50 in development. “We have to manually blend and mix our coffee and tea, boil it with water and evaporated milk, make sure that it comes out (with the) perfect taste, perfect color.”

Yemen's flavorful history

Coffee has a long history in Yemen. While the plant was likely discovered in Ethiopia, by the 1400s it was being cultivated in Yemen, where monks brewed it to stay awake during prayers, according to the National Coffee Association, a U.S. trade group. Yemen monopolized the coffee trade for around 200 years until Dutch merchants smuggled coffee seeds to Indonesia and began growing plants there.

Almatrahi said a revitalization of the Yemeni coffee industry over the last two decades, led by coffee companies, foundations and young entrepreneurs, helped make the current U.S. boom possible. Coffee is one of the most promising sectors for economic development in Yemen, where more than 80% of the population lives in poverty, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“We are ambassadors for our culture and our people. So when we open these shops, we want to perform the outreach, to show the hospitality, to show what we have to offer,” Almatrahi said.

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Durbin reported from Detroit. AP Video Journalist Mike Householder contributed from Dearborn, Michigan.

And for Ryan Reynolds, it was tough to stomach.

“I am completely gutted by today’s result but incredibly proud of our season,” the actor wrote on X after the Welsh club he co-owns missed out on a place in the playoffs in the second-tier Championship by drawing 2-2 with Middlesbrough in a dramatic final round of the regular season on Saturday.

That allowed Hull to jump ahead of Wrexham and into sixth place — the fourth and final spot in the playoffs — courtesy of a 2-1 win over Norwich in a match played at the same time.

The winning goal for Hull, by Oli McBurnie in the 67th, appeared to be scored from an offside position but there are no video reviews in the English Football League.

It ended Wrexham’s unprecedented run of three straight promotions under its famous owners — a streak that began by getting out of the fifth tier in the 2022-23 season and has been documented in the globally popular, Emmy Award-winning “Welcome to Wrexham” series.

Still, seventh place marked the Wrexham's highest finish in its history, bettering the 15th position it achieved in the second tier in the 1978–79 season.

“We’ve come a long way in five years and this was the best result in our 150+ year history,” Reynolds wrote alongside a graphic that showed how Wrexham has risen from the National League. “More to do. But for now, we have so much to be proud of, Reds.”

Elsewhere, Ipswich secured the second automatic promotion spot behind champion Coventry — and an immediate return to the Premier League — by beating Queens Park Rangers 3-0.

Ipswich is owned by U.S. investment group Gamechanger 20 Limited and counts pop star Ed Sheeran as a minority shareholder.

Joining Hull in the playoffs, which begin next week and are over two legs, are Millwall, Southampton and Middlesbrough.

Millwall will face Hull, and Southampton will meet Middlesbrough.

Best-ever finish by Wrexham

It was a memorable campaign by Wrexham in its first season in the second tier since the 1980s.

However, the short-term pain was acute, and Wrexham's players sat on the ground and looked disconsolate after the final whistle — even though the Hull-Norwich match hadn't finished.

Wrexham started the day in sixth place, ahead of Hull on goal difference, and conceded in the fourth minute to Middlesbrough, only to score through Josh Windass and Sam Smith for a 2-1 lead by the 41st.

Middlesbrough hit back immediately with a 43rd-minute equalizer but Wrexham finished the stronger, squandering a string of great late chances for a winner that would have secured a playoff place on goal difference.

In the end, Wrexham finished two points behind Hull.

“This squad as it stands, with a preseason together, will be even stronger next year," said Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson, who oversaw a summer spend of around $40 million last year.

“Of course we’ll always look to add to that to try and give ourselves an even better chance ... we know where we’d like to strengthen and what we need to improve on. We’ll do that and we’ll make this squad as strong as we possibly can to mount a challenge next year."

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

In a post on X, Lai said he arrived in Eswatini — Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa — to “affirm our longstanding friendship.” He said that Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that China considers part of its territory, “will never be deterred by external pressures.”

Lai was originally scheduled to visit the southern African country from April 22, but Taiwanese officials said that flight permits were revoked by Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar over “strong pressure from the Chinese authorities, including economic coercion.”

In a separate Facebook post on Saturday, Lai wrote that the visit was made possible following careful arrangements by his diplomatic and national security teams. He said the trip will further deepen the friendship between Taiwan and Eswatini through closer economic, agricultural, cultural and educational ties.

“Our resolve & commitment are underpinned by the understanding that Taiwan will continue to engage with the world — no matter the challenges faced,” Lai wrote on X. Taiwan did not announce latest plans of Lai's Eswatini visit prior to his arrival.

A spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement shortly after Lai posted on social media about his visit that he was “performing a laughable stunt in front of the world,” and referred to him being “smuggled” out of Taiwan.

Lai's “undignified act” and visit “will always be a losing cause and nothing will ever change the fact that Taiwan is part of China,” the ministry said. “We urge Eswatini and some other individual countries to see where the arc of history bends and stop serving as the prop of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists.”

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry hit back, saying Lai's trip was conducted “in accordance with international law, international norms, diplomatic practices” and Taiwan’s regulations.

Lai's arrival in Eswatini was only announced after he landed safely, the ministry said in a written statement, a precaution which it said had numerous international precedents.

China has not ruled out using force to take control of Taiwan and has sought to block other countries from maintaining formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.

In 2023, Tsai Ing-wen was the most recent previous Taiwanese president to visit Eswatini, the small, landlocked nation with a population of around 1.2 million. Eswatini became the only African country excluded from tariff-free access to China's market because of its ties to Taiwan.

On Friday, Taiwan’s government expressed concern after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a phone call that Taiwan is the “biggest risk” when it comes to relations between Beijing and Washington.

Attendance is down significantly this year with the arena only a little over half full, but still no other corporate meeting can come close to matching the crowds at Berkshire's Woodstock for Capitalists. For years, more than 40,000 attended to listen to the 95-year-old Buffett and — before his death in 2023, Buffett’s longtime partner Charlie Munger was always part of the fun. Buffett gave up the CEO title in January, but he remains chairman and did make a few comments during the meeting.

Berkshire's businesses were the focus, but timely topics like the Iran war and the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence also came up.

Vice Chairman Ajit Jain said Berkshire would be willing to insure ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz if the price was right and the U.S. Navy escorted those ships.

Jain said he believes there is enough capacity across the insurance industry to take on that risk and there is definitely a need for it because that waterway is the path for so much of the world's oil supply.

“The short answer is it depends on the price,” Jain said.

Abel said the war in the Middle East is definitely creating challenges for Berkshire's businesses because oil is such a fundamental input, but he's confident that the managers will find a way to deal with that.

“We very quickly move to what is the best solution for our customers,” Abel said.

Honoring Buffett's contributions

Saturday’s meeting began with a video tribute to Buffett beginning with a clip showing the standing ovation Buffett received last year after he surprised shareholders by announcing that he would step down.

Abel then announced the symbolic move of retiring jerseys with Buffett’s and Munger’s names on them that will hang in the rafters of the arena.

Buffett again praised Abel and said he's glad that he made the decision to promote him now.

“He’s very, very smart about businesses,” Buffett said during a live interview that aired during the meeting. And Abel is close to earning his American citizenship after growing up in Canada. He has been with Berkshire more than 25 years.

Buffett complained that too many people treat the stock market like a casino and gamble with their investments. He said the world would work better if more people treated each other well.

“If the whole world lived by the golden rule then it would be such a more wonderful society,” Buffett said.

Easing the transition to Abel

Signs of the transition were peppered throughout the 200,000-square-foot exhibit hall where Berkshire companies sold their products. A caricature of Abel playing his favorite sport of hockey is front and center on commemorative boxes of See’s Candy. At the Pilot Travel Center booth, pictures of Abel and Buffett are plastered on a semitrailer truck windshield, but Abel is in the driver’s seat. And shareholders lined up to buy a Squishmallow version of Abel to go with the latest versions of the popular Buffett and Munger stuffed dolls.

“Sadly we miss Warren and Charlie and that show which was fun, but it’s a business meeting for a lot of us and hearing what the businesses are doing is what it’s all about,” investor Chris Bloomstran, who is president of Semper Augustus Investments Group said.

Also, many people travel to Omaha primarily to meet up with like-minded value investors, who practice the approach that Buffett employed, and attend some of the investment conferences and meetings that are scheduled around Berkshire’s shareholder meeting.

“That’s why I’m really here, really here is to network with other people,” said Bob Robotti, who runs his own investment company.

Focusing on Berkshire's businesses

Abel opened the meeting with a detailed discussion of how Berkshire's biggest businesses are performing. He gave a granular explanation about the performance of Berkshire’s insurers, its BNSF railroad, utilities and manufacturers. He talked about how Berkshire is using artificial intelligence “to solve problems at our companies.”

But Abel also used a deepfake video of Buffett asking a question about Berkshire's long-term prospects at the start of the Q-and-A session to highlight some of the cyber challenges and risks AI presents.

“It's scary,” Buffett said later in the meeting. For example, AI could easily create an extremely convincing fake version of the leader of a country with nuclear weapons, he said.

Abel stressed over and over that Berkshire's basic approach that trusts CEOs to manage the day-to-day operations of their companies will not change, and he won't feel pressured to spend the company's nearly $400 billion in cash prematurely.

“One of our greatest strengths at Berkshire is patience and being disciplined at allocating our capital,” Abel said. “We’re not anxious to deploy capital into subpar opportunities.”

Enduring culture at Berkshire

The CEOs of Dairy Queen, See’s Candy, Jazwares and Brooks Running all said very little has changed since Abel was promoted other than they now report to NetJets CEO Adam Johnson who is overseeing 32 retail and service businesses.

“I think this is a very deeply rooted culture that Warren has created, and I believe the transition to Greg is going to be rooted in those values that Warren has for 60 years instituted and will continue,” Brooks CEO Dan Sheridan said.

For years Buffett always said he was having too much fun running Berkshire to ever retire, but once the shock of his announcement in the final minutes of last year's meeting wore off, the company’s executives quickly agreed this plan for the transition was better because Buffett can still be around to advise Abel.

"That’s the greatest combination right now, to be able to have that transition in leadership where Greg and Warren can still work together,” DQ CEO Troy Bader said as his staff sold Dilly Bars to shareholders.

Striving to improve

Abel is known to be a more demanding and hands-on boss than Buffett ever was, but he does that by challenging Berkshire’s CEOs to strengthen their competitive advantages while taking care of their customers. Abel asks tough questions and offers advice that his CEOs appreciate, but he doesn’t tell them exactly what to do.

And with Buffett remaining Berkshire’s chairman and its largest shareholder it’s unlikely that Abel will make any drastic changes.

Robotti said the performance of Berkshire’s businesses should be much more important to shareholders than the entertainment value of the annual meetings.

“My hope and expectation are they’re picking people who have competency in running a business and not necessarily public speakers and presenters,” Robotti said.

Berkshire said Saturday morning that its profits more than doubled in the first-quarter to $10.1 billion, or $7,027 per Class A share, as the value of its investments grew and most of its businesses improved.

Berkshire’s massive cash pile continues to grow, and it hit $397.4 billion at the end of the first quarter.

Most of Berkshire’s varied businesses reported better operating earnings this year. The insurance unit that includes Geico reported an underwriting profit of $1.7 billion, up from $1.34 billion last year. Profits also grew somewhat at BNSF railroad and Berkshire’s utility and manufacturing companies.

But Abel acknowledged there is more improvement needed — especially at BNSF, which lags behind most of the other major freight railroads.

The combination of hot, windy, dry weather means the fire danger is high today and a *Red Flag Warning* is in effect for inland Broward County from 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Be careful with any sparks from barbecues and don’t park your car on grassy areas. If you’re grilling out today keep water and sand nearby! Fortunately the hot weather will be short-lived because a cold front with a pretty good shot of rain and storms is on the way for tomorrow.

While no severe weather is expected we could see over an inch of rain in spots. Showers will linger into early next week before drier, hotter weather arrives toward the second half of next week.

But the budget carrier ceased operations on Saturday after reaching an impasse with an administration that increasingly sees the government as an activist investor that will shape the path of the U.S. economy.

While Trump has long railed against Democrats and other opponents as communists — the antithesis of the free market ethos that helped America grow into a superpower — he has taken a shine to the government owning some of the means of production since he has been back in the Oval Office.

Trump sees opportunities in preserving legacy brand companies such as Intel and possibly making a tidy profit for Uncle Sam. The Republican president views the investments as critical for economic security and emblematic of his own dealmaking skills, overturning what had been GOP dogma that government should avoid picking winners and losers.

In the case of Spirit, a cash-strapped budget airline that faced surging fuel costs caused by the Iran war, Trump told reporters on Friday that the government would buy a stake in the company “ only if it’s a good deal.” His objection to a bailout was not ideological as much as it was about the upside.

“If we can help them, we will,” Trump said. “But we have to come first.” Trump did not immediately address the shutdown of the carrier.

He had compared the potential acquisition to an earlier move to buy a stake in Intel. Trump has watched the computer chip manufacturer's stock closely. “I’m very proud of that Company in that I am responsible for making the United States of America over 30 Billion Dollars in the last 90 days on that stock alone," Trump posted on social media this week.

Committed to government stakes in companies

Communism wields big influence in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba, where governments play a central role in providing goods and services. The ideology has morphed over its history from the premise that government should own all property to a system in which the government might own or control major companies.

In the United States, major government interventions in the private sector have been unusual outside of a recession. Trump aides say his interventions are necessary to compete against China's industrial heft, yet the president has frequently tethered corporate America to his administration.

He has used his tariffs to solicit foreign investments and claimed that he controls how the money is being spent. The government has a “golden share” to limit what Japan's Nippon Steel can do after buying U.S. Steel. His administration brokered an agreement to take a cut of computer chip sales to China by Nvidia and AMD.

Under Trump, the government has invested in rare earths company MP Materials to break China’s control of the metallic elements needed for smartphones, autos and other technologies. Add to that agreements for stakes in Lithium America, Trilogy Metals and Vulcan Elements as well as preferential financing for Westinghouse and ReElement Technologies.

The administration backed off ending the government conservatorship of the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Trump says they are worth more now because he held on instead of privatizing the companies in his first term. “If I would have sold it, I would have felt like a schmuck," he said Friday.

He is accessible to CEOs, speaking regularly on the telephone with them, yet he also can be demanding of them to support his agenda. He has told Walmart to not raise prices because of his tariffs and suggested he would favorably “remember” companies that decline to seek refunds after the Supreme Court ruled his tariffs were illegal.

Logic and ego seen in Trump's moves

To critics, Trump’s desire to fund and hold ownership stakes in private business is a byproduct of an id in overdrive.

“This is entirely a reflection of a transactional-minded president who wants unilateral control of the economy,” said Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “At the end of the day, it is about power, it is about leverage and it is about control.”

Others see some logic in competing against Chinese manufacturers that can churn away without regard to profits, undercutting factories in other industrialized nations and putting America’s preeminence as a military power and technological innovator at risk.

The investment in Intel was "a strategic move, necessitated by the growth of China as an economic peer and rival,” said Sujai Shivakumar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“The key point is that we should not sacrifice our national economic and industrial framework in the name of ‘free markets’ or other ideologies,” he said. “Pragmatism, in various forms of industrial and innovation policy, have always been a feature of our economic system since the very beginning of our republic.”

Republicans traditionally shunned picking winners and losers

During the 2024 campaign, Trump portrayed the administration of Democrat Joe Biden as communist and socialist.

“We will cast out the communists,” Trump said at an April 13, 2024, speech in Pennsylvania. “We will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all.”

Biden often stressed his belief in the power of free markets to help the middle class and he believed his efforts to raise corporate tax rates would help achieve that. “I’m a capitalist,” he said in his last State of the Union address, saying he was not opposed to companies making profits. “That’s great — just pay your fair share in taxes,” he said.

The Biden administration extended loans and grants to chipmakers and sought to leverage the government’s role as a customer of American businesses. But a key difference was that the investments were based on laws passed by Congress.

Trump's unilateral approach is more nimble, his White House argues, saying that funding for his investments come from sources previously approved by Congress.

Trump specifically took loans and grants from Biden's 2022 CHIPS and Science Act and converted them into a $11.1 billion purchase of Intel stock. In his 2025 address to Congress, Trump called the CHIPS Act a “horrible, horrible thing” and suggested the Republican majorities claw back funding to pay down the budget deficit.

With Spirit Airlines in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, his administration had been weighing a $500 million deal that would have given the government a stake in the Florida-based discount airline. Other budget carriers have been interested in similar packages.

That possibility drew objections from Republicans such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office that he wanted to save the jobs at Spirit Airlines and that "when the prices of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit.”

Government investment can help to even the playing field for American companies competing against subsidized foreign businesses, said Monica Gorman, a managing director at Crowell Global Advisors who helped lead manufacturing and industrial policy in the Biden White House.

But Gorman said that it was unclear whether the Trump administration had fully grasped the risks of “making some bad bets.” She stressed the importance of formalizing the process through legislation instead of relying on Trump’s whims.

“Congress really needs to step in and design a legislative framework for U.S. industrial policy that governs equity stakes as well as other mechanisms such as loans and grants,” she said. “All of these are important tools in the U.S. industrial policy toolkit, but we need more guidance on when and how to use them.”

The shower will peak Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Viewers from the Southern Hemisphere typically see 50 meteors per hour during the peak, but the interfering moon could cut that number by half. In the north, skywatchers will likely see fewer than 10 per hour.

“For us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's not going to be as impressive,” said Teri Gee, manager of the Barlow Planetarium in Wisconsin. “The farther south you are, the better you'll see it.”

Meteor showers happen when the Earth charges through trails of debris left behind from comets or asteroids. Those bits collide with Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds, producing streaks of light that are also known as shooting stars.

On any given night, a handful of stray meteors are visible under dark skies. Meteor showers yield a more exciting show and happen at predictable times every year.

Most meteor showers are caused by leftovers from comets, and the Eta Aquarids feature debris from one of the most well-known. Halley's comet passes by Earth about every 76 years on its trip around the sun. It'll next swing by in 2061.

To glimpse these meteors, it's best to go outside just before dawn. Venture away from city lights and tall buildings to get a clear view of the sky. In this case, it might also help to find a spot that blocks the luminous waning gibbous moon, which will be 84% full.

Bring blankets and lawn chairs. Avoid looking at your phone and give your eyes time to get used to the darkness. Look to the east in the vicinity of constellation Aquarius and bright star Eta Aquarii.

“You're looking for bright streaks that appear in the corner of your eye for a fraction of a second,” said astrophysicist Nico Adams with SSP International, a nonprofit that promotes STEM education.

There's no better way to enjoy the show than to experience it firsthand, Gee said.

“It almost feels like you're discovering it yourself,” she said.

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

She is trying to be the first Democrat in 20 years to win the office in a state that has become dominated by Republicans. Her presumed opponent, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, has national name recognition and a personal fortune that he is plowing into his campaign.

But Acton's most formidable obstacle may be a ghost from her recent past: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acton, a physician, was Ohio's public health director when the coronavirus hit the United States in early 2020, causing a wave of deaths, anxiety and social disruption. As the government took aggressive action to combat it, Acton became a household name throughout Ohio.

Six years later, the orders Acton signed at the urging of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to battle the virus — closing schools, shuttering businesses, restricting sporting events and suspending voting in the 2020 primary — are drawing fresh attention as she runs for the state’s top office and have become a central line of criticism from Republicans.

During campaign rallies, Ramaswamy has accused Acton of spreading dangerous “COVID ideology.” Her campaign said it does not think voters will buy it.

“Dr. Acton is proud of the work she did alongside Governor DeWine to put public health over politics, save lives and keep Ohioans safe,” her campaign spokesperson, Addie Bullock, said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that Vivek Ramaswamy wants to play politics on this issue.”

Choosing ‘liberty’ or ‘lockdowns’

Wearing a white medical coat, Acton was a fixture at daily COVID-19 briefings with DeWine that were highly anticipated events watched in households across the state. Day after day, she calmly explained the virus’ trajectory, the grim march of hospitalizations and deaths, and reassuringly provided tips on how Ohioans should handle themselves.

“Ohio, don the mask, don your cape,” Acton said at the time, asking ordinary people to act like superheroes.

In Ohio and elsewhere, the social trauma from the pandemic has yet to fully heal. It has changed how millions of people in the United States view vaccines, how deeply government should interfere in daily life and even whether people can trust government health officers.

The below-the-surface skepticism, which continues even as concerns over contracting the virus have faded, has emerged as an unusual storyline in the race for governor.

Ramaswamy, the front-running Republican, is airing ads capitalizing on lingering anger over the election order that Acton issued for DeWine. At Republican events around the state, mention of Acton’s name elicits loud boos.

“Are we choosing freedom or are we choosing Fauci?” asked Zac Haines, a Republican campaigning for the state Senate, in a reference to former national infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci as the candidate warmed up a recent Ramaswamy fundraising crowd. “Are we choosing liberty or are we choosing lockdowns?”

A hero to some, a villain to others

At Democratic events, Acton carries the air of the cult hero who, back in 2020, inspired a Dr. Amy Acton Fan Club with its own yard signs, a bobblehead doll and a proposal to honor her with a state holiday.

Campaigning this year, she seems to tread cautiously when discussing her time as Ohio's health chief, sometimes avoiding use of the words COVID-19 or coronavirus.

“I had the honor and the privilege, the privilege, of serving in a very tough moment,” she told a Democratic crowd in southwest Ohio in March. “I'm proud of Ohioans, because together we flattened that curve, we saved a lot of lives.”

Ohio ranked 22nd among the states in its per capita death rate from the virus during the pandemic's first year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Acton, who left the job halfway through 2020, does not dwell on what happened after the government imposed restrictions: the mutiny against DeWine over business closures and health mandates, the legislation by Republicans to limit the governor's powers and the protesters, some of them armed, outside her house.

At a recent States Forum symposium in Columbus, where people from across the political spectrum were brought together to try to find common ground within the “ Make America Healthy Again" movement, Acton said she had worked for or advised five different governors.

“So I’ll work with anyone who wants to solve a problem rather than make one,” she said, “which is what Ohioans are longing for.”

While he has endorsed Ramaswamy, DeWine denounced the campaign's ad against Acton for suspending the 2020 primary.

“I told her to issue the health order,” the governor said. “The decision was mine.”

Ramaswamy is dodging his own pandemic ghosts

Ramaswamy and another prominent Republican running in this year’s midterm elections have their own ties to Ohio's pandemic response.

As CEO of Roivant Sciences, the biotechnology research company he founded in 2014, Ramaswamy “worked with the lieutenant governor as an adviser on COVID-19” during 2020, he wrote in a 2021 op-ed. The lieutenant governor at the time, Republican Jon Husted, is now a U.S. senator running for reelection. He was a regular participant alongside Acton and DeWine at Ohio’s daily virus briefings.

A Roivant subsidiary, Genevant Sciences, also played a “fundamental role” in the global pandemic response, according to a March news release. The statement announced a $2.2 billion settlement with Moderna over its unauthorized use of Genevant’s and Arbutus Biopharma’s patents in its COVID vaccines.

During the pandemic, Ramaswamy, whose wife is a physician, supported vaccines. He received one himself and advocated mask-wearing, although he said he never supported governments mandating either.

One of Ramaswamy’s companies, Datavant, even pushed for a national COVID registry that would be used to allow the small segment of the population that was gradually gaining natural COVID-19 immunity to “get back to normal life” while facilitating the rest continuing to be “segregated.”

Yet since he entered politics for the 2024 presidential race, Ramaswamy has taken steps to distance himself from those days. In early 2023, he stepped down from the Roivant board and paid an editor to scrub a reference to his service on Ohio’s “COVID-19 Response Team” from his Wikipedia page. He called it a simple correction, saying the panel never met.

His campaign referred questions about his time at Roivant to the company, which did not respond to an email seeking comment.

In an interview, Ramaswamy said both his support for a COVID registry and his talks with Husted involved “getting the economy going again.” While calling his position on the virus “nuanced,” he said he intends to hold Acton accountable for the decisions to shutter Ohio businesses and schools and to suspend voting in the 2020 primary, which eventually was conducted by mail balloting.

“As a decision maker, you have to weigh the costs and benefits of your actions,” he said. “You can’t be unmoored from the data.”

Keir Starmer said he would always defend the right to protest, but said there may be instances where some marches protesting the war in Gaza should be banned. He suggested that repeated pro-Palestinian marches have had a “cumulative effect” linked to the rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.K.

“When you see, when you hear some of those chants — ‘globalize the intifada’ would be one I would pick out — then clearly there should be tougher action in relation to that,” Starmer told the BBC. The Arabic word intifada is generally translated as “uprising.”

A 45-year-old man was charged Friday with attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed and wounded Wednesday in Golders Green, a London neighborhood that's an epicenter of Britain's Jewish community. Police called the attack an act of terrorism.

It was the latest in a string of incidents including recent arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in the British capital.

The U.K.'s most senior police officer warned Friday that British Jews are facing their greatest ever threat, and blamed social media for making antisemitism more mainstream than before.

Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, said British Jews are now the target of every extremist group spreading hate.

“The ghastly fact is that Jews are on everybody’s list, all of those hateful groups, whether you’re extreme right, whether you’re extreme left, whether you’re Islamist terrorist, whether you’re right-wing terrorist, and some hostile states as well now with some sort of Iranian-related threats," he told The Times. "There’s a ghastly Venn diagram that they’re at the middle of.”

Britain’s official terror threat level was raised from substantial to severe after Wednesday’s stabbing attack. Severe is the second-highest on a five-point scale and means intelligence agencies consider an attack highly likely in the next six months.

The government said the change was not due solely to the Golders Green attack but also due to increased danger “from Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the U.K.”

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust charity. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.

Seven people were also wounded in the attack, regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said. Hours later Russia attacked another minibus in Kherson, wounding the driver, he said.

Meanwhile, along the northern border with Belarus, Ukraine recorded “rather unusual” activity on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram on Saturday. Without elaborating, he said activity was seen on the Belarusian side of the border and that Ukraine would act if matters escalated.

“We are closely documenting and keeping the situation under control. If necessary, we will react,” he said.

Belarus, a close ally of the Kremlin, has allowed Russia to use its territory as a staging ground to send troops into Ukraine and to host some of Moscow’s tactical nuclear weapons.

On Ukraine's Black Sea coast, a Russian strike damaged port infrastructure in the city of Odesa. No casualties were reported.

Ukrainian civilians have endured relentless air assaults since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago. U.S.-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv over the past year have brought no respite, with Russia rejecting Ukraine’s offer of a ceasefire, and in recent weeks the Iran war has diverted international attention from Ukraine’s plight.

Meanwhile, on the roughly 1,250-kilometer (750-mile) front line, Russia claimed Saturday it had taken control of the village of Myropillia in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.

It was not possible to independently verify the battlefield claims, and Ukraine did not immediately comment.

In Russia, local officials in the Krasnodar region said that a fire that broke out Friday following a Ukrainian strike on an oil terminal in the Black Sea city of Tuapse was put out on Saturday.

Ukrainian drones have hit the oil refinery and export terminal in Tuapse on four occasions in just over two weeks, sparking fires that prompted local evacuations and sent up massive plumes of smoke.

Ukraine has escalated its long-distance strikes against Russian oil facilities in an effort to slash Moscow’s oil exports, a key source of funding for its grinding invasion of Ukraine. But the economic impact is so far unclear, as the rise in oil prices from the Iran war, and a related easing of U.S. sanctions, have helped replenish the Kremlin’s coffers.

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

Israel’s military on Saturday issued a new warning for residents of nine southern villages to evacuate. Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group have kept up their attacks despite a ceasefire in place since April 17.

In the border village of Yaroun, Israel’s military used bulldozers to destroy parts of a Catholic convent that had been empty as a result of the latest fighting.

“What we heard is that it was destroyed with bulldozers,” said Gladys Sabbagh, the superior general of the Basilian Salvatorian Sisters. Sabbagh told The Associated Press that the convent included a school that had been closed since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, as well as a clinic that was recently moved to the nearby village of Rmeich.

She described the convent as a small compound housing just two nuns, who left because of the war. Sabbagh did not have further details as Yaroun’s residents have been displaced.

Catholic Church disputes Israeli military's version

The Israeli military issued a statement saying that as the army was destroying Hezbollah infrastructure in Yaroun, a house that had no religious signs was damaged. It added that as soon as the military knew it was linked to a church, soldiers “prevented any further damage from being done.”

The military added that Hezbollah used the compound in the past to fire rockets toward Israel on several occasions. It added that the military does not strike religious institutions intentionally.

The Catholic Church in Lebanon rejected claims that the compound was used for military purposes.

“We are against all practices against places of worship and churches. These are places to spread peace, love and education,” said Rev. Abdo Abou Kassm, director of the Catholic Center for Information. “These are not military bases.”

The demolition at the convent came days after images of an Israeli soldier wielding an ax against the fallen statue of Jesus on the cross in the southern Lebanese village of Debel had sparked widespread condemnation, in Lebanon and internationally.

Israel says it's targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and members

In other parts of southern Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks continued.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported an airstrike on a car in the village of Kfar Dajal killed two people, while another hit a home in the village of Lwaizeh, killing three. Two others were killed in a strike on the village of Shoukin, it said.

Israel’s military Arabic-language spokesperson, Lt. Col. Ella Waweya, posted on X that the Israeli air force carried out about 50 airstrikes over the past 24 hours targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and members.

Hezbollah said that it attacked with a drone Israeli troops who gathered on Saturday inside a house in the coastal village of Bayed.

Over the past weeks, the Israeli army has been leveling neighborhoods in towns and villages near the Lebanese-Israeli border. The military says it destroys buildings that were used as outposts by the Iran-backed group.

The Israeli military released a new video that it said shows Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon being blown up. The video, released Friday, shows soldiers holding an Israeli flag and walking among the destruction of a soccer stadium in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil. The military said on its website that the air force “destroyed the town’s stadium after it was discovered to be booby-trapped.”

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on its main backer, Iran. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.

Since then, Lebanon and Israel have held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April 17. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.

The Health Ministry said that since the war began two months ago, 2,659 people have been killed and 8,183 wounded.

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Associated Press writer Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Zanardi’s family announced his death on Saturday, saying that he passed away on Friday night.

“Alex died peacefully, surrounded by the affection of those closest to him,” the family said in a statement without providing a cause of death.

In 2020, Zanardi was seriously injured in a handbike accident after crashing into an oncoming truck during a relay event in Tuscany. Zanardi suffered serious facial and cranial trauma in the crash and was put in a medically induced coma.

Nearly 20 years earlier, Zanardi lost both of his legs in an auto racing crash.

"Italy loses a great champion and an extraordinary man, capable of turning every challenge of life into a lesson in courage, strength, and dignity,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said on X.

“Alex Zanardi knew how to bounce back every time, facing even the toughest challenges with determination, clarity, and a strength of spirit that was truly exceptional,” Meloni added. “He gave all of us much more than a victory: he gave hope, pride, and the strength to never give up. ... Thank you for everything, Alex.”

Zanardi won two championships in CART — 1997 and 1998 — in the United States before a brief return to Formula One. He returned to America and was racing in Germany in a CART event in 2001 when both of his legs were severed in a horrific accident the weekend after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. CART raced only because the series was already in Germany at the time of the attacks and could not return to the U.S.

After the 2001 crash, Zanardi was in a coma for three days and his heart stopped at least once.

NASCAR driver Max Papis, who knew Zanardi from childhood in Italy, recalled visiting his friend in the hospital, where Zanardi glanced at Papis’ new shoes.

“He said, 'Look at the positive side of this. For a long time I will not have to spend money buying those,’” Papis said.

During his recovery, Zanardi designed his own prosthetics — he joked that he made himself taller — and learned to walk again. He then turned his attention to hand cycling and developed into one of the most accomplished athletes in the world. He won four gold medals and two silvers at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics, competed in the New York City Marathon and set an Ironman record.

When he won a Paralympic race in 2012 at Britain’s Brands Hatch circuit where he had competed as a young driver, Zanardi celebrated the full-circle moment by holding his bike aloft one-handed as he sat on the track.

“Probably a lot of people watching me doing (this) to some degree against all odds maybe they are going to say, 'Bloody hell, if Zanardi did this, I can try. I can try,’” he told The Associated Press at the time. “A good attempt always brings a result.”

His spirit, will, and determination gave the beloved Italian a larger-than-life persona. When he returned to the U.S. in 2019 to compete for BMW at the Rolex 24 of Daytona without his prosthetics, he was the most revered driver in a field that included F1 champion Fernando Alonso.

Drivers from around the world sought out Zanardi for photographs and were transfixed as he told elaborate tales of his adventures in the nearly two decades since many had seen him.

Zanardi used specially adapted cars with hand controls for gas and brake to take up racing again after the 2001 accident — and well enough to win races in various series.

Stefano Domenicali, the president and CEO of F1, said he was “deeply saddened by the passing of my dear friend,” calling Zanardi “truly an inspirational person, as a human and as an athlete.”

“He faced challenges that would have stopped anyone, yet he continued to look forward, always with a smile and a stubborn determination that inspired us all,” Domenicali added. “While his loss is profoundly felt, his legacy remains strong."

Zanardi's death came on the same day — May 1 — that fellow driver Ayrton Senna died in a crash during an F1 race in Imola in 1994.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) said on X that Zanardi’s racing career and “journey from life-changing accident to Paralympics gold medalist made him one of sport’s most admired competitors and an enduring symbol of courage and determination.”

Noted for his infectious smile and fanciful storytelling, Zanardi was praised by Pope Francis after his 2020 crash as an example of strength amid adversity. Francis penned a handwritten letter of encouragement assuring Zanardi and his family of his prayers.

Zanardi’s family added that it “thanks everyone who is sharing their support right now and asks for respect during this time of mourning.”

The funeral will be held Tuesday in Padua.

A moment of silence was observed in Zanardi's honor before Saturday's F1 sprint race in Miami Gardens, Florida. Also, the Italian Olympic Committee called for a minute of silence to be observed at all sports events in Italy over the weekend.

Zanardi, who was born in Bologna, is survived by his wife, Daniela, and son, Niccolò.

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AP Auto Racing Writer Jenna Fryer in Miami Gardens, Florida, and AP Sports Writer James Ellingworth in Düsseldorf, Germany, contributed to this report.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

“I’ll let you know about it later," he said before boarding Air Force One, adding that “they’re going to give me the exact wording now.”

Shortly after speaking to reporters, Trump posted on social media about the new proposal, saying he “can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”

Two semiofficial Iranian news outlets, Tasnim and Fars, believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said Iran has sent a 14-point proposal via Pakistan in response to a nine-point U.S. proposal. Iran's state-run media have not reported on the new proposal. Pakistan has hosted previous negotiations between Iran and the United States.

Trump rejected a previous Iranian proposal this week. However, conversations have continued, and the three-week ceasefire appears to be holding.

The U.S. president also has floated a new plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, where about a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and natural gas typically passes.

Imprisoned Iranian activist's health worsens

The health of imprisoned Iranian rights lawyer Narges Mohammadi was at “very high risk," her foundation and family said Saturday, adding that Iran 's Intelligence Ministry was opposing her transfer to Tehran, Iran's capital, for treatment by her own doctors.

Mohammadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in her early 50s, was urgently transferred to a hospital in Zanjan in Iran's northwest on Friday after a cardiac crisis and fainting. Her family has said her health had been worsening in part from a beating she received during her December arrest.

Medical teams in Zanjan have requested her records before performing any treatment, while recommending that she be transferred to Tehran, her foundation said.

But her Paris-based husband, Taghi Rahmani, said the Intelligence Ministry opposed the transfer for angiography, or imaging of the blood vessels. He spoke in a voice message shared with The Associated Press by the foundation.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee in a statement urged Iranian authorities to immediately transfer Mohammadi to her medical team, saying her life is in their hands.

“She has the mental resilience for imprisonment, but her body does not have the readiness. The Ministry of Intelligence wouldn’t even mind if (she) died,” her husband told Sky News.

He added that their children hadn't seen Mohammadi for over a decade, since 2015.

Before her arrest on Dec. 12, Mohammadi already had been serving a sentence of 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government, but had been released on furlough since late 2024 over medical concerns.

Her legal team is pursuing the matter with the General Prosecutor’s office, the foundation said.

The US warns shipping companies about possible sanctions

The U.S. has warned shipping companies they could face sanctions for paying Iran to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz, adding pressure in the standoff over control of it.

Iran effectively closed the strait by attacking and threatening ships after the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Feb. 28. Tehran later offered some ships safe passage via routes closer to its shore, charging fees at times.

The U.S. on Friday warned against transfers not only in cash but also in “digital assets, offsets, informal swaps, or other in-kind payments,” including charitable donations and payments at Iranian embassies.

The U.S. has responded with a naval blockade of Iranian ports since April 13, depriving Tehran of oil revenue it needs to shore up its ailing economy. The U.S. Central Command on Saturday said 48 commercial ships have been told to turn back.

Iran hangs two men convicted of spying for Israel

Iran on Saturday said it hanged two men convicted of spying for Israel.

The judiciary's news outlet, Mizanonline, said Yaghoub Karimpour was accused of sending “sensitive information” to an officer in Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, while Nasser Bekrzadeh allegedly sent details about government and religious leaders as well as information about Natanz. The city is home to a nuclear enrichment facility bombed by Israel and the U.S. last year.

Iran has hanged more than a dozen people over alleged espionage and terrorist activities in recent weeks. Rights groups say Iran routinely holds closed-door trials in which defendants are unable to challenge the accusations they face.

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El Deeb reported from Beirut and Anna from Lowville, New York. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price and Collin Binkley in Washington and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

But instead of feeling sorry for themselves, the Lakers banded together to fight through the adversity and beat the Houston Rockets in six games to move on to face top-seeded Oklahoma City in the Western Conference semifinals.

Los Angeles has advanced to the second round for the first time since 2023 when it lost to Denver in the West final.

LeBron James had 28 points in Game 6 on Friday night and the Lakers used a tenacious defense to hold the Rockets to their fewest points of the season in the 98-78 victory.

“It speaks to his greatness,” Redick said. “To me, he’s had the greatest career of any NBA player. You can argue all you want and I really don’t care to postulate on who’s the greatest of all time, but he’s one of, if not the greatest of all time.”

“And for him to do it again and answer the bell again, it’s really -- it’s baffling in some ways,” Redick continued.

Los Angeles raced out to a 3-0 lead in the series before losing two games to force Game 6 in Houston against a Rockets team that was missing Kevin Durant for five of six games.

The Lakers played the entire series without Doncic, but Reaves returned for the last two games to help them advance.

There was a chance their series with the Thunder would have started Sunday. But Game 1 was pushed back until Tuesday night when the Raptors beat the Cavaliers 112-110 in overtime thanks to RJ Barrett’s 3-pointer in the final seconds to force Game 7.

“Thanks to Toronto,” James said. “Thank you, RJ Barrett. Appreciate it. Haven’t seen a shot in Toronto like that since Kawhi (Leonard).”

The 41-year-old James was thrilled to get a couple of extra days to rest and recover after averaging 38.5 minutes a game for his injury-plagued team in this series.

“Heck yeah,” he said. “I can go on the golf course now. That’s what I’m thinking about.”

He said he’d start delving into preparation for the Thunder by Sunday.

“It’s the defending champion,” he said. “So, it’s a tall task.”

And the Thunder will be plenty rested after finishing their sweep of Phoenix on Monday night.

Redick credited the leadership of not only James but fellow veteran Marcus Smart for helping steady his team after the injuries to Doncic and Reaves, who combined to average more than 56 points in the regular season.

“For us to be written off a few weeks ago and to win a playoff series is a big deal,” Redick said. “And it just speaks to the character of our team and the leaders of our team that they didn’t let go of the rope.”

Smart, who is in his first season with the Lakers, is so proud of the Lakers for fighting through the injuries to win this series. And he thinks that togetherness will help them as they continue their postseason run.

“It means everything,” he said. “It shows our resilience and it shows the belief that we have our next man up… and it just shows that no matter how depleted we are, we’re always going to go out there and compete and give it everything we got.”

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

Eight seasons later, he not only finally helped the Sabres get back there, but was a key factor in the franchise winning its first postseason series in almost two decades.

Buffalo's 4-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Friday night wrapped up a 4-2 series victory, securing it a spot in the second round for the first time since 2007.

As the final seconds ticked off the scoreboard, Dahlin took a few extra moments to let it all sink in.

“It was unreal,” said Dahlin, who had a goal and three assists in the series. “I like how we attacked this series as a team. A lot of experienced guys. Playing the way we did all series, it’s pretty cool. We have good things ahead. We can learn a lot from this."

What's ahead is a matchup with either Montreal or Tampa Bay after the Lightning’s 1-0 overtime road win Friday night to force a Game 7.

After watching his team endure the disappointment of a Game 5 overtime loss at home, coach Lindy Ruff could tell they were a little uneasy. After all, Buffalo’s entered that game with a lineup that didn’t have a lot of experience, with just 10 players having previously appeared in an outing with a chance to eliminate an opponent.

But Ruff made his team a promise.

“I told them, ‘We’re going to win the game.' I told them, ‘We’re going to win the series,'" Ruff said. "We've got to do some things better, but we are going to win the game.”

Friday's win marked the second time in franchise history that the Sabres have won their first three road contests of a playoff year. They last did it in 1983 at Montreal (two games) and Boston (one game).

For other veteran players like Alex Tuch, there are loftier goals on his mind.

“For me it’s been five long years of waiting for something special to happen. We’re hoping it’s just the start,” he said. We’re one round into the playoffs and in our eyes we haven’t done anything yet. ... We’re hoping it’s a long road ahead for us. It’s going to be a grind each and every day and we’re going to have to be ready for it.”

Goaltender Alex Lyon played in five of the six games in the series, one more than he did when he was with Florida during the 2022-23 season when it lost to Las Vegas in the Stanley Cup Final.

He allowed just five total goals in his appearances in the series with the Bruins. It is the fewest goals allowed in any five-game span in the playoffs by a Sabres netminder ever.

Lyon believes this team's youth is becoming a positive.

“We're learning every game. That's kind of what's bonded us,” Lyon said. “I find that we're just learning how to handle different situations and kind of learning on the fly.”

Ruff’s only regret is that the Sabres’ home fans couldn’t watch them clinch this series on home ice.

“Would have really liked this game to be in Buffalo,” Ruff said. “It wasn’t. But it would have been special to have this game there.”

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

Vegas will face Anaheim in the second round. The Ducks advanced Thursday night with a 5-2 home victory over Edmonton in Game 6.

The Golden Knights have surged since John Tortorella took over as coach from the fired Bruce Cassidy, closing the regular season 7-0-1 after the change. They ripped off three straight wins after Utah took a 2-1 series lead.

“This is what I hoped for,” Marner said. “There’s a lot more work to keep going.”

Marner had two goals and five assists in the series. Friday was the first multi-goal playoff game for the Vegas forward since April 20, 2023, against Tampa Bay.

“It was his best game of the series. He just looked comfortable,” Tortorella said.

Brett Howden opened the scoring with his fourth goal of the series, all coming over the last three games. Colton Sissons added a third-period goal for Vegas soon after Utah’s Kailer Yamamoto cut it to 2-1. Cole Smith capped the scoring with an empty-netter on the heels of Marner converting a power play for his second goal.

“We’ve been here before,” Vegas captain Mark Stone said. “We don’t have the panic. Maybe some teams do. We can calm ourselves pretty quickly.”

Karel Vejmelka made 21 saves for Utah. The Mammoth led in the third period in each of the first five games before trailing the whole way in Game 6.

“I didn’t have that in my bingo card,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “I was really confident we would go to Vegas tomorrow.”

Howden scored with 4:58 left in the first period. Marner’s shot went to the right of the goal and rebounded out front for Howden to put a wrist shot home.

On Wednesday night in Game 5, Howden scored the winner in the Golden Knights’ 5-4 double-overtime victory. Vegas also won 5-4 in overtime in Game 4 after getting two goals from him in regulation.

Marner made it 2-0 with 45 seconds left in the second after Vegas had the puck in Utah’s end for more than two minutes. He blasted a slap shot from the top of the right circle off Ian Cole’s knee and into the net.

“I’ve had a couple opportunities in that same area that I had just missed on,” Marner said. “That’s why I just decided to quickly wind one up and see if I could get a clapper through.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The attacks are aimed at slashing Moscow’s oil exports, a key source of funding for its grinding invasion of Ukraine. But the economic impact is so far unclear, as the rise in oil prices from the Iran war, and a related easing of U.S. sanctions, have helped replenish the Kremlin’s coffers.

Still, the range of the attacks and their environmental impact is bringing the war home to ordinary Russians far from the front lines.

Oil spilling onto the street

Ukrainian drones have hit the oil refinery and export terminal in the Black Sea town of Tuapse on four occasions in just over two weeks, sparking fires that prompted local evacuations and sent up massive plumes of smoke. The town is roughly 450 kilometers (280 miles) from the front lines.

In a video posted by local Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev after the third attack on April 18, an emergency official said boiling oil products had spilled onto the street, damaging cars.

Ukraine said Thursday that it hit an oil pumping station in Russia’s Perm region, more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) from Ukraine, two days in a row. Russian media reported the attacks, though Perm Gov. Dmitry Makhonin said only that drones had hit industrial facilities.

Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea, one of Russia’s largest oil and gas export terminals, was hit three times in the space of a week in late March. It is more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) away from Ukraine.

In a broadcast several weeks later, regional Gov. Alexander Drozdenko declared that the area around St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, was a “front-line region” due to aerial threats.

Ukraine says the attacks have cost Russia billions

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has compared such strikes to the international sanctions on Russia. They are seen as even more crucial now that Moscow is collecting windfall profits from the global energy crisis linked to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Zelenskyy said Friday that Russia has lost at least $7 billion since the start of the year as a direct result of attacks on its oil sector. Earlier in the week, he said Ukrainian intelligence indicates a drop in exports from key oil ports such as Ust-Luga and Primorsk.

Drone strikes have also disrupted Russia's oil refining capacities, while sanctions make it difficult to acquire replacement parts, experts say.

But the full economic impact remains unclear as Russia benefits from the Mideast crisis.

Russian crude and oil product exports rose by 320,000 barrels per day month-on-month to hit 7.1 million in March, the International Energy Agency said. Rising prices meant that oil export revenues almost doubled, from $9.7 billion to $19 billion. It is unclear whether April's strikes will disrupt that trend.

“U.S. action against Iran has saved both the Russian oil sector and the federal budget from a crisis that was clearly developing in late February,” said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. Consultancy.

The damage to Russia’s oil infrastructure has meanwhile been far less significant than the massive explosions would suggest, he said.

“If you hit an oil tank, particularly an oil tank that’s not full, the vapors ignite and you get the flames. So it looks very spectacular.” But that only delays deliveries by a couple of days, he said.

“It’s much less damaging than hitting the pump stations or the compressors or the loading infrastructure. And that appears to be well protected. The tanks are not.”

Long-range drones stretch Russia's defenses

The ability to strike key infrastructure deep inside Russia has highlighted Ukraine’s growing military capabilities and put pressure on Moscow’s overstretched air defenses. It has also forced more Russians to confront the consequences of a war their government claims to be winning.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says its forces have more than doubled the range of their deep-strike capabilities since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The increased range also allows drones to attack locations from different directions, complicating countermeasures.

“Drone attacks have so far been a very successful case of leveraging simple technologies and domestically assembled technology to attack Russia in places that, at the start of the war, they just would have never expected to be attacked,” said Marcel Plichta, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews.

“This capability just didn’t exist” four years ago, he said.

There could be long-term consequences

Russian officials are usually reluctant to comment on deep strikes.

But the Tuapse attacks and the images that followed gained traction in Russian media. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of “serious environmental consequences” while insisting things were under control.

Officials warned that high levels of benzene, a carcinogen found in oil products, had been recorded in the air while fires burned and urged residents to limit time outdoors.

Residents also widely reported “black rain,” oily droplets falling on their skin and clothes. Local news outlets posted images of stray dogs and cats with their coats stained gray. Oil spills along the coastline have coated birds and fish, and Russian media recently circulated images of beached dolphins.

Those images are shocking to Russians accustomed to vacationing on the Black Sea coast.

Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense, said there could be long-term consequences for human health and the region’s ecosystem.

“There is a lot of oil in the sea,” he said. “In the next few years, every storm will be bringing more oil pollution onto the coast.”

There has not yet been a public backlash to the strikes, as authorities wage a crackdown on dissent. But that could change as the damage spreads.

“I think a lot of people understand that there is a very big difference between what Putin says and what regional authorities are saying, and what’s really going on,” Slivyak said.

Global instability triggered by the Iran war and surging fuel prices have brought unpredictability to the tourism industry, including in Dubrovnik, Croatia's top Adriatic Sea destination that draws millions of visitors annually.

The stakes for Croatia’s economy are high: The tourism sector is one of the country’s key sources of income and is largely dependent on international travelers.

Though tourist numbers have been up in Dubrovnik, officials are warning nothing is guaranteed. The fuel crisis and Persian Gulf tensions could drive up airfares and slow arrivals just as the season gathers pace.

Miro Draskovic, director of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board, noted that while the American market remains strong, some Australian travelers — typically among the top 10 nations coming to the city — are now “facing difficulties traveling toward Europe.”

“The situation for sure is very, very difficult, and we are following what’s happening every day," he told The Associated Press.

So far, things are looking good. Dubrovnik airport has recorded a 13% rise in visitors over Easter compared to the same period last year. Its bustling atmosphere and boats ferrying tourists around testify to the city's lasting appeal.

The UNESCO-protected heritage city is known for its rich medieval history, seafront location and churches and palaces within its stone walls. Dubrovnik's popularity soared after it served as a filming location for the hit TV series “Game of Thrones.”

Compared to other regions in the country, Dubrovnik could be harder hit if the fuel crisis deepens because of its location at the southern tip of Croatia's Adriatic Sea coastline. Around 80% of visitors come to Dubrovnik by plane.

Marina Ruso Mileusnic, a spokeswoman for the city's airport, which is connected to some 70 airports around the world, said “we are very cautious about the upcoming season."

Predictions for the weeks and months ahead have varied.

In early April, the head of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol warned in an interview with the AP that Europe has just weeks of jet fuel supplies and could face the biggest energy crisis ever.

This week, however, European Union’s Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said there is “no actual evidence” of shortages in the 27-nation bloc as officials urged people to plan their holidays without fear.

Singapore businessman Ramon Padiernos agreed. The crisis in the Middle East meant he had to swap his favorite carriers Emirates and Qatar Airways for Turkish Airlines, but he still made it to Dubrovnik.

“We feel the impact maybe of oil prices but I think everybody just goes on with their lives and enjoy their holidays,” he said. “I think it is best for the world to see the lighter side of it, rather than focusing on the issues that we cannot control."

Apart from impacts on tourism, the energy crisis has also contributed to a rise in inflation in Croatia to 5.8% in April, one of the highest in the EU.

The country recorded nearly 22 million tourist arrivals last year. Out of some 110 million overnight stays in 2025, Dubrovnik alone had 4.28 million, according to the national tourism board.

Draskovic said hopes are high that things soon will get back to normal. Until then, he said, “we can only work on day to day basis to get the best possible season we can.”

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Jovana Gec contributed. to this report

Unionized workers are employed on a huge number of massive data center projects and scrambling to recruit new apprentices to feed the explosive demand.

They've also become an ally of tech giants and tech-friendly government officials, echoing the talking point that the United States is in a critical national security race with China for AI superiority.

Unions are a visible force in helping counter fierce opposition in communities and hostile legislation in Congress and legislatures, often aligning with traditional Republican pro-business constituencies and forcing Democrats to choose between them and progressives who want to take a harder line.

Unions have aggressively answered complaints about data centers in ways that executives at tech giants and the development firms rarely do, unafraid to bluntly confront concerns about energy and water shortages, rising electric and water bills, or noise and quality-of-life objections.

“When people say, you know, ‘data centers are the root of all evil,’ we’re just saying, ‘look, they do create a hell of a lot of construction jobs, which we live and work in your communities,'” said Rob Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council.

Instead of “being just a blunt ‘no,'” Bair said, communities should figure out what they need and ask the tech companies for it — such as improvements to the project's plans or millions of dollars for local schools. “If you don’t ask, you’re never gonna get,” he said.

Data centers a boon for unions

With data center construction accelerating, unions are expanding training centers and seeing their ranks grow faster than many union leaders have ever seen.

Unions in a number of states are reporting skyrocketing man hours, apprentice classes doubling in size and training centers undergoing expansions in anticipation of more work coming.

Data centers consume at least 40% of work hours done by members of the Columbus-Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, a top official, Dorsey Hager, estimated. It's at least 50% for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 in metropolitan Washington, D.C., spokesperson Don Slaiman said.

The umbrella North America’s Building Trades Unions said it hit a record number of members and apprentices in 2025.

The organization's president, Sean McGarvey, compared it to the build trades' expansion in the 1950s. He attributes today's growth to data centers, power plants and legislation under former President Joe Biden that subsidized the construction of semiconductor and electric vehicle battery factories, energy efficiency projects and grid transmission improvements.

Data centers' voracious energy needs are setting off a power plant construction boom and delivering a one-two punch of new life to unions whose members also build and maintain boilers, ductwork, pipelines and other power infrastructure.

The Boilermakers Local 154, whose members have watched power plants shut down in southwestern Pennsylvania, went from recruiting zero apprentices for four years to now assembling a class of over 200 — and they need more, union official Shawn Steffee said.

For their part, tech giants say they need to train hundreds of thousands more workers in skilled trades. They are spending tens of millions of dollars on training programs, including partnerships with unions that they hire to build their multibillion-dollar projects.

“Across the country, highly skilled union construction workers are laying the foundation for the AI economy,” Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, said in a joint statement in March with McGarvey's organization.

Google said the majority of labor used to build its data centers is unionized, and pointed to a $10 million grant to a union-backed electricians training program that it said would help expand the electrician workforce pipeline by 70%.

'The data centers would still be getting built'

Mark McManus, the general president of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, whose members work on pipelines, data centers and power plants, acknowledged criticism that organized labor is getting in bed with the richest, most powerful companies in the world.

But he rejected it as unrealistic.

“If we chose as a union to have a moratorium on building the data centers because we didn’t believe it was right for America, the data centers would still be getting built,” McManus said. “They’re not stopping because of organized labor.”

His union has a strong relationship with tech companies, is hitting all-time highs in membership and, based on an internal survey, has members working on over 90% of the data center projects in the United States.

“That’s a market share that we don’t have in a lot of other industries,” McManus said. “So it’s pretty near and dear to us.”

It's difficult to pin down exactly how many data center projects involve union labor. An Associated General Contractors of America survey late last year suggested that the labor composition of data center construction likely mirrors the makeup of commercial construction, which is roughly one-third union, an AGC spokesperson said.

Showing up in towns and statehouses

National unions have negotiated labor agreements on major projects, including an Oracle and OpenAI Stargate campus in Michigan and the “Project Blue” data center campus in Arizona, with more in the works.

When Gov. Josh Shapiro stood with Amazon executives to announce that the tech giant would spend $20 billion on two data center projects in eastern Pennsylvania, Bair stood with them.

“This is really unique, what we’re building here in this commonwealth. People coming together with common purpose to get stuff done,” Shapiro said.

In statehouses, unions have worked against Maine's since-vetoed proposal for a statewide data center moratorium; standards proposed in Illinois, including requiring data centers to supply their own energy; and an end to Virginia's sales tax exemption that helped make it the world's biggest data center destination.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Katie Muth said it has been difficult to collect support from fellow Democrats for her legislation to regulate data centers when it is competing with union-backed legislation that she views as weaker.

“The unions don’t want to promote anything that would impede data center development,” Muth said.

Union representatives have made their presence felt at packed council meetings in municipal buildings from St. Louis to Spring City, Pennsylvania.

Sometimes it's not in a good way.

Speaking to the City Council in Joliet, Illinois, Alicia Morales complained that union members — who sat in the front row holding “vote yes for union jobs” signs — had been disrespectful and “bullied a lot of people” entering the meeting.

Sometimes, union representatives are the only people in a packed municipal meeting room to speak in favor of a project.

“I just want to commend you guys, thanks for being the adults in the room,” Chuck Curry, the president of Ironworkers Local 395, told City Council members in Hobart, Indiana, at a January meeting on an Amazon data center. “Knowing the tax structure, knowing business, that most of the people here don’t know.”

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Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter

An Associated Press review of court records shows Trump officials have also racked up an extraordinary record of defiance in a much broader set of lawsuits dating back to the first days of President Donald Trump's second term.

Since February 2025, district court judges have ruled the Republican administration was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including cuts in federal funding, mass layoffs, deportations, and immigration practices.

These violations are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance judges have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions — from failing to return property to keeping immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates.

Though Trump officials eventually backed down in about a third of the 31 cases, legal experts say their treatment of court orders damages the constitutional system of checks and balances.

“The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country,” said David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. “When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country.”

Here are some key takeaways from AP's report on these cases:

Trump's aggressive policy moves spark a barrage of lawsuits

The administration has already faced more than 700 lawsuits.

The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents in noncompliance cases compiled by nonpartisan government watchdogs. It found additional cases by scouring media reports of violations and then verifying the findings with court records.

An unprecedented level of defiance

District courts have also found previous administrations in violation of their orders.

But legal scholars and former federal judges said they could recall at most a few cases over the full four-year terms of other recent presidents — including the first Trump administration and Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said district court judges were making “unlawful” rulings against Trump officials.

“President Trump’s entire Administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to enact,” she said in a written statement.

In court filings, Justice Department attorneys have generally disputed accusations the government was not complying. They have argued over the meaning of words, cited favorable appellate court rulings and said they were acting outside the scope of the court’s order, among other legal maneuvering.

Outside of court, Trump and White House officials have railed against federal judges, and Vice President JD Vance has even suggested the president could ignore court orders.

The effects have been far-reaching

The groups that say they’ve been harmed by the administration’s failure to comply with court orders are varied and include immigrants, nonprofits and journalists.

Among other instances of noncompliance, judges found the White House defied rulings when it deported scores of accused gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, withheld billions of dollars in foreign aid and failed to restore programming at the Voice of America. The three cases date to the first few months of the new administration, but judges have continued to find violations since then, including in two cases in April.

Higher courts often sided with the White House

In 15 of the 31 lawsuits the AP reviewed, an appellate court or the Supreme Court either allowed the administration’s underlying policy, limited the district court’s efforts to correct or punish the noncompliance, or both.

Those decisions show lower court judges are overreaching, said Will Chamberlain, senior counsel with the conservative legal advocacy group The Article III Project.

Trump officials are “generally complying, appealing and winning,” he said. “If they were defying orders left and right, they’d be losing them.”

Critics say the higher courts are excusing noncompliance.

“This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,” Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in June in a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberal justices. “Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”

Diesel, which powers the majority of Africa’s roughly 500,000 telecommunications towers, has become more expensive and sometimes harder to secure in recent weeks as global fuel markets tightened following the conflict. Several African countries that rely heavily on imported fuel have reported price spikes and supply disruptions, prompting governments and companies to reassess energy strategies.

The transition to cleaner power for the towers that provide cellphone service predates the latest price shocks, driven by cost pressures and climate goals. But the war in the Middle East has accelerated the push.

“Diesel has always been a major cost, but recent global events have made it even more volatile,” said Lande Abudu, senior energy specialist for Africa at GSMA, a global industry organization representing mobile operators. “That strengthens the case for solar and hybrid solutions.”

Across the continent, mobile network operators are increasingly adopting hybrid systems that combine solar panels, battery storage and limited diesel backup. Some are aiming for fully solar-powered sites over time, particularly in rural and off-grid areas where extending electricity grids is costly.

Cellphone towers in Africa have traditionally been powered by diesel generators, often large industrial units that require operators to manually refuel them. In contrast, solar-powered towers rely on sunlight, using solar panels to generate electricity and battery systems to store energy for continuous operation.

Globally, most telecommunication towers in developed markets such as the United States and India are connected to the electricity grid, with diesel generators used mainly as backup during outages. In parts of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, operators have also relied heavily on diesel but are now pursuing similar transitions to renewable energy.

Last month, American-owned Atlas Tower Kenya said it was investing $52.5 million to construct 300 new, solar-powered telecommunication towers to serve major operators, including Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya. The firm currently has 82% of its 500 towers solar powered.

“It’s a significant shift, but there’s still a long way to go,” said Abudu.

Financial arguments for solar-powered towers

The economics are becoming increasingly compelling. Energy accounts for up to 60% of operating costs for telecom towers in off-grid areas. Diesel, once the default solution, has become more expensive and harder to manage, with challenges ranging from transport logistics to theft and maintenance.

Vodacom Africa said its energy costs rose 5% to $300 million in 2025 from the prior year, citing higher electricity tariffs and fuel prices. The company operates in Egypt, South Africa, Congo, Mozambique, Tanzania and Lesotho, and owns subsidiaries in Kenya and Ethiopia through Safaricom. Safaricom last year raised $153.6 million in green bonds to help it transition its towers to solar power.

In countries like Nigeria, cost pressures have shifted sharply. The removal of fuel subsidies in 2023 triggered a surge in diesel prices, rising by as much as 200% within a year, and operators now spend $400 million annually to keep towers running. Recent global price increases tied to the Iran conflict have added further pressure.

Companies are responding by accelerating clean energy deployments. Firms such as iSAT Africa are rolling out solar-powered towers backed by new financing models, while major operators including Orange, Vodacom, MTN Group and Airtel Africa are expanding solar and hybrid systems across their networks.

“By replacing diesel-powered telecom towers with fully solar-powered infrastructure, we expect to reduce the carbon emissions associated with mobile network operations,” said iSAT Africa CEO Rakesh Kukreja in March, announcing new funding for clean energy tower projects.

Early results show significant savings. MTN operations in South Sudan have cut fuel spending by about 30% after adopting solar power, while Airtel Africa, working with ENGIE Energy Access, has reduced diesel use by more than half at sites in Zambia and Congo.

Vodacom Africa said in its 2025 sustainability report that connecting towers to national grids and rolling out more solar and battery were key parts of its strategy to replace diesel generators.

Improving network reliability

The benefits go beyond cost. Solar-powered towers are less vulnerable to fuel shortages and generator failures, improving reliability in underserved areas. In parts of northern Nigeria and Congo, cellular outages linked to fuel shortages predating the war have caused disruptions to services ranging from mobile money transactions to emergency communications.

Replacing diesel generators with solar energy could help close Africa’s connectivity gap, where about 65% of people who could benefit from mobile internet remain unconnected, according to the GSMA.

“Renewable energy systems enable faster and more cost-effective expansion into underserved areas,” Abudu said.

In rural Kenya, residents in some off-grid communities say solar-powered towers have improved service stability, enabling more consistent access to mobile banking, education and health information.

“Before this telecommunication mast was installed, we struggled to process mobile money payment or even call for help during medical emergencies,” said Martin Imwatok, a teacher in northern Kenya. “When these towers go off, business and life stop.”

Africa’s reliance on diesel is more pronounced due to weaker grid infrastructure, making the shift both more challenging and potentially more transformative. However, regulators say the transition could deliver broader benefits. In Nigeria, the telecom regulator has encouraged operators to integrate towers into solar minigrids that can also supply nearby communities.

“These telecom towers can act as anchor clients for solar minigrids, supplying electricity not only to the towers but also to nearby homes, businesses and public services,” said Aminu Maida, head of the Nigerian Communications Commission.

As fuel prices remain uncertain amid global tensions, industry experts say the case for cleaner energy will only grow stronger.

“This is no longer just about climate,” Abudu said. “It’s about resilience, cost and keeping Africa connected.”

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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.

Instead, a top Justice Department official insisted the ruling wasn't binding, and the administration continued denying detainees around the country a chance for release.

By February, the district court judge, Sunshine Sykes, was fed up. Sykes, a nominee of President Joe Biden, accused Trump officials in a ruling that month of seeking “to erode any semblance of separation of powers,” adding that they could “only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist.”

Hardly isolated, the case illustrates a broader pattern of defiance of lower court decisions in President Donald Trump's second term.

The failure of Trump officials to follow court orders has been highlighted most notably in individual immigration cases. But a review of hundreds of pages of court records by The Associated Press also shows an extraordinary record of violations in lawsuits over policy changes and other moves.

In the second Trump administration’s first 15 months in office, district court judges ruled it was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, the AP’s review of court records found. That’s about one out of every eight lawsuits in which courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions.

The Republican administration's power struggle with federal courts — which is testing basic tenets of U.S. democracy — reflects an expansive view of executive authority that has also challenged the independence of federal agencies, a president’s ethical obligations, and the U.S.’s role in the international order.

Judges find widespread noncompliance

The violations in the 31 lawsuits are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance judges have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions — from failing to return property to keeping immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates.

Legal scholars and former federal judges said they could recall at most a few violations of court rulings over the full four-year terms of other recent presidential administrations, including Trump's first time in office. They also noted previous administrations were generally apologetic when confronted by judges; the Trump administration's Justice Department has been outright combative in some cases.

“What the court system is experiencing in the last year and a half is just qualitatively completely different from anything that’s preceded it,” said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University who studies federal courts and is tracking litigation against the Trump administration.

Though Trump officials eventually backed down in about a third of the 31 lawsuits, legal experts say their treatment of court orders poses serious dangers.

“The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country,” said David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. “When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country.”

The White House’s aggressive policy moves have prompted a barrage of lawsuits — more than 700 and counting.

The administration has gotten a boost from higher courts

The AP’s review also found that higher courts, including the Supreme Court, overruled the district courts and sided with the White House in nearly half of the 31 cases. Critics say those decisions are emboldening the administration to ignore judges' orders.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the higher courts had overturned “unlawful district court rulings.” The administration will “continue to comply with lawful court rulings,” she added in a written statement.

“President Trump’s entire Administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to enact,” the statement said.

Among other instances of noncompliance, judges found the White House defied rulings when it deported scores of accused gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, withheld billions of dollars in foreign aid and failed to restore programming at the Voice of America. The three cases date to the first few months of the new administration, but judges have continued to find violations since then, including in two cases in April.

“The danger is that this gets normalized,” said JoAnna Suriani, counsel at the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, which is tracking noncompliance cases. The group is also involved in litigation against the administration.

‘Ham-handed.’ ‘Hallucinating.’ Judges have also been scathing

In October, U.S. District Judge William Smith took little time to conclude Homeland Security officials were flouting one of his orders. Smith, a nominee of George W. Bush, had blocked them from making billions of dollars in disaster relief funding to states contingent on cooperation with the president's immigration priorities.

DHS responded by keeping the immigration requirement on some grants, but making it contingent on a higher court overriding Smith’s injunction. The judge called the move “ham-handed” and said DHS was trying to “bully the states.”

In a case over the suspension of refugee admissions, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Biden nominee, accused the Justice Department last May of “hallucinating new text” in an appellate court order and “rewriting” it to achieve the government's preferred outcome.

In four additional cases the AP reviewed, judges stopped short of a clear written finding of noncompliance but still criticized the administration’s response to their orders.

Of the judges who have confirmed violations, 22 were appointed by Democratic presidents and 7 by Republican presidents.

Former federal judges Jeremy Fogel and Liam O’Grady said judges are losing trust in the integrity of the Department of Justice.

That’s making them “more aggressive in accusing the government of bad faith,” said O’Grady, who along with Fogel is now part of the nonpartisan democracy group, Keep Our Republic.

Fogel said judges are also getting frustrated.

“They make orders and the orders don’t get complied with and then they have to inquire why the orders are not being complied with, and that’s where it gets very mushy and very political,” he said.

Plaintiffs in an education case raise alarms

In Eureka, California, school administrator Lisa Claussen is worried about the impact on her students’ mental health if a judge does not find the Education Department in violation of a court order on federal grants.

Grant money allowed the school district in the poor coastal community in Northern California to hire more than a dozen psychologists and social workers to help students struggling with drug use and suicidal thoughts.

Education officials in the Trump administration told schools in California and other states last year that it was discontinuing the grants; the administration opposed diversity considerations in the grant process.

U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson blocked the move permanently in December, but California and 15 other states now say the administration is making an end run around her injunction by imposing new rules, including an initial limit of six months of funding.

Attorneys for the Education Department said they wanted to see whether schools were making progress on performance goals before releasing additional funds. The judge's order did not block the six-month limit, they added in a court filing.

Evanson, a Biden nominee, has yet to rule.

In the absence of a one-year funding guarantee, Eureka City Schools and other districts say they have already issued layoff notices to mental health providers or eliminated positions.

“We have many kids who don’t trust adults for very good reason and to be able to just swipe this grant like they’re doing ...” Claussen said in a phone interview, her voice trailing off. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Justice Department pushes back

In court filings, Justice Department attorneys have generally disputed accusations the government was not complying. They have argued over the meaning of words, cited favorable appellate court rulings and said they were acting outside the scope of the court’s order, among other legal maneuvering.

Outside of court, Trump and White House officials have railed against federal judges. Vice President JD Vance has even suggested the president could ignore court orders.

Will Chamberlain, senior counsel with the conservative legal advocacy group The Article III Project, said many of the judges who have found violations are ignoring laws that clearly prohibit their rulings.

Trump officials are “generally complying, appealing and winning,” he said. “If they were defying orders left and right, they’d be losing them.”

Critics say the higher courts are excusing noncompliance

In March, a federal appeals court ruled Sykes, the judge in California, had likely exceeded her authority in requiring bond hearings nationwide and blocked her February decision.

The outcome was not unusual.

In 15 of the 31 lawsuits the AP reviewed, an appellate court or the Supreme Court either allowed the administration's underlying policy, limited the district court's efforts to correct or punish the noncompliance, or both.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her fellow justices after one such ruling.

“This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,” she wrote in June in a dissent joined by the court's two other liberal justices. “Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”

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Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed.

The ultralow cost airline that once operated hundreds of daily flights on its bright yellow planes and employed about 17,000 people said it had “started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately.”

Although Spirit had gone bankrupt twice before, the company said high oil prices, which have been rising because of the war with Iran, made it impossible to stay aloft.

The airline said on its website that all flights have been canceled and customer service is no longer available. Some passengers arrived Saturday for flights and were stunned to find them canceled, while workers learned overnight they were out of jobs.

“We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our guests for many years to come,” Spirit's announcement said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday that Spirit had a reserve fund set up for customers who bought directly from the airline to get refunds. People who bought from third-party vendors like travel agents would have to seek refunds from them.

Duffy said United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest were offering $200 one-way flights for people who had Spirit confirmation numbers and proof of purchase for a limited time. Other airlines would also help Spirit employees who might be stranded, as well as offering them a preferential application process as they look for work.

Spirit said in a statement it was working to get more than 1,300 crew to their home bases and that the final Spirit flight landed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport from Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The company advised customers that they could expect refunds but there would be no help in booking travel on other airlines.

The Trump administration had considered a government bailout for the cash-strapped business to keep it from going under, but a deal was not reached. Of the potential bailout, Duffy said Saturday “we often times don’t have half a billion dollars laying around.”

President Donald Trump had floated the idea of a bailout last week after the airline found itself in bankruptcy proceedings for the second time in less than two years with jet fuel prices soaring because of the Iran war.

‘They got you there’

Five Spirit flights were still showing as “on time” on Saturday morning on the departure board in Atlanta. A trickle of passengers who hadn’t heard the news were still showing up.

“What!?” exclaimed Taylor Nantang as she, her husband and four children arrived for a Saturday afternoon Spirit flight from Atlanta to Miami for a spur-of-the-moment vacation. The family had driven down from Tennessee to the Atlanta airport.

“So the whole airline at every airport is out of business?” asked Nantang. “Oh my, that’s crazy.”

Other passengers wondered whether the airline would still answer its customer service phone, or when the refunds for canceled flights might arrive on their credit cards.

Joshua Sigler, who had bought a ticket Friday for a flight Saturday to Miami, said he would just return home after learning of the cancellation, rather than try to take advantage of deals other airlines were offering to stranded Spirit passengers.

He said he had gotten no communication from Spirit, which he had flown multiple times in the past. “They get you there,” he said of past flights. “It was cheap.”

‘Boo-hoo crying’

Former Spirit flight attendant Freddy Peterson was on a Spirit flight from Detroit that arrived in Newark around 11 p.m. Friday. He said that despite rumors flying on social media Friday, things seemed kind of normal, with more than 200 passengers on the plane.

“All our aircraft were packed,” he said.

Peterson, 60, said he set his alarm clock for 3 a.m. Saturday to check the company website at the hour of the rumored shutdown and learned all Spirit flights were canceled. He said Delta Air Lines brought him and another flight attendant back to Atlanta on Saturday morning, with Peterson leaving from there to drive to his home in Shellman in southwest Georgia.

“I’ll probably do the boo-hoo crying and all that other stuff once I get in my car."

Peterson said he had been a flight attendant with Spirit for 10 years and the company has “done wonders for me.” He said the airline’s reputation for bargain basement chaos was largely undeserved, but he did fault management for not communicating with the employees in the closing days, saying a promised employee town hall was canceled.

Bailout fizzles

As late as Friday afternoon, Trump had said his administration was looking at a bailout for Spirit and had given the budget carrier a “final proposal” for a taxpayer-funded takeover.

Spirit proudly disrupted the penny-pinching portion of the airlines industry with its no-frills, low-cost flights and provocative ads like its “Check Out the Oil on Our Beaches” campaign after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, referencing suntan oil, but alluding to the crude spilled on the Gulf Coast.

However, Spirit has struggled financially since the COVID-19 pandemic, weighed down by rising operating costs and growing debt. By the time it filed for Chapter 11 protection in November 2024, Spirit had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

The budget carrier sought bankruptcy protection again in August 2025, when it reported having $8.1 billion in debts and $8.6 billion in assets, according to court filings.

White House blames Biden

The White House had blamed President Joe Biden's administration for Spirit’s tenuous financial situation. Biden, a Democrat, opposed a proposed merger between Spirit and JetBlue in 2023. On Saturday, Trump administration officials took to social media to amplify voices of conservative critics who faulted Biden for Spirit’s demise.

On Saturday, Duffy blamed Biden as well as his predecessor Pete Buttigieg.

“Many at the time said that this was a disaster. This merger should have been allowed,” he said.

Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the Trump administration also bears responsibility, arguing that the airline’s current crisis reflects a chain reaction of policy missteps rather than a single decision. He pointed specifically to Trump’s decision to strike Iran as “bad foreign policy," saying the conflict drove up jet fuel prices and Spirit's operating costs.

“They were already in trouble,” DeHaven said, describing the situation as “a compounding effect in terms of policy.”

Supporters of a rescue including labor unions representing Spirit’s pilots, flight attendants and ramp workers said a collapse would put thousands of Americans out of work and hurt consumers by reducing airline competition and increasing airfares. About 17,000 jobs could be impacted, according to Spirit lawyer Marshall Huebner.

Budget-conscious and leisure travelers would likely feel Spirit’s absence the most, especially in places where the airline has a big footprint such as Las Vegas and the Florida cities of Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.

The carrier flew about 1.7 million domestic passengers in February, roughly half a million fewer than during the same month a year earlier, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Spirit also has sharply reduced its capacity, with about half as many seats available this month than in May 2024.

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Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Amy reported from Atlanta. Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed.

“They went on a pretty big run there,” Banchero said. “And we didn't score.”

It truly might have been that simple.

The Pistons — facing elimination and down by 24 points, on the road, in the second half, and about to join an ignominious club of No. 1 seeds who were ousted from the playoffs by No. 8 seeds — pulled off a comeback for the ages in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference first-round series against the Magic.

The final score: Pistons 93, Magic 79.

“We weren't going to lay down,” Pistons guard Cade Cunningham said. “For anything.”

A breakdown of how the comeback — or the collapse, depending on one’s perspective — happened:

The basic numbers

— The score over the first 25 minutes: Magic 62, Pistons 38.

— The score over the final 23 minutes: Pistons 55, Magic 17.

— The score in the fourth quarter: Pistons 31, Magic 8.

— Orlando's shooting percentage in the fourth quarter: 5%. The Magic were 1 for 20.

— That was the worst shooting percentage by any team, in any quarter, since Washington shot 5% in the fourth quarter against Charlotte on Nov. 25, 2015. Put another way, it was the worst shooting performance in any quarter by an NBA team in the league's last 20,238 games.

Orlando's shooting drought

The Magic missed 23 consecutive shots from the field, the most by any team in a playoff game during the play-by-play era (which started with the 1996-97 season).

— Banchero and Desmond Bane were both 0 for 6.

— Jalen Suggs was 0 for 4.

— In all, eight Magic players missed a shot during the drought and 13 of the 23 misses were from 3-point range.

— Orlando led 70-54 when the run of missed shots started. Detroit led 89-75 when it ended. That's a 35-5 Pistons run.

— In game time, the missed-shot stretch took 13 minutes, 50 seconds. In real time, it was about 41 minutes.

What the Pistons did

Cunningham had seven field goals in the second half and Duncan Robinson had four for the Pistons in that span.

The Magic — as a team — had four baskets, in the entire second half. And Cunningham outscored the Magic in the second half by himself, 24-19.

“I mean, we just have amazing spirit and never quit," Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “This is a testament to what we’ve built.”

Detroit didn't exactly get red-hot; the Pistons shot 40% in the second half. But the defense and a dominant show on the glass — the Pistons outrebounded the Magic 35-17 in the second half — was more than enough.

The final word

“It keeps us alive. It allows us to fight another day. And now it's about us going and finishing the job. None of this stuff means anything if we don't go win Game 7. But we'll be back at home, we'll have a lot of energy in there, and these last two games have given us a lot of life.” — Cunningham, on what the comeback and having a chance to play Game 7 means.

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

FEMA has “initiated contact to offer new appointments” to term-limited staff whose contracts expired the first three weeks of January, U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian wrote in a notice submitted to the U.S. District Court in San Francisco Friday.

The notice comes after months of uncertainty over the future of FEMA's term-limited disaster workers, who make up roughly half the agency's workforce. It follows news earlier this week that FEMA had reinstated 14 employees who were put on paid administrative leave for eight months for signing a public letter of dissent critiquing policies taken by FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

The actions are the latest indications that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is moving away from his predecessor Kristi Noem’s harsher approach toward FEMA, before she was fired as DHS leader. They also raise questions about whether the measures are a response to concerns that the disaster agency might not be prepared for the Atlantic hurricane season and major events like the FIFA World Cup.

FEMA did not immediately respond to questions Friday about the court notice or how many employees received offers to return. On Thursday a spokesperson told The Associated Press that while it does not comment on specific personnel actions, the agency is “addressing outstanding personnel actions to ensure workforce stability and a strong, deployable surge force for upcoming national events and potential disasters.”

FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, or CORE, work on two- to four-year assignments, though they traditionally have been routinely renewed, a system that allows the agency to build up and taper down its capacity as needed. There are about 10,000 COREs. Current and former FEMA staffers told the AP it is not uncommon for employees to work for decades or even retire in the term-limited appointments.

FEMA abruptly stopped renewing some CORE employees’ contracts at the start of 2026 as they expired, and extended other appointments by only 90 days at a time. The agency paused the nonrenewals in late January, right before a severe winter storm impacted multiple states. By that time, 159 COREs had not been renewed, according to a sworn declaration by FEMA's temporary leader, Karen S. Evans.

A coalition led by the American Federation of Government Employees labor union sued the administration over the nonrenewals, alleging they were part of a wider plan to cut FEMA’s workforce by half and undermined FEMA's congressional mandate to ensure the nation's disaster preparedness.

Evans in her declaration denied any plan for “blanket” elimination of COREs, and said the nonrenewals “do not threaten FEMA's ability to perform its statutory mandate.”

It is unclear how FEMA's decision will impact the lawsuit. A statement submitted to the court by plaintiffs' lawyers Friday evening said they would respond “after proper factual investigation." Plaintiffs' lawyers were scheduled to depose former DHS Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Guy next week in an ongoing discovery effort around the decision-making that led to the CORE dismissals.

A FEMA employee who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media said they knew of at least two COREs who had already been called back.

FEMA officials also announced this week that COREs with contracts ending between January and May who were previously extended for 90 days “may be reappointed for up to one year,” along with those whose contracts end after May, according to an email to staff reviewed by the AP. “Eligible” FEMA reservists will be renewed for two years, the email said. Around 7,000 reservists in the agency’s surge workforce have contracts expiring May 2.

“Our readiness directly impacts our ability to help Americans in need,” the email said, “and every employee plays a critical role in meeting these challenges.”

Devon Germano was seen making a quick exit Thursday after posting bond.

He’s charged with two counts of aggravated assault.

According to arrest documents, the incident happened April 18 in the 2000 block of Northeast Ninth Avenue in Wilton Manors.

Two people were making the delivery -- a driver and a passenger.

While dropping off the food, the driver told investigators he received a notification that the order had been canceled and asked the passenger to bring the food back so it could be returned to the restaurant, per Uber Eats policy.

As they were picking up the order, Germano, 30, allegedly opened the door and shouted that they were stealing his food.

According to documents, the driver told Germano the order had been canceled. Investigators say Germano then walked over to a white Tesla and said, “I got something for you,” before pulling out a gun and pointing it at the female passenger.

She told investigators that, fearing for her life, she put the food on the ground and got into the vehicle.

Investigators later obtained a search warrant for the Tesla and say they found a loaded Glock, 9MM magazine.

Both victims told investigators Germano “intentionally threatened their lives by his actions.”

In court, a judge set his bond at $15,000 and ordered that he have no contact with the victims, along with no firearms or ammunition.

Authorities later determined Germano’s order had not been canceled. However, the next order the driver was scheduled to deliver had been.

Josh Norris added an empty-netter. Alex Lyon finished with 25 saves.

The 4-2 series victory is the latest milestone for Buffalo, which saw the end of its 14-year playoff drought by capturing its first Atlantic Division title. The 2007 season was also the last time the Sabres advanced to the second round. They lost in the conference finals that year.

“It's one step in the right direction. That's it,” Tuch said.

Buffalo will play the winner of the Montreal-Tampa Bay series in the second round. That series will go to seven games after the Lightning's 1-0 overtime win Friday night in Montreal.

“I think Part A is getting to the playoffs. Part B is trying to have success once you get there,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “We talked about what a challenge it was going to be to try to take out a good team. And Boston's a good team. ... I thought our guys dug in and gave us a heck of a game tonight.”

David Pastrnak scored the lone goal for the Bruins. Jeremy Swayman made 22 stops.

“Buffalo, there's a reason they won the division,” Pastrnak said. "A lot of skill and speed that's over there. Their (defense) is very active. So, yeah, they were better."

Tempers flared with 1:31 to play after Benson tripped Charlie McAvoy. McAvoy responded with a slash at Benson. Both were sent to the penalty box.

It ends a feisty series comeback for the Bruins after earning a playoff berth in their first season under coach Marco Sturm. Boston has lost its last six home playoff games.

Trailing 2-1 in the third, the Bruins picked up their attack and had something working in the Sabres’ zone. But Josh Doan poked the puck away to start a break. He was pursued by Pastrnak and McAvoy toward the corner, when Doan flipped it back to a wide-open Zach Benson, who beat Swayman.

The Sabres’ speed dominated in the early going.

That changed 1:54 into the second period when a Buffalo turnover turned into a 2-on-1 break between Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha. Zacha passed to Pastrnak on the left side, and he fired it in from the faceoff circle to get the Bruins within 2-1. It marked his third goal in the series.

It was part of a second period that saw an increase in physical play that was mostly allowed by the referees. It included a more than nine-minute stretch without a stoppage of play.

The Sabres needed just 3:25 into the first period to open the scoring when Tuch guided in a touch pass in front of the net by Rasmus Dahlin.

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