Leer en español

A vote was held in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, as North Miami Beach Mayor Michael Joseph and Hector Roos, who previously worked on Cherfilus-McCormick’s congressional campaigns, were accused of failing to comply with multiple subpoenas.

The matter has since been referred to the U.S. Justice Department in regard to possible criminal prosecution.

Convictions for contempt of Congress can carry a fine of up to $100,000 and a one-year prison sentence.

Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress in April, shortly before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on her possible expulsion.

That was after the committee found her guilty of 25 ethics and campaign finance violations.

Cherfilus-McCormick is accused of stealing or misusing around $5 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds that were intended for a healthcare business run by her family.

She previously pled not guilty to criminal charges related to the relief funds.

Tuesday’s vote was held verbally, meaning there are no records of the lawmakers’ individual votes.

Local 10 News has reached out to Joseph for comment and will update this story if/when he responds.

Driscoll is a friend of Vice President JD Vance and has good relationships with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. But tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been widely reported, and some of Driscoll's allies in the Army were ousted this year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon chief.

Driscoll spoke with Trump on the current state of the Army before he submitted his resignation this week, The Associated Press has reported.

Any concerns were absent from Driscoll's post on X late Tuesday night, which was his first public statement since the White House confirmed his departure Monday. Driscoll said it has been “the honor of a lifetime” to serve as Army secretary under Trump and Hegseth.

Driscoll praised the soldiers, their families and the Army's civilian workforce for helping “modernize and accelerate how the Army mans, trains, and equips the most lethal fighting force on the face of the earth.”

“We could not have made the progress we did without the support of Secretary Hegseth,” he added.

His exit comes as the U.S. military has returned to launching airstrikes against Iran after a lull in hostilities during the more than six-month-old war, leaving the nation's largest fighting force without top civilian or uniformed leaders who have been confirmed by the Senate. It was not immediately clear who would fill Driscoll's role at least temporarily.

Hegseth in April ousted the Army's top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George, an ally of Driscoll. Gen. Christopher LaNeve took over as the Army’s acting chief of staff and recently pulled the plug on a drone modernization program that Driscoll had championed.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers sent a letter this week to Driscoll and LaNeve to express “deep concerns" about eliminating the specialized drone unit and to request a briefing from the Army to explain its decision.

As Army secretary, Driscoll was a major force behind trying to cut the red tape for military contractors to quickly develop more drones and counter-drone capabilities as modern warfare evolves.

Driscoll also was tapped last year for the unusual assignment of key negotiator to try to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Both Republicans and Democrats have lamented Driscoll's resignation.

“Secretary Hegseth is cultivating a culture where dissent is punished and competence is secondary to personal allegiance,” Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday.

A surveillance video shows Serge Jean Jr. “on the sidewalk hanging out in front of the store” on Nov. 21, 2024, at 3185 NW 207 St., near the Hard Rock Stadium, according to the Miami Gardens homicide detective’s request for a warrant.

Witnesses reported a shooting. When police officers arrived, Jean was in a “prone position ...conscious and alert ... unable to move,” the Miami Gardens detective wrote, according to the affidavit in support of the warrant.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel airlifted Jean to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital, where he died on Dec. 10, 2024, after complications with his wounds, according to the affidavit in support of the warrant.

Before Jean died, he identified his killer as “Von,” records show.

Surveillance video also shows Devon Clarke arriving at the store as the passenger of a black Nissan Maxima, according to the arrest warrant signed by Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Cristina Miranda on March 12.

Homicide detectives believe Jean punched Clarke, who stumbled backward before pulling out a gun and firing at Jean, according to the arrest warrant.

Jean tried to run away, but Clarke fired a second time, shot him in the back, and he collapsed face down, according to the arrest warrant.

Clarke caught up to Jean and shot him a third time in the head at close range before getting away in the Nissan Maxima, according to the arrest warrant.

Clarke was in handcuffs about a year and nine months later, according to police.

Miami Gardens police officers arrested Clarke at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday at 3620 NW 211 St., according to a police officer’s arrest report.

Miami-Dade County corrections booked Clarke shortly after 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, according to inmate records.

Clarke faced a charge of second-degree murder with a weapon, according to Miami-Dade County court records. He was denied bond.

Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Carmen Cabarga was set to preside over the case.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Mercedes Cevallos contributed to this report.

Location

According to an arrest report from the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department, a teacher found an unattended bookbag in the auditorium of the school, located at 4000 W. 18^th Ave., and searched it, trying to locate an ID. Instead, the teacher found a loaded 9 mm Walther handgun, the report stated.

Police said the teacher immediately took the backpack to the principal’s office and the principal notified the school resource officer.

According to the report, the officer searched the backpack and found a passport ID inside a wallet that belonged to Chenelle Antonette Doctor, 27, of Hollywood.

Police said Doctor is a substitute teacher employed by Kelly Services who was working on the high school campus Tuesday.

Doctor was then located and taken into custody, authorities said.

Police said Doctor spontaneously told the arresting officer that she forgot to take her gun out of her backpack that morning.

According to the report, the gun had a round in the chamber and a magazine inserted with seven live rounds. An empty magazine was also located in the backpack, authorities said.

Doctor was arrested on a charge of possession of a firearm on school property.

As of Wednesday morning, Doctor was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $2,500 bond.

According to Florida City police, the crime happened on the afternoon of April 8, but officers took Indya Lashae Reed into custody on Tuesday. They said the baby’s mother, Ciara Ashanti Minton, was also involved in the fight; she was arrested on Monday.

Police said Minton and Reed, both 20, walked into the Wingstop at 33550 S. Dixie Highway and began arguing with a worker inside.

Arrest reports state that Minton, of Florida City, “used to date” the worker’s brother and the two were arguing over “past issues between them,” namely, an instance where the victim “spoke bad” about Minton’s baby while she was pregnant.

Those reports state that the victim “ignored” Minton, so Minton “pass(ed) her baby” to Reed, of southwest Miami-Dade, who then “pulled out a canister of pepper-spray” and “began to spray the victim in the face.”

Minton then began to hit the victim, scratching her face, according to police. The two fled before officers arrived, the reports state.

Investigators, who said “the scent of pepper spray (was) still lingering in the air” when officers got to the restaurant, said CCTV footage showed the attack.

Police said a wanted flyer was put out for Minton and they went to her home on Monday to take her into custody on a misdemeanor battery charge.

Authorities said Minton explained that the acrimony between her and the worker stemmed from a “dispute” in Homestead about two years prior where the woman told Minton, while pregnant, “F--- your baby” and threatened her with a hoverboard.

Police said Minton told officers that she had “no intentions (of) fighting” the woman, saying she “didn’t know (she) worked” at the Wingstop.

Authorities said Reed said the same thing when officers went to her home to arrest her on an aggravated battery charge on Tuesday.

Minton would bond out of jail on Monday. Meanwhile, Reed was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $1,000 bond as of Wednesday.

El tribunal emitió el fallo a última hora del martes en un caso relacionado con el candidato opositor, el senador Flávio Bolsonaro, quien utilizó el recurso en la convención de su partido para mostrar imágenes generadas por IA de su padre encarcelado, el expresidente Jair Bolsonaro, respaldando su campaña contra el presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Jair Bolsonaro fue condenado en noviembre a 27 años de prisión por liderar un intento de golpe de Estado. En la convención del Partido Liberal realizada en julio en Sao Paulo, una versión generada por IA del exmandatario apareció para instar a los asistentes a “abrir los brazos” para su hijo y apoyar su postulación presidencial.

En su decisión del martes, el tribunal electoral votó 4-3 para no sancionar al senador Bolsonaro, al determinar que el deepfake en cuestión no constituía un anuncio político para difusión pública, sino que se realizó para un evento privado antes de que su candidatura fuera anunciada oficialmente.

Sin embargo, en una votación separada de 5-2, el tribunal definió lo que califica como deepfake en la publicidad política como “contenido sintético producido o manipulado mediante inteligencia artificial o tecnología equivalente” con un grado de realismo “para crear, reproducir o alterar la imagen, la voz o el discurso de cualquier persona viva, fallecida o ficticia”.

Las elecciones presidenciales de Brasil tienen a internet como principal vehículo, aunque los anuncios en televisión y radio siguen marcando la conversación pública e influyendo en los votantes.

Las reglas se aplicarán a una enorme cantidad de contenido de los candidatos antes de la primera vuelta de votación del 4 de octubre. Las emisoras deben reservar 14 minutos al día para casi 1.000 anuncios de 30 segundos, además de bloques de 12 minutos y medio reservados exclusivamente para los candidatos presidenciales.

____

Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.

Officers with the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department took Malachie Forestal, 40, into custody on a felony charge Tuesday at the Dr. Henry W. Mack/West Little River K-8 Center, located at 2450 NW 84th St. in unincorporated Miami-Dade County’s West Little River neighborhood.

According to an arrest form, Forestal and the victim got into an argument at the school over the victim’s unfinished work, which the victim attributed to the aforementioned weed-whacker failure.

The argument between the two eventually escalated into a physical fight, police said.

According to the victim, he told police that Forestal “spoke to him disrespectfully” when informed the work wasn’t completed, authorities said.

Later that morning, police said the victim began picking up trash in the school’s cafeteria when Forestal became upset about where the victim had left his keys.

When the victim attempted to walk away, police said Forestal blocked his path, so the victim walked around him and into a hallway, after which Forestal followed the victim, “then entered the hallway, struck him, and grabbed him,” according to an arrest report.

Arriving officers spoke to Forestal, who told them “he did not swing at or strike the victim, claiming instead that he only physically grappled with him” after alleging “the victim spoke disrespectfully to him, stating, ‘I’ll f--- you up, b---,’” per official documents.

However, investigators reviewed surveillance video which contradicted Forestal’s account, instead revealing that he “did swing at and grab the victim in the hallway before school staff members intervened and separated them,” according to an arrest form.

Forestal is now facing a felony charge of battery on a specified official or employee.

As of Wednesday morning, he was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with bond listed as “to be set.”

Leer en español

Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Jay Hudson Harmon, 65, on hit-and-run and aggravated battery charges on Tuesday.

According to MDSO, the incident happened on the evening of Aug. 7 at the West Kendall Transit Terminal, located at 9155 SW 162nd Ave., a few blocks south of Kendall Drive.

An arrest report states that CCTV footage taken at around 9:40 p.m. showed Harmon driving his Jeep towards the victim, hitting him with his front bumper and knocking him to the ground.

Deputies said Harmon kept driving, “running the victim over with the passenger side front and back wheel of (his) vehicle” and left.

According to the report, medics took the victim to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital with injuries including “a right parietal laceration to his head, a perforated bladder, left tibial fracture and multiple rib fractures.”

Authorities said Harmon came back about an hour later and fessed up to being the driver, saying he purposely hit the man because he thought his son’s “life was in danger,” though no additional explanation is included in the MDSO report.

Harmon told deputies he “then drove home,” the report states, “then decided to come back to the scene after realizing what he had done at the bus stop.”

Deputies arrested Harmon at MDSO’s Hammocks District station on Tuesday.

As of Wednesday, he was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with a bond listed as “to be set” in online jail records.

Agentes de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade arrestaron el martes a Jay Hudson Harmon, de 65 años, por cargos de abandonar la escena de un accidente y agresión agravada.

Según MDSO, el incidente ocurrió la noche del 7 de agosto en West Kendall Transit Terminal, ubicado en 9155 SW 162nd Ave., a pocas cuadras al sur de Kendall Drive.

Un informe de arresto indica que imágenes de cámaras de vigilancia tomadas alrededor de las 9:40 p.m. mostraron a Harmon conduciendo su Jeep hacia la víctima, golpeándola con el parachoques delantero y derribándola al suelo.

Los agentes dijeron que Harmon continuó conduciendo, “atropellando a la víctima con las ruedas delantera y trasera del lado del pasajero de su vehículo”, y se marchó.

Según el informe, paramédicos trasladaron a la víctima a HCA Florida Kendall Hospital con lesiones que incluían “una laceración parietal derecha en la cabeza, una vejiga perforada, una fractura de la tibia izquierda y múltiples fracturas de costillas”.

Las autoridades dijeron que Harmon regresó aproximadamente una hora después y admitió ser el conductor, afirmando que atropelló intencionalmente al hombre porque pensó que la “vida de su hijo estaba en peligro”, aunque el informe de MDSO no incluye ninguna explicación adicional.

Harmon dijo a los agentes que “luego condujo hasta su casa”, indica el informe, “y después decidió regresar a la escena tras darse cuenta de lo que había hecho en la parada de autobús”.

Los agentes arrestaron a Harmon el martes en la estación del distrito Hammocks de MDSO.

Hasta el miércoles, permanecía detenido en el Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center con una fianza que figuraba como “por determinar” en los registros de la cárcel en línea.

La policía arrestó el miércoles a Michelle Luchau-Rebora, de 32 años y residente de Pinecrest, después de que se entregara en el Departamento de Policía de Homestead, que investigó el caso junto con la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade.

Según documentos oficiales, Luchau-Rebora trabajaba como pasante en el centro de tratamiento de alcohol y drogas New Home CORPS, ubicado en 1020 N. Krome Ave., “en calidad de terapeuta de salud mental”, cuando, en junio del año pasado, comenzó una relación sexual con un cliente.

Las autoridades dijeron que Luchau-Rebora mantenía actividad sexual durante las sesiones de terapia mientras se encontraba en el centro y agregaron que también “facilitaba coartadas en su nombre, lo que le permitía obtener autorización para salir del centro restringido y mantener relaciones sexuales en múltiples ocasiones”, en varios lugares, incluida su casa, la casa de su madre en Key Biscayne y Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Según los agentes, Luchau-Rebora “le exigió que no le contara a nadie sobre su relación porque afectaría su capacidad para trabajar como terapeuta”.

Según los informes de arresto de Luchau-Rebora, la víctima reportó la relación inapropiada al centro después de que ella terminara la relación y posteriormente fue despedida.

Ahora enfrenta cargos graves de conducta sexual inapropiada por parte de una psicoterapeuta.

Hasta la mañana del miércoles, permanecía detenida en el Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center con una fianza de $5,000 USD.

Leer en español

Police arrested Michelle Luchau-Rebora, 32, of Pinecrest, on Wednesday after she turned herself in at the Homestead Police Department, which investigated the case alongside the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.

According to official documents, Luchau-Rebora was working as an intern at the New Home CORPS alcohol and drug treatment facility, located at 1020 N. Krome Ave., “in the capacity of a mental health therapist”, when, in June of last year, she started a sexual relationship with a client.

Authorities said Luchau-Rebora would engage in sexual activity during therapy sessions while at the facility, adding that she also “facilitated alibis on his behalf, which allowed him authorization to leave the restricted facility and engage in sexual intercourse on multiple occasions,” at several locations, including her home, her mother’s home in Key Biscayne and at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

According to deputies, Luchau-Rebora “demanded that he not tell anyone about their relationship because it will affect her ability to work as a therapist.”

Based off Luchau-Rebora’s arrest reports, the victim reported the inappropriate affair to the facility after she ended the relationship and she was subsequently fired.

She is now facing felony charges of sexual misconduct by a psychotherapist.

As of Wednesday morning, she was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $5,000 bond.

Leer en español

Jail records show Pratapsinh Thakor is facing one count each of attempted felony murder causing injury and domestic battery causing harm.

According to the arrest report, Thakor and the victim are married and live together.

Deputies said the incident happened at about 1 a.m. Tuesday. The location of their home was redacted from the publicly released report.

Deputies said Thakor entered the bedroom he shares with the victim and stabbed her in the back while she slept. The victim woke up and begged him to stop, according to the report.

The report states the victim was able to take the knife away from Thakor, but he then punched her multiple times. She was able to get away and call 911, according to deputies.

When deputies arrived, they found the victim outside the apartment. The report states that deputies spotted Thakor holding her by the hair.

Deputies said the victim was taken to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital for further evaluation.

They said she suffered two lacerations to the left side of her back, a punctured lung, a laceration to her left arm and a bloody mouth.

The report states Thakor “denied any involvement in the stabbing.”

A motive for the stabbing remains unclear at this time.

As of Wednesday morning, he was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where his bond was listed as “to be set.”

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Pratapsinh Thakor enfrenta un cargo de intento de asesinato durante la comisión de un delito grave que causó lesiones y un cargo de agresión doméstica que causó daños.

Según el informe de arresto, Thakor y la víctima están casados y viven juntos.

Los agentes dijeron que el incidente ocurrió alrededor de la 1 a.m. del martes. La ubicación de su casa fue censurada del informe divulgado públicamente.

Los agentes dijeron que Thakor entró al dormitorio que comparte con la víctima y la apuñaló en la espalda mientras dormía. La víctima se despertó y le rogó que se detuviera, según el informe.

El informe indica que la víctima logró quitarle el cuchillo a Thakor, pero luego él la golpeó varias veces. Ella logró escapar y llamar al 911, según los agentes.

Cuando los agentes llegaron, encontraron a la víctima afuera del apartamento. El informe indica que los agentes vieron a Thakor sujetándola por el cabello.

Los agentes dijeron que la víctima fue trasladada al HCA Florida Aventura Hospital para una evaluación adicional.

Dijeron que sufrió dos laceraciones en el lado izquierdo de la espalda, un pulmón perforado, una laceración en el brazo izquierdo y sangrado en la boca.

El informe indica que Thakor “negó cualquier participación en el apuñalamiento”.

El motivo del apuñalamiento sigue sin estar claro en este momento.

Hasta la mañana del miércoles, permanecía detenido en el Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, donde su fianza figuraba como “por determinar”.

Leer en español

At the time of landfall, its tropical storm winds (winds exceeding 39 mph) extended out only about 25 miles from its center but the punchy storm brought wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph, with gusts as high as 90 mph, to the coastal town of Port Arthur south of Beaumont.

Significant flash flooding continues through early Thursday

As we’ve discussed in the newsletter this week, the primary threat from Edouard is flash flooding, which was ongoing for parts of southeastern and east-central Texas Wednesday morning.

Radar estimates show rain totals approaching almost 20 inches along a narrow corridor just north of Kountze in central Hardin and south-central Tyler counties about 30 miles northwest of Beaumont, where a flash flood emergency was in effect early Wednesday.

Additionally, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center upgraded its flash flood threat level mid-Wednesday morning to high (threat level 4 of 4) for the Big Thicket to Piney Woods region of southeastern Texas. High risk days are very rare – occurring on only about 4% of days – but account for about 1 in 3 flood-related deaths and 80% of flood-related damages.

The highest rainfall total officially observed so far is around 18 inches near Little Pine Island Bayou, Texas, within this high risk zone. Widespread totals of 4 to 8 inches have been recorded elsewhere across southeastern Texas and east of the Houston-Galveston proper, which largely avoided any heavy rain and flood issues.

The flood threat will inch farther inland, stretching into communities of east-central Texas, southeast of Dallas-Fort Worth, through Thursday morning. The National Weather Service is forecasting another 4 to 8 inches possible on Wednesday into early Thursday along Edouard’s path.

Despite weakening to a tropical depression, Edouard maintained a coherent circulation on radar while over 100 miles inland over Texas Wednesday morning. What’s left of Edouard’s remnant spin should wash out quickly by late Thursday into early Friday over north Texas and southern Oklahoma.

Nothing brewing behind Edouard

As we discussed in Tuesday’s newsletter, the Atlantic basin will stay eerily quiet into what is traditionally the peak week of the hurricane season.

The only dark-horse contender shown by forecast models is mid-to-late next week from low pressure along a washed out frontal boundary over the northern Gulf, a familiar story this season. For now, the odds of anything happening here are very low but we’ll watch the trends in the week ahead.

En el momento de tocar tierra, sus vientos de tormenta tropical (vientos que superaban los 63 km/h) se extendían solo unos 40 kilómetros desde su centro, pero la potente tormenta trajo ráfagas de viento de 96 a 113 km/h, conráfagas de hasta 145 km/h, a la ciudad costera de Port Arthur, al sur de Beaumont.

Las importantes inundaciones repentinas continuarán hasta la madrugada del jueves.

Como hemos comentado en el boletín informativo de esta semana, la principal amenaza de Edouard son las inundaciones repentinas, que continuaron afectando a partes del sureste y centro-este de Texas el miércoles por la mañana.

Las estimaciones del radar muestran acumulaciones de lluvia que se aproximan a casi 20 pulgadas a lo largo de un estrecho corredor justo al norte de Kountze, en el centro de los condados de Hardin y el centro-sur de Tyler, a unas 30 millas al noroeste de Beaumont, donde se declaró una emergencia por inundaciones repentinas a primera hora del miércoles.

Además, el Centro de Predicción Meteorológica del Servicio Meteorológico Nacional elevó el nivel de alerta por inundaciones repentinas a alto (nivel 4 de 4) a media mañana del miércoles para la región que abarca desde Big Thicket hasta Piney Woods, en el sureste de Texas. Los días de alto riesgo son muy poco frecuentes ( solo ocurren en aproximadamente el 4% de los días ), pero representan cerca de una de cada tres muertes relacionadas con inundaciones y el 80% de los daños ocasionados.

La mayor cantidad de lluvia registrada oficialmente hasta el momento esde aproximadamente 45 centímetros cerca de Little Pine Island Bayou, Texas, dentro de esta zona de alto riesgo. Se han registrado acumulaciones generalizadas de entre 10 y 20 centímetros en otras partes del sureste de Texas y al este de Houston-Galveston, donde en general se evitaron lluvias torrenciales e inundaciones.

La amenaza de inundación avanzará tierra adentro, afectando a comunidades del centro-este de Texas, al sureste de Dallas-Fort Worth, hasta la mañana del jueves. El Servicio Meteorológico Nacional pronostica que podrían caer entre 10 y 20 centímetros adicionales entre el miércoles y la madrugada del jueves a lo largo de la trayectoria de Edouard.

A pesar de haberse debilitado hasta convertirse en depresión tropical, Edouard mantuvo una circulación coherente en el radar mientras se encontraba a más de 160 kilómetros tierra adentro sobre Texas el miércoles por la mañana. Los restos de la espiral remanente de Edouard deberían disiparse rápidamente entre la noche del jueves y la madrugada del viernes sobre el norte de Texas y el sur de Oklahoma.

No hay nada que se esté gestando detrás de Edouard.

Como comentamos en el boletín del martes, la cuenca del Atlántico permanecerá inquietantemente tranquila durante la que tradicionalmente es la semana de mayor actividad de la temporada de huracanes.

La única posibilidad, según los modelos de pronóstico, es que se produzca a mediados o finales de la próxima semana debido a una baja presión a lo largo de un frente frío sobre el norte del Golfo, una situación habitual esta temporada. Por ahora, las probabilidades de que ocurra algo son muy bajas, pero estaremos atentos a las tendencias durante la próxima semana.

The court issued the ruling late Tuesday in a case involving opposition candidate Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, who used the mechanism in his party's convention to feature AI-generated images of his imprisoned father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, endorsing his campaign against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced in November to 27 years in prison for leading a coup attempt. At the Liberal Party’s convention in Sao Paulo in July, an AI-generated version of the former president appeared to urge attendees “to open arms” for his son and support his presidential bid.

In its decision Tuesday, the electoral court voted 4-3 not to punish Sen. Bolsonaro, ruling that the deepfake in question did not constitute a political ad for public airing, but one for a private event before his candidacy was officially announced.

However, in a separate 5-2 vote, the court defined what qualifies as a deepfake in political advertising as “synthetic content produced or manipulated via artificial intelligence or equivalent technology” with a degree of realism “to create, reproduce or alter the image, voice or speech of any living, deceased or fictional person.”

Brazil's presidential elections are heavily played online, though television and radio ads continue to set the talk of the town and sway voters.

The rules will apply to a vast amount of content from candidates ahead of the first round of voting on Oct. 4. Broadcasters must set aside 14 minutes a day for nearly 1,000 30-second ads, in addition to 12 1/2-minute blocks reserved exclusively for presidential candidates.

___

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

La reforma, sin embargo, no anula los comicios, como había pedido recientemente Ortega en unas declaraciones que alarmaron al mundo.

Según explicó el diario oficialista “El 19 Digital”, la reforma a la carta magna aprobada por la Asamblea a última hora del martes establece que no podrán ser candidatos a cargos de elección popular ni ocupar cargos públicos los “golpistas” y “traidores a la patria”. Además, alarga el mandato presidencial y de otros cargos populares de seis a siete años.

También contempla que las leyes extranjeras no tendrán efecto jurídico en Nicaragua.

Los cambios tienen lugar poco después de que la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA) aprobara en agosto la celebración de una reunión extraordinaria de cancilleres ante los llamamientos de Estados Unidos a actuar con firmeza después de las declaraciones de Ortega de querer eliminar las elecciones.

El miércoles, el secretario de Estado estadounidense Marco Rubio dijo en un comunicado que la reforma “socavó la farsa de la democracia en Nicaragua al modificar una vez más la Constitución del país para afianzar su dinastía ilegítima y privar indefinidamente a los nicaragüenses de unas elecciones libres y justas”.

Rubio instó a sus socios internacionales a romper las relaciones económicas con el país centroamericano porque “las dictaduras que niegan los derechos inalienables de sus ciudadanos no deberían disfrutar de los mismos beneficios económicos ni políticos” que el resto de los Estados.

Desde la violenta represión gubernamental de las protestas de 2018 el gobierno nicaragüense ha reescrito la Constitución restringiendo cada vez más las libertades hasta anular la división de poderes y oficializar el paramilitarismo y la represión, según ha denunciado en varias ocasiones la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU).

Las autoridades han encarcelado a políticos contrarios a sus ideas y líderes religiosos y han clausurado organizaciones de la sociedad civil mientras miles de personas han huido del país en busca de asilo, algunos incluso despojados de su nacionalidad.

En julio el octogenario mandatario —que cogobierna junto a su esposa Rosario Murillo— causó un escándalo cuando habló sin tapujos sobre la supresión de los comicios en el país.

“Aquí no volverá a haber elecciones... Jamás, jamás, jamás”, dijo durante el aniversario de la Revolución Sandinista que derrocó a la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza en 1979 y lo llevó por primera vez al poder. Ortega regresó a la presidencia en 2007.

Durante ese evento agregó que “aquí se acabó la historia de que los partidos puestos por los yanquis, puestos por los somocistas, volverán a llegar al gobierno”.

Leer en español

According to an arrest report from the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department, Carlos Martinez, 15, was initially attacked by two students during a fight at the school on Monday.

Cellphone video circulating on social media appears to show two people punching, kicking and at one point body-slamming Martinez.

Martinez’s arrest report states that he later retrieved a knife and sprinted down the hallway in efforts for “retaliation on his attackers.”

Investigators said surveillance video showed Martinez “reaching into his pants and retrieving a light-colored blade shaped object.”

The report states that the video shows that he later returns to retrieve his belongings and “places the light-colored blade shaped object into his pants pocket before attempting to flee the scene.”

According to the report, the 18-year-old student who was injured told investigators, “I don’t know that kid at all.” He said Martinez was being “jumped by two random kids” and that he was watching the fight when everyone suddenly started running, according to investigators.

The report states the 18-year-old student told investigators he felt a push in his back, but initially thought one of the students running away had pushed him. Another student then told him, “Yo, you’re bleeding.” He said that was when he felt something dripping down his back, according to police.

Police said that the 18-year-old student told them that he “has never had any interaction, conversation or encounter” with Martinez.

The student suffered a puncture wound to the right side of his back that required stitches, according to the arrest report.

Police said Martinez also suffered injuries during the incident. The report states that he suffered “multiple self-inflicted lacerations” to the index and middle fingers of his right hand, which also required stitches.

The report states that an assistant principal later saw Martinez “fleeing the scene of the incident into the schools parking lot.”

Police said the assistant principal stopped Martinez and asked why he was bleeding. According to the report, Martinez admitted to having a knife in his rear pants pocket on the right-hand side, and the assistant principal confiscated it.

Investigators described the knife as having a 5-inch blade and being 10 inches long overall.

Police said the incident prompted a lockdown at the school. According to the arrest report, multiple Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office units responded to help maintain order while parents arrived at the school to pick up their children.

Martinez appeared in court Tuesday, where prosecutors said they intend to charge him as an adult. A judge ordered him to remain in secure detention and prohibited him from having contact with the other students involved in the incident.

Martinez’s parents told Local 10’s Trent Kelly after Tuesday’s court hearing that their son had been mistreated and threatened by other students for days.

“He was threatening my son, mistreating him,” his father said.

Jail records show Martinez is facing charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, possession of a weapon on school property and interference with an educational institution.

Local 10 has reached out to MDSPD for information on the identities of the other two students arrested and the charges they are facing.

Según un informe de arresto del Departamento de Policía de las Escuelas de Miami-Dade, Carlos Martinez, de 15 años, fue atacado inicialmente por dos estudiantes durante una pelea en la escuela el lunes.

Un video de celular que circula en redes sociales parece mostrar a dos personas golpeando y pateando a Martinez y, en un momento dado, derribándolo con fuerza contra el suelo.

El informe de arresto de Martinez indica que posteriormente tomó un cuchillo y corrió por el pasillo con la intención de “tomar represalias contra sus atacantes”.

Los investigadores dijeron que un video de vigilancia mostró a Martinez “metiendo la mano en sus pantalones y sacando un objeto de color claro con forma de cuchilla”.

El informe indica que el video muestra que posteriormente regresa para recoger sus pertenencias y “coloca el objeto de color claro con forma de cuchilla en el bolsillo de sus pantalones antes de intentar huir de la escena”.

Según el informe, el estudiante de 18 años que resultó herido dijo a los investigadores: “No conozco a ese muchacho en absoluto”. Dijo que Martinez estaba siendo “atacado por dos muchachos al azar” y que él estaba observando la pelea cuando, de repente, todos comenzaron a correr, según los investigadores.

El informe indica que el estudiante de 18 años dijo a los investigadores que sintió un empujón en la espalda, pero inicialmente pensó que uno de los estudiantes que huían lo había empujado. Luego, otro estudiante le dijo: “Oye, estás sangrando”. Dijo que fue entonces cuando sintió que algo le goteaba por la espalda, según la policía.

La policía dijo que el estudiante de 18 años les informó que “nunca ha tenido ninguna interacción, conversación o encuentro” con Martinez.

El estudiante sufrió una herida punzante en el lado derecho de la espalda que requirió puntos de sutura, según el informe de arresto.

La policía dijo que Martinez también sufrió lesiones durante el incidente. El informe indica que sufrió “múltiples laceraciones autoinfligidas” en los dedos índice y medio de la mano derecha, que también requirieron puntos de sutura.

El informe indica que un subdirector vio posteriormente a Martinez “huyendo de la escena del incidente hacia el estacionamiento de la escuela”.

La policía dijo que el subdirector detuvo a Martinez y le preguntó por qué estaba sangrando. Según el informe, Martinez admitió que tenía un cuchillo en el bolsillo trasero derecho de sus pantalones y el subdirector lo confiscó.

Los investigadores describieron el cuchillo como uno con una hoja de 5 pulgadas y una longitud total de 10 pulgadas.

La policía dijo que el incidente provocó un cierre de emergencia en la escuela. Según el informe de arresto, varias unidades de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade acudieron para ayudar a mantener el orden mientras los padres llegaban a la escuela para recoger a sus hijos.

Martinez compareció ante un tribunal el martes, donde los fiscales dijeron que tienen la intención de acusarlo como adulto. Un juez ordenó que permaneciera bajo detención segura y le prohibió tener contacto con los otros estudiantes involucrados en el incidente.

Los padres de Martinez dijeron a Trent Kelly de Local 10 después de la audiencia judicial del martes que su hijo había sido maltratado y amenazado por otros estudiantes durante varios días.

“Estaba amenazando a mi hijo, maltratándolo”, dijo su padre.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Martinez enfrenta cargos de agresión agravada con un arma mortal, posesión de un arma en propiedad escolar e interferencia con una institución educativa.

Local 10 se comunicó con el Departamento de Policía de las Escuelas de Miami-Dade para obtener información sobre las identidades de los otros dos estudiantes arrestados y los cargos que enfrentan.

Leer en español

It takes preparation, consistency, teamwork, and a commitment to doing things right every single day.

So today, we’re giving a well-deserved Clean Plate shout-out to these establishments.

Thank you for taking food safety seriously and for giving your customers something to feel good about.

It’s hard to do and when you do it, you deserve some serious kudos!

**PINEAPPLE POINT GUESTHOUSE, 315 NE 16TH TERRACE, FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/31

**FREEZE N NITRO CREAMERY, 11610 CITY HALL PROMENADE, MIRAMAR, 8/28

**CHIPOTLE, 2750 SW 27TH TERRACE, MIAMI, 8/28

**JW MARRIOT MARQUIS HOTEL BALLROOM KITCHEN, 255 BISCAYNE BLVD., MIAMI, 8/27

**LOBBY LOUNGE HYATT, 50 ALHAMBRA CIRCLE, CORAL GABLES, 8/26

**DOUBLETREE MIAMI MART AIRPORT HOTEL, 711 NW 72ND AVE., MIAMI, 8/26

**GARDEN INN, 51 SOUTH HOMESTEAD BLVD., HOMESTEAD, 8/26

**LA QUINTA INN & SUITES, 3701 N. UNIVERSITY DR., CORAL SPRINGS, 8/27

**NORTH ITALIA, 699 N. FEDERAL HIGHWAY, FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/27

**AMC MOVIE PEMBROKE LAKES, 12085 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/25

**TURNBERRY ISLE/HARRY SOFFER ROOM, 19999 WEST COUNTRY CLUB DR., AVENTURA, 8/24

**BLAZ’N CHICKEN, 7955 MIRAMAR PARKWAY, MIRAMAR, 8/25

**CAFE MED/THE TERRACE EVENTS, 2096 NE 2ND ST., DEERFIELD BEACH, 8/25

**JAVA JOE’S, 2230 WILTON DR., WILTON MANORS, 8/24

**DUNKIN’, 11970 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/24

**MCGOWEN’S, 310 N. BROADWALK, HOLLYWOOD, 8/24

**LUKE’S LOBSTER, 701 SOUTH MIAMI AVE., 8/21, MIAMI

**KOSHER GRILL, 1501 NW 3RD ST., MIAMI, 8/21

**ANCHORED CHEF(CATERING), 664 N. FEDERAL HIGHWAY, FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/21

**WENDY’S, 3535 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., HOLLYWOOD, 8/19

**JW MARRIOTT POOL BAR, 1109 BRICKELL AVE., MIAMI, 8/17

**PHO NGUYEN VIETNAMESE NOODLE HOUSE, 10820 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/14

**NRG COFFEE SHOP, 4053 SW 152ND ST., WESTCHESTER, 8/14

**PANDA EXPRESS, 18050 NW 57TH AVE., HIALEAH, 8/14

**TACO BELL, 4870 NW 183RD ST. (MIAMI GARDENS DR.), MIAMI GARDENS, 8/14

**WENDY’S, 697 NW 37TH AVE., MIAMI, 8/14

**KENDALL ICE ARENA, 10355 HAMMOCKS BLVD., WEST KENDALL, 8/13

**MAMACITA’S MEXICAN BAR & GRILL, 508 N. BROADWALK, HOLLYWOOD, 8/13

**EVERGLADES SAFARI RESTAURANT, 26700 SW 8TH ST., SOUTH-MIAMI DADE/REDLAND, 8/12

**SUBWAY, 12800 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/12

**EMACK & BOLIO’S, 10350 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/12

**BANQUET KITCHEN, 2670 EAST SUNRISE BLVD., FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/12

**BURGERS & BEERS, 2031 WILTON DRIVE, WILTON MANORS, 8/12

**DOMINOS, 2454 SHERIDAN ST., HOLLYWOOD, 8/12

**PIU ARGENTINIAN ICE CREAM, 6310 GRIFFIN ROAD, DAVIE, 8/12

**RECOVECO, 6000 SW 74TH ST., SOUTH MIAMI, 8/11

**PALM BISTRO JOHN KNOX VILLAGE, 700 SW 4TH ST., POMPANO BEACH, 8/11

**WENDY’S, 2370 SW 8TH ST., MIAMI, 8/10

**MCDONALDS, 7995 WEST FLAGLER ST., WESTCHESTER, 8/7

**WENDY’S, 16601 NW 57TH AVE., HIALEAH, 8/6

**WHIT’S FROZEN CUSTARD, 4850 N. FEDERAL HIGHWAY, LIGHTHOUSE POINT, 8/5

**CHIPOTLE, 2110 SOUTH UNIVERSITY DR., DAVIE, 8/5

**PANERA BREAD, 1729 EAST HALLANDALE BEACH BLVD., HALLANDALE BEACH, 8/5

**ARIELA’S DELICIOUS PIZZA, 3330 GRIFFIN ROAD, DANIA BEACH, 8/3

**BAMBOO KITCHEN, 3322 GRIFFIN ROAD, DANIA BEACH, 8/3

**TRUE MADE METHOD, (CATERING), SUNRISE, 8/3

The Americans will have to jell quickly if they hope to win a fifth straight FIBA women's World Cup. The tournament begins Friday, when the U.S. plays China in one of eight games in Berlin.

The Americans already have had a couple of practices in Berlin since their staggered arrivals, marking the first time that the 12 players on the squad were together as a team. The U.S. is working in a bunch of young, new players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, with half the roster making its World Cup debut.

Having little practice time is nothing new to the Americans.

“It’s good to get the group together. It’s a new group. The beneficial thing about us is that even though we haven’t practiced with each other much, but we know our games really well because we scout each other every single day (in the WNBA),” veteran guard Chelsea Gray said. “So we know people’s strengths. I think basketball players, we compartmentalize better than anyone. So this is no different, we're going to have to learn on the fly.”

They'll have less time to get ready because this World Cup format is different from the 2022 one. With 16 teams competing in Germany instead of the 12 they had four years ago, each country will play only three games in the preliminary round, down from five in Australia. That gives the U.S. fewer games to figure out rotations and work on its on-court chemistry, but it does give them more rest time.

“It’s just more of being really focused and locked in when we do have our time together, and we know that there’s a lot of information to install,” coach Kara Lawson said. “I don’t think it’s changed the way I would normally coach. It’s just being very direct with what we want done, and they were great today in practice at picking up a lot in a short period of time.”

If the Americans do win their group, which also includes China, the Czech Republic and Italy, they'll have two days off before the quarterfinals. Gray doesn't mind having fewer games.

“It's less on our bodies honestly, especially with the pause in the WNBA season,” the 33-year-old Gray said. “I like a little bit of a break."

Usually the World Cup begins right after the WNBA season finishes. This time, the league is pausing for two weeks because of the international competition.

“It's definitely different,” said Breanna Stewart, who has helped the U.S. win the last three World Cup gold medals.

___

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Requiere preparación, constancia, trabajo en equipo y el compromiso de hacer las cosas bien todos los días.

Así que hoy les damos un merecido reconocimiento de Clean Plate a estos establecimientos.

Gracias por tomarse en serio la seguridad alimentaria y por darles a sus clientes algo por lo cual sentirse bien.

¡Es difícil lograrlo y, cuando lo hacen, merecen grandes felicitaciones!

**PINEAPPLE POINT GUESTHOUSE, 315 NE 16TH TERRACE, FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/31

**FREEZE N NITRO CREAMERY, 11610 CITY HALL PROMENADE, MIRAMAR, 8/28

**CHIPOTLE, 2750 SW 27TH TERRACE, MIAMI, 8/28

**JW MARRIOT MARQUIS HOTEL BALLROOM KITCHEN, 255 BISCAYNE BLVD., MIAMI, 8/27

**LOBBY LOUNGE HYATT, 50 ALHAMBRA CIRCLE, CORAL GABLES, 8/26

**DOUBLETREE MIAMI MART AIRPORT HOTEL, 711 NW 72ND AVE., MIAMI, 8/26

**GARDEN INN, 51 SOUTH HOMESTEAD BLVD., HOMESTEAD, 8/26

**LA QUINTA INN & SUITES, 3701 N. UNIVERSITY DR., CORAL SPRINGS, 8/27

**NORTH ITALIA, 699 N. FEDERAL HIGHWAY, FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/27

**AMC MOVIE PEMBROKE LAKES, 12085 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/25

**TURNBERRY ISLE/HARRY SOFFER ROOM, 19999 WEST COUNTRY CLUB DR., AVENTURA, 8/24

**BLAZ’N CHICKEN, 7955 MIRAMAR PARKWAY, MIRAMAR, 8/25

**CAFE MED/THE TERRACE EVENTS, 2096 NE 2ND ST., DEERFIELD BEACH, 8/25

**JAVA JOE’S, 2230 WILTON DR., WILTON MANORS, 8/24

**DUNKIN’, 11970 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/24

**MCGOWEN’S, 310 N. BROADWALK, HOLLYWOOD, 8/24

**LUKE’S LOBSTER, 701 SOUTH MIAMI AVE., 8/21, MIAMI

**KOSHER GRILL, 1501 NW 3RD ST., MIAMI, 8/21

**ANCHORED CHEF(CATERING), 664 N. FEDERAL HIGHWAY, FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/21

**WENDY’S, 3535 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., HOLLYWOOD, 8/19

**JW MARRIOTT POOL BAR, 1109 BRICKELL AVE., MIAMI, 8/17

**PHO NGUYEN VIETNAMESE NOODLE HOUSE, 10820 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/14

**NRG COFFEE SHOP, 4053 SW 152ND ST., WESTCHESTER, 8/14

**PANDA EXPRESS, 18050 NW 57TH AVE., HIALEAH, 8/14

**TACO BELL, 4870 NW 183RD ST. (MIAMI GARDENS DR.), MIAMI GARDENS, 8/14

**WENDY’S, 697 NW 37TH AVE., MIAMI, 8/14

**KENDALL ICE ARENA, 10355 HAMMOCKS BLVD., WEST KENDALL, 8/13

**MAMACITA’S MEXICAN BAR & GRILL, 508 N. BROADWALK, HOLLYWOOD, 8/13

**EVERGLADES SAFARI RESTAURANT, 26700 SW 8TH ST., SOUTH-MIAMI DADE/REDLAND, 8/12

**SUBWAY, 12800 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/12

**EMACK & BOLIO’S, 10350 PINES BLVD., PEMBROKE PINES, 8/12

**BANQUET KITCHEN, 2670 EAST SUNRISE BLVD., FORT LAUDERDALE, 8/12

**BURGERS & BEERS, 2031 WILTON DRIVE, WILTON MANORS, 8/12

**DOMINOS, 2454 SHERIDAN ST., HOLLYWOOD, 8/12

**PIU ARGENTINIAN ICE CREAM, 6310 GRIFFIN ROAD, DAVIE, 8/12

**RECOVECO, 6000 SW 74TH ST., SOUTH MIAMI, 8/11

**PALM BISTRO JOHN KNOX VILLAGE, 700 SW 4TH ST., POMPANO BEACH, 8/11

**WENDY’S, 2370 SW 8TH ST., MIAMI, 8/10

**MCDONALDS, 7995 WEST FLAGLER ST., WESTCHESTER, 8/7

**WENDY’S, 16601 NW 57TH AVE., HIALEAH, 8/6

**WHIT’S FROZEN CUSTARD, 4850 N. FEDERAL HIGHWAY, LIGHTHOUSE POINT, 8/5

**CHIPOTLE, 2110 SOUTH UNIVERSITY DR., DAVIE, 8/5

**PANERA BREAD, 1729 EAST HALLANDALE BEACH BLVD., HALLANDALE BEACH, 8/5

**ARIELA’S DELICIOUS PIZZA, 3330 GRIFFIN ROAD, DANIA BEACH, 8/3

**BAMBOO KITCHEN, 3322 GRIFFIN ROAD, DANIA BEACH, 8/3

**TRUE MADE METHOD, (CATERING), SUNRISE, 8/3

Lianyong Wei, 51, died Aug. 23 at a hospital in the Northern Mariana Islands, ICE announced in a news release Tuesday.

Wei was arrested Aug. 21 by the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Public Safety on criminal charges stemming from an alleged assault on a family of five at their home, according to ICE. He was taken into ICE custody the next day pending removal proceedings.

ICE said a guard at the lockup in Saipan found Wei unresponsive during routine morning checks on Aug. 23. He was taken to a hospital emergency room, where he was pronounced dead after “life-sustaining interventions were initiated,” the agency said, noting that the cause of his death is under investigation.

Wei entered the U.S. territory in February 2019 and was authorized to stay for two weeks, according to ICE. U.S. authorities began removal proceedings in July 2026, and Wei's next hearing had been scheduled for this month.

The Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles said it had been notified of Wei’s death.

“We have expressed serious concerns to the relevant U.S. authorities over this incident and required a timely and thorough investigation into the cause of Mr. Wei’s death, notification of the findings, measures to prevent any recurrence of similar incidents, and assistance to the family of the deceased in handling the aftermath,” the consulate said in a statement.

Wei is at least the fifth Chinese national who has died in the custody of ICE or the U.S. Border Patrol since March 2025, according to tracking by The Associated Press. Two of the first four deaths have been ruled suicides and the other two were the result of medical complications.

At least 57 ICE detainees have died since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, a death rate that has alarmed public health experts, advocates for immigrants and the Mexican government.

ICE hasn't said whether Wei received the medical intake screening, which the agency promises to detainees within their first 12 hours in custody. Medical experts say a thorough screening is critical to preventing deaths.

It’s unclear why it took ICE more than a week to acknowledge Wei’s death, which was announced by authorities in the Northern Mariana Islands on Aug. 24. ICE has said it aims to issue a news release on detainee deaths within two business days.

The lockup in Saipan has held an average of 18 ICE detainees on any given day this year, according to ICE data. Roughly 50,000 people live in the Northern Mariana Islands.

“Following this incident, the Department is reviewing relevant procedures and will implement any necessary corrective actions to strengthen prevention and response measures,” Northern Mariana Islands corrections commissioner Anthony Torres said in a statement.

The coin's design — Trump's visage as “heads” and the Great Seal of the United States as “tails” — was given the stamp of approval this year by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members Trump appointed. In past comments, the president said that the idea to stamp his face on a coin was “very unusual” but that he was “honored by it.”

The president's second term has come with several such brandings, or attempts at them that have become tangled up in lawsuits. That includes moves to put Trump's name on the Kennedy Center, as well as the U.S. Institute for Peace, as Trump works to leave his stamp on history and Washington, D.C.

The coins, which can be used as legal tender, stirred some criticism particularly because of federal law that bars the depiction of a living president on U.S. currency. But in some circumstances, the treasury secretary does have authority to authorize the minting and issuance of special coins.

The coins were struck to “honor 250 years of great American heritage,” the U.S. Mint wrote on its website. In an arc above Trump's face is written “LIBERTY," and below is “1776 (tilde) 2026.” On the flip side is the Great Seal of the United States, with the bald eagle gripping arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. In a banner clutched in its beak is written “E PLURIBUS UNUM," Latin for "out of many, one”

A roll of 25 coins will cost $61, and a bag of 100 will cost $154.50, and the U.S. Mint said they randomly hid some special-issue coins among the rolls and bags. Those will be marked “July 4th,” because they were stuck on that day, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Households are limited to only two orders, the U.S. Mint wrote, but that cap will lift at 2 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.

It said that between March and August, some 86 metric tons (94.8 tons) of gold were transferred to London from the combined total of around 313 metric tons (345 tons) held in New York and Ottawa, Canada. Before the move, New York housed 31.3% of the Dutch gold and Ottawa held 19.7%. After the move, both cities now hold 18.5%, the bank said.

The bank owns 612.4 metric tons (675 tons) of gold that was worth 72.2 billion euros (about $83.6 billion) at the end of 2025.

“With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves," the bank’s governor, Olaf Sleijpen, said in a written statement. “We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.”

More than 27 metric tons (30 tons) of gold were “physically transferred” from the United States and Canada to the Dutch bank's heavily guarded vault on a military base near the central town of Zeist, the bank said, without elaborating on exactly how the gold bars got across the Atlantic Ocean. A similar quantity of gold was transferred from Zeist to London.

The rest of the relocation was achieved by selling around 59 metric tons (65 tons) of gold in New York and using the proceeds to buy gold in London.

The Dutch bank, known by its acronym DNB, said that gold held at the Bank of England “must meet modern international trade standards and is regarded as the world’s most easily tradable gold and will therefore be the most readily available for DNB in a crisis situation. The gold reserves held in New York and Ottawa cannot be utilized as quickly and directly in such a situation.”

Leer en español

Cuban officials remained silent after the Diario Las Américas reported on Tuesday that the 95-year-old leader who served as Cuba’s president for 12 years had suffered a stroke and was on life support.

Castro, who formally retired in April 2021, still has the Cuban military rank of general and a seat in the National Assembly.

Before communism

Castro was born on June 3, 1931, in the village of Birán, in Cuba’s Holguín province. His father, Angel Castro, was born in Spain, and his mother, Lina Ruz González, was born in Cuba.

Castro was the youngest of seven: Two brothers, Fidel and Ramon, and four sisters, Angela, Juana, Emma, and Agustina. He was a student at Catholic Jesuit schools, the Colegio Dolores in Santiago and the Colegio de Belén in Havana.

Castro attended the University of Havana. He was a member of the Socialist Youth, a group of the Popular Socialist Party, and participated in the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra.

Guerrilla fighter

Castro was arrested after the guerrilla attack on the Moncada military barracks on July 26, 1953, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but he only served 22 months.

Castro received then-Cuban President Fulgencio Batista’s amnesty, and he was released from the Presidio Modelo prison on May 15, 1955, at the Isle of Pines.

Castro went into exile in Mexico. In 1956, in Mexico City, Castro met Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who had graduated from the University of Buenos Aires Medical School in 1953.

Castro, his brother Fidel, and Guevara were on board the yacht Granma that landed with dozens of guerrilla fighters on Dec. 2, 1956, in eastern Cuba’s Playas Las Coloradas.

Castro joined his brother, Guevara, and fellow guerrilla fighters in the Sierra Maestra mountains. The group overthrew Batista, who then fled Cuba on Jan. 1, 1959.

Castro married Vilma Lucila Espín Guillois, a fellow guerrilla fighter who was born in Santiago de Cuba, on Jan. 26, 1959. The couple had four children: Three daughters, Déborah in 1960; Mariela in 1962; and Nilsa; and one son, Alejandro, in 1965.

Rise to power

As his brother rose to power, Castro was named Cuba’s minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in 1959.

In 1996, Castro ordered the shootdown of civilian aircraft with Brothers to the Rescue pilots and crew members. The Cuban Air Force struck and killed Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.

Castro became Cuba’s provisional head of state on July 31, 2006. His wife, Espín Guillois, died on June 18, 2007.

Castro also served as the acting president of Cuba’s Council of State and the Council of Ministers from 2006 to 2008. The National Assembly elected him president on Feb. 24, 2008.

In 2011, Castro was elected as the first secretary of the Communist Party. In 2013, the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term.

In 2014, Castro announced the start of normalizing relations with the U.S., and negotiated with Russia to cancel 90% of a debt that had started with the Soviet Union.

Castro welcomed then-U.S. President Barack Obama and then First Lady Michelle Obama to Havana on March 20, 2016.

Fidel Castro died on Nov. 25, 2016, at 90 years old.

Castro served as president until April 19, 2018, when Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, his handpicked successor, replaced him.

In 2021, Castro stepped down as the leader of the Communist Party, and Díaz-Canel Bermúdez also replaced him.

While wielding power behind the scenes, Castro has continued to make public appearances in his military uniform.

On April 23, a U.S. federal grand jury in Miami indicted Raúl Castro for his role in the 1996 Cuban military strikes on two unarmed Cessnas with four members of Brothers to the Rescue.

On May 20, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed the charges: Conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of an aircraft.

Castro did not make or release a statement about the charges.

Related report: Latest updates from Local 10 Cuba Analyst Dr. Andy Gomez

Related social media

Como expresara el General Ejército Raúl Castro en Belgrado, el 5 de septiembre de 1989, durante la IX Cumbre del Movimiento de Países No Alineados #MNOAL:

"La seguridad y la paz de los ricos no son aquellas por las cuales luchamos los países pobres. Queremos paz con soberanía,… pic.twitter.com/nRHUq5271Z

— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) September 1, 2026

Se cerraron escuelas y oficinas municipales, y se indicó a los residentes que permanecieran en casa. Algunas zonas al noroeste de Beaumont, por donde pasó el centro de la tormenta el martes, recibieron entre 25 centímetros (10 pulgadas) y 53 centímetros (21 pulgadas) de lluvia en cuestión de horas, informaron el Servicio Meteorológico Nacional y funcionarios de emergencias.

El Centro Nacional de Huracanes indicó que la tormenta fue degradada la noche del martes, horas después de tocar tierra cerca de la frontera entre Texas y Luisiana con vientos máximos sostenidos de 95 km/h (60 mph). El sistema iba perdiendo fuerza a medida que avanzaba tierra adentro, pero el miércoles seguía produciendo lluvias intensas y algunas inundaciones. Se esperaba que se desintegrara la noche del miércoles.

Mientras tanto, un episodio de actividad tropical continuaba en el océano Pacífico, donde dos huracanes y una tormenta tropical —que probablemente se convertiría en huracán— se agitaban en aguas abiertas el miércoles.

Edouard toca tierra a lo largo de la línea Texas-Luisiana e inunda algunas carreteras

Cuando el centro de Edouard pasó sobre Beaumont, Texas, a unos 130 kilómetros (80 millas) al noreste de Houston, dejó a su paso árboles caídos que bloqueaban carreteras, semáforos que no funcionaban y pasos a desnivel inundados, informó la policía de Beaumont en redes sociales. Algunos conductores quedaron varados en aguas de inundación y necesitaron ayuda.

Una estación meteorológica en Port Arthur, Texas, registró el martes una ráfaga de viento de 145 km/h (90 mph).

La tormenta se desplazó hacia el norte a primera hora del miércoles, lo que motivó alertas por inundaciones.

“Esta es una situación particularmente peligrosa. ¡Busque terreno más alto ahora!”, alertó el servicio meteorológico en una publicación dirigida a comunidades rurales de partes de los condados de Hardin y Tyler, en el sureste de Texas.

La publicación señaló que la tasa de lluvia prevista para el miércoles era de 2,5 a 13 cm (de 1 a 5 pulgadas) en una hora, además de lo que ya había caído.

Alrededor de 75.000 clientes de servicios públicos en al menos ocho condados estaban sin electricidad hasta la mañana del miércoles, según poweroutage.com.

2 huracanes y una tormenta tropical en el Pacífico

El centro de huracanes con sede en Miami informó que la tormenta tropical Marie se encontraba mar adentro, frente al suroeste de México en el Pacífico, y se esperaba que se convirtiera en huracán el miércoles. Se preveía que el oleaje generado por la tormenta afectara partes de la costa del suroeste de México y la península de Baja California durante los próximos días.

El centro indicó que probablemente se extenderá al sur de California durante el fin de semana.

El organismo advirtió que “es probable que este oleaje provoque condiciones de rompiente y corrientes de resaca que pongan en peligro la vida”.

Los meteorólogos esperan que el huracán Lowell en el Pacífico, una tormenta de categoría 4, se mantenga al menos durante los próximos días a varios cientos de millas de Hawaii, pero era probable que el oleaje del huracán afectara partes de las islas a partir del miércoles. Se espera que Lowell siga siendo una tormenta poderosa hasta el viernes.

En otra zona del Pacífico, Karina se ha fortalecido y se convirtió en una potente tormenta de categoría 4. Se esperaba un fortalecimiento adicional el miércoles, pero los meteorólogos indicaron que debería debilitarse en los próximos días.

_______

Stengle informó desde Dallas. Periodistas de The Associated Press Kathy McCormack en Concord, Nueva Hampshire; Dave Collins en Hartford, Connecticut; Julie Walker en Nueva York; y Hallie Golden en Seattle contribuyeron a este informe.

_______

Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.

Leer en español

The judge ordered the teenager, who has not yet been identified, to remain in “secure detention at this time” and prohibited him from having contact with the other students involved in the incident.

The case stems from a fight that occurred just before 12:30 p.m. Monday inside a back hallway at the Liberty City school that left an 18-year-old with a stab wound and a 15-year-old with a cut to his hand after an altercation occurred at the school located at 1100 NW 71st St. in the Liberty City neighborhood, according to Miami Fire Rescue officials.

Authorities said the 18-year-old was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in stable condition. The younger student was also hospitalized and was in stable condition.

An arrest report obtained Wednesday by Local 10 News lists the suspect’s age as 15 and confirms that he was found bleeding by an assistant principal and admitted to having a knife on him.

The parents of the teen accused in the stabbing told Local 10’s Trent Kelly after Tuesday’s hearing that their son had been mistreated and threatened by other students for days.

“He was threatening my son, mistreating him,” the teen’s father said.

A student who spoke with reporters Monday said bullying may have played a role in the confrontation.

A public defender also said the teen’s arrest report states that he was being jumped by two individuals and initially was the victim.

Cellphone video circulating on social media shows a crowd of students gathered in a hallway before two teens appear to confront the accused student. The video appears to show the two punching him and stomping on his head while he is on the ground.

The two teens then run away. The student who had been attacked gets back up and appears to chase them.

“When he got back up, he pulled something out of his pocket, which was a knife and started chasing after the person,” another student said.

The incident prompted a lockdown at the school as authorities searched for the suspect, according to investigators.

“They had the school on lockdown. Like what if he’s chasing after a person with a knife in his hand,” one student said.

Police confirmed that three arrests have been made in connection with the incident. Authorities said two of the three individuals are under the age of 18.

Editor’s note: Local 10 previously reported that the judge ordered home detention for the accused teen, but we learned that he would remain in secured detention. This story has been corrected.

El juez ordenó que el adolescente, cuya identidad aún no ha sido revelada, permanezca bajo arresto domiciliario con monitoreo electrónico y le prohibió tener contacto con la víctima.

El caso se deriva de una pelea ocurrida poco antes de las 12:30 p.m. del lunes dentro de un pasillo trasero de la escuela de Liberty City, que dejó a un joven de 18 años con una herida de arma blanca y a uno de 15 años con una cortada en la mano después de que ocurriera un altercado en la escuela ubicada en 1100 NW 71st St., en el vecindario de Liberty City, según funcionarios de Miami Fire Rescue.

Las autoridades dijeron que el joven de 18 años fue trasladado al Ryder Trauma Center del Jackson Memorial Hospital en condición estable. El estudiante más joven también fue hospitalizado y se encontraba en condición estable.

Los padres del sospechoso dijeron a Trent Kelly, de Local 10, después de la audiencia del martes que su hijo había sido maltratado y amenazado por otros estudiantes durante días.

“Estaba amenazando a mi hijo, maltratándolo”, dijo el padre del adolescente.

Un estudiante que habló con los reporteros el lunes dijo que el acoso escolar pudo haber influido en el enfrentamiento.

Un abogado de oficio también señaló que, según el atestado de la detención del adolescente, este fue agredido por dos personas y, en un primer momento, era la presunta víctima.

Un video grabado con un teléfono celular que circula en redes sociales muestra a un grupo de estudiantes reunidos en un pasillo antes de que dos adolescentes aparentemente confronten al estudiante acusado. El video parece mostrar a los dos golpeándolo y pateándole la cabeza mientras está en el suelo.

Los dos adolescentes luego huyen. El estudiante que había sido atacado se levanta y aparentemente los persigue.

“Cuando volvió a levantarse, sacó algo de su bolsillo, que era un cuchillo, y comenzó a perseguir a la persona”, dijo otro estudiante.

El incidente provocó un cierre de emergencia en la escuela mientras las autoridades buscaban al sospechoso, dijeron los estudiantes.

“Pusieron a la escuela bajo cierre. Como, ¿qué pasa si está persiguiendo a una persona con un cuchillo en la mano?”, dijo un estudiante.

La policía confirmó las otras tres detenciones están relacionadas con el incidente. Las autoridades indicaron que dos de los tres detenidos son menores de 18 años.

Nota del editor: Local 10 informó anteriormente que el juez había ordenado arresto domiciliario para el adolescente acusado, pero un enlace judicial confirmó que permanecerá bajo custodia en un centro de detención seguro. Esta nota ha sido corregida.

Leer en español

According to Hialeah police, the shooting was reported shortly after 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Aquabella community in the area of Northwest 91st Avenue and 170th Street.

Hialeah police officers and Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the scene.

Police said detectives learned that multiple people met at the location for a “pre-arranged physical fight” in order to “resolve an ongoing dispute.”

“During the confrontation, a handgun was produced and multiple shots were fired,” Lt. Eddie Rodriguez told Local 10 in an email Wednesday. “Witness statements and physical evidence revealed that the gunshots were directed at a victim who was fleeing on foot, as well as toward an occupied black Chevy Tahoe attempting to leave the scene. A round did (strike) the driver’s side of the vehicle.”

Rodriguez confirmed that no one was injured by the gunfire.

He identified the suspects as Luis Padilla Delatorre and Michael Isaac Delgado, both of whom are 17.

Delatorre and Delgado both face felony charges of attempted second-degree murder with a deadly weapon/firearm and shooting/throwing a deadly missile.

They were both transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center.

Según la policía de Hialeah, la balacera fue reportada poco después de las 2:30 p.m. del martes en la comunidad Aquabella, en el área de Northwest 91st Avenue y 170th Street.

Agentes de la policía de Hialeah y de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade respondieron a la escena.

La policía dijo que los detectives determinaron que varias personas se reunieron en el lugar para una “pelea física previamente acordada” con el fin de “resolver una disputa en curso”.

“Durante el enfrentamiento, se sacó un arma de fuego y se realizaron múltiples disparos”, dijo el teniente Eddie Rodriguez a Local 10 en un correo electrónico el miércoles. “Las declaraciones de los testigos y la evidencia física revelaron que los disparos fueron dirigidos contra una víctima que huía a pie, así como contra una Chevy Tahoe negra ocupada que intentaba abandonar la escena. Una bala impactó el lado del conductor del vehículo”.

Rodriguez confirmó que nadie resultó herido por los disparos.

Identificó a los sospechosos como Luis Padilla Delatorre y Michael Isaac Delgado, ambos de 17 años.

Delatorre y Delgado enfrentan cargos graves de intento de asesinato en segundo grado con un arma mortal/arma de fuego y disparar/lanzar un proyectil mortal.

Ambos fueron trasladados al Centro de Evaluación Juvenil.

Leer en español

“Ironside House of Games” is taking Tuesdays off the bench, drawing people from across South Florida for an evening built around a simple idea: Put down the phone, pull up a chair and play.

“You can just meet people, have fun, have a drink and by 11 o’clock some great friends are made,” said Gomeh Saias, the fractional chief marketing officer with Miami Ironside.

Game Night begins at 6 p.m. every Tuesday at Ironside Cafe Bistro and it’s open to the public.

Mahjong classes are held in one space and open chess play is held in another. All throughout the gardens and cafe you’ll find more games — everything from Candy Land to backgammon, and Catan to Guess Who. The event has evolved and grown over time.

Check out Miami Ironside’s Instagram page by clicking here.

To sign up for the Board Game Night at Miami Ironside, click here.

“You know, it started off as just a few people playing backgammon and then it built its way up into 150 people on a given Tuesday,” said Saias. “People just showing up, the collection of games started to grow, the type of personalities. It just became this melting pot, which was so representative of Miami to me.”

Miami Ironside is a sprawling creative community in Miami’s Upper Eastside, home to restaurants, businesses and spaces that host a variety of cultural, recreational and wellness activities.

The Tuesday programming extends beyond traditional board games on game night.

It draws in people from south Kendall up through West Palm Beach for a weeknight hangout.

“Human connection doesn’t generally happen in very loud environments where you can barely see or talk to each other,” said Saias. “It was a way for Ironside to bridge that gap and bring back the authentic, old-school Miami where you can just show up as you were and that’s really the spirit of Ironside.”

To submit an idea for What Connects Us, email whatconnectsus@wplg.com.

“Ironside House of Games” saca los martes de la banca, atrayendo a personas de todo el sur de Florida para una noche basada en una idea sencilla: dejar el teléfono, acercar una silla y jugar.

“Puedes simplemente conocer gente, divertirte, tomar algo y para las 11 en punto ya se han formado grandes amistades”, dijo Gomeh Saias, director de marketing fraccional de Miami Ironside.

La Noche de Juegos comienza a las 6 p.m. todos los martes en Ironside Cafe Bistro y está abierta al público.

Las clases de mahjong se llevan a cabo en un espacio y las partidas abiertas de ajedrez en otro. Por todos los jardines y el café encontrarás más juegos, desde Candy Land hasta backgammon, y desde Catan hasta Guess Who. El evento ha evolucionado y crecido con el tiempo.

Consulta la página de Instagram de Miami Ironside haciendo clic aquí.

Para inscribirte en la Noche de Juegos de Mesa en Miami Ironside, haz clic aquí.

“Sabes, comenzó con solo unas pocas personas jugando backgammon y luego fue creciendo hasta llegar a 150 personas un martes cualquiera”, dijo Saias. “La gente simplemente llegaba, la colección de juegos comenzó a crecer, al igual que el tipo de personalidades. Simplemente se convirtió en este crisol de culturas, que para mí era muy representativo de Miami”.

Miami Ironside es una extensa comunidad creativa en el Upper Eastside de Miami, sede de restaurantes, negocios y espacios que albergan una variedad de actividades culturales, recreativas y de bienestar.

La programación de los martes va más allá de los tradicionales juegos de mesa durante la Noche de Juegos.

Atrae a personas desde el sur de Kendall hasta West Palm Beach para pasar el rato entre semana.

“La conexión humana generalmente no ocurre en ambientes muy ruidosos donde apenas puedes verte o hablar con los demás”, dijo Saias. “Fue una forma para que Ironside cerrara esa brecha y recuperara el Miami auténtico de la vieja escuela, donde simplemente puedes llegar tal como eres, y ese es realmente el espíritu de Ironside”.

Para enviar una idea para What Connects Us, envía un correo electrónico a whatconnectsus@wplg.com.

As of Wednesday morning, Apple Maps displayed “Lake America” for U.S. users looking at the lake that sits between the state of New York and Canada’s Ontario province. Users outside of the U.S. still saw the Lake Ontario name.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Earlier this week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox that Trump had reached out to the company “directly” about the change.

The president declared the new “Lake America” name last week — marking one of the latest provocations during his trade war with Canada that is now hiking tariffs on both sides of the border. His executive order on Friday directed the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service.

Google Maps rolled out the change over the weekend, citing Trump's order and its already-established practice of using names assigned by the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (or GNIS).

“People using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America,’ those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names,” Google said in a brief statement on Saturday, reiterating that such updates “follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country.”

Trump cannot force Canada to also change the name of Lake Ontario. And America’s northern neighbors quickly panned the idea.

“It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever," Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote on social media Friday.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also rejected the move last week, invoking the lake’s Indigenous roots and noting that the name predates both the Canadian Confederation and U.S. Declaration of Independence. The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.”

This isn’t the first time Trump has moved to rename water spanning beyond U.S. borders. Last year, Trump ordered that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America — and Apple and Google, both based in California, later updated the name on their maps in the U.S.

But not all map providers have followed suit. MapQuest, in particular, has declared it won't be changing Lake Ontario's label — and gave users the option to name the lake “whatever you want" through a separate online tool. Both the Lake Ontario and Gulf of Mexico names still appear as default on its platform.

MapQuest, owned by California company System1, has reported a surge of downloads recently. On Wednesday, MapQuest topped the charts of free apps with new downloads in both the U.S. and Canada on Apple's App Store.

El proyecto de desarrollo, ubicado en el oeste de Miami-Dade cerca de Northwest 137th Avenue y el final de Dolphin Expressway, ha sido objeto de controversia.

“Hoy voté no, y la vez anterior, y la vez anterior”, dijo la comisionada Danielle Cohen Higgins. “Esto ha sido aplazado ocho veces diferentes”.

Cohen Higgins fue una de las que votó en contra.

“Este es un ejemplo de desgaste. Contaron los votos hasta que obtuvieron el número que necesitaban, y en general no apoyo ese procedimiento”, dijo Cohen Higgins. “Claramente, fue una solicitud extremadamente controversial que involucraba más de 140 acres de humedales muy, muy, muy sensibles fuera de nuestro Límite de Desarrollo Urbano. He sido consistente con estos temas y por eso voté no”.

“Una de las cosas que incluí en el acuerdo es que todo tiene que hacerse en el aspecto ambiental antes de cualquier construcción y cualquier permiso”, dijo la comisionada Raquel Regalado.

La comisionada Raquel Regalado, quien votó a favor, destacó las enmiendas a la solicitud que, según dijo, incluyen compromisos ampliados para la preservación de los humedales.

“Estamos hablando de más de 80 acres que vamos a poseer y mantener y vamos a tener, a perpetuidad, dinero para preservarlos y restaurarlos”, dijo Regalado.

El comisionado Rene Garcia señaló que Kelly Tractor ha “donado terrenos” al condado.

Mientras tanto, el vicealcalde de Miami-Dade, Roy Coley, dijo que Kelly Tractor demostró una necesidad económica “como participante internacional en el negocio de equipos y como participante en la respuesta a emergencias para todo el sur de Florida”.

“Ahora que se ha equilibrado la necesidad ambiental, nos parece mucho más aceptable”, dijo Coley.

En el pasado, un representante de la empresa dijo a los comisionados que han superado la capacidad de su espacio actual y necesitan adaptarse al crecimiento futuro.

“Cuando comenzamos esto hace tres años, el personal de planificación nos orientó hacia el proceso de enmiendas al texto, y hemos hecho todo lo que nos pidieron”, dijo el propietario Chris Kelly. “Somos propietarios del terreno desde 1984. Presentamos la solicitud hace tres años. Está justo en el Límite de Desarrollo Urbano. Está justo junto a la autopista. Tenemos un desarrollo de almacenes de 100 acres adyacente a nosotros”.

Un factor clave detrás de la controversia ha sido el proceso que utilizó la solicitud para llegar a la sede del condado, en forma de una enmienda al texto, que tiene umbrales más bajos que la solicitud más rigurosa que normalmente se requiere para pedir autorización para construir fuera del Límite de Desarrollo Urbano.

“Ahora las compuertas están abiertas y, tengan en cuenta, esta solicitud que se aprobó hoy no fue una solicitud para mover el Límite de Desarrollo Urbano. Fue una enmienda al texto y ahora exacerba el argumento de la pendiente resbaladiza”, dijo Cohen Higgins. “Ahora la comunidad de desarrolladores del condado de Miami-Dade tiene luz verde para venir. Esto absolutamente abre las compuertas.

“Ahora, para ser justos, sé que hay legislación para cerrar eso y no permitir enmiendas al texto en el futuro, pero en mi opinión, eso es simplemente un reconocimiento de que esto no se hizo correctamente”.

Garcia reconoció las preocupaciones, pero señaló lo que dijo que fue un extenso proceso de revisión.

“No discrepo con esa forma de pensar, pero con todo el escrutinio que tuvo esta solicitud, realmente ha ido mucho más allá de lo requerido”, dijo Garcia.

Coley dijo que la alcaldesa de Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, “exigió al solicitante que esencialmente hiciera todo lo que haría una solicitud del Límite de Desarrollo Urbano, y no obtuvieron mucho beneficio de una enmienda al texto”.

Regalado dijo que, aunque “desearía que hubiera sido una solicitud y no una enmienda al texto”, ella “ya limitó la enmienda al texto y eso va a regresar” a la comisión.

“Hace dos meses, ya aprobé una propuesta y fue aprobada por unanimidad, y ella votó a favor”, dijo Regalado.

Pero Cohen Higgins siguió sin estar convencida.

“No se hizo correctamente. Si estamos haciendo cambios legislativos para corregirlo, eso es una admisión de que está mal, así que no estoy segura de por qué aprobamos esto hoy. Pero obtuvieron los votos, así que felicitaciones a Kelly Tractor y lo siento mucho por el medio ambiente y por los muchos, muchos residentes que se opusieron vehementemente a esta solicitud”, dijo Cohen Higgins.

Un portavoz de las Escuelas Públicas del Condado Broward dijo a Local 10 News que todos los estudiantes y empleados están a salvo. También confirmaron que los directores de ambas escuelas “se mantuvieron en comunicación con los padres y las familias durante todo el día para mantenerlos informados sobre la situación”.

Hollywood Hills High School está ubicada en 5400 Stirling Road, mientras que Stirling Elementary School está ubicada en 5500 Stirling Road. Ambas escuelas están en Hollywood.

Funcionarios del Departamento de Policía de Hollywood dijeron que los agentes realizaban una investigación cerca de 56th Avenue y Stirling Road.

Sky 10 sobrevoló la escena alrededor de las 9:45 a.m. y observó una fuerte presencia policial en los campus escolares mientras los agentes investigaban el área.

“Por precaución, las escuelas en el área inmediata fueron puestas bajo confinamiento mientras los agentes realizan su investigación”, escribió la Policía de Hollywood en un comunicado en Facebook.

No se dieron a conocer de inmediato detalles adicionales sobre la amenaza reportada.

Leer en español

Lauderhill police officers arrested Campbell, 70, on Monday after a domestic violence investigation. He appeared before Broward County Circuit Judge Corey B. Friedman on Tuesday morning.

“He is going to fight this. We believe there is a lot more to this that is political in nature,” attorney Eric Schwartzreich said outside the jail.

Campbell, a physical therapist who served as commissioner from 2018 to 2020, has been campaigning for the election of the Lauderhill commission’s seat four on Nov. 3.

Before his arrest, Campbell told Local 10 News on Monday that the alleged victim was his ex-girlfriend, who refused to move out of his home for months.

Campbell faced charges of harassing a witness, a first-degree misdemeanor, and domestic battery, also a first-degree misdemeanor.

Friedman ordered Campbell to stay away from the victim of the alleged incident on Aug. 3 and her family. His bond was set at $7,500.

Related reports

• Lauderhill vice mayor campaigning for commission seat appears in Broward bond court after arrest
• Lauderhill vice mayor accused of domestic violence as he campaigns for commission seat

Agentes de la policía de Lauderhill arrestaron a Campbell, de 70 años, el lunes después de una investigación por violencia doméstica. Compareció ante el juez de circuito del condado Broward Corey B. Friedman el martes por la mañana.

“Él va a luchar contra esto. Creemos que hay mucho más detrás de esto que es de naturaleza política”, dijo el abogado Eric Schwartzreich afuera de la cárcel.

Campbell, un fisioterapeuta que se desempeñó como comisionado de 2018 a 2020, ha estado haciendo campaña para la elección del escaño cuatro de la comisión de Lauderhill el 3 de noviembre.

Antes de su arresto, Campbell dijo a Local 10 News el lunes que la presunta víctima era su ex novia, quien se negó a mudarse de su casa durante meses.

Campbell enfrentó cargos de acoso a un testigo, un delito menor de primer grado, y agresión doméstica, también un delito menor de primer grado.

Friedman ordenó a Campbell mantenerse alejado de la víctima del presunto incidente del 3 de agosto y de su familia. Su fianza fue fijada en $7,500 USD.

Reportes relacionados

• Vicealcalde de Lauderhill que hace campaña para escaño de la comisión comparece ante corte de fianzas de Broward tras arresto
• Acusan de violencia doméstica a vicealcalde de Lauderhill mientras hace campaña para escaño de la comisión

Flu vaccinations are beginning and COVID-19 shots are starting to arrive after the Food and Drug Administration approved this year’s updated versions last week. Winter also brings another vaccine-preventable risk called RSV. Exactly who should get one or all of these vaccines, and when?

That advice usually comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with help from its independent advisers. But despite no new scientific evidence, Trump health officials last year began pulling back on some longstanding recommendations for fall virus protection and routine children's vaccinations. And that advisory panel, which influences state and insurance vaccine policies, is caught in a court battle. The CDC didn't respond to questions about any new fall guidance.

Doctors’ groups are filling the gap: the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America each released vaccination guidelines for their patient populations.

“There’s been a lot of confusion and chaos regarding vaccine recommendations,” said Dr. Sandra Fryhofer, of the American Medical Association.

All the groups' recommendations plus evidence on shot safety and effectiveness are being posted on websites so “the public has clear, consistent, science-based guidance even while the federal process is in flux," Fryhofer said.

Just about everyone should get vaccinated against flu

Just about everybody starting at age 6 months needs flu vaccination, the medical societies agree. But flu is particularly dangerous for people 65 and older, pregnant women, young children and people of any age who have chronic health problems, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease and weak immune systems. The last two flu seasons were especially harsh, with unusually high numbers of child deaths — the vast majority of them in unvaccinated kids.

The vaccines don't block all flu infections but they do help prevent the worst outcomes, decreasing older adults' hospitalizations by 31%, according to the Vaccine Integrity Project, a public health group based at the University of Minnesota. Its analysis was published Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA.

Here's how to pick from the multiple flu vaccine options

Three “enhanced” flu vaccines are designed to better protect seniors. The American Academy of Family Physicians urges them to choose one — "but do not delay your vaccination if that one’s not available,” said AAFP’s Dr. Sarah Nosal.

There’s a new choice this year for people ages 50 and older, the first flu vaccine made with the same mRNA technology that was key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. One study found Moderna's mFlusiva was 27% more effective against symptomatic illness among 50- to 64-year-olds than a standard shot. The FDA just approved the new option and the company expects some doses to be available soon at certain pharmacies.

The shot-averse could choose a nasal spray, FluMist, if they're ages 2 to 49 and meet other health criteria.

The latest on COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19 shots once were recommended for just about everyone by federal health agencies, but like last year, the FDA has only formally approved them for higher-risk people — those ages 65 and older or younger people with at least one health condition that increases their risk.

Still, the family physicians recommend all adults get a COVID-19 vaccination, especially seniors and those with other risk factors. Adults 65 and older should get a fall dose and then a second dose six months later, as immunity wanes over time, Nosal said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a COVID-19 shot for all children ages 6 months to 23 months, and for older kids with high-risk conditions. It also supports vaccination for any child whose parent wishes it.

With millions of shots administered, there’s no evidence that coronavirus vaccination during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage or other problems, “so please get the vaccine,” said ACOG’s Dr. Christina Davidson.

Depending on age, people can choose a shot from Moderna, Pfizer, or the only non-mRNA version from Novavax and Sanofi.

Just like with flu vaccines, these shots are better at preventing severe disease than mild cases. The Vaccine Integrity Project said last fall’s COVID-19 shots cut the risk of hospitalization by 53% in seniors and slashed emergency room visits for very young children.

Common side effects for flu and COVID-19 vaccines are mild and temporary, such as sore arms, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches, and mild fever. They occurred somewhat more often with the new mFlusiva than with standard flu shots.

Here's where you can get vaccinated

While pediatricians and some clinics offer both flu and coronavirus shots, they're most common in pharmacies.

For COVID-19 shots, states have more pharmacy rules. For example, Walgreens says it offers those shots without a prescription in all but two states, Arizona and Oregon, but can provide doses for children as young as 3 in some states while others have higher age limits.

Medicare covers the fall shots and most private health insurers say they plan to continue doing so through 2027.

How to time your vaccination

October is ideal for a flu vaccine, as influenza typically starts spreading in November. COVID-19 tends to rise in late summer, as it is now, and again after the winter holidays. Fryhofer says it’s fine to time the coronavirus shot a few weeks ahead of an event you wouldn’t want to miss because of illness, like a special trip or get-together.

RSV is a nuisance for many, but it can be deadly for some

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, typically is a cold-like nuisance during the fall, winter and early spring. But it can be severe, even life-threatening, for infants and older adults.

The family physicians recommend a one-time vaccination for adults 75 and older, people 50 to 74 who are at increased risk, or younger people with weak immune systems.

It’s also recommended during late pregnancy to protect infants born during RSV season. Separately, the pediatricians recommend a vaccine-like medication for high-risk infants.

___

The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and 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.

Across five decades, Menudo transformed to meet the current cultural moment. When its members turned 16, most were replaced, making way for newer, junior performers to match its perpetually youthful and increasingly global audience. It worked. And across their run, the group featured over 40 performers.

So, how was the reunion lineup determined? That decision was made by businessperson Paul Tarnopol, who acquired the Menudo brand name and selected the seven who will hit the road later this year: Rene Farrait (who was in the band from 1979-1982), Roy Rossello (1983-1986), Raymond Acevedo (1985-1988), Sergio Gonzales (1986-1990), Ralphy Rodriguez (1987), Ruben Gomez (1987-1990) and Robert Avellanet (1988-1991).

The tour kicks off on Oct. 10 at Los Angeles' YouTube Theater before hitting Chicago's Rosemont Theatre on Oct. 17, New York's United Palace on Nov. 7, Mexico City's Metropolitan Theatre on Nov. 28 and Hollywood, Florida's Hard Rock Live on Dec. 4. It will conclude at San Juan, Puerto Rico's Coca-Cola Music Hall on Dec. 12.

During an interview in Miami, the band told The Associated Press they didn't want to spoil the setlist, but assured that “There's going be motorcycles in the production, for sure,” in reference to their 1981 single “Súbete A Mi Moto.”

“It’s going to be hits,” Avellanet jumped in.

Below, the septet discussed rehearsals, choreography, Puerto Rico and how Menudo has continued to resonate across generations.

Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: This lineup spans generations of Menudo. It's like a new band.

ACEVEDO: It's been quite an exciting time to be able to come together again after all these years, even though some of us have been together on stage on other projects. … But, for example, I’ve never been on stage with René and it’s an honor. He is like, you now, one of the OGs. … We have a lot of chemistry.

AP: How have rehearsals gone? Are you relearning old choreography?

AVELLANET: We’re rehearsing a lot. A lot. It’s been like three weeks so far, a lot of muscle ache, you know, we are recovering still. No, it’s coming out super, super great. I've learned stuff that I didn’t learn in Menudo, that I didn’t sing … but it’s fine. We’re all professionals and we’ve done it before.

AP: And what about the songs — do you have to adjust them for your matured voices?

RODRIGUEZ: Some of the songs, especially the earlier songs, the voices were a lot higher and maybe you go down like three steps, or something like that. But then there are other songs throughout the generations where we’re only going, like, one step down. So, it’s actually not that different, which is kind of cool. But either way, whether it’s the older ones or the middle ones or the newer ones, there’s still that freshness. There’s still that Menudo magic because it’s us who’s singing it. And because we still have that child, that inner child in us that’s coming out while we’re singing.

ACEVEDO: We’re not going to name names of songs because it’s a surprise, but it’s super cool to be able to do that. And it just takes you in this journey. … It’s going to be very visual as well. And it’s going bring back all that nostalgic feeling, definitely.

GOMEZ: It’s a visual time, you know, traveling through time.

AP: The last Menudo album was in 1996, 30 years ago. Are you working on new music?

GONZALES: We’re concentrating on the anniversary. But who knows what could happen in the future?

ACEVEDO: We are just, like, full force. So, who knows what’s gonna happen after? Go to these shows and you tell us.

AP: Fifty years on, and Menudo is still viewed as the biggest Latino boy band of all time. What is it about this group that people continue to love and connect with?

GOMEZ: I think it’s the music. … The formula of the songs, in conjunction with the dancing, the music really speaks for itself. When you hear a Menudo song, before the song ends, you already know the lyrics. And that’s a real song. And they were just written by incredible writers. They were from Spain. Carlos Villa, Alejandro Monroy. They were the ones who actually created that whole sound and the songs. I think the songs are what keeps it going.

ACEVEDO: The songs and then the visual obviously. Menudo, the dances, in sync with the music — and you know, the time Menudo came out, there was just there was nothing like it.

AP: Menudo is also hitting the road at a time where people all over the world are thinking about, looking toward and celebrating Puerto Rico — especially musically. Is there something special about bringing this group back now?

ACEVEDO: Historically, yes, we are in a great moment to be part of this Menudo 50 anniversary because it’s like you said, Latin music has evolved to the point where it’s super international now. And in the States, in the majority of places, you’re hearing Latino music. And we’re proud. We’re proud to be pioneers in this whole thing — especially from Puerto Rico, and all our artist friends from Puerto Rico that have been successful, like Ricky (Martin,) now Bad Bunny and all that stuff. We’re super proud of all that. And to do it again at this level, it’s just a blessing.

Schools and municipal offices were closed and residents were told to stay at home. Some areas northwest of Beaumont, where the center of the storm passed Tuesday, received between 10 inches (25 centimeters) and 21 inches (53 centimeters) of rain in a matter of hours, the National Weather Service and emergency officials said.

The storm was downgraded Tuesday night, hours after making landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center. The system was losing strength as it pushed inland but was still producing heavy rains and some flooding Wednesday. It was expected to break up by Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, a burst of tropical weather continued in the Pacific Ocean, where two hurricanes and a tropical storm that was likely to develop into one were churning in open waters Wednesday.

Edouard makes landfall along Texas-Louisiana line and floods some roads

As the center of Edouard passed over Beaumont, Texas, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Houston, it left a path of downed trees blocking roads, traffic signals that weren’t working and flooded underpasses, Beaumont police said in a post on social media. Some drivers were stranded in floodwaters and needed help.

One weather station in Port Arthur, Texas, recorded a 90 mph (145 kph) wind gust Tuesday.

The storm moved north early Wednesday, prompting flood warnings.

“This is a particularly dangerous situation. Seek higher ground now!” the weather service said in a post affecting rural communities in parts of Hardin and Tyler counties in southeast Texas.

The post said the expected rainfall rate was an inch (2.5 centimeters) to 5 inches (13 centimeters) in an hour Wednesday, in addition to what had already fallen.

About 75,000 utility customers across at least eight counties were without electricity as of Wednesday morning, according to poweroutage.com.

2 hurricanes and a tropical storm are in the Pacific Ocean

Tropical Storm Marie was well offshore of southwest Mexico in the Pacific and was expected to become a hurricane Wednesday, the Miami-based hurricane center said. Swells generated by the storm were expected to affect parts of the coast in southwestern Mexico and the Baja California peninsula over the next few days.

They will likely spread to southern California over the weekend, the center said.

“These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” it said.

Forecasters said Hurricane Lowell in the Pacific, a Category 4 storm, was expected to remain several hundred miles away from Hawaii for the next several days at least, but swells from the hurricane were likely to impact parts of the islands beginning Wednesday. Lowell was expected to remain a powerful storm through Friday.

Elsewhere in the Pacific, Karina has strengthened into a powerful Category 4 storm. Some additional strengthening was expected Wednesday, but forecasters said it should weaken over the next few days.

___

Stengle reported from Dallas. Associated Press journalists Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, Julie Walker in New York and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

Law enforcement officials responded to Hialeah’s Aquabella community in the area of Northwest 91st Avenue and 170th Street, according to Lt. Eddie Rodriguez, a spokesman for HPD.

“Officers have detained multiple individuals and located two suspected vehicles,” Rodriguez wrote in a statement.

Police officers asked the public to avoid the area.

“Preliminary searches thus far have located no injured persons; however, this remains an active, fluid, and developing investigation,” Rodriguez wrote.

Westlake Preparatory School and Academy, at 13835 NW 97 Ave., was temporarily on lockdown due to police activity.

El martes se llevó a cabo una votación en la Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos, luego de que el alcalde de North Miami Beach, Michael Joseph, y Hector Roos, quien trabajó anteriormente en las campañas de Cherfilus-McCormick para el Congreso, fueran acusados de no cumplir con múltiples citaciones.

Desde entonces, el asunto ha sido remitido al Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos en relación con un posible procesamiento penal.

Las condenas por desacato al Congreso pueden conllevar una multa de hasta $100,000 USD y una sentencia de un año de prisión.

Cherfilus-McCormick renunció al Congreso en abril, poco antes de que el Comité de Ética de la Cámara de Representantes se dispusiera a votar sobre su posible expulsión.

Esto ocurrió después de que el comité la declarara culpable de 25 violaciones éticas y de financiamiento de campaña.

Cherfilus-McCormick está acusada de robar o utilizar indebidamente alrededor de $5 millones USD en fondos federales de ayuda por COVID-19 que estaban destinados a un negocio de atención médica administrado por su familia.

Anteriormente se declaró no culpable de cargos penales relacionados con los fondos de ayuda.

La votación del martes se realizó verbalmente, lo que significa que no existen registros de los votos individuales de los legisladores.

Local 10 News se comunicó con Joseph para solicitar comentarios y actualizará esta historia si/cuando responda.

Not this year, not after Ceuta became the epicenter of Spain's worst border crisis in living memory.

What would’ve been the city’s annual day of celebration is instead overshadowed by a humanitarian crisis that is generating tensions in the tiny exclave, on the mainland and even spilling over into other countries.

In lieu of festivities in Ceuta, a protest is the main event. There are also demonstrations planned in cities across Spain, whose prime minister has alleged — without presenting any evidence to the public — that other nations spread disinformation to cause the crisis.

A border rush and the fallout

Last month, about 72,000 people poured into the small Spanish territory neighboring Morocco, with at least 90 dying in the effort to reach Europe.

Most of the migrants quickly returned or were ushered back over the border, but around 5,000, including 1,200 minors, remain in Ceuta weeks later, according to the national government. Difficult questions likewise linger over what caused the mass crossing that the government says was fueled by an online campaign on social media.

The sudden influx of tens of thousands of migrants into Ceuta, which has a population of about 84,000, put a huge strain on resources and angered many residents. Local authorities said that Spain's central government ignored warning signs before the border was breached.

“What happened to us was not a migratory crisis,” Ceuta's regional leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, said during an institutional act on Wednesday to mark the holiday. “What happened was the violation of Spain's territorial integrity."

Vivas is a member of Spain's leading conservative Popular Party. The PP and Spain's far-right Vox party have latched onto the Ceuta crisis and made it the focus of a political fight to oust the left-wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Madrid.

Protests called against government

The organizer of Wednesday's protests scheduled at 8 p.m. in Madrid and more than 200 other towns is the officially nonpartisan Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces. But the protests are being promoted by PP and Vox, which is strongly against irregular migration.

Spain’s minister of territorial policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, told Spanish National Radio on Wednesday that the protests were politically motivated.

“This is not to show support for the city of Ceuta or its residents; it is to attack the government of Spain,” Torres said.

Spain's government denied criticism it has left Ceuta behind. This week, it earmarked 309 million euros ($357 million) to aid Ceuta's social services, with special attention to housing migrants, its economy and security.

Madrid defends Rabat but alleges Russian, Israeli foul play

Many in Spain have asked if Morocco's government could have done more to prevent the frontier breakthrough.

Sánchez, however, has repeatedly defended the Moroccan authorities, saying they were swift to help in the return of most of the migrants.

“There is no information from any of our intelligence services that points to the participation of Moroccan authorities,” Sánchez told Cadena Ser radio on Monday.

Sánchez, a Socialist who faces an election next year, said that a misinterpretation of a Supreme Court ruling and disinformation spread on social media encouraged people to rush the border.

Sánchez also accused social media accounts linked to Russia and Israel and right-wing groups of exploiting and amplifying the Ceuta crisis after it happened on July 30 and 31.

Both the Israeli and the Russian governments have refuted that claim.

“Without facts, without materials backed up by numbers, dates, names there is simply nothing to talk about," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters.

Sánchez’s government didn't provide examples of Russian or Israeli disinformation campaigns, instead citing internal reports from its Foreign Affairs Ministry and the European Commission's diplomatic service.

Life in Ceuta still not back to normal

Many migrants, including unaccompanied minors, remain sleeping in the streets and camped on a beach despite authorities’ efforts to shelter, register and deport those who are eligible back to Morocco.

“We’re suffering and we want to get to Europe or find a solution right now. Here, we’re all sleeping on the beach and having a really hard time,” Moroccan Nebil Tazi told The Associated Press. “We’ve been waiting for a month, waiting for a solution here, but there isn’t one.”

Vivas, Ceuta's leading official, said that the focus should be on getting the autonomous city back to "normality," as he vowed to continue to pursue the “truth” behind the crisis.

He urged Spain's central government to reinforce and strengthen the border with Morocco instead of depending on cooperation with its neighbor.

“If we don't do this, there will always be someone tempted to use migration as a tool for political ends," Vivas said.

In a recorded video message published Wednesday, Sánchez said his government was putting all resources so Ceuta's residents could return to tranquility.

The Ceuta holiday commemorates Sept. 2, 1415, when the first Portuguese governor disembarked a few weeks after Portuguese soldiers claimed the terrain. It then passed into Spanish hands in 1580.

___

Joseph Wilson reported and Renata Brito contributed to this report from Barcelona.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday ordered the dismissal of Bergdahl's claims in district court. The panel said District Judge Reggie Walton in Washington lacked the jurisdiction to vacate Bergdahl’s court-martial conviction and sentence in 2023.

Bergdahl had sued in 2021, arguing that the punishment violated his Fifth Amendment due-process rights. Walton ruled that military judge Jeffrey Nance created a potential conflict of interest by failing to disclose his application for a position as an immigration judge in the Justice Department.

But the appeals court concluded that only military tribunals have the authority to vacate a court-martial judgment.

“Bergdahl’s claim thus conflicts with that longstanding limitation,” Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins wrote.

Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas also heard the appeal in Bergdahl's case. Srinivasan and Wilkins were nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama. Katsas was nominated by Republican President Donald Trump.

Eugene Fidell, one of Bergdahl’s lawyers, said they were weighing their legal options after Tuesday's decision.

“We’re certainly disappointed. It’s an important case that raises serious issues,” Fidell said. "The case has lasted a long time, but we are closely examining the available alternatives.”

Bergdahl, then a 23-year-old soldier from Hailey, Idaho, was stationed near Afghanistan's Paktika Province in June 2009 when he left his post without permission to hike to headquarters to complain about what he viewed as poor leadership in his unit.

Bergdahl was captured by forces from the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network and repeatedly tortured before his release from captivity in 2014 as part of a prisoner swap that was sharply criticized by Trump and others while he was running for his first term as president.

Several U.S. service members were wounded during the search for Bergdahl, who was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after his release from captivity. He pleaded guilty to both charges in 2017 and was dishonorably discharged. Prosecutors at his court-martial had sought 14 years in prison.

Funcionarios cubanos permanecieron en silencio después de que Diario Las Américas reportara el martes que el líder de 95 años, quien fue presidente de Cuba durante 12 años, había sufrido un derrame cerebral y estaba conectado a soporte vital.

Castro, quien se retiró formalmente en abril de 2021, aún conserva el rango militar de general en Cuba y un escaño en la Asamblea Nacional.

Antes del comunismo

Castro nació el 3 de junio de 1931 en el pueblo de Birán, en la provincia cubana de Holguín. Su padre, Angel Castro, nació en España, y su madre, Lina Ruz González, nació en Cuba.

Castro era el menor de siete hermanos: dos hermanos, Fidel y Ramón, y cuatro hermanas, Angela, Juana, Emma y Agustina. Fue estudiante de escuelas católicas jesuitas, el Colegio Dolores en Santiago y el Colegio de Belén en La Habana.

Castro asistió a la Universidad de La Habana. Fue miembro de la Juventud Socialista, un grupo del Partido Socialista Popular, y participó en la campaña guerrillera en la Sierra Maestra.

Guerrillero

Castro fue arrestado después del ataque guerrillero al cuartel militar de Moncada el 26 de julio de 1953 y fue sentenciado a 13 años de prisión, pero solo cumplió 22 meses.

Castro recibió la amnistía del entonces presidente cubano Fulgencio Batista y fue liberado de la prisión Presidio Modelo el 15 de mayo de 1955, en la Isla de Pinos.

Castro se exilió en México. En 1956, en Ciudad de México, Castro conoció a Ernesto “Che” Guevara, quien se había graduado de la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Buenos Aires en 1953.

Castro, su hermano Fidel y Guevara viajaron a bordo del yate Granma, que desembarcó con decenas de guerrilleros el 2 de diciembre de 1956 en Playas Las Coloradas, en el oriente de Cuba.

Castro se unió a su hermano, Guevara y otros guerrilleros en las montañas de la Sierra Maestra. El grupo derrocó a Batista, quien luego huyó de Cuba el 1 de enero de 1959.

Castro se casó con Vilma Lucila Espín Guillois, una compañera guerrillera nacida en Santiago de Cuba, el 26 de enero de 1959. La pareja tuvo cuatro hijos: tres hijas, Déborah en 1960, Mariela en 1962 y Nilsa; y un hijo, Alejandro, en 1965.

Ascenso al poder

Mientras su hermano ascendía al poder, Castro fue nombrado ministro de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Cuba en 1959.

En 1996, Castro ordenó el derribo de aeronaves civiles con pilotos y tripulantes de Hermanos al Rescate. La Fuerza Aérea Cubana atacó y mató a Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña y Pablo Morales.

Castro se convirtió en jefe de Estado provisional de Cuba el 31 de julio de 2006. Su esposa, Espín Guillois, murió el 18 de junio de 2007.

Castro también se desempeñó como presidente interino del Consejo de Estado y del Consejo de Ministros de Cuba de 2006 a 2008. La Asamblea Nacional lo eligió presidente el 24 de febrero de 2008.

En 2011, Castro fue elegido primer secretario del Partido Comunista. En 2013, la Asamblea Nacional lo eligió para un segundo mandato de cinco años.

En 2014, Castro anunció el inicio de la normalización de las relaciones con Estados Unidos y negoció con Rusia la cancelación del 90% de una deuda que había comenzado con la Unión Soviética.

Castro recibió al entonces presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, y a la entonces primera dama Michelle Obama en La Habana el 20 de marzo de 2016.

Fidel Castro murió el 25 de noviembre de 2016, a los 90 años.

Castro se desempeñó como presidente hasta el 19 de abril de 2018, cuando Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, su sucesor elegido por él, lo reemplazó.

En 2021, Castro renunció como líder del Partido Comunista y Díaz-Canel Bermúdez también lo reemplazó.

Mientras ejercía el poder tras bastidores, Castro ha continuado haciendo apariciones públicas, principalmente con su uniforme militar.

El 23 de abril, un gran jurado federal de Estados Unidos en Miami acusó a Raúl Castro por su papel en los ataques militares cubanos de 1996 contra dos Cessna desarmados con cuatro miembros de Hermanos al Rescate.

El 20 de mayo, el Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos hizo públicos los cargos: conspiración para matar a ciudadanos estadounidenses, cuatro cargos de asesinato y dos cargos de destrucción de una aeronave.

Castro no hizo ni emitió una declaración sobre los cargos.

Esta es una noticia en desarrollo.

Redes sociales relacionadas

Como expresara el General Ejército Raúl Castro en Belgrado, el 5 de septiembre de 1989, durante la IX Cumbre del Movimiento de Países No Alineados #MNOAL:

“La seguridad y la paz de los ricos no son aquellas por las cuales luchamos los países pobres. Queremos paz con soberanía,…” pic.twitter.com/nRHUq5271Z

— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) September 1, 2026

Before the hearing in Marin County began, Woods, 50, sat at the defense table looking back at the mostly empty courtroom gallery. He said little as he agreed to the reduced charge.

He arrived at the courthouse with his girlfriend, Vanessa Trump, President Donald Trump’s former daughter-in-law, and she sat behind him during the proceedings.

Woods, still one of golf's most influential figures and as recognizable as any athlete in the world, has had a remarkable fall since winning the 2019 Masters for his 15th major. His career has been derailed by multiple back and knee surgeries, car crashes and dependence on pain medication.

He was arrested in March after his SUV clipped a truck and rolled over on its side on a beachside residential road near his home on Jupiter Island. A sheriff’s report said deputies found two pain pills in his pocket and he showed signs of impairment. He did a Breathalyzer test, which came out negative, but refused to take a urine test.

He pleaded not guilty to the original DUI charge.

The prosecutor in the case said two toxicologists found there was insufficient proof of his impairment and determined Woods had built up a “pharmacological” tolerance.

Thomas Bakkedahl, a state attorney, defended his decision to accept the plea, saying, “I did what I think is right.”

Woods left the courthouse without addressing reporters. He also pleaded no contest to refusing to submit to testing after the crash and was fined $1,500, according to court documents.

“If you were to drive for any reason at all, you would immediately go back to jail,” Judge Darren Steele told Woods.

Woods' attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but means the accused will offer no defense. The plea is treated as a conviction in the criminal justice system.

Neither Woods nor the person in the other vehicle were injured in the crash, according to officials. But his Land Rover caused $5,000 in damage to the truck, according to a police report. Woods had told a deputy that he was looking down at his phone and changing the radio station when he hit the truck.

Woods has been involved in four crashes over the years. He took a leave from the golf tour after the 2009 crash and again after the latest crash and has yet to return to tournament play.

He left the United States to seek treatment at an inpatient treatment facility, according to court records.

Woods made his first public appearance since returning from treatment on June 23 when he introduced the PGA Tour’s plans to revamp its schedule for 2028. Woods remained as chairman of the tour’s Future Competition Committee after his arrest. He did not take questions during that appearance.

High-income earners, many of them employees at AI companies, are snapping up multimillion-dollar houses in the San Francisco Bay Area, undaunted by the higher mortgage rates and rising home prices that have prevented many would-be buyers from affording a home.

The Bay Area buying spree is the clearest manifestation of a nationwide trend of sales of upper-end properties largely holding up better than sales of less expensive homes. Metro areas such as San Diego, Miami, Detroit, Nashville and Tampa, Florida, are also seeing upper-market homes sell at a faster pace.

The hotter market for luxury properties comes at a time when the broader housing market remains stuck in a yearslong rut. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, moored at a 30-year low. Most recently, they slowed again in July. Sales of newly built homes, which make up a far smaller part of the housing market, are also down this year.

Underpinning the luxury market are affluent home shoppers who can afford to shrug off rising mortgage rates and often pay all cash for a home or come up with a large down payment by raising funds through sales of stocks or other investments.

Stock market gains powered by the artificial intelligence boom have helped boost investors’ portfolios. The benchmark S&P 500 is up solidly this year and remains near its most recent all-time high.

“These people have lots of money and they’re just not going to be very sensitive to things like mortgage rates or home prices,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. “They want the home they want and they have the money to buy it.”

The trend is the housing market version of the “K-shaped” economy, where wealthier households pull ahead of middle- and lower-income ones. In this case, many would-be homebuyers remain on the sideline while affluent buyers drive sales of luxury homes.

Sales of pricier homes are holding up better

Nationally, sales of luxury homes, defined as properties in the top 5% of a metro area by price, rose 2% in the first half of this year, compared to the same period in 2025, according to data from Redfin. Sales of middle-of-the-market homes, or properties closest to an area’s median price, rose 1.9% in the same period.

The dichotomy in the market can better be seen in price appreciation. The median sales price of a luxury home nationally between January and June was roughly $1.37 million, a 4.3% increase from a year earlier. For homes in the middle of the market, the median sales price rose 1.4% to $377,245.

In the San Francisco metro area, sales of luxury homes soared 39.3% in the first half of this year compared to a year earlier, while middle-market home sales surged 15.1%.

And across the bay in Oakland, sales of upper-market homes jumped 13.3%, while sales of middle-market properties rose 3.9%.

Several other metro areas not plugged into the AI boom are also seeing sales and price growth for luxury homes.

Among the most notable examples: in the Tampa metro area, luxury home sales surged 35.5% in the January-June period, while sales of middle-market homes fell 5.1%. In Nashville, sales of upper-market homes jumped 10.8%, while sales of middle-market properties rose only 1.7%. And in Detroit, sales of higher-end properties vaulted 8.7% compared to a 6% decline in sales of middle-market homes.

All told, sales of luxury homes so far this year are outpacing or have declined less than those of middle-market homes in 44% of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas.

Urgency to buy a home before potential AI IPOs

In the Bay Area, tech companies bent on winning the race to develop artificial intelligence into a profitable business have juiced compensation to recruit talented executives and software engineers, widening the pool of high-income earners. Many of these employees have been buying homes, often outdoing rival buyers by offering well above the asking price, real estate agents say.

The Bay Area housing market could get even hotter should two of the biggest names in AI follow through on their intent to become publicly traded companies. OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, and Anthropic, home to Claude, filed preliminary paperwork in June for initial public offerings. Neither has yet decided on the timing.

An analysis by Redfin that looked at how much employees at both companies stand to gain potentially from the companies going public estimated that the combined IPO earnings would be enough to buy nearly one-third of all homes in San Francisco.

Just the possibility of these two blockbuster IPOs is building pressure on some home shoppers in the Bay Area to buy sooner, rather than later. They worry they’ll face a flood of newly minted millionaires ready to pounce, further ratcheting up competition in the San Francisco housing market.

Julio Bermudez, an AI data infrastructure company executive in the Bay Area, had been looking to buy his first home for about a year, but his search took on new urgency.

“So, you start taking a look at that and you take a look at your own position — both from just a diversification standpoint, as well as the fact that we’re trying to set roots here, kids are in school, all that good stuff,” said Bermudez, 41. ”And it’s like we don’t want to be priced out, so we need to buy now.”

Recently, Bermudez entered into a contract to buy a five-bedroom, four-bath house in Orinda, about 17 miles northeast of San Francisco. The seller was asking $3.5 million, but agreed to sell for $3.3 million.

“I felt like this was sort of an interesting time and location to try to strike before it really does get crazy,” he said.

In March, Woods’ Land Rover clipped a truck, rolled onto its side and the legendary golfer was arrested, officials said. Woods pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence in the case in Martin County circuit court, just north of Palm Beach County.

He is expected in court Wednesday morning for a plea conference hearing, according to a notice of the hearing posted Tuesday. No additional details about the nature of the plea change were released.

Woods’ attorney, Doug Duncan, and the State Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press requesting additional information.

Woods was traveling at high speeds on a beachside residential road on Jupiter Island with a 30 mph (nearly 50 kph) speed limit when his Land Rover caused $5,000 in damage to the truck, according to an incident report. He managed to crawl out of the vehicle without any injuries and told a deputy that he was looking down at his phone and changing the radio station when he hit the truck.

Woods agreed to a Breathalyzer test that showed no signs of alcohol, but refused a urine test, authorities said. A sheriff’s office report said deputies found two pain pills in his pocket, and he showed signs of impairment.

Woods has traveled outside of the United States to seek treatment at an inpatient treatment facility, according to court records.

In July, Judge Darren Steele approved an agreement in which prosecutors were allowed to review medical records related to Woods’ crash and arrest. The judge signed off on a similar agreement in May that grants prosecutors access to all prescription medication records for Woods at a Palm Beach pharmacy from the start of the year through the end of March.

Woods, 50, is among the most influential figures in golf and is as recognizable as any athlete in the world. The first person of Black heritage to win the Masters in 1997, he has captivated golf fans with records likely never to be broken.

But his career has been derailed by multiple back and knee surgeries, car accidents and pain pill dependence.

Woods has been involved in four crashes over the years. In 2021, he survived a crash in Los Angeles that damaged his right leg so badly he said doctors considered amputation. In 2009, his SUV plowed into a fire hydrant and tree outside his home near Orlando, Florida.

He took a leave from the golf tour after the 2009 accident and again after the latest crash and has yet to return to tournament play.

Woods made his first public appearance since returning from treatment on June 23 when he introduced the PGA Tour’s plans to revamp its schedule for 2028. Woods remained as chairman of the tour’s Future Competition Committee after his arrest. He did not take questions in that appearance.

___

Associated Press writer Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told the Trump administration Tuesday to “stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough,” as he pushed back against a fresh wave of taunts from Washington. Carney said U.S.-Canada trade talks could resume if Washington becomes serious about negotiations.

And a record percentage of Americans — about 9 in 10 — 89% — believe there's widespread corruption in the U.S. government, according to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday. That’s up 10 percentage points from last year.

Here's the Latest:

Energy secretary Wright says US ‘not taking any oil ’ from Venezuela

On a visit to Caracas, Wright said the US. is “not taking any oil here” in its deal to develop Venezuela’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.

“This is a deal between a commercial enterprise that’s operating in Venezuela today,” Wright told Bloomberg TV Wednesday. “We’re just coming in as a partner, a passive partner ... with very active controls to make sure highest business practices are followed, and to work with them to bring more capital so we can accelerate the development of these (oil) reserves.”

Under the deal, the U.S. is entering a joint venture with North American Blue Energy Partners, a company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. The company is already the second largest operator in Venezuela, behind Chevron.

Wright is expected to meet with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez and announce agreements with energy companies.

Now Apple has matched Google in showing “Lake America” to US users

Apple’s move followed competitor Google days after Trump ordered a new name for the body of water. Users outside of the U.S. still see the name the lake has had since before the U.S. and Canada existed.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox this week that Trump had reached out to the company “directly” about the change.

The president’s executive order on Friday directed the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System, as one of the latest provocations during his trade war with Canada.

MapQuest declared that it won’t change Lake Ontario’s label, and was topping the charts for downloads of free apps Wednesday in Apple’s App Store. The app owned by California-based System1 also gave users the option to name the lake “whatever you want.”

Marco Rubio says Iran will ‘continue to feel the squeeze’ as hostilities resume

The secretary of state said the US will continue pressuring Iran until it drops any nuclear weapons ambitions and ends support for terrorism in the Middle East and beyond.

“The core and central issue is in the end that Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“They want money for two things, to sponsor terrorism and to obtain a nuclear weapon,” he told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade in an interview aired on Wednesday. They spoke on Tuesday shortly after Trump announced that the U.S. had resumed military operations against Iran in and around the Strait of Hormuz, but before Iran retaliated by attacking American interests in the region.

Rubio said “they keep shooting at things” in the strait, and so the U.S. “will continue to target those things that pose a threat to our forces and to international shipping.”

Will a 100-year deal giving US control over Venezuelan oil survive future administrations?

The Venezuelan Constitution states that such arrangements must be approved by the National Assembly, which has not happened, wrote Ian Vásquez, vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute.

“The deal lacks legitimacy since it was agreed to with a dictatorship that has clung to power for decades through violence and by committing what was probably the largest electoral fraud in Latin American history in 2024,” Vásquez wrote. “The agreement was also reached under overwhelming pressure, military and otherwise, from the United States. As such, any future Venezuelan democracy will question the deal, thus undermining confidence in the current arrangement.”

US energy secretary promotes Trump deal to control Venezuelan oil

The private company the Trump administration is creating to control a huge part of Venezuela’s oil reserves is a joint venture with North American Blue Energy Partners — a detail the White House had withheld for days. NABEP, owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, is already the second-largest operator in Venezuela, behind Chevron.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright promoted the deal Wednesday on “Squawk Box” on CNBC.

“What we’re doing is increasing the confidence for private businesses to come do deals in Venezuela, directly with the government of Venezuela, and possibly also with the partnership between NABEP. This is President Trump’s grand plan to replace conflict with commerce,” Wright said.

Analysts are skeptical, saying it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, and questions remain about whether Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez has the legal authority to give the company 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels.

Trump said major US oil companies are reinvesting in Venezuela. ExxonMobil says otherwise

Trump has eyed Venezuela’s oil since the capture of Nicolás Maduro and he’s been pressing to get U.S. businesses back into the country. “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said in January, and suggested again on Monday that U.S. oil majors were readying for a return.

Other than Chevron, which already operates in Venezuela, there is no evidence of that. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said in January that Venezuela was “ uninvestable,” and a company spokesman said this week that “nothing has changed.”

Marco Rubio downplays CIA chief’s visit to Moscow as ‘routine’

The U.S. Secretary of State is downplaying the significance of CIA chief John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow last month, saying it was a “routine” trip aimed at keeping communications channels open.

Reports emerged that Ratcliffe warned Russia during his visit about assistance to Iran and its military position in its war with Ukraine.

“The United States does need to be able to communicate with Russia (and) his visit there was largely routine in that sense,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that aired on Wednesday. “This is not unusual.”

“It wasn’t part of any sort of broader initiative,” Rubio said in the interview that was recorded on Tuesday.

Chinese government expresses ‘serious concerns’ after man’s death in ICE custody

The Chinese government is pressing for answers after a Chinese man died hours after being taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a U.S. territorial lockup.

Lianyong Wei, 51, died early Aug. 23 at a hospital in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, ICE announced in a press release Tuesday. ICE said his cause of death was under investigation.

“We have expressed serious concerns to the relevant U.S. authorities over this incident and required a timely and thorough investigation into the cause of Mr. Wei’s death, notification of the findings, measures to prevent any recurrence of similar incidents, and assistance to the family of the deceased in handling the aftermath,” the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles said in a statement.

American motorists and truckers pay more for gas as Iran war fighting renews

The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to the motor club AAA. That’s 93 cents more than it cost at this point last year.

The cost for diesel gasoline rose to $5.69, AAA said.

U.S. and Iranian air attacks involving missiles and drones Sunday and Tuesday have threatened to fully reignite the conflict that has spiked global oil prices.

The U.S. Central Command said it hit Iran’s air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets as Iran fired at its neighbors in the Gulf region. Iranian officials said one U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding, killing five people and wounding dozens.

$1 coin stamped with Trump’s visage and a gold finish goes on sale

Minted in Philadelphia as part of America’s 250th birthday, the coin goes on sale at noon Eastern time Wednesday, according to the U.S. Mint.

A roll of 25 coins will cost $61, and a bag of 100 will cost $154.50.

The coin’s design, Trump’s stern stare on one side and the Great Seal of the United States on the other, was previously given the stamp of approval by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump. The president has said his depiction on a coin was “very unusual” and he’s “honored by it.”

The coin follows other moves to rename things in Trump’s honor, including the U.S. Institute of Peace and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Chevron confirms it will expand operations in Venezuela

The U.S. oil giant announced its expansion on Wednesday just days after Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.

Chevron said it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where the company has an established position. Joint venture plans include investing more than $7 billion over five years to more than double production to about 600,000 barrels a day.

“Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within our portfolio for decades,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement. “With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value.”

▶ Read more

Why bond yields are rising and why everyone should care

Interest rates on government bonds are rising again around the world, making borrowing more expensive for consumers and businesses and heightening concerns about whether governments are issuing more debt than financial markets can handle.

Rising bond yields are one of the few forces in the world strong enough to get politicians to snap to attention. They can also have a big impact on Americans’ personal finances and on the broader economy. The bond market can dictate how much ordinary people have to pay on their mortgages and car loans, as well as how much they earn from their savings accounts and 401(k) plans.

Fighting has flared up again in the Middle East, causing oil prices to jump and renewing inflation worries. Investors typically demand higher interest rates, or yields, on government bonds when inflation is high or they think it may get worse.

▶ Read more

Mark Carney says the deal Trump sought would wipe out Canadian industries

Carney said during a fresh barrage of taunts from Trump administration officials that the U.S. approach in the talks would have left Canadian industries effectively as subsidiaries of American companies or imposed terms under which they would be “gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out.”

Carney said Washington also sought limits on Canada’s future trade deals.

“We’re not going to — of course, we’re not going to accept those terms,” Carney said. “Canada is a sovereign state. We will strike free trade deals with the countries we wish to strike free trade deals.”

Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said Carney told labor leaders they could not expect relations with the United States to “go back to normal any time soon,” calling the current situation “a new normal that we have to get adjusted to.”

Dan Driscoll says Wednesday is last day as Army secretary

Driscoll posted his departure date on X late Tuesday, a day after the White House announced his resignation. A U.S. Army official said Monday that Driscoll submitted his resignation after speaking with President Donald Trump on the current state of the Army.

Despite widespread reporting of tensions between Driscoll and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Driscoll said it was an honor to serve under Hegseth and Trump.

“Our Soldiers, Civilians, and their Families are our Nation’s very best, and they have inspired me every day,” Driscoll wrote, crediting the Army’s progress during his 18 months on the job with “the support of Secretary Hegseth.”

Driscoll’s departure, however, follows Hegseth’s ouster of one of his allies from the Army and the rollback of a drone program he championed.

Poll: A new high in Americans seeing government corruption as widespread

Americans’ belief that there is widespread corruption in the U.S. government has reached a record high, according to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday.

About 9 in 10 Americans – 89% – say corruption is widespread throughout the U.S. government. That’s up 10 percentage points from last year, and marks the highest measure recorded in Gallup’s 20-year trend.

There is bipartisan agreement that there’s substantial government corruption. About 9 in 10 Democrats and independents say this, as well as roughly 8 in 10 Republicans. Democrats, however, have driven the recent jumps.

When President Biden was in the White House, about 6 in 10 Democrats thought government corruption was widespread. That jumped to 76% during President Trump’s first year back in office and now sits at 91%.

Gallup found that in recent years, the U.S. has outpaced other countries with advanced economies when it comes to their perceptions of government corruption.

JD Vance talks about end times and dark forces on Christian podcast

Asked by Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford about his interest in the “end times,” the vice president laughingly said it had been more of an obsession during his youth.

“There are, like, things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us, but, again, I try not to focus too much on it,” Vance said in the interview made public Tuesday.

Crawford also asked Vance about Trump’s post of an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, which Crawford said offended him. Trump initially said he thought the image showed him as a doctor, then took down the post amid widespread criticism from even some of his own backers.

“He did not mean to, like, mock or mimic God — that’s just not who he is,” Vance said, adding that the president often tries to keep things light.

▶ Read more

Bessent downplays effects of trade war with Canada

“The Canadian deal has virtually no impact on American prices. No impact,” he insisted Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.”

Bessent blamed the impasse and rounds of retaliatory tariffs from both sides on Canada’s prime minister. He said “Carney has made a political decision” to stop a deal that “was on the 1-yard line.”

The secretary predicted that Carney “will have to come back” for negotiations, and he suggested that the next deal the U.S. offers won’t be as good.

Bessent insists inflation is under control -- and still blames Joe Biden

He defended Trump’s economic leadership on “Fox & Friends” despite the president’s plunging approval ratings on the economy over the course of this election year.

“Prices are too high,” Bessent acknowledged.

He blamed former President Joe Biden before he tacitly conceded that Trump’s war in Iran has pushed energy prices and consumer prices higher. And he credited Trump for higher wages.

“The conflict in Iran will end, and prices will come down,” Bessent said. “Overall, prices are coming down. Core inflation is very under control. ... We are helping Americans slowly get back on their feet. The Iran conflict will end, but the wage gains will stay.”

Bessent says Chevron is positioned for success in Venezuela

The U.S. treasury secretary said on “Fox & Friends” that “no American firm knows how to operate in Venezuela better than Chevron.”

The international energy giant is poised to announce its planned investments in Venezuela after the Trump administration announced a deal giving the U.S. government and private firms control of a sizable portion of the South American nation’s oil.

Bessent said Trump is “creating assets for the American people. It is going to push down oil prices, push up production” to benefit U.S. consumers and the Venezuelan economy.

Experts have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of billions of dollars to resuscitate.

US Treasury secretary says other nations should help ‘asphyxiate’ Iran to end the war

Scott Bessent says multiple Trump administration officials are talking with other nations that are still dealing economically with Iran and pressuring them to stop. But he avoided specifically mentioning Russia, even when asked.

“My message to everyone is stay away,” Bessent said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.”

“We all want this conflict to end, and the fastest way for the conflict to end is for no one to provide any support to this regime. We are going to sever every tie that they have.”

Existing sanctions on Tehran already are working to “asphyxiate the regime,” Bessent said, and the statements from some Iranian leaders prove “all is not well in the economy” there.

Days after Trump announces Venezuela oil deal, White House fills in some of the details

The White House on Monday said it’s partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of Trump’s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry, setting up a deal that will give the Pentagon a stake in roughly a fifth of the country’s vast oil reserves.

The Trump administration released more details on Monday night, days after Trump announced what he described as the biggest oil deal in history. The sweeping agreement has been met with skepticism from analysts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s production, but Trump and his aides are pitching it as a chance to develop a new oil giant in the Western Hemisphere.

As part of the deal, the U.S. is creating a private company as a joint venture with NABEP — a detail the White House had withheld for days. NABEP, owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, is already the second-largest operator in Venezuela, behind Chevron.

▶ Read more

Children in Cuba started the new school year Tuesday facing a lack of supplies, books, uniforms and teachers, and buildings that are falling apart, along with a lack of food to feed the children.

According to the Cuban minister of education, this will be a very challenging year unlike any others.

Cuban education was once one of the big accomplishments of the revolution. However, it was also used to indoctrinate the students in an ideology that no one on the island nation believes anymore.

Sept. 1: Raul Castro hospitalized, sources say

Reliable sources inside Cuba have informed me this afternoon that Raul Castro has been hospitalized. We need to be careful and not to over speculate what might happen until further notice.

Dr. Andy S. Gomez is Local 10’s Cuba Analyst. Gomez is considered one of the leading scholars on Cuba. He worked in higher education for 32 years before retiring from the University of Miami in 2012.

Range and Fuel Economy

Toyota estimates that the main RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid trim levels will go up to 54 miles on all-electric power, while the sporty GR Sport trim will go 48 miles. In Edmunds’ testing, a GR Sport went an impressive 58 miles before the battery ran out. After that, the EPA estimates that the RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid will get up to 40 mpg in combined city/highway driving. Edmunds also found this mpg estimate to be accurate in its real-world testing.

Head-to-head, the Tucson Plug-in Hybrid comes up short on both metrics. The EPA says the vehicle can go 32 miles using all-electric power and then 35 mpg combined afterward. The Tucson Plug-in Hybrid slightly exceeded those estimates in Edmunds’ testing, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the RAV4’s big range and mpg advantage.

Winner: RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid

Passenger comfort and cargo space

While the regular hybrid Tucson has more cargo space than the RAV4, that advantage disappears with the plug-in hybrid. In fact, Toyota offers just a little more: 33.6 cubic feet behind the rear seats versus 31.9 cubic feet. In real-world testing, however, Edmunds found that both SUVs provide large, relatively boxy spaces that make loading luggage and gear easy.

The Tucson’s passenger space advantage is more apparent. The specs show that it has 41.3 inches of rear legroom versus the RAV4’s 37.8 inches. That’s a pretty big gap, and it’s one you’re bound to notice — both for adults and teenagers, as well as kids in child seats. Edmunds’ editors also found the Hyundai’s plush and supportive front seats more comfortable than the too firm and too high RAV4’s. The Tucson’s ride over bumps is more comfortable, too.

Winner: Tucson Plug-in Hybrid

Technology features

Both the Tucson and RAV4 achieved sky-high infotainment scores of 9.7 out of 10 from the Edmunds testing team in terms of usability and connectivity features. The RAV4’s is also a newer and improved system than what’s found in other Toyotas.

That said, the Toyota relies on an internet connection for certain key functions like navigation and voice controls, which means that you’ll need to pay for a subscription after the trial period runs out. The Tucson’s are integrated into the system and don’t require an internet connection, though its navigation search capability isn’t as strong.

The Hyundai comes standard with a large 12.3-inch center touchscreen, whereas the RAV4 offers two sizes: a 10.5-inch unit for less expensive trim levels and a 12.9-inch screen for fancier trims. Overall, the tech you get in these two SUVs is pretty comparable.

Winner: tie

Pricing and value

The base prices for both start just over $42,000 and top out at around $50,000, including destination fees. At that top price, the Tucson is as loaded as it can be. To get up to the Hyundai’s feature content, you still have to add some options to the RAV4 XSE, and that hikes the price beyond $52,000.

The Tucson also has a higher-quality interior with better-looking and -feeling materials throughout. The RAV4 has taken a step back in this regard for this latest generation. Hyundai’s basic and powertrain warranty coverage is also superior to Toyota’s.

Winner: Tucson Plug-in Hybrid

Style and variety

Toyota offers more versions of its plug-in hybrid than Hyundai does. In addition to the SE and XSE, you can get the outdoorsy Woodland and the sharper-handling GR Sport. Basically, you don’t have to sacrifice distinctive style, functionality or driving enjoyment to go with a plug-in hybrid.

By contrast, the Tucson is offered in just two trim levels: SEL and Limited. The gas-only Tucson’s XRT trim isn’t available, and even if it were, it’s more of an off-roady appearance package than the more capable Woodland. If you want something a little cooler than the norm, the RAV4 will be more appealing.

Winner: RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid

Edmunds says

This is a very close call, but ultimately, the RAV4’s significant all-electric range and fuel economy put a big ol’ brick on the scoring scales. The Tucson is more appealing in many ways, but when it comes to the main thing that you’ll want from your plug-in hybrids — saving on gas — the RAV4 carries the day.

_____

This story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds. James Riswick is a contributor at Edmunds.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade was building its own drones and practicing the kind of warfare that Ukraine has pioneered against Russia and that Iran has fought against the U.S. — warfare that has killed and wounded American troops. The brigade of 600 soldiers was set up in November to be deployed anywhere that drones were needed.

"We have deep concerns that eliminating this specialized drone unit will limit our ability to learn from allies, particularly the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and hinder our efforts to modernize drone warfare at the speed necessary to compete on the modern battlefield," the lawmakers said in a letter shared with The Associated Press.

It requests a briefing from the Army to explain its decision and was sent Tuesday to departing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s acting chief of staff. It was signed by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio.

“This specialized unit was a prudent response in a moment when the character of warfare is changing faster than a conventional formation’s ability to adapt,” the lawmakers say.

They said they were particularly keen to understand the data, analysis and process behind the change after less than a year of the drone unit being active. They also want to know if the decision was based on guidance from Pentagon leadership or made internally by the Army.

LaNeve, who is filling in as the Army’s top uniformed officer, recently ordered the battalion to refocus on its core mission of being an airborne infantry unit. The move followed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sudden ousting of the Army’s prior chief of staff, Gen. Randy George.

Integrating drones into the Army’s tactics was a major focus for George. Last year, he and Driscoll had rolled out what they called the Army Transformation Initiative, which pushed to add “modernized (unmanned aircraft systems) into formations.”

George, who became Army chief of staff under President Joe Biden, regularly spoke about the need to accelerate development of new drone systems and get them in the hands of regular soldiers, not just specialized units. Driscoll supported such efforts and focused on cutting the red tape for military contractors to quickly develop more drones.

After George was ousted by Hegseth without explanation in April, he was replaced by LaNeve. This week, Driscoll submitted his own resignation and later said on social media that Wednesday would be his final full day on the job. A reason for his departure was not publicly revealed, but he was an ally of George, and his tensions with Hegseth have been widely reported.

“We are supportive of the transformative initiatives the Army has taken under Secretary Driscoll’s leadership in this area and would like to see that momentum maintained even as uniformed leadership changes,” the lawmakers wrote.

___

Toropin reported from Nuremberg, Germany.

Warnock has continued to preach regularly as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta since his election as Georgia's first Black senator in 2021.

Hamilton has made clear that if he wins, he would like to continue as senior pastor — preaching 12 to 18 times a year — at the Church of the Resurrection. With roughly 25,000 members in the Kansas City area, it's the nation's largest United Methodist church.

Warnock, in a video on U.S. Senate Democrats' Facebook page, discusses how he melds his political and pastoral careers.

"They are both about working for people even as you walk alongside them," he said. “I have always been engaged in a kind of ministry that takes you far beyond the sanctuary to the streets, far beyond preaching to the public square.”

Only a few other ordained clergy have served in the Senate

Aside from Warnock, only a few other ordained ministers have been in the Senate in recent decades, but none who strived to simultaneously lead a church of their own.

John Danforth, who served from 1976 to 1995 as a Republican senator from Missouri, is an Episcopal priest who also worked as an attorney and diplomat. In 2004, he presided over Ronald Reagan's funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

Hamilton said in an interview that Danforth has been an inspiration and mentor for him.

“I talked to Jack before I got into this. I actually phoned him up and just said, ‘Hey, help me understand, how does this fit together?’” Hamilton said. “He and I share a lot about trying to bring people together, as opposed to dividing people, trying to lead from the center.”

Tim Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican, was a Baptist pastor before entering politics in 1985. After serving in the state legislature and the U.S. House, he served one term in the Senate from 1997 to 2003.

Still serving in the Senate is James Lankford, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who has represented Oklahoma in the chamber since 2015. Before entering politics, he was president of a Baptist-run conference center and youth camp.

Many more clergy have served in the House

Throughout U.S. history, it's been far more common to have still-active pastors serving in the House. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., for example, served 13 terms representing the New York City neighborhood of Harlem while he was pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Other Black civil rights leaders who combined pastoring with congressional careers included Walter E. Fauntroy, who was Washington, D.C.'s delegate to the House, and William Gray, a pastor in Philadelphia before serving in the House from 1979 to 1991.

Democrat Emanuel Cleaver, who has represented Kansas City, Missouri, in the House since 2005, was pastor of St. James United Methodist Church from 1972 to 2009. His district, just across the Kansas-Missouri state line from Hamilton's home base, has been reconfigured by GOP state legislators to jeopardize his chances of reelection.

On the Republican side of the U.S. House, conservative white Baptist pastors who have served in recent decades include Mark Harris of North Carolina, Jody Hice of Georgia and Ron Lewis of Kentucky.

One of the most prominent clerics in Congress was a Catholic — Jesuit priest Robert Drinan. A Massachusetts Democrat, he served in the House from 1971 to 1981 before stepping down. He dropped his reelection bid in 1980 after Pope John Paul II said Catholic priests would no longer be allowed to hold political office.

Drinan was elected on a platform opposing the Vietnam War, and had moderate views on abortion and birth control that differed from official Catholic teaching. He was the first member of Congress to call for Richard Nixon's impeachment — not due to the Watergate scandal, but rather what Drinan viewed as the administration’s undeclared war against Cambodia.

There is no official count of all the clergy who ever served in Congress, but overwhelmingly they have been Protestants. Drinan is one of only two Catholic priests elected to Congress; no rabbi or imam has served there.

The first speaker of the House, Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, was a Lutheran minister. He served in Congress from 1789-1797.

The first African American to serve in Congress, the Rev. Hiram Rhodes Revels, was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was elected in 1870 by the Mississippi Legislature to fill a vacant Senate seat as a Republican.

Other pastors are running for Congress this year

This year, several members of the clergy from each major party have been nominated to run for the U.S. House. The Democrats include the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, a prominent Baptist pastor in Dallas, and two women currently serving in Iowa’s legislature — the Revs. Lindsay James, a Presbyterian chaplain, and Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran pastor.

On the Republican side, at least three current or former pastors – all evangelicals – have been nominated: pastors John Elleson, running in a Democratic stronghold in Illinois; Mark Harris, seeking reelection in North Carolina; and former pastor Tim Walberg, seeking reelection in Michigan.

___

AP reporter John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

A first-time candidate, Hamilton faces an unusual balancing act between political ambition and spiritual obligation. His pastoral role has given him rare prominence for a Democrat in a state where Republicans have won every Senate race for nearly a century, and some in his party are hoping for an upset victory over incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall.

But conservatives are also trying to use Hamilton’s religious leadership against him. They suggest that his sermons prove he’s too liberal for Kansas or even that he’s a heretic for suggesting that non-Christians have a path to salvation after death.

Marshall said in an interview that Hamilton is “too woke for Kansas."

Hamilton isn’t turning the other cheek. If Jesus were standing before them now, he said, “Roger Marshall would call him ‘woke.’”

Only a few ordained ministers have served as senators over the past 100 years and just one — current Democrat Raphael Warnock of Georgia — remained an active pastor. If elected, Hamilton plans to continue as senior pastor at his Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, preaching 12 to 18 times a year.

As Hamilton tries to win over center-right churchgoers as well as secular liberals, he’s promising that he wouldn’t use his perch in Washington to evangelize. He’s on unpaid leave, going 11 weeks without giving a sermon this summer, although he peppers his remarks with biblical references, discusses Jesus’ teachings with voters and spends several hours weekly on pastoral duties such as hospital visits.

“I need that interaction with people and the caring for people,” he said after a meet-and-greet at a coffee shop in Emporia, a university town of 24,000 that’s smaller than his congregation 110 miles (180 kilometers) to the northwest.

Hamilton brings skills that built a huge church to a tough race

Hamilton, 61, built his church from a few members meeting in a funeral home chapel in 1990 into a 25,000-member congregation with nine locations across the Kansas City area. He's demonstrated an ability to raise money and has gained national attention by writing more than 30 books, mostly on Christian theology.

Hamilton describes himself as a centrist, running partly on “bringing people together.” His congregation, he notes, is nearly evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Republican-leaning Kansas has a sizable bloc of moderate voters, protects abortion rights and regularly elects Democratic governors. But Democrats haven't come within 10 points of winning a Senate race in more than 50 years, and they haven't won one since 1932.

Marshall, 66, is focused on rallying rural conservatives, a strategy that perennially works for Republicans. A fifth-generation farm kid who became an obstetrician, the senator is fluent in agriculture policy. He jibed that suburbanite Hamilton “doesn't know a heifer from a steer.”

Marshall also warned that the Senate could fall under Democratic control if Hamilton wins the race.

“His party is too crazy for Kansas,” Marshall said.

The campaign has included an allegation of heresy

This year's race is unusual because of attacks from the Christian right branding Hamilton a heretic.

At issue is a 2022 sermon, reposted on X after Hamilton won the Democratic primary in August. Hamilton cited New Testament passages to argue that non-Christians can receive “the saving grace of Jesus" after death, avoiding eternal torment in Hell.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas declared that Hamilton had rejected “the central tenets of Christianity,” quoting a verse in the Gospel of John where Jesus declares, "No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Marshall thanked Cruz for raising the issue, suggesting the sermon was "one of hundreds” of examples of Hamilton being out of step with Kansans.

Hamilton acknowledged that some Christians agree with Cruz — but cited other prominent Christians who might share his own view, including Methodist founder John Wesley and "Chronicles of Narnia” author C.S. Lewis.

“If he’s going to call me a heretic, he’s not the first," Hamilton said. "He won’t be the last.”

Hamilton seeks to reassure voters wary of church-state mix

Hamilton also has faced skepticism from Democrats wary of mixing government with religion.

Republican conservatives routinely highlight their faith, suggesting that God wanted them to seek office and profusely thank God after winning.

This year during Lent — the 40 days of self-reflection and repentance before Easter — Hamilton said he skipped a meal each day and prayed about entering the Senate race.

“I’m never 100% sure about the will of God, so I tell people I am 87.2% sure I am supposed to be doing this,” he said. "The Kansas voters will decide whether I’m supposed to win, but I feel like I was being called to step into the arena.”

In Emporia, Hamilton said that as a senator, he'd "fight for the rights of all people, whether they have any faith or not.”

“I’m not running for the Senate to make everybody in this country Christian or United Methodist,” he said.

Nolan Guyer, a 72-year-old Navy veteran and retired nuclear plant operator, said he initially worried about voting for a minister, but Hamilton won him over enough that he donated to the pastor's campaign.

“I don't think it's the government's business to teach morals, and that is a preacher's job,” Guyer said.

Some familiar issues are prominent

Republican political action committees have attacked Hamilton as so radical on climate change that he urged his congregation to repent for eating beef. They base that allegation on a misleading stitching together of two parts of a 2020 sermon, with one clip showing Hamilton calling Christians “to repentance” for not protecting God’s creation and a second, earlier clip of him saying that “maybe changing your diet” is among personal actions that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Another ad claimed that Hamilton's church helped pay for a drag queen story hour for children — a claim his campaign denies.

Marshall blamed Hamilton for a split in the United Methodist Church over allowing LGBTQ+ clergy, something it did in 2024. While Hamilton did support that change — at least since 2019 — he also had worked to prevent a split by backing a plan for a local option on whether to ordain or marry LGBTQ+ people.

Hamilton said his views on human sexuality and same-sex marriage evolved gradually, as he came to know gay and lesbian people in his congregation. His church now has a Queer Inclusive Collective ministry and participates in Pride events.

“One small part of my ministry has been trying to make sure that people who felt alienated from the church and pushed away knew that Christ welcomed them and they were loved by our congregation,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton's watchwords include ‘decency’ and ‘affordability’

One of Hamilton's assertions, that he is “running on decency,” resonated with Jann Briggs. She's a retired teacher from Reading, a small town where the Methodist church is across the street from the Miracle Cafe.

Briggs and several friends came to Hamilton's event in Emporia with a copy of his latest book, “Holy Spirit: God's Presence and Power at Work in Us.” He signed it for them.

“Finally, somebody who's speaking the right words,” Briggs said.

Hamilton is also focusing on affordability, a key issue for Democrats this year. He has criticized Republican cuts to federal programs for the poor, such as food assistance and Medicaid coverage.

“I just want to know, when did it become 'woke’ to care for your neighbor?” he asked.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The Catholic Church agreed, declaring the boy’s resuscitation a miracle after Engstrom and others sought the heavenly prayers of the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who died in 1979. That determination made Sheen — a towering presence in 20th-century Catholicism, with pioneering broadcasts on radio and TV — eligible for beatification.

Now after years of delays to his formal beatification, Engstrom and many others from around Sheen’s hometown of Peoria are eagerly preparing for a service on Sept. 24 that will designate the late prelate as “Blessed Fulton Sheen” — one step away from sainthood.

“We will all be at the beatification, and we’re super excited,” said Engstrom, of nearby Washington, Illinois. Her son James Fulton, who is now a healthy teenager, will carry a relic of Sheen at the ceremony.

“The whole family will accompany him, which is special because in a lot of ways the whole family has walked with him through this whole process,” Engstrom said.

Tens of thousands are expected to join them. Too large for Peoria, where his tomb is a worldwide draw for pilgrims, Sheen’s main beatification ceremony is being held across the state line in St. Louis. Smaller events will be held in Sheen’s hometown.

Pope Leo XIV — a native Illinoisan like Sheen — greenlighted the beatification in February after years of delays.

‘The first televangelist’ was a pioneer in religious broadcasting

With the rise of television in the 1950s, Sheen entered millions of American living rooms with his show, “Life is Worth Living.” Dressed in a cassock, cape and skullcap, he stood at a chalkboard and delivered moral and religious lessons without a narrowly Catholic focus.

The show competed favorably against entertainers Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra on other networks. In an Emmy acceptance speech, Sheen thanked his writers — Gospel scribes Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

“He was probably the best and, in many ways, the first televangelist in the United States,” said Monsignor Jason Gray, executive director of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, which advocates for his sainthood.

Sheen’s devotees from far beyond Peoria are also hoping to attend the beatification.

“He’s the TV saint,” said Patricia Stephen of Edmonton, Alberta, on a July visit to Sheen’s tomb with her husband. “I’ve heard about him since I was a young kid. His message is very relevant to today.”

The foundation and the diocese are working on a major, high-tech expansion of the Sheen museum, which already displays his books, holy objects and other memorabilia.

“Sheen plays in Peoria!” proclaims a foundation newsletter headline encouraging pilgrims to visit. It’s a takeoff on the old expression, “Will it play in Peoria?,” which locals trace to the city’s reputed role as a Middle America proving ground on the vaudeville circuit.

John Kelly, a city councilor who recalls how his parents admired Sheen, says his beatification demonstrates the potential for anyone to become holy. “Being a hometown boy, he’s a regular guy. He didn’t walk on water,” Kelly said.

Sheen's prayers sought during a childbirth crisis

Engstrom knew little about Sheen as she grew up in the same Central Illinois region. That changed while she was pregnant with James, the third of her eight children.

She discovered online videos of Sheen’s broadcasts and began asking for his prayers during her pregnancy — in keeping with Catholics' practice of seeking the intercession of those they believe are in heaven.

“That was kind of the beginning of a beautiful relationship,” Engstrom recalled.

Her prayers became urgent on Sept. 16, 2010, when Engstrom gave birth to James at her home with the help of a midwife.

The baby was born without a pulse. Attendants quickly began chest compressions, and he was rushed to a Peoria hospital.

Dr. Juanita Aguila-Corrales, a specialist in neonatal perinatal medicine, was on call and hurried there as resuscitation efforts continued for some time.

They prepared to record the time of death but then detected a faint heart tone, she said. The heart began beating normally. The baby was put in therapeutic hypothermia, which helps prevent damage from extended oxygen loss, she said.

“I think it’s a miracle he survived without major setbacks,” said Aguila-Corrales, a Catholic.

Engstrom waited for James to successfully reach various developmental milestones before calling the Sheen Foundation, triggering the lengthy, formal inquiry that prompted the church to call his survival miraculous.

“I attribute the miracle to Jesus Christ,” Engstrom said. “But I firmly believe that Jesus allowed Fulton Sheen’s prayers and presence to play an integral part in it.”

James enjoys basketball, bike rides and studying meteorological reports. He also remains devoted to Sheen. “He’s my protector,” the teen told Catholic media.

Sainthood recognizes a “heroic witness of faith,” Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said. The church typically requires authentication of one miracle for beatification — such as what it deems a medically unexplainable cure attributed to prayers to the candidate.

“We have five potential miracles to investigate” for a second one attributable to Sheen, which would qualify him for sainthood, the bishop said.

A long road to the beatification ceremony

Sheen was born in 1895 in the small town of El Paso, Illinois, and raised in Peoria. After seminary, ordination and a doctorate in philosophy, he had a short pastorate in Peoria before becoming a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

He became known both for his academic lectures and his plainspoken addresses from the pulpit and the studio, first on radio and then on TV.

Sheen appeared in a Time magazine cover article. He guided celebrities and others converting to Catholicism.

He met with popes and spoke at the reformist Second Vatican Council. He railed against communism, though he opposed the Vietnam War.

Sheen raised funds and traveled the world on behalf of Catholic missions. He served as a bishop in New York state, retiring as an archbishop. After his death at 84, he was buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York until his niece won a court battle in 2019 to move his body to Peoria’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.

Pilgrims today place crucifixes and other items on his marble tomb, giving them status as relics.

Although Pope Francis confirmed the Engstrom case as a miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession, the Vatican postponed a scheduled 2019 beatification ceremony.

The Diocese of Rochester — which Sheen led in the late 1960s — requested the delay due to legal investigations into the oversight of priests accused of sexual abuse across New York state.

Church officials later concluded that Sheen’s record gave no cause for further delay, and plans for the ceremony resumed.

The Engstroms have found an informal community of those who believe they’ve also experienced Sheen’s miraculous interventions, even if the church hasn’t formally designated them as such.

Their new friends include Joe and Lizzy Taggart of Bloomington, Illinois.

After being told it was “nearly impossible” medically for Lizzy to conceive and carry a child to term, Joe said he prayed before a crucifix: “Fulton Sheen, if you’re up there, we could really use a miracle right now.”

Soon afterward, Lizzy conceived their oldest child — named Fulton, now a healthy 8-year-old boy.

The Taggarts firmly believe they’re not alone in experiencing a miracle.

“We’re hoping to meet some more Fultons when we go down to the beatification,” Joe Taggart said.

___

AP videojournalist Jessie Wardarski contributed.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The two leaders and their spouses will join King Charles III and Queen Camilla for a private viewing of the 230-foot (70-meter) tapestry, a 1,000-year-old symbol of Anglo-French relations that depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

France loaned the embroidery, insured for 960 million euros ($1.1 billion), for a 10-month exhibition that opens to the public on Sept. 10. It was spirited from Bayeux in northwest France to London by road and rail in a clandestine high-security operation in July, the first time since the 11th century that it has touched British soil.

Burnham said that the tapestry’s return “is a landmark moment in the history of our two nations.”

Macron and the king will deliver speeches at a reception in the museum’s Great Court for representatives from Britain and France involved in the loan and schoolchildren from both countries.

Stitched in wool thread on linen fabric, the artwork depicts events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold’s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion ended Saxon rule, made William the Conqueror the first Norman king of England, and bound Britain and France together in a close and complicated relationship.

The year 1066 remains one of the most famous dates in British history, and the loan of the tapestry is being treated as a major cultural moment. Burnham's government said Wednesday that a digital exhibition will bring its story to venues across the U.K., and schoolchildren will take part in a “live national history lesson” on the subject on Oct. 14.

The loan was announced during Macron’s state visit to the U.K. in July 2025. In return, the British Museum is lending items, including Viking and Anglo-Saxon treasures to museums in Normandy.

Burnham, who took office six weeks ago, will host Macron for talks at 10 Downing St. on Thursday. Burnham’s office said that efforts to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats will top the agenda. The U.K. government says stepped-up law enforcement cooperation between Britain and France has helped reduce the number of people making the crossing this year by more than 40% compared to last year.

The Iran and the Russia-Ukraine wars are also likely to feature in the conversations. France and the U.K. have led efforts to bolster European support for Ukraine during its more than 4½-year war against Russia’s full-scale invasion, and Burnham has vowed to maintain British backing for Kyiv.

The prime minister also wants to forge closer ties with the European Union to end what he has called a “decade of low growth” caused by Brexit after a 2016 referendum.

___

A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the cost of insuring the tapestry on loan to the British Museum is 960 million euros, not 960 billion euros.

Iranian officials said one of the U.S. strikes on the country overnight struck a wedding party, leaving at least four people dead and dozens wounded.

Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has increased this week after the U.S. hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, saying Iran was planning to use them to shoot mines into the waterway. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at American bases in Jordan, which were all intercepted.

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

US strike hits a wedding party

The U.S. Central Command said Tuesday’s strikes focused on Iranian military targets including air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets.

But Iranian media said one U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding in Kuhestak, a small town on the coast overlooking the Strait of Hormuz.

Four people were killed — two women and two children, aged 4 and 16 — and at least 68 were wounded, the state news agency IRNA and state TV said Wednesday. Just after the strike, Ahmad Nafisi, the province’s deputy governor, had told Iranian state television that five people were killed. There was no explanation for the change.

The U.S. military said it was aware of the report but that it “never targets civilians.”

Iran targets US allies in the Gulf

Bahrain said its air defense systems intercepted several Iranian air attacks early Wednesday, without providing further details.

Iranian state media said Iran’s military had launched drone attacks on U.S. bases in Bahrain and in the United Arab Emirates in response to the overnight attacks.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Iran acted in self-defense in retaliation for U.S. violations of Iran’s sovereignty.

Saudi shipping company says Monday attack in Hormuz killed 2 sailors

Saudi shipping company Bahri said two Filipino sailors were killed in an attack late Monday as their vessel transited the Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said its ship, named the SIDR, was “involved in a security incident” in the strait shortly before midnight on Monday that resulted in the loss of two of their seafarers.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack on the Saudi tanker.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack.

The ministry said the oil-rich kingdom stresses the need to halt escalation and respect the security and safety of international navigation and of global energy supplies.

The Saudi ministry called on all parties to return to negotiations and peaceful solutions.

Iran has established a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passed in peacetime, after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Ship traffic through the waterway has slowed to a trickle, roiling the global economy and spiking prices for energy and other goods across the world.

US official says administration pressuring nations not to deal with Iran

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends” that multiple officials in President Donald Trump's administration are talking to other nations still doing business with Iran and pressuring them to stop.

He avoided mentioning Russia specifically, even when asked.

“My message to everyone is stay away,” Bessent said. “We all want this conflict to end, and the fastest way for the conflict to end is for no one to provide any support to this regime. We are going to sever every tie that they have from the outside world.”

Diplomats in Egypt, Qatar call for a return to negotiations between Iran, US

Top diplomats in Egypt and Qatar have called for the U.S. and Iran to return to the negotiating table in line with their collapsed ceasefire deal.

Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty of Egypt spoke by phone on Wednesday with his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

The ministers warned that the ongoing escalation threatens “dire consequences on the region’s security and stability,” the Egyptian foreign ministry said.

Iran’s currency hits record low

Iran’s currency market hit a record low Wednesday, hours after the exchange of fire between the country and the U.S. over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Traders in the Tehran market exchanged 2.20 million rials for one U.S. dollar, nearly 10% higher than last week’s record, on Aug. 25, when one dollar was sold at 2.02 million rials.

The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth. The rial has repeatedly hit new lows since the war began.

Arab interior ministers condemn Iranian attacks on Arab states

The Council of Arab Interior Ministers described Iran’s attacks on Kuwait, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as a “violation of international law.”

The council said Iran’s “brutal aggression” is part of Tehran’s efforts to destabilize security and stability in the region. The council also said the attacks threaten international peace and security.

Chinese and Egyptian leaders meet in Cairo

The leaders of China and Egypt welcomed regional efforts to “reach political understandings” aiming at restoring peace and stability in the Middle East amid renewed escalation between Iran and the United States.

President Xi Jinping of China and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi held talks in Cairo on Wednesday that focused on bilateral ties and regional and international topics.

They welcomed regional efforts to ease tensions and promote “peace and stability in the Gulf and the Middle East,” according to a joint communique following the talks.

Pakistan presses on with mediation efforts

Pakistan said Wednesday it remains engaged with the United States and Iran, with support from regional countries, in efforts to bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told a weekly news briefing in Islamabad that Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a political and security group billed as a counterweight to the U.S. global influence.

Car rams gathering in northern Iranian city, killing 4

A man drove through a crowd gathered in the northern Iranian city of Mashhad late Tuesday, killing four people and injuring more than 10, the official IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Quoting local traffic police, the semiofficial Fars news agency described the incident as a road accident and implied the driver might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Iranian state media are now reporting that four people were killed in the strike on the wedding, not five. They gave no explanation for the change.

Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was condemned for the 1976 shooting death of 16-year-old Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Lucas was strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the death chamber curtain arose on schedule at 6 p.m. Asked by a warden if he had any words, he responded, “No.”

The drugs began flowing soon afterward and Lucas began breathing heavily and then gasping before he stopped moving. Minutes later, the warden shook Lucas and shouted his name, but there was no response. A medic was called in and declared Lucas dead.

Lucas was the 14th prisoner executed in Florida this year, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed death warrants for two more lethal injections later this month. Florida has carried out more than half of the two dozen executions conducted in the U.S. this year.

Lucas declined to file any last-ditch appeals, telling a judge: “I’ve been on death row for 50 years, and I have no desire to carry this any further,” according to court transcripts. “The sooner it’s over, the better I’ll enjoy it. I am tired.”

Murder victim’s brother expresses relief

Lester Piper, Jill’s brother, said it was good to see the legal process finally at an end.

“I don’t know if closure is the right word to use, but I do believe there’s a big sense of relief,” Piper said after witnessing the execution.

Janice Rice, whose sister Terri survived the attack on Piper, said she was sorry her sister was no longer alive to witness the injection.

“Terri survived that horrific night 50 years ago and lived with the trauma and pain for 44 years,” Rice said afterward. “She wanted more than anything to be here today to witness justice for Jill, but God had other plans for her.”

Man had confrontations with the victim before the attack

Lucas was 24 in August 1976 when he was arrested for trespassing at Piper’s Bonita Springs home, south of Fort Myers, according to court records. Lucas had known the teen for four years and had worked for her family, officials said. Lucas and Piper had previously dated, the records showed.

About a week after the arrest, Lucas and Piper had two separate confrontations hours apart, investigators said. Witnesses testified Lucas threatened to kill Piper.

Piper asked Byrd and Rice to spend that night at her home for protection, officials said. Lucas eventually showed up with a rifle and shot Piper multiple times while she begged for her life and then shot and wounded her friends, investigators said. Lucas was arrested the next day.

Lucas was sentenced to death and resentenced several times

Convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, Lucas was sentenced to death — and eventually resentenced to death four more times.

Lucas was initially sentenced to death in 1977 with a 12-0 jury recommendation, court records show. The Florida Supreme Court later ruled the trial judge was wrong to consider the heinousness of the attempted murders while deciding the sentence for the murder. That trial judge resentenced Lucas to death in 1980.

By the time a third sentencing was ordered, the original trial judge had died and a new judge was assigned. That judge sentenced Lucas to death in 1985, but the Florida Supreme Court later ruled a new jury should consider a sentence recommendation, though the conviction itself would still stand. The new jury recommended death by 11-1, and Lucas was sentenced to death for a fourth time in 1987. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that sentencing order wasn’t clear, and Lucas received a death sentence again in 1990.

Florida leads in executions

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led that year with 19 executions, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so. And two more Florida executions are planned shortly, those of Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10, and Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, on Sept. 29.

Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida. Beasley was convicted of beating a woman to death with a hammer and stealing her car in 1995.

All Florida executions are by injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

Leer en español

At around noon on Aug. 18, police said Richard Morfa, 44, walked into Somi’s Café off Mowry Drive in Homestead and, without wasting any time, helped himself to a handful of cash from the tip jar.

He did that not once, but twice, said employee Claudia Rodriguez, who said she only realized what was happening after one of her customers confronted Morfa.

That customer took some of the money right out of Morfa’s hand and put it back in the tip jar.

Rodriguez said the crook claimed the money was for gas, but added that doesn’t justify what he did, saying they are tips that she works hard for.

It turns out that same day, authorities said Morfa struck again, this time at Top Taste Jamaican Restaurant off Northwest 12th Street and Third Avenue in Florida City.

“He walk(ed) up, so I took my eye off of him -- looking at my phone -- and he was with the cashier and the cashier just turned back to serve the food and he slipped the pan away,” said owner Derek Anderson.

Morfa wasn’t fazed by the fact that multiple cameras were watching his every move, according to police, and Anderson said the whole reason Morfa was inside the restaurant was because he was picking up an order for his job working for DoorDash.

Morfa is accused of stopping at a Homestead Dairy Queen that same day where employees said he was seen swiping the tip jar right off the counter.

Images of the suspect quickly spread across social media and it didn’t take long before Homestead police said they tracked him down.

Less than a week later, an officer spotted Morfa making a delivery at Baptist Health Homestead Hospital and took him into custody, authorities said.

Police said Morfa admitted to taking the tip jars, saying he had a drug problem.

He is now facing multiple counts of petit theft and has since bonded out of jail.

Local 10 News reached out to DoorDash, which responded with the following statement:

“Theft is unacceptable and there is no place for this behavior on our platform. We’ve removed this individual’s access to our platform and are compensating the merchant for their loss. We stand ready to assist law enforcement with their investigation.”

Michelle Babin, DoorDash Spokesperson

Athletes, coaches and officials from the countries “may be granted access to FIS competitions provided that they sign a declaration of neutrality based on a set of principles established by FIS,” the governing body said, warning of sanctions that can be imposed.

Russian skiers won a ruling in December at the Court of Arbitration for Sport that ended a near four-year ban from international events during the war on Ukraine. It let them return to World Cup events in Alpine, cross-country and freestyle skiing, and snowboarding trying to qualify for the Milan Cortina Olympics held in February.

The FIS ruling council renewed its neutral athlete policy for the winter season that starts next month.

“The participation of athletes is restricted to individual events and is conditioned to the fact that no country symbols — such as flags, anthems, or uniforms — should be displayed,” FIS said.

Russian athletes and team officials are still likely to face challenges getting visas to enter some European countries that host World Cup races.

___

See full AP coverage of European sports here

Leer en español

That’s one of many brands of automated license plate readers, or ALPR cameras that are popping up all over the country and tracking drivers on the road.

Now the Florida Department of Transportation and Gov. Ron DeSantis are calling for the cameras to come down on state roads and giving cities and counties only 30 days to do so.

Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner shared a fiery response, claiming he is “bringing legislation to take back control of our roads from the state.”

“Some of these have been in place for years,” he said. “We caught violent criminals, we’ve taken illegal guns, stolen vehicles have been tracked.”

Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro also weighed in, stating more than 90,000 cars travel along U.S. 1, one of those state roads, each day and license plate readers have been a vital tool for public safety.

“It’s definitely going to take a hit on public safety,” she said. “We don’t use it to issue tickets.”

Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz released a statement in which she said the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office would comply with the order immediately.

“Based on the Governor’s directive and FDOT mandates, by the end of today, all cameras located on FDOT infrastructure will be taken offline, and the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office license plate reader (LPR) program will be suspended in its entirety.

“To be clear, this technology has helped apprehend murderers and robbers, and saved children from being abducted and found missing people.”

Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz

Chevron, the only U.S. oil company with a major presence in the country, said Wednesday that it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where it already has operations. The company plans to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, with the goal of more than doubling production from its 2026 level to approximately 600,000 barrels a day.

“Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within our portfolio for decades,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement.

Venezuela holds the world's largest proven reserves, totaling more than 303 billion barrels of crude oil, according to OPEC's 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin. Saudi Arabia is a distant second with 267 billion barrels.

Yet because Venezuela's the energy infrastructure is severely degraded and the nation is operating under international sanctions, its daily production is just over 1 million barrels, compared with the 10 million to 11 million barrels that Saudi Arabia produces each day. The U.S. produces almost 14 million barrels per day.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, has had a presence in Venezuela since 1923. Its joint ventures, Petroindependencia and Petropiar S.A., operate extra-heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Oil Belt, while Petroboscan, S.A. is located in the Zulia State in western Venezuela.

The White House confirmed Monday that it is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of Trump ’s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry.

“What we’re doing is increasing the confidence for private businesses to come do deals in Venezuela, directly with the government of Venezuela," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said during an interview Wednesday on CNBC.

Yet the agreement has been met with skepticism from analysts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, which is in disarray after years of neglect.

There are also questions about whether Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez has the authority to give Chevron 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels — and whether future Venezuelan or American administrations would overturn the agreement.

Venezuela's constitution states that arrangements like the one that the United States announced this week must be approved by the National Assembly, which has not happened, wrote Ian Vásquez, vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute.

“The deal lacks legitimacy since it was agreed to with a dictatorship that has clung to power for decades through violence and by committing what was probably the largest electoral fraud in Latin American history in 2024,” Vásquez wrote. “The agreement was also reached under overwhelming pressure, military and otherwise, from the United States. As such, any future Venezuelan democracy will question the deal, thus undermining confidence in the current arrangement.”

Trump has eyed Venezuela’s oil since the capture of Nicolás Maduro and has pressed to get U.S. businesses back into the country. “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said in January.

He suggested again on Monday that other U.S. oil majors were preparing for a return, though other than Chevron, there is no evidence of that.

Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said in January that Venezuela was “ uninvestable.” An Exxon spokesman said this week that “nothing has changed.”

The history of U.S. oil majors in Venezuela explains the hesitation.

Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976 and created the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. A second nationalization occurred in 2007, when President Hugo Chávez pushed foreign oil companies into state-controlled joint ventures and seized the assets of companies that refused. Chevron agreed to a joint venture. Others, including Exxon and ConocoPhillips, refused, and Venezuela took their assets.

Trump has said that the agreement with Venezuela would “substantially lower” gasoline prices in the U.S. However, experts have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of billions of dollars to resuscitate.

Meanwhile, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to the motor club AAA. That is 93 cents more than it cost at this point last year.

____

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

Leer en español

The incident occurred at a shopping plaza near Fifth Street and Lenox Avenue on Aug. 23.

Police body camera video shows a man standing on a ledge, pacing back and forth while on a cellphone.

The man told officers he had never been arrested before or had a speeding ticket.

Negotiations with officers lasted about four hours before they had a window to pull him from the edge of the building.

Miami Beach Police Chief Wayne Jones praised the officers for their actions.

“Our negotiators demonstrated extraordinary patience, compassion and professionalism,” said Jones. “They refused to give up on this individual, and because of their actions, he was brought to safety unharmed.”

Jones added that specialized training helped the officers put an end to the crisis, and that no one was injured.

The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as the conflict stretches into its fifth year following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor. The front line in eastern and southern Ukraine remains largely deadlocked, and U.S. efforts to negotiate a settlement have yet to produce a path to peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy exchanged threats late Tuesday over what their next steps might be.

Zelenskyy warned foreign airlines that flying in Russia is not safe because of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks, saying that “Russian airspace will effectively be closing.” The military pressure aims to compel Russia to accept peace negotiations, he said.

Putin accused Zelenskyy of “state terrorism” and said: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Putin’s comments got short shrift from Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, a government body, which said the remarks were a flagrant attempt by the Russian leader to shift the blame away from Moscow.

“A state that itself unleashed this war, that daily commits terror against Ukrainian civilians and destroys cities, is again trying to portray itself as a ‘victim,’” the center said.

Russian Transportation Minister Andrey Nikitin dismissed any travel concerns, saying authorities are constantly strengthening flight safety.

“We will not allow any significant disruptions to civil aviation,” he told reporters, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

At a late-night news conference at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan, Putin also addressed reports that the Ukrainian military had used British-made drones to strike inside Russia.

Asked whether Russia would strike British military facilities if the U.K. government continues to provide Ukraine with weaponry, Putin declined to rule it out. With a small smile, he told reporters that is “a military secret.”

China and North Korea, meanwhile, have provided military support for Russia, as has Iran in previous years.

The Russian and Ukrainian leaders' comments came as European officials weigh their response to the latest in what they say is Moscow’s campaign of continental sabotage and disruption aimed at weakening support for Ukraine. Germany on Tuesday blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport last month using a drone laden with explosives.

Russia's Dnipro strikes kill 2, hit a food warehouse

Russia fired 174 attack drones, about half of them jet-powered drones that are hard to stop and are increasingly deployed by Moscow, as well as two ballistic missiles and two air-launched missiles, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Russian strikes on the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine killed a man and a woman, local officials said.

The assault hit food warehouses belonging to a Dnipro retail chain, wounding at least six people, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.

Moscow’s forces have recently hit other food storage depots, leaving some supermarket shelves empty. Russian forces have targeted civilian facilities in what Ukrainian officials say is an effort to disrupt daily life and sap public morale.

“Unfortunately, there has been far too little response from the world and its most influential leaders to this latest Russian escalation of strikes,” Zelenskyy said on social media Wednesday. “Every partner knows what is needed: air defense for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and a significant increase in defense production.”

Officials in the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa reported the attack damaged a 24-story residential building, destroying apartments on several floors and wounding eight people, including a child.

A man and a woman were wounded by shrapnel in morning attacks on the Kyiv region, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.

It was the seventh straight day Kyiv came under attack. The latest barrage wasn’t as heavy as in previous days but it kept Kyiv residents on edge.

Russia says 2 killed, 16 wounded by Ukrainian drones

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. It said the drones were shot down over 11 Russian regions, the Black Sea and Crimea, the peninsula that was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people in Russia’s Belgorod border region and wounded 16 more, acting Gov. Alexander Shuvayev said. Ukrainian forces hit the region 140 times over 24 hours, he said.

Ukraine’s domestically developed long-range drones have repeatedly targeted Russia's oil sector, hoping to dent the economy, and the warehouses of online retailers, to make the Russian public feel the effects of war.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that in August, its drones struck 12 Russian refineries, three fuel terminals and oil depots, and two gas processing and petrochemical companies.

Russia is making no progress on the front line, analysts say

The Russian army’s effort to drive deeper into Ukraine has lost its momentum, according to Western analysts and officials.

Russian advances in August were “a fraction” of Moscow’s gains during the same month last year, the Institute for the Study of War said late Tuesday.

Russia’s spring-summer offensive has failed to smash Ukraine’s front-line defenses, the Washington-based think tank said.

“Russian gains remain slow and limited,” it said.

___

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.

___

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

Beginning with “Arrested Development” ( 14 episodes directed ) and “Community” (34 episodes), the Russo brothers established an especially keen sense for the rhythms and intersections of ensemble casts.

“For whatever reason, Joe and I have always really been drawn to ensemble storytelling,” Anthony says. “Maybe it speaks to the fact that we work as a team.”

“We grew up in a very large Italian family full of colorful personalities,” suggests Joe, citing their Ohio upbringing. “It was complex family dynamics. We all grew up on the same street; people lived in different houses. We spent dinners together on Sundays.

“We were always interacting with a large amount of personality and interpersonal dynamics. I think that’s how we see the world and see stories.”

That inclination has served the Russos well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly in the sprawling superhero films “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018) and “Avengers: Endgame” (2019). But even for the Russos, “Avengers: Doomsday” (in theaters Dec. 18) is a unique juggling act. It brings together (deep breath) the Avengers, the Wakandans, the New Avengers (from Earth-616), the Fantastic Four (from Earth-828) and the original X-Men.

“The MCU is this massive experiment in how vast, how much scope can an ensemble really have?” Anthony says. “If we have a taste and talent for ensemble storytelling, we’re certainly pushing ourselves further than we ever have before.”

Joe and Anthony Russo spoke in a recent exclusive interview — or rather interviews, because the brothers spoke separately while knee-deep in work on “Doomsday” and its 2027 follow-up, “Avengers: Secret Wars.” They were finishing work on “Doomsday” — scoring, editing — while, in their words, “soft prepping” production on “Secret Wars.”

“When you’re doing one of these movies it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done,” Joe says. “When you’re doing two of them, it’s almost inconceivable. But it’s the second time around we’re doing two back to back.”

After a rocky few years, Marvel looks to reassert its dominance

When the Russo brothers were last at the helm in the MCU, “Endgame” marked the apex of Marvel as a cultural force. Conceived as the culmination of a decade of movies, “Endgame” became the second highest-grossing film of all time, with $2.8 billion in ticket sales. (The Walt Disney Co. will bring it back to theaters as “Avengers Endgame: Encore” on Sept. 25.)

Since “Endgame,” the MCU has undergone plenty of expansion and experimentation. But Phases four, five and six of the MCU have also been notably rockier than the first three phases. Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, has acknowledged that oversaturation played a role in the downturn.

For the first time, Marvel wasn’t immune to the ups and downs that characterize the rest of the movie world. “The Marvels” in 2023 tapped out with just $206 million in ticket sales. “Captain America: Brave New World” in 2025 landed the worst CinemaScore, a “B-,” for a Marvel movie.

“Doomsday” aims to reinvigorate the MCU. It features not just the return of the Avengers and the Russos, but also Robert Downey Jr. The former “Iron Man” star plays the villain Doctor Doom. Downey has said he wouldn’t have come back if the Russos didn’t, too.

So there is a get-the-band-back-together quality to “Doomsday,” a movie expected to be among the highest-grossing ever. Do the Russos feel that the film will, after some MCU stumbles, restore order in the Marvel universe?

“It’s a great question. It’s part of the unique challenge,” says Anthony. “The thing that Joe and I have always appreciated about our collaboration with Marvel is: Our job isn’t to answer for the entirety of the MCU. We intersect it in a very specific way. It’s that intersection which is where we can make sense of things.”

Can ‘Doomsday’ match ‘Spider-Man’?

Of course, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” ($2.3 billion worldwide) has already nearly matched “Endgame” in box-office might. Anthony Russo, “buzzing” from the movie, calls the film’s reception “a wonderful challenge.”

Yet the Russos promise something special in “Doomsday.” They have referred to it as “back to zero,” “starting from scratch” and “a profound shift” in the MCU. Even in the ever-expanding realm of the MCU, the Russos have been animated by stories with defined beginnings (“Doomsday”) and legitimate endings (“Endgame”). Even if “Endgame” wasn’t really the end, they needed to believe it was.

Since then, the Russos have directed three films for streaming: 2021’s “Cherry,” for Apple Studios; 2022’s “The Gray Man,” one of Netflix’s most-watched original films; and 2025's “ The Electric State.” They also launched an action franchise for Netflix with “Extraction.” Their production company, AGBO, has turned into a consistent blockbuster maker, producing not just “Doomsday” but the Oscar-winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

It took something extra to bring the Russos back to Marvel. They were coaxed back, Anthony says, by a “foundational narrative concept” suggested by cowriter Steve McFeeley.

“We never want to coast on the capital that already exists,” he says. “We want the greatest value of the film to reside in the new thing it’s bringing to the table.”

Orienting the film around Dr. Doom, however, wasn’t the initial plan. Originally conceived as “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” the fifth “Avengers” film went through considerable retooling after Jonathan Majors (who played Kang the Conqueror) was dropped from the franchise after being convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

The Russos eventually stepped in. But the revamped production meant going into shooting with an unfinished script.

“We always view the script as a living organism,” says Joe. “We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.”

A lot has changed since the Russos last released a Marvel movie. The pandemic came and went. The industry defaulted to streaming, only to again embrace theatrical. The phrase “superhero fatigue” was trotted out at times, though less so after “Brand New Day.”

If there’s a guiding template for the Russos for the kind of movie they want to make — one with grand scale and moments of emotional intimacy — it’s the Western. Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” was a particular inspiration for “Doomsday.”

“Joe and I grew up fans of all types of cinema, but Westerns have always been very special to us. Throughout cinema history, the Western has been declared dead for decades, and then you can still make one of the greatest examples of the genre.”

• Cuban officials remain silent despite reports of Raúl Castro being hospitalized
• Student accused of stabbing 2 at Miami Northwestern Senior High School to remain behind bars
• Broward corrections releases Lauderhill vice mayor on $7,500 bond

You can watch a live feed of our news broadcast at Local10.com/Live.

Data from Congo’s Ministry of Health showed the outbreak has recorded 6,186 confirmed cases, including 3,007 deaths since it was declared a global health emergency in mid-May. It remains the fastest-growing outbreak of Ebola ever.

Jean-Claude Angwanzia, a resident of Bunia, said that he left Mambassa in the epicenter of Ituri province, because he didn’t feel safe. He said that he hardly saw health workers and infected bodies were being mishandled, prompting safety concerns.

“I had to flee the area because of the danger looming over us,” he said.

The pace of the outbreak is putting a strain on people's lives.

Papy Baraka, a public transportation driver in Bunia, has had to cut down on the number of passengers he picks up in his car.

“The disease puts everyone at risk, and daily life has slowed to a crawl. We are afraid,” he said.

Recent weeks have witnessed a surge in cases, with two new health zones affected last week in North Kivu, where the fatality rate is much higher than in the rest of the affected provinces. The virus has spread to six provinces.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control said Tuesday in a report that the efforts to contain the virus “remained below established response targets” and the fast expansion of the disease across many health zones indicates “uncontrolled expansion of the outbreak.”

The report said that the statistics show that most of the cases are “occurring outside known transmission chains” as a result of the percentage of confirmed new cases coming from only between 15% and 20% of known contacts.

Health workers are struggling under difficult conditions and have gone on strike multiple times to demand their pay.

The disease has continued to spread rapidly for several reasons, including conflict in the eastern region of the country where the outbreak is concentrated, attacks on health workers, miners constantly on the move, and inadequate health infrastructure.

The resumption of school in the middle of the outbreak has also raised concerns about transmission in classrooms.

The World Health Organization said that the outbreak is on track to exceed the deadliest on record, West Africa's regional outbreak between 2014 and 2016, which killed 11,000 people.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the outbreak is possibly three times larger than the number of cases recorded, as surveillance and contact tracing are still weak. Despite that, the outbreak has already become Congo's deadliest Ebola outbreak.

There is no vaccine or approved treatment for the rare Bundibugyo virus that has sparked the current outbreak. A couple of vaccines are being developed to tackle the disease.

Last week, the government started the distribution of the Ervebo vaccine to front-line health workers in Kisangani in the northeastern Tshopo region. Ervebo has helped combat previous Ebola disease outbreaks, and WHO said that it could offer some protection.

The German government said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for the failed attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Aug. 4 using a drone laden with explosives and announced it would shut down a Russian consulate among other measures.

The nature of the incident and its attribution to Russia set a new benchmark. The drone was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane and the device was defused. The airport is a major international freight hub used for providing support to Ukraine.

“It is clear that it has all the hallmarks of state sponsored terrorism. The question is: what do we do about this,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters before chairing a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Ireland.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France summoned Russia’s envoy to “protest strongly” and wants to impose sanctions on more of the Kremlin’s shadow fleet ships.

“We won’t allow an act of such gravity without consequences,” Barrot said.

A struggle to find more effective options

The EU has slapped almost two dozen packages of sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine, hitting more than 3,000 officials, oligarchs and entities including banks, energy companies and drone makers. The EU already was preparing to impose more travel bans and asset freezes on another 1,600 people, Kallas said.

Hundreds of ships making up the shadow fleet illicitly shipping oil to fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war effort have been targeted too. Russian diplomats have routinely been summoned around Europe, even expelled.

The challenge is how to respond in effective ways without going too far. EU member nations, many of them NATO allies, remain cautious about being dragged into open conflict with nuclear armed Russia.

Germany insisted it was “not at war” but had become a “daily target” of the Kremlin’s hybrid campaign. Putin dismissed the allegations, saying Berlin wants to distract from its own failings and dissatisfaction among voters. Any proof being offered “has been planted,” Putin said.

But German Foreign Minister Johan Wadephul said Berlin had carefully prepared its response “and now Russia must live with these consequences.” He called on Russia “to show that it is also ready for reasonable talks and negotiations, particularly regarding the situation in Ukraine.”

Moscow has been widely accused by Western officials of running a yearslong campaign of sabotage and disruption with the aim of undermining support for Ukraine and destabilizing European nations.

The failed attack in Germany is one of several worrying incidents reported across Europe. Recent ones include a fire this week at a major drone making factory in Poland. Russia is suspected in many cases. There have also been drone incursions in Estonia and Latvia resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Concern about Russian attempts to divide the EU

Spain has publicly accused Russia, along with Israel, of using disinformation to incite migrants to cross from Morocco into its Ceuta exclave in northern Africa. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares accused some his EU partners of echoing that fake information, without naming them.

“There are a lot of people outside European Union that want to divide us, to make us weak,” he told reporters, clearly linking Spain's migration challenges to the incidents in Germany and elsewhere along Europe's eastern flank.

“The land borders of the south of the EU are as important as the eastern borders,” Albares said.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband also attended the EU meeting, along with officials from Ukraine, Canada, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland.

“We see an attempt by Russia to divide us in Europe and to deter us from our support for Ukraine,” Miliband told reporters.

“This attempt will fail. It will fail because we will stand up to Russian aggression. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in Ukraine,” he said, for “as long as it takes for them to prevail in this conflict.”

___

Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

But an inlet just off New York City's famously polluted Gowanus Canal could be their final port of call.

The boats — now owned by a company that turns historic vessels into floating bars and restaurants — sank there in early July while docked on the Brooklyn waterfront.

Now many in the maritime community are calling on the company to do what it can to save them — and to account for how they sank in the first place.

The 121-foot (37-meter) Pilot, which is a little more than a century old, and the 128-foot (39-meter) Victory Chimes, which dates to 1900 and is the ship that graces the 2003 Maine quarter, are owned by New York City-based company Crew. Both schooners sank around the time of strong squalls, though the exact cause of the sinkings has not been fully determined.

Crew is working with insurers, marine salvage experts and marine surveyors to determine what to do about the sunken boats, said Alex Pincus, the company's CEO.

“Raising wooden vessels of this size is a highly complex operation that requires specialized equipment, careful planning and extensive coordination,” Pincus said. “The vessels remain submerged as part of that ongoing process while assessments and planning continue.”

Maritime groups want to see the ships saved if possible

Many in the maritime community are calling on the company to do what it can to save the ships and to account for why they sank. Brad Vogel, a member of a canoe club called the Gowanus Dredgers, whose members paddle near the site, called the potential loss of the ships “a shame” and “in some ways unforgivable.”

“People in Maine, people in New York City, do want answers, and want to know what's going on. And it's not at all certain that there is a commitment to raising the vessels,” he said.

The Victory Chimes is on the National Register of Historic Places and is the last surviving Chesapeake ram, a kind of flat-bottomed schooner designed to navigate narrow and shallow waterways. Crew acquired it at auction about three years ago.

The loss of the ship is “heartbreaking for Maine and the nation's maritime heritage” because it's the last schooner of its type, said Steve Bromage, executive director of the Maine Historical Society.

“While salvaging her requires tremendous effort and expense, it would be very unfortunate to lose such an important part of history,” he said.

The Pilot once ferried maritime pilots to larger ships in Boston Harbor. It also made trips for the Coast Guard during the World War II era. It became an educational and research vessel in the 1970s and 1980s, and Jacques Cousteau spent time aboard it during that period. Crew acquired the vessel in 2015 and turned it into an oyster bar.

It's unclear if the vessels can be saved

Even if the ships can be raised, rebuilding them would be extremely difficult and expensive, in part because the kind of timber they were built with is no longer readily available, said Charlie Weidman, of Charlie's Marine Service in Rockland, Maine, who once shared a dock with the Victory Chimes. He described himself as “unsentimental” about the sinking of the ships and the ill-fated attempts to turn them into floating restaurants.

“They're not the saviors that they paint themselves to be. They're like, we're saving the boat,” Weidman said. “You're trying to monetize that boat. You're just trying to make a buck here.”

The schooners were docked at Brooklyn Bridge Park before being relocated to Henry Street Basin, just off the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood. The canal is a federal Superfund site regarded as one of the most toxic waterways in the country, though a long-term cleanup is underway.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, which manages the park, didn't respond to a request for comment. Coast Guard and New York City officials also didn't respond to questions about the sinking of the ships.

The loss of the boats is “sad, but not entirely unexpected,” because maintaining such historic schooners is very difficult, said Amanda Pleau, spokesperson for the Maine Maritime Museum. Most turn-of-the-century schooners lasted less than 20 years, she said.

“That’s also why historic vessels are so special; it’s not uncommon in Maine to come across a home that’s more than 100 years old, but the remaining ships are few and far between,” Pleau said.

The latest violence came after a monthlong lull in fighting. The six-month war has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and posed increasing political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November midterm elections.

Fighting has escalated since the American military hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, saying Iran was planning to use them to lay mines. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at American bases in Jordan that were intercepted.

American military resources are stretched and political pressure in Washington is mounting, while Iran's economy has been battered by sanctions and an American naval blockade. Iran's currency hit another record low on Wednesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging 2.20 million rials for one U.S. dollar, a 10% hike from last week's record.

Neither side can continue indefinitely between full-scale war and a truce, said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, an international think tank.

“At some point, one of the sides may see a need to escalate in order to break this cycle,” he cautioned. “So that could bring the two sides to a point that they have been trying to avoid until now, which is a full-scale war.”

The struggle is focused on the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices

The latest flare-up in violence came as the standoff seemed to be shifting slightly more in the U.S.' favor, with the price of oil around $80 a barrel and Iranian leaders talking about growing economic hardships, said Sascha Bruchmann, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Middle East office in Bahrain.

“The U.S. is trying to reinstall some kind of confidence into the global oil markets … and the Iranians had to respond to that by reinserting insecurity and doubt,” Bruchmann said.

Since the fighting resumed, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, has climbed to around $95, up more than 30% from the start of the war.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran will “continue to feel the squeeze” from the United States until it drops any nuclear weapons ambitions and ends support for armed groups in the Middle East. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is peaceful.

U.S. allies in the region fend off Iranian attacks

Following the strikes on Jordan, U.S. Gulf allies Kuwait and Bahrain said they had also come under attack, without reporting any casualties.

“You will soon see that Iran's new strategy on the battlefield, in diplomacy, and in confronting the economic blockade will shatter your foundations,” the recently appointed head of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said on X.

In Iraq, where Iranian-backed forces are active, Kurdish authorities said they had intercepted 10 drones laden with explosives in the Irbil area. Iranian television reported that American bases in Irbil had been targeted.

Israel's military also said that Iran-backed Hezbollah fired two explosive drones at its soldiers in southern Lebanon, without causing casualties.

The U.S. Central Command said Tuesday's strikes focused on Iranian military targets, including air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets.

Strike on wedding killed 4 and wounded dozens, Iranian officials say

One U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding in Kuhestak, a small coastal town overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian state media.

Four people were killed — two women and two children, aged 4 and 16 — and at least 68 were wounded, the state news agency IRNA and state TV said Wednesday. Just after the strike, Ahmad Nafisi, the province’s deputy governor, had told Iranian state television that five people were killed. There was no explanation for the change.

Several heavy explosions shook Kuhestak, with fireballs that lit up the night sky, according to security camera footage carried by the semiofficial Fars news agency.

Images from Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed several hospitalized children being treated for injuries at a hospital in the nearby town of Minab, where a U.S. missile strike on the opening day of the war hit a primary school, killing more than 100 children.

Footage from the Iranian Red Crescent showed rescue workers entering a damaged home in the wake of the strike. It showed a hole in the roof of one house in a neighborhood of densely packed homes.

Experts say a ‘very precise’ weapon appears to have been used

Two weapons experts told The Associated Press that images of fragments of a missile, which Iranian media said was used in the strike, were from a U.S.-made SLAM-ER cruise missile.

Trevor Ball, conflict researcher at the investigative group Bellingcat, said the SLAM-ER was “developed as a very precise weapon” that can be retargeted in flight by a human operator watching by infrared camera.

N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, said the air-launched missile is also used by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Neither has reported carrying out any recent strikes on Iran.

“Make no mistake: these crimes will not go unpunished,” Ebrahim Azizi, chairperson of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on X.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the U.S. military was “aware of the reports, which originated from Iranian state media, and we are looking into them.” He would not say if CENTCOM had launched a formal investigation.

Separately, Iran has said four members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and 10 members of the Guard’s volunteer Basij forces died in the U.S. attacks.

The Strait of Hormuz remains largely shut down

During last month's lull in fighting, the U.S. ramped up economic pressure on Iran as Washington sought to fully open the Strait of Hormuz.

About a fifth of the world's traded oil was shipped through the key waterway before Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28 and Iran largely shut it down in response. Despite many pronouncements from Washington that the strait is open, only a handful of ships are making the passage each day and Iran has regularly attacked vessels.

On Wednesday, Saudi shipping company Bahri said two Filipino sailors were killed in an attack late Monday as their vessel transited the strait.

A ceasefire deal reached in June quickly fell apart amid exchanges of strikes that same month. Mediator Pakistan has been working to restart talks.

Late Tuesday, Trump said he would not force Iran to the bargaining table.

“I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement. I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing. They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?” Trump wrote on social media.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Iranian state media are now reporting that four people were killed in the strike on the wedding, not five. They gave no explanation for the change.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Lee Keath and Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Konstantin Toropin in Nuremberg, Germany, Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this story.

Los escarpados pliegues montañosos del Himalaya, ya propensos a los terremotos, han sido testigo de inundaciones repentinas cada vez más frecuentes a medida que se derriten los glaciares de alta montaña, lo que redibuja los ríos a una velocidad a veces aterradora. Los residentes han tenido poco tiempo para reconstruir entre un desastre y el siguiente, lo que aviva la preocupación sobre si sus comunidades podrán resistir a medida que el cambio climático se acelera.

“Solo el año pasado pudimos reconstruir la estupa después de que fuera destruida durante el terremoto”, explicó Tamang a The Associated Press, en referencia al santuario, desde un refugio improvisado en un monasterio de Katmandú. “Refugiarnos allí fue lo que nos salvó de las inundaciones”.

Las inundaciones del 26 de agosto en Nepal y la vecina China se han cobrado la vida de más de 1.000 personas y han dejado miles de desaparecidos, incluidos cientos que se teme estén atrapados en túneles de proyectos hidroeléctricos. La crecida se produjo luego de que el colapso de roca madre y hielo glaciar envió escombros y agua a múltiples ríos del Himalaya.

Los científicos señalan que es demasiado pronto para vincular directamente la catástrofe con el calentamiento global. Pero a medida que la temperatura del planeta aumenta a un ritmo más rápido por la quema de petróleo, gas y carbón, crecen las probabilidades de que se den desastres de este tipo, especialmente en las montañas del Himalaya, que se están calentando considerablemente más rápido que muchas otras partes del mundo.

“El cambio climático ha estado desempeñando un papel importante en el Hindu Kush Himalaya, provocando este tipo de desastres complejos que han afectado de verdad a las comunidades e inversiones aguas abajo”, señaló Saswata Sanyal, experto en resiliencia ante el riesgo de desastres del Centro Internacional para el Desarrollo Integrado de las Montañas, con sede en Katmandú.

Efectos del calentamiento global se intensifican en el Himalaya

Sanyal apuntó que la región enfrenta cada vez más a peligros que se desencadenan entre sí.

Las temperaturas más cálidas hacen que el hielo de alta montaña se derrita, lo que provoca deslizamientos de rocas, avalanchas e inundaciones más frecuentes. Una avalancha puede represar un río antes de desatar una inundación repentina. Las lluvias intensas tras un primer desastre pueden agravar la destrucción.

Las inundaciones repentinas del año pasado en la misma región de Nepal se cobraron nueve vidas y causaron daños por millones de dólares. En la región himalaya, las crecidas de Kedarnath en 2013, el desastre de Chamoli en 2021, la inundación por el vaciamiento del lago glaciar South Lhonak en 2023, y otros deslaves e inundaciones recientes, han matado a miles de personas y han provocado daños millonarios.

Sanyal comentó que la gente en Nepal aún se estaba recuperando de las inundaciones del año pasado “y antes de que pudieran adaptarse por completo, llegó la siguiente”.

El Hindu Kush Himalaya se extiende por partes de Afganistán, Pakistán, India, Nepal, Bután, Bangladesh, Myanmar y China, y contiene la mayor concentración de hielo fuera de las regiones polares. Los sistemas fluviales que nacen en las montañas sostienen a casi 2.000 millones de personas.

La pérdida de hielo glaciar se ha acelerado drásticamente desde 2000, según el grupo intergubernamental de investigación climática de Sanyal. Otro riesgo es el deshielo del permafrost —el suelo que ha permanecido congelado durante largos periodos—, que puede debilitar las laderas de las montañas.

Imágenes satelitales del colapso glaciar de la semana pasada indican que una enorme masa de roca madre y hielo glaciar se precipitó a un valle inferior, enviando una pared de agua y lodo de varios pisos de altura a través de comunidades situadas muchos kilómetros (millas) río abajo.

La adaptación tiene límites en las montañas

Expertos en clima advierten que en algunos lugares el peligro podría volverse tan grande que la reconstrucción ya no sea viable, lo que obligaría a los residentes a mudarse. El cambio climático también podría tener implicaciones para los esfuerzos por desarrollar la región mediante la construcción de carreteras, puentes y plantas hidroeléctricas.

“En algunas zonas se ha superado el umbral de adaptación”, aseguró Manjeet Dhakal, experto nepalí en políticas climáticas y negociador climático de Naciones Unidas.

Dhakal explicó que cuando un terremoto destruye una casa, a veces se pueden recuperar pertenencias. Una inundación catastrófica puede arrasar no solo la vivienda, sino el terreno que hay debajo, además de carreteras, sistemas de agua, escuelas y electricidad. Un futuro reasentamiento tendría que contemplar el riesgo climático desde el principio, agregó.

Las consecuencias pueden mitigarse con normas más estrictas de uso del suelo, mejores evaluaciones antes de aprobar infraestructuras, un monitoreo transfronterizo más sólido y sistemas de alerta temprana.

Aun así, Sanyal indicó que, de las 670.000 personas que recibieron alertas por mensaje de texto sobre las inundaciones del 26 de agosto, algunas eran visitantes o trabajadores migrantes que no entendían nepalí, mientras que otras minimizaron el riesgo. Otros sistemas diseñados para medir los ríos se vieron desbordados o fueron arrastrados.

Chanda Lal Chitrakar, un residente en Nuwakot, en Nepal, de 62 años, contó a la AP que prestó poca atención a los mensajes de advertencia. A medida que subía el nivel del agua, corrió cuesta arriba para salvarse.

Nepal sufre por las emisiones mucho mayores de países más ricos

Estas alertas deben ofrecer más información sobre qué acciones tomar, dijo Sanyal. También sugirió priorizar el desarrollo en zonas menos peligrosas, evaluar la infraestructura frente a múltiples amenazas e incorporar el conocimiento de las comunidades indígenas en la planificación ante desastres.

Dhakal apuntó que Nepal ha emitido menos del 0,1% de los gases de efecto invernadero que causan el calentamiento global, aun cuando lidia con algunos de sus efectos más severos.

“Deberíamos culpar a quienes son responsables de aumentar la temperatura global, a quienes se han beneficiado de la economía de los combustibles fósiles durante tanto tiempo”, manifestó. “Al menos podemos usar este ejemplo devastador como inspiración para reducir urgentemente las emisiones de carbono”.

___

Arasu informó desde Bengaluru, India.

___

La cobertura climática y ambiental de The Associated Press recibe apoyo financiero de múltiples fundaciones privadas. AP es la única responsable de todo el contenido. Consulte las normas de AP para trabajar con filantropías, una lista de patrocinadores y las áreas de cobertura financiadas en AP.org.

___

Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.

Zverev couldn't cash in on repeated chances to break Sonego's serve for much of the night and was in danger of becoming the first top-seeded man to fall in his first match in a major since Ivo Karlovic beat Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon in 2003.

It hasn't happened at the U.S. Open since Stefan Edberg lost to Alexander Volkov in 1990. Zverev finally broke through against Sonego's serve late to pull out the match in 4 hours, 52 minutes.

“Nearly five hours for a first round, I think this is the longest first-round match I’ve ever played in my life,” Zverev said. “So, credit to him. He played amazing tennis today, would have beaten a lot of players for sure, but I’m happy to be through.”

Zverev won his first major title at the French Open, lost to top-ranked Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon final, then became the No. 1 seed in a major for the first time when Sinner had to withdraw from the U.S. Open with a right knee injury.

Zverev is 7-0 against Sonego, an Italian who came in 1-9 against top-10 men in Grand Slams. But Sonego's speed around the court allowed him to track down balls that on other nights would have been winners, and he came up with enough clutch serves to make Zverev just 5 for 22 on break points for the match.

The German broke when Sonego served for the third set at 5-4 and seemed to be in good shape in the tiebreaker when he hit consecutive serves of 133 mph and 141 mph to take a 7-6 lead. Sonego won the next two points to take the lead and Zverev then double-faulted to end the set.

Zverev then broke for a 3-2 lead in the fourth set, but Sonego raced from corner to corner of the court in the next game to break right back. Sonego then got within two points from winning the match with a 5-4 lead, but Zverev held serve and then broke to go ahead 6-5.

Sonego had his hand or wrist checked before the start of the final set. He appeared OK afterward but Zverev got the break he needed to grab a 3-2 lead and stayed ahead from there.

Zverev advanced to face Quentin Halys in the second round, and the 2020 U.S. Open runner-up wasn't disappointed that he needed to work so hard to get there.

"Actually I’m happy that I won this kind of battle because this exactly the match that I needed," he said. “I struggled the last two tournaments, I didn’t play well and sometimes good things happen after you fight through one of these matches. So I’m hoping that will be the case for me at this tournament.”

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Nepal’s Foreign Ministry said 324 foreign nationals have been rescued, while another 590 from 39 countries remain missing following the Aug. 26 floods that killed at least 1,118 people and left more than 3,900 missing.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that the number of Australians missing in the disaster had fallen from 43 to 38 after five were confirmed safe overnight.

“Amidst all of this tragedy, we are seeing some positive news. Today, another five Australians have been confirmed safe,” Albanese told reporters in Palau, where he is attending a regional summit.

“We hope, of course, for positive news further, and we’re doing everything we can to work with authorities,” Albanese added.

Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson for the Nepal Tourism Board, said at least five other tourists who were previously reported missing had contacted authorities by email or telephone in recent days.

It is thought the disaster happened when a glacial collapse in the Himalayas sent rock, ice and meltwater into valleys below, triggering powerful floods downstream. The surge entered rivers flowing through Tibet and Nepal, causing them to rise rapidly. Floodwaters swept away homes, buildings, roads and bridges, carrying mud and rocks downstream.

Families hold symbolic funerals

Some families in Nuwakot, one of Nepal's worst-affected districts, have held symbolic funerals for relatives still missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.

In Hindu tradition, cremation is an important final rite, and for some families, performing the ceremony even without the bodies of their loved ones provides a sense of spiritual release.

Mukunda Rijal said his cousins and their daughters had not been found, prompting the family to perform a symbolic funeral for them.

Along the banks of the Trishuli River, a priest placed straw effigies representing the missing family members and covered them with small piles of wood before setting them alight. The symbolic funeral pyres were surrounded by offerings to Hindu deities as relatives gathered to perform the final rites.

Authorities in Nepal have also been burying recovered bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. They are preserving DNA samples, photographing distinguishing facial features and recording other identifying details to help match the remains with missing people and eventually return them to their families.

China builds access road for rescue crews

On the Chinese side, rescue crews completed a makeshift road to the disaster site at Gyirong Port on the Nepal border, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.

Crews have been clearing access for heavy machinery to be used in the search at the border crossing complex, which was washed away by the floods. The road leading to the crossing was destroyed and buried under water, mud and rocks.

At least 21 people have been killed and 541 remain missing in China, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

Survivors find shelter in Kathmandu

Some flood survivors are fleeing the devastation to seek shelter in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.

Around 400 survivors, mostly from the town of Timure, about 110 kilometers (65 miles) west of Kathmandu, have been staying at the Yellow Gumba monastery. The shelter is being organized by locals and relatives, with relief supplies donated by individuals and charity organizations.

Riya Tamang, 21, who fled with her 10-month-old baby as the floodwaters approached, is among those taking shelter at the monastery. She lost her grandparents in the disaster.

“I was the last one to leave the house. It was so difficult to escape,” she said.

Her husband, who works as a cook in Gyirong town on the Chinese side of the border, also survived, and the couple now stays in touch through video calls.

___

Associated Press journalists Yasin Dar in Nuwakot, Nepal, Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Kanis Leung in Hong Kong and Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.

The S&P 500 index rose 0.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 270 points, or 0.5%, as of 12:03 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.5%.

The gains follow two weak days for the broader market as it came under pressure from rising oil prices and a bond-market sell-off.

Banks had some of the strongest gains. JPMorgan Chase rose 0.8% and Bank of America rose 1.3%.

Elsewhere, Dell Technologies jumped 6.9% following an encouraging financial update.

Markets in Europe fell after markets in Asia closed lower.

Oil prices held relatively steady despite the intensification in the six-month long U.S. war with Iran. The U.S. attacked sites in Iran over the weekend, ending a lull in major hostilities and Iran has since retaliated against sites around the Gulf region.

Prices for Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1% to $95.69 a barrel. Energy stocks were mixed. Chevron edged 0.4% higher after confirming it will expand operations in Venezuela.

A surge in oil prices following the start of the U.S. war with Iran fueled a jump in gasoline prices and global shipping costs. The conflict shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil is typically shipped.

Higher energy costs worsened inflation that was already stubbornly high amid a volatile U.S. tariff war with much of the world.

Inflation has been squeezing businesses and households at the same time that the mostly resilient jobs market shows signs of weakening. Payrolls processing firm ADP reported that private-sector employment slipped in August, according to its monthly survey. It is just a small snapshot, though, of the broader labor market and follows a government report on Tuesday that showed U.S. job openings rose in July.

The big focus this week will be the government’s broader employment report for August, which will be released Friday. The previous report for July showed that the jobs market stalled, with employers cutting positions.

Both inflation and the jobs market have been key focuses for Wall Street and the Federal Reserve.

“Friday’s employment report, and perhaps even more importantly next week’s inflation data, will play a significant role in determining whether policymakers decide to raise rates in September,” said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global strategist, investment strategy at Edward Jones, in a research note.

The Fed is trying to balance its task of supporting employment and taming inflation. Wall Street expects the central bank to raise interest rates before the year ends in an effort to cool inflation, which remains well above 3%. The Fed has a stated goal of cooling inflation to a target of 2%.

The bond market has been selling off, which is a signal that it expects borrowing costs to rise.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which tends to impact mortgage rates, rose slightly to 4.80% from 4.79% late Tuesday. It has been rising steadily throughout the year and was as low as 4.20% at the beginning of 2026.

The yield on the 2-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for Federal Reserve moves on interest rates, held steady at 4.39% from late Tuesday. It is significantly higher for the year, though, and was as low as 3.50% at the beginning of 2026.

Investors are also betting on a 64% chance that the Fed will raise rates at its upcoming meeting in September, according to CME FedWatch.

The Fed’s position is growing more complicated. Raising the benchmark interest rate would help cool inflation by making borrowing costs higher and slowing the economy. Doing so, though, could also hurt the employment market at a time when it is seemingly already weakening.

What happens if they can’t reach a verdict?

A mistrial will be declared and the case essentially goes back to the same status as before the trial, with the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse charged with murder and held at a psychiatric hospital awaiting a resolution of the criminal case.

Clancy will likely go back on trial, but prosecutors have options

Prosecutors will decide whether to try again with a new jury. If they do, the jury selection process will begin again and a new trial will be scheduled.

Prosecutors could also offer a plea deal to Clancy, said Brad Bailey, a Boston defense attorney and former prosecutor who is not involved in the case.

“Any time the threat of a retrial with murder one hanging over the client is re-interjected, defense lawyers will, at the very least, explore whether or not there’s any interest in a resolution,” Bailey said.

___

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

___

Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her children at their home south of Boston, but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. After the killings, her husband found her badly injured in the yard, where she landed after jumping from a second-story window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down.

Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing.

Though less likely, the district attorney’s office could decide to not retry the case.

“Sometimes they decide not to, because of the sense that there may be the same result each time they try it, and because of the expenditures involved in trying the case to begin with, particularly when you have expert witnesses,” he said. “Those are going to be expensive cases.”

Clancy's defense will likely push to drop the charges

Bailey expects her defense attorney to aggressively lobby against another trial, making a case to the district attorney’s office along the lines of: “‘Why are you doing this to this poor woman? She’s still clearly obviously suffering. She’s been punished with her paralysis and, worse than that, the loss of her three children.’”

A conviction could mean life in prison for Clancy, while an acquittal might lead to confinement in a mental health facility.

Karen Read was another high-profile mistrial in Massachusetts

Karen Read was charged in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend. Jurors in her 2024 trial deadlocked on the fifth day of deliberations, leading to a mistrial.

Prosecutors chose to retry the case, but a different jury last year found Read not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.

Like Read's case, Clancy's has drawn a divided public reaction.

Clancy's livestreamed trial drew attention to maternal mental health after childbirth and was closely watched by a polarized public. Clancy’s sympathizers saw her as a loving mom who had realized something was badly wrong in the months ahead of the killings and sought help, including checking herself into a psychiatric hospital. Her detractors said she deserved to be punished for an evil and selfish act.

While experiments in containment continue, including the release of tens of thousands of octopus predators, the industry’s response has been shifting to find new markets for the crustaceans. The strategy is already salvaging the livelihood of some fishermen and, some hope, may even rehabilitate the much-maligned crab’s image in Italy.

Fishermen pivot to salvage livelihoods

Like other members of his local cooperative, second-generation fisherman Federico Zago saw his income crash after the crab invasion. The Polesine Fishermen’s Cooperative Consortium's revenues fell 75% to 15 million euros ($17 million) in 2024 and 2025; the cooperative's active members also shrank from 1,500 to 850.

“We needed to change strategy, and create an opportunity from this disaster,” said Paolo Mancin, the cooperative's president.

Desperate, they pivoted to exporting the unwanted crabs, with the aim of preserving the Manila clams — invasive themselves — and mussels that created decades of prosperity in the shallow lagoons of Veneto and Emilia Romagna.

Zago now pulls up cages full of crabs from his traditional fishing cabin built on stilts over the Scardovari lagoon in the Veneto region. And the consortium's strategy is working; so far this year it has sold every crab it has caught, eliminating the need for incineration. It forecasts 20 million euros ($23 million) in revenue this year, most from sales of crab.

“Since we’re going to have to live with these crabs, I hope they become an opportunity,” said Zago. “I hope the market continues to grow.”

Climate change creates perfect conditions for invasive crab

The Atlantic blue crab has been present in the Adriatic Sea since at least the 1940s, arriving in ballast water from commercial vessels, according to Piero Genovesi, an invasive species expert at Italy’s environmental protection institute.

Their numbers remained contained until 2023, and local fishermen reported catching them only sporadically.

Then came the explosion. Crabs tore through fishing nets, devoured mollusks at an alarming rate and edged out the native green crab, a local soft-shell specialty.

Climate change played a key role. Higher water temperatures favor blue crabs’ reproduction, but the real trigger was likely drought-driven drops in the Po River's levels. That allowed sea water to infiltrate freshwater tributaries across the peninsula, especially in lagoons and deltas where clam and mussel farms provided ample prey.

“Climate change may therefore have favored reproduction through both temperature and salinity, because it changed the salinity of the water,’’ Genovesi said.

Eradication program failed

Reeling from damage to the mollusk industry, the Italian government adopted a blue crab eradication program in 2024. Over two years, the government paid the Polesine to catch and incinerate nearly 2.3 million kilograms (5 million pounds) of crabs. Fishermen in the neighboring Sacca di Goro lagoon and the Orbetello lagoon in Tuscany did the same.

But with female crabs able to produce up to 8 million eggs every season, culling barely dented their numbers. The project has been shelved, said Enrico Caterino, the government's extraordinary commissioner for the blue crab emergency.

University of Bologna scientists this summer released 150,000 baby octopuses into the Adriatic Sea on the Riviera Romagnola, some two hours south of the Po Delta, promoting their project with an impressive video showing an adult octopus grabbing and devouring a crab.

Most octopus babies aren't expected to survive. And given their preference for rocky environments over sandy lagoons and the crabs’ reproductive prowess, fishermen and experts alike are skeptical.

“If an animal with such high reproductive potential finds suitable environmental conditions, predators may not be able to keep it under control,” Genovesi said.

Fishermen deliver crabs bound for Sri Lan

ka

Each morning, Italian fishermen unload crates of scuttling crabs from the backs of their cars and trucks, 100-150 kilograms (up to 330 pounds) at a time.

Crab sales may be keeping the fishermen afloat, but their earnings remain nowhere near those of the clam industry’s heyday. Crab fetches just 1.30 euros per kilogram, compared with 10 euros for clams, which once generated 90% of their income but now account for just 10%.

Their crabs are steamed, frozen and packed into boxes to be shipped to Sri Lanka, where workers remove the meat by hand. The joint venture between Sri Lankan company Taprobane Seafoods and the Scardovari consortium churns out a range of crab products, from claw meat to mixed meat and fillet. Most is exported to other markets, with just a small quantity returning to Italy. Taprobane is forecasting large-scale retail expansion in Italy and Europe.

Mancin says he hopes the meat that arrives packed from Sri Lanka will help win over Italians who have so far resisted the “If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ’em” campaign launched in 2023.

Working to change Italian tastes

Despite the efforts, blue crab is mostly absent from top restaurants around Venice that specialize in the native green crab, due both to the labor involved in processing the invader species and its bad rap, according to the FIPE Venice restaurant federation.

The Yogi restaurant and bar in Porto Tolle on the Po Delta is an exception, having fully embraced the blue crab out of passion and necessity — finding themselves empty-handed after the invasion.

Owner and chef Stefania Marchesini, who fished professionally herself for 11 years, pays a premium to local fishermen, especially for soft-shell crabs known in the local dialect as moeche.

She offers an all-crab menu in her family-run restaurant, featuring fried crab balls, creamed crab on polenta, soft-shell crab and sectioned crab in the shell — each recipe capturing the crab’s delicate flavors.

“At first, the customer is very skeptical. But then the reaction is completely positive, and they want to try the entire range of products," she said.

Marchesini also has a separate workshop where she prepares crab to sell to other restaurants — but business has so far been disappointing. Her commercial fare includes moeche individually packed in plastic envelopes, and full crabs already broken apart, under vacuum, to make them easier to prepare and less messy to eat.

Even at restaurants where the products sell out, owners are reluctant to restock. Marchesini chalks it up to cultural resistance, but she is undeterred. Recently she brought her menu to Barcelona’s Alimentaria, one of the world’s largest food and beverage trade fairs.

“We are all angry because it invaded our seas,” Marchesini said. “But we also have to eat. Once people understand how it should be prepared, they will realize it is an excellent product.” ___

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.

Before the award ceremony, which he plans to attend with his wife Amal Clooney, the 65-year-old actor and director addressed issues such as the artificial intelligence revolution in Hollywood and the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, and the state of journalism and power in America.

“There’s a great word, kakistocracy, which is a country run by the least qualified people,” Clooney said. “I think maybe we have a kakistocracy right now. But we’ll get through it.”

Of artificial intelligence, Clooney said that his industry is going to have to find ways to survive, and that he would “like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I’m dead.” He bemoaned the fact that some of the world's richest men own The Washington Post and X and said that the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. was “a complicated thing because I don’t know how this works out, I don’t know how it goes through."

Current events take center stage

Over the course of 11 days, the 83rd edition of the festival will see many stars from Hollywood and beyond grace the red carpet, from Robert Pattinson to Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, but the focus this year seems to be more on geopolitics than movie star moments.

The sprawling lineup includes documentaries about the conflict in Gaza ( “NAZA” ), Elon Musk (“Musk”) and independent Russian journalists covering the war in Ukraine (“My Undesirable Friends — Part II: Exile”) as well as Palestinian films and a short about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis.

Jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal spoke about the fact that many of the films in the slate are about current events and conflicts.

“Look, we could say how are we possibly here talking about movies right now when the world is in a state of emergency,” Gyllenhaal said. “To me the answer has something to do with empathy.”

When asked if she thought films should be political, she said that she thinks they are “fundamentally, unavoidably political.”

Festival director Alberto Barbera told The Associated Press that most of the films they saw during the selection process dealt with “contemporary problems.”

“We didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “We are in a space open to everybody for discussion, for confrontation. Everybody is completely free to express themselves. And I’m, in a way, really happy that this kind of film could help the viewers, the critics, everybody to have a better understanding of what is going on in our contemporary, difficult world.”

Lack of female directors is a ‘systemic issue’

Gyllenhaal also addressed the dearth of female directors in the competition lineup. When the slate was announced in July, there was much attention on the fact that there was only one film directed by a woman. The documentary “NAZA,” which was added to the lineup just last week, was also co-directed by a woman.

“I guess it’s just finally become clear that men make better movies than women do,” Gyllenhaal quipped, before speaking about the systemic issues facing female directors, like financing and preconceived notions about high art.

Earlier, Barbera called it “a big problem,” adding: “There is a lot to do to give women the place that they deserve in cinema.”

He explained that while the organizers saw many interesting films from women, and programmed many in the festival’s sidebars, they didn’t find films that were strong enough for the main competition.

Danny Boyle's ‘Ink’ spurs debate on journalism and AI

The festival is also known for being a launch pad for Oscar contenders.

Barbera said one such possibility could be the opening-night film “Ink,” a competition title starring Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch and Jack O’Connell as tabloid newspaper editor Larry Lamb. An adaptation of James Graham’s acclaimed play, the Danny Boyle-directed film dramatizes Murdoch’s acquisition of the British tabloid “The Sun” in 1969 and explores how Lamb transformed a failing paper into a bestselling one.

Pearce said Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth, told him: “‘Dad’s very happy that you are playing him.’ But he hadn’t seen the film at that point."

As in the stage play, Boyle said the point was not to “monsterize” Murdoch, who at the time was seen as a breath of fresh air in a rigid British society and media landscape.

The filmmakers and the cast spoke about “Ink's” themes and the cost of sacrificing morals, standards and decency for profit and sensationalism.

Boyle's thoughts also turned to AI and how it might impact journalism.

“The danger is with the tech giants and their AI is they’ll be able to replace journalists,” he said. “Will that AI journalist speak truth to the power that’s created it?”

___

For ongoing coverage of the 2026 Venice Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/venice-film-festival

A former labor and delivery nurse, Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her three young children at the family's Massachusetts home in 2023, but she says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors argue that she knew what she was doing. Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility.

Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense interest, with reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also sparked deep public divisions over her culpability and the issues around maternal mental health after childbirth.

The jurors told Judge William Sullivan on Tuesday morning that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision, but he instructed them to keep trying — a common instruction in criminal trials when juries say they're having trouble reaching a verdict.

___

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

___

Arrested woman says she was trying to photograph Clancy, not the jury

The woman who was arrested, Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, Massachusetts, was arraigned Wednesday at the same courthouse in Plymouth, south of Boston.

Surrounded by reporters while going to her car, Light was asked why she filmed outside the courthouse Tuesday.

“To see Lindsay. And I did see her. She was getting picked up by the van,” Light said.

Light’s attorney, Jennifer White, called it a “misunderstanding” and said that Light, a retired nurse, was only trying to take a photo of Clancy and “not interact with the jurors.”

She was charged with intimidation of a witness, jurors or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings. A not-guilty plea was entered on her behalf and she was released without having to post bail, but was ordered to stay away from the court, the jurors and any witnesses.

Police searched the woman's phone for video of the jury

Assistant District Attorney Nicole Piacentini said Light was parked in a restricted area behind the courthouse and is accused of filming the jurors as they left court. Light told state police that she was waiting to film Clancy and denied recording jurors, however, troopers found video of jurors in a deleted files folder on her phone, Piacentini said.

“The sanctity of the judicial system is at risk because of her actions,” Piacentini told a judge during the arraignment.

Jury resumes deliberations a day after courthouse arrest

Sullivan opened Wednesday’s proceedings with a warning to the courtroom about follwing his orders.

“Everybody should be well aware that the order and that statute is being enforced,” he said.

The order bars people from photographing or filming a jury until the case ends, and prohibits anyone from following, contacting, harassing or tampering with a jury.

Before deliberations resumed, Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, said that Sullivan had asked jurors about the woman’s arrest. The judge’s questions could not be heard from the gallery and he didn't disclose what he asked.

What happens if there's a mistrial

Jurors have heard testimony from relatives and doctors about how Clancy's mental health declined in the months before the killings and how her treatment included several medications and a short stay in a psychiatric hospital. Medical experts hired by the prosecution and the defense reached sharply different conclusions about her psychiatric state when she killed the children.

If jurors ultimately can’t agree on a verdict, the judge could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges or try to negotiate a plea deal with her lawyer.

After court ended Tuesday, Clancy’s attorney said it was a good sign that the jury kept working.

“The fact that they have not said that they’re done is very, very heartening,” Reddington said. “Obviously, they’re working very hard.”

If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines that she poses a danger to the public.

Clancy killed the children with exercise bands in their home's basement, then jumped from a second-floor window. She remains paralyzed from the waist down. Her lawyers say she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life.

She was looking for civilian work two decades ago after leaving the Army Reserves, but what she saw was the disconnect between her and the panel of interviewers. As a Black woman, she didn’t fit the stereotypes of who veterans were or what military service looked like.

“They thought of a veteran to be a white male who served in Vietnam,” said Galloway-Salazar, who has built her professional life since then around veteran issues and working to increase the public’s awareness.

“I realized the minute I sat in that room that that interview panel did not know what the heck to do with me,” she said. “And I remember going to my car and crying because my thought was, what am I going to do now?”

Her experience illustrates two delicate questions that the country rarely, if ever, confronts: In this experiment in democratic life that has run for 250 years, how can military and civilian life sit so far away from each other? And how can that divide be crossed?

Military service is threaded through American life

The soldiers. The sailors. The battles. The conflicts.

There is no recounting of the U.S. story where its very existence as a nation isn’t intertwined with its military history, from its creation in 1776 to the expansion of its physical borders to its role in the global political and economic order.

A number of those threads can be found running through the weave of ordinary American life. Some are in the lessons American students learn and the monuments people visit. Some are in public rituals at sporting events and holiday commemorations. Some are in the way that “Thank you for your service” is a commonplace saying aimed at veterans and those in uniform.

But other threads have frayed.

In a nation that lionizes an idea of military service, most American adults don’t serve, or aren’t very connected to the people who do and their families to have a sense of what their lives are like. Those who do serve often end up coming from generations of the same families, or the same communities, from certain states more than others. It’s a concentration that can make the responsibilities and burdens of military life land disproportionately on them.

The public pays little attention unless there's a crisis situation, like the concerns over mental health for USS Abraham Lincoln sailors who had been on an expanded deployment as part of the U.S. war against Iran, in which 18 service members have been killed and more than 750 injured since its start six months ago.

In fabric, decaying threads can cause holes. In the U.S., there’s a military-civilian divide, a gap in understanding and connection that carries real-world impacts on public policy, on the logistical issues of everyday military life, on the views or stereotypes each side carries about the other.

From the start, what form the relationship between the country and its military would take was something the founders were concerned with, said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University.

After all, among the concerns leading to the Revolutionary War had been opposition to British laws requiring the colonies to feed and house British soldiers, if necessary in private homes, without needing their consent.

There was no doubt that the new country needed some kind of military to protect itself, but the idea of a large standing army did not initially appeal to them, Feaver says.

“From the very beginning, the country has wrestled with … the need to have a military to protect you from threats, but the need for that military not to become a threat to the republic itself,” he says. Hence an initial small professional army, with limited tasks like border protection.

That’s not to say there wasn’t any expectation of service. States had militias, and conscription efforts were part of major military endeavors like the Civil War and the World Wars when there weren’t enough volunteers.

That draft continued through most of the 20th century even as the military transformed into a large, professional endeavor. But the policy ended in 1973, a political decision spurred by factors including vehement public opposition to the Vietnam War and the draft. The armed services have been all-volunteer ever since.

Disconnects are ever more evident

That America benefits from having a professional, highly trained military whose members have opted into being there is not in contention, nor is there any serious effort to bring back an active draft. (There is still a requirement for adult men to register for selective service in case a draft is ever reinstated.) These days, the military includes about 2 million people on active duty or in the National Guard and reserves.

That number is a tiny portion of the roughly 230 million adult citizens and legal permanent residents in the country. Contrast it to the World War II era, says Feaver, “where everybody, every family, had somebody who had served.”

“If not themselves, if not their dad or mom, certainly they had an uncle or an aunt or somebody,” he says. “And the military was widely distributed geographically throughout society.”

That’s generally not the case these days, says Kathy Roth-Douquet, co-founder and CEO of Blue Star Families, an organization which advocates for military households and has launched the Do Your Part initiative, calling on sectors in civilian society to think of policies and other ways to support military families without being required to serve.

“Military service kind of became a cul-de-sac, where it was people who served beget people who served, who married people who were from families who served,” she says.

Take the Army. More than 75% of recruits come from families where a relative has served, according to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. In fiscal year 2025, about half of the Army recruits came from seven states. In recent years, U.S. military leaders have spoken of the importance of shifting that, to be able to recruit from a wider pool of young Americans.

Such concentrations have meant that the hazards and dangers of military actions aren't shared equally in the public, says Jason Higgins, an assistant professor of history at Virginia Tech, where he teaches on the Vietnam War.

He pointed to the Iraq War. Repeat deployments became a frequent thing for some of those serving, creating more adverse effects like PTSD and physical injuries, as well as families having to cope with long absences and repeated attempts to reintegrate a loved one who would then have to leave again.

“You have this small group of American families who are the only ones who directly experience the consequences of war,” he says.

That lack of knowledge on the part of the American public can also lead to stereotypes and assumptions about what it means to be a military member or veteran, the different roles in which people serve, and what they might need to help them reconnect to civilian life when their service is done.

Pop culture portrayals of grizzled soldiers, usually male, often white, gun-laden and in their fatigues don't tell the full story, Higgins says. Of course, there are combat troops, but there are plenty of other roles — administrative, mechanical, logistical. “There are millions of jobs in the military that are not related to killing people,” he said.

It's what has made some veterans uncomfortable with the “Thank you for your service” refrain, feeling like they've been turned into “statues,” he said.

“Whenever you turn people into statues, you’re not recognizing their humanity,” he said. So the repeated thanks, the valorizing, “while they’re well-intended, they make people feel like outsiders of a society ... not every veteran wants to be called a hero.”

‘Get to know us,’ a military spouse hopes

It's not just in times of war and military action that the gap exists, but in understanding the realities of day-to-day military life.

Military parents are continually dealing with their kids having to transfer to new schools. Military spouses can find it difficult to build fulfilling careers if they're regularly moving regions for their partners' orders.

Trying to close the gap isn't about everyone enlisting, though, says Sheila Rupp, a military spouse for over 20 years whose life has included regular moves every couple of years as her husband got new assignments. It’s about the general public being willing to connect with military families, to understand more about the realities of their lives.

“I think the average American really wants to support military families, but they often don’t know how,” said Rupp, 43. “If people were more connected and they actually knew their friends and neighbors that do serve or have served recently, I think it would impact a lot of things.”

She added: “I just wish that there were more opportunities for people to get to know us ... because obviously the civilian population brings support to our networks. And I think that there’s a lot that military families bring to the communities in which they live and serve too. So I think relationship is really important.”

___

Part of a group of stories exploring life in the United States as the country marks its 250th anniversary. Click here for more. Take a look at some of the objects that have come to define America here.

The sign, like the campus, is virtually brand new – with classes beginning for the first time later this month. It is a declaration, but also a symbol of the danger associated with educating Afghan girls – even thousands of miles from their homes. It’s not visible from outside the compound, whose location SOLA closely guards for safety reasons. It’s only for the students and faculty to see.

“That’s exactly what this place represents for us – a permanent home for our girls,” Basij-Rasikh explains. “I’m so grateful for the welcome that we have received.”

It has been five years since U.S. troops left Afghanistan and the Taliban once again took control of the country and its government. When Kabul fell, Basij-Rasikh fled Afghanistan for the East African nation of Rwanda, which had extended the school an encouraging invitation to relocate there. All the girls then enrolled at SOLA; about 100 recent graduates and the school’s faculty also joined her.

Four days after the group of 250 arrived in Rwanda, SOLA resumed classes at a hotel that became its temporary school.

“One of the things that really deeply inspires all of us is that these girls – they will never give up,” Basij-Rasikh said. “It’s just not part of their vocabulary or thinking.”

Millions of Afghan girls are deprived of education

According to a United Nations report in August, about 2.4 million Afghan girls are excluded from secondary education in Afghanistan, and conditions for all Afghan women and girls have continued to deteriorate.

Before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, it stated girls would have access to education, employment and public participation, as long as it was in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic principles. But in 2021, the Taliban barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade — restrictions that remain in place today.

In August, a Taliban spokesperson said that Afghanistan pays “significant attention” to education, with more than 10 million students – about 25% of the nation’s population – currently enrolled in schools, universities, and institutes. The Taliban has said it is working to establish conditions under which girls and women can attend classes in line with Islamic Sharia laws.

The 122 girls enrolled at SOLA celebrate their opportunity to learn while mourning that girls and women back home are denied the same chance and face “very different futures,” including child marriage, Basij-Rasikh said.

Expanding education for Afghan girls – via

smartphone

What has long haunted SOLA’s faculty since it opened as a girls’ boarding school in Kabul in 2016 is the number of potential students it has had to turn away.

Thousands of Afghan girls from around the world annually apply to become SOLA students. However, even though the new Rwanda campus will allow SOLA to double enrollment, more than 99% of applications will still be rejected.

To reach more Afghan girls, SOLA created an online education platform that allows students to learn at their own pace using a smartphone. Basij-Rasikh and her husband, Mati Amin, developed SOLAx, which offers online classes based on the Afghan school curriculum for grades 6 through 12 via WhatsApp.

“We understood the political and technological realities on the ground,” said Amin, who has also launched several educational technology companies. “We knew we had to innovate in the space.”

Most Afghan girls don’t have their own smartphones, he said. Many borrow them from their fathers and brothers. They also lack reliable internet access and long stretches of uninterrupted time because of household chores. But they do find time to communicate with friends and family on WhatsApp.

That’s what made the app the right fit for SOLAx. The platform is available to anyone, but geared toward Afghan girls and includes built-in precautions that allow students to quickly delete their chats and resume studies where they left off using a PIN code, Amin said. The lessons for earlier grades, including English as a second language, are taught in Afghanistan’s official languages, Dari and Pashto, but later grades are taught in English.

SOLAx launched in 2024 and now has 41,000 students, mostly living in Afghanistan, but also in 76 other countries.

Student records are stored on SOLAx, in part because Basij-Rasikh is still troubled by having to burn all of SOLA’s records before she fled Afghanistan so the Taliban would not learn which families had educated their girls.

“I carry that fire and the flames of that with me to this day,” she said. “I remember feeling so much anger… And it felt like one of the moments where you have no idea the kind of fire you have started. This fire is going to come around and burn you one day.”

Global support makes SOLA’s work possible

SOLAx, like all programs offered by the nonprofit SOLA, is free of charge and funded by donors from around the world.

Dame Louise Richardson, who headed the University of Oxford when Basij-Rasikh was earning a master’s degree in public policy there, said Basij-Rasikh's dedication to educating Afghan girls was impressive even then.

Richardson, now president of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, said Basij-Rasikh’s commitment to education mirrors that of the philanthropist who established the foundation. “The young women who are leaving their family, their country and everything they know, to travel to Rwanda for an education are paying a high price for their education,” Richardson said. “I believe they are truly worthy of our support.”

Haven Ley, chief strategy officer at Pivotal Ventures, said Basij-Rasikh's 2016 launch of SOLA in Afghanistan put her on philanthropist Melinda French Gates' radar. The two shared an “understanding of the role that girls’ education plays in empowering women.”

When French Gates launched an initiative in 2024 giving 12 leaders $20 million each to grant to charities doing urgent, impactful work supporting women and girls, she selected Basij-Rasikh as one of them.

Basij-Rasikh said she has directed the money to other Afghan civil society organizations, most of which are working in exile like hers. “The reality is that we can’t do this work alone," she said. "We need a robust ecosystem of organizations that could address different aspects of the need in Afghanistan when it comes to girls and women, because it is enormous.”

These organizations, including SOLA, are not “waiting passively” to return to Afghanistan, Basij-Rasikh said.

“We have a mission to get ourselves back into Afghanistan,” she said. “The Afghan girls that we prepare in exile, they will be the ones who lead.”

With the opening of the school in Rwanda, Basij-Rasikh said she feels closer to her goal of solidifying that SOLA's future is bigger than her. She says she still takes security precautions because when she was in Afghanistan, she learned that the Taliban wanted to kill her. However, those threats do not worry her now.

“We are ready,” she said. "We’re ready to be better known than we are. We’re ready to get this message out to the world, and to Afghan families and to Afghan girls. We are here. And we will always be here.”

_____

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

Earth is soon going to exceed the safe temperature threshold agreed upon by the world in the 2015 Paris climate accord because of warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, according to a bleak first-of-its-kind report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme Wednesday.

Instead of giving up, scientists and U.N. officials recommend trying to limit excessive warming and then bring the temperature back down to the agreed-upon threshold. But it still will mean decades of increased weather-related disasters, rising seas, extinctions and melting ice and glaciers.

“Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said.

After a period of over-the-limit warming, the new strategy envisions getting back below the limit by ending fossil fuel use and developing some kind of way to suck industries' carbon dioxide out of the air.

“It's a reality check. We have to live with this warmer world,” said report co-author Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. “But there's still a lot we can do to limit warming.”

Passing the longtime warming threshold

After the Paris climate accord, the United Nations ordered its climate science arm to study different warming limits. A goal of 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century temperatures became generally accepted after the scientists found dramatic impacts that affect people and the planet at 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) but not at 1.5 degrees.

The world is now at 1.4 C (2.5 F) above pre-industrial levels, some scientists have calculated. The measure is based on a 20-year average, rather than a single year's temperatures.

Despite experts saying there's no way to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, U.N. officials long maintained the 1.5 window was still open. Wednesday's report finally admitted that the world will cross the 1.5 threshold “in the next few years.”

The report said the most optimistic scenario has warming peaking at 1.8 C (3.2 F) around mid-century if countries pursue ambitious climate goals, but that governments' current policies should push temperatures to 2.6 C (4.7 F) above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

So instead of preventing warming of 1.5 degrees, now the U.N. said it wants policymakers to “prepare for and navigate a future'' in which the globe crosses that limit and then corrects course and cools temperatures. The report envisions that global temperatures will pass 1.5 “within the next few years,” follow a hump-shaped path of more warming, peak, then gradually cool to below the 1.5 mark, ideally by the end of the century. The report and experts call it “overshoot.”

“Let’s be very clear, 1.5 target is still the goal. But now we need to approach it differently from above,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.

The 1.5 limit is not “some magical climate cliff” where it’s just game over, said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn’t part of the study. “Every tenth of a degree we avoid still means less damage.”

Limiting how high temperatures go past threshold is key

It's most important to first limit the new peak temperature and then reduce the amount of time above 1.5 degrees, Andersen said.

But the world likely will be in that overshoot period for “many, many decades,” Betts said.

Every five years of delay in reducing emissions adds at least a tenth of a degree to peak warming, said report co-author Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

“If we act now we can limit overshoot,” the report said. “Not a safe world, but safer than remaining above” 1.5 degrees for the long term.

“This is among the bleakest U.N. climate reports I have read. It carries the unmistakable tone of desperation, frustration and urgency — but not resignation,” Weaver said.

Climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, said that “although UNEP does a good job of describing the hole we've dug ourselves into, it does a poor job of showing us that there's a way out.”

Adapting to a deadlier, hungrier, thirstier world

Governments need to increase efforts to adapt to worsening warming, which hits the poor hardest, “because some impacts simply cannot be avoided,” Andersen said.

The report calls this phase “coping and containment.”

During this overshoot period, more people will die or get sick because of the worsening climate change and its extreme weather, the report said. Food production will drop, people will go hungry, water shortages will worsen, economies will be hurt and species like coral will go extinct, the report said.

Although the triggers behind the recent deadly Nepal flooding that came as part of a Himalayan glacier dislodging are complex, Betts said “unfortunately we do expect to see more of such things and this is exactly why we need to limit peak warming.”

The report warns of “tipping points” with irreversible and cascading effects, including the loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the loss of the Amazon rain forest and the shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that keeps much of Europe warm.

“Some locations might become more or less uninsurable or even uninhabitable,” the report said.

The last phase in overshoot is cooling the planet by removing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it somewhere. The report said the traditional approach of this is planting more trees, but it says planting trees could, at most, shave a tenth of a degree off global temperatures. So the authors said more novel carbon removal approaches will be needed.

Other scientists called that unreliable and expensive.

“We were unable to stop the runaway train of global emissions to avoid 1.5 C of warming,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who wasn't part of the report. “Now overshoot scenarios require us to stop the train quickly and to back it up. Is it our best hope? Absolutely. Is it likely? Absolutely not.”

___

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.

Defenseman Matthew Mayich is still incapacitated from an Aug. 20 on-campus workout and his condition is highly unlikely to change, according to attorney Rob Carey.

“He is twenty-one years old,” Carey told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. “His family is at his side, and they are grateful for the support they’ve received from the hockey community and from Matthew’s teammates.”

Mayich, in his first year with the program, collapsed during an outdoor workout on the first day of the fall 2026 semester, the first time the NCAA allows hockey teams to hold formal activities.

Carey said the outdoor workout on a hot desert day was unsuited for a first outdoor practice, particularly for athletes who hadn't been in the Valley a full week, calling it “onerous” and “grueling.”

Carey said there were signs of trouble well before Mayich collapsed and that the workout lasted well over an hour, with no rest and one water break for some of the athletes.

“ASU’s only statement so far was to note that coaches and trainers were present to support their claim that this workout was nothing unusual,” Carey said. “It doesn’t. It just means ASU’s own people stood there and watched exactly what they dialed up, and had no problem with it, at least the head coach didn’t. We will find out down the road if other university employees realized the student-athletes were in jeopardy. I suspect some did.”

Arizona State has said it will conduct a thorough review.

“This is not an investigation where someone is suggesting something went wrong," ASU athletic director Graham Rossini said in a radio interview last week. "We’re just reviewing the facts and understanding the scenario.”

Carey called for Arizona State to conduct an independent investigation and place those involved on administrative leave, along with confirm who authorized the workout and produce details on what was planned in the workout.

“Our focus right now is on our own investigation into what happened on August 20th,” Carey said. "Only when that is complete will we discuss the options available to the family. The family’s focus is on doing everything that can be done for their son and holding each other together.”

The Blues drafted Mayich in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL draft, but he never signed an entry-level contract. The Stoney Creek, Ontario, native played four seasons with the Ottawa 67’s of the Ontario Hockey League before playing at Clarkson University last season.

Mayich transferred to Arizona State for the upcoming season.

___

See AP’s full sports coverage here

A temporary area with metal structures was erected in the parking lot of the Simón Bolívar International Airport, located in the Maiquetía area of ​​La Guaira state, to serve passengers while repairs continue.

The airport, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Caracas, was closed after severe damage to its runways, control tower and passenger and cargo boarding and disembarking buildings during the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes of June 24, which left more than 6,500 dead and some 17,900 people homeless.

The structure, approximately 10,000 square meters (108,000 square feet) in size, has the capacity to handle 2,168 passengers per day, according to the airport, and includes check-in counters, air-conditioned waiting areas, free Wi-Fi, medical services and restrooms, among other amenities. Passengers will be transported by bus between the terminal and their aircraft.

“We hope that with this initial phase of operations ... we will recover 25% of the operations we had before the earthquake,” Transportation Minister Francisco Garcés told the press Tuesday.

He added that “we will gradually create the conditions to increase these capacities,” reaching 40% in a few months and 60% by the end of the year or beginning of next year.

Garcés said that the resumption of operations has been certified by international organizations that carried out the corresponding inspection.

Most of the deaths occurred in La Guaira, Venezuela’s second smallest state, which is home to Simón Bolívar International Airport and the country’s second largest port. Its population of 440,000 is mostly made up of poor residents who rely on tourism, commerce and activities related to the airport and port.

The resumption of commercial operations will initially include seven domestic and four international round-trip flights operated by Copa Airlines of Panama and Air Europa of Spain. Other airlines, including Spain’s Iberia, will be added in the coming days.

Until Monday, all international flights arrived at small airports in the central state of Carabobo and the eastern state of Anzoategui, approximately 168 and 314 kilometers (104 and 195 miles) from Caracas, respectively.

The earthquakes were the strongest recorded in Venezuela in over a century and occurred 39 seconds apart along the coastal mountain range, where the country’s largest population centers are located.

The tremors caused severe damage in Caracas and the central-western states of Carabobo, Miranda, Aragua and Yaracuy.

___

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

The steep mountain folds of the Himalayas, already prone to earthquakes, have seen more frequent flash floods as high mountain glaciers melt, redrawing rivers at sometimes terrifying speed. Residents have had little time to rebuild from one disaster to the next, raising concerns over whether their communities can endure as climate change accelerates.

“We were able to rebuild the stupa only last year after it was destroyed during the earthquake,” Tamang told The Associated Press, referring to the shrine. “Sheltering in it was how we saved our lives from the floods,” she said in a makeshift shelter at a monastery in Kathmandu.

The Aug. 26 floods in Nepal and neighboring China have killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands missing, including hundreds feared trapped in tunnels at hydropower projects. The floods were triggered after a collapse of bedrock and glacier ice sent debris and water surging through multiple Himalayan rivers.

Scientists say it is too early to directly link Wednesday’s catastrophe to global warming. But as Earth’s temperature rises at a faster rate because of the burning of oil, gas and coal, the chances of such disasters increase, especially in the Himalayan mountains, which are warming considerably faster than many other parts of the world.

“Climate change has been playing a large role in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, causing these kinds of complex disasters which have really impacted downstream communities and investments,” said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk resilience expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development based in Kathmandu.

Global warming’s effects are heightened in the Himalayas

Sanyal said the region is increasingly confronting hazards that trigger one another.

Warmer temperatures cause high mountain ice to melt, leading to more frequent rockslides, avalanches and floods. An avalanche can dam a river before unleashing a flash flood. Heavy rain after an initial disaster can compound the destruction.

Flash floods last year in the same region in Nepal claimed nine lives and caused millions of dollars in damage. Across the wider Himalayan region, the 2013 Kedarnath floods, the 2021 Chamoli disaster, the 2023 South Lhonak glacial lake outburst flood, and other recent landslides and floods, have killed thousands of people and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

People in Nepal were still recovering from last year's floods, Sanyal said, “and before they could fully adapt, the next one came.”

The Hindu Kush Himalaya stretches across parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, and contains the largest concentration of ice outside the polar regions. River systems originating in the mountains support nearly 2 billion people.

Glacier ice loss has accelerated sharply since 2000, according to Sanyal's intergovernmental climate research group. Another risk is thawing permafrost — ground that has remained frozen for long periods — that can weaken mountain slopes.

Satellite imagery of the glacial collapse last week indicates that a huge mass of bedrock and glacial ice plunged into a valley below, sending a wall of water and mud several stories high through communities many kilometers (miles) downstream.

Adaptation has limits in the mountains

Climate experts say that in some places the danger may become so great that rebuilding is no longer viable, forcing residents to move. Climate change could also have implications for efforts to develop the region through the construction of roads, bridges and hydropower plants.

“The adaptation threshold has been crossed in some areas,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a Nepali climate policy expert and United Nations climate negotiator.

When an earthquake destroys a house, belongings can sometimes be recovered, he said. A catastrophic flood can wipe out not only the house, but the land beneath it, along with roads, water systems, schools and electricity. He said future resettlement would have to incorporate climate risk from the beginning.

The consequences can be mitigated by stricter land-use rules, better assessments before infrastructure is approved, stronger cross-border monitoring and early warning systems.

Still, Sanyal said that of the 670,000 people who received text alerts about the Aug. 26 floods, some were visitors or migrant workers who could not understand Nepali while others downplayed the risk. Other systems designed to measure rivers were overwhelmed or washed away.

Chanda Lal Chitrakar, a 62-year-old resident of Nuwakot in Nepal, told the AP that he paid little attention to warning messages. As the waters rose, he ran uphill to save himself.

Nepal suffers from the much larger emissions of wealthier countries

Sanyal said such warnings need to provide more information on what actions to take. He also suggested prioritizing development in less-dangerous areas, assessing infrastructure for multiple hazards and incorporating the knowledge of Indigenous communities into disaster planning.

Dhakal, the climate negotiator, noted that Nepal has emitted less than 0.1% of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, even as it grapples with some of its most severe effects.

“We should blame those who are responsible for increasing the global temperature, those who have benefited from the fossil fuel economy for such a long time,” he said. “We can at least use this devastating example as an inspiration to urgently reduce carbon emissions.”

___

Arasu reported from Bengaluru, India.

___

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.

It was the second prosecution of Wong, a former student leader in the pro-democracy movement and one of its most recognizable faces, under the national security law introduced in Hong Kong in 2020 to quell massive anti-government protests that rocked the city the year before.

Wong, 29, who wore a blue shirt, appeared thinner as he entered his plea. After hearing his lawyer's arguments for a lesser prison term, Judge William Tam said a sentence would be delivered as soon as possible, without specifying a date.

The offense is punishable by a prison term of three to 10 years, or up to life imprisonment if the offense is deemed to be “of a grave nature.” Pleading guilty can result in a reduced sentence.

He was already serving a prison term of four years and eight months after entering a guilty plea in a separate national security case linked to an unofficial political primary. Before the arrest for the collusion-related offense in June 2025, Wong had been expected to be freed next January.

Critics say Wong’s case showed the authorities’ determination to silence prominent dissidents, chilling civic activism. But to Beijing, Wong is an anti-China figure who supports Hong Kong independence, a red line for authorities.

Wong jotted notes during the hearing and said “bye bye” to the public gallery before leaving the courtroom.

Wong accused of conspiring with activist Nathan Law for years

The prosecution alleged that Wong and fellow activist Nathan Law had agreed in or around 2016 to lobby internationally to achieve their goal of democratic self-determination. Before the security law, they and others sought foreign forces to impose sanction, blockades or engage in other hostile measures against Hong Kong and China, it said.

Wong expressed support for the special status previously given by Washington to Hong Kong to be reviewed through the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act at a hearing of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China in 2019, the prosecution said, and pointed to his other lobbying efforts.

After the 2020 law took effect, Law and others who left Hong Kong continued their work abroad by meeting foreign politicians and launching petition drives. Wong supported the effort from Hong Kong through foreign media and social media, including sharing Law’s posts, to draw foreign countries’ attention and bolster the request for sanctions, blockade or other hostile measures, the prosecution said.

Prosecutors noted Wong shared Law’s online petition urging digital forensic companies to stop cooperating with police on Facebook after the security law took effect. One company later announced it would stop selling digital intelligence offerings to customers in Hong Kong and China, they said.

The prosecution also said Wong said in a work report he had helped end that company’s forensic software supply to police and had written to foreign companies warning about their collaboration with the Chinese government, among other activities.

Wong confirmed he agreed with the details read out by the prosecution.

Wong has spent nearly 6 years in prison

Wong's lawyer Derek Chan suggested that the judge adopt a starting point of less than 10 years for Wong's prison term and reduce it by about half due to his guilty plea and the delay in bringing his case to court. Chan urged the court to impose a sentence that would “give the defendant some hope" and would not be crushing for Wong.

Chan said Wong, who will turn 30 next month, has spent nearly six years in prison for other cases. He said Wong did not waste his time in prison, reading books, and matured substantially in his thinking. Wong hoped to take care of his parents after being released from prison, the lawyer added.

He has had a “lengthy opportunity to reflect" on his path, Chan said.

Outside of the court, Tiffany Chin, a former member of Scholarism, a now-dissolved group co-founded by Wong, said she felt mental pressure and she was not optimistic the sentence would be short. Chin said that while Wong was mentally prepared, he also had some mental pressure.

His friend Louis Lee said Wong read books, studied, learned guitar and exercised in prison, exploring new hobbies and new things behind bars. He said he hoped to see Wong outside prison as soon as possible.

“I believe he and I, or friends outside, we will do our best in our own roles and continue to work hard in our fields,” he said.

Wong rose to fame when he was a teen activist

In 2012, Wong rose to prominence as a high school student leading protests against the introduction of national education in Hong Kong schools. His fame spread later as a student leader of the 2014 Occupy Movement.

Wong co-founded a political party, “Demosisto,” in 2016 with fellow young activists, including Law, who became the city's youngest lawmaker that same year.

During the leaderless 2019 protests, Wong helped seek overseas support for the democracy movement, including from the U.S. But Beijing criticized his actions, saying he “begged for interference” by foreign countries.

Demosisto disbanded when Beijing imposed the security law in 2020, which authorities said was necessary for the city's stability.

Many other leading activists were also jailed under the same law, including former media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Some activists fled to other democratic countries, including the U.S. and the U.K.

Hong Kong authorities separately offered rewards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,600) for information leading to the arrests of Law, who moved to Britain, and other overseas-based activists.

The move of U.S. international Folarin Balogun to Everton from Monaco is reported to be off after problems arose during the medical examination, The Athletic has reported.

Balogun is reported to have been at Everton's training ground but didn't sign. The Everton club didn't immediately offer a statement.

Media including the British-based Press Association had earlier reported widely that Everton had offered in the range of 40 million pounds ($54 million).

The 25-year-old Balogun, who has two years remaining on a contract at Monaco, gained attention this summer scoring three goals for the United States as it reached the knockout stage of the World Cup. He was the top scorer for the U.S. team.

He also made headlines after drawing a red card and a one-game suspension in a 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in a round-of-32 match.

The one-game suspension was deferred by FIFA after U.S. President Donald Trump intervened, allowing Balogun to play in the round of 16. Balogun eventually played in the 4-1 loss to Belgium that ended the U.S. team’s home World Cup run.

The intervention prompted a formal complaint to FIFA ethics investigators.

Balogun was born in New York but grew up in Britain. He came up through Arsenal’s academy before moving to Middlesbrough, then to the French league with Reims and eventually to Monaco.

He scored 13 goals last season in 30 Ligue 1 matches.

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

The match was still a ways from ending. But after leaping in the air to smash a forehand winner — a daredevil shot that few outside one of tennis' ultimate showmen might even attempt — there was no reason to wait.

Monfils turned back the clock and pushed back the end of his Grand Slam career, beating Adolfo Daniel Vallejo 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 on Tuesday night at the U.S. Open.

Monfils became the oldest man to win a U.S. Open match since Jimmy Connors — another guy who loved to put on a show in New York — defeated Jaime Oncins on Sept. 2, 1992, when he turned 40.

“That was definitely very special. To play the day of my 40th birthday is special. You guys made it, like, incredible,” Monfils said to the fans at Louis Armstrong Stadium, who then sang happy birthday to him.

Monfils is planning to retire after this year and is making a few more memories along the way at the tournament where he reached the 2016 semifinals. He began the event by teaming up with his wife, Elina Svitolina, to reach the mixed doubles semifinals in their first time competing together.

Then, before the singles play began, he looked ahead toward his looming birthday.

“I hit my 40th birthday the day I play, so this is a big milestone for me, able to play at 40,” Monfils said. “I want to do, not good but really good, for where I am now.”

He did amazing.

He quickly began to outplay Vallejo after dropping the first set, then really poured it on to begin the fourth. It was 1-0 when he hit his leaping forehand winner, then raised his hand toward his ear and spun it to encourage cheers that were already well underway.

Monfils acknowledged the obvious: Jumping to hit the shot is more difficult than just hitting a regular forehand. But with a comfortable lead at the time, he thought it would provide “more happiness, more joy for me.”

"You know, I tried it. Lucky I put it in, but somehow, I’m here to also enjoy myself. There’s not many, many times (left), and, you know, it was the right moment, so why not try it?”

Monfils, in his 18th U.S. Open appearance, earned his first Grand Slam win since the first round of Wimbledon in 2025. He advanced to face American Learner Tien, the No. 14 seed.

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

In the last 15 months, India curtailed nearly 11 terawatt-hours of solar generation — enough electricity to power about 10 million homes, according to government data and research by energy think tank Ember. That solar power went unused even as extreme heat and poor monsoon rains drove up demand for power in India for cooling and pumping groundwater for agriculture.

India, the world’s most populous country and one of the largest emitters of climate-polluting gases, is rapidly adding clean energy, especially solar, to its power mix. However, it can't use all the clean power it could generate because of insufficient transmission and storage capacity and the technical difficulty of shifting between fossil power and renewables.

Energy experts say that contradiction points to the next big challenge for India’s energy transition. Building solar and wind farms is no longer enough. India also needs more transmission lines to move electricity across the country, batteries to store renewable power until it is needed and a more flexible power system that can quickly adjust as wind and solar output rises or falls.

“We’re in a stage where some of the biggest hurdles in renewables are starting to hit us,” said Neshwin Rodrigues, an energy analyst at Ember.

Clean power gets switched off despite record demand

India has more than 300 gigawatts of clean power capacity, more than half its total installed electricity capacity. But coal still produces most of the country’s electricity.

Experts said the main reason for this is curtailment — when a wind or solar plant could produce electricity but is ordered to reduce or stop generation as the grid cannot take the power.

Rodrigues said that when solar generation surges in the afternoon, it's difficult for coal units to reduce their output because they are relatively inflexible and cannot ramp down quickly without compromising efficiency, increasing costs or risking operational problems.

Trying to make thermal power plants flexible and adapt to increasing supply from clean energy sources “is like asking an elephant to dance,” said Vinay Pabba, CEO of Hyderabad-based renewable energy company Vibrant Energy.

Pabba said curtailment results in losses for clean power developers. “We get paid only for what we put on the grid,” he said.

The high concentration of renewable generation in western India has also meant that transmission lines in that part of the country get congested quickly. The western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan account for nearly 50% of India’s solar power capacity.

“When solar peaks, usually in the afternoon, there is a limited pipe to evacuate it,” said Pabba.

Another risk of not building storage quickly is that dirty fuels get used more. “Without enough storage, India risks keeping coal plants running even when cheap renewable power is available,” said Vibhuti Garg, South Asia director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

While a solar or wind farm can sometimes be completed within two years, building new power lines can take a minimum of three years, according to energy experts.

India has achieved only about 80% of its annual transmission construction targets over the past five years, research by Ember has found.

Spreading more renewable development across other parts of the country, while adding more wind and smaller local solar projects, could reduce pressure on crowded transmission corridors and make the electricity supply more balanced throughout the day, said Disha Agarwal, an energy analyst at the New Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

Agarwal said the challenge is likely to become more difficult as renewable capacity keeps rising.

India is aiming for 500 gigawatts of clean electricity capacity by 2030. Also, Indian policymakers expect nearly 70% of India’s installed power capacity to come from nonfossil sources by 2036.

Batteries could help save power for when it is needed

A study released earlier this month by the India Energy and Climate Center at the University of California, Berkeley, found that renewable power backed by batteries can provide electricity with reliability approaching that of conventional power plants at a price researchers said is lower than the price of power from new coal-fired plants.

Batteries make it possible to store solar electricity when it is abundant in the afternoon and discharge it after sunset, when demand remains high.

But India’s storage sector remains far smaller than what planners said will eventually be required.

“If we try to increase the solar installations without solving for energy storage, it is only going to lead to curtailment,” said Ankit Mittal, CEO of battery storage company Ingro Energy.

Mittal said India is trying to transform several parts of its electricity system simultaneously as power demand rises. “Things that were supposed to happen over decades” are now happening at once, he said.

The government said in July that it had about 3 gigawatts of battery storage and 7.4 gigawatts of operational pumped-storage capacity. It expects India's storage needs to reach about 74 gigawatts by 2032.

“If high quality energy storage projects are not built, we could be adding an additional layer of risk to grid operations while also decelerating our nation’s ability to achieve our energy transition targets,” said Avinash Rao, CEO of Mahindra Susten, a leading renewable energy company in India.

Rodrigues, the energy analyst, said batteries can be built much more quickly than major transmission infrastructure, making them one of the fastest options for easing some immediate constraints.

Industry stakeholders said that few, if any, foresaw the incredible increase in demand happening as the country’s transportation and other major sectors electrify and data centers are built.

“None of us saw it coming. If we had seen it coming, we would have probably planned our way around it,” said Pabba of Vibrant Energy.

___

Sibi Arasu can be followed on X at @sibi123. Reach him at sarasu@ap.org.

___

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.

But there is deep subtext to the meeting between Xi and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi: China, the United States’ top global rival, is cultivating an extensive relationship with one of America's key allies in the Middle East as it moves to expand its influence in the rapidly changing region.

Xi aims to present China as a stabilizer in the region and contrast it with the United States, which for decades has been militarily entangled there — its six-month war with Iran being just the latest example.

“China continues to build up its soft power reserves while the United States self-sabotages its own stock,” Amr Hamzawy, director of the Washington-based Carnegie Middle East Program, wrote in a paper earlier this year along with Kathryn Selfe, a former fellow at the program.

Xi arrived on Tuesday evening at Cairo airport, which was adorned with Chinese and Egyptian flags. El-Sissi and military guards greeted him on the tarmac with a red-carpet ceremony.

In wide-range talks Wednesday, Xi said Cairo and Beijing should jointly oppose what he called “unilateralism and acts of bullying,” according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

The Chinese leader also called for the two countries to “work together for a more just and equitable global governance system,” Xinhua reported.

Xi's first visit to region since 2022

Xi, who plans to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum, near the pyramids of Giza, is on his first trip to Egypt in a decade, the first time he has been in the region since visiting Saudi Arabia in 2022. El-Sissi has visited China multiple times in recent years.

The leaders marked 70 years of diplomatic ties by publishing friendly opinion pieces on Tuesday in Egypt’s state-run newspapers.

Xi wrote that Beijing and Cairo should “expand the scope of pragmatic collaboration” through development. El-Sissi lauded China's investments in Egypt and reiterated Cairo's support of China's claim that Taiwan is part of its territory.

Egypt views its growing relationship with China as a way to diversify its strategic partnerships.

In 2023, Egypt was invited to join the BRICS bloc of nations, a grouping of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and is seen as a counterbalance to Western-led institutions such as the G7.

A year later, Egypt signed agreements with China to collaborate on its Belt and Road Initiative, a signature policy of Xi’s that seeks to build power and transportation infrastructure around the world.

China has invested more than $10 billion in Egypt, building a business hub east of the capital, Cairo, and an electric rail line for industry in the Nile Delta. Annual trade between the two countries is estimated at $20 billion, according to government figures.

Trade between the U.S. and Egypt was $15.7 billion in 2025. Egypt is a crucial partner in U.S. national security priorities in the region, and the countries' leaders enjoy close ties.

China has been trying to build bridges between Mideast nations

In 2023, Beijing brokered a deal to reestablish diplomatic ties between Iran — its most important regional ally and oil supplier — and Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally. The agreement showcased China’s aspirations to compete with the United States for influence in the Mideast.

Since then, ties between Riyadh and Tehran have frayed. Iran attacked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as part of its retaliation against the U.S. and Israel, which launched the war on Feb. 28.

China has cast itself as a regional mediator in other ways. It has long advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is seen by the Arab world as a linchpin to regional stability.

Shortly before Hamas militants attacked Israel in 2023 and launched the war in Gaza, Xi had hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and announced a “strategic partnership” with the Palestinian Authority.

Suez Canal is a vital alternative to the Strait of Hormuz

With oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted by the Iran war, the Suez Canal — which is controlled by Egypt — has become an important alternative path for getting energy supplies out of the region.

“China has good reason to strengthen ties with the country that controls the route still open,” said Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a Middle East expert with Jakarta’s Center of Economic and Law Studies.

Xi views Egypt “as a base to reach the wider Arab and African world, at a time when the U.S. has less attention to spare there,” said Rakhmat.

In August, China and Egypt held a multiday air exercise at several bases across Egypt — the first-ever combat exercise for China’s J-16 fighter jets and Egypt’s French-made Rafale fighters.

Xi is visiting Cairo after attending a two-day conference of the 10-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a political and security group billed as a counterweight to U.S. global influence. The leaders of Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran attended the conference in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek.

The trip also comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s “economic onslaught” on Iran’s financial connections around the world. The sanctions aim to isolate the Islamic Republic from its remaining economic partners, including China, which buys more than 80% of Iranian oil shipments, usually through indirect channels.

Beijing says its trade with Iran has always abided by international law.

___________________

Associated Press writers Noha el-Hennawy in Cairo and Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Leer en español

A Broward County Public Schools spokesperson told Local 10 News that all students and staff are safe. They also confirmed that the principals of both schools “remained in communication with parents and families throughout the day to keep them updated on the situation.”

Hollywood Hills High School is located at 5400 Stirling Road, while Stirling Elementary School is located at 5500 Stirling Road. Both schools are in Hollywood.

Hollywood Police Department officials said officers were conducting an investigation near 56th Avenue and Stirling Road.

Sky 10 flew over Hollywood Hills High School at about 9:45 a.m. and observed a heavy police presence on the school’s campus as officers investigated the area.

Students evacuated onto a football field from a neighboring school in Hollywood before an all clear was given.

“Out of an abundance of caution, schools in the immediate area have been placed on lockdown while officers conduct their investigation,” Hollywood police wrote in a statement on Facebook.

Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Howard Hepburn defended the response by law enforcement and school officials.

“I’ve been in there and I’ve seen the action they’re taking the thoroughness and their engagement and response time and it’s very organized,” he said.

No additional details about the reported threat were immediately released.

Associated Press journalists watched the Lincoln, which is carrying about 5,000 service members, as it made its way into the Laem Chabang port in Chonburi province shortly after the destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. sailed past the area.

The Lincoln has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran. Its deployment included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea. Concerns have grown about the Lincoln’s lengthy deployment following reports of deteriorating mental health among the crew and shortages of supplies including food and hygiene products.

Crew members were not immediately accessible to media, but the ship itself looked due for at least a new paint job, with large blotches of what appeared to be rust on the hull, especially just above the waterline and at the edge of the flight desk, where fighter aircraft and helicopters were parked.

When asked about the aircraft carrier’s appearance, Capt. Dan Keeler, the Lincoln’s commanding officer, replied that “it is normal for a long deployment and we’re not going to make further comments.”

Asked for his thoughts about U.S. President Donald Trump’s comment that the Lincoln’s record-setting deployment was “not nearly long enough,” he was similarly terse.

“So, the president speaks for himself,” he said. “That is what I think about that.”

A U.S. Embassy statement said the Lincoln's strike group arrived in Laem Chabang, while the Petersen Jr. docked at the nearby port of Sriracha, and the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls is in Map Ta Phut in neighboring Rayong province.

The visit marked the Lincoln’s first full port stop after 286 days, or more than nine months, at sea from the start of the deployment in 2025, the statement said.

“Abraham Lincoln’s visit to Laem Chabang is a clear demonstration of our enduring commitment to our allies and partners in Thailand, and we are all very excited to make Thailand the first port visit on our historic deployment,” Keeler said earlier in a prepared statement.

The usually Asia-based USS George Washington relieved the long-deployed Lincoln in the Middle East in August.

Many of the service members are expected to make a visit to Pattaya, a popular beach town nearby. Thai officials have said the Lincoln’s stop would be for rest and recovery before returning to its U.S. base.

Pattaya officials said they welcomed the visit and the potential boost to the local economy. Authorities said they are stepping up security to ensure a smooth visit.

Shakeira Fairfax traveled to Thailand to meet her daughter Jada, a crew member on the Lincoln.

“I’m excited. I’m so full of emotion. I can’t wait to hold her. I can’t wait to snuggle up next to her,” said the mom, who hails from Paterson, New Jersey. She spoke to The Associated Press outside a hotel in Pattaya where crew members are set to spend their leaves.

Shakeira said her daughter, an entry-level seaman, finished basic training in October and shipped out for the Lincoln's deployment in mid-November, later celebrating her 25th birthday on board.

Shakeira said she worried most just after the U.S. launched its initial attack on Iran at the end of February and she was unable to connect with Jada for awhile.

“It was an uncertain time. It was a scary time. It was difficult — definitely difficult. But she has a support system. Her friends reached out to me. In fact, one of her good childhood friends is here as well. It was a time for us to stick together and trust and believe that she would be OK.”

She also recalled how her daughter sought her support when morale aboard the ship was reportedly low.

“I asked, “What can I do? What can I do?” She said, “Just tell me old stories.” Being able to share stories, laugh and look at photographs — to take that walk down memory lane — was really nice. It was really nice.”

The teams announced the deal Tuesday. New Jersey sent a conditional first-round pick and its own second-rounder in 2028 to Nashville for the 24-year-old forward.

Evangelista is coming off setting career highs with 44 assists and 56 points while also scoring 12 goals last season. He has one more year on his contract at a salary cap hit of $3 million.

“We know Luke is a good, young player who has endeared himself to our fans, so this decision was not made lightly,” Predators general manager Chris MacFarland said. “At the same time, we’ve explored all possibilities in pursuit of making our team better moving forward. This trade ... provides us with flexibility from a roster and salary cap standpoint to make additional improvements to our team; and creates a space for the promising young wingers within our organization to compete for, and earn, an NHL job."

Evangelista has 143 points in 259 regular season and playoff games in the league. Acquiring him is the latest move for the Devils by first-time GM Sunny Mehta.

The conditional pick Nashville is getting is Colorado's. If the Avalanche do not transfer their 2027 pick to Toronto or the choice in '28 is in the top 10, the Predators get their pick in 2029.

___

See AP’s full NHL coverage here

They were taking part in a so-called “aura battle," a real-world spin on the Internet trend known as “aura farming” that is sweeping across Latin America.

Dressed up as characters from comic books or animated films, competitors engaged in dance battles of sorts, vying for the crowd’s applause. Those with the loudest cheers and the most creative moves advanced to the next round. One competitor dressed up as Spider-Man performed forward rolls and push ups, as techno music played in the background. Another hopped on one leg while kicking the other forward, in a move that looked straight from a video game.

“Aura farming is about letting your essence flow in a place where people are watching you, but where there is no shame,” said Liam González, a 20-year-old film student who attended dressed up as the movie character Shrek.

Gonzalo Cornelio, 19, came dressed as former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, wearing a grey tracksuit like the one worn by the deposed leader the night he was captured by the U.S. military.

Rooted in video games and boosted by social media

Aura farming competitions first emerged in Brazil and spread through social media. Now, teenagers and adults are holding aura battles across Latin America.

“It’s not about being popular,” said María Paula Martínez, a professor in the arts faculty at Colombia’s Los Andes University. “It’s about showing off good vibes, and having others recognize that.”

Like video game characters who farm for points, people who go aura farming are trying to earn a reward. In this case, it's about generating good vibes, and thus improving their “aura,” a term that, according to some spiritual traditions, refers to an energy field that surrounds people.

Fernando Lícito, a Peruvian content creator, said that in aura battles participants do not touch each other or trade insults. “They are simply farming their aura," said Lícito, 25. “And whoever gets the crowd to make more noise wins.”

Lícito said he saw a video in June of an aura farming contest in Brazil, and decided to bring the idea to Peru. So far, he has organized three aura battles there.

During the contests, some participants imitate soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal celebration, extending their arms downwards and making a sound that sounds like “siuu."

Aura farmers also draw on other online trends, with some repeating the words “six, seven” as they move their hands.

Aura battles have spread to cities across Latin America, including Mexico City, Quito and Buenos Aires, where dozens of people staged a battle in front of the Obelisk, one of the most iconic monuments in the Argentine capital. The contests have also reached Spain, with events taking place in Madrid, Burgos and Zaragoza.

Martínez, the Colombian arts professor, said that the concept of aura farming has moved beyond the digital world into physical spaces, enabling teenagers to socialize.

Supporters and detractors

But some aura battles have met some resistance.

In Lima’s Miraflores district, officials recently cancelled an aura farming event, saying organizers had not obtained the permits required to hold it in a public space.

In July, the mayor of Cuiaba, a city in southwestern Brazil, denied permits for an aura tournament, arguing it was not in the public’s interest. The event was transferred to a university campus. And in Costa Rica, the ministry of education banned aura battles in public schools arguing they could create conflicts between students or disrupt learning.

In Mexico, by contrast, the education minister embraced the trend, posting a video in which he smiles and says he is “farming good education” as the country prepares for the new school year.

González, the aura farmer who dresses up as Shrek, said that this hobby gives him a way to have fun and express himself, even if his grandmother doesn’t get what he’s doing and thinks it’s silly. “We were born in a different era,” he said.

___

Suárez reported from Bogota, Colombia. Associated Press journalists Mauricio Muñoz in Lima, Berenice Bautista in Mexico City and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.

And this was only at the practice courts.

It was about four hours before Eala was to take the court for her first-round U.S. Open match Monday night, and every seat at the practice court was filled. Many of Eala's fans didn't have tickets for the evening session. But they’d come to see their idol hit some tennis balls.

It was hardly surprising, given the enormous, ardent, ever-growing fan base that now surrounds the charismatic 21-year-old. This summer has seen Eala beat Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon and win her first tour singles title. She's at a career-best 18th in the world, and she breezed into the second round of the U.S. Open with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Mary Stoiana — closing it out with a confident smile.

One of the fans watching practice on a rainy afternoon was Andrea Belen, at 21 the same age as Eala. Belen, a premed student at New York University, explained that she hadn't been a big tennis fan until Eala came along — someone who looked just like her.

Belen’s father back home in Cleveland (the family's originally from Laguna in the Philippines) also became a tennis fan out of pure admiration for Eala. “It’s his new obsession,” Belen said. “It's become the family hobby.”

She and her friend, Sarah Frederick, had arrived at the practice court long before Eala was to appear, surmising correctly that the seats would fill quickly.

Belen explained that in the Philippines, basketball and boxing reign supreme, and the sports heroes are men. “It’s just really nice to see a woman out there,” Belen said. “Also, she speaks in our native language, Tagalog.”

As Belen chatted and Eala pounded her groundstrokes, a voice from the row behind Belen called out: “Yay, Alex!”

Ellene Santos had come to the tournament from Orlando, Florida. Like Belen and Frederick, she did not have tickets for the evening match. But Santos, 67, was thrilled to get her Eala fix, just the same. “I’m happy now,” she said.

With practice over, four retired nurses, all friends, headed for the exit. They were wearing bright blue hats emblazoned with the phrase, “Laban Alex,” an exhortation to “fight.”

“I love how Alex shows she is so proud to be from the Philippines,” said Joy Rodriguez, 65, explaining her ardent fandom. Her friend, Maria Espiritu, 67, said this was the first tennis tournament she’d ever attended.

Nearby, Frances Arespacochaga, 77, was taking photos with fellow attendees. Arespacochaga lives in Manila, and was in the United States visiting her sister in Massachusetts. Together they drove down to see Eala at the U.S. Open — bearing flags.

“She's very intelligent, very articulate,” Arespacochaga said of Eala. “In her interviews you can see her values.”

Belen, who FaceTimed with her father during the practice session so he could see Eala, spoke of a special Filipino pride in the achievements of countrymen. Like gymnast Carlos Yulo, who won two gold medals at the Paris Olympics in 2024.

“Everyone went crazy,” she said. “We’re not that big of a country so those golds meant so much.”

She added: “We’re very loud when it comes to supporting our people.”

Should Eala stick around a while at the U.S. Open, it's bound to get a lot louder.

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Addressing the crowd during her last concert in London Tuesday before she takes a break from the public eye, the singer was full of emotion and gratitude.

Grande thanked the audience and called The Eternal Sunshine Tour one of “most beautiful, extraordinary, experiences” of her life.

The music star confirmed in August that she’d be taking time out after the conclusion of her live shows, with the final leg being a 10-date run at London’s O2 Arena.

On stage, Grande has admitted to being emotional about the tour coming to an end after 41 dates, which also took place in the U.S. and Canada before the U.K. On Tuesday, she tried to speak “without sobbing completely,” she said.

“I’ll cherish this experience always. I have the best fans in the entire world and I always have,” she said.

A representative for Grande told People magazine in August that the 33-year-old singer “will be taking a step back from visibility" after the tour.

“She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” the statement said.

In a social media post on Monday, ahead of the penultimate night, Grande warned fans that she had to swap out her trademark six-inch heeled platform boots after cutting her foot.

She reassured them that she was on the mend, even if she was a few inches shorter on stage.

While Grande wasn’t in her highest heels, her followers still were; the audience dressed up in her style with stilettos, cat ears and ponytails — something the star noticed.

“Thank you for all of your effort and continuing to make this so special. I have loved every minute of this with you all,” Grande said.

The concert concludes with Grande summoned back, sci-fi style, to a spacecraft as she ascends to the mothership in a beam of light.

It’s not known when she will next be seen on earth, although Grande’s most recent album “Petal” will certainly be a fixture at September’s MTV Video Music Awards, where she’s in the running for artist of the year.

Cao has been serving as acting Navy secretary since John Phelan departed the job unexpectedly and without explanation in late April. Unlike Phelan, who had not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service, Cao spent 25 years in the Navy as a special operations officer and went on to serve with SEAL teams and special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I am pleased to nominate a true WARRIOR,” Trump wrote on social media, prodding the Senate “to confirm this Warfighter, ASAP.”

Cao on social media called it the “honor of a lifetime to lead the great warriors of the Navy and Marine Corps team.”

Cao's nomination comes as some, including Democrats in Congress, believe Trump has been overtaxing the Navy. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier's nine-month deployment to support the Iran war has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea.

Concerns grew about the Lincoln’s deployment following reports of deteriorating mental health among the crew and shortages of supplies including food and hygiene products. Several Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the ship.

Cao served as Navy undersecretary before his current role. He championed returning to duty service members who refused a Biden-era mandate to take the COVID-19 vaccine. The Trump loyalist also said he had no problem with the Navy’s demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels, flying so low over a crowded Florida beach in July that chairs and tents went flying.

Cao's nomination also comes at a time of upheaval in the top ranks of the U.S. military. In the latest example, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll submitted his resignation this week amid widespread reports of tension between him and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The lawsuit comes more than a year after the Education Department first said it was investigating four districts in Kansas following a complaint from the Defense of Freedom Institute. The conservative group's complaint alleged the schools had policies preventing disclosure of a student's “transgender status” to parents without the student's consent.

Schools in Kansas City, Kansas, have a policy of using students' preferred names and pronouns. The district also says requests from students who do not wish to involve their parents will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, according to the Justice Department lawsuit.

In April, the Education Department said it found the four Kansas districts in violation of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. The districts violated the privacy law, the department said, by maintaining a policy of not disclosing a student's gender transition at the parents' request, though the department did not cite a specific instance where this happened.

The districts did not sign the government's proposed resolution agreements and, in June, the Education Department said it would work with the Justice Department to bring the districts into compliance.

The district in Kansas City, Kansas, which has more than 20,000 students, disputed in a statement that it was out of compliance with federal law and said it was “disappointed by the DOJ’s decision to file the lawsuit.” It said it wouldn’t comment further because litigation is pending.

Some states — including Idaho and Iowa — have passed laws requiring parents to be notified when students seek to use a different pronoun or name as part of their effort to socially transition genders. Kansas does not have such a law. Meanwhile, a lawsuit is pending over a California statute that barred schools from outing students.

President Donald Trump's administration has penalized schools that have made efforts to accommodate students based on their gender identity. It has filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies permitting transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports and opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies on transgender students.

Tuesday's lawsuit is the first the administration has filed using FERPA to assert a parent’s right to know about their child’s gender transition. The administration seeks to compel the district to disavow its stated policies around transgender students and to give parents greater access to student records.

“Parental rights are paramount in the operation of America’s public schools, and Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools does not know children better than their own parents,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said. “The Department will not tolerate school districts playing fast and loose with federal law in the service of radical gender ideology.”

Kansas’ attorney general, Republican Kris Kobach, a Trump supporter, first began highlighting Kansas schools' policies about transgender kids more than two years ago. In a February 2024 news release, he announced that several Kansas districts were allowing “employees to hide from parents the fact that a student may be using a different name or pronouns at school.”

Advocates for LGBTQ+ students say kids who come out as transgender can sometimes face serious consequences at home, such as being kicked out. But critics like Kobach argue that parents shouldn’t be kept in the dark.

“Parents should know, and have an opportunity to be involved in, such an important aspect of their well-being,” Kobach wrote in the news release.

As for the other school systems investigated in Kansas, the Department of Education last week announced the Topeka district had agreed to rescind any prior guidance that prevents schools from keeping parents informed. The department said Olathe and Shawnee Mission public schools “refused to come into voluntary compliance” and could face a potential loss of federal funding.

___

The Associated Press’ education 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.

Vance made the statement during a conversation with Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford. The vice president, who recently released a book detailing his own journey to Catholicism, also defended President Trump for posting an image of himself as Jesus and mused about whether artificial intelligence was a sign of the end times.

The conversation kicked off with a discussion of faith and the rush to scientifically explain away events that may be divinely touched. Vance cited the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which a bullet nicked Trump's ear and a supporter was killed.

Trump has long talked about his survival as divinely guided, a theme Vance took up. The vice president said that if the bullet had killed Trump, “we would have had real civil strife in a way that I don’t know that the country could have ever come back from.”

Vance said many Trump supporters would have assumed a conspiracy had robbed them of their chosen president, and he said he would have also had those thoughts “in the back of my mind.”

“I would have assumed very dark forces had taken out Donald Trump, right as he was about to come back into the White House,” Vance said. “There would have just been an illegitimacy to our entire political system.”

Most of the hour-and-ten-minute conversation was an amiable chat about faith, Vance's own spiritual journey, his Easter meeting with Pope Francis the day before the pontiff's death last year, and human frailty and fallibility. But it occasionally touched on darker themes.

Crawford asked Vance whether, as vice president, he had ever been in a room that was “spiritually dark.”

“I've been in meetings with world leaders where various issues are being discussed, and somebody will say something or somebody will make an observation and I'll feel some darkness about it, it sets off every spiritual alarm bell in my body,” Vance said. He added he also felt “a very dark spiritual energy” in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, probably because of the carnage at the Civil War battlefield.

Vance cites AI during a discussion about ‘end times’

Crawford also asked Vance about his interest in the “end times,” which the vice president laughingly said had been more of an obsession in youth during the late 1990s, when people were abuzz about the possibility with the coming millennium. A chortling Vance recounted a story of a friend who was obsessed that the world would end in late 2007 and ran up major credit card debt.

“There are, like, things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us, but, again I try not to focus too much on it,” Vance said. He cited “IT companies” and the use of artificial intelligence as a substitute for human interaction.

“I think that’s kind of satanic,” Crawford said when Vance recounted the story of one acquaintance using AI as a marriage counselor.

“Yeah, when you completely divorce the human from the social element that God made us for, OK that's very, that's very bad,” Vance said.

Crawford asked Vance about Trump’s post on social media of an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus earlier this year, which Crawford said offended him. Trump initially contended he thought the image was of him as a doctor, then took down the post amid widespread criticism from even some of his own backers.

Vance defended the president. “He did not mean to, like, mock or mimic God, that's just not who he is,” Vance said, adding that the president often tries to keep things light and constantly makes jokes. “He's a bit of a ballbuster, for those of us who work with him, and he just likes to have a good time. And I think that if people appreciated that, they would recognize, he's not trying to offend people, he's trying to keep things light.”