Among those hit with sanctions are Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of former President Raúl Castro, and Cuba’s Oil Industry Supply Import Company, known as Abapet. The company is responsible for importing special equipment and spare parts needed to sustain Cuba’s crumbling power grid.

The sanctions aim to push Cuba’s critical machinery offline and exacerbate its energy crisis, said Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, a consulting firm.

“The U.S. is trying to really tighten the screws as much as possible,” he said.

“The Trump administration seems to have no seriousness to accept any change from Cuba other than a toppling of regime. Marco is not going to let that go,” he added, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Erickson anticipated that Cuba’s government would try to circumvent the sanctions “because they have to.”

“They’ll get creative in how they try to procure these maintenance parts,” he said, warning it would be a costlier alternative, which in turn would raise inflation and further hurt Cuba’s economy.

Islandwide blackouts have become increasingly common, while daily outages in Cuba now surpass 24 hours as the aging grid fails and fuel reserves dwindle ever since U.S. President Donald Trump in late January threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island.

“The goal in theory is to create so much civilian hardship and suffering that they have no option but to essentially rise up and topple their government,” Erickson said. “It is an attempt to cause a humanitarian crisis.”

Talks earlier this year between the U.S. and Cuba have since halted, while sanctions have increased in recent months.

Erickson said he expects the U.S. to keep targeting smaller and smaller state companies to try and push them “into a death spiral.” The U.S. has previously sanctioned entities including Cuba's state-owned oil and gas company.

The U.S. State Department made the announcement just hours after Cuban officials held a press conference to share more details on the historic economic reforms approved in June.

When asked about the current situation in Cuba, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign investment, blamed the U.S. government.

“This past year has been very complex, and we know why,” he said. “The blockade is a genocide.”

He spoke before the sanctions were announced.

Among the Cubans exhausted by the ongoing outages is 49-year-old Yaqueline Bernal. She said Thursday that she hasn’t had electricity since Sunday and worries most about the consequences for her eight young grandchildren.

“If we don’t have power, we don’t have water,” she said. “You really don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, Cuba’s ambassador in Mexico, condemned the sanctions on Thursday.

“These neofascists aim to win through attrition and to make life unbearable for the people of Cuba,” he wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Rubio asserted on X that those sanctioned “are part of the corrupt Castro financial and intelligence network.”

“Cuba’s Communist regime elites preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans go hungry while the Castro family and other insiders enrich themselves through sanctions evasion and other illicit schemes — and seek to export subversive Marxist ideology to the United States and other states in the Western Hemisphere,” he wrote.

“Trump and I are unwavering in our commitment that Cuba will be free.”

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

Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works.

“He is a Great Patriot, who is respected by all,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Driscoll gave no explanation for his decision to quit this week as the Army's top civilian official. His clashes with Hegseth have been widely reported, and some of Driscoll’s allies in the Army were ousted this year by Trump’s Pentagon chief.

Troopers and the Traffic Homicide Investigation unit are on scene investigating the crash.

A 2-year-old child was inside the vehicle of the driver who was hit. The child was turned over to the mother at the scene, and next of kin notification was completed.

The right three lanes of northbound I-75 are blocked while investigators work at the scene.

The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the proposed constitutional amendment must be placed on the November ballot, reversing two lower court rulings that had blocked it from going to voters. But the court directed the ballot summary to be rewritten.

The decision marks a notable victory for Democrats, who are trying to counter a Republican redistricting movement pushed by President Donald Trump.

Democrats already hold seven of Maryland’s eight U.S. House seats. The proposed amendment would not change voting districts for the midterm elections. But if approved by voters, it could free Democratic lawmakers to draw new congressional districts that give the party a shot at a clean sweep in the 2028 elections.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore called lawmakers into a special session in August to refer the amendment to the November ballot.

The amendment would undo the foundation of a 2022 court ruling that struck down a previous Democratic redistricting plan as a “product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.” That judge said a constitutional provision requiring compact districts that respect “natural boundaries” applied to congressional districts. But the proposed amendment would apply those parameters only to state legislative districts.

That could allow lawmakers to draw congressional districts that cross the Chesapeake Bay, potentially reshaping a district held by U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the state’s only Republican representative and the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Lower courts ruled that lawmakers didn’t abide by their own requirements when referring the amendment to the ballot.

At the heart of the case was a law passed earlier this year that set a July 1 deadline for the secretary of state to certify information about statewide ballot questions to the Maryland State Board of Elections. The same law also set a 15-day public comment period.

Those deadlines had already passed by the time lawmakers approved the redistricting amendment on Aug. 4.

Lawyers for Democratic Attorney General Anthony Brown argued that those deadlines didn’t matter. They said that law didn’t apply to the redistricting amendment because lawmakers wrote their own ballot summary for it, using their constitutional authority. The state Supreme Court ultimately agreed.

Republican lawmakers who sued had won in lower courts on claims that the ballot question wording was misleading and that the amendment violated a single-issue requirement in the state constitution by including a provision giving original jurisdiction over congressional redistricting lawsuits to the state Supreme Court.

The state Supreme Court rejected the multiple-subject argument but concurred that the ballot wording was misleading. However, the court said that wasn't enough to prevent the amendment from going to the people. It instead directed a change to be made to the ballot wording that voters will see.

Redistricting typically happens near the beginning of each decade, after new census data is released. But a mid-decade redistricting battle broke out last year after Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional districts in the hopes that it might help Republicans hold onto a slim House majority in this year’s midterm elections.

Republicans hope to win as many as 16 additional seats this year from new U.S. House districts enacted in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. Democrats hope to gain as many as five congressional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

In May, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a redistricting effort that could have helped Democrats win up to four additional seats. It ruled that the Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when placing an amendment on the ballot.

“This past year has been very complex and we know the reason,” said Oscar Perez-Oliva, Cuba’s minister of foreign trade and investment. “The unprecedented tightening of the US blockade and the exec orders.”

“It’s got shock value,” said John Kavulich, president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

Kavulich points to policies and statutes already in place, but says actual action — if the past is a guide — may be a long time coming.

“I’ll give you an example,” Kavulich said. “In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration authorized the first direct investment into a Cuban private company and first direct financing for a Cuban private company.”

“That was May of 2022. We are still waiting for the regulations to allow that.”

The new announcement follows reforms announced last month allowing Cuban citizens to open gas stations and pharmacies for the first time — sectors that had been controlled by the government.

Since January, Cuba has made more economic openings in its communist history, approving 176, as the U.S. capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro ended Cuba’s main source of oil and U.S. sanctions crippled the economy to crisis levels.

“Now they’re trying to couch it that, well, we’re just expanding the definition of the revolution or this is within Fidel’s, you know — Fidel would have done the same thing,” Kavulich said. “No, I’m sorry, he wouldn’t have.”

Asked what Fidel Castro would have done, Kavulich said: “Well, he would have made a deal with President Trump a long time ago. Cuba would not have gotten to this stage.”

Cuba’s minister of foreign trade says the new reforms will go into effect on Wednesday.

It happened around 5:15 p.m. near the headquarters for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue located at 9300 NW 41st St. in Doral.

According to officials, rescue crews responded after receiving reports of a car that had been struck by lightning.

Investigators said an off-duty deputy was sitting inside his vehicle working an assignment when it was struck by lightning.

The deputy was taken by MDFR to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in stable condition.

This is a breaking news story that will be updated as new information is made available.

El Ministerio de Agricultura del presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva indicó el jueves que sopesaría la aplicación de medidas recíprocas si no se alcanza una solución satisfactoria.

“Las autoridades brasileñas manifestaron su indignación por la falta de diálogo antes de que se adoptara la medida”, señaló el ministerio en un comunicado, y añadió que la suspensión “no se corresponde con la profundidad de la asociación estratégica entre Brasil y la UE”.

La UE anunció la suspensión el martes, y la medida entró en vigor dos días después. Brasil, el mayor exportador mundial de carne de res, envió a la UE unas 108.000 toneladas de esta carne por un valor aproximado de 1.000 millones de dólares en 2025, según cifras del gobierno.

El bloque anunció en mayo que Brasil sería retirado de su lista de países autorizados a exportarle determinados productos de origen animal, alegando que el gobierno brasileño no había ofrecido garantías suficientes de que su producción ganadera cumpla las normas de la UE contra los promotores del crecimiento a base de antibióticos y otros fármacos restringidos.

La Asociación Brasileña de Industrias Exportadoras de Carnes, ABIEC, que brinda apoyo técnico al gobierno en las negociaciones con la UE, dijo que la decisión era preocupante para los productores locales y no reconocía lo que describió como la calidad de las exportaciones brasileñas de carne de res a 170 países.

“La carne de res brasileña seguirá vendiéndose en los mercados para los que está autorizada, pero no existe un sustituto automático para el mercado europeo, ya que distintos destinos requieren productos y cortes diferentes”, indicó la ABIEC en un comunicado.

La Confederación de Agricultura y Ganadería de Brasil envió un documento el miércoles por la noche, firmado por su presidente, al Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores brasileño, en el que sostuvo que la suspensión de la UE “deriva en la clara anulación y el menoscabo de los beneficios comerciales que Brasil espera legítimamente”.

La confederación brasileña añadió que la UE no tuvo en cuenta el rigor del sistema de inspección sanitaria del país sudamericano, y que debía subsanar dicho desequilibrio comercial.

En su comunicado del jueves, el Ministerio de Agricultura indicó que Brasil “se reserva el derecho de recurrir a los instrumentos apropiados para garantizar condiciones comerciales equilibradas, incluidas las medidas de reciprocidad previstas en el marco jurídico nacional, así como los mecanismos pertinentes establecidos en el acuerdo Mercosur-Unión Europea y el sistema multilateral de comercio”.

La UE no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios que le hizo The Associated Press.

La portavoz de la Comisión Europea, Eva Hrncirova, dijo el martes que una nueva lista de países que cumplen las normas de la UE sobre antimicrobianos entraría en vigor el 3 de septiembre, lo que desencadenó el caso contra Brasil.

Las importaciones de carne han sido una fuente importante de oposición europea al acuerdo de libre comercio firmado en enero entre la UE y el Mercosur, un bloque comercial integrado por Brasil, Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay. Brasil es el único miembro del Mercosur afectado por la suspensión de la UE.

Robson Goncalves, economista y profesor de la Fundación Getulio Vargas —una prestigiosa institución educativa y de investigación—, dijo que prevé que la UE aplique medidas adicionales contra Brasil hasta que el acuerdo UE-Mercosur entre plenamente en vigor.

El acuerdo es provisional, a la espera de una decisión del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea.

“Estos son los intentos más recientes de proteger al sector agroindustrial europeo de la competencia del sector agroindustrial del Mercosur”, apuntó Goncalves, quien describió el mecanismo utilizado para frenar las exportaciones brasileñas como “una medida política” de la UE, dado que su acuerdo comercial con el Mercosur aún no se ha implementado por completo.

“Vendrán otras medidas similares en los próximos años”, agregó.

___

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

More soaking storms will be possible Friday. In fact, the soggy weather could get an early start — perhaps as soon as the morning commute, around 7 or 8 a.m. Temperatures are forecast to peak around 90°F.

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The Pembroke Pines Police Department said it was made aware of the video early Thursday and that its Investigations Division is actively investigating the incident.

In the video recorded this past Sunday from a nearby dental office, which was blurred because of its graphic nature, a man appears to stomp on an adult duck and stand on it for several minutes. A second video appears to show several ducklings scattering as the man attempts to step on them.

The incident reportedly occurred near University Drive and Southwest 13th Street in Pembroke Pines.

Manuel Cavallini who owns the dental office told Local 10 News that he thought it was “crazy” for someone to kill ducks.

Four days later, the dead duck remained in the grass.

Police said the actions depicted in the video are “illegal and cruel” and emphasized that the department does not tolerate crimes against people or animals. The said he might be known to frequent a local McDonald’s.

“We don’t know if this is the first time he’s done this or if he’s victimizing other animals or other people,” said PPPD Cpt. Chris Rogers. “We want to catch this individual. If he needs psychiatric help, we’ll help him that way. If he’s just committing crimes for the sake of committing crimes, we want to ensure that he’s prosecuted.”

The age or identity of the man seen in the video was not immediately known.

Pembroke Pines police are asking anyone with information about the man or incident to contact them at 954-431-2225.

The official was a unit chief in ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, where background checks were backlogged as ICE added thousands of new officers to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

ICE’s human resources division was making final job offers before preliminary vetting steps had been completed, including fingerprints, identity verification and credit checks, the official's complaint warned.

“This unprecedented lowering of standards sacrifices proper risk mitigation for expediency, placing DHS at risk of infiltration and insider compromise,” the official wrote in a memo to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General dated August 2025.

The New York Times first reported on the whistleblower complaint Thursday. The Associated Press obtained the complaint and a related memo from the now-retired ICE official’s lawyer, Kevin Owens. The official's identity was redacted from the complaint. The Times said the official was a 17-year-agency employee and longtime Republican who had voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024.

ICE announced in January that it had hired 12,000 new officers in less than one year, a spree financed by a $75 billion infusion from Congress to increase the agency’s arrests and deportations.

The rapid pace of the hiring, fueled by a $50,000 signing bonus, raised concerns about the quality of the new employees. An investigation by The Associated Press found that some of the new hires had serious financial problems in their backgrounds, had been accused of misconduct in prior jobs, and had checkered employment histories.

In July, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said ICE would investigate apparent shortcomings in the vetting of an officer who shot and killed a 25-year-old motorist in Maine.

The whistleblower complaint said that “systemic breakdowns in vetting” violated several federal rules and standards designed to ensure candidates are suitable for sensitive law enforcement and national security positions.

The complaint said the lack of vetting created “increased vulnerability to insider threats, infiltration and foreign influence,” undermined ICE’s law enforcement operations and eroded public confidence in the agency.

It asked the inspector general to investigate the personnel vetting failures and for the agency to immediately suspend the improper practices, hold accountable those responsible for the violations and to review all recent hires to identify potential “insider threats.”

The Office of Inspector General has previously announced that it is investigating ICE’s hiring and training process, as well as security clearances granted to contractors and political appointees.

In a statement, ICE said Thursday the whistleblower was no longer with the agency.

“The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility diligently applies the proper personnel vetting regulations, including guidelines for national security, and evaluates all available information for every applicant based on these factors,” the statement said.

As the AP previously reported, ICE acknowledged that some applicants received “tentative selection letters” after their initial applications and interviews. Some were allowed to begin training before their background investigations were completed.

The whistleblower is the second insider to call out ICE’s rush to put more officers on the streets as reckless.

A former agency lawyer and instructor at the ICE academy, Ryan Schwank, said the agency cut training on the use of force, firearms safety, and the rights of protesters last year. The Department of Homeland Security has since increased the amount of training for new officers.

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The crash happened around 7:40 p.m. near Northwest 51st Terrace and Northwest 33rd Avenue.

According to MDSO, deputies with the agency’s Robbery Intervention Detail (RID) conducted a traffic stop on one of the vehicles shortly before the crash.

Deputies said they confirmed during that stop that the driver, Luis Manuel Perez, 21, of Miami, had an outstanding warrant from the U.S. military, but he fled from them.

“As additional RID units responded to the area the driver entered a dead-end street,” an MDSO spokesperson told Local 10 News in an email Thursday. “After turning around, the driver ran a stop sign, colliding with a civilian vehicle causing it to flip. The impact caused the vehicles to subsequently collide with an unmarked MDSO vehicle occupied by an RID deputy who was in the area searching for the subject.”

A picture obtained by Local 10 shows the flipped vehicle. A person can also be seen on the ground in the area, apparently in handcuffs.

“I seen him hit the car, and I seen him flip over in the air. And that’s when I ran over there,” one witness said. “I seen it while it happened. I seen it -- pieces of the car flying in the air.”

The driver of the civilian vehicle was taken by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition, but later died, authorities confirmed.

Deputies said Perez was taken into custody and transported to a local hospital to be evaluated, and the deputy was treated at the scene by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

“One of the police officers who was in the car, he came out and was shaking his arm,” neighbor Norman Bradley said. “His arm was kind of messed up.”

While an arrest affidavit for Perez states that he has an active fugitive warrant from the U.S. military, it does not specify the allegations against him. MDSO officials said additional charges are pending against him as well for Wednesday’s crash.

The victim’s identity has not yet been released as authorities work to notify the next of kin.

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The woman was identified in a closeout memo from the Broward County State Attorney’s Office as Melissa Payne.

“If at the time Melissa Payne used deadly force: she was not doing anything unlawful; was in a place she had a right to be; and ‘she reasonably believe[d] that using or threatening to use such force [was] necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm,’ then she is immune from arrest and prosecution,” the memo stated.

Bart Diguglielmo, of Lauderhill, was shot on June 30 outside the Walmart located at 7900 W. McNab Road after an argument with Payne, deputies with the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.

According to the memo, the entire incident was captured on various video recording devices and shows Payne, who was with her niece and her niece’s baby; and Diguglielmo, who was alone inside his white Kia SUV, attempting to park in the same parking space.

Prosecutors said a “brief stalemate ensued” before Payne and Diguglielmo both exited their vehicles.

According to the memo, Diguglielmo abandoned his vehicle in the travel lane, grabbed a shopping cart and entered the Walmart as Payne parked her Chevy Malibu in the parking space.

Diguglielmo returned to his SUV about 90 seconds later and two witnesses reported that he told Payne, “I’m gonna f*** your shit up,” the memo states.

He then drove off at a high rate of speed, prosecutors said.

According to the memo, Diguglielmo parked about two aisles west of Payne’s car, walked toward her vehicle and then lingered under a tree nearby while smoking a cigarette.

Witnesses said Diguglielmo appeared angry as he watched Payne and was shaking.

Prosecutors said Diguglielmo then approached Payne’s car, at which point she exited her vehicle with her phone in one hand and a gun in the other.

Payne warned Diguglielmo, “If you keep coming up to me, I’m going to f***ing shoot you!” the memo stated.

According to the memo, a witness yelled out to both Payne and Diguglielmo, saying “It’s not worth it!”

Prosecutors said Payne continued warning Diguglielmo, “Don’t come over here!” “Don’t come near my car!” and “Don’t try that!”

The memo stated that Diguglielmo initially backed off, but then continued to approach Payne while making hand gestures.

Prosecutors said Payne ultimately shot Diguglielmo once in the abdomen.

He was taken to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Melissa Rodriguez, an attorney for the man’s daughter, told Local 10 News, “Amanda Diguglielmo is very disappointed to hear that they won’t be pursuing criminal charges in the case. We have maintained that the situation did not warrant stand your ground immunity.”

In an exclusive interview with Local 10 News, Amanda Diguglielmo described her father as a devoted family man who worked as an emergency room trauma nurse for 30 years.

“He was a great man. He was a father, he was a grandfather (and) he was a brother,” she said.

Amanda Diguglielmo said her father was also a twin brother, a father of three and a sergeant in the Army.

When asked what she would miss most about her father, Amanda Diguglielmo said, “Everything — being able to call him, have lunch, holidays, everything.”

Amanda Diguglielmo and her attorney dispute that Payne shot Bart Diguglielmo in self-defense.

“This was not a situation of self-defense or stand your ground immunity. I don’t believe that the shooting was justified,” Rodriguez said earlier this month. “I believe that criminal charges should be filed.”

“Build the Wall” is a “Tetris” knockoff that transforms the classic game into an effort to “Protect the border from the coming horde." In “Rio Run,” which resembles the mobile favorite “Snake,” an icon resembling Trump runs around gathering potential border crossers.

In “Supply Line,” which looks like a condensed version of the arcade game “Tapper,” food moves along an assembly line and you must reject items that don't meet “Make America Healthy Again” standards.

Two of the games take place over the skies of the nation's capital. In “Flappy Bill,” an eagle carries a bill across the National Mall. In “Trump Savings Tycoon,” your goal is to collect money flying through the air to “Fill your kids' Trump Accounts,” the administration savings plan that offers $1,000 to every child born during Trump's term.

Last week, UEFA filed requests for discovery of evidence connected to Infantino's proposal in three U.S. courts.

“While these applications are styled as legal pleadings with captions and docket numbers, they are little more than press releases in further support of UEFA’s smear campaign against FIFA and its leadership,” FIFA said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Colorado.

FIFA’s filing in Colorado on Thursday was a motion to intervene, asking that the discovery process be deferred or dropped.

One of UEFA's discovery requests was filed in the Southern District of New York and seeks disclosure of documents from Josh Kushner and his investment firm Thrive Capital Management. Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.

Thrive was involved in Infantino's FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity for $4.2 billion. FIFA withdrew the proposal on Aug. 1, just days after it was made public, after intense pushback.

Other court filings seeking discovery of evidence related to the World Cup sell-off were filed in Florida, where FIFA had its 2026 World Cup operational base, and in Colorado, against an adviser to Infantino, Greg Maffei, once the CEO of Liberty Media.

In a statement Monday to the outlet Axios, Kushner defended the proposal but said he did not anticipate the pushback.

“While we stand behind the motivations of FFE, we failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football, and the lengths some would go to. Thrive has a long track record of being a partner to all constituents. Had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved,” the statement said.

Kushner also agreed last month to purchase the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers with partner Bob Iger.

UEFA has said in court documents that it is preparing a criminal complaint against Infantino in Swiss courts for possible financial mismanagement.

“Infantino claimed that the plan would ‘unleash the commercial potential and opportunity that FIFA has,’” UEFA lawyers told the courts. “In truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from FIFA’s most valuable assets to the detriment of FIFA, its members, and other parties within the football family.”

FIFA argued that UEFA's request “suffers from a fundamental defect: UEFA seeks discovery in aid of a foreign criminal proceeding that does not exist and that UEFA admittedly lacks the authority to initiate.”

In the filing, FIFA accused UEFA of coercing its European federations to oppose the plan.

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Jail records show Henry Mims, 53, of Fort Lauderdale, was arrested by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies said they responded to Mims’ home near the 2900 block of Northwest 10th Court in unincorporated Broward County. They said they spoke with Mims before going into the backyard, where several dogs were kept.

According to an arrest report, deputies found three “pit bull-type dogs” secured with heavy metal chains attached to large collars that appeared to be too heavy for the dogs.

One of the dogs appeared extremely thin, with its ribs, spine and hip bones visibly protruding, deputies said. The dog also had an apparent sore on its neck beneath the jawline.

They said the wound on that dog was “reddened,” showed hair loss and exposed tissue, and that additional scars and marks were visible on the dog’s body.

Another dog had visible redness around its neck that was consistent with prolonged pressure or rubbing from its collar and chain, the report states.

Two other dogs were housed in individual wire kennels, according to the report.

Broward County Animal Control officials told deputies that the conditions of the property and the circumstances involving the dogs were consistent with signs of neglect and “possible involvement in dog-fighting activities,” the report states.

After authorities explained their concerns about the animals’ condition, Mims voluntarily surrendered five of his six dogs to Broward County Animal Care, officials said.

Mims told authorities he was “tired of repeated visits from law enforcement and animal control,” according to the report.

One of the surrendered dogs, an American Staffordshire terrier, had apparent wounds on her neck from a heavy leash and collar, authorities said. The dog was later euthanized because of aggression, according to officials.

Four other American Staffordshire terriers were considered underweight and were infested with fleas, authorities said.

The sixth dog was not surrendered and remained with Mims. Authorities said the dog appeared to be healthy and well cared for.

Jail records show Mims is facing four counts of aggravated animal cruelty and one count of animal cruelty.

As of Thursday, he was being held on a $21,000 bond at the Broward County Main Jail.

The motion asks Marion County Superior Court to schedule a hearing for Sanchez to plead guilty and be sentenced. Online records did not indicate which charges he plans to plead guilty to.

“This is a positive development. We are finalizing an agreement with the prosecutor’s office that provides a path toward resolving the state’s case. We’re also encouraged by the constructive conversations taking place regarding the related civil matter. There is real momentum toward bringing this entire chapter to a close,” Nick Sanchez Jr., Mark Sanchez’s brother and legal adviser, said in a statement.

Sanchez faces a felony battery charge, along with three misdemeanor charges, for what prosecutors have said was a fight over parking.

The ex-NFL quarterback’s jury trial was scheduled to start Tuesday. The trial had been rescheduled five times since it was initially set to begin in December. Sanchez and Fox Sports also face a civil lawsuit filed by the truck driver, Perry Tole.

“We are pleased with the constructive and professional conversations we’ve had with Mr. Sanchez’s team,” attorney Matt Golitko, who represents Tole, said in a statement. "Our discussions have been productive and we’re on a positive path toward an agreement that will allow the parties to move forward. Mr. Tole appreciates the progress we have achieved and looks forward to an amicable resolution.”

A police affidavit alleges that Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, accosted Tole, who had backed his truck into a hotel’s loading docks in downtown Indianapolis. Tole claims in his lawsuit that Sanchez entered the truck without permission, then physically blocked and shoved Tole, who then doused Sanchez with pepper spray.

When Sanchez advanced after being sprayed, Tole pulled a knife to defend himself, authorities said. Sanchez was hospitalized with stab wounds to his upper right torso while Tole suffered a face laceration, according to a police affidavit.

Sanchez told police at the hospital that all he could remember was grabbing for a window, the court document said. Sanchez said he didn’t know who else was involved or where the altercation happened.

Sanchez was let go by Fox Sports in November and replaced by Drew Brees. Sanchez had joined Fox Sports as a game analyst in 2021 after appearing on ABC and ESPN for two years.

Sanchez had a 10-year NFL career before retiring in 2019. He spent four seasons with the New York Jets and also appeared in games with Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

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From Doral to Miami Beach, investigators say Mobley, who lives in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood, would walk into a pharmacy, with a tote bag in hand, and beeline right to the beauty aisle.

But what happened next was far from pretty.

Police said she would stuff her bag full of cosmetics and skin care and would then stroll out.

According to her arrest report, she would take thousands of dollars’ worth of cosmetics every single time.

One day back in June, she allegedly stole from two CVS pharmacies on the same day. Detectives said she’s done at least 10 of these shopping sprees and would sometimes bring an accomplice.

But it all came to a halt when a CVS investigator recognized her in one of their stores.

“If you come back, you will have your baby locked up in jail,” Miami-Dade Judge Mindy Glazer said in court on Thursday. “You will not get out. You understand?”

Mobley faces 14 counts of theft, with motherhood around the corner.

Desde Doral hasta Miami Beach, los investigadores dicen que Mobley, quien vive en el vecindario Overtown de Miami, entraba a una farmacia con una bolsa en la mano y se dirigía directamente al pasillo de productos de belleza.

Pero lo que ocurría después estaba lejos de ser bonito.

La policía dijo que llenaba su bolsa con cosméticos y productos para el cuidado de la piel y luego salía caminando.

Según su reporte de arresto, se llevaba cosméticos por valor de miles de dólares cada vez.

Un día de junio, presuntamente robó en dos farmacias CVS el mismo día. Los detectives dijeron que ha realizado al menos 10 de estas incursiones de compras y que algunas veces llevaba a un cómplice.

Pero todo llegó a su fin cuando un investigador de CVS la reconoció en una de sus tiendas.

“Si regresas, tendrás a tu bebé encerrada en la cárcel”, dijo la jueza de Miami-Dade Mindy Glazer en la corte el jueves. “No saldrás. ¿Entiendes?”

Mobley enfrenta 14 cargos de robo, mientras se acerca la maternidad.

The school announced Lombardi's resignation Thursday. It also stated it would continue its ongoing investigation and “consider all appropriate corrective actions" as needed.

The school has not released specifics of that probe, noting in its July 27 announcement that employees and athletes aren’t permitted to address the topic “as is standard procedure with personnel matters.” Three days later, UNC released another statement that said its Office of University Counsel was conducting an investigation, an announcement coming on the first day of preseason camp.

Two people with knowledge of the situation previously told The Associated Press that a human resources complaint from a former employee was involved. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the school wasn’t publicly discussing case details.

Attorney Tom Mars, who is working with Lombardi, released a statement from his client confirming the resignation Thursday.

“I want to thank Chancellor (Lee) Roberts and Bill Belichick for the opportunity to serve as the GM of UNC Football,” Lombardi said in the statement. “I have decided it’s best for me to resign my position as GM to allow the team to focus on the ’26 season.”

The resignation comes five days after the Tar Heels beat TCU 15-10 in Dublin, Ireland, to start Belichick's second season in Chapel Hill. Belichick went 4-8 last year after leading the NFL's New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles.

Lombardi attended for Belichick’s introductory news conference in December 2024, with Belichick announcing that day that the former GM of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns would serve as his college-level GM.

A few months into Belichick’s tenure, Lombardi said the goal was running a college program in a way similar to the NFL, saying the Tar Heels “consider ourselves the 33rd (NFL) team” because of the staff connections to the pros. That confident statement didn’t align with the on-field results; the Tar Heels had more more double-digit losses (five) than wins, along with multiple off-the-field distractions.

Lombardi was given a three-year deal paying him $1.5 million in base salary through the 2027 season. That made him by far the country’s highest-paid college football GM for the 2025 season, according to a USA Today salary database, another incongruity with the Tar Heels’ results.

At the college level, GMs across sports generally have front-office roles dealing with roster construction and negotiations over player compensation, with the heaviest work coming in the offseason.

Belichick said on July 30 that the team was “working through some things” in adjusting duties to compensate for Lombardi’s absence. Roberts said later that day the situation was “distressing to me and everyone else in the administration ... that this is something that we have to have to spend time on.”

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Según la policía, Mandrell Ceydrec Rolle Jr., de Pembroke Pines, fue arrestado el miércoles tras el choque con fuga ocurrido el 22 de agosto.

Rolle enfrenta un cargo por abandonar la escena de un choque con heridos, uno por conducción imprudente y uno por resistirse a un agente sin violencia.

Según la policía, el incidente comenzó alrededor de las 7 p.m. del 22 de agosto, cuando se realizaron múltiples llamadas al 911 sobre cuatro motociclistas todoterreno que presuntamente conducían de manera imprudente y a alta velocidad por Collins Avenue, en el Distrito Art Déco.

Los agentes que respondieron localizaron a los motociclistas y observaron la conducta imprudente, dijo la policía.

La policía dijo que el grupo continuó por Ocean Drive antes de detenerse en la cuadra 700.

Los agentes se acercaron a pie a los motociclistas y pusieron bajo custodia a uno de ellos, identificado como Kasshun Williams, sin incidentes, informaron las autoridades.

La policía dijo que Rolle vio a los agentes y huyó a alta velocidad a pesar de las repetidas órdenes de detenerse.

Mientras huía, Rolle atropelló a una niña de 10 años que estaba en la acera con su madre, según la policía.

El impacto derribó a la niña y le causó lesiones en el codo y la pierna. Fue atendida en el lugar por el Cuerpo de Bomberos de Miami Beach.

La policía de Miami Beach dijo que los detectives identificaron a Rolle durante la investigación y se enteraron de que estaba bajo libertad condicional federal por posesión de una ametralladora, un delito grave.

Los detectives obtuvieron una orden para su arresto y Rolle fue puesto bajo custodia el miércoles con la ayuda de la Unidad Táctica de Robos del Departamento de Policía de la ciudad de Miami.

“Hay cero tolerancia para conductas imprudentes que pongan en peligro la vida de nuestros residentes y visitantes”, dijo el jefe de la Policía de Miami Beach, Wayne A. Jones, en un comunicado. “Conducir imprudentemente una motocicleta todoterreno, atropellar a una niña de 10 años y huir sin prestar ayuda es inaceptable”.

Jones dijo que el departamento utilizaría sus recursos para identificar y responsabilizar a quienes pongan en peligro a otras personas en Miami Beach.

“Si decide poner en peligro a personas inocentes en Miami Beach, utilizaremos todos los recursos disponibles para identificarlo y responsabilizarlo”, dijo Jones.

Hasta la mañana del jueves, Rolle permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza de $2,650 USD.

El incidente ocurrió el 21 de agosto afuera del McDonald’s ubicado en 1310 S. Federal Highway.

Una madre de familia de la escuela secundaria Olsen Middle School dijo que estaba recogiendo a sus hijos cuando vio cómo la pelea se extendía hasta la calle.

“Básicamente, se le fueron encima entre varios a un hombre mayor”, dijo Yanelle Perez, madre de familia que presenció la pelea.

Patrick Utter también dijo haber estado presente durante el incidente y que intervino para ayudar al hombre, aunque agregó que ninguna de las partes estuvo exenta de responsabilidad.

“Un hombre que quizá tenía problemas de salud mental y estaba bebiendo entró al McDonald’s y dijo algo indebido; provocó a un grupo de jóvenes y ellos lo siguieron hasta aquí, al corredor de la US 1”, dijo Utter. “Esta zona de la US 1 es un poco problemática y, más importante aún, estos muchachos que pasan por aquí podrían necesitar mayor supervisión”.

De acuerdo con la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward, el hombre amenazó con pelear con los menores cuando todos se encontraban dentro del McDonald’s.

Cuando el hombre salió del restaurante, los agentes dijeron que los menores lo siguieron y posteriormente comenzó la pelea.

Los investigadores señalaron que están tratando de determinar si lo que se dijo dentro del restaurante justificaba lo que ocurrió posteriormente afuera.

También indicaron que aún están a la espera de hablar con el hombre, quien ya no se encontraba en el McDonald’s cuando llegaron los agentes.

Al final de la pelea, un video muestra a varios testigos tratando de auxiliar al hombre.

“Le quitaron la comida, lo golpearon y cayó al suelo”, dijo Perez. “Dos hombres mayores tuvieron que intervenir para detenerlos porque el hombre ya no podía defenderse. Había como 10 o 15 muchachos encima de él”.

La directora de Olsen Middle School, Janet Giancarli, envió un mensaje a los padres de familia sobre el incidente, en el que señaló:

“Un hombre adulto se acercó a los estudiantes e inició un enfrentamiento físico afuera del restaurante. La Oficina del Sheriff de Broward acudió al lugar e investigó. Nadie resultó herido”.

“Entendemos que actualmente circula en redes sociales un video de este incidente y que resulta preocupante. Aunque el hecho no ocurrió dentro de las instalaciones escolares ni durante el horario de clases, nos tomamos muy en serio cualquier situación que involucre a nuestros estudiantes y continuaremos trabajando estrechamente con las autoridades en relación con este asunto”, continuó el comunicado. “La seguridad y el bienestar de nuestros estudiantes siguen siendo nuestra máxima prioridad”.

Utter dijo que considera necesaria una mayor presencia policial en la zona.

“No tengo ninguna duda de que mi amigo Ed Tarks, Bernard y yo evitamos que este hombre tuviera un desenlace realmente terrible. Por eso acepté dar esta entrevista, porque al final del día necesitamos más apoyo de la policía en esta zona”, dijo Utter.

Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Tomas Regalado is a firm supporter of Amendment 3, while Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is warning voters that the measure could force the county to cut services.

The amendment would increase Florida’s homestead exemption if approved by at least 60% of voters. Supporters say it would provide relief to homeowners struggling with rising costs, while critics argue local governments could lose billions in revenue.

Regalado said the need for tax relief is clear.

“People are hurting. A lot of people are losing their homes. We have to give them some kind of relief,” he said. “I think that the people here are so angry and so in need of relief that they will vote yes.”

Levine Cava disagrees, saying the county is already under financial pressure.

“Amendment 3 will cut us hard, it will cut services directly, I can promise you that,” she said.

Regalado: Governments need to get creative

Regalado, who previously served as mayor of Miami from 2009 to 2017, said local governments can adjust their spending to account for reduced property-tax revenue.

“It’s about getting creative, reducing the different spending line items that they have,” Regalado said.

Regalado acknowledged that Miami-Dade could lose hundreds of millions of dollars if the amendment passes, but argued the impact would be manageable.

“The fact of the matter is that real estate taxes, property taxes will continue to be one of the few revenues that the county and municipal government have,” Regalado said.

He said his office’s analysis estimates the county could lose between $300 million and $400 million in the first year.

“So that is not something that will break the government,” Regalado said. “The problem is that governments have to tighten their belt.”

He pointed to the foreclosure crisis in 2009, when he said Miami faced a deficit of more than $100 million.

“We reduced the salaries, but we did not fire police or firefighters or trash collectors,” Regalado said. “And then Miami came back.”

Regalado said the amendment would provide significant relief to Miami-Dade homeowners.

“Amendment 3 will give some relief to more than a half a million homestead here that we have in Miami-Dade County,” Regalado said.

“There is no way to explain how much a government, a local government will be hurting if Amendment 3 passes. But what I can tell you is that if Amendment 3 passes, thousands of thousands of people in Miami-Dade County will be able to keep their homes,” he added. “Amendment 3 is designed to help people keep their homes. It’s not designed to let governments do what they think they can do to get more revenue.”

Under the proposal, the homestead exemption would rise from the existing exemption to $150,000 initially and $250,000 the following year, according to Regalado.

“When people ask me in the street, what do you think of Amendment 3? Should I vote yes or should I vote no?” Regalado said. “And I said, if you want to keep giving money to the government, vote no. If you want your taxes reduced, vote yes.”

Levine Cava: ‘There’s no more fat to squeeze’

Levine Cava said the county has already spent years looking for ways to reduce costs.

“We have been belt tightening for a while and certainly in the last two years we’ve saved a lot of taxpayer money by consolidating, by reducing positions, finding other ways of economizing,” Levine Cava said.

“And the bottom line is there’s no more fat to squeeze,” she said.

The mayor made the comments ahead of the county’s first budget hearing for fiscal year 2026-27, where transit funding is expected to be among the major issues.

“We know that there will be a lot of discussion about transit cuts - transit is highly subsidized by the general fund,” Levine Cava said.

She said the county’s general fund is already under stress, including from requests for additional funding from the county’s constitutional offices.

“Our general fund is really under stress with five constitutional offices wanting more money as well and high cost of inflation,” Levine Cava added.

She said county revenues have not kept pace with rising costs and that the county has already reduced its general fund budgets.

“We have cut our general fund budgets three percent except in public safety and we propose to double it to six percent,” Levine Cava added.

Levine Cava also pointed to rising operating costs, including gasoline, and said the county has reduced its tax rate for two consecutive years.

“We have the lowest tax rate since 1982 and I was elected twice because people know that I am committed and fiscally responsible and we’re going to continue to find ways to save costs,” she said.

Health care another point of concern

Opponents of Amendment 3 have also raised concerns about its potential impact on public hospitals.

A recent Florida Policy Institute analysis estimated that public hospital districts and health systems across Florida could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in property-tax revenue over three years if the amendment passes.

For Miami-Dade, the report estimated Jackson Health System could lose more than $63 million in property-tax revenue over that period.

Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo of Jackson Health System said the potential cuts could affect patient care.

“As a doctor, I’m concerned about Amendment 3 because of the major impact it would have on the patients we provide care for,” Carrasquillo said.

Levine Cava said the impact on Jackson would ultimately affect workers and patients.

“No question about it. This will affect Jackson that means that will affect workers and the quality of our health care set You get what you pay for,” Levine Cava said.

Regalado disputes the idea that Amendment 3 would create the kind of financial crisis its opponents predict.

“Well, people should know when they hear from government officials, especially county and municipal, that this is a doomsday scenario, that is not correct,” he said.

He said governments have other sources of revenue, including building permits, airports, ports, water and sewer services and impact fees.

“There are many, many ways for the county and the municipal governments to get income,” Regalado added. “They don’t have to hurt the people. They can get creative and help the people and survive.”

The debate is expected to intensify as voters weigh whether the proposed constitutional amendment is worth the potential tax savings for homeowners — and the financial uncertainty facing local governments.

The decision Thursday marks a rare setback for Republicans in a national redistricting battle. Republicans had hoped Missouri’s new congressional boundaries could help them win an additional seat and hold onto their slim House majority in the midterms.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican, said she would immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that the decision “has thrust our state into a full‑fledged constitutional crisis.”

Missouri’s new districts were used in the August primaries. But the state Supreme Court said they cannot be used in the November general election — or ever again, unless voters first uphold the new districts passed by the Republican-led Legislature.

The court ruled that the new districts were effectively placed on hold in December, when opponents submitted over 300,000 petition signatures seeking to put the map to a vote of the people. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until primary election day in August to reject the petition. He asserted that the referendum process cannot be used for congressional redistricting. A lower court agreed, but the Supreme Court overturned Hoskins’ decision.

“The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise,” the court said in its ruling. The legislation containing the new districts “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters.” As a result, the congressional map adopted after the 2020 census “remains in full force and effect for the November 2026 general election.”

Hanaway, whose office represented Hoskins, called the ruling an unprecedented violation of federal law.

“Never before in American history has a court overturned a congressional map after a primary and before a general election," Hanaway said in a statement.

The Missouri Constitution does not specifically say a referendum petition can be used for a congressional redistricting law passed by the Legislature. But the Supreme Court ruled that a constitutional provision allowing a referendum on “any act” of the Legislature encompasses congressional redistricting. It rejected assertions from Hanaway's office that federal law prohibits referendum petitions on congressional redistricting.

The ruling, which capped a year of political maneuvering and legal wrangling, was one of two to go against Republican officials Thursday. The Supreme Court also ruled that Hoskins had wrongly rejected a petition for a ballot proposal making it difficult for politicians to change measures enacted by voters through citizen initiatives. The court also ordered that measure to be placed on the November ballot.

Missouri redistricting targeted longtime Kansas City lawmaker

Missouri currently has six Republicans and two Democrats in the U.S. House.

After Trump urged Republicans to redraw congressional districts to their advantage, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe called lawmakers into a special session last year to dramatically reconfigure the 5th Congressional District, held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver.

Cleaver, who was unopposed in the August primary, has carried the Kansas City-based district with at least 60% of the vote in each of the past two elections.

Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin won an August primary in the reshaped 5th Congressional District, which had been stretched eastward to include rural Republican areas. About 59% of the district's voters were new under the revised map, according to an Associated Press estimate.

Cleaver had not posted campaign signs in many of the new rural areas, explaining that he was waiting for the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision. But he had vowed to continue his reelection campaign regardless of the outcome.

“We’re going to run, and we’re going to run hard, no matter where we are,” Cleaver said last month at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, which had been added to the revised 5th District.

Brattin, a Marine veteran and founding member of the conservative Missouri Freedom Caucus in the state Legislature, had questioned whether Cleaver could represent a wider district.

“I think his whole campaign strategy was hoping that the courts would do his bidding for him. I don’t think that he represents Missouri values," Brattin had said at the State Fair.

Redistricting battle spread to over a quarter of states

Congressional districts typically are redrawn at the start of each decade, based on new census data. But Trump’s quest for a midterm election advantage triggered an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle that spread to more than a dozen states — and triggered a dozen lawsuits in Missouri alone. All told, Republicans had hoped to net as many as 10 additional seats nationally.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruling was one of only a few nationally to go against Republicans' redistricting plans.

Prior to its latest ruling, Missouri’s top court already had rejected claims that the special session was illegal, mid-decade redistricting isn’t allowed and the new districts aren’t compact enough.

The group People Not Politicians spearheaded the referendum petition.

A couple hundred people chanted “Let us vote!” while rallying Wednesday outside the state Supreme Court. Grant Christensen, of Jefferson City, said he had signed the referendum petition to put the map to a vote.

“Gerrymandering is the same as voter suppression,” Christensen said. "Cutting up districts in order to steer them to vote one way or the other is not fair.”

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It happened on Aug. 21 outside the McDonald’s located at 1310 S. Federal Highway.

An Olsen Middle School parent says she was picking up her kids when she saw the fight spilling out into the street.

“They basically jumped an old man,” said parent Yanelle Perez, who witnessed the fight.

Patrick Utter also said he was there for the incident, jumping into action to help the man, but adding that neither party was innocent.

“A guy that maybe had mental health issues, drinking, went into the McDonald’s and he said something wrong, he incited a bunch of young kids, and they followed him out here on the US 1 corridor,” said Utter. “The US 1 corridor is a little bit rough over here, and more importantly, these kids that are passing through here could use some supervision.”

According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the man threatened to fight the kids when they were all inside the McDonald’s.

When the man left the restaurant, deputies said the children followed him outside, after which the fight broke out.

Deputies said they are investigating whether whatever was said inside the restaurant justified what subsequently occurred outside.

They said they are still waiting to speak with the man, who was not still at the McDonald’s by the time deputies arrived.

At the very end of the fight, video showed several witnesses trying to help the man.

“They took his food, beat him up, and he fell on the floor,” said Perez. “They had to have two older gentleman stop it up because it the man, he couldn’t. There was like 10-15 kids on top of him.”

Olsen Middle School Principal Janet Giancarli sent a message to parents in regard to the incident, which stated:

“An adult male approached the students and initiated a physical confrontation outside of the restaurant. The Broward Sheriff’s Office responded and investigated. No one was injured.”

“We understand that a video of this incident is now circulating on social media and is concerning. While the incident did not occur on school grounds or during the school day, we take any situation involving our students seriously and we will continue to work closely with law enforcement regarding this matter,” the statament continued. “The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priority.”

Utter said he feels there needs to be more law enforcement presence in the area.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, my friend Ed Tarks, Bernard and myself, saved this guy from a really horrific ending, and that’s why I’m going along with this interview, because we need some help over here with police at the end of the day,” said Utter.

On Sept. 14, one of the most consequential changes takes effect: eliminating the longstanding definition of what it means to “harm” an endangered species.

The clock is ticking, but the fight is far from over.

In less than two weeks, the Trump administration is set to eliminate a key protection that has allowed the federal government to consider destruction of an endangered species’ habitat as “harm” to the animal itself.

Environmental groups are pushing back.

“So if we don’t speak and say no, then they’ll just do it,” one protester said.

“These changes take the teeth out of this law. And what is the value of listing a species if you can’t protect its home?” said Nora Ives of Oceana.

The administration says the change corrects decades of regulatory overreach. But environmental groups say it could open the door to development and other activities in some of the very places endangered wildlife need to survive.

“We need to preserve our natural treasures,” said Mary Lou Cristino Flores, former regional manager of Surfrider Foundation in Florida. “We need to protect what we love, and we need to say no to offshore drilling projects that could continue to harm our Florida Keys economy and our natural wildlife.”

Here in Florida — home to more than a hundred federally protected species — the fight is intensifying.

“Protect gulf species, protect gulf lives!!” protesters chanted.

Over the weekend, that battle reached the Florida Keys, where environmental groups took to the streets to warn that what happens in Washington could soon be felt in their own backyard — and in their waters.

“This proposal is reckless. It puts our environment, our economy, and our way of life at risk,” one protester said.

“And so we want to call attention to that and call for restoring those endangered species act protections,” said Jewel Tomasula, national policy director of the Endangered Species Coalition.

But the fight is moving beyond protests.

Multiple federal lawsuits are challenging the rollbacks, with Earthjustice, Oceana and other conservation groups asking the courts to stop the new rules from taking effect.

“There’s no need to dismantle something that has worked for 50 plus years. And additionally, it allows human activity to go forward safely while protecting the species we all rely on for our ecological and our climate health,” Ives said.

The fight has reached Capitol Hill, too.

A bipartisan House bill would preserve the ESA’s longstanding definition of “harm.” Senators Adam Schiff and Sheldon Whitehouse have introduced a separate resolution to overturn the administration’s new rule.

“Right now there is a direct threat to Florida. Offshore drilling is being proposed right off our coastline, and the Trump administration needs to reverse plans and and not drill in the Eastern Gulf,” said Hunter Miller, deputy field director for Oceana Florida.

But conservation groups say getting lawmakers on board will take a groundswell of public pressure: loud enough that Washington can’t ignore.

“Our community is not going to be silenced. We want to be heard. These are the things that matter to us, and we’re going to let you know that we’re here,” one protester said.

“We will not be silent, and we will not allow anyone to play God with the endangered species of the Florida Keys. Wooooo!!!!” another protester said.

Conservation groups are now urging the public to make their voices heard — contact their lawmakers and tell them where they stand.

And with an election looming, how those lawmakers respond could have consequences at the ballot box.

The Army Corps had halted work without explanation on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project near Joliet, Illinois, in July, leaving officials in Illinois and Michigan struggling for answers about the pause even as environmental officials warned that invasive carp were being found alarmingly close to Lake Michigan.

Then Whitmer, a Democrat, called Trump.

The Wednesday phone call was a surprising intervention by the Democratic governor, who has developed an unusual relationship with a president who was once one of her fiercest political foes. Hours after the call, the stop-work order was lifted.

The episode underscores not only the unusual cross-party relationship Whitmer has cultivated with Trump, but also the top-down and relationship-driven nature of his administration — where direct phone calls and displays of deference to the president remain the best way to get things done.

“Governor Whitmer spoke with President Trump today to ask him to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to lift the stop-work order,” Bobby Leddy, a spokesperson for Whitmer, said in a statement. “The governor underscored the urgency of the moment, noting that invasive carp were recently found just 80 miles from Lake Michigan — farther up the Illinois River than ever recorded.”

Whitmer's office said that Wednesday they had been notified that work on the project could resume. The White House referred questions to the Army Corps of Engineers, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A pivotal project in flux under Trump

Illinois, Michigan and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have spent years planning a gantlet of technologies in the Des Plaines River near Joliet to keep invasive carp from reaching Lake Michigan. The project has repeatedly faced uncertainty under Trump, despite his public support for it and hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding approved under President Joe Biden.

In March, Whitmer pressed Trump to release federal funding for Brandon Road. Trump soon posted on Truth Social that he was “working with Governor Gretchen Whitmer” to protect the Great Lakes from invasive carp, and the Army Corps released funding for the project’s next phase the following month. The administration then issued another stop-work order in July, saying the project was undergoing an administrative review but offering little explanation.

“It’s time for the Trump Administration to uphold the federal government’s obligations, stop playing political games, and move this project forward,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a July 30 statement.

The urgency increased in August, when the Illinois Department of Natural Resources detected hundreds of juvenile invasive carp about 80 miles from Lake Michigan, the first time carp of that size had been found that far upstream since monitoring began in 2010.

Whitmer's unique relationship with Trump

Whitmer, who is term-limited and set to leave office in January, has operated more freely with Trump during his second term after the two sparred repeatedly during his first. She has traveled to the White House to meet with him and welcomed him to Michigan, drawing criticism at times from fellow Democrats for her willingness to work with the Republican president.

Yet even after Michigan officials received word that the stop-work order had been lifted, officials in Illinois — where the project is located — had not been notified of the decision, raising questions about whether the project could remain in flux.

In stark contrast to Whitmer, Pritzker has emerged as one of Trump's most outspoken critics among the nation's governors as he considers mounting a bid for the 2028 Democratic nomination to replace him.

“Despite the Brandon Road Interbasin Project being in Illinois, the state has received no new communication from the Trump administration,” Matt Hill, spokesperson for Pritzker, wrote in a statement. “You would expect if the administration really cared about protecting the Great Lakes they would notify Illinois.”

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Associated Press reporter Will Weissert contributed to this report.

The rollout of the gold-colored Teslas, which give passengers no way to take control in an emergency, comes as the company prepares to launch the service in other cities. Tesla shares have suffered amid a slump in vehicle sales, but they rose more than 5% Thursday on hopes that the futuristic-looking taxis will catch on quickly.

“No steering wheel, no pedals,” Tesla teased on X before the launch. Musk followed with a post showing a giant Cybercab floating above the Austin skyline and later wrote, “A Storm of Cybercabs.”

An invitation-only launch event was expected to be held later Thursday.

It is unclear how soon Musk intends to roll out the Cybercab service, but he needs to move quickly.

Tesla trails self-driving taxi leader Waymo in the number of cabs deployed and trips completed. To catch up, it must demonstrate that its camera-only system can safely navigate streets and avoid pedestrians. By contrast, Waymo and another rival, Amazon’s Zoox, supplement cameras with radar and a laser-based technology called lidar.

Even if the technology works well, Americans still need to be convinced.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in February found that seven in 10 U.S. adults were “not too” or “not at all” comfortable riding in a driverless car.

Tesla stock was battered last year after Musk took over President Donald Trump’s government cost-cutting campaign, dubbed DOGE, and embraced extreme-right political candidates, sparking protests at Tesla showrooms and boycotts by car buyers in several countries.

Tesla posted a second consecutive annual decline in vehicle sales last year. Its profits plunged, and it lost its crown as the world’s best-selling electric vehicle maker to China’s BYD.

Austin has had a self-driving Tesla “robotaxi” service since June last year, but those cars are equipped with steering wheels and brake pedals. The service, which has since expanded to five other cities in Texas and Florida, initially carried passengers with safety drivers aboard to take over in case of problems.

Tesla has more than 200 “unsupervised” robotaxis in those cities, meaning they operate without safety drivers aboard, according to the monitoring site RobotaxiTracker. Waymo has more than 4,000 such vehicles in 14 cities.

In the Pew survey, 16% of U.S. adults said they would be “somewhat” comfortable riding in a driverless car, while 7% said they would be “extremely” or “very” comfortable.

Separate Gallup polling conducted in 2025 found that skepticism about the safety of driverless cars had risen over the previous several years. More Americans said all or mostly human-operated cars were the safest option than in a 2018 poll.

It is unclear whether Musk is the right person to coax people into cars with no human controls. Another Pew poll conducted in January found that nearly six in 10 U.S. adults had a “very” or “mostly” unfavorable view of him.

Musk eventually hopes to send full self-driving software to hundreds of thousands of Teslas through a software update. That would allow Tesla owners to turn their cars into taxis for hire when they are not using them.

But regulators in the U.S. and overseas have signaled that he still has some convincing to do.

Tesla has not received approval for drivers to use even its partial self-driving software in most European Union countries. In the U.S., where the software has been downloaded and used, regulators have opened several investigations into its safety.

One probe is examining the software’s role in several Tesla crashes in fog, sun glare and other low-visibility conditions, including one in which a pedestrian was killed. Another is investigating dozens of incidents in which Teslas using partial self-driving software ran red lights or drove on the wrong side of the road, sometimes crashing into other vehicles and causing injuries. A third is examining why Tesla apparently violated regulatory requirements by failing to report crashes promptly.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's agriculture ministry said Thursday that it would consider reciprocal measures if a satisfactory solution is not reached.

“Brazilian authorities expressed their indignation at the lack of dialogue before the measure was adopted," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the suspension “does not match the depth of the strategic partnership between Brazil and the EU.”

The EU announced the suspension Tuesday, with the measure taking effect two days later. Brazil, the world's largest beef exporter, shipped about 108,000 tons of beef worth about $1 billion to the EU in 2025, according to government figures.

The bloc announced in May that Brazil would be removed from its list of countries authorized to export certain animal products to the bloc, arguing that Brazil had failed to provide sufficient guarantees that its livestock production meet EU standards against antibiotic growth promoters and other restricted drugs.

The Brazilian Association of Meat Exporting Industries, ABIEC, which provides technical support to the government in negotiations with the EU, said the move was concerning for local producers and failed to recognize what it described as the quality of Brazilian beef exports to 170 countries.

“Brazilian beef will continue to be sold in the markets for which it is authorized, but there is no automatic substitute for the European market, since different destinations require distinct products and cuts," said ABIEC in a statement.

The Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil sent a document late Wednesday signed by its chairman to Brazil's foreign ministry saying that the EU suspension “results in the clear nullification and impairment of trade benefits legitimately expected by Brazil.”

The Brazilian confederation added that the EU failed to consider the rigor of Brazil’s health inspection system and needed to make amends for such a trade imbalance.

In its Thursday statement, the agriculture ministry said Brazil “reserves the right to resort to appropriate instruments to ensure balanced trade conditions, including reciprocity measures provided for under the national legal framework, as well as relevant mechanisms established in the Mercosur-European Union agreement and the multilateral trading system.”

The EU did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

European Commission spokesperson Eva Hrncirova said on Tuesday that a new list of countries that comply with EU rules on antimicrobials would take effect Sept. 3, which triggered the case against Brazil.

Meat imports have been a major source of European opposition to the free trade agreement signed in January between the EU and Mercosur, a trade bloc comprising Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazil is the only Mercosur member affected by the EU suspension.

Robson Goncalves, an economist and professor at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, said he expects the EU to enforce additional measures against Brazil until the EU-Mercosur agreement comes fully into force.

The deal is provisional, pending a decision by the European Court of Justice.

“These are the last attempts to protect European agribusiness from competition with Mercosur agribusiness," said Goncalves, who described the mechanism used to halt Brazilian exports as “a political measure” by the EU as its trade deal with Mercosur has yet to be fully implemented.

“Others like those will come in the next few years,” he said.

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

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According to police, Mandrell Ceydrec Rolle Jr., of Pembroke Pines, was arrested Wednesday following the Aug. 22 hit-and-run crash.

Rolle faces one count each of leaving the scene of a crash involving injury, reckless driving and resisting an officer without violence.

According to police, the incident began around 7 p.m. on Aug. 22 when multiple 911 calls were made about four dirt bike riders allegedly driving recklessly at high speeds along Collins Avenue in the Art Deco District.

Responding officers located the riders and observed the reckless behavior, police said.

Police said the group continued onto Ocean Drive before stopping in the 700 block.

Officers approached the riders on foot and took one of them, identified as Kasshun Williams, into custody without incident, authorities said.

Police said Rolle saw the officers and fled at a high rate of speed despite repeated commands to stop.

As he fled, Rolle struck a 10-year-old girl who was on the sidewalk with her mother, according to police.

The impact knocked the girl to the ground, injuring her elbow and leg. She was treated at the scene by the Miami Beach Fire Department.

Miami Beach police said detectives identified Rolle during their investigation and learned that he was on federal probation for felony possession of a machine gun.

Detectives obtained a warrant for his arrest, and Rolle was taken into custody Wednesday with assistance from the City of Miami Police Department’s Tactical Robbery Unit.

“There is zero tolerance for reckless behavior that endangers the lives of our residents and visitors,” Miami Beach Police Chief Wayne A. Jones said in a statement. “Driving a dirt bike recklessly, striking a 10-year-old child and fleeing without rendering aid is unacceptable.”

Jones said the department would use its resources to identify and hold accountable those who endanger others in Miami Beach.

“If you choose to endanger innocent people in Miami Beach, we will use every available resource to identify you and hold you accountable,” Jones said.

As of Thursday morning, Rolle was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $2,650 bond.

El alcalde del Callao, César Pérez, dijo que no existe otra estatua registrada en el mundo que tenga la altura del diseño peruano. La estatua, con acabados de marmol, estará ubicada en un parque a pocos metros del Pacífico por lo que su estructura tendrá diseños para soportar cargas de viento de hasta 120 kilómetros por hora.

“Es un papa con DNI”, comentó en referencia a que Robert Prevost tiene un documento nacional de identidad peruana (DNI) que obtuvo tras nacionalizarse peruano en 2015 luego que fue nombrado en 2014 obispo de la ciudad de Chiclayo. Prevost también fue administrador encargado de la Diócesis de El Callao desde 2020.

El alcalde Pérez recordó que Prevost llegaba a El Callao manejando su propio vehículo desde Chiclayo en viajes que recorrían unos 600 kilómetros. En El Callao Prevost ayudó a distribuir alimentos para familias afectadas durante la pandemia del coronavirus.

En 2025 otra estatua del papa de siete metros de altura, elaborada con fibra de vidrio, fue inaugurada en Chiclayo, una ciudad en la costa norte de Perú, donde Prevost realizó su mayor actividad pastoral.

El papa León XIV realizará su primera gira por Latinoamérica del 6 al 16 de noviembre en la que visitará Uruguay, Argentina y finalizará en Perú, un país al que lo une su trabajo pastoral previo cuando fue sacerdote y obispo.

Prevost sirvió en total unos 22 años en el Perú. Llegó en 1985 como misionero agustino a un pueblo del norte peruano llamado Chulucanas, regresó en 1988 para desempeñar labores pastorales en Trujillo, y volvió en 2014 como obispo de Chiclayo, su último cargo hasta 2023.

Ese año el entonces papa Francisco llamó a Prevost para asumir un puesto clave en el Vaticano tras el fin de unas sangrientas protestas que remecieron Perú, las cuales exigían la renuncia de la entonces presidenta Dina Boluarte (2022-2025), considerada aliada de la actual presidenta Keiko Fujimori.

Esas protestas dejaron 50 civiles muertos, incluidos varios adolescentes, a manos de la fuerza pública, en un suceso donde la justicia no ha sancionado a ningún funcionario. En su última intervención ante la prensa local antes de partir al Vaticano, Prevost pidió a las autoridades políticas “aprender a escuchar mejor” para promover la justicia.

The Hurricanes are preparing for their first game of the season and the first start for new quarterback Darian Mensah, who transferred to Miami from Duke.

Local 10 caught up with players at the team buses Wednesday night as they arrived at Stanford Stadium for a walkthrough.

Mensah spent the offseason working to build chemistry with his new teammates, particularly the offense.

“Yeah, I kind of just hang out in a group setting,” Mensah said. “I’ll try to hang out with certain groups of the offense like running backs, tight ends, receivers.”

Mensah said he also used extra time after practice to develop timing with his receivers.

“It’s not like a one-on-one thing, but, yeah, I’ll just hang out with them outside the ball, but, as far as the relationship goes, just trying to throw extra routes after practice,” Mensah said.

He said he also returned to plays where he felt he missed an opportunity.

“If I missed the throw that, you know, that kind of stuck with me, I’ll, I’ll come back and hit it with the same receiver in the same spot,” Mensah said. “And so, that’s kind of how I, you know, attacked that.”

The Hurricanes will look to begin the season with a win when they take on Stanford on Friday at 9 p.m. ET.

Officers with the Hollywood Police Department said they took Wayne Castellon into custody just after midnight on Tuesday.

According to investigators, HPD received reports of a suspicious person looking into vehicles late Monday night in the area of the 2600 block of Polk Street.

Responding officers observed a subject matching the description they were given, which was a person “wearing a hooded sweatshirt covering his head and full-face mask” after responding to the area.

Officers surveilled the subject, who was later identified as Wayne Castellon, for approximately two hours, watching him walk around several areas of the neighborhood while “looking over into vehicles with his light on his phone.”

Police said Castellon was seen “suspiciously walking aimlessly back and forth between the 2600 block to the 2100 block of Hollywood (Boulevard), Van Buren, Tyler, Polk and Taylor streets and in and out of the alleys continually loitering and looking into vehicles while concealing his face and lurking in the shadows,” according to an arrest form.

At one point, police said they observed Castellon stop along the 2100 block of Polk Street and “begin to urinate against residents’ trash cans on the sidewalk of the roadway” which was done “in plain view of the public as cars were driving by.”

When officers attempted to make contact with Castellon, police said he tried to run away, causing one officer to chase after him.

It didn’t take long for that officer to catch up to Castellon, with an arrest report stating the officer, “grabbed him from the backpack he was wearing, taking control of him and escorting him to the ground.”

Despite Castellon continuing to resist, police said they were able to take him into custody and found several items consistent with breaking into vehicles inside his backpack.

Castellon is now facing charges of possession of burglary tools with the intent to use, resisting an officer without violence, wearing a mask while committing a misdemeanor and exposure of sexual organs.

He is also charged with probation violation due to police discovering Castellon had an active warrant out of Palm Beach County for a case of burglary to a conveyance.

As of Thursday afternoon, Castellon was being held at the Broward County Main Jail on no bond.

La decisión judicial, fechada el miércoles y conocida por la prensa el jueves, responde a una acción de amparo elevada por un ciudadano que dijo actuar en nombre de los menores víctimas de reclutamiento que se encuentren en campamentos de grupos ilegales y que puedan resultar afectados por operaciones aéreas ofensivas.

En menos de un mes de gobierno, De la Espriella ha ejecutado al menos tres bombardeos contra distintos grupos armados ilegales, como parte de su estrategia de seguridad en la que ha prometido tener “mano de hierro”.

Tres menores de edad fueron identificados por el instituto forense entre una decena de cuerpos que dejaron los operativos militares, que incluyeron un bombardeo el 27 de agosto en una zona selvática del municipio de El Retorno, en el departamento de Guaviare, en el centro-sur del país.

El presidente y el Ministerio de Defensa defendieron la operación militar contra las disidencias de las extintas Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, que continuaron en armas pese a que el Estado firmó un acuerdo de paz con la guerrilla hace una década.

Aseguraron que eran “combatientes” y responsabilizaron al grupo armado de violar el Derecho Internacional Humanitario al reclutar menores y utilizarlos como “escudos”.

La jueza de un juzgado de Familia de Bogotá les ordenó, como medida provisional mientras decide de fondo el caso, que se “abstengan de ejecutar operaciones aéreas ofensivas sobre objetivos respecto de los cuales exista información cierta, objetiva o razonablemente verificable acerca de la presencia” de menores reclutados, hasta tanto “se adopten y verifiquen las medidas de precaución y protección necesarias”.

El ministro del Interior, Rodrigo Lara, aseguró en la red social X que se trata de un “fallo absurdo e inconstitucional” que será apelado. Argumentó que establece un “criterio de una amplitud extraordinaria”, que en un conflicto interno como el colombiano termina haciendo “materialmente imposible el empleo de los bombardeos aéreos”.

El debate sobre los menores de edad reclutados en Colombia se ha sostenido a través de los años. El gobierno de Petro también fue cuestionado por ordenar bombardeos en los que murieron menores.

Tras ser reclutados bajo engaños, persuadidos con lujos o a la fuerza, los menores suelen ser utilizados para labores de vigilancia, tareas logísticas o de combate. Además, la organización internacional Human Rights Watch denunció en su más reciente informe que los grupos armados ilegales los estarían entrenando en el manejo de drones cargados con explosivos.

Al menos 97 menores han sido reclutados forzadamente entre enero y julio, según la estatal Defensoría del Pueblo, especialmente en departamentos como Cauca y Nariño, en el suroeste, y Norte de Santander, en el noreste.

It's what the tiny collectible figurines with the spring-laden oversize heads are known for: Give them a tap and watch their tops go, gyrating up and down or side to side. And any head can bobble - entertainers, athletes, politicians, animals, fictional characters, even your own if you get one personalized.

Kitschy, kind of funny, kind of clever, ubiquitous as giveaways at places like baseball games, who doesn't love a bobblehead? America most definitely does.

“I think they’re the ultimate Americana, sort of pop-culture icon,” says Phil Sklar, a bobblehead figurine aficionado who has parlayed that interest into founding the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, site offers visitors a chance to gawk at a vast array of the figurines as well as learn more about their history, and offers bobbleheads for sale. (Also very American? Spaces that celebrate highly specific interests.)

The dolls aren't an American invention. Sklar says there were head-nodding statues in China at least a few hundred years ago, seen by Europeans who brought versions back with them. Their popularity spread, and smaller versions were made, particularly in Germany.

But they reached their true head-bobbing potential in America, he says, first becoming popular in the 1960s by sports figures being given out at baseball games and then expanding to include a range of famous people, like the Beatles.

While there have been lulls over the decades in the level of public interest in the dolls, they've always been around, with whoever's in the public spotlight likely to become a bobblehead subject. Says Sklar: “They really have just been something that Americans have come to know and love."

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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.

Trump's comments came as his ideological ally, Argentine President Javier Milei, prepared to deliver a televised national address about what his government has described as diplomatic progress over the islands that lie about 480 kilometers (300 miles) off Argentina’s coast in the South Atlantic.

When asked in an interview with British television channel GB News whether the U.S. would “come to the aid” of Britain in a new conflict over the territory, Trump avoided answering directly.

“Well, look, I was there when they had the first war,” Trump said of the 10-week conflict that erupted in April 1982, when Argentina’s waning military dictatorship invaded the islands and then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent British naval forces across the Atlantic to retake them. The war killed 649 Argentine troops, 255 British service members and three islanders.

“That was a long time ago and I watched it so carefully, and you comported yourselves very well,” Trump added. “You took it back pretty strongly.”

He then pivoted to complaints that Britain has not provided sufficient support for the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Iran.

It wasn't the first time the Trump administration had drawn a connection between Britain’s claim to the remote islands and its refusal to participate in the U.S. war on Iran: An internal Pentagon email reported in April raised the prospect of Washington reconsidering its position on the archipelago as one possible way to punish NATO allies that declined to join the Iran war.

“Your country’s not doing well,” he said of Britain. “Your country was not there to help me.”

Trump recalled Britain’s former prime minister, Keir Starmer, telling him the country did not have ships to contribute to the campaign. “It was pretty sad, the whole thing,” he said.

For decades, successive U.S. administrations have remained neutral on the competing Argentine and British sovereignty claims over the Falklands while recognizing Britain’s de facto administration of the islands. Any departure from that position would be a major diplomatic affront and inflame already high trans-Atlantic tensions.

Trump had already fueled speculation about a possible shift in U.S. policy on Monday when asked whether his administration was reviewing its stance on the islands.

“I always review every position,” Trump replied. “That’s just one of many.”

Milei, a free-market libertarian who has struggled to prove his nationalist credentials and previously been criticized for a lack of support for the cause, welcomed Trump's comment, declaring that “something major happened regarding the most sacred cause we Argentines have.”

Asked earlier this week about Milei’s planned address, Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s spokesman, Tom Wells, said the British government’s position was “long-standing and unwavering." He pointed to a 2013 referendum in which the roughly 4,000 people living in the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly in favor of remaining a British overseas territory.

“Sovereignty rests with the U.K., and the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount,” Wells said. "The U.K.’s position is clear. The islanders have repeatedly expressed their wish to remain a British overseas territory.”

Argentina maintains that it inherited sovereignty over the islands from its former colonizer, Spain, and that Britain has illegally occupied them since 1833. The Falklands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, still carry enormous political and symbolic weight as one of the few causes that unite the deeply divided country.

Argentine patriotic fervor over the islands flared most recently during this year’s World Cup, when players celebrated their semifinal victory over England by displaying a banner declaring “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” — “The Malvinas are Argentine.”

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Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Zeke Miller in Washington and Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.

Liz Oyer says in her lawsuit that her March 2025 firing came after she declined a request from the staff of then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to add Gibson to a list of individuals for whom the Justice Department would recommend the reinstatement of their gun rights. Oyer says she objected for public safety reasons given Gibson's prior domestic violence conviction that had resulted in the loss of his gun privileges.

The lawsuit says that hours after she drafted a memo conveying her concerns, a colleague pulled her out of a meeting and Justice Department security officers handed her a termination letter, instructed her to pack her belongings and escorted her from the building.

Blanche has denied Oyer's account of the basis for her termination, saying at his Senate confirmation hearing last month for the attorney general position that he now holds: “I didn’t even know of that. I had known nothing about Mel Gibson or that letter when I fired her. Nothing.”

Oyer's lawsuit, the latest in a series by Justice Department staffers challenging Trump administration terminations that they deem unlawful, was filed after she says the Merit Systems Protection Board — which handles personnel claims — had left her case in “prolonged limbo” and declined to take action on her complaint.

She said in a statement that her lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Washington and seeks a court order declaring her firing unlawful and reinstating her to federal service, was about not only her but about the ability of all civil servants “to uphold the law without fear or favor.”

“If career officials like me can be fired for refusing to bend the rules to serve the president’s friends, then the message to every public servant is clear: loyalty to a politician matters more than loyalty to the Constitution. I cannot accept that,” she said.

Oyer maintains in her lawsuit that her firing violated civil service protections for career employees as well as her First Amendment free speech rights “because the removal was taken, in part, based on Ms. Oyer’s perceived political affiliation.”

“Indeed, when Ms. Oyer declined to disregard her duties in order to perform a favor for her politically-appointed superiors and President Trump, she was summarily terminated,” the lawsuit says.

In denying her claims at his confirmation hearing last month, Blanche said that Oyer was fired “for a number of reasons,”

“The decisions that she had made (as) pardon attorney in the weeks and months leading up to the end of President Biden’s term were completely inconsistent with President Trump’s authority, including recommending commuting every single individual on death row, which even President Biden didn’t do,” Blanche said at his confirmation hearing.

Before leaving office, Biden announced that he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people who were on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment.

He left in place the death sentences of Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.

Oyer testified in opposition to Blanche's nomination, where Republican senators pressed her on her recommendations.

She told senators that Blanche's comments marked the first time that she had ever heard the explanation that she was fired because of recommendations on sentence commutations. She said the assertion that her firing was unrelated to Mel Gibson “materialized out of thin air and has never been stated before.”

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The Orange Blossom Classic was first played in 1933, providing Black college athletes with a stage during segregation. The event has since become a longstanding tradition centered on HBCU culture, community and education.

“This is the one event where I say it is entertainment, sports, culture, music, everything just all wrapped up into one,” said Kendra Bulluck-Major, executive director of the Orange Blossom Classic.

The weekend began with a career fair Tuesday.

The Classic’s annual scholarship fundraising luncheon is scheduled for Friday at Jungle Island, followed by two signature parties.

“Our sixth annual denim party is back. So, get your best denim outfits. Saturday night, we have our all-white party. Get your best white outfit,” Bulluck-Major said.

The weekend culminates Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium, where a fan fest will feature Miami artists including Trina and Trick Daddy, along with an appearance by actor Lorenz Tate.

South Carolina State will face Florida A&M University at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The game will also feature a showcase of HBCU marching band culture at halftime, with performances from the Marching 100 and Marching 101.

Organizers are also introducing a new in-stadium day party following halftime.

For Bulluck-Major, the Classic’s return is about connecting generations of fans.

“I have people who remember the original classic from 1933 to ‘78 and they say, I’m so glad you brought it back because it meant so much to our community,” she said. “And then I have the new generation who may not be familiar with the original classic, but they’re still excited about it.”

Since the Orange Blossom Classic returned in 2021, organizers say it has generated more than $100 million in economic impact for South Florida and more than $500,000 in scholarships.

Bulluck-Major said buying a ticket is also a way to support the Classic’s mission.

“We think of it as just purchasing a ticket, but I look at each one of our ticket purchasers as donors,” she said. “You purchase a ticket to this event, tickets as low as $25, you are a donor. You are helping to support a cause that helps give back to our community.”

Click here for more information on how to purchase tickets.

El Orange Blossom Classic se disputó por primera vez en 1933, brindando a los atletas universitarios afroamericanos un escenario durante la segregación. Desde entonces, el evento se ha convertido en una tradición de larga trayectoria centrada en la cultura de las HBCU, la comunidad y la educación.

“Este es el único evento del que digo que tiene entretenimiento, deportes, cultura, música, todo reunido en uno solo”, dijo Kendra Bulluck-Major, directora ejecutiva del Orange Blossom Classic.

El fin de semana comenzó con una feria de empleo el martes.

El almuerzo anual del Classic para recaudar fondos para becas está programado para el viernes en Jungle Island, seguido de dos fiestas emblemáticas.

“Nuestra sexta fiesta anual de mezclilla está de regreso. Así que pónganse sus mejores atuendos de mezclilla. El sábado por la noche tendremos nuestra fiesta de blanco. Pónganse su mejor atuendo blanco”, dijo Bulluck-Major.

El fin de semana culmina el domingo en el Hard Rock Stadium, donde un festival para aficionados contará con artistas de Miami, entre ellos Trina y Trick Daddy, además de una aparición del actor Lorenz Tate.

South Carolina State se enfrentará a Florida A&M University a las 3 p.m. del domingo.

El partido también contará con una exhibición de la cultura de las bandas de marcha de las HBCU durante el medio tiempo, con presentaciones de Marching 100 y Marching 101.

Los organizadores también están introduciendo una nueva fiesta dentro del estadio después del medio tiempo.

Para Bulluck-Major, el regreso del Classic se trata de conectar a generaciones de aficionados.

“Tengo personas que recuerdan el Classic original de 1933 a 1978 y dicen: “Estoy muy contento de que lo hayan traído de vuelta porque significaba mucho para nuestra comunidad”. Y luego tengo a la nueva generación, que quizás no esté familiarizada con el Classic original, pero aun así está entusiasmada”, dijo.

Desde que el Orange Blossom Classic regresó en 2021, los organizadores dicen que ha generado más de $100 millones USD en impacto económico para el sur de Florida y más de $500,000 USD en becas.

Bulluck-Major dijo que comprar un boleto también es una manera de apoyar la misión del Classic.

“Pensamos que simplemente estamos comprando un boleto, pero yo considero a cada uno de nuestros compradores de boletos como donantes”, dijo. “Usted compra un boleto para este evento, con boletos desde $25 USD, y es un donante. Está ayudando a apoyar una causa que ayuda a contribuir a nuestra comunidad”.

Haga clic aquí para obtener más información sobre cómo comprar boletos.

The Rockets didn't release terms of the deal, but multiple reports said it was a five-year, $208 million extension that would keep him in Houston until 2032.

“Amen represents everything we want our organization to be about,” Rockets general manager Rafael Stone said. “He has elite two-way ability, a toughness and the will to outwork his peers, and he competes in every circumstance. Year over year, he’s improved in every facet of his game, and we know his best basketball is ahead of him.”

Thompson, the fourth pick in the 2023 draft, started 79 games last season and averaged 18.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.51 steals a game. He joined Luka Doncic as the only players in league history to average at least 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists and 1.5 steals a game.

He led the league in minutes played last season to become the third Rocket to do so, joining James Harden and Moses Malone, who both did it twice.

The 23-year-old, who has developed into the team's top defender, showed his versatility to play any guard position last season when he stepped in as the team's point guard with Fred VanVleet missing all season because of a knee injury.

Thompson has improved steadily in his three seasons in Houston after averaging 9.5 points as a rookie and scoring 14.1 points a game in Year 2.

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See AP’s full NBA coverage here

El paquete de normas publicadas en la Gaceta Oficial flexibiliza incluso los requisitos para que empresas extranjeras se asocien a las nacionales no estatales y abran cuentas en bancos extranjeros, al tiempo que otorga permisos para la gestión de transporte turístico, la instalación de agencias de viaje, así como el ejercicio de los guías, una práctica antes completamente restringida al marco estatal.

Las medidas fueron aprobadas por el Parlamento y el poderoso Partido Comunista, y fueron anunciadas en medio de un recrudecimiento de las sanciones de Estados Unidos, incluso un cerco petrolero desde enero, para presionar un cambio de modelo político que agravó la crisis que Cuba padece desde hace años caracterizada por largos apagones y desabastecimiento de bienes básicos.

Se trata de “las normas que implementan las transformaciones económicas y sociales relacionadas con la inversión extranjera, con el comercio exterior y con el turismo”, expresó durante una coferencia de prensa Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, viceprimer ministro y titular de Inversión Extranjera en la isla.

En junio, la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular —el Parlamento— y el Partido Comunista tuvieron reuniones extraordinarias para aprobar un paquete de 176 medidas que darían un cambio de rumbo a la política económica del país y que fue calificada como históricas por los expertos pues rompió con más de seis décadas de un centralismo radical.

Las reformas contemplan la ampliación de las empresas privadas, permisos para que cubanos residentes en el extranjero inviertan en la isla incluso en el sector del turismo e importación sin directa. También se abrirá el mercado cambiario y bancario, entre otras medidas.

Muchas de estas reformas han estado siendo reglamentadas a través de normas, decretos o cambios en las directrices de las entidades.

Esta semana se informó, por ejemplo, que las firmas cubanas que hasta ahora solo podían ser pequeñas y medianas, ahora tienen autorizadas contratar más de 100 empleados, también se redujeron requisitos para la operación de sus socios.

En julio otras normativas ampliaron los rubros de empresas privadas a sectores que siempre se consideraron estratégicos o privativos del Estado en la isla como farmacias y explotación petrolera y minas.

Cuba atraviesa una dura situación económica agravada por la imposición del presidente Donald Trump de un cerco energético presionando un cambio de modelo político y financiero. Ello llevó a empresas internacionales socias históricas de la isla, como Meliá o la canadiense Sherritt, a retirarse o redujeran sus operaciones amenazadas con ser sancionadas por Estados Unidos.

“La situación es muy compleja”, reconoció Pérez-Oliva, quien destacó “la persecución y amenaza directa a inversionistas extranjeros que están presente en Cuba”.

“Hay empresas que han cedido y retirado del país, otras que permenecen. Estamos en un contexto adverso”, acotó el funcionario. Se desconoce la cantidad de firmas que optaron por salir de la isla.

La crisis económica y multisectorial se acompaña de una tensa situación energética con apagones de más de 30 horas y desabastecimiento de todo tipo.

El presidente Miguel Díaz-Canel aseguró que las transformaciones, a pesar de su corte aperturista, no obedece a una imposición de Estados Unidos. Ambos gobiernos reconocieron conversaciones, pero también que las mismas se encentran paralizadas.

The proposed arch is one of several projects the Republican president is pursuing to leave his lasting imprint on Washington, including renaming and renovating the Kennedy Center, building a huge new White House ballroom, refurbishing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and rebuilding a golf course in East Potomac Park that could significantly reduce the public’s access to running and biking paths.

“This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote on X, “befitting the most powerful Capital in the World.”

Along with the announcement on X, Burgum posted artistic mockups of the planned 250-foot-tall (76-meter) memorial arch, which will stand between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The renderings showed a towering, white arch with gold detail, stamped with “ONE NATION UNDER GOD." On its top is a Lady Liberty-like gold figure with wings and a torch, as well as gold eagles, their wings spread outward.

A National Park Service report released Friday backed the project, though it said there would be adverse effects to the sightlines between a host of iconic landmarks, disrupting the historical significance of dozens of nearby sites.

Many of Washington’s monuments, buildings and sites have been carefully planned over decades to reflect significant moments in the nation’s history and to evoke symbolism through sightlines that connect them to other landmarks.

A lawsuit filed by three veterans and an architectural historian argues “congressional authorization is necessary and lacking for this project,” said Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group representing the plaintiffs.

"We believe that construction cannot and should not proceed apace, and we are prepared to inform the court that it needs to, at this juncture, needs to step in," he said. Sansone did not specify what their next court filing would be, but he added that he's “very confident” that they'll find success.

Burgum, in a series of posts on X, defended the arch's construction on historical grounds, arguing that the idea for a monument had been bouncing around for more than a century, citing old reports of congressional attempts at and discussions of a monument in the circle.

“Despite Congress’s intent, the site became and remains today a barren traffic circle lacking any monumental treatment and significant historic value,” he wrote, adding that over 70 cities worldwide had “beautiful arches” but now the U.S. will have the “most spectacular and beautiful arch of them all!”

The court case is ongoing, with the Department of Justice filing a new document Thursday arguing that the lawsuit should be thrown out.

The April 5, 1970, feature written by then-AP writer Lynn Sherr, headlined “Making It Like, Wow,” ran with a photograph of Steinem — and her cat — at home, which doubled as her workplace. It carried its own editor's note introducing Steinem:

“She’s a writer who is almost as much written about as she writes. She’s as beautiful as the Beautiful People she records. She’s a name among name droppers. And she’s Everygirl’s answer to whether Cinderella can ever find success and happiness in the big city.”

As the AP looks back on Steinem's life and career, it is making that early profile available for readers. The story has been edited for typographical errors, but maintains the AP style — and mores — of the day.

___

Making It Like, Wow

By LYNN SHERR

NEW YORK (AP) — It sounded like the bash of both decades. A New Year’s Eve party at Gloria Steinem’s!

Gloria who?

Gloria Steinem: the writer-activist-antiwar-gorgeous bachelor girl who was pictured with Henry Kissinger in Time and Life and who helped keep the cool in Harlem with Mayor Lindsay and who almost has a permanent guest swivel chair in Carson and Cavett’s TV studios and who nearly ran on the New York mayoralty ticket with Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin and who once let Ali MacGraw share her apartment—I mean, wouldn’t her party be crawling with names? I mean, didn’t she practically run New York?

And so Marty and Jeff, two journalism students in search of the Jet Set, crashed.

As it turned out, they’d have found more celebrities fox-trotting to Guy Lombardo. Steinem’s brownstone on that last day of 1969 yielded just six Black Panthers, four Long Island migrant workers, assorted interesting but unheard-of people and a doctor named Mortimer. No Lindsay, no Mailer, no Breslin, not even one Kennedy.

“Jimmy’s at home with his wife and Norman’s out in the country,” she apologized kindly.

“That’s what real life is like.”

Well, maybe. New Year’s Eve may have been all cold turkey on the table and ice cubes in the bathtub, but Gloria Steinem, 34, free-lance magazine writer and contributing editor to New York and Glamour magazines, hardly ekes out your basic subways-and-supermarkets existence as an Upper East Side Single.

A humbly born Midwesterner-turned-Manhattanite whose showgirl legs have not yet been hidden beneath a maxicoat and whose perfect-for-a-Pucci-dress body stays slim with Slender and Fresca, Steinem is Everygirl’s dream of Making It.

There was that party on the West Side, for instance. when the show-biz folk got to playing parlor games imitating famous people. “Well, I know about a thousand girls who would like to be Gloria Steinem,” joked one participant.

And then there was that press briefing in Washington, when Defense Secretary Melvin Laird was asked by Pentagon reporters about his alleged annoyance with the policy interference of White House foreign affairs adviser Henry Kissinger. “No. I don’t worry about Kissinger,” Laird answered, grinning over the bachelor adviser’s well-gossiped social life. “Not since I found out Gloria Steinem is going out with other men.”

Or there was that article in a Canadian newspaper, describing Gloria Steinem as possessing “the body of Raquel Welch, the brains of Eric Sevareid.”

“Eric Sevareid?” protested the real Gloria Steinem in her slightly nasal sotto voice. “Eric Sevareid is much too conservative.”

Thus, Gloria Steinem.

A political radical who has helped bail Black Panthers out of jail, she made Cesar Chavez a Name to Drop by organizing a fund-raising party for the grape-pickers on Long Island, at which Ethel Kennedy chose to make her first postassassination public appearance.

During the 1968 campaign, she worked—hard—first for Eugene McCarthy, then for Robert Kennedy, then for George McGovern, the South Dakota senator who is still a close friend. Steinem says he’d be one of two people she would name as references on a college application.

The other would be Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

Her datebook, a pocket-sized black leather, records in felt-pen scribblings the highlights of several social seasons: the New York Shakespeare Festival Benefit in 1965—to which she wore a chinchilla-ringed dress designed by Estevez; Truman Capote’s Masked Ball—to which she wore a silver mask with peacock feathers designed by her artist ex-roommate; summer days in the Hamptons and city nights at Elaine’s, the literary set bar. It is a world where people just know each other; where she happened to meet the Galbraiths at a lecture in Cambridge and then met McGovern at a weekend at their (“Kitty and Ken’s”) country home; where, after meeting Truman, he insisted that she interview Lee Radziwill and so she did, and then stayed with the Radziwills at that.

The datebook also records items that don’t make the gossip columns: treks to Lower East Side welfare projects, meetings for West Side day-care centers, concern for Vietnam veterans in outlying hospitals. Steinem moves, graceful, between both worlds—monied sophistication and tenement poverty—turning up at both in microshort clingy dresses and tall boots.

“She’s all together, she can make anything relevant,” explains Arnaldo Segarra, a handsome young Puerto Rican who grew up playing stickball in the sewers of El Barrios and who used to be an aide to Mayor Lindsay. “We even made her an honorary Puerto Rican. And not too many white Anglo-Saxon females get that.”

At a dinner for Herman Badillo in the Americana Hotel. Steinem slips in late wearing a slinky brown velvet dress with a train that settles on the floor like a puddle behind her. “It was my thrift shop bargain,” she says—“$15. I’m afraid to have it cleaned.”

Her blue-tinted aviator glasses—without which she cannot distinguish a Black Panther from a white Bircher—fit over a few strands of blonde-streaked brown hair and then disappear into the long, soft mane.

After the speech, Steinem waits in the lobby while the assemblyman friend who paid for her dinner retrieves her short brocade coat from the checkroom because she does not have 35 cents.

The dinner is a rare night out for Steinem that week. Most of her other engagements—including invitations from sought-after editors and glittering movie premieres—she has cancelled to meet story deadlines, and sits hunched over the typewriter at her roll-top oak desk.

That, for Gloria Steinem, is also Real Life.

What irks her is how it always comes out more Lively than Real.

Like that Sunday morning in a snowstorm, when she pulled on boots and a sheepskin coat—“the only good thing from the Rockefeller trip”—and trudged up to the Spanish Methodist Church on East 111th Street to lend support to a group of Young Lords in confrontation with the police. A local newspaper columnist the next week sniped that “Gloria Steinem was there in a fur coat.”

Or that item in Time, turning a party photograph into a tryst with Kissinger and calling her a “Gucci liberal.” “Henry’s real girl friend must have gotten angry,” she laughed. “Anyway, I don’t even own a pair of Gucci shoes.”

Stretched out barefoot in her multiprint living room, she wore a brown see-through shirt tucked into wide-legged brown denim pants with an Indian belt strung through the loops. Brown Swedish klogs rested beside the undulating benches of pink and purple. With a pearl-gray cat settled languidly on her lap, its tail stroking her slim waist, Steinem gently dismissed the myths of her rich girl image.

“Say that I have always worked for a living, my own living, that I buy my dresses off the rack,” she pleaded. “I have never been to Acapulco and I don’t go away for ski weekends.”

She assigned to her answering service the nonstop ringing of her unlisted telephone in the other, the working room of her apartment: a book-lined den with posters of Che Guevera (a Mailer-Breslin button had been pinned on it), Robert Kennedy (“Whenever I have a problem or have to face something bad. I think of Bobby, because he was always in over his head”) and La Causa.

Back in the living room, where a Spanish-speaking maid had just finished vacuuming, Steinem reached for an occasional cigarette. On the wall, American chintz ran into Oriental prints. A zebra skin covered the floor. A sleeping balcony jutted out from one corner.

“I know I’m doing the right thing by writing,” Steinem laughed, in her characteristic sociopolitical way of speaking in capital letters, “because it’s the only thing I do that doesn’t make me feel guilty.”

Not that she was born with a silver typewriter in her crib. Growing up in house trailers until age 11, then the slums of Toledo, Ohio, she tap-danced for a few dollars a night and learned to recognize bill collectors.

After a Phi Beta Kappa key at college (Smith, on scholarship), two years on a fellowship in India, then some work on Youth festivals in Cambridge, Mass., Steinem headed for New York.

Her first publishing job in 1960 was with Help, a political satire magazine. A boy friend at Esquire, an appreciative features editor—“Hell, I just wanted to meet her,” said Clay Felker—and good ideas landed her a first bylined piece in that magazine.

But it took more than good looks to get second assignments. Steinem worked hard, organized furiously. For Show magazine, she stuffed herself into a mini-cottontail suit and did an “I Was a Playboy Bunny” expose. It wowed the readers and earned the author—who would have preferred writing about politics—“offers to be a hooker on 57th Street, to commit myself to prison, all those things. I have it in the Mistake Section of my Anthology I’m putting together.”

Careerwise, it was no mistake. “A Bunny’s Tale” sent Steinem soaring into print with stories that sliced to the core of everyone from Jackie Kennedy to James Baldwin—articles which were sometimes trenchant, sometimes pedantic, but about which she is disarmingly frank. “If Forster, Dinesen and Proust are writers,” she once wrote, “then I must be something else.”

Steinem’s current choice of subjects—and the fact that she has been able to make that choice—sets her apart from all the other pretty girls who come to New York to find the Glass Slipper. “Here you are with a college degree and what does it mean?” she joked. “You write about lipstick and bunnies.”

Then, after some thought: “During the Kennedy administration you could go to discotheques because the world wasn’t coming to an end, Panthers weren’t getting shot in the next room. I’m happier not going to parties any more. Maybe that’s because I’m secure enough not to care.”

What she does care about, she is writing about: politics, urban sociology, women’s liberation.

One of her favorite TV talk show lines goes, “Men will be much happier, too, when they no longer have to deliver on a silver platter an identity to a lady.”

That goes for her own identity, as well. Felker, now editor of New York, says of her: “She is the ideal woman—beautiful, involved, and free to choose whatever she wants.”

Ladies like her too. The wife of a prominent journalist said, “If my husband were to leave me for Gloria Steinem, I would only consider it a further extension of his good taste.”

In her New York magazine article on “Women and Power”—now part of a book—Steinem quoted Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as having said, “There are two kinds of women: those who want power in the world and those who want power in bed.”

“When Clay gave me a copy of the book, he inscribed it, ‘To the Third Kind,’” Steinem said, only half-smiling.

“That means I want both.”

Rain, a 20-year-old female, was the second to die out of a group of four whales that were moved to the Chicago aquarium in mid-August from a shuttered water park in Ontario. A whale named Peekachu died last week as caretakers tried to revitalize it.

The third whale to die, a 34-year-old male named Beethoven, had lived at Shedd Aquarium for decades, the aquarium said in an announcement.

The aquarium did not indicate the cause of the whales’ deaths in its announcement. “Necropsies, blood tests and additional exams” of their bodies are in process, it said.

“These deaths were unexpected and there is still much we do not know about what led to them," officials said in the statement.

Shedd Aquarium accepted 10 beluga whales as part of the mission to rescue 30 of them and four dolphins at Marineland, a water park in Ontario that closed its doors years ago and lost the ability to care for the animals. The Chicago aquarium announced Tuesday it welcomed the last two of those 10 — young males named Gimli and Yukon — from the Canadian park.

Twenty whales — 19 belugas and one killer whale — had died at Marineland since 2019, according to provincial government data obtained through Freedom-of-Information laws and official statements.

Officials at Shedd Aquarium previously told The Associated Press that moving the beluga whales was a complex, meticulously monitored process. The whales were hoisted in custom-made slings and held in temperature-controlled containers. Since they arrived, their health and behavior have been monitored on a minute-to-minute basis, they said.

Canadian Minister of Fisheries Joanne Thompson said she was “saddened” to hear of Rain's death. Canada's government “has taken reasonable steps to ensure the safe rescue of the whales,” she said in a statement to AP.

“My thoughts are with the care staff who worked tirelessly to support Rain and the other belugas.”

Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld locations in San Diego and San Antonio, and Oceanogràfic Valencia in Spain are also taking in the animals rescued from Marineland.

The two beluga whales rehomed at Georgia Aquarium are “settling in nicely,” although it will take months before they are fully adjusted, the aquarium said in an email to AP. Most of the rescued whales in SeaWorld's care are in stable condition, although a handful are “eating less consistently than usual,” according to AnneMarie Iturrizaga, a spokesperson for the company that owns SeaWorld.

___

Mayes-Osterman is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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Mama came to the shelter as a stray and, based on her condition, appears to have recently had puppies. Sadly, her puppies were never found. Despite being young — likely under two years old — Mama has been repeatedly overlooked.

Shelter staff say Mama is extremely sweet and simply needs some patience and time to feel comfortable. While she was nervous in the car and in the unfamiliar TV studio, her tail kept wagging whenever she saw someone.

Staff say fostering could be a great option for someone who wants to give Mama a chance to blossom in a calm home environment.

And Mama isn’t the only dog looking for a family. Amos, a larger adult dog who has also been at the shelter for months, is waiting for his chance, too.

The message from Animal Services is simple: don’t overlook adult or larger dogs. They can make wonderful companions when given the right home and a little love.

Click here for more information on how you can adopt a pet.

Mama llegó al refugio como una perrita callejera y, por su condición, parece haber tenido cachorros recientemente. Lamentablemente, sus cachorros nunca fueron encontrados. A pesar de ser joven, probablemente de menos de dos años, Mama ha sido ignorada repetidamente.

El personal del refugio dice que Mama es extremadamente dulce y simplemente necesita un poco de paciencia y tiempo para sentirse cómoda. Aunque estaba nerviosa en el auto y en el desconocido estudio de televisión, su cola no dejaba de moverse cada vez que veía a alguien.

El personal dice que acogerla temporalmente podría ser una excelente opción para alguien que quiera darle a Mama la oportunidad de desenvolverse en un ambiente tranquilo en un hogar.

Y Mama no es la única perrita que busca una familia. Amos, un perro adulto de mayor tamaño que también lleva meses en el refugio, también está esperando su oportunidad.

El mensaje de Servicios para Animales es simple: no ignore a los perros adultos o de mayor tamaño. Pueden ser compañeros maravillosos cuando se les brinda el hogar adecuado y un poco de amor.

Haga clic aquí para obtener más información sobre cómo puede adoptar una mascota.

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The Space Hub program aims to help address the aerospace workforce gap, inspire students to pursue STEM studies and increase awareness of careers in science-related fields.

The school is located at 1200 NW Sixth Ave.

State senators, representatives, students and Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Rafael Villalobos were on hand to discuss the importance of the new program.

The funds will also support technology and equipment upgrades, renovations to the school’s current planetarium and the development of state-of-the-art discovery and aerospace research labs.

“This is the future. So beyond today, which is powerful and amazing, and their incredible work, it is that character, those morals, those values that are being instilled in our children. And they’re going to go out and lead our communities into a new frontier,” said new Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Rafael Villalobos.

El programa Space Hub tiene como objetivo ayudar a reducir la brecha de trabajadores en el sector aeroespacial, inspirar a los estudiantes a cursar estudios STEM y aumentar el conocimiento sobre carreras en campos relacionados con la ciencia.

La escuela está ubicada en 1200 NW Sixth Ave.

Senadores estatales, representantes, estudiantes y el superintendente de las Escuelas de Miami-Dade, Rafael Villalobos, estuvieron presentes para hablar sobre la importancia del nuevo programa.

Los fondos también apoyarán mejoras de tecnología y equipos, renovaciones al planetario actual de la escuela y el desarrollo de laboratorios de última generación para descubrimiento e investigación aeroespacial.

“Este es el futuro. Así que más allá de hoy, que es poderoso y asombroso, y de su increíble trabajo, está ese carácter, esa moral, esos valores que se están inculcando en nuestros niños. Y ellos van a salir y liderar nuestras comunidades hacia una nueva frontera”, dijo el nuevo superintendente de las Escuelas Públicas de Miami-Dade, Rafael Villalobos.

The work being done at the research stations will continue at other sites, Forest Service Associate Chief Chris French said in an interview. An additional 41 research facilities that faced possible closure will remain open after local officials and members of Congress raised concerns about the reorganization, which was announced in March.

“Our primary goal was to get our facilities costs under control,” French told The Associated Press. “We’re not closing any ongoing science activities. We’re not closing any of the experimental forests that are important to our researchers.”

Research by forest service employees ranges from studies on invasive species and protecting water resources to how wildfires are changing as climate change dries out and heats up forests.

Bill Avey of the National Associated of Forest Service Retirees, an advocacy group, said the forest service has long struggled to pay for all its facilities and some opportunities for consolidation exist. But Avey, who worked at the service for four decades, said its current leaders including Chief Tom Schultz need to defend the importance of forest research more vocally.

“He should be doing a much better job of pushing back and justifying and explaining some of the research work,” Avey said. He added that the 41 facilities being retained likely would have closed as well if not for pushback from his group and others.

The 95 employees at the research stations slated for closure will be shifted to other sites within their commuting areas, Forest Service Communications Director Chad Douglas said. The closures — along with previously announced plans to shut regional offices in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Portland — will save about $16 million, officials said.

The reorganization also includes moving the agency’s headquarters from Washington to Salt Lake City. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said the move, expected to be completed by next summer, will bring leaders closer to the landscapes they manage and the people who depend on them.

Conservation groups have criticized the changes, warning that they could reduce access to forests and threaten wildlife habitat and clean air and water.

Federal data shows that the Forest Service has lost about 6,000 employees, or about 15% of its workforce, during Trump’s second term as part of the Republican administration’s sweeping cuts to agencies that oversee the nation’s natural resources.

During Trump’s first term, he moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado, citing many of the same reasons, including a desire to put top officials closer to the public lands they oversee. Former President Joe Biden’s administration reversed course, returning the bureau’s headquarters to Washington after two years.

El Departamento de Policía de Pembroke Pines dijo que tuvo conocimiento del video temprano el jueves y que su División de Investigaciones está investigando activamente el incidente.

En el video grabado el domingo pasado desde un consultorio dental cercano, que fue difuminado debido a la naturaleza gráfica de las imágenes, un hombre parece pisotear a un pato adulto y permanecer parado sobre él durante varios minutos. Un segundo video parece mostrar a varios patitos dispersándose mientras el hombre intenta pisarlos.

Según reportes, el incidente ocurrió cerca de University Drive y Southwest 13th Street en Pembroke Pines.

Manuel Cavallini, propietario del consultorio dental, dijo a Local 10 News que le parecía “una locura” que alguien matara patos.

Cuatro días después, el pato muerto permanece en el césped.

La policía dijo que las acciones mostradas en el video son “ilegales y crueles” y enfatizó que el departamento no tolera delitos contra personas o animales.

La edad o identidad del hombre que aparece en el video no se conocía de inmediato.

La policía de Pembroke Pines pide a cualquier persona que tenga información sobre el incidente que se comunique al 954-431-2225.

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According to sources, retired General Abelardo Colome Ibarra, known as “ El Fury,” is currently in worse condition.

Colome Ibarra was head of the Ministry of the Interior and highly respected by the Castro brothers and the Cuban military.

Cuban officials have remained silent after the Diario Las Américas, a Miami-based newspaper in Spanish, reported on Tuesday that Castro, 95, who formally retired in April 2021, had suffered a stroke and was on life support.

Castro’s last public appearance was on June 6 at a ceremony to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior. He did not attend the official annual event to commemorate the historic assault of July 26, 1953.

Según fuentes, el general retirado Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, conocido como “El Furry”, se encuentra actualmente en peores condiciones.

Colomé Ibarra fue jefe del Ministerio del Interior y era muy respetado por los hermanos Castro y las fuerzas armadas cubanas.

Funcionarios cubanos han permanecido en silencio después de que Diario Las Américas, un periódico en español con sede en Miami, reportara el martes que Castro, de 95 años, quien se retiró formalmente en abril de 2021, había sufrido un derrame cerebral y se encontraba conectado a soporte vital.

La última aparición pública de Castro fue el 6 de junio en una ceremonia para conmemorar el 62.º aniversario del Ministerio del Interior de Cuba. No asistió al evento oficial anual para conmemorar el histórico asalto del 26 de julio de 1953.

La mujer fue identificada como Melissa Payne en un memorando de cierre del caso de la Fiscalía Estatal del Condado de Broward.

“Si en el momento en que Melissa Payne utilizó fuerza letal no estaba haciendo nada ilegal, se encontraba en un lugar donde tenía derecho a estar y ‘creía razonablemente que el uso o la amenaza de dicha fuerza era necesario para evitar una muerte inminente o lesiones corporales graves’, entonces está exenta de arresto y procesamiento”, señala el memorando.

Bart Diguglielmo, residente de Lauderhill, recibió un disparo el 30 de junio afuera del Walmart ubicado en 7900 W. McNab Road, después de una discusión con Payne, según informaron agentes de la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward.

De acuerdo con el memorando, todo el incidente quedó registrado por diversos dispositivos de video y muestra a Payne, quien estaba acompañada por su sobrina y el bebé de esta, y a Diguglielmo, quien se encontraba solo dentro de su SUV Kia blanco, intentando estacionarse en el mismo espacio.

Los fiscales señalaron que se produjo “un breve enfrentamiento” antes de que Payne y Diguglielmo salieran de sus respectivos vehículos.

Según el memorando, Diguglielmo dejó su vehículo en el carril de circulación, tomó un carrito de compras y entró al Walmart, mientras Payne estacionaba su Chevrolet Malibu en el espacio.

Diguglielmo regresó a su SUV unos 90 segundos después y, según dos testigos, le dijo a Payne: “Voy a hacer mierda tus cosas”, señala el memorando.

Después se alejó conduciendo a gran velocidad, según los fiscales.

De acuerdo con el memorando, Diguglielmo estacionó aproximadamente dos pasillos al oeste del automóvil de Payne, caminó hacia el vehículo de ella y permaneció un rato debajo de un árbol cercano mientras fumaba un cigarrillo.

Los testigos dijeron que Diguglielmo parecía enojado mientras observaba a Payne y que estaba temblando.

Los fiscales señalaron que Diguglielmo se acercó posteriormente al automóvil de Payne, momento en el que ella salió del vehículo con su teléfono en una mano y un arma de fuego en la otra.

Payne le advirtió a Diguglielmo: “¡Si sigues acercándote a mí, te voy a disparar!”, según el memorando.

De acuerdo con el documento, un testigo les gritó tanto a Payne como a Diguglielmo: “¡No vale la pena!”.

Los fiscales dijeron que Payne continuó advirtiéndole a Diguglielmo: “¡No vengas hacia acá!”, “¡No te acerques a mi auto!” y “¡No lo intentes!”.

El memorando señala que inicialmente Diguglielmo retrocedió, pero después volvió a acercarse a Payne mientras hacía gestos con las manos.

Los fiscales dijeron que finalmente Payne le disparó una vez en el abdomen.

Diguglielmo fue trasladado a un hospital, donde posteriormente murió a causa de sus heridas.

Melissa Rodriguez, abogada de la hija del hombre, declaró a Local 10 News: “Amanda Diguglielmo está muy decepcionada al enterarse de que no presentarán cargos penales en el caso. Hemos sostenido que las circunstancias no justificaban conceder inmunidad bajo la ley de defensa propia ‘Stand Your Ground’”.

En una entrevista exclusiva con Local 10 News, Amanda Diguglielmo describió a su padre como un hombre dedicado a su familia que trabajó durante 30 años como enfermero especializado en trauma en salas de emergencia.

“Era un gran hombre. Era padre, era abuelo y era hermano”, dijo.

Amanda Diguglielmo señaló que su padre también tenía un hermano gemelo, era padre de tres hijos y había alcanzado el grado de sargento en el Ejército.

Cuando le preguntaron qué sería lo que más extrañaría de su padre, Amanda Diguglielmo respondió: “Todo: poder llamarlo, almorzar juntos, las fiestas, todo”.

Amanda Diguglielmo y su abogada rechazan que Payne haya disparado contra Bart Diguglielmo en defensa propia.

“Esta no fue una situación de defensa propia ni un caso que justificara inmunidad bajo la ley ‘Stand Your Ground’. No creo que el tiroteo estuviera justificado”, declaró Rodriguez a principios de este mes. “Creo que deberían presentarse cargos penales”.

El choque ocurrió alrededor de las 7:40 p.m. cerca de Northwest 51st Terrace y Northwest 33rd Avenue.

Según MDSO, agentes de la Unidad de Intervención de Robos (RID) de la agencia realizaron una parada de tráfico a uno de los vehículos poco antes del choque.

Los agentes dijeron que durante esa parada confirmaron que el conductor, Luis Manuel Perez, de 21 años y residente de Miami, tenía una orden de arresto pendiente de las Fuerzas Armadas de EE.UU., pero huyó de ellos.

“A medida que unidades adicionales de RID respondían al área, el conductor entró en una calle sin salida”, dijo un portavoz de MDSO a Local 10 News en un correo electrónico el jueves. “Después de dar la vuelta, el conductor se pasó una señal de alto y chocó contra un vehículo civil, provocando que volcara. El impacto hizo que posteriormente los vehículos chocaran contra un vehículo de MDSO sin distintivos, ocupado por un agente de RID que se encontraba en el área buscando al sujeto”.

Una fotografía obtenida por Local 10 muestra el vehículo volcado. También se puede ver a una persona en el suelo en el área, aparentemente esposada.

“Lo vi chocar contra el auto y lo vi volcar por el aire. Y fue entonces cuando corrí hacia allá”, dijo un testigo. “Lo vi mientras sucedía. Lo vi, partes del auto volando por el aire”.

El conductor del vehículo civil fue trasladado por el Cuerpo de Bomberos de Miami-Dade al Centro de Traumatología Ryder del Hospital Jackson Memorial en condición crítica, pero posteriormente murió, confirmaron las autoridades.

Los agentes dijeron que Perez fue puesto bajo custodia y trasladado a un hospital local para ser evaluado, mientras que el agente fue atendido en el lugar por el Cuerpo de Bomberos de Miami-Dade.

Aunque una declaración jurada de arresto de Perez señala que tiene una orden de arresto activa como fugitivo de las Fuerzas Armadas de EE.UU., no especifica las acusaciones en su contra. Funcionarios de MDSO dijeron que también están pendientes cargos adicionales en su contra por el choque del miércoles.

La identidad de la víctima aún no ha sido divulgada mientras las autoridades trabajan para notificar a sus familiares.

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But Miami police and Miami-Dade deputies said “Dr. Lori” was actually Latonya Shanice Starks, who is not a licensed doctor ― and is instead a 33-year-old felon with no “legitimate job.”

Detectives said she was illegally performing injections ― some of which left patients with scarring, pain and abscesses. In one case, police said a victim believed the complications ultimately led her to have a miscarriage.

Authorities said Starks, of Aventura, ran Lori Dior Miami Med Spa at 5789 NW Seventh Ave. in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood.

‘Lumps,’ ‘irritation’, ‘abscesses’ and a miscarriage

Authortiies said they received complaints in May and June about Starks who went to “Dr. Lori” to receive Sculptra, described in arrest reports as a “dermal filler.”

In one case, police said a woman who said she found Starks through the loridior_beautyspa Instagram page went to the clinic in September for Sculptra, “represented to her as a fat-dissolving injection.”

“The victim later learned she was allegedly injected with lemon bottle, which is a foreign fat-dissolving substance that is not approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration,” a Miami Police Department detective wrote in one of the arrest reports. “The victim stated that after receiving the injections, the substance later began breaking through her skin in the same areas where she had been injected.”

Investigators said the woman “suffered a severe adverse medical reaction and required repeated hospitalization over a period of approximately three months.”

The woman, who became pregnant in January, believed that she had a miscarriage months later because of medications she had to take to treat the complications, one arrest report states.

In another case, investigators said a woman who also found Starks through Instagram went to the clinic with her sister in October for injections.

One of the women, who said she was trying to get rid of “hip dips,” said Starks used an insulin needle to inject what the victim believed was Sculptra into her buttocks and abdomen area using an insulin-type needle, the report states.

A Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office detective noted that the substance is “typically injected from a larger syringe than an insulin-type needle because the particles can clog it.”

Authorities said the victim, who paid Starks $1,200, never saw a Sculptra box and wasn’t sure if that’s what she actually received. They said the victim also paid Starks $650 for her sister, who was in South Florida from Kentucky to celebrate her birthday, to get injections as a gift.

According to an arrest report, both women said they began experiencing “lumps and irritation” after getting the injections. Both women, police said, had to have multiple procedures to get abscesses drained and scarring repaired and both continue to suffer pain at their injection sites.

One of the women said she even lost her job “because she has missed work due (to) the multiple doctor appointments that she has had to go to repair her scarring and drain her abscesses,” police said.

Instagram posts and a felony record

Police said they reviewed the loridior_beautyspa Instagram, where videos showed “Starks filming herself while stating that she is no longer performing injections and instructing individuals to stop contacting her to request injections.”

A post on the account reads, “Lori Dior ONLY does trainings. I do not provide services. I can refer y’all to people but I stop (sic) doing liquid bbls 2 years ago.”

“My classes be soo GHETTO,” a post about a training session read.

Other posts include advertisements for Lori Dior’s “signature POWERBOOTY™ Buttock Enhancement Machine," showing what appear to be AI-generated clips of women having their buttocks significantly inflated by the machines on a beach.

Detectives said records revealed that Lori Dior was never licensed with the state and “further investigation revealed that Starks had previously received a cease-and-desist order from the state of Georgia for similar operations prior to conducting business in Miami.”

Georgia Department of Corrections records show Starks, a native of the Peach State, was convicted of committing multiple crimes, including first-degree forgery and shoplifting, in suburban Atlanta in 2010. Authorities said she was on probation at the time of her arrest on Wednesday.

Traffic stop and arrest

Starks, authorities said, was taken into custody after a traffic stop near her home in Aventura.

A search of her vehicle revealed “medical and cosmetic equipment, including needles, a sharps container, bandages, and packaging labeled Sculptra 150,” police said.

They said they received a warrant to search her apartment at the Portsview at the Waterways condo building at 3610 Yacht Club Drive and found “additional medical and cosmetic equipment.”

Authorities said Starks claimed that a registered nurse named “Kate,” whose last name, phone number or credentials she couldn’t provide, was doing the injections.

Starks is now facing three charges of practicing healthcare without a license causing serious injury, as well as two counts of felon in possession of a firearm.

Records show she was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a total bond of more than $30,000.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to note that one of the cases was investigated by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.

“As I write this, I’m both older than I ever imagined I would become and happier than I ever imagined I could be,” she wrote in the introduction. “I’ve been rewarded with friends who are my chosen family. I have trusted friends in other countries, and we strive to be safe and free, and share hopes for a peaceful democracy in the world.”

Steinem added that she planned to live to 100.

“An Unexpected Life” follows such previous Steinem memoirs as “Revolution from Within” and “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.” In the latest book, she looks back to her childhood in Ohio in the 1940s and ’50s, when women were expected to marry and raise children. It continues through her political awakening, her rise in the second-wave feminist movement and her stature as an inspiration to young people, who in turn inspired her.

Here are some highlights from the upcoming memoir, scheduled for publication Sept. 22:

Spending two years in India after college changed Steinem's life

"Being in that country shattered Western romantic illusions with little ceremony, but it replaced them with new impressions far more real and less easily forgotten. As I learned once I was there, many Americans seem to have skipped from a sketchy knowledge of ancient India to a misunderstanding of its diversity. The teachings of Gandhi introduced me to nonhierarchical thinking, which I came to learn was the most common way of thinking in much of the rest of the world, too."

She counted conversation as a blessing

“My favorite model of human communication is sitting with others around a kitchen table or in a living room, anywhere we can gather equally and communicate in person with all five senses: a consciousness-raising group, a rap group, a book club, a quilting bee, or a talking circle. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a place where one can tell the truth, say an ‘unsayable’ thing, and hear other people say, ‘You feel like that? I thought only I felt like that!’”

An icon who set boundaries

“Terry Southern, a popular author and co-author of ‘Candy,’ a pornographic novel, was very visible on the New York social scene. I didn’t know him well, but for some reason we were both awaiting a mutual friend in that friend’s office, talking and sitting next to each other on the couch. He reached over, took hold of my wrists so I couldn’t move, and tried to kiss me. Without a moment’s thought, I bit him on the cheek. If you haven’t been trained to submit, you are like a cat; you just respond.”

She mused about relationships between men and women

“Other leaps of consciousness have actually been quite funny, like figuring out that despite the term man-hating lesbian — which I hope and believe is long forgotten — it may be the women who live with men who are more likely to hate them.”

Not all audiences are alike

“The worst audience for me has always been establishment males, and the worst circumstance has been one in which I have to convince them on behalf of some very important but unpopular issue. In those moments, I feel responsible not only for myself but also for the people who can’t be there but should be represented.”

Some second thoughts. (And, no, she didn't miss having children)

“Of course, I do have regrets. For one, I spent way too much time doing what was expected of me, and not enough doing what I loved. Given my generation, I also grew up assuming that I would have to marry my identity, not become it. This scary idea caused me to put off marriage and to live a temporary life. Not until my forties did I begin to see that a different kind of life was possible, one in which I wasn’t bound to fulfill my husband’s dreams and depend on him financially. I learned that the work I loved could also create the future I wanted.”

An optimist to the end

“People often ask me how I stay hopeful. I always explain that hope is a form of planning. I think about twenty, thirty, even fifty years ago and the leaps of consciousness I’ve experienced because of the women’s movement. Some of what we dreamed of decades ago is now really here.”

Yet these days, he’s not much different than any college coaching veteran just trying to get a handle on who’s eligible to play and who isn’t.

“What is strange about college athletics is that it seems like the rules change every day,” Malone said Thursday morning. “Like, literally every day. So that is the hardest part."

The NCAA’s move to a five-year, age-based eligibility model has begat a series of eligibility battles in courts across the country, along with last week’s rushed-into-place rules by football-playing power conferences trying to sort out that chaos with the start of the season now at hand.

The same questions hover in basketball, too, as to whether players can come back to college after in failed bids to make the pros or after closing what was supposed to be a four-year career in the spring.

The sport has the benefit of more time for those cases to make their way through the legal system. Still, preseason practices officially begin later this month, and there’s roughly two months remaining until the season kicks off on Nov. 1. It is unclear how much clarity will come between now and then as to the status of more than 250 men’s and women’s players involved in some type of court action tied to the NCAA's age-based eligibility model.

That includes for Malone's first UNC team. South Dakota transfer big man Cameron Fens committed last month to UNC when he appeared to be eligible to play a fifth season after one court ruling, only to be ineligible again based on a stay issued in response to an appeal.

“You put together the best team you can, you start practicing in the summer and now let’s unleash 80 players into the sport in the first week of August,” UConn men’s coach and two-time NCAA champion Dan Hurley said last month. “You can’t go on like this, no other sport is going like this. ... It is total chaos and it is not sustainable.”

Changing the eligibility model has led to legal fights

The change has largely centered around the NCAA's adoption of a five-year eligibility model that is due to be fully implemented next fall. It will allow players to have five years of eligibility with the clock starting when an athlete turns 19 or graduates from high school, whichever is earliest.

But that quickly led to lawsuits from four-year players in the high school class of 2022, who began their careers in the 2022-23 season and completed four seasons of eligibility but are seeking that fifth year.

In data as of Thursday morning, the NCAA said there have been 79 lawsuits with a total of 450 plaintiffs across all sports involved in litigation tied to the five-year rule, with 234 of those coming in men's basketball and 33 in women's basketball. Of that group, 154 men's players and 26 women's players have received some type of relief from the courts allowing them to play while the rest are currently be ineligible.

Yet things can change rapidly, with players moving from one category to the other.

Last season, basketball got a preview of what was to come when Alabama's Charles Bediako won a temporary restraining order allowing him to play five games for the Crimson Tide last year after playing in the NBA G League. An Alabama judge ultimately sided with the NCAA that Bediako should be ineligible.

And now, former St. John's standout guard RJ Luis Jr. is trying to play for new LSU coach Will Wade despite going pro after the 2024-25 season and spending time with two NBA teams. A Louisiana judge cleared the way for him last week to start practicing and potentially play for the Tigers; Luis was briefly under contract with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics but never played in an NBA game.

These fights have also come with the NCAA and major conferences pushing Congress for help by passing the Protect College Sports Act. That bipartisan measure has been touted by supporters as having the ability to tamp down on the lawsuits that have led to the eligibility issues.

A longer runway to basketball season could provide clarity

The Power Four football conferences — the SEC, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten and Big 12 — all adopted bans of former pro athletes last week. The Big 12 banned professional athletes from competing in any league-sponsored sport, while the SEC and the ACC bans focused on men's and women's basketball along with football. The Big Ten's was limited to football.

The Big East, the only other league to win an NCAA title in the past decade, has yet to formally adopt a similar policy. But that league doesn't have football as a pressing concern with basketball as its flagship sport with the November tipoff, and that comes with the Big East in the first days of Tim Brosnan's tenure as commissioner.

A person with knowledge of the situation said Big East schools are discussing options and monitoring developments tied to the eligibility cases as well as the actions taken by other top leagues. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league hasn’t publicly discussed those evaluations.

Back at UNC, Fens joined the roster as a county judge in Tennessee granted him and 18 other basketball players a temporary injunction to retain their eligibility for a fifth year.

But in recent weeks, that state’s Court of Appeals put on hold that order, meaning Fens can practice but is currently ineligible to play. That was one of multiple wins for the NCAA in ongoing litigation across the nation, including stays of injunctions in Ohio and South Carolina state courts as well as in a federal court in Colorado.

Malone — who coached three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic to the 2023 title with the Denver Nuggets — knows it all can change quickly. So he's leaning on his staff to keep him “attuned” to developments while he focuses on preparing the Tar Heels for November, and other pressing matters.

“I still haven't found a place to live, so I've got to find a place to live, man, you know?” he quipped.

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AP freelance writer Jim Fuller in Storrs, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

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A public notice shows the first of its kind survey of wastewater treatment plants was submitted to the White House for approval nearly two years ago during the Biden administration — a far longer wait than is typical.

Many wastewater treatment plants receive PFAS-contaminated waste. A nationwide survey of hundreds of plants would help identify the source of that PFAS and could inform new regulations to limit their spread, according to Robert Wood, director of the engineering and analysis division in the EPA’s Office of Water before his retirement in 2024.

“If we can determine the top one, the top two, the top three” industries that dump PFAS, said Wood, “then we start work on the detailed studies and the regulation to get after nationwide limits on PFAS for the predominant industrial dischargers.”

Researchers have linked the family of chemicals called PFAS to increased risk of certain cancers, developmental effects in children, resistance to vaccines and other health problems. The man-made chemicals once commonly used in products like waterproof shoes and nonstick pans are also widespread in the environment and hard to remove, making them an especially challenging public health threat. Wastewater treatment plants, for example, typically aren’t equipped to separate them from waste, which means they are released back into rivers and onto soil.

The survey was submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which must approve it, in October 2024.

“This is sufficiently unusual and a very long period of time that it is worth asking the question: Is OMB just sitting on it?” said Stuart Shapiro, a former OMB staffer and dean at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey. He said reviews typically take around 60 days.

The EPA and OMB did not respond to requests for comment.

The Trump administration's nuanced — and at times controversial — stance towards PFAS

The Trump administration has promised to combat PFAS. They've kept tough Biden-era limits on two common types of PFAS in drinking water and support work to find new ways to remove the chemicals from the environment.

They've also faced criticism from environmentalists and the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-aligned “Make America Healthy Again” movement over what they see as an agency approach to chemical regulation that's too industry-friendly. Trump officials have delayed the most significant drinking water limits and scrapped a Biden-era effort to reduce PFAS in the wastewater of certain chemical manufacturers, restarting the regulatory process themselves.

The Biden-era EPA said that good data on PFAS in industrial wastewater is typically inaccessible, incomplete or inconsistent. With the new survey, officials sought to ask hundreds of wastewater treatment plants questions about their practices and to sample the industrial sources of the waste they treated.

If the work had started quickly, officials would already have some of the results, according to Betsy Southerland, a leader of the EPA’s Office of Water until 2017.

“It makes you wonder if they really want to stop PFAS — or if efforts to truly find out who is discharging is just too big a disruption for the chemical industry,” she said.

Officials also would have collected information on PFAS in biosolids, which are the treated solids water treatment plants produce in massive quantities. Those treated biosolids are often spread on farm fields as fertilizer. Officials wanted to survey biosolids to figure out the prevalence of PFAS.

Although concerns have been raised for years, officials have only recently studied the health implications of growing food on fields where PFAS-contaminated biosolids have been spread. The Biden-era EPA issued a draft report raising some concerns — a report Trump officials said had serious flaws. Agency officials, in their own draft document, said one of those flaws was that the agency had failed to conduct a national survey of PFAS in biosolids to better understand their occurrence and associated risks.

David Andrews, chief science officer at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said the Trump administration had created a logical paradox.

“The biosolids risk assessment was criticized by this administration for not including an EPA-run national occurrence study, and that exact survey has been sitting unapproved at OMB for nearly two years,” Andrews said.

Some states have already taken a look

A group representing public wastewater agencies questioned the need for the survey, saying that a lot of new data has been collected on PFAS in wastewater in recent years. That information is enough to take steps to regulate the industries that need to be addressed, and a new survey for more expensive sampling wouldn’t be useful, according to Cynthia Finley, director of regulatory affairs at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.

“We would rather EPA look at what data is available already because there is a wealth of PFAS discharge information out there now,” said Finley.

Michigan is one of the states that has collected similar data on its own. The state had already limited the amount of certain PFAS wastewater treatment plants could dump into rivers and lakes several years ago when treatment plants started sampling the industrial waste they received.

With data in hand, “The treatment plants told their industries, 'Hey, you have to either stop discharging PFAS or reduce the amount of PFAS you are discharging to us,” to avoid violating limits on PFAS in rivers and lakes, according to Anne Tavalire, who works for the state on reducing PFAS at wastewater treatment plants.

She said the work helped achieve substantial reductions in PFAS released into the environment and in biosolids.

A “Make America Healthy Again” activist said it was good that the Trump administration had previously announced plans to tackle PFAS. But for their efforts to work, officials can't let polluters off the hook and must know where the pollution is coming from, according to Kelly Ryerson, whose social media account “Glyphosate Girl” focuses on agriculture and health.

The survey or a similar effort “is urgently needed data to help decrease toxic exposures and ultimately the chronic disease epidemic. We have no more time to waste in addressing these harmful exposures, especially on behalf of bureaucratic interests,” she said.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

El respaldo del Senado al proyecto de ley se produce después de que la cámara baja votara abrumadoramente a favor el 6 de mayo. Ahora, pasa al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, quien se prevé que promulgue la medida.

La legislación propuesta crea un marco jurídico básico para las tierras raras y otros minerales críticos, así como un fondo para otorgar crédito a proyectos mineros. También contempla incentivos fiscales para el procesamiento dentro del país.

Brasil tiene las segundas reservas más grandes del mundo de elementos de tierras raras, que se utilizan en una amplia gama de productos, como teléfonos inteligentes, vehículos eléctricos, paneles solares y motores de reacción.

Aunque China sigue dominando los minerales críticos en las cadenas de suministro globales, Brasil se posiciona como una alternativa al aprovechar sus enormes reservas. Países de todo el mundo han mostrado interés, ya que buscan diversificar alianzas y reducir la dependencia de la potencia asiática.

En un análisis conjunto de la AP y Reporter Brasil se identificó una ola de inversión de Estados Unidos después de que China restringiera el año pasado las exportaciones de tierras raras en respuesta a los aranceles de Estados Unidos; tales inversiones incluyen la compra del único productor comercial de tierras raras de Brasil, Serra Verde, por parte de una firma en la que el gobierno estadounidense tiene participación.

En abril, USA Rare Earth dijo que había acordado pagar aproximadamente 2.800 millones de dólares por Serra Verde, propietaria de la mina de tierras raras y planta de procesamiento de Pela Ema, en el estado brasileño de Goiás.

Lula ha dicho repetidamente que la nación sudamericana debería buscar capitalizar el interés en los minerales para desarrollar una industria nacional, en lugar de simplemente exportar las materias primas.

“No vamos a repetir lo que pasó con la plata y el oro en América Latina”, dijo Lula a periodistas en Washington el 7 de mayo, tras su reunión con el presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump. “Con las tierras raras, vamos a cambiar nuestro comportamiento. Queremos que Brasil sea el gran ganador de estas riquezas”.

El proyecto de ley establece el Fondo de Garantía de la Actividad Mineral con un aporte de 2.000 millones de reales (unos 391 millones de dólares) del gobierno federal para garantizar proyectos y actividades vinculados a la producción de minerales críticos y estratégicos.

La legislación también incluye un programa específico para incentivar el procesamiento y la transformación de los minerales en Brasil, con incentivos federales de 5.000 millones de reales (978 millones de dólares) en créditos fiscales durante cinco años.

Además, el proyecto de ley crea el Consejo Nacional para la Industrialización de Minerales Críticos y Estratégicos, que señalará los proyectos prioritarios que recibirán apoyo del fondo.

La minería, que en algunos casos podría realizarse cerca de reservas en la selva amazónica, conlleva importantes riesgos ambientales.

El Observatorio del Clima, la mayor red de grupos ambientalistas de Brasil, ha criticado el proyecto de ley, argumentando que aumenta la flexibilidad regulatoria sin contrapartidas económicas, climáticas o socioambientales.

“Los minerales críticos y estratégicos son necesarios para la transición energética, pero esto no puede convertirse en un cheque en blanco para la minería. No tiene sentido (...) acelerar propuestas legislativas que no garanticen los derechos de las comunidades y territorios afectados”, señaló Suely Araújo, coordinadora de Políticas Públicas del Observatorio del Clima, en un comunicado emitido el 1 de septiembre.

Leonardo Paz Neves, profesor de relaciones internacionales en la Fundación Getulio Vargas, un centro de estudios y universidad, dijo que Brasil debería entablar un debate público respecto de la exploración y producción de sus recursos.

“Ya hay acceso”, afirmó Paz Neves, al señalar la reciente compra de USA Rare Earth. “La gran pregunta aquí es si el Estado querrá intentar negociar algún tipo de acuerdo privilegiado respecto de ese acceso”.

Tras reunirse con Trump, Lula dejó claro que Brasil también está hablando con otros países. “Brasil tiene la obligación de compartir con quien quiera participar con nosotros, sea Estados Unidos, China, Alemania o Francia”.

En febrero, Brasil e India firmaron un memorando de entendimiento no vinculante sobre minerales críticos y tierras raras, reforzando la cooperación sobre recursos cruciales entre ambos países.

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

The report from the Government Accountability Office found delays and holes in how the Secret Service updates its policies regarding threats, and arrives after a few turbulent years for the agency charged with the president's protection.

The would-be assassin in Butler positioned himself on a roof left unsecured, nicking the president's ear with a bullet. Months later, a man with a rifle got surprisingly close to Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course. And in April, an armed man got beyond security barriers at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, where the president sat.

The report found that between 2015 and 2025 the Secret Service dealt with 83 security incidents and that they updated their protection policies in response to 25 of them. Among the incidents was a drone that made contact with President Barack Obama's motorcade in 2015 and another flown about 200 feet (60 meters) over a rally for then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Failing to document why the Secret Service decided not to change their policy is the concern, said Nathan Tranquilli, acting director of the Government Accountability Office, adding that the drone incidents were a “compelling example” of that.

“Some of the missing information has been relevant to subsequent attacks,” the report read. It cited the Butler incident, where the culprit flew a drone for 11 minutes over the crowd, which helped him position himself to get clear shot at Trump.

The Secret Service also failed to update eight of 22 protection policies within a required time frame of four years. A memorandum of understanding between the Secret Service and the Diplomatic Security Service, which designates each agencies' responsibilities for the president's overseas security, hasn't been updated since 1991, even though an annual review and update is required. As a consequence, the memorandum doesn't address newer threats, such as drones.

“When you look at the Secret Service and you look at their mission, really it's a zero fail mission, and they’ve got a ton of challenges,” said Tranquilli. “When decisions were being made about where to put time and energy, some of these things fell to the side, and, as a result, there were some delays.”

The report recommended three fixes, including that the Secret Service revise its policy to require that, when a security incident doesn't warrant a policy update, that the rationale is documented.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the report stated that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, agreed with all recommendations and plans to implement changes.

Thomas Ross, 37, is charged with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. He's accused of asking a campaign manager to plant a small amount of cocaine and a prescription amphetamine pill on his opponent, Louise Secker, in the weeks leading up to the Aug. 4 primary, according to court documents.

Ross, of Joplin, defeated Secker by only a few dozen votes.

Ross did not respond to a Thursday message seeking comment about the charge, which was filed Wednesday. The federal public defender's office assigned to his case didn't immediately reply to a message asking how Ross plans to plead.

Missouri's Republican Party chairman, Peter Kinder, called on Ross to drop out of the race, describing the circumstances of his arrest as “serious and deeply troubling.”

A former campaign manager for Ross told law enforcement officers that Ross provided him with a black nylon glove that contained a small, plastic bag of white powder and a pink and white capsule. He said Ross told him to place it in Secker's purse or vehicle while Ross was out of state on vacation, according to a probable cause statement signed by an FBI agent.

Law enforcement tests later showed the substances to be cocaine and Adderall.

The FBI statement said Ross sent numerous text messages to his campaign staffer regarding “the substance.” In one, Ross said he hoped “that we could make it happen” before Secker attended a Republican women's meeting at a Joplin restaurant in June, “which would be extreme egg on the face,” according to the FBI document.

U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price said in a statement that voters deserve to have confidence in elections.

“Candidates are expected to conduct their campaigns with integrity, honesty, and respect for their opponents," Price said.

Two trailer truckloads of the famously creamy dark beer valued at 115,000 pounds ($155,000) were stolen from a depot near Liverpool in northwest England, the Cheshire Constabulary said Thursday.

“It is famously said that ‘Guinness is good for you,’ but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for," Det. Sgt. Gary McClatchy said. “We will settle for nothing less than the full recovery of all the items stolen."

The Guinness had been destined for pubs, but was snatched Monday night by two drivers who pulled up to an industrial park in Runcorn and hauled away the trailers containing about 800 barrels of stout.

The value of the trailers was estimated at 50,000 pounds ($67,000).

The theft comes just weeks after a beer heist in the United States captured the public's attention because of the brewer's cheeky social media posts about the loss of roughly 34,000 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

“To the thief: we don’t fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way,” the company wrote on Instagram. “P.s. this is real and we are deadly serious.”

Police valued the Pabst theft from a Southern California warehouse at $70,000 and the company offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the stolen suds.

“We thank Maria for her work over the last 12½ years,” a Fox statement read, “and wish her all the best on her next chapter.”

There was no immediate reaction from Bartiromo. Her X account still showed a banner photo Thursday afternoon encouraging people to “grab yourself a cup of coffee, and join us every morning for Mornings With Maria.”

Other high-profile, on-air personalities that have left Fox News Media in recent years include Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly. Former Fox personality Pete Hegseth left the network in 2024 after being nominated as President Donald Trump's secretary of defense.

Bartiromo hosted “Mornings with Maria” on Fox Business Network, the last episode of which aired Thursday morning, as well as “Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street.”

The first show will be renamed “Mornings with Fox Business” and will feature rotating anchors, the company said in its statement. The second will be renamed “FBN's Wall Street” and will also use rotating anchors. Additionally, Bartiromo’s weekly Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures” will be hosted by Jason Chaffetz for the time being.

Bartiromo has frequently earned praise from Trump, who has granted her multiple interviews over the years. He has called her a “great reporter.” Vice President JD Vance, talking with reporters Thursday afternoon, was asked about her departure but said he had not talked to her and didn't know the back story.

“I love Maria. I think she's an amazing person, an amazing talent," Vance said. “Whatever she does, she's gonna do great, and I wish her all the best. She's a very, very dear friend.”

In 2025, a lawsuit against Fox News by voting technology company Smartmatic alleged that Bartiromo spread false rumors about claims of election fraud on the air — a notion she had vehemently rejected.

Bartiromo had said before an earlier lawsuit involving Fox and Dominion Voting Systems that it’s “absurd” to think that she personally lobbied former Attorney General William Barr to aggressively investigate Trump’s charges of voter fraud during the 2020 election. Instead, she said she was doing a journalist’s job in asking follow-up questions. That case was settled in 2023.

Before Fox, Bartiromo worked for CNBC for 20 years as a financial journalist. Previously to that, she worked for CNN. At CNBC, she pioneered daily live reporting from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and won an Emmy Award for a documentary about Google.

Having launched “Operation Economic Outcast” just last week to try to isolate Iran from its remaining global trade partners, the Trump administration also resumed strikes in recent days, prompting Iranian retaliation that has renewed concerns of an all-out regional war.

However, the combination of already intense sanctions on Iran and an off-and-on bombing campaign since the war began more than six months ago has not bowed the Iranian leadership and has left the administration struggling to find a way to wind down the conflict. Tehran has dug in its heels — to Trump’s frustration — as energy prices rise, the global economy roils and poll numbers on the administration's handling of the war dip ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.

Trump said Wednesday that he didn't think the conflict would last “much longer,” but he again shrugged off suggestions that its unpopularity and high gasoline prices resulting from Iran's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz would affect the elections for Republicans.

“It doesn’t matter. And I’m not affected by the election,” he told reporters. "I’m not running. But my party is running, and I’m going to help my party. But I think my party respects the fact that we’re not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

A regional diplomat briefed on the matter described the current impasse between Tehran and Washington as reflective of both countries' domestic priorities: the midterm elections for Trump and Republicans and the internal crises within Iran.

Domestic issues are critical reasons why neither side is willing to blink first, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

The diplomat said negotiations, including those between Iran and Oman or even Iran and the U.S., will not go anywhere without addressing the initial catalyst of war: Israel. And the diplomat was skeptical of the Trump administration's new sanctions plan, saying the threats require more explanation than what the U.S. has provided so far.

The Trump administration's economic isolation of Iran is off to a slow start

The administration's new push for Iran's economic isolation was announced with great fanfare last week and a dire warning for all remaining countries to cut off financial and trade ties with Iran or face U.S. retaliation — but the campaign so far has fallen flat.

Just one branch of an Egyptian bank in the United Arab Emirates has been targeted so far. For actual sanctions to bite, experts agree that they must apply to Iran’s main trading partners: mainly China but also India and Russia. But Trump is loath to target China especially as he is preparing to host President Xi Jinping later this month.

Trump also insists that the U.S. has control over the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil transited before the war began. The strategic waterway has been a key pressure point for Iran, and reopening it fully has become one of the prime goals for the U.S. administration.

Ship traffic through the strait is well below pre-war levels due to the risk of attack if vessels don’t comply with an Iranian vetting regime near its coastline, which is in sharp contrast to the unhindered navigation before the war. There were 102 transits last week and 126 the week before, according to shipping data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence, compared with 130 or more per day before the war.

“As President Trump said, the strait is open and all mines have been cleared,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Thursday. “The naval blockade remains in full force and effect, and Operation Economic Outcast is underway to sever every remaining economic lifeline sustaining the regime.”

The White House has repeatedly touted the economic impact that the sanctions have had on Iran, citing its rampant inflation and the massive loss in the value of its currency. U.S. officials have described Iran's financial system as “one big house of cards.”

Going forward, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “the price” Iran will pay will be primarily economic, “but we reserve the right ... to take military action when necessary — not just to protect ourselves but to prevent them from being able to threaten others as well.”

“They’re going to continue to feel the squeeze,” he told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade in an interview that aired Wednesday.

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that he would not characterize the current situation as a “war” but that the administration would respond to any Iranian hostile action.

“Major combat operations are currently not ongoing, and they haven’t been ongoing in a very long time," Vance told reporters during a White House briefing. "In fact, what we did just a couple of days ago is that we made it harder for the Iranians to shoot at commercial shipping again in order to ensure the flow of oil and gas into world energy markets.”

Combining military force and sanctions on Iran ‘is the only option,’ one analyst says

Complicating things for the U.S., Iran’s leadership has shown signs of divisions between moderates more open to a diplomatic solution and hardliners who want to press ahead with a more confrontational approach.

President Masoud Pezeshkian is one of the most prominent voices still calling for a negotiated solution. But the hardliners appear to have gained the upper hand, and Iran shows no sign of backing down. Tehran continues to lash out at U.S. interests and allies around the region in response to military strikes.

“This kind of a hybrid approach — the combination of military force, blockade and economic pressure — that is the only option that seems to be available to the United States at this moment,” said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Still, he said, “it’s been for a long time, but now maybe more than ever, a battle of endurance between the two sides.”

Amr Hamzawy, director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pointed to two main reasons for the deteriorating situation.

“One, none of the two parties is satisfied with the outcome — meaning that the current situation does not serve U.S. interests well, and it does not serve Iranian interests well,” Hamzawy said.

The other reason is how leaders from both sides are perceived at home.

“The Trump administration is afraid of being portrayed in the U.S. as an administration that failed to end a military campaign successfully, and that’s going to impact the midterm elections," he said. “And the Iranians, especially the Revolutionary Guard, are quite afraid of appearing as if they are submitting to U.S. sanctions with no actions on their side, which might hurt them domestically.”

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report.

The Senate’s backing of the bill comes after the lower house overwhelmingly voted in favor on May 6. It now heads to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is expected to sign the measure into law.

The proposed legislation creates a basic legal framework for rare earths and other critical minerals and a fund to provide credit to mining projects. It also provides for tax incentives for domestic processing.

Brazil has the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earth elements, used in a wide range of products, including smartphones, electric vehicles, solar panels and jet engines.

While China continues to dominate critical minerals in global supply chains, Brazil is positioning itself as an alternative by leveraging its vast reserves. Countries around the world have shown interest as they seek to diversify partnerships and reduce reliance on the Asian powerhouse.

A joint analysis by the AP and Reporter Brazil identified a wave of U.S. investment after China last year restricted rare earth exports in response to U.S. tariffs, including the purchase of Brazil’s only commercial rare earth producer, Serra Verde, by a firm in which the U.S. government has a stake.

In April, USA Rare Earth said it had agreed to pay approximately $2.8 billion for Serra Verde, owner of the Pela Ema rare earth mine and processing plant in Brazil’s Goias state.

Government-screening power

Lula has repeatedly said that the South American nation should seek to capitalize on interest in the minerals to develop a national industry, rather than simply export the raw materials.

“We’re not going to repeat what happened with silver and gold in Latin America,” Lula told journalists in Washington on May 7, after his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. “With rare earths, we’re going to change our behavior. We want Brazil to be the big winner of these riches.”

The bill establishes the Mineral Activity Guarantee Fund with a contribution of 2 billion reais (about $391 million) from the federal government to guarantee projects and activities linked to the production of critical and strategic minerals.

The legislation also includes a specific program to encourage processing and transforming the minerals in Brazil, with federal incentives of 5 billion reais ($978 million) in tax credits over five years.

In addition, the bill creates the National Council for the Industrialization of Critical and Strategic Minerals, which will indicate priority projects to receive support from the fund.

The council will screen and approve certain forms of foreign investment and influence in companies holding critical and strategic mineral rights, potentially giving the government a de facto veto.

That increases legal uncertainty for investors, said Jaques Paes, a business professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. “It puts rare earths in a political realm rather than a technical one.”

Environmental risks

Mining, which in some cases could happen near reserves in the Amazon rainforest, also comes with major environmental risks.

The Climate Observatory, Brazil’s largest network of environmental groups, has criticized the bill, alleging that it increases regulatory flexibility without economic, climate or socioenvironmental trade-offs.

“Critical and strategic minerals are necessary for the energy transition, but this cannot become a blank check for mining. It makes no sense (...) to accelerate legislative proposals that do not guarantee the rights of affected communities and territories,” said Suely Araújo, Public Policy Coordinator at the Climate Observatory, in a statement on Sept. 1.

Leonardo Paz Neves, an international relations professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university, said Brazil should engage in a public debate with regard to exploration and production of its resources.

“Access already exists,” said Paz Neves, pointing to USA Rare Earth’s recent purchase. “The big question here is whether the state will want to try to negotiate some kind of privileged agreement regarding that access.”

After meeting with Trump, Lula made clear that Brazil is talking to other countries too. “Brazil has the obligation to share with whoever wants to participate with us, be that the U.S., China, Germany or France.”

In February, Brazil and India signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding on critical minerals and rare earths, enhancing cooperation on crucial resources between both countries.

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

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His first day comes as the district faces several challenges, including a proposal to potentially close more than two dozen schools because of declining enrollment.

Villalobos says under-enrolled schools can struggle to offer students a wide range of programs.

“When you have schools that are under enrolled, there are programs that are lacking that ultimately students are suffering because they are not receiving them,” Villalobos said.

He said schools operating at full capacity are more likely to have stronger elective programs, including music, art and physical education.

The possible school consolidations are raising concerns among parents.

Villalobos says the list of schools being considered for closure is preliminary. He is pausing community meetings to give the proposal a closer look.

“I wanna make sure that we have a proper set of research and communication, not only for my purposes as the new superintendent coming in, but also making sure that the board members have a better understanding of why those schools were selected, the process in which they were selected,” Villalobos said.

He says community meetings are expected to resume sometime after the second week of October.

James Dolphs Elmore Jr. was given the maximum sentence by a Galveston County jury a day after they found him guilty of manslaughter in the death of 16-year-old Laura Miller, whose body was found in the infamous area in 1986.

What became known as the “Texas Killing Fields” refers to a stretch of land along Interstate 45 southeast of Houston where the bodies of more than 30 girls and young women have been found. The area has inspired books, movies and a Netflix documentary.

Most of the deaths remain unsolved, and investigators believe multiple people may be responsible.

Miller's body was found 17 months after she went missing. After the long search for her and frustration with authorities, her father, Tim Miller, started Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit that helps search for missing people.

“I begged, I pleaded for somebody to do something,” Miller told jurors. “I knew something happened to Laura, I just knew it. I just didn’t know what it was.”

Charges filed decades after Texas teenager's killing

Elmore, 61, had approached Miller several years ago, telling him he was there when Laura Miller died, and the two men met dozens of times. During the trial, jurors watched a video produced by Tim Miller showing the two men visiting locations connected to his daughter's death.

Elmore was arrested earlier this year, accused of preparing the dose of cocaine that killed her.

She was one of four young women whose bodies were found between 1984 and 1991 in a rural field off a desolate dirt road in League City, located about 28 miles (45 kilometers) southeast of Houston. The other three women were: Audrey Cook, Heidi Fye-Villareal and Donna Prudhomme.

Elmore was accused in an indictment of preparing a vial of cocaine that was administered to Miller by Clyde Hedrick, who authorities have alleged was the person responsible for the deaths of the four women and had been Elmore’s longtime friend.

Hedrick was convicted of manslaughter in 2014 in the death of Ellen Beason, a young woman whose body was found in 1985 after going missing the previous years. He was released on parole in 2022.

The district attorney’s office said in March that they had decided to seek grand jury indictments against Hedrick in the deaths, but the 72-year-old Hedrick died by suicide before the grand jury presentation.

Elmore’s attorney, Bill Agnew, told jurors that his client “didn’t have anything to do with this.” He also noted that had Hedrick lived, Elmore would have likely been called to testify at his trial.

“Clyde killed himself, and once that happened you’ve got one guy standing,” Agnew said.

Few convictions in ‘Texas Killing Fields’ cases

Most of the deaths associated with the “Texas Killing Fields” remain unsolved.

When Kenneth Cusick was appointed district attorney in Galveston County last year, he said he would be taking a harder look at the cases.

In 2022, William Reece, an Oklahoma death row inmate, pleaded guilty to three murders in Texas: Laura Smither, 12; Jessica Cain, 17; and Kelli Cox, 20. Cox was from Denton, north of Dallas, but her body was found hundreds of miles away near the “Texas Killings Fields” area.

Reece received life sentences for all three murders.

Testifying at Elmore's trial, Miller told jurors that he wanted to see Elmore punished for “mixing up the dope and giving the needle to Clyde.”

“You handed it to Clyde Hedrick. You handed it,” he said, as he pointed at Elmore and began to cry.

El mensaje de Milei está previsto para las 21 local (00.00 GMT) del jueves y será retransmitido por todas las cadenas televisivas. Según el gobierno, se referirá a los “avances diplomáticos” realizados en defensa de la soberanía de las islas en el Atlántico sur, a las que los británicos denominan Falklands y cuya soberanía Argentina reclama desde 1833. Ambos países libraron una guerra por su dominio en 1982 en la que el país sudamericano resultó derrotado.

Las especulaciones en torno del anuncio de Milei aumentaron luego de que Trump —quien profesa una gran simpatía por el mandatario argentino— se refiriera el miércoles al asunto por segunda vez en la semana en una entrevista con la cadena británica GB News.

La entrevistadora le preguntó si acudiría “en ayuda del gobierno británico”, dejando a un lado la histórica neutralidad de Washington, si Milei alude al reclamo. Trump respondió que ese conflicto ha “quedado muy lejos” y a continuación mostró su malestar con el gobierno británico por no haber brindado apoyo militar durante la guerra en Irán.

El lunes había dicho ante consultas periodísticas acerca de si modificaría el alineamiento con Gran Bretaña que “siempre reviso todas mis posturas, esta es sólo una de muchas”.

Las declaraciones fueron leídas como un guiño por Milei, quien señaló que “pasó algo fuerte respecto de la causa más sagrada que tenemos los argentinos”.

Por su parte, el gobierno británico aclaró a través de Tom Wells, portavoz del primer ministro Andy Burnham, que la postura respecto de las islas es “inquebrantable”.

“La soberanía recae en el Reino Unido y el derecho de los isleños a la autodeterminación es primordial”, afirmó Wells. “Los isleños han expresado en repetidas ocasiones su deseo de seguir siendo un territorio británico de ultramar”.

A pesar de que la Constitución argentina establece que la recuperación de las islas y el ejercicio de la soberanía sobre ellas “constituyen un objetivo permanente e irrenunciable”, la relación entre Argentina y el archipiélago es mínima.

No hay comercio directo con las islas —situadas a sólo 480 kilómetros del continente—, y sólo hay un vuelo mensual desde territorio argentino.

Señalamientos contra Milei

Opositores a Milei sostienen que el anuncio de su mensaje es oportunista y basado en declaraciones ambiguas del mandatario estadounidense.

Milei ha sido cuestionado por haber manifestado admiración por la primera ministra Margaret Thatcher —quien envió tropas a Malvinas para luchar contra los argentinos—, como las que hizo durante la campaña que lo llevó al poder en 2023.

En 2025 expresó su esperanza de que los residentes de las islas puedan algún día elegir ser argentinos en lugar de británicos, comentarios que fueron criticados por sus oponentes como excesivamente conciliadores.

Recientemente el presidente apuntó contra el gesto de los jugadores de la Selección de fútbol que desplegaron una pancarta tras la victoria 2-1 ante Inglaterra en el Mundial que se jugó julio que rezaba “Las Malvinas son argentinas”.

“No mezclemos las cosas, entiendo que es difícil... las Malvinas se recuperan con diplomacia sabia y no con gestos de patrioterismo baratos", afirmó Milei a la prensa.

Ese cartel disparó en Argentina, sobre todo entre los jóvenes, un renovado fervor patriótico por las Malvinas.

Lucas Romero, director de Synopsis Consultores, dijo a The Associated Press que pareciera que Milei “está aprovechando las declaraciones de Trump para inflamar o sobreactuar un sentimiento malvinero, para embanderarse con la causa Malvinas”.

Según el politólogo, la estrategia del mandatario sería reposicionarse luego de que fuera muy cuestionado por sus críticas a los jugadores de la Selección durante un partido que “inflamó muchísimo un sentimiento muy profundo en la Argentina, que es el reclamo por la soberanía de las islas, quizás una de las causas que mayor consenso social genera”.

Pero agregó que si el anuncio de Milei no es significativo podría jugarle en contra, “entendiéndose que está sobreactuando”.

Pero la policía de Miami dijo que la “Dra. Lori” era en realidad Latonya Shanice Starks, quien no es una doctora con licencia, sino una delincuente convicta de 33 años sin un “trabajo legítimo”.

Los detectives dijeron que realizaba inyecciones ilegalmente, algunas de las cuales dejaron a pacientes con cicatrices, dolor y abscesos. En un caso, la policía dijo que una víctima creía que las complicaciones finalmente provocaron que sufriera un aborto espontáneo.

Las autoridades dijeron que Starks, de Aventura, operaba Lori Dior Miami Med Spa en 5789 NW Seventh Ave., en el vecindario Liberty City de Miami.

“Bultos”, “irritación”, “abscesos” y un aborto espontáneo

La policía de Miami dijo que recibió denuncias en mayo y junio sobre Starks de mujeres que acudieron a la “Dra. Lori” para recibir Sculptra, descrito en los informes de arresto como un “relleno dérmico”.

En un caso, la policía dijo que una mujer que afirmó haber encontrado a Starks a través de la página de Instagram loridior_beautyspa acudió a la clínica en septiembre para recibir Sculptra, que “le fue presentado como una inyección para disolver grasa”.

“La víctima posteriormente se enteró de que presuntamente le habían inyectado lemon bottle, una sustancia extranjera para disolver grasa que no está aprobada por la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos de Estados Unidos”, escribió un detective del Departamento de Policía de Miami en uno de los informes de arresto. “La víctima declaró que después de recibir las inyecciones, la sustancia posteriormente comenzó a salir a través de su piel en las mismas áreas donde había sido inyectada”.

La policía dijo que la mujer “sufrió una reacción médica adversa grave y requirió hospitalizaciones repetidas durante un período de aproximadamente tres meses”.

La mujer, quien quedó embarazada en enero, creía que sufrió un aborto espontáneo meses después debido a los medicamentos que tuvo que tomar para tratar las complicaciones, señala uno de los informes de arresto.

En otro caso, la policía dijo que una mujer que también encontró a Starks a través de Instagram acudió a la clínica con su hermana en octubre para recibir inyecciones.

Una de las mujeres, quien dijo que intentaba eliminar los “hundimientos de cadera”, afirmó que Starks utilizó una aguja de insulina para inyectar en sus glúteos y abdomen lo que la víctima creía que era Sculptra, señala el informe.

Un detective del Departamento de Policía de Miami señaló que la sustancia “normalmente se inyecta con una jeringa más grande que una aguja del tipo utilizado para insulina porque las partículas pueden obstruirla”.

La policía dijo que la víctima, quien pagó a Starks $1,200 USD, nunca vio una caja de Sculptra y no estaba segura de que eso fuera lo que realmente recibió. Dijeron que la víctima también pagó a Starks $650 USD para que su hermana, quien estaba en el sur de Florida procedente de Kentucky para celebrar su cumpleaños, recibiera las inyecciones como regalo.

Según un informe de arresto, ambas mujeres dijeron que comenzaron a experimentar “bultos e irritación” después de recibir las inyecciones. Ambas mujeres, dijo la policía, tuvieron que someterse a múltiples procedimientos para drenar abscesos y reparar cicatrices, y ambas continúan sufriendo dolor en los lugares donde recibieron las inyecciones.

Una de las mujeres dijo que incluso perdió su trabajo “porque faltó al trabajo debido a las múltiples citas médicas a las que tuvo que acudir para reparar sus cicatrices y drenar sus abscesos”, dijo la policía.

Publicaciones en Instagram y antecedentes por delitos graves

La policía dijo que revisó la cuenta de Instagram loridior_beautyspa, donde videos mostraban a “Starks grabándose mientras afirmaba que ya no realiza inyecciones e indicaba a las personas que dejaran de contactarla para solicitar inyecciones”.

Una publicación en la cuenta dice: “Lori Dior SOLO ofrece capacitaciones. No presto servicios. Puedo recomendarles personas, pero dejé de hacer bbl líquidos hace 2 años”.

“Mis clases son MUY DE BARRIO”, decía una publicación sobre una sesión de capacitación.

Otras publicaciones incluyen anuncios de la “máquina exclusiva POWERBOOTY™ para aumento de glúteos” de Lori Dior, que muestran lo que parecen ser videos generados por inteligencia artificial de mujeres cuyos glúteos son inflados significativamente por las máquinas en una playa.

Los detectives dijeron que los registros revelaron que Lori Dior nunca tuvo licencia del estado y que “una investigación adicional reveló que Starks había recibido previamente una orden de cese y desistimiento del estado de Georgia por operaciones similares antes de realizar negocios en Miami”.

Los registros del Departamento de Correcciones de Georgia muestran que Starks, oriunda de ese estado, fue condenada por cometer múltiples delitos, incluyendo falsificación en primer grado y hurto en tiendas, en los suburbios de Atlanta en 2010. La policía de Miami dijo que estaba en libertad condicional al momento de su arresto el miércoles.

Parada de tráfico y arresto

Starks, dijo la policía, fue puesta bajo custodia después de una parada de tráfico cerca de su casa en Aventura.

Un registro de su vehículo reveló “equipos médicos y cosméticos, incluyendo agujas, un recipiente para objetos punzocortantes, vendajes y empaques etiquetados como Sculptra 150”, dijo la policía.

Dijeron que obtuvieron una orden para registrar su apartamento en el edificio de condominios Portsview at the Waterways, ubicado en 3610 Yacht Club Drive, y encontraron “equipos médicos y cosméticos adicionales”.

Las autoridades dijeron que Starks afirmó que una enfermera registrada llamada “Kate”, de quien no pudo proporcionar apellido, número de teléfono ni credenciales, era quien realizaba las inyecciones.

Starks ahora enfrenta tres cargos por ejercer la atención médica sin licencia causando lesiones graves, así como dos cargos por posesión de un arma de fuego por parte de una delincuente convicta.

Los registros muestran que permanecía detenida en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza total de más de $30,000 USD.

When he got out after serving 23 years and started looking for work, “I had to start from the bottom. The very, very bottom,” Christian said. "I was willing to work anywhere. I just wanted to change my life."

Having a criminal record, as an estimated 1 in 3 American adults do, creates hurdles for people seeking employment, especially in fields that require licenses, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit that aims to end mass incarceration. Meeting with parole officers, a need to secure stable housing and other conditions of release, along with discrimination, compound the typical challenges of job hunting.

“Even when they come home with skills and credentials, they see fewer job opportunities and they earn less money than people who don’t have convictions,” Ruth Delaney, who directs a higher education initiative at the Vera Institute, said.

After Christian's release, his parole officer suggested applying for a job at Toyotetsu, an auto parts manufacturer. The company hires former inmates through a second-chance program. Christian, now 53, got a welding job there and began rebuilding his life.

“I had to learn on the go, on the fly," he said nine years later. "I already had my mind set — I wasn’t going to fail.”

Here are strategies shared by former inmates and reentry specialists for finding work after incarceration.

Develop skills before and after entering the workforce

People incarcerated in prisons with educational programs can build job skills by taking college-level courses or pursuing a professional certification.

Inmates interested in seeking a degree from an eligible college or university can apply for a federal Pell Grant to help cover the cost. The grants were unavailable to incarcerated students for decades, but the Vera Institute and other groups persuaded Congress to restore access.

Incarcerated people who pursue college programs have 48% lower odds of returning to prison than those who do not, according to Vera Institute research. “People who go home and are able to get living-wage jobs do better during reentry," Delaney said. “They're able to get jobs that can support themselves and their families.”

Ryan Cuellar, who went to jail at age 18, received federal financial aid after his release to learn paralegal skills, which he then used to get his record sealed. He eventually earned a master’s degree and now works as a sales consultant for a tutoring company.

“I can't drive home enough how much determination you need to have for yourself," Cuellar said.

Prison work experience is another way to gain skills that are worth including on a resume. You don't have to spell out that your employer was a correctional institution, according to Laura Rivero, an instructor at Leap for Ladies, a nonprofit that teaches employment, entrepreneurship and life skills to women in prison.

Someone who worked in the kitchen of a Florida prison, for example, could list “State of Florida” as the employer and describe the experience as “operated commercial dishwashing machines” or “prepared and served foods in a high-volume dining facility,” Rivero said.

Christian took up welding in prison, which helped him land his first job at Toyotetsu. He still is at the company, where he mentors new employees. He is taking social work classes with the goal of earning an associate degree and helping other former inmates transition into working life.

Seek out employers with second-chance hiring programs

A number of U.S. companies, including large employers like JP Morgan Chase and Virgin Atlantic, work intentionally to hire people with criminal records. The Business Roundtable, a nonprofit association of American CEOs, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have promoted “ second-chance hiring” as a policy that can help address labor shortages as baby boomers retire in large numbers.

Some types of businesses, such as restaurants and warehouses, have established track records for hiring former inmates. Manufacturing jobs and technical positions in health care are growing opportunities as well, Delaney said.

Before a release date, think about who might be able to help you find a job — cousins, former coworkers, teachers or a former boss, Rivero said.

“Some of my students have a lot of shame about their conviction, and they say, ‘I don’t want to reach out to someone because I’m ashamed of where I am,’” she said. “Maybe they don’t respond. Maybe they do. And you don’t know until you try.”

Be prepared to talk about your past

After Joe Anderson left prison and completed house arrest, a friend who worked at a welding plant said the plant needed a dock manager to handle deliveries.

Anderson went there, asked to speak to a manager, and said, “I got out of prison, I really need a job, and I will show up for work because I need this job to stay out of jail.”

The manager appreciated his honesty; Anderson got the job and held it for four years.

“I’ve never really tried to hide anything from anybody because there’s no real point in it with technology these days,” he said. “Anybody can find out anything about you.”

Parole officers showed up at the plant three or four times, Anderson said.

“It’s embarrassing, but at the same time, it got done and they’d show up, just see that I was working and then just wander off,” he said.

Anderson, 34, now earns a salary as a commercial plumber, a job that provides insurance, a pension and a 401(k). “None of that would have been possible if I wasn’t honest about what happened and if I just didn’t get up and try,” he said.

Rivero advises her Leap for Ladies students to disclose a prior conviction during job interviews. She suggested starting with a brief description of your strengths and skills, mentioning that a rough time in your life landed you in prison, and pivoting back to all your positive qualities.

“I tell them, ‘Look, you’re not your conviction, you’re not the worst day of your life,’” Rivero said. “You can frame the narrative if you bring it up."

Prepare for success by making lifestyle changes

Getting a job is an important step. Keeping it and succeeding require their own strategies.

Christian said his first job required 12-hour shifts five or six days per week, with a schedule that alternated between day and night shifts.

“It won’t just be 8-hour jobs,” he said. “You’ve got to learn how to shift your sleep patterns. ... You’ve got to get proper rest.”

After Cuellar started working, he noticed habits he had acquired while incarcerated and needed to break. “I developed a slang that I had to unlearn," he recalled. "I didn’t realize it was a survival mechanism.”

The change was a big adjustment for Anderson, who before prison was out drinking at parties and raves every night. These days he wakes up around 4 a.m. to get to work on time.

“It is 100% harder to get up every single day to go to work, bust your body, but it’s lot more rewarding at the end of the day,” Anderson said. “My children are very proud of me. My family’s proud of me again."

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

So is Madison Keys — just barely — but not No. 3 Felix Auger-Aliassime, who became the highest-seeded player knocked out of the tournament thus far.

Osaka recovered after a mid-match lapse to advance to the third round with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 victory over Katerina Siniakova on Thursday, before Eala beat Oleksandra Oliynykova 6-1, 6-4.

Doubles play also began, though Serena and Venus Williams won’t play their first-round match until Friday night against Hao-Ching Chan and Maya Joint, who beat Serena in singles play at Wimbledon this summer.

Eala, the No. 17 seed from the Philippines, gave her passionate backers reason to cheer immediately by winning the first nine points against her Ukrainian opponent, who had won their only previous meeting.

“I think everybody represents something in their own way; I’m Filipino and I proudly represent that,” Eala said. “And a lot of the crowd here today is Filipino and I’m sure they share in that sentiment.”

Osaka wore silver and white under her long white jacket with a white visor as she arrived for her match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, three days after she was dressed in black with her hair done in cornrows under a headband in a tribute to former NBA superstar Allen Iverson for her opener at night.

The No. 13 seed won the first set in 30 minutes and then opened a 4-2 lead in the second. But her level of play took a substantial dip, with 20 unforced errors in the set after only four in the first.

Osaka quickly regained control, breaking for a 2-0 lead in the third before finishing a 19-shot rally with a volley for a winner en route to taking the next game, appearing more relieved than excited by her nice touch.

“The match was definitely really tough and I don’t know, I just felt like I had to fight,” Osaka said. “I definitely had a couple opportunities in the second set and I think I was a little bit too hard on myself. So I took the bathroom break, regrouped a little, came back and just tried to have no regrets.”

Auger-Aliassime tumbles out and Keys barely hangs on

Auger-Aliassime said he was feeling dizzy and seeing spots and couldn't recover, falling to Karen Khachanov 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.

“Karen is a great player. Look, I cannot beat him or anybody in this draw feeling the way I felt today,” the Canadian said. “If I cannot move, we’re not talking about tennis here.”

The highest seed to fall so far had been No. 4 Novak Djokovic, who lost in the first round at the U.S. Open for the first time in the 24-time Grand Slam champion's career.

Keys, the 2017 runner-up, also was on the verge of an early exit before erasing five match points and edging Anna Bondar 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (10-5).

“That was something, huh? No stress, though, we all knew I had it right?” Keys joked to the fans afterward.

Other winners included 2022 champion Iga Swiatek and 2025 runner-up Amanda Anisimova. Taylor Fritz, the 2024 men's runner-up, eased to 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 victory over Mattia Bellucci.

Gauff, Zverev and Monfils highlight the night action

Coco Gauff, who won her first major title at Flushing Meadows in 2023, faces Paula Badosa in a night match that will be followed by No. 1 Alexander Zverev, who hopes for an easier time against Quentin Halys after he needed five sets to edge Lorenzo Sonego on Tuesday, barely avoiding becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose in the first round of a men's major since 2003.

Badosa will be playing for the second straight day, forced to finish her first-round match Wednesday after play was suspended Tuesday because of rain that hampered the tournament for multiple days. The sun was out again Thursday when play began.

Also in action is Gael Monfils, who is planning to retire after this year but won Tuesday on his 40th birthday to prolong his Grand Slam career and advance to face No. 14 Learner Tien.

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See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Christian Castro, the officer who authorities say shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg in January, has been charged with making false statements to federal investigators, according to the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The federal charges, which remain under seal, follow Castro's release from jail last week after Texas’ governor refused to immediately sign an extradition warrant to hand him over to Minnesota authorities, who have charged him separately with assault and false reporting of a crime related to the same shooting.

Federal authorities had initially accused Sosa-Celis and another man of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the confrontation. But federal prosecutors dropped charges against the men after video evidence showed the officers may have lied about the encounter, and officials opened an investigation.

Charges stem from nonfatal shooting during Operation Metro Surge

Castro is the first federal immigration officer to be prosecuted by the Trump administration related to actions taken during the massive Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities that began in January 2026. No attorney is listed for Castro in the case brought by Minnesota and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer to speak on his behalf.

Thousands of officers were sent to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area by the Department of Homeland Security in what was its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. The shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers drew condemnation and raised questions over officers’ conduct, prompting changes to the operation.

Earlier this week, a federal prosecutor working on the case told lawyers for Sosa-Celis and other victims that Justice Department officials blocked the prosecutor’s push to bring a more serious civil rights charge against the officer for the shooting, ProPublica reported on Wednesday.

But the person familiar with the investigation disputed the prosecutor’s characterization, saying the civil rights probe is continuing and there has been no final decision on whether to bring additional charges. The prosecutor, Matthew Evans, has been fired and is under investigation for alleged obstruction of a grand jury probe, the person said.

An automatic email response from Evans' Justice Department account said he was on leave. Other attempts to reach him were not immediately successful.

An attorney for Sosa-Celis said the Justice Department has “grossly undercharged this case," adding that Castro's statements were made to “cover up the fact that he shot my client through the door of an occupied house without a self-defense justification.”

“Mr. Sosa Celis wants Mr. Castro to be held fully accountable for his crimes,” said the attorney, Robin Wolpert. The American Liberties Union of Minnesota said Thursday that Sosa-Celis also plans to seek damages from the federal government.

Castro is also facing charges from Minnesota authorities

Castro was initially arrested in May in the Minnesota case, and he was held in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico, while Minnesota officials sought his extradition. But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to immediately sign off, citing continuing investigations of fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

Minnesota officials had sought to stop the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing Castro, out of fear that he would flee to Mexico. According to a lawsuit filed by Minnesota, Castro had a conversation with a woman, while he was incarcerated, where he spoke about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico after his release.

But Castro was released a week ago after a federal judge refused to order Texas to extradite him.

The Department of Homeland Security previously called Minnesota’s prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction in the case.

Castro was placed on leave during the federal probe

Castro was suspended from ICE without pay in February while federal authorities conducted the investigation.

“The men and women of ICE are entrusted with upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical conduct,” ICE's acting director at the time, Todd Lyons, said then. “Violations of this sacred sworn oath will not be tolerated. ICE remains fully committed to transparency, accountability, and the fair enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.”

Minnesota officials alleged that Castro, 52, fired through the front door of a home and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh.

Castro and another officer had chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Minnesota prosecutors said the officer then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

Attorneys for Sosa-Celis and Aljorna didn’t immediately respond to emails Thursday from the AP.

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Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

The report drew no conclusions about the nature of Russini’s relationship with Vrabel, who said he took accountability for his actions without addressing photos released of the coach and the reporter at a resort in Arizona. He stepped away from the team on the third day of the NFL draft to begin counseling and returned soon afterward.

“We neither completed an investigation nor reached any conclusion about the nature of the full relationship between Vrabel and Russini, but the totality of the public photographs are enough to conclude a violation of company policy,” the report said.

Steven Ginsberg, executive editor at The Athletic, a New York Times-owned sports outlet, addressed the report in a message to employees Thursday.

“We undertook this review to ensure the integrity of our journalism and to maintain the trust our audience places in us. Nothing is more important than our credibility,” Ginsberg wrote.

Mike Semel, editorial director for standards and quality at The Athletic, conducted the review of Russini’s work, examining 903 stories, 204 episodes of her podcast and 77 videos.

“The review found that the vast majority of Dianna’s stories were unrelated to Vrabel, and most of those that mentioned him did not raise concerns,” Ginsberg told the staff. “We have, however, added editor’s notes to four stories — one written and three videos — that did not meet our standards.”

The photos of Vrabel and Russini were taken in Sedona, Arizona, before the annual NFL meetings that began in Phoenix on March 29, according to the New York Post. Vrabel and Russini are both married. The NFL did not investigate Vrabel’s actions.

“Russini’s relationship with Vrabel was in clear violation of The Athletic’s standards,” Semel wrote in the report. “Regardless of whether the relationship was romantic, it was a breach and should have been disclosed."

Vrabel led the Patriots to the Super Bowl in February, where they lost to Seattle. He was the AP NFL Coach of the Year in his first season in New England, finishing 63 points ahead of Jacksonville’s Liam Coen.

Russini told the AP on Thursday that she stands by what she wrote in her resignation letter in April.

“I have covered the NFL with professionalism and dedication throughout my career, and I stand behind every story I have ever published. When the Page Six item first appeared, The Athletic supported me unequivocally, expressed confidence in my work and pride in my journalism. For that I am grateful. In the days that followed, unfortunately, commentators in various media have engaged in self-feeding speculation that is simply unmoored from the facts,” Russini said then, adding she was stepping away "not because I accept the narrative that has been constructed around this episode, but because I refuse to lend it further oxygen or to let it define me or my career.”

Vrabel said Thursday he didn’t have any reaction to the report on Russini, adding he’s “moved on” as he prepares for this season.

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AP Sports Writer Kyle Hightower contributed to this report.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate rose 6.71% from 6.66% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.50%.

Higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power. As rates rise, that can lead prospective home shoppers to delay buying a home, one reason U.S. home sales remain in a rut this year.

The average rate is now the highest it's been since July 31, 2025, when it was at 6.72%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also rose this week. That average rate increased to 6.04% from 5.98% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.60%.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including inflation, broader policy rate decisions from the Federal Reserve and expectations from bond market investors for the economy. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Both mortgage rates and the bond market have been mostly rising this year due to the U.S. war with Iran, which has fueled expectations for hotter inflation as crude oil prices soared. Long-term bond yields remain steeper than they were before the conflict began in late February, helping drive mortgage rates higher.

Over the past week, renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran has ratcheted pressure on oil markets, driving up prices for crude. Higher oil prices can push up inflation, which drives up bond yields.

The 10-year Treasury yield was 4.74% as of midday Thursday on the bond market. It was at 4.67% last Thursday. Before the war, it was just 3.97% in late February.

Worries about the U.S. government’s growing debt have also helped drive up long term bond yields, prompting the U.S. Treasury Department to intervene last month.

As inflation remains elevated, pressure is increasing on the Federal Reserve to take action to help lower it.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said last week at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that inflation had not shown sufficient improvement and that the central bank might have “more work to do,” a sign he is weighing a rate increase at the Fed’s next meeting Sept. 15-16.

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 central bank doesn’t set mortgage rates, but its decisions to raise or lower its short-term rate are watched closely by bond investors and can ultimately affect the yield on 10-year Treasurys.

“We don’t expect any real mortgage rate relief this fall, but if inflation isn’t tamed, the pain will be real,” said Jiayi Xu, senior economist at Realtor.com. “Higher inflation would simultaneously erode paychecks and real income growth while keeping mortgage rates elevated for longer. That’s a squeeze on housing from both sides: what people can afford, and what they’re willing to buy into.”

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low. U.S. sales of those homes again slowed in July.

Firefighters relentlessly tackled wildfires throughout the summer, even in normally cooler and wetter regions in the north and Brittany, as France experienced one of its driest years ever. A historic fire devoured forests near Bordeaux and forced a quarter of a million people to evacuate from their homes.

“We have experienced the hottest summer ever recorded since measurements began in 1900,” Environment Minister Monique Barbut said at a presentation of the climate report covering the months of June, July and August.

According to national weather agency Meteo France, the summer of 2026 recorded an average temperature of 24 degrees Celsius (75.2 degrees Fahrenheit), covering day and nighttime. It's 3.6 C (6.5 F) above the normal average, and higher than in 2003, when temperatures were 2.7 C (4.9 F) above normal.

Millions in France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe experienced extreme temperatures this summer. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing at twice the speed as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Meteo France, said the summer was marked by very low rainfall, with a deficit of nearly 40%, making it the second driest since records began.

There was an unprecedented number of heat wave days, with 53 days across three episodes throughout the season, far exceeding the summer of 2022 with 33 days.

Record-breaking ocean temperatures across all of mainland France and Corsica’s coastlines were recorded, and very hot spells occurred outside the summer months, such as last May and early September, which are a sign of climate change, Meteo France added.

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage

On Wednesday, the NBA imposed a sweeping punishment against the Clippers for violating salary cap circumvention rules, including suspending owner Steve Ballmer for one year, fining the team $30 million, forcing the organization to forfeit five first-round draft picks and fining Leonard $700,000.

Leonard was not suspended for any games, raising questions about what's next for the two-time NBA Finals MVP.

The Raptors and Clippers struck a deal on June 30 on a trade that would send Leonard back to the team he helped lead to the 2019 NBA championship. The Raptors agreed to send Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two first-round draft picks, two second-round picks and pick swaps to the Clippers.

In July, the trade was put on hold pending the outcome of the NBA’s investigation.

The Raptors have declined to comment on the status of the deal to acquire Leonard now that the league has announced the fallout from its investigation.

Leonard, 35, is coming off the highest-scoring season of his career, averaging 27.9 points while playing 65 games last year with the Clippers.

A seven-time All-NBA selection and two-time NBA champion, Leonard is considered one of the game’s top defensive players. He also won the 2014 NBA title with San Antonio.

In Toronto, Leonard would join a roster led by two-time All-Star Scottie Barnes, Canadian star RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and talented youngster Collin Murray-Boyles.

The Raptors finished 46-36 in 2025-26 and took the Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games in a first-round playoff series defeat. It was Toronto’s first playoff appearance in four years.

So far this summer, the Raptors have signed general manager Bobby Webster to a multiyear contract extension and promoted him to executive vice president, and agreed to a multiyear extension with coach Darko Rajakovic.

On July 7, Leonard was in the front row at Kyle Lowry’s Toronto news conference when Lowry announced he was retiring as a member of the Raptors. Ingram attended a Clippers Summer League game in Las Vegas on July 10.

The NBA began investigating in September 2025 whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC — a company that filed for bankruptcy last year — broke league rules, following a report by journalist Pablo Torre. Earlier this year, Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to defrauding investors and lenders of at least $248 million.

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See AP’s full NBA coverage here

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Deputies with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, who is the leading agency on the case, said Kentreal Sharmaine Smith, 37, was taken into custody and charged in connection with the Aug. 18 fatal shooting that occurred outside of Valentine’s Market, located at 636 SW Sixth Ave.

They said officers from the Homestead Police Department responded just after midnight to the market after a ShotSpotter alert detected 11 rounds being fired.

Authorities said they found the victim on the sidewalk suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. They said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue medics pronounced him dead at 12:16 a.m.

They said 11 shell casings from a 9 mm firearm were recovered at the scene, according to the report.

Smith’s arrest report states that surveillance video and a witness placed him across the street from the market moments before the shooting, watching as the victim sat on the sidewalk at the west end of the building.

Deputies said Smith at some point climbed onto an electric bike and rode around the area of the market before approaching the victim from behind the building and opening fire.

They said Smith then fled westbound to a route that was consistent with his girlfriend’s Florida City home.

An autopsy conducted Aug. 18 by Miami-Dade County Associate Medical Examiner determined the victim died of multiple gunshot wounds, with the manner of death classified as a homicide, the report states.

Authorities located Smith at his home near the 800 block of Fifth Court in Florida City and arrested him, the report states.

Inside the home, officers found an electric bike with a 9 mm gun tucked in its pouch in the living room, according to the report.

Smith was transported to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Homicide Bureau, where he “confessed his involvement in the homicide,” the report states.

Authorities have not released any information on the victim’s age or identity, and a motive for the shooting remains unclear at this time.

Jail records show Smith is facing one count of second-degree murder with a weapon.

As of Thursday, he was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where his bond was listed as “to be set.” Records show he is also facing multiple drug-related charges that include possession of cocaine and illegal possession of a firearm as a convicted felon in an unrelated case.

Agentes de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade, la agencia a cargo del caso, dijeron que Kentreal Sharmaine Smith, de 37 años, fue puesto bajo custodia y acusado en relación con la balacera mortal del 18 de agosto que ocurrió afuera de Valentine’s Market, ubicado en 636 SW Sixth Ave.

Dijeron que agentes del Departamento de Policía de Homestead respondieron al mercado poco después de la medianoche luego de que una alerta de ShotSpotter detectara 11 disparos.

Las autoridades dijeron que encontraron a la víctima en la acera con múltiples heridas de bala. Dijeron que paramédicos del Cuerpo de Bomberos de Miami-Dade lo declararon muerto a las 12:16 a.m.

Dijeron que se recuperaron en el lugar 11 casquillos de un arma de fuego de 9 mm, según el informe.

El informe de arresto de Smith señala que un video de vigilancia y un testigo lo ubicaron al otro lado de la calle frente al mercado momentos antes de la balacera, observando mientras la víctima estaba sentada en la acera en el extremo oeste del edificio.

Los agentes dijeron que Smith en algún momento se subió a una bicicleta eléctrica y recorrió el área del mercado antes de acercarse a la víctima desde la parte trasera del edificio y abrir fuego.

Dijeron que Smith luego huyó hacia el oeste por una ruta que coincidía con la dirección de la casa de su novia en Florida City.

Una autopsia realizada el 18 de agosto por un médico forense asociado del condado Miami-Dade determinó que la víctima murió por múltiples heridas de bala y que la manera de muerte fue clasificada como homicidio, señala el informe.

Las autoridades localizaron a Smith en su casa cerca de la cuadra 800 de Fifth Court en Florida City y lo arrestaron, señala el informe.

Dentro de la casa, los agentes encontraron una bicicleta eléctrica con un arma de 9 mm guardada en su bolsa en la sala, según el informe.

Smith fue trasladado a la Oficina de Homicidios de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade, donde “confesó su participación en el homicidio”, señala el informe.

Las autoridades no han divulgado información sobre la edad o identidad de la víctima, y el motivo de la balacera sigue sin estar claro en este momento.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Smith enfrenta un cargo de asesinato en segundo grado con un arma.

Hasta el jueves, permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight, donde su fianza figuraba como “por determinar”. Los registros muestran que también enfrenta múltiples cargos relacionados con drogas, que incluyen posesión de cocaína y posesión ilegal de un arma de fuego por parte de un delincuente convicto en un caso no relacionado.

Tras meses de decir que Cuba sería la próxima, el secretario de Estado Marco Rubio dijo hoy que el presidente tiene las manos atadas debido a la Ley Helms-Burton, que exige que no haya normalización entre EE.UU. y Cuba a menos que haya un cambio de régimen y un avance hacia un gobierno democrático.

Incluso si Raul Castro muriera en un futuro cercano, no espero un cambio de régimen.

Solo EE.UU. puede cambiar la Ley Helms-Burton y no espero que eso ocurra en un futuro cercano ni después de las elecciones de mitad de mandato.

2 de septiembre: Niños en Cuba comienzan nuevo año escolar en medio de más desafíos que en cualquier otro año anterior

Los niños en Cuba comenzaron el martes el nuevo año escolar enfrentando una falta de suministros, libros, uniformes y maestros, además de edificios que se están deteriorando y falta de alimentos para alimentar a los niños.

Según el ministro de Educación de Cuba, este será un año muy difícil, como ningún otro.

La educación cubana fue alguna vez uno de los grandes logros de la revolución. Sin embargo, también fue utilizada para adoctrinar a los estudiantes en una ideología en la que ya nadie en la nación isleña cree.

1 de septiembre: Raul Castro es hospitalizado, según fuentes

Fuentes confiables dentro de Cuba me informaron esta tarde que Raul Castro ha sido hospitalizado. Debemos ser cautelosos y no especular demasiado sobre lo que podría suceder hasta nuevo aviso.

El Dr. Andy S. Gomez es analista de Cuba de Local 10. Gomez es considerado uno de los principales expertos sobre Cuba. Trabajó en la educación superior durante 32 años antes de retirarse de la Universidad de Miami en 2012.

Sources in Cuba say Raul Castro, 95, is stable despite reports about his declining health. According to sources, retired General Abelardo Colome Ibarra, known as “ El Fury,” is currently in worse condition. Colome Ibarra was head of the Ministry of the Interior and highly respected by the Castro brothers and the Cuban military.

Sept 3: President Trump’s hands are tied with regard to Cuba, Rubio says

After months of saying Cuba would be next, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that the president’s hands are tied because of the Helms Burton Law which requires no normalization between the U.S. and Cuba unless there is regime change and a move towards a democratic government.

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Even if Raul Castro was to die in the near future, I do not expect regime change.

Only the U.S. can change the Helms-Burton Law and I don’t expect that to happen anytime in the near future or after the mid-term elections.

Sept. 2: Children in Cuba start new school year amid more challenges than any other year before

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.

The Treasury Department proposed the change Thursday in a new regulation that, if made final, would kick in after May 2027. The rule is broadly aimed at ending any policies or programs that help students because of their race, and it specifically says such benefits in admissions, scholarships and facilities “would be incompatible” with the rule.

It’s the latest attempt by the Trump administration to pressure schools and colleges to weed out diversity, equity and inclusion policies that had become common before President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a promise to end them. Trump officials have used Civil Rights-era laws to unwind the policies, saying they discriminate against white and Asian American students.

Higher education leaders criticized the proposal.

“The administration’s latest rules changes are its most blatant attack to keep working class Americans and people of color from accessing higher education and a better life,” Mike Gavin, Alliance for Higher Education president and CEO, said in a statement. “By claiming that efforts to increase fair opportunity for all students are discriminatory, the administration is trying to gaslight the American people into believing that up is down and black is white.”

Thousands of colleges could be affected

Scores of universities have shut down or rebranded their DEI offices and ended scholarships and clubs designed for minority students under pressure from the White House. In a statement announcing the proposal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that even policies that are no longer under the banner of DEI could be targeted.

“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” Bessent said.

The Treasury Department and IRS estimate that up to 18,000 private schools, colleges and other education institutions could be affected by the proposal.

America’s private universities have been exempt from many taxes for more than a century because they provide a public good. The benefit saves many universities millions of dollars every year.

Trump has seen the tax-exempt status as a lever to pull in his pressure campaign against colleges that he describes as hotbeds of “wokeness.” He threatened to cut the benefit for Harvard University last year during his battle with the nation’s oldest college. In a response, Harvard officials said there was no legal basis for doing so and argued it would force cuts to financial aid and crucial medical research.

In the 1970s, a college lost tax-exempt status over a ban on interracial dating

It’s incredibly rare for the federal government to go after a college’s tax-exempt status, but there’s one notable precedent. Bob Jones University, a small Christian school in South Carolina, lost the benefit in the 1970s over a ban on interracial dating and marriage on campus. The Supreme Court upheld the IRS’s decision to deny the school its exemption. The school has since ended the ban and regained tax-exempt status in 2017.

Laws forbid the IRS from targeting individuals and organizations for ideological reasons, and federal officials are not allowed to direct IRS investigations.

To maintain nonprofit status, which allows donations to be tax-deductible, organizations must follow IRS rules on lobbying, political campaign activity and annual reporting requirements, as well as other obligations.

The Trump administration describes the new proposal as a move toward restoring merit in the nation’s education systems.

Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, said the change would most likely impact donations, which are often earmarked for scholarships.

The uncertainty around the proposal also will create challenges for schools, said Tim Powers, a vice president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

“Our institutions are committed to complying with applicable civil rights laws and maintaining safe and supportive campuses free from discrimination,” Powers said. “However, the proposed rule may create new compliance burdens and legal uncertainties for institutions of higher education that are already operating in line with existing nondiscrimination rules.”

The Justice Department has separately opened investigations into several medical schools that it accuses of favoring Black and Hispanic students in admissions. Trump officials say any such favoritism violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that forbids discrimination in education and was created to fight segregation and its impact.

A statement from IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said private schools that promote discriminatory practices will no longer be exempt from taxes.

“Today’s proposed regulations put institutions on notice and schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination should expect to lose that status,” he said.

Nonprofit status long has been seen by both parties as something there should “be a really high bar to mess with,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow who studies higher education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

A decade ago, religious leaders raised concerns that Christian schools and colleges would lose accreditation or tax-exempt status over their codes of conduct barring same-sex relationships. What happens next will likely determine how the left responds, Cooper said.

“If the Trump administration were to use this regulation to start revoking tax-exempt status from colleges right and left, I think that would represent a really serious escalation and would be potentially something the Democrats would want to retaliate against when they return to power,” he said, adding that if the regulation is merely a warning to schools, “that’s a different conversation.”

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Associated Press Education Writers Annie Ma and Heather Hollingsworth contributed to this report.

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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.

Las autoridades dijeron que encontraron al agente de KWPD Dustin Christina, de 40 años, quien estaba fuera de servicio, sentado en el asiento del conductor de su camioneta Ford blanca estacionada alrededor de las 5 a.m. del 16 de agosto en el estacionamiento del Old City Hall, junto a Greene Street, entre las calles Duval y Simonton.

En su informe de arresto, los agentes dijeron que vieron a Christina doblar de Greene Street hacia Ann Street un par de horas antes y casi atropellar a una mujer que tuvo que correr hacia la acera para evitar ser golpeada.

Cuando los agentes se acercaron más tarde a Christina dentro del vehículo estacionado y le preguntaron cuánto había bebido, les dijo: “Tomé unas copas”, antes de afirmar que él no había conducido su camioneta hasta ese lugar y decirles a los agentes: “No hice nada. Estoy jodidamente esperando que alguien venga a buscarme y luego se fueron y ahora estoy esperando”, según su informe de arresto.

Los agentes dijeron que mientras hablaban con Christina notaron que tenía “la mirada perdida, los ojos inyectados en sangre, vidriosos, llorosos y caídos, parecía tener el rostro enrojecido y había olor a una bebida alcohólica proveniente de su persona”, según el informe.

Además, la policía dijo que cuando Christina salió de la camioneta, “se limpió la frente, se tambaleó hacia atrás contra su vehículo y utilizó la parte inferior de sus piernas para impulsarse y separarse del vehículo”, antes de que “intentara cerrar la puerta del conductor, fallara y se alejara tambaleándose de su vehículo”.

Cuando los agentes intentaron realizarle pruebas de DUI a Christina, la policía dijo que él les respondió: “No, no lo voy a hacer. Estoy sentado aquí en un vehículo que no está encendido”.

KWPD dijo que un agente supervisor en el lugar determinó que había causa probable para arrestar a Christina, quien fue acusado de DUI y de negarse a someterse a una prueba de alcohol en la sangre y fue trasladado al Centro de Detención del condado Monroe.

The center said Thursday that 6,300 new visitors looked at the database between July 21 — the date the initiative was launched — and Aug. 20. That marked a 125% increase over the previous period in 2025.

The center, in charge of combating abuse in Olympic sports, has long published the database. But without publicizing who lands on the list, people had to access the database and know who they were looking for to learn about banned and restricted people in their orbit.

Now, the center delivers a weekly email with updates about people added to the list; the updates include cases taken to arbitration that have reached a decision.

In addition to sports media, among those who commonly receive the email are national governing bodies and club owners.

“Recognizing how underutilized this tool has been, we are investing in amplifying it nationwide with the hope of increasing transparency and fostering safer sport environments," CEO Benita Fitzgerald Mosley said in a news release announcing the numbers.

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See AP’s full sports coverage here

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Authorities said they found off-duty KWPD Officer Dustin Christina, 40, sitting in the driver’s seat of his parked white Ford pickup truck around 5 a.m. on Aug. 16. in the Old City Hall parking lot off Greene Street, between Duval and Simonton streets.

In his arrest report, officers said they saw Christina turning the corner from Greene to Ann streets a couple hours prior and nearly hitting a woman who had to run onto the curb to avoid being hit.

When officers later approached Christina inside the parked vehicle and asked him how much he had to drink, he told them, “I had a few,” before stating that he was not the person who drove his truck to that location, telling officers, “I didn’t do anything. I’m f---ing waiting for someone to get me and then they left and now I’m waiting,” according to his arrest report.

Officers said that while speaking to Christina, they noticed that he had “a blank stare, his eyes were bloodshot, glassy, watery and droopy, he appeared to have a flushed face, and there was an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his person,” per the report.

Additionally, police said when Christina got out of the truck, he “wiped his forehead, stumbled backward onto his vehicle and used the lower half of his legs to push off the vehicle” before he “attempted to close his driver’s door, missed it, and stumbled away from his vehicle.”

When officers attempted to perform DUI tests on Christina, police said he told them, “Nah, I’m not doing it. I’m sitting here in a non-running vehicle.”

KWPD said a supervising officer at the scene determined there was probable cause to arrest Christina, and he was charged with DUI and refusing to submit to a blood alcohol test and taken to the Monroe County Detention Center.

Yeva Smyrnova and Danyil Smyrnov both joined the army in 2023, at 18, and married two years later, in July 2025. Young as they were, decided they needed to hurry and start a family.

“We dreamed of this child, but because we were both always at war, it was very difficult,” said Smyrnova, who serves as a drone pilot under the call sign “Yunha.”

Danyil Smyrnov was killed in action on Aug. 28, 2026, on the Sumy front in northeastern Ukraine, one of a group of four soldiers killed in action serving with military intelligence. He held the rank of junior sergeant, served as a reconnaissance operator, and helped train recruits.

“This month our son is due to be born — the son Dania dreamed about so much. He dreamed of being the best father," Smyrnova told The Associated Press.

But instead of choosing a name for her firstborn child, she and hundreds of others came to say goodbye to her husband at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery.

In the days after Smyrnov's death, his wife wrote online that their son would be “his continuation.”

The monastery, where Ukraine typically holds funeral services for soldiers killed in the war, was packed. Mourners of all ages came to pay their respects, including fellow soldiers holding bouquets of roses.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Smyrnov was 16 and finishing high school. He went on to study psychology at a university in Lithuania but did not stay long — fighting had intensified around Bakhmut, where his uncle was serving at the time, and the young man left his studies. As soon as he turned 18, he signed a military contract.

“He … called me that evening, very happy, and said, ‘Sorry, Dad, I signed the contract. I forged your signature. Forgive me,’” recalled his father, Oleksandr Smyrnov, his voice shaking. He struggled to speak about his son, but embraced his daughter-in-law, saying he also found some comfort in the grandson soon to arrive.

Danyil Smyrnov went on to command an assault group in the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade. He was wounded by shrapnel in both legs and underwent rehabilitation, then returned to service, later transferring to Ukrainian military intelligence. Many knew him by his call sign, “Surfer” — from the age of 6, he had flown to visit his mother in Bali every summer, where he became a skilled surfer.

“Despite all the horrors of war, Dania managed to find his treasure — his girlfriend, and later his wife, Yeva,” read a passage from the eulogy at the monastery, as explosions echoed through the city. “Their relationship changed them both. They were both fighting for life, for a shared future.”

Now his wife is left alone, widowed at 21.

“He wanted all of us to be able to live in peace,” she said. “And in the end, he paid for that with his life.”

Smyrnov often wrote about the war on his Instagram, an account that holds mostly photos from his military life — himself in uniform, at different positions — with his most recent photos showing him with his wife, who is also pictured in military fatigues.

In an earlier post, written around his 20th birthday, he wrote: “In my 20 years, I’ve understood one thing: people don’t value life until they feel its edge. … War is not romance. It’s an experience that strips you down to what’s real,” the message said. “The choice is simple: who will you be — a victim, or someone who takes responsibility?”

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Alex Babenko contributed to this report.

Carlton Johnson was killed by police who raced to the building after the first reports of gunfire, said Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state investigate agency.

Court documents say Johnson was facing eviction and had threatened a fellow resident with a gun in the months leading up to the shooting, which left two people dead, along with Johnson, and five others injured.

But the shooting began just outside the building's entrance during an arranged custody handoff, when Johnson shot and wounded a woman believed to be the mother of his child, Evans said. The child was not injured.

He then shot two building employees before taking an elevator to the 9th floor where he killed two building residents and then was killed in an exchange of fire with police. Evans said it was unclear if Johnson was targeting the residents or had simply encountered them in the hallway.

The five wounded included two Minneapolis police officers hit by gunfire and another officer who suffered injuries elsewhere during the operation, police said. The three officers were hospitalized but expected to make full recoveries. One officer was shot in the leg and another was shot twice in the abdomen, officials said.

“This is once again a situation where domestic violence is central to a really terrible situation," Drew told reporters.

Earlier, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Johnson had “displayed the weapon but it did not leave his waistband” in a June 25th encounter. Minneapolis Police, who responded to the call that day, said he had a legal permit to carry the weapon, she said in a statement.

Moriarty said the office decided not to file the charges because there was “insufficient evidence to prove a charge beyond a reasonable doubt.”

On Thursday, investigators were scouring the scene of the downtown Minneapolis shooting.

Dozens of law enforcement officers were at the apartment building where the shooting occurred Wednesday evening, along with a mobile crime scene unit from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state investigative agency.

Minneapolis council member Elizabeth Shaffer represents the neighborhood where the shooting happened. She said 16 displaced residents had sheltered in a nearby church overnight and that the Red Cross had been providing support. Shaffer said her staff hadn’t received any previous constituent complaints related to safety or building management.

“That is surprising when you read the news reports, you know, of what was happening in the building, but there was, we have heard nothing,” she said.

Resident Julius Bailey was sitting with a friend just outside the building entrance when he heard gunshots and saw a man he recognized as another resident holding a pistol. Bailey said he heard a woman screaming and immediately started running, counting eight shots as he headed for safety.

Bailey said the man with the gun was well known in the building for being belligerent and showing off his weapon. Bailey, who moved into the building in June, said he went out of his way to avoid the man.

“I could tell he was trouble,” he said.

Chris Miller, who also lives in the apartment building, said he heard a rapid succession of gunshots and quickly ran outside for safety. He said he believed he knew who carried out the shooting and that he encountered someone in the hallway with a handgun earlier this week and reported that person to management.

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Associated Press reporters Mark Vancleave, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles and Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Near the crash site, a 150-year-old olive tree stood at the center of a ring of limestone blocks laid into the ground featuring the names of the victims. Foreign ambassadors laid wreaths and the Patriarch of Lisbon, a senior Catholic church official, offered a blessing.

The accident was one of the Portuguese capital’s worst tragedies in recent memory and cast a shadow over the city’s ongoing tourism boom.

The picturesque yellow streetcar, called a funicular because it travels up and down a steep hill in tandem with a second car, is a popular tourist attraction. Authorities said that 11 of those killed were foreigners, likely tourists who stand in long lines to board it.

Lisbon attracted about 10 million tourists last year, and they are one of the city’s economic mainstays. Portugal receives around 30 million visitors each year.

Service on the Gloria funicular remains halted while the official investigation proceeds. Two other city funiculars also remain out of service during inspections. The regular streetcars that rumble through the city's streets are running as usual.

The anniversary brought renewed attention to delays in identifying the causes of the crash, which also injured 24 people, and attributing any blame.

Carris, the Portuguese company that runs the city’s road transport, said Wednesday it plans to open an international tender in the first quarter of next year for the affected funicular to be modernized, with the goal of it returning to service by 2029.

Portugal's public prosecutor's office said it hoped to publish a final report by March regarding the accident’s causes and whether there is any criminal liability.

Families of the victims complained in a letter obtained by public broadcaster RTP about “a year of silence” from authorities. They had been kept in the dark about the investigation, receiving no contact from officials, they said, according to RTP.

A preliminary report into the accident published last year said that the failure of a steel safety cable and maintenance flaws contributed to the crash. The streetcar hurtled down the hill before coming off the rails on a bend and smashing into a building, leaving the wooden cabin a crumpled wreck.

Officers found Anthony Ignatiadis-Isabelle dead inside the Westwood Hills Elementary School library after responding to a report of a suspicious person, Waynesboro Police Chief David Shaw said during a news conference. Shaw said an adult staff member suffered a gunshot wound but has been released from the hospital.

Authorities did not say whether Ignatiadis-Isabelle, of Waynesboro, knew the victim or whether he had any connection to the school. Shaw said no children were inside the library at the time, and that officers responded within three minutes of getting the initial call.

“Our safety and security protocols and procedures worked,” said Waynesboro Public Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Cassell. “Every student and staff member is safe and returned home to their families. Please hug your children and your families this evening.”

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she was monitoring the situation.

“My heart is with these young students, their parents and families, and the teachers and staff at the school,” Spanberger said on social media. “Thank you to the first responders who are assisting at the scene.”

Waynesboro is about 96 miles (155 km) northwest of Richmond.

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Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

Five newspaper publishers in New York City agreed in 1846 to pool resources in order to speed the delivery of news about the U.S. war with Mexico using a pony-express relay through Alabama to a telegraph office. Those beginnings gave birth to an organization that in many ways became the backbone of the news industry. The AP claims some 4 billion people, nearly half of the world’s population, see news produced by the company on a typical day.

Many don’t realize that.

For most of its history, the AP has effectively been a utility, providing material for other news outlets to print, broadcast or carry online, its journalists largely anonymous. AP reporters weren’t even identified with bylines until World War I. But the company has chronicled the nation’s big moments for much of the 250-year history of the American republic.

Although horses long since gave way to the internet, the journalism remains. Here are some stories behind the stories the AP has chronicled.

Covering Mr. Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address

Absorbed by the message President Abraham Lincoln delivered at the Nov. 19, 1863, dedication of a cemetery at the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania — as generations after him would be — 21-year-old AP reporter Joseph Ignatius Gilbert momentarily forgot his job.

“I unconsciously stopped taking notes,” Gilbert recalled later, “and I looked up at him as he glanced from his manuscript with a faraway look in his eyes as if appealing from the few thousands before him to the invisible audience of countless millions whom his words were to reach.”

That was a problem. There were no tape recorders or video cameras yet. So if Gilbert didn’t capture Lincoln’s words, they would reach fewer people.

Gilbert recovered, and perhaps saved his job, when the president allowed him to borrow the paper upon which he wrote the memorably short, 272-word speech, and to copy it. The reporter’s presence also insured that people would remember precisely how Lincoln delivered the address, beyond the words.

Consider Lincoln's conclusion: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Many who read the speech later put emphasis on the words “of,” “by” and “for” in his final lines. Instead, Gilbert insisted that Lincoln emphasized “the people” in each clause.

A major scoop: The end of World War II

An AP correspondent scored a major scoop reporting that Germany surrendered to Allied forces in France on May 7, 1945, ending the European portion of World War II. For that, he lost his job.

Edward Kennedy was one of 17 reporters transported by the U.S. military to a former school in Reims, France, to witness the middle-of-the-night ceremony. In return for being there, the journalists agreed to keep the news secret until military censors gave the go-ahead to report it.

The journalists figured they would have to keep the secret for a few hours. Instead, they learned the “embargo” was for 36 hours and the delay had nothing to do with keeping people safe. Rather, it was to give Russian allies the time to stage a second surrender ceremony, according to Kennedy’s memoir, published in 2012.

“The absurdity of attempting to bottle up news of such magnitude was too apparent,” Kennedy wrote. “I know from experience that one might as well try to censor the rising of the sun.”

Less than 12 hours after the secret ceremony, German officials announced on a radio broadcast that they had surrendered. The broadcast originated from a French city already controlled by the Allies. To Kennedy, that meant that the same U.S. military censors that had told him to keep the news secret had authorized the Germans to make their announcement. If they hadn’t, soldiers unaware that the war was already over might have lost their lives.

Kennedy called the chief American censor to say there he couldn’t hold the news since the military had already broken its part of the deal. The censor refused to lift the embargo, but Kennedy called a story in to the AP’s London bureau, where editors knew nothing about the embargo, and a bulletin announcing the big news went out to the world.

Competitors and the military, which briefly suspended the AP’s ability to report news from Europe, were furious. The AP had the news exclusively for a day. But its bosses, under pressure, said Kennedy had been wrong to break the agreement. His AP career was over. He pressed for vindication, but it wasn’t to come before he died in a car accident in 1963.

After publication of Kennedy’s memoir, the AP apologized to his family for how he had been treated. “It was a terrible day for the AP,” the company’s then president and CEO, Tom Curley, told reporter David Caruso. “It was handled in the worst possible way.”

Being there: The Civil Rights Movement

The importance of being on the scene, steadily and dependably, during a long-running story paid off for AP reporter Kathryn Johnson during coverage of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

On the night of April 4, 1968, Johnson was on a date in Atlanta when the car radio broke in with news that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Johnson’s companion instinctively asked if she wanted to be driven to the King family home.

She did, and arrived to see a reporter from The New York Times on the porch being told he was not welcome. The door opened, however, and the new widow Coretta Scott King saw Johnson and told the police officer guarding the home, “Let Kathryn in.”

She wasn’t a stranger. As former King aide and future U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young wrote in an introduction to Johnson’s later book, “My Time With the Kings": “Kathryn always observed scrupulously the highest standards of her profession while reporting on one of the most important continuing struggles in our country with objectivity, thoroughness and fairness.”

She spent days inside the Kings’ home, providing exclusive reports while being sensitive to what the family was going through. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis visited the home and saw Johnson helping to prepare a meal, mistaking the reporter for a white maid. Speaking in code to avoid angering some visitors who were suspicious of her presence, Johnson called an AP bureau to confirm a story she had pre-written about the expected visit.

The day after King’s murder, Johnson asked if she could have a seat on the plane that was taking the new widow to Memphis to bring his body home. Young agreed, and when other reporters protested, he told them, “Kathryn and I’ve been through the wars together.”

Incredibly, Young telephoned her boss, who told her she couldn’t go. She was needed in the office. “I’ve no doubt that had I been male, my boss would have been delighted for me to go,” she later wrote.

Johnson went on to complete a fellowship at Harvard University and returned to the AP. When she was assigned tasks like taking dictation and reporting sports scores, she left for jobs at U.S. News and World Report and CNN.

Prematurely dead: Bob Hope

When can a the simple pressing of a wrong button inadvertently illustrate the reach of a news organization? The AP once encountered a two-word answer for that: Bob Hope.

Large news organizations frequently prepare obituaries in advance for notable public figures, so when the death occurs they can move quickly with a story that puts the person’s life and achievements in perspective.

Hope certainly merited the attention. The comedian was 95 years old on June 5, 1998, when an AP editor was doing some work on the “prep” copy. In an error, that incomplete story was inadvertently sent to thousands of news outlets and others who subscribed to the AP’s news wire. The story didn’t actually say Hope died — there were blank spaces left in the copy to fill in future details — but the format was enough to fool House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Congress was in session, and Armey asked a colleague to announce Hope’s “death” and say a few words in sympathy.

The AP’s central role in the news ecosystem was such that the false news spread with lightning speed. Another news service, Reuters, moved a bulletin saying that Hope had died, attributing it to the member of Congress, according to a Washington Post account.

Out in California, Hope was getting up, feeling good enough to go out and hit a few golf balls. His family had to set the record straight. “Some folks were a bit too quick to thank Bob Hope for the memories,” Post writer Howard Kurtz quipped, a reference to Hope’s signature song.

The comic made it past his 100th birthday before dying on July 27, 2003. Honest.

Bush vs. Gore: The election that wouldn't end

On one memorable night, the AP made a mistake and covered itself in glory by avoiding an even bigger one.

The presidential election night of 2000 won’t be forgotten by anyone involved in it. Certainly not by journalists who saw predictions of a tight race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore come true.

Shortly after polls closed in the critical swing state of Florida, TV news networks and the AP “called” that state’s race for Gore, using a combination of exit poll results, actual votes and instinct grounded in knowledge of the state’s history. But there was an error: Gore was reported to have won one county by 42,000 votes, when the margin was actually 4,200.

That made the state, in the journalists’ interpretation, too close to call so they retreated from their declaration and put Florida back in the undecided column. As the night wore on, it became increasingly clear that the entire presidential election was going to come down to who won Florida’s electoral votes.

After 2 a.m. the morning after the election, Fox News made its call: Bush had won Florida and thus would be next president of the United States. ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC quickly followed suit. But the AP did not, believing too many votes remained uncounted in traditionally Democratic areas that could swing the race.

The tension was very real in the AP newsroom that night. Editors from across the country were angrily calling in, noting the network calls and wondering why the AP was holding out. What were they going to put on the front pages of their newspapers?

“It was simply too close for AP to call,” recalled Sandy Johnson, AP’s then-Washington bureau chief, in a 2020 podcast on C-SPAN. “Believe me, we wanted to call it. Nobody wants to be the last calling a presidential race. We were crunching the numbers like mad, trying to figure out what the networks saw that we didn’t. But the lead just kept getting closer.”

In the pre-dawn hours, the networks retracted their Florida calls for the second time that night. It was a major embarrassment. One blown election call could cost a journalist’s job, but calling the same state wrong twice and prematurely declaring the winner for the entire election? Network chiefs were hauled before Congress in the aftermath to explain themselves.

The election remained undecided for three more weeks before a U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively made Bush the winner.

Getting news first — a scoop — is a bragging point for any journalist. A mistake completely undermines that, hence the AP mantra “get it first, but first get it right.” It’s a lesson that is repeated often in a fast-moving world. Just this spring, AP editor Ted Anthony steered the organization away from reports that a gunman at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner had been killed, wanting multiple sources even though other outlets were saying it.

It wasn’t true. Sometimes an outlet’s highest moments are what it doesn’t report.

9/11: 'The Falling Man’

The AP’s most memorable journalism has often been delivered through a photographer’s lens.

It takes barely a few words to bring some historic AP images instantly to mind: Joe Rosenthal’s picture of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945; Eddie Adams’ 1968 photo of a prisoner being executed with a gunshot to the head on a Vietnam street; Evan Vucci’s shot of a bloodied Donald Trump raising a fist in defiance following a 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

One of AP’s best-known images has arguably been talked about more than seen.

Richard Drew was photographing a fashion show in New York City’s Bryant Park on Sept. 11, 2001, when a message alerted him to a plane flying in to the World Trade Center downtown. He hopped on a subway and when he emerged, began recording the horror before him on his camera.

He fixed upon people who had jumped or were falling from the still intact but burning towers. One image he captured immediately stood out: a man, one leg bent, the other straight, as he fell headfirst to his death. He lined up so perfectly against the metallic lines of the tower behind him that the picture almost seemed choreographed.

Drew’s picture was carried in a handful of newspapers the next day but not many, for the same reason that television networks did not show video of people falling. It was deemed too disturbing.

But it so moved Esquire magazine’s Tom Junod that he wrote an entire cover story about it. “In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow,” Junod wrote. “Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in the last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying.”

Singer Elton John bought a copy of “Falling Man,” calling it “probably one of the most perfect photographs ever taken.” Drew, still working for AP at age 79, attended an exhibition in Paris this spring where the photo was on display.

It wasn’t the only journalism to come from the AP that day that echoed long afterward. Jerry Schwartz, who wrote the story of the day’s disaster, was the first to coin the phrase “ground zero” to refer to the World Trade Center site.

But “Falling Man” has lingered. Drew believes it will be seen more in years to come as the event recedes into history. He doesn’t find the photo macabre. “I made a photographic record of someone living the last moments of his life,” he wrote five years ago. “And every time I look at it, I see him alive.”

Junod and others have investigated to try and identify the man, believed to be a worker at the restaurant Windows on the World. But it’s still not clear who he was, and may never be. Drew likens “Falling Man” to the remains buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington.

“He’s going to remain unknown and that’s OK,” Drew said in a recent interview. “He’s a symbol for all of the people who died that day.”

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David Bauder covered media for The Associated Press for more than a decade. He retired in May.

Jackman has long been a fan of Norwich, his mother’s home city in the east of England. The Wolverine star was asked in an interview broadcast on Thursday if he would like to “buy a bit” of the club which is majority owned by Mark Attanasio, the Milwaukee Brewers principal owner.

“I’m very, very interested in talking about it right now,” he told British broadcaster TalkSport while promoting his new movie, “The Death of Robin Hood.”

“You’re the first one to know that. There’s a little exclusive,” Jackman said when asked if he would “follow suit” with Reynolds, who put Wrexham on the global soccer and culture map after buying the club with Rob Mac in 2021.

Norwich and Wrexham are now rivals in the English second-tier Championship, though Jackman’s team has the more illustrious history. Norwich last played in the Premier League four years ago, and had perhaps its finest moment in 1993, eliminating German power Bayern Munich in the old UEFA Cup.

“Good on Ryan, you do your thing, I’m all about the Canaries,” Jackman said, citing Norwich’s nickname linked to the team’s distinctive yellow and green uniform.

Norwich and Wrexham both are expected to be contenders this season to earn promotion to the Premier League, the world’s most valuable club soccer competition.

“I think it’s an exciting team and it’s going to be an exciting year,” Jackman said, praising Norwich’s turnaround since hiring Belgian coach Philippe Clement last November.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

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Jail records show Rafael Evelio Barcelo is facing felony charges stemming from two withdrawals from his parents’ Bank of America account in January and February 2025.

Hialeah police said the victims, a 90-year-old man and his 86-year-old wife, immigrated to Florida from Cuba in the 1970s and have lived in their Hialeah home since 1972.

They said Barcelo, the couple’s son, lived a few blocks away and had taken responsibility for helping manage their finances, including writing checks for household expenses.

Investigators allege Barcelo used that position of trust to take money from the couple without their knowledge or consent.

The warrant states that on Jan. 17, 2025, a $34,000 check was drawn from the couple’s checking account and made payable to “Shophar LLC.”

The check was marked “gift” in the memo line and bore Barcelo’s signature, according to the warrant. Police said the check was deposited into a business account belonging solely to Barcelo’s son.

When investigators showed the check to the couple, both denied writing or authorizing it, according to the warrant. The couple also said they did not know Shophar LLC and had never authorized the transaction.

A second withdrawal occurred Feb. 14, 2025, when a $52,000 Bank of America cashier’s check was issued from the couple’s account, the warrant states. Surveillance video from a Bank of America branch in Hialeah allegedly showed Barcelo conducting the transaction at the teller window, according to police.

Bank records obtained by investigators showed that Barcelo opened a Wells Fargo account on the same day and deposited the $52,000 cashier’s check into that newly opened account using a mobile app, The warrant states. The money remained in the account, investigators said.

The two transactions totaled $86,000.

The investigation began amid a family dispute over the care of the elderly couple, according to the warrant.

Police said the couple’s daughter and son-in-law had become increasingly involved in their parents’ care after the husband suffered a serious fall at home in December 2024.

They said the daughter had previously been designated as the couple’s attorney-in-fact for medical decisions, and the warrant states that the couple later executed financial powers of attorney naming her as their representative.

The warrant describes escalating tensions between the siblings over the couple’s care and finances.

In December 2024, Barcelo contacted Leon Medical Center about placing his father in a rehabilitation facility and indicated he wanted to keep his mother at his own residence, according to the warrant. Police said he also allegedly told the family that he planned to transfer the couple’s assets into a trust to pay for their care and apply for Medicaid.

The couple objected after learning of those plans, the warrant states.

In January, Barcelo hired a caregiver to assist his parents. The caregiver told investigators that Barcelo was responsible for part of the couple’s daily care and that she witnessed arguments between him and his sister and brother-in-law over the couple’s care, according to the warrant.

At a family meeting on Jan. 17, the dispute became confrontational.

The warrant states that Barcelo called his brother-in-law a “control freak” and told his sister and brother-in-law to stay away because he was taking control of his parents’ medical and financial decisions.

The relationship deteriorated further the following month.

On Feb. 17, Barcelo and his sons met with the couple and other family members. According to the warrant, one of Barcelo’s sons accused the daughter and son-in-law of stealing $50,000 from the elderly couple. Barcelo then said he would no longer be involved in caring for his parents.

Two days later, the couple went with their daughter and son-in-law to Bank of America to check their accounts.

That was when they learned that $86,000 had been withdrawn, according to the warrant.

Investigators said they reviewed bank records that showed the couple’s account was funded primarily by retirement and Social Security deposits. Investigators found no evidence that Barcelo had deposited his own money into the account, the warrant states.

The warrant also cites medical records and interviews with the couple’s doctors as evidence that the 90-year-old victim had significant “cognitive impairment” around the time of the disputed transactions.

A primary care physician told investigators that the man’s condition had deteriorated significantly by January 2025 and that he was unable to make medical decisions independently, according to the warrant.

A neurology provider said the man had experienced progressive cognitive decline and was unable to make medical or financial decisions, the warrant states.

Police said the investigation concluded that Barcelo “used his position of trust as the victims’ son and caregiver to exploit them,” according to the warrant.

Investigators allege the withdrawals deprived the couple of money needed for expenses including utilities, property taxes, groceries and other obligations.

Records show Barcelo is facing charges including exploitation of an elderly or disabled person involving more than $50,000, grand theft from a person over 65 involving more than $50,000, and organized scheme to defraud involving $50,000 or more.

As of Thursday morning, he was being held on a $22,500 bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Rafael Evelio Barcelo enfrenta cargos por delitos graves derivados de dos retiros de la cuenta de Bank of America de sus padres en enero y febrero de 2025.

La policía de Hialeah dijo que las víctimas, un hombre de 90 años y su esposa de 86 años, emigraron a Florida desde Cuba en la década de 1970 y han vivido en su casa de Hialeah desde 1972.

Dijeron que Barcelo, hijo de la pareja, vivía a pocas cuadras y había asumido la responsabilidad de ayudar a administrar sus finanzas, incluyendo emitir cheques para gastos del hogar.

Los investigadores alegan que Barcelo utilizó esa posición de confianza para tomar dinero de la pareja sin su conocimiento ni consentimiento.

La orden señala que el 17 de enero de 2025 se emitió un cheque de $34,000 USD de la cuenta corriente de la pareja a nombre de “Shophar LLC”.

El cheque tenía escrita la palabra “regalo” en la línea de concepto y llevaba la firma de Barcelo, según la orden. La policía dijo que el cheque fue depositado en una cuenta comercial perteneciente únicamente al hijo de Barcelo.

Cuando los investigadores mostraron el cheque a la pareja, ambos negaron haberlo emitido o autorizado, según la orden. La pareja también dijo que no conocía a Shophar LLC y que nunca había autorizado la transacción.

Un segundo retiro ocurrió el 14 de febrero de 2025, cuando se emitió un cheque de caja de Bank of America por $52,000 USD de la cuenta de la pareja, señala la orden. Un video de vigilancia de una sucursal de Bank of America en Hialeah presuntamente mostró a Barcelo realizando la transacción en la ventanilla del cajero, según la policía.

Los registros bancarios obtenidos por los investigadores mostraron que Barcelo abrió una cuenta de Wells Fargo ese mismo día y depositó el cheque de caja de $52,000 USD en esa cuenta recién abierta mediante una aplicación móvil, señala la orden. El dinero permaneció en la cuenta, dijeron los investigadores.

Las dos transacciones sumaron $86,000 USD.

La investigación comenzó en medio de una disputa familiar sobre el cuidado de la pareja de ancianos, según la orden.

La policía dijo que la hija y el yerno de la pareja se habían involucrado cada vez más en el cuidado de sus padres después de que el hombre sufriera una grave caída en su casa en diciembre de 2024.

Dijeron que la hija había sido designada previamente como representante legal de la pareja para decisiones médicas, y la orden señala que posteriormente la pareja otorgó poderes financieros nombrándola como su representante.

La orden describe un aumento de las tensiones entre los hermanos por el cuidado y las finanzas de la pareja.

En diciembre de 2024, Barcelo se comunicó con Leon Medical Center para colocar a su padre en un centro de rehabilitación e indicó que quería mantener a su madre en su propia residencia, según la orden. La policía dijo que también presuntamente le dijo a la familia que planeaba transferir los bienes de la pareja a un fideicomiso para pagar por su cuidado y solicitar Medicaid.

La pareja se opuso después de enterarse de esos planes, señala la orden.

En enero, Barcelo contrató a una cuidadora para ayudar a sus padres. La cuidadora dijo a los investigadores que Barcelo era responsable de parte del cuidado diario de la pareja y que presenció discusiones entre él, su hermana y su cuñado por el cuidado de la pareja, según la orden.

En una reunión familiar el 17 de enero, la disputa se tornó confrontativa.

La orden señala que Barcelo llamó a su cuñado “controlador” y les dijo a su hermana y a su cuñado que se mantuvieran alejados porque él estaba tomando el control de las decisiones médicas y financieras de sus padres.

La relación se deterioró aún más el mes siguiente.

El 17 de febrero, Barcelo y sus hijos se reunieron con la pareja y otros familiares. Según la orden, uno de los hijos de Barcelo acusó a la hija y al yerno de robar $50,000 USD a la pareja de ancianos. Barcelo entonces dijo que ya no participaría en el cuidado de sus padres.

Dos días después, la pareja fue con su hija y su yerno a Bank of America para revisar sus cuentas.

Fue entonces cuando se enteraron de que se habían retirado $86,000 USD, según la orden.

Los investigadores dijeron que revisaron registros bancarios que mostraban que la cuenta de la pareja se financiaba principalmente con depósitos de jubilación y del Seguro Social. Los investigadores no encontraron evidencia de que Barcelo hubiera depositado su propio dinero en la cuenta, señala la orden.

La orden también cita registros médicos y entrevistas con los médicos de la pareja como evidencia de que la víctima de 90 años tenía un “deterioro cognitivo” significativo alrededor del momento de las transacciones en disputa.

Un médico de atención primaria dijo a los investigadores que la condición del hombre se había deteriorado significativamente para enero de 2025 y que no podía tomar decisiones médicas de manera independiente, según la orden.

Un proveedor de neurología dijo que el hombre había experimentado un deterioro cognitivo progresivo y que no podía tomar decisiones médicas ni financieras, señala la orden.

La policía dijo que la investigación concluyó que Barcelo “utilizó su posición de confianza como hijo y cuidador de las víctimas para explotarlas”, según la orden.

Los investigadores alegan que los retiros privaron a la pareja del dinero necesario para gastos, incluyendo servicios públicos, impuestos sobre la propiedad, alimentos y otras obligaciones.

Los registros muestran que Barcelo enfrenta cargos que incluyen explotación de una persona anciana o discapacitada por más de $50,000 USD, hurto mayor a una persona mayor de 65 años por más de $50,000 USD y esquema organizado para defraudar por $50,000 USD o más.

Hasta la mañana del jueves, permanecía detenido con una fianza de $22,500 USD en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight.

For more than 100 years, in good times and bad, Venezuelans’ identity has been built around the belief that their country’s bountiful oil resources belong to the people, not a government or a company.

This belief, and a troubled nation’s pride, took a bruising last week when acting President Delcy Rodríguez agreed to give the United States control of roughly one-fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves – the largest in the world.

While the deal could eventually generate billions of dollars for an oil industry and economy wrecked by years of mismanagement, many Venezuelans see it as a surrender. Some say they are not surprised; they believe that gaining control of Venezuelan oil was the ultimate objective when President Donald Trump ordered U.S. forces to capture then-President Nicolás Maduro at the beginning of the year, leaving Rodríguez in charge.

“It’s not just worrying, it’s outrageous, because we, like a drop in the ocean, have no power to intervene,” Lisandro Castro, an architect in the capital, Caracas, said referring to fellow citizens. “There is genuine collective concern in Venezuela right now about what we are witnessing.”

Oil influences all aspects of life in Venezuela

The 1920s discovery of oil in northwestern Venezuela sparked a booming industry that transformed a poor, agrarian country into an urbanized regional power.

U.S. energy company employees working in the South American nation went on to popularize baseball. The companies built ball fields in oil-producing areas, boosting the sport among working-class Venezuelans who then took it to the rest of the country.

Europeans facing post-World War II hardships headed to Venezuela looking for economic opportunities created by the oil riches. The Portuguese established bakeries that are still open. The Italians designed buildings that are still standing.

A democracy in its infancy, Venezuela got most of its revenues from oil exports rather than from taxing local citizens and businesses, and politicians tried to buy the will of citizens, said Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario.

The country co-founded OPEC, and by the ’70s, when it boasted of the highest per-capita income in the region, the government nationalized the industry with the creation of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.

PDVSA, as it is commonly known, only allowed foreign companies to operate as minority partners in joint ventures. Its revenues subsidized cheap gas for Venezuelans, scholarships to study abroad, free surgeries and many more benefits.

“Every Venezuelan sees oil as something they have the right to claim,” Rodríguez, the researcher, said.

Venezuela has been shaped by oil booms and busts

Plummeting oil prices globally in the 1980s devastated Venezuela's economy, necessitating an International Monetary Fund bailout. The state ended key subsidies, and social unrest followed. A military officer named Hugo Chávez attempted a failed coup.

Once elected president in 1998, Chávez expanded social services, including health, housing and education, thanks to resurgent oil prices that generated an estimated $981 billion in revenues for PDVSA between 1999 and 2011. The government handed out homes, refrigerators and medicines, and many families benefited from well-paid jobs in the public and private sectors.

Emboldened by popular support, Chávez tightened his grip on the national oil company — to the detriment of U.S. oil companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.

But PDVSA’s fortunes eventually turned as oil prices fell once again. Corruption and mismanagement further eroded profits and hurt production, first under Chávez, and then Maduro, his hand-picked successor.

By 2013, when Maduro became president following Chávez's death, the country fell into a dire economic crisis. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. over democratic and human rights concerns crippled the industry and the economy further.

Instead of attracting migrants, Venezuelans became migrants; the economic turmoil led to severe food shortages, among other deprivations, prompting millions to leave the country.

Even though markets and stores are now well-stocked, people struggle to afford the basics because of soaring inflation.

Many of today's public sector workers earn roughly $160 per month, while the average private sector employee earned about $237 per month last year.

“Something is better than nothing,” former oil worker Romel Abreu said referring to the roughly 1 million barrels of oil per day that Venezuela currently produces. “If we didn’t have it, we would be fried.”

Abreu works as a security guard in Cabimas, in the country's northwest, the heart of the oil industry. Like many there, he pines for another oil boom and the jobs it would bring.

Oil deal raises skepticism among Venezuelans

Venezuelans had hoped the capture of Maduro in January would end the ruling party’s 27-year hold on power. When that did not happen – Trump chose Rodríguez over Venezuela’s opposition – people at least were optimistic about potential economic improvements from the easing of crippling sanctions.

In February, a legal overhaul opened the path to private investment in the oil industry, which some saw as a prelude to bigger changes.

“Everything that happened on Jan. 3 was simply a strategy to get where we are today,” Castro, the architect, said of Trump’s Venezuela policy. “That is, to fully immerse themselves in the country’s energy affairs for their own personal gain and benefit, not for a purpose that would truly benefit us Venezuelans.”

Under the deal, the U.S. is entering a joint venture with Venezuela’s North American Blue Energy Partners, the second-largest private oil company operating in the country, behind Chevron.

Rodríguez is giving the joint venture 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with proven reserves of 65 billion barrels. The nation's total reserves have been estimated at roughly 300 billion.

Because Venezuela’s energy infrastructure has been severely degraded, it will take years before new investments will lead to significantly higher oil production, experts say.

Speaking in Caracas on Wednesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Trump’s mission in Venezuela “is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity and prosperity to the people.” In an address to the nation Saturday, Rodríguez defended the agreement — and said she wants her country to be an “energy powerhouse.”

Cabimas residents can only hope.

“Well, on the one hand, one feels and thinks that one of the largest oil reserves has been handed over,” Erwin Ayala, an oil company worker, said outside his home. “But if it’s for the good of the country and for future generations, then yes, we agree with that, because what good is having so much oil ... if there’s no machinery, no technology, to extract it?”

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Associated Press video journalist Juan Pablo Arraez contributed to this report from Cabimas, Venezuela.

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According to Davie Fire Rescue officials, the gas leak was reported in the area of 3501 Davie Road after a construction crew struck an underground gas line.

Surrounding businesses were evacuated as a precaution as Hazmat units responded.

First responders said Davie Road is currently closed between Southwest 35th Street and 39th Street as they work to mitigate the leak.

Drivers are asked to avoid the area for the time being.

Según funcionarios del Cuerpo de Bomberos de Davie, la fuga de gas fue reportada en el área de 3501 Davie Road después de que un equipo de construcción golpeara una tubería subterránea de gas.

Los negocios de los alrededores fueron evacuados como medida de precaución mientras unidades de materiales peligrosos respondían al lugar.

Los socorristas dijeron que Davie Road está actualmente cerrada entre Southwest 35th Street y 39th Street mientras trabajan para controlar la fuga.

Se pide a los conductores evitar el área por el momento.

The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency's control center in Germany, more than 124 million miles (200 million kilometers) away.

“It’s a brilliant moment,” said lead project scientist Geraint Jones.

If all goes well, the conjoined spacecraft known as BepiColombo will enter orbit around Mercury in November and split from each other in December to map and study the entire planet from different altitudes. As of Thursday, the spacecraft still had 2 million miles (3.3 million kilometers) to go before reaching its destination.

Launched in 2018, the BepiColombo mission is named for the Italian mathematician who took part in NASA’s Mariner 10 mission to Mercury in the 1970s. Only one other spacecraft, NASA’s Messenger, has explored the puzzling, scorching planet that is just a little bigger than our moon.

“How tiny Mercury is and still it holds some of the biggest mysteries of our solar system," mission manager Santa Martinez said earlier this week.

Added Jones: “There’s a huge amount still left to be learned."

BepiColombo already has traveled more than 6 billion miles (10 billion kilometers) on its roundabout route, according to Martinez.

It needed nine planetary flybys to reduce its energy enough to be caught in Mercury's orbit. The last flyby, in January 2025, yielded stunning photos of Mercury's impact craters and volcanic plains.

Beginning next spring, a slew of science instruments on the European and Japanese spacecraft will study the magnetic field that envelops Mercury, the planet's dense interior, and the geologic processes at the surface, including the hollows, or depressions, that scientists believe are being eaten away by minerals vaporizing from rocks.

It's a strange world of contrasts. On a planet where the temperature can top 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius), the poles are frigid with deep, permanently shadowed craters packed with ice.

Given Mercury's proximity to the sun, engineers had to design the spacecraft to withstand "extremely punishing" conditions, said the European Space Agency's Ignacio Tanco, a mission operations chief.

“It's essentially equivalent to operating with a very hot pizza oven running right on your back,” he said.

Science observations should begin next spring, with the European Space Agency covering most of the mission's $2 billion (1.7 billion euros) cost.

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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.

The celebrated author and activist, who became one of the most visible symbols and potent voices of the U.S. women’s movement, died Wednesday at her home in New York City. She was 92.

Kamala Harris

“To know her as a person is to know someone who was kind, sharp, and witty. She was invested in young women and keeping the door open for the next generation of leaders, and her advocacy was always about fighting for the strength, intelligenc, and dignity of women everywhere. She showed incredible support for women running for office, and I will always be grateful for her encouragement and support in my campaign for the presidency.” — the former vice president, on Facebook.

Hillary Clinton

“Gloria Steinem was, at heart, an optimist. Her activism was rooted in optimism, and that’s a moral choice she made every day. Even though we’ve faced setbacks to women’s full participation and equality in America and around the world, I want Gloria’s voice to remain in our heads." — the former secretary of state, on social media.

Oprah Winfrey

“Every woman who has ever walked into a room knowing she belongs there; every woman who has demanded equal pay, equal respect, ownership of her own body, and the right to make her own choices; every girl who has grown up assuming that her dreams are hers to pursue — whether she knows Gloria Steinem’s name or not — is living, in some measure, inside the progress Gloria helped create.” — the media mogul and television producer, on social media.

Nancy Pelosi

"May it be a comfort to all of us who loved Gloria that her extraordinary legacy will live on in every generation that carries her fight forward.” — former Speaker of the House, on X.

Jane Fonda

"For decades, she trudged through every airport in the country, in sandals and a trench, carrying her own suitcase, packed with a few black clothes, hair curlers, and steam iron, in order to speak to women — at conferences, town halls, consciousness raising groups. No group was too small to deserve Gloria’s time. This is how she built the new women’s movement.” — actress and activist, on Instagram.

Jill Biden

“Gloria Steinem understood that women’s equality begins with the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies, health, and futures. For decades, she fought to make that freedom real for generations of women and girls. She spoke up when it was difficult, listened to those whose voices too often went unheard, and never stopped pushing our country forward.” — the former first lady, on social media.

Melinda French Gates

“Generational change doesn’t happen by accident or fate — it takes leaders like Gloria Steinem who work hand in hand with so many others to build a lasting movement.. What a light she was for me and so many others. What a debt we owe her.” — the philanthropist and businesswoman, on social media.

Julianne Moore

“The time I spent studying Gloria Steinem in order to play her was one of the most edifying of my life. Everything I watched, everything I read, everything I observed about her gave me a template for how I wanted to behave.” — the actor, who played Steinem in the 2020 film “The Glorias,” on Instagram.

Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex

“Privately, she was even better than you would imagine — spending Thanksgiving with our family, introducing me to one of my best friends (forever the champion of female friendship), loving our children with her whole heart, counseling me during hard times, and giving extraordinary advice and perspective with a cup of tea and an unrivaled cheekiness and wit.” — Duchess of Sussex, on Instagram.

Roxane Gay

“Gloria was one of a kind. Genuine, generous, curious, thoughtful. She lived a staggering life and her passing is a staggering loss tempered only by the ferocity of her legacy.” — the writer, commenting on Instagram.

Abigail Disney

“Everything Gloria did was rooted in kindness. It flowed through her political activism.” — her friend and fellow activist, to The Associated Press.

Rachel Cargle

“Gloria, you changed my life. You seeded a fire in me that would result in my own activism. I am forever grateful to have learned from what you offered the world.” — the author and social justice activist, commenting on Instagram.

Harvey Fierstein

“An unstoppable visionary who demanded an equal role for females in a male dominated world and worked tirelessly, for decades, to bring that change about. The greatest irony was how many women she had to battle as they cowered behind their male owners. But battle she did. Equal rights! Freedom to choose! Access to political power! Equal pay for equal effort.” — the actor and playwright, on social media.

Jill Filipovic

“I have done what I wanted to do with my life. That would not have been possible without Steinem and the scores of other feminists who it is no exaggeration to say radically reshaped America and the world.” — the author and feminist, in her Substack newsletter.

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Up to 4 to 6 inches of additional rain is forecast through today across parts of the Piney Woods region of east-central Texas where a moderate risk (threat level 3 or 4) of flash flooding is possible.

The heaviest axis of rain will stay well southeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, but isolated pockets of heavy rain could lead to localized flooding south of I-20 and east of I-35 through tonight.

Edouard dropped an incredible amount of rain along a narrow corridor of southeastern Texas as it moved inland over the past 36 hours, with totals reaching over 2 feet in some places.

The magnitude of the flooding was not well captured by our computer models and poorly forecast, with the National Weather Service predicting 3 to 6 inches and a maximum of 9 inches of rain for eastern Texas shortly before Edouard came ashore Tuesday. Edouard blew through those early rainfall forecasts and the storm is a good reminder that tropical systems are capable of producing extreme rainfall and models still struggle with handling the specifics of this.

For those interested in a deep dive as to why the models were caught flat-footed and why Edouard was not an example of a brown ocean effect as some media outlets prematurely speculated yesterday, I encourage you to read this excellent forensic piece from my colleague Matt Lanza over at The Eyewall.

Atlantic hurricane season hits pause as we near the peak

It’s rare to have a stormless Labor Day across the Atlantic basin. We wrote about the details of this last hurricane season. Only about once every decade do we look out across the Gulf, Caribbean, and wider Atlantic and find no active tropical systems on Labor Day weekend.

This has happened now two years in a row (2024 and 2025) and – unless something unforeseen pops up that our models are missing – it’ll happen again in 2026.

This season feels less out of place than in 2024 and 2025 when we expected very active hurricane seasons. Even so, it begs the question whether this is part of a bigger trend toward later-blooming hurricane seasons, an idea that I and other hurricane researchers explored in this paper we published last September.

Whatever the case may be, recent experience reminds us that hurricane season can play catchup in a hurry, even into October and November, so we’ll want to stay vigilant. But for those of you taking a beach vacation this Labor Day weekend, enjoy the rare September holiday escape without any worries of a brewing storm.

Se pronostican entre 4 y 6 pulgadas de lluvia adicional hasta hoy en partes de la región de Piney Woods, en el centro-este de Texas, donde es posible un riesgo moderado (nivel de amenaza 3 de 4) de inundaciones repentinas.

El eje de lluvias más intensas permanecerá bastante al sureste del área metropolitana de Dallas-Fort Worth, pero zonas aisladas de fuertes lluvias podrían provocar inundaciones localizadas al sur de la I-20 y al este de la I-35 hasta esta noche.

Edouard dejó una increíble cantidad de lluvia a lo largo de un estrecho corredor del sureste de Texas mientras avanzaba tierra adentro durante las últimas 36 horas, con acumulaciones que superaron los 2 pies en algunos lugares.

La magnitud de las inundaciones no fue bien captada por nuestros modelos computarizados y fue mal pronosticada, ya que el Servicio Nacional de Meteorología pronosticó entre 3 y 6 pulgadas y un máximo de 9 pulgadas de lluvia para el este de Texas poco antes de que Edouard tocara tierra el martes. Edouard superó ampliamente esos primeros pronósticos de lluvia y la tormenta es un buen recordatorio de que los sistemas tropicales son capaces de producir lluvias extremas y que los modelos aún tienen dificultades para manejar los detalles específicos de estos fenómenos.

Para aquellos interesados en un análisis profundo sobre por qué los modelos fueron tomados por sorpresa y por qué Edouard no fue un ejemplo del efecto de océano marrón, como algunos medios de comunicación especularon prematuramente ayer, los invito a leer este excelente análisis forense de mi colega Matt Lanza en The Eyewall.

La temporada de huracanes del Atlántico entra en pausa mientras nos acercamos al pico

Es poco común tener un Día del Trabajo sin tormentas en toda la cuenca del Atlántico. Escribimos sobre los detalles de esto la temporada de huracanes pasada. Solo aproximadamente una vez cada década observamos el Golfo, el Caribe y el resto del Atlántico y no encontramos sistemas tropicales activos durante el fin de semana del Día del Trabajo.

Esto ha ocurrido ahora dos años consecutivos (2024 y 2025) y, a menos que surja algo imprevisto que nuestros modelos no estén detectando, volverá a ocurrir en 2026.

Esta temporada se siente menos fuera de lo común que en 2024 y 2025, cuando esperábamos temporadas de huracanes muy activas. Aun así, plantea la pregunta de si esto forma parte de una tendencia más amplia hacia temporadas de huracanes que se desarrollan más tarde, una idea que otros investigadores de huracanes y yo exploramos en este estudio que publicamos en septiembre pasado.

Cualquiera que sea el caso, la experiencia reciente nos recuerda que la temporada de huracanes puede recuperar terreno rápidamente, incluso en octubre y noviembre, por lo que debemos mantenernos atentos. Pero para aquellos que tomarán unas vacaciones en la playa este fin de semana del Día del Trabajo, disfruten de esta inusual escapada festiva de septiembre sin preocuparse por la formación de una tormenta.

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.

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According to police, someone called 911 at about 6:15 a.m. to report that a body was lying near the train tracks in the 6200 block of North Andrews Avenue.

Detectives arrived at the scene and discovered that a Tri-Rail train had struck a white male, authorities said. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

The investigation into the cause of the collision remains ongoing. The victim’s identity has not yet been released.