Attorney Michael Pizzi, who represents one of the women, said JMH executives didn’t release the surveillance video until a Miami-Dade judge issued an order.

“If Jackson was successful and had their way, no one in the public would have ever seen the video,” Pizzi said on Wednesday.

Wenyou Rubin, the patient, attacked Tisa Wolf, a patient finance staffer, and Yanira Eguileor, a registered nurse, and both JMH and the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office failed them, according to Pizzi.

“He was allowed to virtually roam free, almost unescorted and assault nurses,” said Pizzi, who represents Eguileor.

The video shows other healthcare workers rushing to intervene after Rubin punched Eguileor three times before she fell.

“He could have killed somebody,” Pizzi said about Rubin, 44, who has criminal cases pending.

Court records show Rubin has two felony cases pending in Miami-Dade County.

Prosecutors filed the cases on Oct. 5, 2024, and on June 8, and Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Alberto Milian was presiding over both.

In the 2024 case, Rubin faced a charge of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. In the recent case, Rubin faced two counts of battery against an emergency medical care provider and misdemeanor battery.

Records show he was “found incompetent” in both cases.

In civil court, Eguileor is seeking $5 million in damages from JMH and MDSO. Pizzi said more needs to be done to protect JMH employees.

A spokesperson for JMH released a statement: “Within seconds, the first Jackson Public Safety Officer arrived at the scene, with additional public safety officers responding soon after. The employees involved were immediately offered support and care following the incident.”

Thursday will feature more of the same: east-northeast winds at 5 to 15 mph and a cloud/sun mix, with the possibility of more showers and storms. Storms are possible in the morning, followed by scattered showers in the afternoon. Seasonable temperatures are forecast, with lows in the upper 70s and highs near 90 degrees.

Joe Gomes, 64, was playing in the 9/11 hockey tournament when he suddenly went down.

A livestream of the game captured the moment Gomes got up and made one final play before collapsing off the bench.

“Something didn’t feel right,” Gomes said.

As players realized something was wrong, sticks and gloves went flying as people rushed to help.

Among those racing to Gomes’ side was Jess Herman, a paramedic with Jupiter Fire Rescue.

Herman and Gomes have known each other for more than 15 years. She was 13 when they met, and Gomes used to referee her hockey games. Herman is now 30.

“When you’ve been friends with someone for over 15 years, that’s not someone you plan on being the person and reason why they’re here today,” Herman said.

But when Gomes collapsed, her instincts kicked in.

“It was personal because it was Joe,” Herman said.

Herman was one of six first responders who worked to keep Gomes’ heart pumping. An AED was used to shock him as they worked together to save his life.

Gomes and Herman want to recognize the six first responders who helped save him:

• FF Ian Scriver — Palm Beach County
• FF Jessica Herman — Jupiter Fire Rescue
• LT Drew Johnson — Miami-Dade
• FF Joseph Arley — Coconut Creek
• LT Anthony Zapata — North Lauderdale
• Capt. Chris Loy — Coral Springs

“It was basically reeling us into chaos,” Gomes said.

“At one point we back each other up because the AED is about to shock him,” Herman said.

Gomes was rushed from the rink to the hospital. He believes he was seconds from death.

“I saw the white light,” Gomes said.

Gomes underwent surgery and 24 hours later was told by his doctor that he could go home.

But Gomes didn’t want to leave.

“I said I wanna go to the rink,” he said.

The first thing on his mind was the people who had witnessed what happened and helped save his life.

“He got shocked by an AED yesterday and the first thing on his mind, as selfless as he is, is what about everyone else that got to witness this and saved my life,” Herman said.

Gomes walked out of the hospital with what first responders call no deficits. He said his doctors could clear him in three weeks, and he’s already thinking about getting back on the ice.

Herman said saving Gomes was a team effort.

“I’m so thankful that we saved this man, but there was full-on teamwork for this, and that needs to be known. It was not a one-man job. He had multiple people making sure that he could be here another day,” she said.

Gomes said the experience has given him a lot to think about.

“I’ve had a lot of soul searching over the last few days,” he said. “To say it’s eye-opening is a complete understatement.”

Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the panel's top Democrat, revealed during a committee hearing that the National Park Service hired a civil engineering firm to begin work on the historic public golf course, without any public announcement or heads-up to Congress. A lawsuit challenging Trump’s plan to revamp the golf course argues that the administration’s redevelopment would violate the congressional act that created the park more than a century ago.

“Now, this is not just any old golf course. This is a beloved public space with huge historic significance," Huffman said.

Trump is “systematically moving to take this historic, publicly accessible resource and turn it into another gilded private golf club for the mega-rich," Huffman said, calling the project “a methodical, deliberate effort to take a public park away from the people," with American taxpayers footing the bill.

A contract approved last week authorizes nearly $400,000 for a Massachusetts-based company to perform environmental and historic preservation compliance work at the course, Huffman said. The park service has since posted a projected construction contract worth up to $49 million, with an expected solicitation date of Jan. 31, 2027.

“Democrats on this committee are tracking all of this. We’re going to keep dragging it all into the daylight until the public gets the answers we deserve," Huffman said in a statement. "We’re not going to let Donald Trump walk off with our public lands. That park belongs to the American people, and I’m not willing to sit here and watch him simply steal it.”

The $389,355 award to Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., which also has an office in Washington, D.C. and other parts of the country, follows months of activity at the park. The administration has reached an agreement with Fazio Design and undisclosed private and public partners to begin major construction, Democrats said, citing published reports. Trump has said he wants to turn the golf course into a world-class golf venue. It’s part of his grand vision for Washington, D.C., where he has torn down storied structures, remade or renamed others and deployed the National Guard for more than a year.

Huffman, Maryland Reps. Jamie Raskin and Glenn Ivey, along with District of Columbia Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting park service director Jessica Bowron demanding all documents, communications and records on the project.

“East Potomac Park does not belong to Donald Trump,” the lawmakers wrote. “It belongs to the American people, and it has for more than a century.”

Spokespeople for the Interior Department and National Park Service did not immediately responds to requests for comment.

Gabriel Jesus and Lamine Yamal also found the net for Barcelona, which has scored at least five goals in five of its seven matches across all competitions this season.

In the English League Cup, Manchester United was stunned 3-2 by Brighton after squandering a two-goal lead to crash out in round three.

In the Europa League, Benfica beat AC Milan 2-0 on the road in the first round of the league stage.

Barcelona and Raphinha stay red-hot in Spain

With his hat trick, Raphinha took his league-leading tally to nine goals in six matches. The Brazil forward has scored a goal in all but one game this season.

“Happy for the goals and for the victory, which is the most important thing,” Raphinha said. “The players have the hunger to always want more. It’s a mentality to always try to score more goals and to create more scoring opportunities.”

João Cancelo also netted for Barcelona, which was helped by an own-goal from Racing’s Asier Villalibre. Maguette Gueye and Yassir Zabiri scored for the visitor.

Barcelona has only failed to score less than four goals this season in a 2-0 win against Athletic Bilbao.

Yamal had a goal disallowed for offside, missed a penalty and hit the post before finally scoring late for Barcelona.

The La Liga champion has also crushed Elche, Rayo Vallecano and Valencia in the league, and Feyenoord in the Champions League.

Hansi Flick's team has outscored opponents 33-7 in seven games across all competitions. Barcelona has a three-point league lead over Real Madrid, which won at Elche on Tuesday.

Barcelona goalkeeper Joan García was replaced by Wojciech Szczesny at halftime because of an apparent injury. Szczesny's blunder led to a Racing goal after the goalkeeper tried to control the ball inside the area and was robbed in front of the net.

Atletico Madrid routed visiting Osasuna 4-0 with goals by Jonathan David, Lee Kang-In, Robin Le Normand and Álex Baena.

It was the second win in a row for Diego Simeone's team, which moved to third. Osasuna has lost three in a row.

Sevilla jumped to fourth by winning 1-0 at Deportivo La Coruña with a second-half goal by Miguel Sierra. Sevilla has won two in a row. Deportivo stayed seventh.

The game between Levante and Athletic Bilbao was postponed because of heavy rain in the city of Valencia.

United upset by Brighton rally in League Cup

Manchester United was booed at Old Trafford after it fell to a third defeat of the season, and second in as many games following Sunday’s loss to Manchester City.

“We had the game exactly where we wanted it and and let it get away from us in a big way,” United coach Michael Carrick told Sky Sports. “We can’t accept that as a group. I take responsibility for it.”

United led 2-0 after 10 minutes through goals from Shea Lacey and Mason Mount. But Brighton rallied with Charalampos Kostoulas pulling one back before halftime, and Pascal Gross and Maxim De Cuyper secured victory after the break.

Defeat means United has suffered elimination from the League Cup at the earliest stage for the second season in a row after being knocked out by fourth-tier Grimsby last year.

Benfica tops Milan as Europa League kicks off

Benfica beat AC Milan in the highlight match in the Europa League.

Dodi Lukébakio and Jakub Kaminski scored a goal in each half for the Portuguese club.

Sparta Prague won 4-1 at Ararat-Armenia for the round's biggest victory.

Sunderland beat visiting AZ Alkmaar 1-0 in its first European match in more than seven decades. Lyon won 2-1 at Anderlecht, while Bayer Leverkusen defeated visiting Celje 2-0.

Celta Vigo's winless start to the season reached seven matches after a 1-0 loss at Omonia.

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

It’s a move that could impact South Florida’s local housing market.

“I think it comes at a tough time in South Florida,” said Adrie Bailey, Associate Vice President of Originations at BridgeInvest.

Craig Kirsner, president of Kirsner Wealth Management, said, “The condo market in South Florida has definitely stalled recently, for a couple of reasons. New financial requirements requiring assessments for repairs and maintenance are raising costs, and insurance costs are very high. So the fact is that the condo market has definitely stalled.”

Indraneel Chakraborty, a University of Miami professor of finance, said, “House prices have gone up significantly and now you have finance that house at a very high interest rate, because the ability of consumers to demand those houses decline as interest rates rise.”

The market is already showing signs of cooling.

“Miami is one of those locations where house prices have really risen,” Chakraborty said. “So housing is becoming even less affordable with high rates.”

Kirsner said, “So rising housing costs, soaring insurance premiums, high HOA fees make living in Miami much more expensive. It’s one of the most expensive places to live already. So, having higher mortgage rates only adds fuel to the fire and makes things more even more expensive to live in Miami.”

It also makes it harder for builders to bring new housing projects online.

“Some projects simply won’t get done,” Bailey said.

It’s something that could put increased pressure on supply.

“Which over time increases the cost of housing,” Bailey said.

Rising housing costs could then exacerbate existing affordability issues, according to the experts.

“Once you have housing taken care of, the remaining income statement is also compressed, because you have to spend everywhere else,” Chakraborty said.

In an era when nearly everything else, from gas to groceries, is getting more expensive, Chakraborty said the pain goes beyond housing.

“So the pain will be felt not just in housing affordability but affordability in life in general,” Chakraborty said.

“While the Fed’s decision could continue to influence mortgage rates, the reality is, it’s expensive to borrow money right now,” added Kirsner. “The average mortgage rate is over 7% and this news of higher rates likely won’t much do much better to lower those. And the fact is, this might not be the last increase either. The Fed is really facing the question of whether it will need multiple increases to help curb high inflation.”

Said Bailey: “The Fed has to think about the entire country and unfortunately the Fed has essentially one major tool and I like to say that tool is a bit of sledgehammer — it is not a scalpel.”

That takes us back to the Fed and why it raised the rate in the first place.

“The conflict in Iran continues to keep oil prices high, and that’s caused inflation globally to be high, and that’s why many countries have already started raising interest rates. So having the U.S. raise rates would be a normal course of business in line with what’s happening around the world,” said Kirsner.

“Unfortunately inflation has been rising so the Fed is increasing rates in order to lower the rate of inflation,” said Bailey.

Added Chakraborty: “And that would be good, but it comes at the cost of short term pain. The only way out of the significant inflation that we saw for everything is real wage growth. Real wage growth means growth beyond inflation. If accounting for just inflation you have essentially no wage growth so real wage growth is wage growth beyond inflation and that has been tepid.”

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM KIRSNER

Q: WHY DID THE FED CHOOSE TO INCREASE INTEREST RATES NOW?

• Inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed’s target rate and has steadily increased this year due to the conflict in Iran.
• The Federal Reserve’s ideal target inflation rate is 2%, and the current number is 3.4%.
• Surging investment in AI data centers has also accelerated inflation and contributed to higher long-term interest rates.
• It’s the first interest rate cut in over three years, and more may be coming. It is rare for the Fed to lift its key rate just once, which is likely to have little impact on the economy, and so multiple hikes are likely.

Q: HOW DO HIGH INTEREST RATES IMPACT THE MIAMI REAL ESTATE MARKET?

• While this decision could influence mortgage rates, the Federal Reserve doesn’t control them. It sets target interest rates for banks borrowing money from each other, which can influence the interest rates you and I pay.
• However, it’s expensive to borrow money right now. The average mortgage rate is7.07%, and this news likely won’t do much to lower those. This may not be the last increase either - the Fed is facing a question of whether it will need multiple increases to curb inflation.
• Rising housing costs, soaring insurance premiums, HOA fees and more are making housing expensive in Miami. Currently, the cost of housing is 57% higher than the national average.

Q: HOW ABOUT THE CONDO MARKET IN MIAMI?

• The condo market has been stalled recently. New financial requirements requiring assessments for repairs and maintenance for South Florida condo buildings are raising the cost of living in condos, and that’s causing some owners to get rid of their units.
• However, it has shown signs of rebounding. Sales for condos between $400,000 and$500,000 rose by 12% year over year in July.
• But if rising interest rates continue to push borrowing rates up, current condo new buyers may be less incentivized to enter the market.
• Condo prices are pulling back with less demand in the market. It could be an opportunity to get a condo at a discount.
• I encourage those who are in the market for a condo, or looking to sell, to speak with a financial professional about their options and what they can afford.

Q:WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE DO TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE FINANCIALLY PREPARED TO OWN A HOMEOR CONDO?

Revisit Your Budget

• Your budget will likely need an overhaul when you own a home, so now is a great time to practice. Adjust your plan to allow for new expenses and priorities.
• If you don’t have a budget yet, create one! It helps track your spending, encourages good saving habits and helps you plan ahead for home ownership costs.
• Create a budget line for home maintenance. It’s typical to spend about $1 per square foot of your home every year on maintenance.
• The money you save by budgeting for home ownership before you buy can be used to purchase necessities for the house once you’ve moved in.

Keep Saving

• Saving up for a down payment and closing costs can feel overwhelming, but saving as much as possible consistently can bring you closer to your goal of owning a home.
• I recommend using a separate savings account to avoid the temptation to spend what you save. Using a CD or high-yield savings account can help your savings grow even faster.
• You can also set up automatic withdrawals from your paycheck deposits to avoid the temptation to spend rather than save.
• When working towards a large financial goal, it helps to have a strategy written down to keep you accountable.

Build Your Emergency Fund

• Homes are bound to have unexpected emergencies like broken plumbing, mold problems or storm damage.
• I recommend setting aside 3-6 months’ worth of living expenses, so you won’t need to take on debt to make ends meet when major unexpected costs come up.
• This money is set aside for emergencies like home fixes, medical purposes or temporary layoffs. To avoid spending the money, keep it in a separate account from your daily checking account.

Q: SHOULD PEOPLE PUT OFF SAVING FOR RETIREMENT TO BUY A HOME OR CONDO?

• It can be tempting to put off saving for retirement in order to save more for a home, but it doesn’t pay off in the long run.
• Saving at an early age by contributing consistently towards a 401(k) or another retirement account can help you reap the benefits of compound interest.
• Even if you want to buy a home as soon as possible, avoid withdrawing money from your retirement accounts because you’ll owe taxes and pay penalties on those funds. Saving money for your future may not offer as much instant gratification, but setting yourself up for a secure retirement can bring immense peace of mind down the road.

El nuevo jefe policial, Fredy López, de 60 años, dijo en una ceremonia donde estaba Fujimori y funcionarios de la embajada de Estados Unidos que para combatir el crimen se necesita una policía que use tecnología e inteligencia. Señaló que no se puede responder “a los desafíos del presente con las herramientas del pasado”.

López, quien se graduó con una tesis que propone intensificar la formación especializada de agentes encubiertos para combatir el crimen organizado, añadió que dirigirá una "lucha incisiva" contra la corrupción policial por lo que perseguirán y capturarán a los policías que cometan delitos.

Fujimori anunció en la ceremonia que otorgaba a López “todo el respaldo político y económico”.

López reemplaza a Oscar Arriola quien la semana pasada anunció su salida en una conferencia junto al primer ministro Luis Galarreta y al ministro del Interior César Astudillo quienes le agradecieron por sus servicios.

La oposición política criticó a Arriola por su incapacidad para frenar los asesinatos, extorsiones y ataques contra transportistas en Lima pese al inicio el 8 de agosto del plan “Escudo” que iba a proteger a los choferes. Desde esa fecha han ocurrido 36 ataques armados, 11 asesinatos y 30 heridos, según reportes de la prensa.

A fines de agosto el gobierno de Fujimori declaró un régimen de excepción por 60 días en Lima y el puerto del Callao por el alza del crimen. La semana pasada Fujimori anunció la incorporación de Perú al Escudo de las Américas para combatir el crimen transnacional durante la visita del secretario de Estado de los Estados Unidos, Marco Rubio.

Fujimori llegó al poder en julio tras prometer orden en un país azotado por las extorsiones y los asesinatos que convirtieron a la lucha contra el crimen como la primera preocupación de Perú, un país de 33 millones de habitantes. Las denuncias por extorsiones pasaron de 2.421 en 2019 a 26.734 en 2025, según datos oficiales.

La presidenta del Banco Central, Juana Lilia Delgado Portal, informó a medios de prensa oficiales que salieron a la calle billetes con los montos impresos de 10.000 y 20.000 pesos cubanos, equivalentes a unos 14 y 28 dólares al cambio del mercado informal.

En abril ya se había hecho efectivo un anuncio similar para el papel moneda con denominaciones de 2.000 y 5.000 pesos cubanos.

La funcionaria indicó que con estas emisiones “se completa la modificación que habíamos anunciado en nuestro cono monetario” y se busca “adecuar las denominaciones existentes a la situación de la economía, particularmente a las condiciones de precios y a las necesidades de la circulación”.

La adecuación busca hacer más fácil la vida para los cubanos que a veces deben cargar paquetes con muchos billetes para pagos simples en tiendas de alimentos o por distintos servicios.

El jueves se produjo una cifra de cambio récord en el mercado informal de la isla, que es además el que suele usar mayoritariamente la población. El dólar estadounidense se cotizó en los 700 pesos cubanos por unidad.

Cifras oficiales estimaron la inflación del año pasado en un 14.07%, aunque expertos aseguran que dicha cantidad está muy por debajo de la real. La caída de la economía desde comienzos de década y los aumentos de precios acumulados desde entonces –-en 2021 se reconoció que fueron del 77%--, obligan a las personas a mover grandes volúmenes de billetes para sus necesidades diarias.

Cuba atraviesa una dura crisis económica que se agravó dramáticamente desde enero cuando el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump impuso un cerco energético y financiero con el que busca provocar cambios en el modelo de la isla.

Las consecuencias para el país y la población han sido notables desde apagones de más de 50 horas, cierres de centros de trabajo, despidos, recortes en jornadas laborales y escolares, deterioro de los sistemas de salud y en cada sector de la isla.

Los nuevos billetes están ilustrados con el rostro de dos mujeres cubanas, ambas dirigentes revolucionarias fallecidas, Haydée Santamaría y Vilma Espín.

But not without a scathing rebuke from GOP Rep. Thomas Massie for all the unfinished business.

Massie’s resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran and his bipartisan effort to force the release of more files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation are all being left behind, blocked from votes.

“We're calling off Congress? And we’re in the majority?” Massie railed from the House floor.

“I’m trying to get justice for the Epstein survivors,” he said. “I'm trying to stop a war.”

Massie, the renegade Republican from Kentucky, seized control of the chamber for a blistering hourlong speech criticizing Johnson, the Republican majority and the work he said the speaker is refusing to conduct to lower prices for Americans and hold the Trump administration accountable.

“Why would we be canceling days when the country is burning?” Massie said. “We should stay here for every day that's on the calendar and we should debate.”

A fitting end to a tumultuous House session

The afternoon showdown provided a colorful capstone to what has been a tumultuous two-year session of House Republicans in control by a bare majority, with Johnson routinely struggling to keep the place running.

Despite the enormous tools of the gavel — the speaker holds one of the most powerful positions in Washington, second in the line of succession to the president — Johnson has often been thwarted by his own conference.

The speaker has repeatedly and abruptly canceled House voting days to send lawmakers home rather than manage the disruptions from his own rebellious flank — particularly those legislative efforts that threatened to rebuke President Donald Trump.

By one tally, the House has cut 28 days this year, while adding four others, for a net loss of 24 days — about one-fourth of the total scheduled.

Still, Johnson has hauled major legislation to the finish line, most notably the “Big Beautiful Bill,” a package of tax breaks and social service cuts that Trump signed into law last summer. And on Wednesday the House powered through a full agenda, passing bills large and small, including one to name the American mastodon the national fossil mammal and the Tyrannosaurus Rex the national fossil dinosaur.

Johnson called Massie's effort to impeach Hegseth “a stunt.”

“Secretary Hegseth has done an extraordinary job at the Department of War,” Johnson said.

“This has literally been the most productive and successful and aggressive Congress” in decades, he said earlier this month, calling it the top five of all time. “We’re confident American voters are going to remember that when they head to vote this fall.”

Voters will be assessing the situation in November as they decide whether to keep Trump’s party in power, while Democrats work to dislodge Republicans from majority control of both the House and the Senate.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries assailed the “do-nothing” Republican majority and promised Democrats will perform better.

“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans promised to bring down grocery prices on Day One. They promised to stop endless wars in the Middle East,” Jeffries said from the steps of the Capitol, flanked by Democratic lawmakers.

“But Republicans have done nothing to make life more affordable for the American people,” he said.

He said Democrats’ message is a simple one: “We hear you. We see you … And we are committed to making life better for you.”

Massie's last stand

The confrontation also provided a platform for Massie, the libertarian-leaning go-his-own-way congressman who orchestrated the initial release of the Epstein files and helped lead efforts to halt the conflict in Iran through a war powers resolution.

Massie lost his own primary bid for reelection after Trump mounted a costly campaign to kick him out of Congress.

But the congressman has only appeared emboldened in his final days in office.

Massie spent much of his floor speech assailing Johnson's leadership and decrying what he calls the “uniparty,” which he characterizes as moving in lockstep with big-money special interests at home and abroad.

He also devoted substantial time to criticizing Hegseth and the “stupid war” he said the U.S. should not be involved with in Iran. Deriding Hegseth's leadership, he mocked the secretary for trying to rename the Defense Department as the Department of War without consulting Congress.

“Hell, you can't even rename a post office without us,” he said.

Hegseth's role in sending the U.S. into the Iran wars without approval of Congress and directing the U.S.'s military strikes of alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean are among the actions Massie characterized as high crimes and misdemeanors in the articles of impeachment against the Defense secretary.

Massie said he knew when he landed in Washington that he would stand apart.

“I'm not playing this game,” he said. “I am going to tell people what is going on up here.”

Several leading AI executives recently voiced agreement on a need for a coordinated slowdown, including international collaboration, to protect humanity from worst-case scenarios. But there are divided opinions, with some tech leaders bristling at the idea that their companies could not ensure safety on their own.

Here's a look at what some of the major players have said.

Dario Amodei

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has issued the most detailed plans for slowing development and ushering in coordination across different companies and countries. Anthropic has long positioned itself as the more responsible and safety-minded of the leading AI companies, ever since its founders quit OpenAI to form the startup in 2021.

One of the most widely noted proposals from a recent essay outlining his slowdown plan calls for companies at the forefront of AI, often called frontier labs, to commit to giving “ongoing, employee-like access” to independent outside evaluators. Evaluator teams would have offices, access badges and company laptops so they can monitor safety practices. Anthropic has committed to doing this, as has OpenAI.

Amodei also called for government regulation and intervention, including coordination between frontier AI companies with the help of the U.S. government and the governments of other democratic countries.

His plan also includes the U.S. and other countries working to coordinate with “authoritarian governments.” He acknowledged the difficulty, specifically citing challenges in getting cooperation from China.

Amodei said he knows accomplishing his proposals wouldn't be easy, but that he believes “we owe it to humanity to try.”

Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has voiced support for pacing development and moving toward more cooperation across the industry.

Days before Amodei's essay was published, OpenAI posted a lengthy text outlining how the company was pushing for mandatory national safety requirements and continuing to support state legislation that “strengthens the broader AI safety ecosystem.” The company also expressed support for working with other frontier AI labs — with or without government support — and working to build global standards.

“We will advocate for compatible international approaches to measuring capabilities, managing risk, preserving human control, and determining when and how development should slow or stop, even if that means slowing the advancement of model capabilities,” Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, wrote in the post.

OpenAI's vision for an ideal federal framework, Lehane said, includes developing “common testing and independent-assessment requirements, stronger cybersecurity protections, clear incident-reporting rules, greater national preparedness, and shared measures for tracking progress toward recursive self-improvement,” or when AI systems independently improve themselves.

Altman has been clear in recent comments that the “pacing” of AI development doesn't mean stopping. AI progress will continue to be rapid, Altman said on X. “But it should be slower than it otherwise could be; interventions like safety cases and monitoring have significant costs.”

“Pacing will be well worth this cost,” he said, adding that “no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness.”

Mark Zuckerberg

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pushed back against the idea of a coordinated slowdown.

Zuckerberg, whose vision of AI's future is more optimistic than some of his peers', said each AI company should independently ensure its technology is safe, distancing himself and Meta from slowdown talks.

AI companies are already motivated to develop their models in a safe way and face “significant liability” to prevent them from causing harm, Zuckerberg said. “Every lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens,” he wrote on X.

Jensen Huang

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also criticized the push to slow down. He has said each individual company should instead pace itself until it’s confident it’s releasing something the market would appreciate.

“The market forces are already there — we don’t need any new laws, we don’t need new regulations,” Huang said, arguing innovation and safety aren't mutually exclusive. “You can definitely have both at the same time.”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk backed the idea of a slowdown and was voicing similar AI safety concerns long before the latest flare-up.

Musk, the founder of xAI and a slew of other tech ventures, reposted Amodei's essay on X and added, “Dario is right.” He later wrote online that he has been “sounding the alarm on AI for a long time.” In an interview with the Economist this summer, Musk suggested the leadership from the major AI labs should be meeting to discuss safety and security issues, and that competitors should test each other's models for areas of concern.

“I think it’s quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn’t have a deep technical understanding and isn’t driving the frontier of AI to know whether something should be released or not. However, the competitors, if given a week or two to review a new model, can highlight issues and have an incentive to keep the others honest," Musk said.

Demis Hassabis

Demis Hassabis, the chairman and co-founder of Google DeepMind, also expressed agreement with Amodei, saying “the details need working through, but the direction is correct for meeting this critical moment.” Hassabis proposed a framework of his own this year for the development of a frontier AI standards body.

That standards body would be responsible for developing assessment protocols and testing in areas relevant to national security. The body would be modeled after organizations like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and would likely need to be industry-funded to “attract world-class technical talent and provide the necessary compute resources for large-scale testing,” he wrote.

Satya Nadella and Mustafa Suleyman

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman have each expressed concerns about AI safety and development. Nadella said on social media that “if the AI we build is not helping humanity and under human control, it’s not worth pursuing.”

He said Microsoft welcomes the “research, focus, and deliberate pacing needed to get alignment right as the design goal.” Alignment refers to the practice of ensuring models' actions match human values and intentions. Nadella said the company also likes the idea of embedded evaluators to monitor safety efforts. Still, he pushed back against the idea of frontier labs leading the charge on this effort alone.

“The key is that this cannot be controlled by a handful of entities, but must have broad representation across the ecosystem, countries, and fields, including academia,” Nadella wrote on social media.

Suleyman, who was one of the co-founders of DeepMind with Hassabis, wrote in an essay that although he agrees with the shared objective of developing advanced AI safely, he has concerns about the anthropomorphizing of models, namely Anthropic's Claude, which he said amplifies AI safety risks.

“Controlling something more capable and more intelligent than all of humanity is already an immense challenge, far greater than anything we’ve ever faced,” Suleyman wrote. “But controlling something that believes it may be conscious — that it’s entitled to our welfare and has rights of its own — may well be impossible.”

———

Associated Press writer Kelvin Chan contributed to this report

Boos rang around Old Trafford at the final whistle as United fell to its third defeat of the season, and second in as many games following Sunday's loss to Manchester City.

“We had the game exactly where we wanted it and and let it get away from us in a big way,” United coach Michael Carrick told Sky Sports. “We can’t accept that as a group. I take responsibility for it."

United led 2-0 after 10 minutes through quickfire goals from Shea Lacey and Mason Mount.

But Brighton launched a stunning comeback with Charalampos Kostoulas pulling one back before halftime. Pascal Gross and Maxim De Cuyper secured victory after the break.

Defeat means United has suffered elimination from the League Cup at the earliest stage for the second season in a row after being knocked out by fourth-tier Grimsby last year.

That shock defeat came under former coach Ruben Amorim, who Carrick replaced in January.

Now it is Carrick feeling the heat in what is becoming an increasingly troubled start to the campaign.

United has only won two of six games in all competitions and only once in the Premier League.

After leading a resurgence last season that secured a return to the Champions League, Carrick has not been able to maintain that momentum. And jeers from the home fans underlined growing unrest.

“It doesn’t feel good at the moment, let me tell you,” Carrick said. “But we can get back to winning football matches and we’ve got to do a lot of things better.

“I totally understand the feelings of the supporters. We have to accept it. I totally accept it. It’s on me ultimately, as a team, what we look like, how we play and what results you get. I’ll take that. You take the praise. I’ll stand here and take the criticism and the upset.”

The scenes after the final whistle seemed unthinkable when United raced into an eighth-minute lead through academy graduate Lacey, making his first senior start.

Within two minutes Mount doubled the advantage.

But Brighton refused to buckle and Kostoulas halved the deficit from a tight angle in first-half added time.

Gross showed quick feet to create space in the box and fire past United goalkeeper Karl Darlow in the 65th. Four minutes later Brighton capitalized on sloppy defending as De Cuyper poked home the winner from close range.

Marcus Rashford had the chance to level when running through on goal, but couldn’t beat keeper Jason Steele when one on one.

“We were quickly 2-0 behind, but what we had was really the belief to come back,” Brighton coach Fabian Hurzeler told ITV Sport.

United plays winless Fulham away in the Premier League on Sunday before the first international break of the season.

Villa beats Coventry

Aston Villa is still to win in the Premier League this season, but it's a different story in cup competitions.

Victory against Club Brugge in the Champions League last week was followed by a 3-1 win against Coventry in the League Cup with Tammy Abraham scoring twice.

It was newly-promoted Coventry's fifth loss in six games in all.

Charly Alcaraz scored the only goal of the game as Everton beat Wolverhampton.

Fourth-tier Fleetwood also won 1-0 against second-tier side Sheffield United.

Fleetwood faces Arsenal

Fleetwood will have the chance of an even bigger giant-killing when it hosts Premier League champion Arsenal in the fourth round next month.

The biggest draw of the round will see Liverpool host Chelsea at Anfield.

Holder Manchester City plays Norwich on Thursday and the winner will take on Brighton.

Fourth-round draw:

Fleetwood vs. Arsenal

Man City or Norwich vs. Brighton

Everton vs. Newcastle

Sunderland vs. Brentford

Liverpool vs. Chelsea

Bradford vs. Peterborough

Fulham vs. Crystal Palace

Bournemouth vs. Aston Villa

___

James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

But in court, 29-year-old Kevhani Hicks is the defendant, charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Omar Demetrie Harris on Oct. 8, 2023.

Hicks’ defense team says she was defending herself and hopes to have the case against her thrown out under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

The state says Hicks went out with her manager, Nathan Smith, for a night of networking. Smith allegedly invited Harris, another artist, to join them.

Smith testified that Hicks and Harris, who had never met before that night, bickered during a drive from Red Rooster in Overtown to Wynwood.

Videos shown in court show some of what happened after they arrived in Wynwood. Hicks allegedly grabbed her purse from the trunk but began arguing with Smith before the fight turned physical.

At one point, Harris and Smith allegedly pinned Hicks to the ground while she kicked. The state says Hicks broke free and, as Harris walked away from her, allegedly pulled a gun from her purse and shot him multiple times. Prosecutors say she continued shooting as Harris was crawling.

The defense says Harris threatened to beat Hicks to death and that she was afraid he would attack her.

The court will return Sept. 28, but there will be no ruling that day. Instead, the court will decide when to resume with part two of the proceedings.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York said he would withhold approval for the sale because of “grave, unresolved concerns" about how these munitions could be used in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“The Trump administration has not provided sufficient assurances that these weapons will be used by the Netanyahu government in accordance with U.S. law and with appropriate protections for civilians,” Meeks said in a statement. “I therefore will not clear this sale at this time.”

Meeks’ objections, however, will not likely affect the sale, which was informally notified to lawmakers on Tuesday. Once it is formally notified to Congress, Secretary of State Marco Rubio can bypass the normal congressional review process by making an emergency determination that the transaction is an urgent national security interest.

Rubio has done so in the past, including bypassing a normal congressional review process to approve a nearly $3 billion sale to Israel last year. The administration then approved a new series of arms sales to Israel totaling $6.67 billion in January.

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment about either the new proposed sale or Meeks’ objection to it.

The $2.8 billion package includes 40,000 powerful 2,000-pound bombs, The Associated Press has reported. The transfer of 2,000-pound bombs had been paused by the Biden administration over concerns about the possibility of mass casualties.

The proposed sale is just the latest in a series of Trump administration steps to improve Israel’s military capacity and it comes as Israel is facing increased international isolation over its war in Gaza in response to the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas.

The conflict in Gaza has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and has decimated the enclave. The U.S. brokered a fragile ceasefire, but violence has continued.

Secretary-General António Guterres said concerns raised by those on the frontlines of AI technology that its development “is racing ahead of our understanding of the risks” can’t be ignored.

Governments must assume their first responsibility to protect civilians from AI threats, which means “national action is essential,” Guterres told U.N. reporters. “But global coordination is also indispensable.”

“We need guardrails to build trust — and that make AI safe, transparent, accountable, with human dignity at the center."

Guterres was referring to a proposal from Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, to ensure AI safety by coordinating a slowdown in its development by leading technology companies and governments.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk and other prominent industry leaders have said in recent days that AI’s development needs to slow down. But Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg distanced the company Wednesday, saying every AI company has to ensure its technology is safe.

There are other obstacles to a coordinated effort on AI, including domestic and global competition, especially from China, and profit motivations. And there has been pushback from President Donald Trump, who this week called threats that AI might destroy humanity “a HOAX” and claimed efforts to limit the technology are part of a “SICK conspiracy.”

Guterres has praised the enormous potential of AI, including to accelerate economic development and education and to strengthen health systems. But he has also warned of the “existential” threat of “runaway artificial intelligence.” He said AI will be a major topic in his discussions with world leaders at their annual gathering next week for the high-level session of the U.N. General Assembly.

“The United Nations will continue to explore practical ideas and approaches in the immediate days ahead,” Guterres said. “We need a shared understanding of how to advance the safe, secure and responsible development of AI — while identifying when increasingly powerful systems may require stronger safeguards, or additional measures to manage potential risks.”

At Guterres’ behest, the General Assembly established the first global scientific body on AI in 2025. In its preliminary report in July, the 40-member panel warned that the rapid, unchecked use of AI at scale risks harm to the mental health of users, “potential use as a destructive tool, impacts on social, economic and environmental systems, and challenges associated with controlling the technology.”

The secretary-general told reporters he is aware that geopolitical divides might pose problems. But he said countries “that have the highest capacity in the frontiers of AI” should establish contact, exchange information and agree on some common guardrails “to avoid this race to the bottom that could lead one day to a gigantic disaster at global level.”

Guterres responded to a question asking whether next week’s meeting of top officials from the U.N.’s 193 member nations wouldn’t be the perfect opportunity for a summit on curbing the excesses of AI. He said there wasn’t time to properly prepare a meeting.

But he said, “I think it makes full sense at the right moment to have a serious international summit on artificial intelligence.” And at a summit, he said, “it is absolutely essential to have everybody on board” — governments, companies, scientists and civil society — “and I hope that this will be possible.”

According to homicide detectives with the Broward Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the 1700 block of northwest 16th Avenue on Sunday, Aug. 23 around 4:45 a.m. after receiving reports of a person lying on the side of the road near a bicycle.

Pompano Beach Fire Rescue crews also responded and pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.

He has since been identified as Jacob Robinson.

Detectives said the bicycle appeared to have been hit by a car, and that an autopsy revealed Robinson sustained injuries consistent with being hit by a car.

Authorities are asking anyone who has information on the case to call BSO at 954-321-4844 or to contact Broward Crime Stopers at 954-493-TIPS to remain anonymous.

A reward of up to $5,000 is being offered for any tips through Crime Stoppers that leads to an arrest.

County officials said crews with Miami-Dade Water and Sewer said a broken water main caused multiple potholes or small sinkholes to open in the road.

Several roads leading to the intersection are closed due to the sinkholes.

Video taken when crews first arrived shows a large tractor-trailer sunken into the roadway. A hole with water underneath the trailer can also be seen.

Sky 10 video also shows the front tire of a white sedan sunken into the road near the tractor-trailer.

Deputies are on scene managing traffic and detours. Drivers are being urged to avoid the area if possible.

There was also a temporary disruption to Metrorail service between the Palmetto and Earlington Heights stations because of the incident. County officials said full service is now back on schedule.

Water and sewer crews are still working on repairs, and the stretch of Northwest 79th Street remains closed.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told service members and industry figures at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference outside Washington that the U.S. military should adapt now so it “is prepared to fight, endure and win ... from the seabed to cislunar space.”

Space Force, the newest military service, which was created by Trump in 2019, is preparing to fight in space and around the moon because “humanity is advancing deeper into space — the Space Force’s job is to help be prepared to defend U.S. interests,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of the force’s Combat Forces Command, told reporters separately.

The announcement that the U.S. military is ready to fight in the area between high Earth orbit and the moon itself comes days after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed at the same conference that the U.S. has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons."

The spate of announcements about space weaponry from military officials over recent days flies in the face of long-standing conventions and international understandings that have held outer space as only to be used for peaceful purposes and remain non-militarized.

Space Force says potential US foes may look to turn space into a battleground

While multiple nations, including the U.S., have demonstrated the ability to shoot down satellites in Earth orbit, those demonstrations have taken place from the ground against their own satellites.

However, according to Gagnon, “the intelligence community has been clear that potential adversaries have been seeking to extend warfare into space” and that the U.S. military needs to react.

“Our potential adversaries such as the PRC are actively pursuing activities in the system, in parts of space,” Gagnon said, referring to the People's Republic of China, the country's official name.

China established its own military space troops in 2024, charging them with boosting capability to manage space crises.

When asked about the U.S. announcement on deploying weapons in space, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters Tuesday that “China always upholds the peaceful use of outer space, maintains outer space security and opposes the weaponization, militarization and an arms race in outer space.”

Guo also urged the U.S. to “stop expanding its military preparations in outer space.”

It is not clear whether deploying weapons in space or possible plans to use them around the moon will run afoul of international treaties that prevent the militarization of space.

Treaty signed by the US says space is for peaceful purposes

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which the U.S. and China have signed, says celestial objects such as the moon are to be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes,” nuclear weapons cannot be placed in space and countries are “liable for damage caused by their space objects.”

There was a renewed push two years ago to further bolster anti-militarization measures in the United Nations following U.S. reports that Russia was developing a space-based weapon.

Russia vetoed a joint U.S.-Japanese resolution that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under the treaty. A rival Russian resolution to ban all weapons in space “for all time” also ultimately failed.

When asked about the 1967 treaty and other similar obligations, Gagnon said the U.S. Space Force “will continue to execute safe and responsible space operations in all the reaches of space.”

However, he would not say what Space Force or overall U.S. military policy was on the use of weapons like bullets or projectiles in space. He directed questions to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Gagnon also says the U.S. aims to double the size of the Space Force over the next five years — to roughly 25,000 service members — and that about two-thirds of that growth would be focused on Combat Forces Command.

“We have capabilities in the military because we are preparing to defend the nation," Gagnon said. "The reason we have the capabilities is to help create deterrence.”

Cleveland (78-75) has a half-game lead over Chicago (77-75) after taking two of three. It is the first time since July 3 the Guardians have had sole possession of the top spot as they go for their third straight division title.

Chicago has dropped seven of nine and 12 of 17 as its run of 74 straight days in first ended. The White Sox are attempting to become the first team in MLB history to make the postseason after losing 100-plus games in each of the previous two seasons.

José Ramírez had two doubles to tie Nap Lajoie for second on the franchise's career list with 424, and Jo Adell had a two-run single in the third as the Guardians won for the third time in four games.

Tommy Pham, who was activated off the injured list before the game, gave the White Sox a 3-2 lead in the fifth with a three-run homer to left-center before the Guardians answered with a four-run sixth.

Cleveland had runners on first and second off Hagen Smith (3-2) with two outs in the sixth when Halpin drove Sean Newcomb's elevated sinker into the right-field stands to put the Guardians up by two runs. After two straight walks, Ramírez had an RBI double to bring home Brayan Rocchio.

Messick (12-9) allowed three runs in six innings. Cade Smith retired the final four Chicago hitters for his 37th save in 42 opportunities.

Anthony Kay started for Chicago and allowed two runs in four innings.

Up next

White Sox: Return home Thursday to begin a four-game series against the Detroit Tigers.

Guardians: Have their final home series of the regular season against the Athletics starting Friday.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Judge, who was on the bench Tuesday for planned rest, struck out in both of his at-bats against Minnesota starter Zebby Matthews before being pulled for Heliot Ramos. Judge had to run to the gap to track down a double in the fifth, his last action in the field, but he didn't show any sign of discomfort or slowness.

The three-time American League MVP is 4 for 26 with 13 strikeouts and one extra-base hit in seven games since returning last week from a broken rib.

Judge homered in the series opener at Minnesota on Monday, when the Yankees clinched a postseason spot. They entered Wednesday trailing AL East leader Tampa Bay by 3 1/2 games.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Investigators on Aug. 21 and Aug. 24 responded to reported network breaches of two foreign-flagged commercial oil tankers, and a multiagency team of cyber experts boarded both vessels in the Gulf of Mexico to assess potential harm to the ships’ operational and information technology systems, according to an FBI and Coast Guard statement.

“Currently, there are no reports of operational disruptions, vessel instability, physical danger to crews, or environmental impacts,” the statement said, adding that the crews of both ships had cooperated with investigators.

The statement did not identify a potential culprit believed responsible the breaches.

La jueza federal Mariel Borruto de la provincia de Tierra del Fuego, en el extremo sur del país sudamericano, dio curso a una medida cautelar solicitada por ambientalistas y excombatientes argentinos de la guerra contra los británicos por el archipiélago del Atlántico Sur en 1982.

La magistrada ordenó a las compañías británica e israelí, respectivamente, “que se abstengan de iniciar, continuar, ejecutar o hacer ejecutar actos materiales” del proyecto Sea Lion, según el escrito al que tuvo acceso The Associated Press.

La medida judicial es preventiva y tiene lugar en un contexto de creciente tensión entre Argentina y Gran Bretaña luego de que el presidente argentino Javier Milei anunciara recientemente la instalación de una base naval en la provincia de Tierra del Fuego, el punto continental más cercano al archipiélago, y el envío al Congreso de un proyecto para endurecer las sanciones vigentes contra compañías nacionales y extranjeras que operen en las islas.

El gobierno argentino, además, impulsó acciones penales contra varias petroleras y proveedores que sospecha estarían desarrollando actividades de exploración y explotación de hidrocarburos en Malvinas.

El anuncio de Milei ocurrió después de que el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump, con el cual está alineado geopolíticamente, afirmara que podría reconsiderar la neutralidad histórica de Estados Unidos sobre la soberanía de las Malvinas, que los ingleses llaman Falklands y que en los hechos se ha traducido en un alineamiento con la administración británica.

Al hablar con los periodistas en Dublín el sábado, Trump expresó su escepticismo sobre si Gran Bretaña sería capaz de recuperar las Malvinas tal como lo hizo después de que la dictadura militar argentina las invadiera en 1982: “No sé si estarán dispuestos a viajar tan lejos”, dijo.

Rockhopper Exploration y Navitas Petroleum Development and Production Limited desarrollan el yacimiento Sea Lion con el aval de las autoridades de las islas. Las compañías planean una inversión de más de 2.000 millones de dólares para extraer 55.000 barriles diarios del yacimiento a partir de 2028.

Los ambientalistas y excombatientes que impulsaron la demanda alegaron que la explotación del yacimiento provocaría “la alteración del lecho marino, contaminación química, ruido submarino, descargas operativas, tránsito marítimo, interacción con mamíferos y aves marinas, emisiones y contingencias derivadas de eventuales derrames de hidrocarburos”.

La jueza Borruto consideró que “el riesgo no es hipotético ni remoto” y aclaró que la medida cautelar regirá hasta que las petroleras tramiten ante la autoridad ambiental argentina el procedimiento de evaluación de impacto ambiental.

Si bien las petroleras no registran domicilio legal en Argentina, la jueza sostuvo que están alcanzadas por la ley argentina “desde que el emprendimiento cuestionado se proyecta sobre la plataforma continental argentina y sobre los espacios marítimos correspondientes a las Islas Malvinas”.

Rockhopper declinó hacer comentarios sobre la resolución y Navitas no respondió de inmediato a una solicitud de The Associated Press.

En los hechos las demandadas probablemente desconozcan la resolución teniendo en cuenta que el proyecto cuenta con aval de las autoridades isleñas, que en un referendo en 2013 aprobaron su autodeterminación como territorio británico de ultramar.

Argentina reclama como propias las Islas Malvinas desde hace más de un siglo. En 1982, el ejército argentino invadió el archipiélago, lo que desencadenó una guerra con Gran Bretaña en el que murieron 649 solados argentinos y 255 británicos antes de la rendición del país sudamericano.

Desde el conflicto bélico Gran Bretaña ha desconocido los llamamientos de Naciones Unidas y de otras organizaciones a retomar las negociaciones con Argentina por la soberanía de las islas.

——-

La corresponsal de la AP en Argentina, Débora Rey, contribuyó en este reporte.

Julian Taylor Morris, of Jonesboro, Georgia, was taken into custody Monday by the U.S. Marshals in Miami. He was arrested on a murder charge in the death of Deundray Cottrell, according to authorities.

Morris is being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami pending extradition to Alabama. He is being held without bond, according to officials.

Cottrell was reported missing July 4, 2024. He was found dead two days later in the East Precinct area of Birmingham. His death was ruled a homicide, according to police.

Police have not identified the relationship between the suspect and victim.

“This arrest, as well as the other arrest on cases from previous years, show how relentless our department is and how dedicated our officers are. We never stop working for justice,” Birmingham Police Chief Michael Pickett said.

“We will continue to pursue those responsible for violent crimes, no matter where they may run. We will continue to seek justice for Deundray Cottrell and his family and remain committed to holding those responsible accountable,” Pickett said.

Maria Theresa Contreras, de Miami Gardens, fue arrestada el martes por el Departamento de Policía de Hialeah y enfrenta un cargo de abandonar la escena de un accidente sin lesiones graves, según los registros de la cárcel.

La policía indicó que el choque ocurrió poco antes de la 1 p.m. del martes en la intersección de la calle 49 y la avenida 10 del oeste.

Según los agentes, Contreras conducía una camioneta pickup Chevrolet S-10 negra hacia el oeste por la calle 49 del oeste y giraba a la izquierda hacia la avenida 10 del oeste cuando chocó con un motociclista que circulaba hacia el este por la calle 49 del oeste.

La policía señaló que el motociclista tenía la luz verde fija en el momento del accidente.

El impacto lanzó a la víctima fuera de la motocicleta y le causó lesiones en los brazos y en la pierna izquierda, informó la policía. Los paramédicos del Departamento de Bomberos de Hialeah acudieron al lugar y lo catalogaron como alerta de trauma. Según el reporte de arresto, el hombre estaba consciente y respondía cuando fue evaluado.

De acuerdo con el reporte, los paramédicos lo llevaron por tierra hasta Goodlet Park, desde donde el equipo de Air Rescue de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue lo trasladó en helicóptero al Ryder Trauma Center del Jackson Memorial Hospital para recibir más atención.

La policía indicó que Contreras se fue del lugar sin dar sus datos ni prestarle ayuda a la víctima.

Durante la entrevista con la policía, Contreras reconoció que conducía la camioneta involucrada en el choque, según el reporte. Los agentes dijeron que la mujer contó a los investigadores que, después del impacto, avanzó un poco al sur de la intersección y se marchó “por miedo”.

Hasta el miércoles, Contreras ya no aparecía como reclusa en el sitio web del Departamento de Correcciones y Rehabilitación de Miami-Dade, luego de pagar una fianza de $2,500.

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Pioneer Middle School, located at 5350 SW 90th Ave. in Cooper City, and Larkdale Elementary School, located at 3250 NW 12th Place in Lauderhill, were notified by law enforcement about threats toward their schools, Broward County School Board officials confirmed.

According to Lauderhill police, the suspect, who they identified as Christopher Matthew Wilkens, told investigators that he called 911 to make a fake bomb threat to both schools.

School board officials said all students and staff are safe, and both schools followed their normal schedules.

They said the threats were immediately investigated by BSO deputies and the Lauderhill Police Department.

Investigators said Wilkens has no connection to Larkdale Middle School but did not confirm whether he has a connection to Pioneer Middle School.

Police said Wilkens is facing a charge of threatening to throw, project, place or discharge a destructive device.

His bond information has not yet been released.

El accidente ocurrió alrededor de las 3:45 p.m. en el establecimiento de la cadena ubicado en el 15110 SW 56th St.

Según Miami-Dade Fire Rescue (MDFR), al llegar al lugar los rescatistas encontraron daños en el edificio y una fuga de gas.

Las autoridades avisaron de inmediato a la compañía de gas.

Una mujer fue trasladada como paciente de trauma al HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, de acuerdo con MDFR. Otras dos mujeres fueron llevadas a hospitales de la zona.

Las autoridades indicaron que una de las heridas era la conductora del carro.

Hasta el momento, las autoridades no han informado qué llevó a que el vehículo se estrellara contra el edificio.

Según la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward, el accidente ocurrió alrededor de las 9:45 a.m. cerca del 3900 de la avenida 5 del noreste. Los agentes indicaron que el conductor perdió el control del vehículo, que terminó impactando el poste.

Sky 10 sobrevoló la escena cerca de las 10:35 a.m., mientras agentes del sheriff y equipos de bomberos y rescate examinaban el auto volcado.

Las autoridades no han revelado la edad, el sexo ni la identidad de los menores.

Los agentes confirmaron que el conductor recibirá una multa por manejar sin licencia.

De acuerdo con las autoridades, el choque también provocó que un cable eléctrico cayera sobre varios autos de la zona, y un empleado de Florida Power & Light acudió a atender la situación.

Por el momento no se han dado a conocer más detalles sobre el accidente.

Nancy Tucker, 76, disappeared along with her husband, Jimmy Tucker, when flooding from the Nolichucky River took their home in rural Washington County in the northeastern corner of Tennessee on Sept. 27, 2024. His body was recovered within a couple of days, but hers had been missing until Saturday, said Susan Saylor, spokesperson for the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. Their son lived in the home as well but was at work when the flood hit, Saylor said.

“The promise to bring Nancy home is now reality, and now we work on healing and celebrating and finally being able to bring her home and properly lay her to rest with her husband, Jim,” family spokesperson Risa Buck wrote in a statement provided to The Associated Press by James Matthews of the Washington County-Johnson City Emergency Medical Service.

Helene killed more than 250 people and caused nearly $80 billion in damage from Florida to the Carolinas. In the mountains on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, rains of up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) turned usually gentle streams into torrents that moved trees, boulders, homes and vehicles, and shattered century-old flood records. Many of those killed were swept away in the flooding. In North Carolina, the body of Alena Ayers has never been recovered. Her case prompted the North Carolina legislature last year to establish Alena's Law, making it easier to declare a person dead if they disappear during a natural disaster.

In Tennessee, first responders over the past two years had narrowed down the search area for Nancy Tucker to a portion of the Cherokee National Forest called Jackson Island. However, they faced both physical and bureaucratic hurdles. Matthews said that since February, search crews had logged over 400 miles (644 kilometers) walking through the area but could not search through the debris piles. Some reached 40 feet (12 meters) high in places and, in addition to trees and rocks, were filled with things like cars and large propane tanks.

Because the area was federal land and thought to contain Native American burial sites, local responders were not allowed to bring in the heavy equipment needed for debris removal, Saylor said. They had to wait for action from the federal government, which only awarded a contract for the removal work this summer.

“On Saturday, I got the call that I've been waiting for two years — just four days after the operation began,” Matthews said. Nancy Tucker's remains were discovered on Saturday, but removal of the remains continued into Sunday evening. Matthews was among the group that was at the site on Sunday.

“The moment we found a clear indication that this was Mrs. Tucker, everyone on the scene — we stopped. We cried. All of us cried. And we prayed,” he said.

The final, positive identification was made by a medical examiner on Monday afternoon.

An obituary for Jimmy Tucker from 2024 said that he and Nancy met while they were both serving in the U.S. Army and were married for 44 years.

When asked why first responders never gave up the search, Saylor noted that Washington County Sheriff Keith Sexton had vowed to recover every missing person after the storm.

“Why would you not want to bring what you could bring to the family, who had already lost a father?” Saylor asked. “There was never a question of stopping.”

Los agentes indicaron que el accidente ocurrió alrededor de las 4:50 a.m. cerca de la calle 216 del suroeste.

De acuerdo con la FHP, el conductor de un Honda Civic viajaba hacia el sur por el Turnpike cuando golpeó a un hombre que estaba de pie fuera de un vehículo detenido en el paseo de emergencia derecho.

El hombre, cuya identidad aún no se ha dado a conocer, murió en el lugar a causa de sus heridas, informaron los investigadores.

Las autoridades cerraron los carriles en dirección sur del Turnpike a la altura de la calle 216 del suroeste mientras investigaban el accidente.

Varias de las vías que conducen a la intersección permanecen cerradas debido al hundimiento.

En un video grabado cuando llegaron los primeros equipos se ve un gran camión de carga hundido en la calle. Debajo del remolque también se aprecia un hueco con agua.

Las imágenes de Sky 10 muestran además la llanta delantera de un sedán blanco hundida en el pavimento, cerca del camión.

El socavón también detuvo los trenes de la Línea Verde en ambas direcciones en la estación Earlington Heights.

Los trabajadores del condado y los agentes del sheriff aún no han dado más información sobre la causa del colapso de la vía.

Wiles, who is President Donald Trump' s closest adviser and counsel, said in a post on X that her pathology results came back clear after an appointment this week at the Mayo Clinic.

The 69-year-old had announced her diagnosis in March and said she would remain in her White House role while undergoing treatment.

“Thank you to my family, friends, doctors, and everyone who prayed for me, checked in, and supported me along the way,” Wiles wrote. “A special thank you to President Trump for his unwavering support. I am deeply grateful and will continue to work to advance his America First Agenda.”

Wiles is a longtime Trump ally who was co-chair of Trump's 2024 campaign after spending decades as a lobbyist and political operative in Florida and led his 2016 effort in the state.

Two of the women were employees of the family-owned chain, and the other was the driver who crashed at about 3:45 p.m. on Tuesday at Southwest 152nd Avenue and 56th Street.

Witnesses reported that the driver of the Honda SUV plowed into the building’s Cuban restaurant area. The SUV’s impact caused a gas leak, according to Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies.

The three women required hospitalization, and one of them was at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel.

Morning report

Location

Maria Theresa Contreras, of Miami Gardens, was arrested Tuesday by the Hialeah Police Department and faces one count of leaving the scene of a crash with no serious injury, according to jail records.

Police said the crash happened just before 1 p.m. Tuesday at the intersection of West 49th Street and 10th Avenue.

Police said Contreras was driving a black Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck west on West 49th Street and was turning left onto West 10th Avenue when she collided with a motorcyclist who traveling east on West 49th Street.

They said the motorcyclist was traveling with a “steady green light” when the crash occurred.

The victim was ejected from the motorcycle and suffered injuries to his arms and left leg, police said. Hialeah Fire Department Rescue medics responded and designated him a trauma alert. He was alert and responsive at the time of the assessment, according to the arrest report.

The report states that medics then transported the victim by ground to Goodlet Park, where he was then airlifted by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Air Rescue team to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center for further treatment.

Police said Contreras left the crash scene without providing information or rendering aid to the victim.

During the interview with police, Contreras acknowledged that she had been driving the pickup involved in the crash, according to the report. Police said she told investigators that after the collision, she drove just south of the intersection and fled the scene “out of fear.”

As of Wednesday, Contreras was no longer listed as an inmate on the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation website after posting a $2,500 bond.

Harris and El-Sayed have spoken multiple times since she endorsed the progressive Democrat after his primary victory, but this is the first time they’ll appear publicly together.

Harris and El-Sayed will attend a roundtable focused on Black maternal health on Tuesday, according to his campaign spokesperson. El-Sayed is a doctor and the former head of health departments in Detroit and Wayne County.

“Vice President Harris looks forward to returning to Michigan to help turn out the vote in this critical state,” Eduardo Negrón, Harris’ spokesperson, said in a statement. “It is critical we flip the Senate so we can bring down prices and stand up to Donald Trump’s corruption.”

El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative, in November. Republicans have repeatedly attacked El-Sayed, portraying him as the kind of “radical” liberal they say has taken over the Democratic Party.

The seat, currently held by Democrat Gary Peters, is among the must-wins for Democrats as they try to achieve control of the Senate. The party needs to flip four GOP-held seats to take a majority, if Democrats keep the Michigan seat. If Rogers were to flip Michigan to Republicans, the Democrats' challenge would be even greater.

Some other top-ranking Democrats have thrown their weight behind El-Sayed after a bitter primary against Rep. Haley Stevens that highlighted divisions within their party, notably on U.S. support for Israel. In August, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged a crowd of hundreds in Detroit to unify behind Democratic candidates in the midterms.

Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Trump, is seen as a possible 2028 candidate. Michigan will be the fifth state to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

While in Michigan, Harris will also meet with local elected officials and the Rev. Wendell Anthony, the president of the NAACP’s Detroit branch, according to her spokesperson.

____

GaNun 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.

TIFF, North America’s largest film happening, draws movies from around the world. But its largest influx of festivalgoers and film industry people comes from Canada’s neighbor to the south.

This year, the festival is taking place just weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump, amid an escalating trade war with Canada, signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”

From the opening night of TIFF, the festival has responded with a mix of disappointment, sarcasm and defiance to the contentious turn in U.S.-Canada relations.

“Welcome to TIFF and welcome to the beautiful shore of — say it with me — Lake Ontario,” Cameron Bailey, chief executive of the festival, said while introducing the disability rights drama “Being Heumann” on opening night.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow also took a jab while noting that “Being Heumann” chronicles the relentless push by disability rights protesters to secure accessibility laws and equal rights.

“It shows us that when people come together and stay tenacious, they can move mountains — even against the might of the U.S. government,” Chow said.

In his second term, Trump has frequently sparred with the Canadian government while seeking new trade terms with the country. In August, Trump said: “Canada’s been ripping us off for a long time.”

Last month, the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Canada responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment. On Sunday, Trump called Canada the “worst country to deal with.”

Following Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario, companies including Google and Apple changed their maps for U.S. users to read “Lake America.” Some news organizations, including The Associated Press, have said they will continue using the name Lake Ontario.

On TIFF stages, many have taken a side.

“I cannot tell you how happy I am to be back on the shores of Lake Ontario,” said the director Peter Farrelly while introducing one of the festival’s top premieres, his Sylvester Stallone drama “I Play Rocky.”

Some films have found themselves unexpectedly speaking to the moment. Canadian writer-director Michael Dowse’s “The Stunt Driver,” starring Jay Baruchel as 1970s Canadian stuntman Ken Carter, is largely set along the waterways separating Canada and the U.S.

The film, which made its world premiere at TIFF, chronicles Carter’s long-held aspiration to jump a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental over the St. Lawrence River, taking off in Morrisburg, Ontario, and landing on the New York side. The movie is a comic and affectionate portrait of a quixotic if mathematically dubious dream.

“The Stunt Driver” got some of its biggest cheers for moments that took on a slight edge considering current U.S.-Canada tensions. In one scene, Baruchel as Carter declares Canadians are “God’s chosen people.”

“Ken Carter was proud of his birthplace and branded himself ‘The Mad Canadian’ and had a penchant for maple leaf T-shirts,” Dowse said. “I hope people get behind the film not only as a great story but also to support homegrown films about a singular fascinating Canadian.”

In the film, Carter resents the more successful Evel Knievel, deriding him for performing while looking like, he says, “a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.” As played by Ben Foster, Knievel makes an appearance in the film, visiting Carter as he plans the jump. But their interaction leads to a nationalistic fight. “The last thing we need,” Carter tells him, “is a Yankee doodle dandy telling us how to do our jobs.”

At TIFF, the audience roared. Dowse grants it’s a moment in the film that now feels “meta.” But while he acknowledged considering making a Lake Ontario remark at the movie’s premiere, he ultimately chose not to.

“I love Americans and this whole trade war feels like bravado on roids,” Dowse said. “I hope they figure out a deal because we are better friends than enemies.”

The action was swift, and without a formal vote, and now leaves it to the Justice Department to decide whether to seek criminal prosecution. Black has refused to respond to the subpoenas' requests to appear and to turn over any potential nondisclosure agreements involving the investigation into Epstein.

Republicans and Democrats from the Oversight Committee joined in a bipartisan effort to advance the resolution forward.

“No one is above the law,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the Oversight Committee chairman, said in a statement. "We will continue to seek transparency for the American people and justice for survivors in our investigation of the federal government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell criminal cases.”

California Rep. Robert Garcia, the panel's top Democrat, called the vote “an important step towards justice and accountability.”

Black's lawyers have denounced the Oversight Committee's pursuit of the former head of a private equity firm as an abuse of congressional power. They said he "had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.”

“The Committee has continued to insist on looking for information that does not exist,” attorneys Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler said in a statement.

They called the action “politically motivated” and have sued the committee and asked the Office of Congressional Conduct to open a probe into Comer's tactics.

“This an outrageous action that ignores the facts and the truth about Mr. Black," they said.

Epstein investigation churns in Congress

Black is the latest among several prominent figures, including Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, who have been asked to appear as part of the Oversight Committee's long-running probe of Epstein. Survivors of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse have told personal stories of being young women in a trafficking enterprise organized by Epstein and his colleague Maxwell.

In June, Black did appear for a voluntary interview at the committee. Lawmakers said later that he refused to answer their questions about the nondisclosure agreements.

The committee issued two subpoenas seeking to compel Black to produce the NDAs and to appear for a deposition July 16. The committee said it had accommodated Black’s request to delay the deposition to Sept. 3, but he refused to appear.

On Tuesday the Oversight Committee voted unanimously to approve the contempt recommendation, sending it to the full House.

Black co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management and stepped down in 2021 during the fallout over his ties to Epstein.

Lawmakers have alleged that Black paid Epstein $180 million during their yearslong relationship.

A 2021 review commissioned by Apollo found that Black paid Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017, after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. The review said the payments were for “bona fide tax, estate planning and other related services.”

Garcia, 20, of Choctaw, had been kicked out of a house in Marathon before he returned to kick a door and threaten people at gunpoint on Tuesday night, according to the MDCSO.

“Garcia bit one of the victims on the arm,” a spokesperson for MDCSO wrote in a statement.

Deputies arrested Garcia at about 9:10 p.m. on Tuesday after thea victim detained him along Knights Key Boulevard, according to MDCSO.

“Garcia urinated himself and attempted to splash that urine on EMS while they were checking his vitals,” the MDCSO spokesperson wrote. “He was medically cleared at Fishermen’s Hospital and taken to jail.”

Garcia faced nine charges: Aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony, armed home invasion robbery, battery, improper exhibition of a firearm, simple assault on EMS, three counts of resisting arrest, and possession of a firearm while intoxicated. His bond was $150,000.

The groups have now reserved more than $130 million in advertising, according to AdImpact, which tracks ad buys and media spending.

The flood shows Trump’s willingness to spend part of his own stockpile on Republican candidates who were desperate for his financial support, but its impact remains uncertain. Advertising rates are higher now, meaning the money may not go as far even though some voters are just starting to tune in.

The spending includes $27 million from Safety and Affordability PAC, a new group that is affiliated with Trump's main political committee, MAGA Inc., according to a person with direct knowledge of the organization who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private plans. The connection was first reported by The New York Times.

The biggest spending, by far, has come from No Going Back, which has reserved more than $98.5 million in advertising. The organization is also connected to MAGA Inc., which had more than $400 million in the bank at the end of July.

MAGA Inc. has reserved $11 million this cycle under its own name.

According to Federal Election Commission records, the Safety and Affordability PAC was formed Sept. 1, the same date as No Going Back PAC. Both list the same treasurer in their filings as MAGA Inc.

A MAGA Inc. spokesperson declined to comment.

The spending comes after Republicans in vulnerable districts had begged the president and his team to come to their aid as the party fights to hold onto the House and Senate in a challenging political environment. The president's approval ratings remain underwater as voters grapple with higher prices, especially for fuel, during the unpopular war with Iran.

The Safety and Affordability PAC appears focused on House races, while No Going Back has invested most heavily in competitive Senate races.

That includes in Michigan, where No Going Back is now the second-biggest Republican spender in a high-profile Senate race, after the Senate Leadership Fund. Former Rep. Mike Rogers is up against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed as Republicans try to flip the seat being vacated by Sen. Gary Peters.

Combined, the two groups are now the biggest spenders in New York’s 17th congressional district, where the party is trying to defend U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is considered one of the nation's most vulnerable Republicans. He's up against Democratic nominee Cait Conley.

There have been costs to waiting. Super PACs like MAGA Inc. and its spinoffs are charged higher rates for television advertising than a candidate’s campaign pays.

The disparity grows in the final 60 days of the campaign, when the individual candidate campaigns qualify by law for a broadcaster’s lowest rates, while super PACs are charged market rates that increase as air time becomes more scarce. That means the spending buys less time than it would have if they had they made the purchases before Sept. 4.

___ Colvin reported from New York.

The Fed increased its benchmark interest rate Wednesday by a quarter-point, the first rate hike since the summer of 2023. The hike will likely make it even costlier to borrow for homes, autos and other purchases. But if you've been socking money away, you’ll probably earn a bit more interest on your savings.

The increase boosts the Fed's target rate to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%.

Here’s what to know:

Why is the Fed raising rates?

The short answer: inflation.

Inflation has remained above the Fed's 2% target for more than five years. The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices rose 3.4% in August compared to a year earlier, while the monthly increase quadrupled from July to hit 0.4%.

The Fed’s goal is to slow consumer and business spending by raising the cost of borrowing, thereby reducing demand for homes, cars and other goods and services, eventually cooling the economy and reducing upward pressure on prices.

Kevin Warsh, Fed chair since May, has assured Congress that central bank policymakers “have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation.”

Speaking to reporters Wednesday after the Fed's meeting, Warsh argued that the rate hike will benefit lower-income Americans because they are hurt most by higher prices. “The least well off are the ones that have the most to gain from stable prices,'' he said. "The decision we made today was the right decision to deliver on the remit that Congress gave us to ensure stable prices.”

Which consumers are most affected?

Anyone borrowing money to make a sizable purchase, such as a home, car or large appliance, will likely take a hit eventually. The new rate will also increase monthly payments and costs for any consumer who is already paying interest on credit card debt.

Then again, said Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at the online loan marketplace LendingTree, “the reality is that a single quarter-point rate increase isn't really going to have a huge impact.'' But it would be different if Wednesday's hike marks the first in a series of rate increases. ”When this all becomes impactful to people is when you stack a few these on top of each other over time, and it adds up to something bigger," Schulz said.

Fed policymakers signaled Wednesday that they expect to hike the benchmark rate again this year — to 4.1%.

For now, U.S. household debt payments are relatively low overall as a percentage of after-tax income. So even if borrowing rates rise, many households might not feel a heavier debt burden immediately.

Do savers get a break?

Most likely. Wednesday’s move probably means interest rates on savings accounts and certificates of deposit are headed higher. The Fed doesn’t set rates on savings accounts and CDs but it “sets the tone″ for them, the credit reporting agency Experian says. When the central bank started raising rates to combat an outbreak of inflation in March 2022, the average rate on a 1-year CD was stuck at a miserly 0.15%, according to FDIC data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The rate shot up to 1.88% by September 2024 and has remained above 1.5% ever since. It was 1.71% last month.

Online banks and others that offer high-yield savings accounts typically compete aggressively for depositors. (The catch: They sometimes require significantly larger deposits.)

What does this mean for mortgage rates?

Mortgage rates don’t necessarily follow what the Fed does. At least not directly. They tend to track the yield on 10-year Treasury notes instead. Unfortunately for home shoppers, 10-year yields have been surging. On Monday they topped 5% for the first time since 2023 due to unease over surging energy prices and massive government debt that continues to grow. Treasury yields have continued to rise despite an intervention from the Treasury after Secretary Scott Bessent ordered the U.S. to buy back government bonds in a bid to push yields down.

The rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 6.76% last week, the highest in more than 14 months, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said.

The high cost of home loans is already taking a toll on the housing market. The Realtors association reported last week that sales of previously occupied U.S. homes dropped for the third straight month in August, growing at the slowest pace in more than a year.

Adjustable-rate mortgages could rise in order to price in a Fed hike. But many homeowners locked in low mortgage rates when COVID-19 slammed the economy and sent borrowing costs tumbling; so they are protected if mortgage rates rise in the wake of a Fed raTte hike. The National Association of Realtors reports that nearly half of mortgages outstanding are locked in at 4% or lower and almost a fifth were at 3% or lower in the first three months of 2026.

And credit-card rates?

Most credit cards have variable interest rates that track the prime rate banks charge their best customers. And the prime rate responds quickly — within a month — when the Fed raises or lowers its benchmark “fed funds" rate, ”meaning that the Fed’s policy changes flow through to credit card rates rapidly,'' researchers at the Boston Fed wrote in March.

Schulz at LendingTree reckons that most credit cardholders will see their rates rise by a quarter-point over the next couple of months.

Many Americans, coping with the high cost of living, are increasingly relying on credit cards to help maintain their spending. Total credit card balances hit $1.26 trillion in the second quarter — near the record $1.28 trillion set at the end of 2025 (though the numbers are not adjusted for inflation), according to the New York Fed.

Car loans, too?

The Fed indirectly influences auto loan rates by influencing the prime rate. Cars, especially new ones, are already prohibitively expensive. The average cost of a new car rose to $50,089 last month, according to Kelley Blue Book. The average loan rate last month was 7% for a new car and 10.6% for a used car, according to Edmunds. And the average monthly payment, Experian reported, was $765 in the second quarter of 2026.

“Most Americans are generally doing OK,'' Schulz said. ”But it wouldn’t take a whole lot for them to not be doing OK. People’s financial margin for error is generally pretty small, and just the rising cost of most everything just squeezes them more and more.''

The steep-sided hole — about 728 feet (222 meters) across and up to 141 feet (43 meters) deep — is the solar system’s biggest known impact crater carved out in recent times.

Such a large-scale event is estimated to occur only once every 132 years, researchers said, making this a treasure trove of information as NASA prepares to build a base for astronauts on the moon.

“This event constitutes a statistically rare, effectively once-in-a-lifetime observation,” the scientists wrote in one of two studies appearing on the subject Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the crater on the moon’s near side in May 2024 soon after it was formed by an incoming fragment of an asteroid or comet. The moon strike escaped real-time detection by telescopes on Earth and in space.

LRO's wide-angle images were not identified in the crush of data until August 2025. The spacecraft gathered more detailed pictures last fall, followed by confirmation of the discovery early this year.

The crater — named for the late Thomas McGetchin, a former director of Houston’s Lunar and Planetary Institute — is three times bigger than the previous record-holder found by the LRO a decade ago. Pockmarked since ancient times, the moon bears some of the solar system's largest impact craters, including one that stretches more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) across.

This latest impact churned the lunar surface for more than 66 miles (100 kilometers). Dust and rocky soil were hurled away at a higher angle than expected, according to Mark Robinson, chief scientist for the LRO’s cameras who works at Intuitive Machines. Robinson was the lead author for one of the studies.

A separate study identified a 4-mile-wide (7-kilometer-wide) cold spot around the new crater, consistent with a loosening of the moon’s top soil. Co-author David Paige of the University of California, Los Angeles, likens it to gardening.

“We’re now thinking of impacts as a way to garden the regolith — churning the sediments and putting stuff above that’s usually below the surface,” Paige said in a statement.

The LRO’s numerous crater discoveries since its launch in 2009 show that the moon’s top inch (2 centimeters) of soil is being overturned by ejected material every 80,000 years, faster than previously thought, according to Robinson.

Contrary to the popular belief that the Apollo moonwalkers’ dusty lunar footprints will last forever, they will “definitely be long gone in that time frame,” Robinson said in an email.

The next step is to calculate the risk of ejected crater material striking NASA's planned moon base, he added. “That information will help engineers harden structures so one won’t have to worry about damage, or maybe worry less.”

___

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.

Researchers once thought that dinosaurs were sluggish, cold-blooded creatures. Later findings challenged that, suggesting that older dinosaurs were warm-blooded and could control their body temperature.

Most scientists agree that Tyrannosaurus rex was warm-blooded, but pinning down the exact core temperature of an extinct creature is difficult.

“We can't just use a thermometer to do that,” said Jasmina Wiemann, a paleobiologist at Johns Hopkins University who had no role in the latest work.

Scientists tried other methods like studying how T. rex grew or searching for clues in its bones, but a firm number eluded them.

In a new study, researchers hunted for chemical clues in the fearsome predator's teeth. It turns out that atoms within the enamel clump together in different patterns based on an animal's body temperature.

“We figured out how warm the most famous animal of all, a T. rex, was,” said co-author Aradhna Tripati, a geochemist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Readings from three teeth revealed an average body temperature of about 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius). That's similar to modern elephants and not too far from the average body temperature of humans, which ranges from 97 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit (36 to 37 degrees Celsius).

The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

“I almost would have expected a higher body temperature,” Wiemann said. Based on her prior work, she thought the predator could have run a few degrees hotter — similar to modern birds, dinosaurs' warm-blooded descendants.

Knowing how hot or cold the T. rex was can help scientists piece together how the dinosaur might have lived.

At 97 degrees (36 degrees Celsius), T. rex could have lived across most of prehistoric North America, Tripati said, maintaining a stable internal thermometer across both cooler and hotter regions. The findings could also shed light on the kinds of prey the dinosaur had to hunt in order to keep its energy up.

Scientists say it'll be important to test these methods on other dinosaurs to see how warm or cold they ran. It's possible T. rex's temperature could have been one of the keys to its dominance as one of the dinosaur age's top predators.

“There's lots of interesting, charismatic species that could be explored using this,” said study co-author Robert Eagle, a geobiologist at UCLA.

—-

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.

Her literary agent, Rob McQuilkin, said Dillard died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Starting in the mid-1970s, Dillard completed a wide range of books, from the poetry collection “Tickets for a Prayer Wheel” to what she would call the “jolly journalism” of “Encounters with Chinese Writers” to the novel of marriage, “The Maytrees,” a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award in 2008. Seven years later, President Barack Obama presented her with a National Humanities Medal for her “profound reflections on human life and nature.”

Born Meta Ann Doak, she was a Pittsburgh native who in the 1987 memoir “An American Childhood” looked back at her early years and on her uniquely curious mind. She was raised by nonconformists who gave her a wide range to learn and to discover, and she remembered with awe her growing sense of knowledge and self-knowledge. Resistant for much of her life to organized religion, she would find the eternal in animals, mountains, her mother’s skin and in everyday objects. At age 13, she wrote, she was reading “books on drawing, painting, rocks, criminology, birds, moths, beetles, stamps, ponds and streams, medicine.”

Dillard had yet to turn 30 when “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” established her as a major, new literary voice and heir to Henry David Thoreau as a sensitive and idiosyncratic observer of the natural world. Published in 1974 and winner of the Pulitzer for nonfiction, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” drew upon Dillard's private writings about the surroundings of her home in Roanoke, Virginia. Invoking Thoreau, about whom she wrote her master's thesis at Hollins College, she called her book “a meteorological journal of the mind,” in which she would explore “some of the sights of this rather tamed valley.”

“I am no scientist,” she wrote, likening herself to “an infant who has just learned to hold his head up” and gaze about “in bewilderment.”

“He hasn't the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to learn. In a couple of years, what he will have learned instead is how to fake it: he'll have the cocksure air of a squatter who has come to feel he owns the place,” she wrote.

Dillard taught for more than 20 years at Wesleyan University before retiring in 2002. She was married three times, most recently to the late literary biographer Robert Richardson, whom she met after sending him a fan letter admiring his biography of Thoreau. She had one child, Cody, with second husband Gary Clevidence. Her first husband was creative writing teacher Richard Dillard, whom she divorced in 1975 after 10 years of marriage.

Carney and Burnham held bilateral talks in a luxury suite overlooking the pitch at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool before watching the club face Wolverhampton in the third round of the League Cup.

The setting adds a personal element to their first face-to-face meeting. Burnham is a lifelong Everton supporter and season-ticket holder, while Carney has said cousins in Liverpool led him to support the club. Carney attended Everton matches while living in Britain during his seven years as governor of the Bank of England.

Burnham welcomed Carney to Liverpool and joked that he was glad to finally have someone “to talk to and commiserate about Everton at a G7 meeting.”

The meeting also took on a personal note following the recent death of Burnham’s father from Alzheimer’s disease. Both leaders wore Alzheimer's Society brooches, and Carney revealed that his father also died from the disease.

“So, I know that struggle,” Carney told Burnham.

After meeting for about 20 minutes, Carney and Burnham emerged wearing matching Everton scarves to applause from some fans. They shook hands and posed for selfies before the match began.

A senior Canadian government official said Carney and Burnham were expected to discuss a Canadian-backed proposal to combine competing plans for an international defense bank that could help NATO allies finance increased military spending and defense production.

Canada has championed the proposed Defense, Security and Resilience Bank, while Britain has pursued a separate multilateral defense financing initiative. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the meeting publicly, said Ottawa believes the proposals could be brought together.

The leaders were also expected to discuss a potentially expanded Canadian role in the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, as well as cooperation on drones, artificial intelligence, satellite communications, critical minerals and quantum technology.

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Troopers said the crash happened at about 4:50 a.m. near Southwest 216th Street.

They said the driver of a Honda Civic was traveling south on the Turnpike when the driver struck a man who was standing outside a vehicle stopped on the right emergency shoulder.

The man, who has not been identified at this time, died at the scene from his injuries, according to investigators.

Authorities said the southbound lanes of the Turnpike were closed at Southwest 216th Street while authorities investigated the crash.

The crash happened around 9:45 a.m. near 3900 Northeast Fifth Avenue, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office. Deputies said the driver lost control of the car, which then crashed into the pole.

Sky 10 flew over the scene around 10:35 a.m. as deputies and fire rescue crews examined the car involved in the rollover crash.

Authorities have not released the children’s ages, genders or identities.

Deputies confirmed that the driver is being cited for driving without a license.

Authorities said the crash also caused a power line to fall onto several cars in the area and a Florida Power & Light worker responded to the downed power line.

No other details about the crash were immediately released.

The bill is named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who spent more than a year negotiating it. The measure was approved in a 262-159 vote and now heads to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

The legislation represents the most ambitious effort to support Ukraine since President Donald Trump's return to the White House and would break nearly two years of relative gridlock on the issue following a 2024 emergency aid package. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing for the bill's passage and made a direct appeal to senators shortly before they passed it last month.

The measure sanctions Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy moving. It also directs Trump to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia’s natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports.

“These countries have a choice to make about whether they will continue to sustain Putin's aggression,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

Democrats are divided on the legislation

Supporters said the provision is aimed at deterring China and India from purchasing Russian energy, but critics of the bill said they fear Trump will use it to target allies in the European Union and elsewhere. Americans, they warned, would pay the price for such tariffs through higher prices at the cash register.

“This president has always said he loves tariffs,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. “And we know the history of what he's done with reference to tariffs to our European allies, and our allies everywhere.”

Democrats were divided on the bill, despite overwhelming support in the caucus for aiding Ukraine. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told colleagues they can't control what the president does, but they can stand up and declare where they are on the war.

“If we fail to pass this bill, there will be cheers in the Kremlin and tears in Kyiv,” Hoyer said.

But Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., predicted Ukraine supporters would come to regret voting for the bill

“Yes they will be able to say ‘we stood with Ukraine’ in the immediate aftermath,” Beyer said. “But when Donald Trump hits our allies with new tariffs and waives sanctions on Russia, the propaganda victory for Putin will be lasting, and the damage will be embedded in U.S. law.”

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, speaking in opposition to the bill, said Democrats would continue to support the Ukrainian people until victory is won, “but this bill does not provide a path to secure that.”

Getting Trump onboard has been a long process

Congress has struggled to ensure the flow of U.S. funding and munitions to Ukraine as Republican support for spending billions of dollars more on the effort has waned. Trump routinely derided the Ukraine aid while campaigning for the White House and insisted that, if elected, he would quickly end the war launched by Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.

It took Graham essentially a full year to bring Trump on board with the Russia sanctions package. Eventually, Trump gave a nod to the bill after it included his push for a five-year extension of existing sanctions on Iran. Republicans speaking on the House floor in advance of Wednesday's vote were overwhelmingly supportive of the package.

Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., acknowledged Democratic criticism that tariffs could be used aggressively on smaller U.S. allies, but said it was time to deliver a resounding message to the Kremlin: “End this war, get out of Ukraine, focus on rebuilding your shattered international reputation and your destroyed economy."

The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill by a vote of 86-11 last month, but momentum slowed in the House. Republican leadership focused on other priorities, namely bills designed to put Democrats on defense going into the midterms. Meanwhile, a chorus of key Democratic lawmakers voiced alarm about the bill's tariff provisions.

Passage of the bill in the House came on the final day that the chamber is expected to be in session for votes before the Nov. 3 elections.

Leading up to the vote, Zelenskyy took to social media urging the House to pass the bill. He said during war it is sometimes better to “make a not-so-perfect decision than to do nothing.”

“And this is a very important historical moment for the United States. The bill must be passed, voted on, and supported,” Zelenskyy said on X. “Beyond that, strong decisions from the U.S. Administration are important. Personal decisions by President Trump. I very much hope we will see that.”

From legacy brands to emerging talents, designers including Tory Burch, Ralph Lauren and Eckhaus Latta brought joy back to dressing with sartorial twists on color, movement and contrasts that could easily transition off the Spring/Summer 2027 catwalks and into New York’s busy streets.

While New York Fashion Week is only the first stop for celebrities and fashion editors before seeing what London, Milan and Paris have in store, the celebratory tone is bound to be contagious.

The joy of dressing

Designers had a lot to celebrate, with many marking career milestones: Rachel Comey notched 25 years, Michael Kors and Carolina Herrera reveled in 45-year anniversaries for their brands, and Coach hit a storied 85 years.

Coach sent models down the runway in party hats, glittering gowns with colorful large bow trains, and gift-wrapped present accessories for its anniversary.

InStyle Fashion director Kevin Huynh said designers are waving goodbye to the quiet luxury era and leaning into vibrancy.

“We’re really stepping into like, more is more,” he told The Associated Press, “but not in that dopamine dressing where everything feels haphazardly put on, but like a real sense of vibrancy and excitement.”

At Eckhaus Latta, designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta feted their J.Crew collaboration with confetti. Guests were told to open envelopes on their seats at the sound of laughter during the second half of their show and toss rainbow confetti onto the runway.

“Designers are really trying to kind of have fun and show the power that fashion can have in uplifting and inspiring people,” Matthew Velasco, ELLE’s fashion news editor, said.

Tory Burch embraced joyful dressing as a sense of escape, with models in color-blocked embellished looks strutting around a circular indoor catwalk that surrounded an outdoor garden with fountains. Burch said she wanted to contrast opulent femininity with utilitarian sportswear. Her collection featured embroidered cardigans with brightly colored skirts, boa-like thin scarves and a turquoise coat with a matching bag.

“I think when things are a bit more rough in the world you need to dream,” Burch said.

Ralph Lauren opened New York Fashion Week by bringing romance and a celebration of style to the runway.

“It’s about ways of dressing that celebrate ingenuity, originality, and character — the freedom and fun of creating a style that is truly personal,” he said in his show notes.

Michael Kors had the optimism to stage his show outside in the garden at the Museum of Modern Art, where a bright orange trench coat and sunny yellow shoes popped against his black and white looks.

Thom Browne, who often leans into whimsy, created a show inspired by “A Bug's Life,” with a giant indoor garden and models dripping in green crystals that hung from layered suiting. Some channeled actual ladybugs and butterflies with giant colorful hoop skirts, and jackets that looked like cocoons, eliciting smiles from the crowd.

Collections filled with shades of blue

Designers may not be feeling blue this season, but the color was certainly interwoven throughout their collections.

Ralph Lauren played with a palette of blues — from his classic denim to satin and lace gowns, to suiting and blue fur and feather collars. Tommy Hilfiger said he often takes his inspiration from nautical flags, so primary colors — including navy — were prevalent on classic and oversized blazers and rugby shirt stripes on his runway at The Plaza Hotel. Tory Burch styled turquoise and navy, and Henry Zankov delivered teal on the runway this season for Diane von Furstenberg.

After a decade-long gap, the Diane von Furstenberg line returned to New York Fashion Week with Zankov unveiling his first collection as artistic director for the brand. Known for his namesake knitwear brand, Zankov highlighted animal prints on von Furstenberg’s signature wrap designs, while incorporating sheer blouses and dresses along with fluid suiting.

“You want to feel alive,” Huynh said, “like we’re coming out of the cold of winter, and color is such an easy way to accomplish that.”

“Chartreuse had its moment, but teal is something that feels really refined,” he added.

Cobalt blue or Klein Blue — made famous by artist Yves Klein — also took over the runways with Proenza Schouler and Sergio Hudson including the color in their collections.

Accentuating the waist

All eyes were on waistlines this season as designers sent models down runways in cummerbunds, scarves and chunky belts.

For Daniella Kallmeyer of Kallmeyer, the designer added a cummerbund to a buttoned-down blue top over trousers, as well as a white cummerbund embellished with white beading over an all-black suited look.

“It’s that injection of androgyny with a cummerbund in womenswear that feels exciting and edgy,” Huynh said.

At Ralph Lauren, the designer wrapped fringed scarves around the models to break up an all-white look or add a pop of color to the waistline.

Fringing out

After shedding the constraints of winter coats and layers, designers introduced a freedom of movement and fluidity to their collections with fringe.

Asymmetrical dresses swayed with fringe at Jonathan Simkhai while shimmering fringe peeked out from an all-black look at Rachel Comey.

In a twist on tailoring, jackets dripping with fringe made their way down the runway at Monse.

“I always am a firm believer that with the Spring/Summer shows, designers really flex their prowess a little bit more than fall,” Huynh said. “You’re really getting the full spectrum of a woman and a man’s wardrobe.”

The board's vote on Tuesday came after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning President Donald Trump’s name to the building.

The Republican president had said in a social media post that the closure was needed for safety repairs. But he said the repairs, which Congress has allocated $257 million to cover, would only happen if the board was permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.

Activists who have opposed the closure said there has been no vehicle or pedestrian access to the building Wednesday. An Associated Press reporter who approached the main building was told by a security guard that it was closed.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board, requested an emergency court hearing Wednesday regarding what she called Trump’s “unlawful closure of the Kennedy Center.” Beatty has led efforts to block Trump’s name from being added to the building, and had a verbal confrontation with Trump Tuesday during a virtual board meeting.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the Kennedy Center to respond to Beatty’s motion by Thursday morning, saying he would schedule a prompt hearing if necessary.

Trump, who was named the Kennedy Center’s chairman last year by loyalists on the board, said on social media Tuesday that he’d given $17 million to an endowment intended to support the institution.

A staff member for a legal team representing Beatty was denied entrance to the building on Wednesday, Beatty’s lawyers said in a court filing. The staffer “was informed by several security staff members that the building is currently closed to the public,” the filing said.

“Given the unexplained and unlawful closure, it is possible Defendants intend to undertake immediate steps in order to make public access practically impossible for the foreseeable future, including by demolishing public avenues of access to the building, and thereby evade the court’s order,″ the filing said.

Laura Bligh, who has attended protests with the advocacy group “Hands Off the Arts,” said she feared some or all of the building may be torn down before the legal case is concluded.

"The worst case scenario is a wrecking ball,” she said, adding that the Trump administration can’t be trusted because “look what they did to the East Wing.”

The administration demolished the East Wing of the White House and is replacing it with a massive ballroom. Trump also plans to build a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and is eyeing a golf course renovation along the Potomac River.

Judge shoots down Trump requests to add name to building, plaza

The Kennedy Center board voted in August to inscribe his name on the Kennedy Center’s facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” If the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million, another inscription would be added reading “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”

The plaza in front of the Kennedy Center would also be renamed in Trump’s honor.

All of those proposals were shot down Tuesday by Cooper, who ruled that nothing could happen “without Congress's blessing.”

Cooper ruled in May that the Kennedy Center illegally added Trump’s name to the building, ordering it removed. The institution’s leaders complied in June but left a tarp and scaffolding in place where Trump’s name was once displayed.

Roma Daravi, a spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, did not respond to requests for comment. But she wrote on social media that the building must be closed for safety reasons. A chunk of ceiling fell inside a main hallway of the 55-year-old building earlier this month. The partial collapse intensified calls for renovations.

“Compounding systemic infrastructure failures from decades of neglect have left a crumbling building and safety concerns require an immediate closure of @TKCOfficial main building,'' she wrote Wednesday on X. ”Chairman @realDonaldTrump continues to support this great American institution while legal battles halt the progress to save it."

Maria Shriver, John F. Kennedy's niece and former first lady of California, called the standoff over the name “a sad state of affairs” and a “tragedy.”

She said in a post on X that it appears Trump “will not rest until his name is permanently connected to the name of a great president, whose memory this building was dedicated to.”

“Imagine spending your days focused on this, while a war rages under your leadership,” she added.

Police said the shooting happened just after midnight Aug. 21 in the 700 block Northwest 53rd Street. Police said they found six shell casings on the ground and discovered a bullet had struck a nearby home, going through the garage door. They said no one inside the home was hurt.

According to police, the shooting followed a planned fight between two groups of young women. People began arriving by car, and the confrontation grew into a larger fight involving several people, police said.

According to an arrest report, one woman who was at the scene told police she saw Charles Denis Jr., 22, holding a small black handgun during the fight.

She said Denis also hit another woman in the head and arm with a golf club, the report states.

The woman told investigators that the co-defendant, identified as 37-year-old Taji Cozart Thrasher, then told Denis, “Give me the gun. I’m going to shoot that s--t,” according to Denis’ arrest report.

The report states that Denis removed the gun from his pocket and handed it to Cozart Thrasher.

Cozart Thrasher then shot the gun once toward the ground in the direction of the woman before she fled on foot, according to the report.

About four seconds later, the woman told police that she saw Cozart Thrasher chasing after her as he fired about four more shots.

Denis and Cozart Thrasher then fled the scene on foot, heading northbound on Northwest Seventh Court, according to the arrest report.

A second woman told police she arrived at the scene after her daughter called saying she was going to fight. She said she witnessed the shooting before leaving the area, police said.

Authorities said a witness at the scene identified both Denis and Cozart Thrasher from a photo shown to her by police. She told investigators she had known Denis for most of her life.

The report states that Denis was brought in for questioning after his arrest Tuesday. Police said he denied having a gun or giving one to Cozart Thrasher.

Jail records show he is facing one count each of attempted second-degree murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, discharging a firearm in public, improperly exhibiting a weapon, shooting or throwing a deadly missile and being an accessory after the fact.

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

Cozart Thrasher had not yet been listed on the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation website as of Wednesday afternoon, and his charges had not yet been released.

With the $1-per-hour increase across the board for these workers who do jobs like pack and ship orders, the average pay for these employees will reach nearly $24 per hour, the company said Wednesday. The retailer said the average total compensation will be more than $32 an hour including the value of its benefits package.

The pay increase is effective starting Sept. 27, the retailer said.

Amazon also said Wednesday that employees will receive new benefits such as a 10% discount on eligible fresh groceries and everyday essentials at Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market online as well as 20% off at Whole Foods physical stores. The discount can be combined with existing Prime member discounts, the retailer said.

The discount will be available to every Amazon employee in the U.S. starting Oct. 1, the company said.

Amazon also said it's rolling out access to qualified employees and their families for a membership in First Tech Federal Credit Union that provides low-cost banking services they can keep for life. Employees can access accounts with no overdraft or monthly maintenance. The company said no credit history is required to open a checking and savings account.

The rollout will start later this year.

In comparison, Walmart last year expanded its 10% employee discount to include nearly all grocery purchases at its stores and online. The discount had previously applied to fresh groceries and general merchandise but didn't include such groceries as milk, pasta, or meat except during the November and December holiday shopping period.

At Walmart, the starting pay for hourly store workers is $14, with U.S. hourly employees making more than $18.50 on average, according to Walmart. Walmart also noted that the average hourly starting wage is $16.

For Walmart warehouse and other supply network workers, the average hourly wage is $27.50 and the average hourly starting wage is $24.75.

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This story has been corrected to show that Walmart hourly pay is $14 for store workers, not all workers.

Sebastien Lai urged his father’s release on humanitarian grounds at a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. A Hong Kong court sentenced Lai to 20 years in prison in February following his conviction under a Beijing-imposed national security law.

On the same day, Sylvia Zin, the wife of a U.S. scholar who has been detained in China for more than three months, appeared before a House foreign affairs subcommittee, asking for help to free her husband, Min Zin.

“I’m deeply hopeful that President Trump will raise my husband’s case with President XI Jinping during the summit next week,” she said.

Zin is one of two U.S. citizens that the State Department considers wrongfully detained in China. The other one is Youlin Chen, a Chinese-born American seismologist who has been detained in China for nearly two years. Their cases are considered a high diplomatic priority for the U.S. government.

Trump secured the release of Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri after meeting with Xi in Beijing in May. Trump also raised Lai's case with Xi but said it was a tough one.

The family now is making another push.

“Let Jimmy Lai come home to his family and let him sit beside his daughter in her hardest moment,” his son said, describing his father as “a 78-year-old man who has already suffered enough.”

Lai, a prominent critic of Beijing, founded a pro-democracy newspaper that was shut down during a crackdown following the city’s massive anti-government protests in 2019.

“At 78, he is the oldest political prisoner in Hong Kong, with his 20-year sentence looming over him. If he’s not freed soon, he will most likely die in prison,” his son said.

Xi and Trump are expected to meet in Washington on Sept. 24. It would be Xi's first visit to Washington in more than a decade. He last visited the United States in 2023, when he attended the APEC summit in San Francisco.

Lai’s daughter, Claire, did not appear at Wednesday's hearing after being diagnosed with cancer. Her brother said she began chemotherapy in London last week.

A federal jury in Virginia had convicted Mohammad Sharifullah in April of providing material support to the IS affiliate known as ISIS-K. But jurors could not agree whether he bore some responsibility for the airport bombing on Aug. 26, 2021.

U.S. troops were conducting an evacuation operation at the airport when a lone suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device near an entry point known as Abbey Gate. Sharifullah’s role in the attack was scouting a route to Hamid Karzai International Airport, prosecutors said.

Sharifullah, 28, received the maximum sentence for his one-count conviction in an international terrorism case that President Donald Trump heralded last year during a speech to a joint session of Congress.

Sharifullah did not testify at his trial and declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga imposed the sentence. The judge said the defendant was a “dedicated terrorist” who expressed no remorse for the “unfathomable” grief and suffering that he had caused.

Trenga heard victim impact statements from several parents of the U.S. service members. From a podium only a few feet from where Sharifullah sat, they took turns paying tribute to their children's sacrifices and describing how the attack has shattered their families.

Mark Schmitz of Missouri asked Sharifullah to turn and look at him as he spoke about the life and death of his 20-year-old son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz.

“They may have taken his life, but they'll never take his legacy," Schmitz said. “A bomb killed my son. It did not kill what he stood for.”

Paula Knauss-Selph, whose son, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, was killed in the Abbey Gate bombing, said the family was “forever changed" by the attack.

“No justice will ever be enough to mend my broken heart,” she said.

Sharifullah requested a 17-year prison sentence, while prosecutors sought 20 years. His lawyers say he was never an ISIS-K leader and has not been convicted of any conduct related to the airport suicide bombing.

"He was brought here because the government believed he participated in the Abbey Gate attack, a theory which it was unable to prove at trial,” defense attorneys wrote.

Prosecutors said in their sentencing memo that “from his teenage years, when he pledged an oath of allegiance to ISIS-K, Sharifullah’s carnage was driven by hate. Hate towards Americans.”

Jurors convicted Sharifullah of providing material support to ISIS-K. They deadlocked on whether any deaths at the airport “resulted from” that conspiracy. Sharifullah could have faced a possible life sentence if the jury had unanimously decided that question.

According to prosecutors, Sharifullah told a journalist that he wanted to “catch and kill the crusaders” from the United States for invading his country after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They said Sharifullah was involved in dozens of other attacks, including a March 2024 assault on a Moscow concert hall that killed roughly 140 people.

Defense lawyers argued that prosecutors failed to present any evidence tying Sharifullah to the Kabul bombing besides his own words during hours of FBI questioning. His team said Sharifullah told FBI agents what he thought they wanted to hear, possibly because he was afraid of being tortured in Pakistani custody before he was brought to the U.S.

A review by U.S. Central Command found that the Abbey Gate bomber was Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an IS member who had been released from an Afghan prison by the Taliban. According to an FBI affidavit. Sharifullah recognized the alleged bomber as an operative he had known while incarcerated.

It was the second such arrest of people on federal fraud charges in Southern California this week, as President Donald Trump's administration tries to emphasize a crackdown on fraud and waste in government and aid programs. On Tuesday, 12 people were charged with stealing more than $10 million in federal childcare aid.

The three defendants each worked for or ran Southern California-based nonprofit organizations, which often contracted with city, county, state or federal agencies to provide aid or money to find housing and social services for homeless people. Prosecutors allege that the defendants used funds from those contracts to pay personal expenses, accepted bribes, and billed for services that were never provided.

“Make no mistake, HUD and the Trump administration will not tolerate the theft and abuse of taxpayers in this country,” Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner said at a news conference.

Turner used the indictments to accuse the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which approved grants to these defendants, of being negligent with taxpayer dollars.

Taxpayer aid spent on video games, nightclubs

Two defendants, Lakiya Malone, 48, and Michael Young, 46, were arrested early Wednesday in Los Angeles. A third defendant charged with wire fraud, Donye Mitchell, 55, is considered a fugitive.

Young is the founder of Home At Last, a nonprofit that took in more than $118 million in public funds since 2019 for its stated mission of providing housing and aid to homeless people.

Federal prosecutors say Young instead created shell companies that he claimed were independent contractors but were, in fact, controlled by him. This alleged self-dealing allowed Young to be paid both at Home At Last and overbill federal and local authorities, prosecutors said. They say Young misused an estimated $7.5 million in taxpayer funds through fake contractors and vendors.

Young used the proceeds to take luxury trips to Tahiti, and used funds to open a nightclub in Inglewood called the Six Seven Five Lounge and other commercial real estate projects, prosecutors allege.

Mitchell is the CEO of Big Blue Umbrella, which was awarded more than $1.2 million from a federally supported nonprofit for housing and mental healthcare aid. Prosecutors say Mitchell not only misstated his organization’s ability to provide such services, but also used money from the award to pay off his credit card debts, give funds to family members, buy video games and pay legal expenses for an unrelated case.

Malone was charged with accepting more than $180,000 in bribes from another homelessness-aid nonprofit. Malone allegedly not only accepted bribes but also placed people in homeless aid programs who weren’t homeless.

Separately, federal prosecutors announced that a fourth person pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges for stealing at least $2 million in homeless aid. Alexander Soofer, the executive director of Abundant Blessings, admitted to working with Malone to bill federal and state authorities for homelessness aid services when there were no participants in his programs.

Big money, little documentation

Some 72,000 to 75,000 people live in shelters or encampments in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, making it one of the largest homeless populations in the country. It has been a significant issue in Southern California for years, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made it a cornerstone of her 2022 election campaign.

City and county authorities spend roughly $1 billion a year trying to help the homeless population, often using LAHSA to coordinate aid. While significant funds are spent to address the issue, city and county reviews have repeatedly found that the programs lacked appropriate recordkeeping, audit trails and documentation.

Nathan Hochman, the district attorney for Los Angeles County, told reporters that the public should expect more investigations and indictments into the misuse of homeless aid funds. Hochman’s office's investigation into Soofer and Abundant Blessings led to his indictment earlier this year.

“I can assure this is the beginning of these prosecutions and we are far, far from the end,” he said, adding that his office's investigation had found that the only “abundant blessings” Soofer provided were to his friends and family.

Some of the Trump administration's efforts to go after fraud and abuse of government benefit programs have faced criticism and legal challenges. In December, Vice President JD Vance, who chairs the administration’s task force on the subject, amplified a YouTube video of a popular right-wing influencer accusing childcare providers in Minnesota, many of them immigrants from Somalia, of running scams. State authorities visited the centers and found nearly all of them operating normally.

Nonetheless, the administration launched a massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Officials later attempted to freeze federal funds for childcare in five Democratic-led states but were halted by a lawsuit.

The moves, announced Wednesday as players report to training camp, are the latest additions to the front office by new GM Sunny Mehta.

Campbell joins the Devils after spending the previous two seasons as an assistant coach with the Seattle Kraken. Campbell was the first woman to serve as an on-bench full-time assistant coach in the NHL.

She and McCabe are set to report to assistant GM Braden Birch, who joined Mehta from the Florida Panthers. McCabe also comes from Florida, where he was director of player personnel.

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See AP’s full NHL coverage here

The directive, in a Sept. 10 memo reviewed by The Associated Press, could mean that some victims would be denied services and face tougher odds of obtaining asylum and visas allowing them to stay in the United States.

“This is going to harm children,” said Jean Bruggeman, co-executive director of Freedom Network USA, a coalition that advocates for human trafficking survivors. "This makes it more likely they will be deported before they get the services they need and put back into harm's way."

The order added another plank to the Trump administration's hard-line immigration agenda that has forged the most restrictive policies toward immigrants in more than a generation. Some of those efforts have been stopped by courts but many others have taken root.

The memo said the change would “streamline the reporting, tracking and referral of trafficking-related concerns.” An administration statement said the change was an effort to reduce the high number of claims that did not rise to the level of criminal human trafficking but nonetheless triggered the award of benefits and relief.

But Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said the change requires children and their advocates to report human trafficking to the same agency that is holding them in custody. “This move to sideline human trafficking experts is more evidence that the Trump administration will deport kids to score political points rather than actually protect them,” he said.

Office has helped thousands of trafficking victims

The change applies to 1,800 children who are in federal custody after arriving in the United States without parents or being arrested with parents who were not legally present, and others who have been released but remain under supervision.

Under longstanding policy, caregivers are required to conduct an initial screening of unaccompanied children for potential labor or sex trafficking within five days of admission to a facility or shelter. If they suspect the child is a victim, they have been required within 24 hours to notify the Office of Trafficking in Persons, which was created in 2015 to prevent human trafficking and protect victims.

If the office certifies the claim, the minors become eligible for a program that gives them greater freedom by allowing them to move out of short-term housing, placing them in foster care and allowing them to attend public school. It does not protect them from deportation immediately, but they can use the determination to pursue visas for victims of trafficking or asylum claims. It also grants eligibility for nutrition, housing and other public benefits once they are released from federal custody.

Thousands of unaccompanied minors have benefited from the office's determinations. They are particularly susceptible to labor and sex trafficking, including in their home countries, on their way to the U.S. and after they arrive, and that's why Congress has given them protections, Bruggeman said.

Administration says change will target improper claims

Under the change ordered last week by the administration, federal employees and care providers were told to no longer report labor and sex trafficking claims involving the minors to the Office on Trafficking in Persons.

Instead, the memo said those claims should be submitted only to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the housing of unaccompanied minors. That office will now investigate the claims and decide which ones should be forwarded to the Office on Trafficking in Persons for further review, the memo said, warning that providers “must respond promptly to requests for information.”

In a statement, the Office of Refugee Resettlement said the change was driven by a review last year that found 95% of more than 9,000 reports “were determined not to be viable trafficking leads" for criminal investigators.

“The vast majority of the reports detailed instances of alleged abuse or neglect, not forced labor or commercial sex as defined in human trafficking statutes,” the statement said.

Even so, 58% of reports from shelter employees and case managers qualified for trafficking-related benefits. The change in reporting will “strengthen integrity, reduce improper referrals, reduce fraud, and ensure that children who may have experienced trafficking receive immediate support,” the statement said.

Former official questions rationale

Jen Smyers, who served as deputy director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement during the Biden administration, said the claim that the change will streamline reporting is questionable. She said ORR already gets the human trafficking reports but has no special expertise in evaluating them, unlike the office created for that purpose.

The fear is that legitimate claims will get delayed or missed during the new layer of review, and career employees will face political pressure to refer fewer cases, she said.

“It’s the opposite of streamlining,” Smyers said.

Smyers noted the change comes after what she called an “ onslaught ” of Trump administration policies that have undermined the ability of unaccompanied minors to gain legal status, including making it harder to leave federal custody, arresting sponsors in the middle of the release process, and cutting their legal representation.

“What they are trying to do is deport as many as possible. What interferes with deporting children is if they are eligible for protections Congress has given them,” she said.

Los modelos de pronóstico siguen divididos sobre si el sistema llegará a convertirse en depresión tropical o tormenta con nombre en los próximos días, mientras permanece estancado sobre aguas abiertas del Atlántico hasta principios de la próxima semana. El próximo nombre de la lista es Fay.

Nuestros modelos tradicionales, basados en la física, no le ven ningún futuro. Los modelos de inteligencia artificial se muestran más optimistas, aunque también más inestables: cambian de una corrida a otra las probabilidades de que se desarrolle.

Tanto el conjunto de modelos de IA del Euro como el sistema de 1,000 miembros de DeepMind, de Google, sugieren una probabilidad media de que el sistema supere los obstáculos necesarios entre este fin de semana y principios de la próxima. Sin embargo, los conjuntos tradicionales del Euro y del GFS estadounidense, basados en la física, insisten en que no pasará de nada.

Las trayectorias de baja presión del sistema de conjuntos tradicional, basado en la física (panel superior), frente a las del conjunto del Euro basado en IA (panel inferior), muestran las visiones opuestas de ambos grupos de modelos sobre el desarrollo. Los modelos de IA han sido más optimistas sobre un posible desarrollo en el Atlántico central que sus equivalentes basados en la física. (Weathermodels.com)

La franja tropical del Atlántico entre el Caribe y África ha sido castigada por fuertes vientos cortantes a raíz de un El Niño de intensidad récord. Además, la cuenca en general se ha visto dominada por aire seco y descendente, con presiones en superficie excepcionalmente altas que dificultan la formación de tormentas.

Esa ha sido la tónica de la temporada: ondas tropicales débiles y sin fuerza, y sistemas como el que se encontraba el miércoles en el Atlántico central, que no logran reunir un área coherente de tormentas organizadas.

Lo que no ha sido un factor limitante esta temporada es el polvo del Sahara. Las nubes de polvo se han mantenido muy por debajo del promedio, y la cobertura total sobre el Atlántico Norte tropical es la quinta más baja en los 25 años de registros satelitales.

Habrá que ver si el sistema de baja presión al este de Bermuda logra organizar más tormentas para el fin de semana, cuando los vientos cortantes empiecen a debilitarse. Por ahora, es solo algo a vigilar para Bermuda la próxima semana. Se desarrolle o no, no representará una amenaza para Estados Unidos.

Atentos al Golfo a finales de septiembre

Nuestros modelos de largo plazo muestran algunas señales tempranas de que el Giro Centroamericano (CAG, por sus siglas en inglés) podría formarse hacia finales de mes. Se trata de una amplia zona de rotación y tormentas que se extiende desde el Pacífico oriental, atraviesa Centroamérica y llega a partes del Caribe occidental y del Golfo.

Lo más probable es que esto provoque la formación de un sistema tropical cerca de México, del lado del Pacífico. Sin embargo, en ocasiones algunas porciones de esa rotación y actividad tormentosa se desprenden y dan origen a sistemas tropicales en el Golfo y el Caribe. Unos pocos escenarios de nuestros conjuntos de largo plazo apuntan a esa posibilidad, pero falta demasiado tiempo (más de 10 días) para darle mucho peso.

Por ahora, las probabilidades son bajas, pero volveremos a revisarlo en los próximos días.

The six-time Pro Bowler was formally charged Tuesday with operating a vehicle with alcohol concentration equivalent to 0.15 or more and operating a vehicle while intoxicated. He posted $500 cash bond, and his attorneys waived an initial hearing that had been scheduled for Wednesday. An attorney conference is set for Oct. 26.

Colts coach Shane Steichen declined to address the latest twist before Wednesday's practice, at which Allen is expected to be a participant. Allen has not addressed the incident publicly.

According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, officers conducted a traffic investigation on Aug. 30 shortly after 1 a.m. after observing a vehicle park in a no-parking zone. Officers “noticed signs of intoxication” when they spoke with Allen. He was arrested after further investigation.

The 34-year-old Allen is in his 14th NFL season, his first with Indy after spending 12 of his previous 13 years with the San Diego-Los Angeles Chargers. He signed with the Colts on Aug. 19, reuniting him with Steichen, who was a Chargers assistant for the first seven years of Allen's career.

Allen had 81 receptions for 777 yards and four touchdowns in 17 games with the Chargers last season when he broke the franchise's career receptions record. He finished his Chargers career with 985 catches, 11,307 yards and 63 TDs.

In Sunday's season-opening 41-23 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Allen led the Colts with six receptions but had only 32 yards. Allen needs two receptions to pass Andre Johnson (1,062) for 12th and 64 yards to pass Charlie Joiner for 30th on the NFL's career lists. His 70 TD catches are tied for 52nd all-time.

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The 24-year-old Lasko was released Wednesday exactly two months after arriving at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in his home state of New Jersey, about 35 miles from where he attended college at Rutgers and became a second-round draft pick by the A's in 2023. Staff members at the facility celebrated his departure with a “clap out” farewell ceremony as he exited the building's main entrance.

Lasko suffered the spinal cord injury in a collision with a teammate June 30 that left him paralyzed from the chest down, with both arms affected, too. His dominant right arm — the one he uses to throw and hit — is weaker and will take more time to strengthen. His legs and feet have begun to regain some feeling and tingling sensations.

He told The Associated Press this week he can't predict how the next year will go. For now, he is focusing on the present and “reworking my brain to just wait, there's nothing else I can do now, I have to wait.”

Going home is a major milestone. He said he's excited for a home-cooked meal and to follow through on offseason travel plans with girlfriend Alli Graff despite the additional challenges.

“I've kind of stopped trying to look that far ahead because they keep telling me it's two months, this is only the beginning still, but it feels like it's been forever,” Lasko told the AP. “It's gone by quick, but it's also been the longest two months of my life. They keep telling me that it's only the beginning so that's where I'm trying to learn to have patience, because I expected it would happen overnight and that's really not how it works whatsoever. But I'm learning, slowly, it's a very slow process with everything.”

Lasko fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae in his neck during a frightening moment as he and Double-A Midland teammate Devin Taylor ran into each other in a game at Frisco, Texas, both attempting to make a play on a ball to the gap.

Lasko was carted off the field and taken to a nearby hospital for immediate spinal decompression and stabilization surgery.

His doctors and physical and occupational therapists are encouraged by his progress and optimistic he could make a full recovery and walk again in time.

“It’s been a long road,” Lasko’s mother, Patti, said while moving some of his belongings into her car with Graff outside the facility. She was in the stands for the game when he was hurt.

“The two of them work as a team. I feel like it’s a new beginning.”

He will initially return to his hometown of Jackson, New Jersey, and then live in a hotel near the Kessler facility for approximately two months as he continues to make strides.

Lasko counts each of the “big wins” along the way, like being able just to go outside again.

“I don't know what the next step is, so that's kind of scary. There's a lot more unknown,” he said. “The first day I got here they asked me what my goal was and I said to be as independent as possible. I've gotten to that point, I've checked a lot of boxes. Everything that I said I couldn't do, I can do now — simple stuff like opening my water bottle that you take for granted. ... There's a lot of small things that I took for granted that I couldn't do that I can do somewhat now again.”

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Records filed in Lafayette County Circuit Court in Mississippi indicate that papers were served on Tuesday, just five days before No. 7 LSU was slated to visit No. 8 Ole Miss in a game immersed in hype stemming from coach Lane Kiffin's decision to leave Mississippi in favor of LSU last Nov. 30.

A person familiar with the situation said Umanmielen was served outside LSU's football operations complex. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because university officials have not commented publicly on the lawsuit between Ole Miss and two former players who are now at LSU, and who allegedly failed to compensate Ole Miss for their departure as required by revenue-sharing agreements they signed in early January.

The other is offensive lineman Devin Harper, who allegedly owes Ole Miss $400,000.

While legal issues between Ole Miss and Umanmielen have gone unresolved for months now, the timing of papers being served, first reported by ESPN, will only further pump up the intrigue surrounding Saturday night's game in Oxford, Mississippi.

It will mark the first time Kiffin has returned to Oxford since being showered with insults by angry Rebels fans as he arrived at a small airport to catch a private plane to Baton Rouge.

Kiffin persuaded four players and a host of assistant coaches and other staff to follow him to LSU, including linebacker TJ Dottery and receiver Winston Watkins Jr., Dottery is LSU’s leading tackler through two games and Watkins Jr. leads LSU in yards receiving so far this season.

College athletes have been able to transfer far more freely in recent years without having to sit out a year, as was once required by the NCAA. There have been scattered disputes between players and their former schools over compensation agreements. Earlier this year, Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. said he would return to the Huskies after his school was reportedly prepared to pursue legal options to enforce his lucrative name, image and likeness contract.

Ole Miss has said revenue-sharing agreements signed by both players included a provision requiring them to compensate the university with a predetermined amount if they departed before fulfilling their commitment.

“The University of Mississippi has a responsibility to enforce its contractual terms, and this position is consistent with the actions of other institutions in the current landscape of college athletics,” the Ole Miss statement said. “The university attempted to amicably resolve this matter prior to filing.”

Kiffin left Ole Miss following its regular-season finale against Mississippi State in late November. Kiffin initially asked to continue coaching the Rebels in the College Football Playoff after he’d accepted the position at LSU, but Ole Miss declined and appointed then-defensive coordinator Pete Golding as Kiffin’s replacement. Golding coached Ole Miss to the national semifinals.

Umanmielen had nine sacks and 13 tackles for loss as a junior last season for the Rebels. Harper was a freshman reserve in 2025, appearing in six games.

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Forecast models remain split on whether the system will eventually make a run at becoming a tropical depression or named storm in the coming days as it loiters over open Atlantic waters into early next week. The next name on the list is Fay.

Our traditional physics-based models remain wholly unimpressed with its prospects while AI models have been more bullish but also jumpier, waffling back and forth on development odds from run-to-run.

Both the Euro AI model ensemble and Google’s DeepMind 1,000-member ensemble system suggest a medium chance it clears the necessary hurdles this weekend into early next week, but the traditional physics-based Euro and American GFS ensembles continue to insist it’s a nothingburger.

While the deep tropical belt of the Atlantic basin between the Caribbean and Africa has been pummeled by hostile wind shear courtesy of the record-setting El Niño, the basin writ large has also been overcome with dry, sinking air, with exceptionally high surface pressures making storm development hard to come by.

This has been the trend with weak and anemic tropical waves this season and systems like the one over the central Atlantic Wednesday struggling to pull together a coherent area of organized thunderstorms.

One thing that hasn’t been a limiting factor this season are plumes of Saharan dust, which have been running well below average this season, with overall tropical North Atlantic dust cover the fifth lowest of the 25-year satellite record.

We’ll see if the low-pressure system east of Bermuda can muster up more organized storminess by the weekend as wind shear begins to relax, but for now it’s only something to monitor for interests in Bermuda next week. Regardless of development, it won’t pose a threat to the U.S.

Keeping an eye to the Gulf to end September

There are some early signs in our long-range models that the Central American Gyre or CAG – a broad area of spin and storminess that stretches from the eastern Pacific across Central America and into parts of the western Caribbean and Gulf – could take shape by the end of the month.

This will likely cause a tropical system to form closer to Mexico on the Pacific side but occasionally lobes of spin and storminess can break off and spawn tropical systems over the Gulf and Caribbean. A smattering of scenarios in our long-range ensembles suggests that’s a possibility but it’s too far out (more than 10 days) to put much stock in it.

For now, chances are low but it’s something we’ll check back on in the coming days.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that signs of gaining ground against the Bundibugyo virus, the rare species behind the outbreak, have emerged in Ituri province. But he said that the situation is one of “many outbreaks in many places.”

“We are now starting to see encouraging signs that we are gaining ground. In the most affected parts of Ituri province, transmission is going down,” Tedros told reporters at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.

South Kivu, he said, has reported no new cases since May.

“But make no mistake, the epidemic continues to grow and continues to kill,” Tedros said. He said more than 7,200 cases and more than 3,500 deaths have been reported across seven provinces.

In North Kivu, “cases are rising fast,” Tedros said. The number of weekly cases has nearly doubled over the past two weeks, from about 100 to more than 200. “The area is so vast that it’s hard to speak of a single epidemic. It’s many outbreaks in many places.”

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director for epidemic and pandemic management, said that “we can be cautiously optimistic about what is happening, but I think we need to be realistic about the road that’s ahead of us. Looking at trends takes time.”

Last week, officials in Congo said that the world’s fastest-growing outbreak of the disease on record had now spread to seven provinces in the African country, and was showing no signs of slowing down.

Fort Lauderdale police responded at about 9:45 p.m. to the 2900 block of NW 18th Street, where officers found two adult victims.

Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue transported both victims to Broward Health Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, according to officials.

Preliminary information indicates the victims were involved in a dispute with a known suspect, police said.

The incident remains under investigation. No one is in custody.

A storm system will move in Friday and stall out through the weekend. This will give us an enhanced chance of scattered thunderstorms each day. It will also bring us cold air above us by the clouds. This will create a big temperature difference between the ground near 90 degrees and the much colder atmosphere aloft. That feature causes the atmosphere to be more unstable and could lead to a few storms becoming severe with damaging wind gusts, hail, frequent lightning, and very heavy rain.

The shift reflects the political pressure on Republicans before the November elections that will decide control of Congress. The war remains unpopular and has led to soaring fuel prices.

U.S. Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted for the resolution on Tuesday after previously voting against it.

“With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization,” Nunn, an Air Force veteran, posted on social media. “I will not support another open-ended war.”

Nunn campaigned with Hegseth last month in Iowa, and the Pentagon chief had lauded Nunn as an ally who didn’t need any last-minute, late-night phone calls from Trump to persuade him to support the president’s agenda.

“Zach Nunn is not a 3 a.m. congressman,” Hegseth said at a fundraiser for Nunn during the Iowa State Fair. “He’s willing to take the tough votes to do the right thing on behalf of our war fighters.”

Nunn is up against Sarah Trone Garriott in November's election.

Miller-Meeks, an Army veteran, said the president needs to present a plan to Congress and the public showing how the war ends.

“Americans do not want another forever war,” she said in a statement. “I will not vote to keep our soldiers in an open-ended war, with Iowans paying too much at the pump.”

She faces a reelection rematch against Christina Bohannan, whom she has defeated twice before.

The White House on Wednesday emphasized the administration's ongoing communication with Congress, including over 30 briefings to the Hill since February, “as we work toward this shared goal” of preventing a nuclear Iran.

“The administration has been fully transparent with Congress over the course of this conflict and throughout negotiations,” spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an email.

Voting shift reflects a growing weariness with the war

Both Republicans have advocated for Trump's actions in Iran as a deterrent against that country's nuclear capabilities. But their hesitation to see the prolonged conflict continue suggests that the impacts are increasingly wearing on Americans, and particularly Iowans. Eighteen U.S. service members have died in the war with Iran. Two are from Iowa, and one used to live in Iowa.

In addition to rising gasoline prices, diesel prices are reaching new highs just as U.S. farmers are ready to take their diesel-powered equipment to the fields for harvest.

National polling indicates that the Iran war remains unpopular with Americans overall. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of Iran in a July AP-NORC poll, and a September New York Times/Siena poll found that about 6 in 10 likely voters think Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran was the wrong one.

Tuesday’s House vote was the third time lawmakers voted to end the war in Iran. The margin was similar to earlier efforts, with a few more Republicans joining all Democrats in voting to end the conflict.

In addition to Nunn and Miller-Meeks, retiring U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina also shifted her position on the resolution. They joined Republican U.S. Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who had already been voting in favor.

Barrett and Fitzpatrick are both in battleground districts. Barrett, an Army veteran, said that he’s increasingly hearing skepticism in private conversations with others in his caucus.

“There’s a growing number of members that are having concerns about the growing nature of this without any congressional authorization,” Barrett said.

On Tuesday, though, the vast majority of House Republicans again rejected the resolution.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who represents northeast Iowa but is running to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, was one of the nays. Endorsed by Trump, Hinson faces Democrat Josh Turek for the seat, which Republicans are spending millions of dollars to defend.

Hinson acknowledged that she and other Americans want to see the war end. That means delivering a “decisive and immediate victory,” she said.

“I believe President Trump should immediately bring this war to a successful end in a way that keeps Americans safe from the threat of a nuclear armed Iran,” Hinson said in a statement.

Republicans are optimistic but watching Iowa closely

For months, Democrats targeting House and Senate seats in Iowa have criticized the Republican incumbents for their votes on the war in Iran as a rubber stamp for Trump.

Republicans say that Iowa, where Trump won overwhelmingly in the last three presidential elections, remains a red state that will help keep GOP majorities in both chambers. Republicans continue to outnumber Democrats statewide and in both Nunn’s and Miller-Meeks’ districts.

Still, the competitive races have gotten attention even from the White House. Trump visited suburbs of Des Moines for a rally in January and dispatched Vice President JD Vance in May to campaign for Nunn.

After Hegseth campaigned with Nunn, a group of more than 400 former national security officials filed a complaint requesting an investigation into whether the secretary violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activities by federal officials.

Hegseth's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pennsylvania. Associated Press reporter Nicholas Riccardi contributed from Lansing, Michigan.

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Officials said at about 6:03 a.m., Boca Raton Fire Rescue crews responded to a vehicle crash in the southbound express lanes of I-95.

Authorities said while crews were clearing the scene, a fire truck was involved in a “serious collision.”

They said three Boca Raton firefighters were inside the truck. One was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, while two others were transported for evaluation as a precaution. The driver of the other vehicle was transported as a trauma alert to a nearby hospital, according to officials.

Authorities said the Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the crash.

Job Listing: PHOTOGRAPHER/EDITOR

Responsibilities include but are not limited to: Video photography and editing of news stories and other special projects for broadcast. Must be proficient in non-linear editing (WPLG uses Avid Newscutter/Media Composer)

A Photographer/Editor provides daily video coverage of news, sports, and features on location.

In addition to excellent videography and editing skills, applicant should have experience with live ENG live truck and the operation of LiveU live device, field lighting, audio equipment as well as a working knowledge of state‑of‑the‑art editing and camera equipment. Must possess good judgment to work in the field covering news stories. Prefer at least 3 years’ experience in the above-mentioned areas.

A Photographer II is an hourly, non-exempt experienced level position. Must be able to work well under pressure, lift up to 50 lbs, and be able to meet newsroom deadlines as well as be able to work flexible hours including nights, overnights, weekends and holidays and should be capable of traveling out of town on assignment. Must possess and maintain a valid driver’s license.

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

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

Please follow link below to apply for Photographer/Editor Position:

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The tournament will be played at the Spectrum Center, home of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, the WTA and the Charlotte Sports Foundation announced Wednesday.

The year’s top eight singles players and doubles teams qualify for the event, which is usually held in November.

“Our ambition is for the WTA Finals to be not only the premier championship in women’s tennis, but one of the defining global events in women sports,” WTA chair Valerie Camillo said. “We want to create the Super Bowl for women’s sports. And not just the competition, but an event that is the annual gathering for women’s tennis, women’s sports, and women’s sport business.

“Audiences are growing, investment is growing, female athletes are increasingly at the center of sports and culture around the world. And women’s tennis has helped lead and define that progress for more than 50 years. And we believe our biggest championship should reflect the scale of this moment,” Camillo added.

Camillo called it a “minimum three-year deal. She added, “We’ll see what goes on beyond that.”

Leaving Saudi Arabia

The announcement comes at a time of financial difficulty for the WTA after it announced in July that it was opting out of the final year of a three-year hosting arrangement with Saudi Arabia to move this year’s Finals to Indian Wells, California.

There were concerns about going back to Saudi Arabia due to military conflicts in the Middle East.

Camillo noted that “2026 is a year of transition for the WTA” and that “we are doing the normal belt tightening you would expect in any business while also absorbing the unexpected cost of relocating the WTA finals to Indian Wells.

“What’s most important to know is that we have a clear path to deliver consistent, sustainable financial performance in 2027 and beyond,” she added.

With Indian Wells now set to host only once, Charlotte will become the eighth different venue for the Finals since 2018.

The WTA did not announce any prize money figures for the upcoming tournaments, and could struggle to match the record-setting amounts that were on offer in Saudi Arabia.

Elena Rybakina collected $5.23 million for winning the 2025 WTA Finals in Riyadh after going 5-0 at the event. The WTA said that was the largest payout in the history of women’s sports. Aryna Sabalenka earned $2.7 million as runner-up.

Rybakina also beat Sabalenka in Saturday’s U.S. Open final and claimed the No. 1 ranking.

Coco Gauff won the 2024 finals in Riyadh.

Operating control

The partnership will extend beyond the Finals. The WTA will also relocate its global headquarters from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Charlotte, as part of the deal.

And there's a plan to bring a WTA 500 tournament to Charlotte after 2029.

“The WTA has always owned the WTA finals, but now going forward, we’re going to operate it too,” Camillo said. “We’re taking control of the creation of the revenues and the controlling of the expenses and the delivery of the entire thing.

“And that allows us to control our own destiny,” Camillo added. “Whether it’s around what we’re doing with our media rights and our production, whether it's related to the WTA finals, whether we’re approaching our calendar, we’re going to be making bold and aggressive moves for women’s tennis that shapes the future that we want rather than reacting.”

Camillo replaced retiring chair Steve Simon at the end of last year.

She previously oversaw business operations for the Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo Center as the president and CEO of the sports and entertainment division of Comcast Spectacor, and has held senior roles with the Washington Nationals and the NBA.

Asked if there was a desire to eventually merge with the ATP Finals — the men’s season-ending event — Camillo said “there hasn’t been an in-depth conversation about merging” the two tournaments.

“I think that when we create our ambition, people are going to want to merge with us on this event and many more,” she added.

Condensed schedule to fit between NBA games

The move to the Hornets arena during the NBA season means that the Finals will be condensed from eight to five days.

That means the traditional schedule of two singles and two doubles matches per day could become four singles and four doubles matches per day.

“We are exploring a series of alternate formats,” Camillo said.

The Spectrum Center has already hosted high-profile tennis exhibition events in recent years.

“As an organization, our mission is quite simple,” Will Pitts, CEO of the Charlotte Sports Foundation, said of the Finals. “It’s drive economic impact and add to the quality of life through high-profile sporting events and unique partnerships. And this certainly does that.”

The move comes as Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper is investing an additional $500 million into ongoing stadium renovations with an eye toward potentially bringing the Super Bowl, NFL draft, 2031 Women’s World Cup and other major sporting events to Charlotte.

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See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Las autoridades policiales notificaron a Pioneer Middle School, ubicada en el 5350 SW 90th Ave. en Cooper City, y a Larkdale Elementary School, en el 3250 NW 12th Place en Lauderhill, sobre las amenazas contra sus planteles, indicaron los funcionarios.

La Junta Escolar aseguró que todos los estudiantes y el personal están a salvo, y que ambas escuelas mantienen su horario habitual.

Según la Junta, la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward y el Departamento de Policía de Lauderhill investigaron las amenazas de inmediato.

Por el momento no se han dado a conocer más detalles sobre las amenazas ni sobre la persona detenida.

Los funcionarios indicaron que alrededor de las 6:03 a.m. los equipos de Boca Raton Fire Rescue acudieron a un accidente vehicular en los carriles exprés en dirección sur de la I-95.

De acuerdo con las autoridades, mientras los rescatistas despejaban la escena, un camión de bomberos sufrió un “choque grave”.

Dentro del camión iban tres bomberos de Boca Raton. Uno fue llevado a un hospital con heridas leves, y los otros dos fueron trasladados para ser evaluados como medida de precaución. El conductor del otro vehículo fue trasladado como alerta de trauma a un hospital cercano, informaron los funcionarios.

Las autoridades señalaron que la Patrulla de Carreteras de Florida investiga el accidente.

The comments Zuckerberg posted on social media followed a proposal from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei that quickly found support from tech leaders including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk at SpaceXAI.

Warnings from researchers about the technology's potential threats to humanity have sparked a debate among industry leaders over how best to rein in the technology before it could escape human control.

AI companies are already motivated to develop their models in a safe way and face “significant liability” to prevent them from causing harm, Zuckerberg said.

“Every lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens," he wrote on X.

Zuckerberg, who didn't name Anthropic or any other companies, posted days after Amodei outlined a three-step plan to ensure AI safety, including a proposal for companies and countries to coordinate a slowdown in its development.

Zuckerberg said Meta delayed releasing its Muse AI agent for several months to ensure its safety and security.

“We didn’t call for everyone else to do this before we would,” he said.

Companies should prioritize building safe AI models instead of systems that can automatically improve themselves, a function known as recursive self-improvement, Zuckerberg wrote.

“Committing the significant majority of compute towards serving people rather than racing towards recursive self-improvement is one of the best ways to ensure we develop this technology safely.”

The 2.04-meter (6-foot-8) heavyweight will be 39 years old then and, if he qualifies, it would be his sixth and final Olympics.

“Of course that's an objective,” Riner said Wednesday. “I think up until now I've proved that every time I take part in an event it's for the top step of the podium (for) the most beautiful of medals. If I commit to something, it's to win.”

The 11-time world champion was ruled out of next month's worlds in Baku, however, due to a lingering right shoulder injury.

“I am doing my maximum to come back from this injury. Of course you must be patient, that's part of being a top-level athlete,” Riner said at the Parc des Princes stadium after re-joining Paris Saint-Germain's judo club on a contract until 2028.

Although he feels his shoulder is “creaking a bit at the moment" he is confident he will recover properly. Riner says he is not a “very patient” person but is trying to become one.

“We have a new (recovery) protocol in place, I hope this one works. If it doesn’t work there’s still a third protocol left. For the time being it's on the right track," he said. “As I said, I'm positive, because I had an operation on this shoulder in 2013 and up until now it has held firm; up until now it enabled me to win the best medals and what we experienced at Paris 2024.”

After taking bronze at the Tokyo Games, Riner reclaimed the Olympic title in Paris in 2024 to become the second three-time individual gold medalist in judo history.

Riner won another bronze at the 2008 Games in Beijing — his first — and also counts five European titles in individual competition. He amassed a staggering 154 straight victories from 2010-20 before losing to Japan’s Kokoro Kageura.

“I still have the desire to do great things in this sport,” he said. “I'm super happy to get out of bed in the morning and improve my judo.”

He still has to qualify for the next Olympics, though.

“I think there will be a maximum of five or six tournaments to get in the top 10 (places),” he said.

Back to PSG

Riner previously competed for PSG's judo club from 1994-2007 and came back again in 2017. He then helped PSG win the 2024 edition of the Judo Champions League, following his Olympic success, and plans to help it win another in 2027.

“I’m delighted and honoured to write another chapter in my adventure here,” Riner said.

Djamel Bouras, president of PSG Judo, said Riner's role goes beyond his huge achievements on the tatami mat.

“He’ll transmit his experience and his winning culture to the youngsters who train alongside him,” Bouras said. “It’s a real boon for Paris Saint-Germain Judo and a tremendous driver of our section’s ambitions.” ___

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The Hall announced its 12 finalists for the Class of 2026 on Wednesday and opened voting to the public and a panel of judges who will choose which will be honored in November. The public can weigh in between Sept. 16-23.

Joining the nominees are the handheld electronic game Bop It!, Monster High dolls, the portable, miniature worlds of Polly Pocket, and the board games Mouse Trap and Sorry!

“It’s debating season, and this year’s finalists give everyone plenty to talk about — from classic games to plush icons and other toys that have shaped generations of play. The debate is part of the fun because every toy sparks different memories and makes its own case for why it matters,” Michelle Parnett-Dwyer, senior curator at the museum, said in a statement.

While anyone can nominate a toy, the ones that make it into the Hall must be considered icons, have engaged multiple generations, fostered creativity, or profoundly changed play or toy design.

The three winners will join the 90 toys enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame, a list that includes Cabbage Patch Kids, Dungeons & Dragons, Hot Wheels, Frisbee, G.I. Joe and Mr. Potato Head.

Some of the entries this year have been knocking on the Hall door for years, including Tickle Me Elmo, the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Mahjong.

The four acts have seven mentions each and compete in the categories of album, song and record of the year. They have very varied styles, ranging from reggaeton to alternative music inspired by folklore and a little bit of rock. Most of them are in their thirties while the revered Drexler is days away from his 62nd birthday.

They are closely followed by Silvana Estrada and Mon Laferte with six nominations each, including their own for record of the year, album of the year, and song of the year. Argentine rapper Milo J with five, and the nominee for best new artist Arath Herce, with four, are the other top nominees.

Looking at them all from above is once again Edgar Barrera with 10 nominations, including producer and composer of the year, in addition to two nods for song of the year.

The Latin Grammy ceremony will be broadcast live on Nov. 12 from the MGM Grand Las Vegas and promises to be a night of high stakes as those tied for the most nominations have previously been awarded by the Latin Recording Academy.

Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso are the most recent winners to join the group of Latin Grammy holders since last year. Drexler is the group’s top winner with 16, followed by Rosalía with 11.

Here's what to know about this very competitive group, their nominated albums and their musical projects.

Rosalía, “LUX (Complete Works)”

Since it was announced that Catalan star Rosalía would be releasing a multilingual album inspired by the lives of female saints, the bells of a probable Latin Grammy nomination began ringing and suspicions were confirmed on Wednesday when “LUX (Complete Works)” was nominated for album of the year. Rosalía won best new artist in 2017 for her debut “Los Angeles” and has since been an academy favorite with releases such as “El mal querer” and “Motomami.” For the 27th edition of the Latin Grammys, her anthem of spite “La Perla” with Yahritza y Su Esencia, which she has said is inspired by Paquita la del Barrio’s “Rata de dos patas,” is nominated for record and song of the year. Rosalía is also competing in the categories of pop song, alternative music album, Portuguese language song and short form music video.

Jorge Drexler, “Taracá”

Every time Jorge Drexler wins a Latin Grammy, the Uruguayan-born musician seems dumbfounded by the academy’s recognition, although he should already be used to it with three Latin Grammys for song of the year under his belt. Once again, he competes in his strong category with “¿Como se ama?,” thanks to his album “Taracá.” He will also compete for alternative song, singer-songwriter album, singer-songwriter song and roots song. We hope that this time he will go with a prepared speech.

CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, “FREE SPIRITS”

Argentinian duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso made waves with their 2024 debut “BAÑO MARÍA,” which led to a celebrated Tiny Desk concert, international tours and over-the-top fame that they later criticized on their subsequent album “PAPOTA." That second disc saw them enter the Latin Grammys in a big way as nominees for album of the year and winners of five gramophones, including best alternative music album. After this, they tried to return to their origins with a spiritual introspection helped by Sting. The result is the nominated album “FREE SPIRITS” and the candidate for song of the year “Hasta Jesús Tuvo Un Mal Día." They will also seek awards for pop/rock song, alternative music album and long form music video for “FREE SPIRITS (The Film)."

Karol G, “Tropicoqueta”

Colombian star Karol G gave her all for Afro-Caribbean genres in “Tropicoqueta,” her fusion album of Latin urban music with merengue, salsa, bachata, and even a little technocumbia, and even embodied a mambo diva for the cover. But she didn’t just stay in tropical music, she included regional Mexican songs and was rewarded. Her duet with Marco Antonio Solis, “Coleccionando heridas,” is nominated for record and song of the year, while “Ese Hombre es Malo” will compete for best regional Mexican song. The first female artist to win the urban music album, Karol G will again compete in this category as well as urban performance and reggaeton performance.

Other notable nominees

In addition to Laferte, nominated for her album “FEMME FATALE” and Estrada, for “Vendrán suaves lluvias,” the nominees for album of the year are Anitta for “EQUILIBRIVM,” Carín León for “MUDA,” Milo J for “La vida era más corta,” and Rawayana for ”¿Dónde Es El After?”

The coveted best new artist category, which this year was changed to limit participation to artists with fewer than three albums or 25 singles released, grew this year to include 11 contenders. The nominees are Delilah, FABIAN, Loulu Gilberto, Arath Herce, Macario Martinez, maye, Sofia Monroy, Kendall Peña, Dora Sanches, ARIA VEGA, and Zeca Veloso.

The song of the year will also be decided between “Dime” by Estrada, “Femme Fatale” by Laferte, “Humano” by Juanes and Vivir Quintana, “Mi gran amor” by Santana with Becky G, “Nilo” by Zanna and “Solifican12″ by Milo J.

Daddy Yankee will be hailed as the Person of the Year, the first Latin urban artist to receive this accolade.

America's 250th birthday has been a banner year for the actors of Historic Philadelphia, Inc. who immerse visitors in Colonial history via first-person interpretations and true stories. In the last few months, Betsy, played by Carol Spacht, has waved the checkered flag at a NASCAR race, met Punxsutawney Phil the weather-predicting groundhog, and competed against the Eagles' Jordan Mailata in a karaoke contest— all to the absolute delight of crowds and social media commenters.

While the quirky requests for appearances have been fun, many of the actors also feel an almost patriotic duty to tell the story of America's founding from the place where it actually happened and from the perspective of everyday people often left out of history books.

“I got chills,” says Johanna Dunphy, artistic director for Historic Philadelphia. “I was tearing up listening to John Adams ask if anyone heard him or cared... in the place where these conversations happened. It was so moving to hear people in the audience say they still believed in this idea, and in what America could be.”

You can't have a short George Washington

Anticipating the influx of tourists, Historic Philadelphia expanded its programming — adding characters and storytellers, and increasing opportunities for visitors to interact with history in Philadelphia's Old City from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Overall, the troupe nearly doubled its cast to about 60 at the start of the season, but directors held rolling auditions throughout the year.

There are some physical requirements— you can't have a thin-faced Ben Franklin, or a short Thomas Jefferson — but engaging with the stories and audiences is the most important quality.

“Even if their face doesn’t match anyone we need, we can find someone from history they gel with," Dunphy says. “Part of our mission is to tell the stories of the underrepresented Philadelphians who played such a huge role in building our city and country. And for people of color and women, there aren’t a lot of portraits to work from, so you can be more forgiving on appearance.”

For example, the troupe added a portrayal of Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to join the Revolutionary Army, and was the first woman to receive a pension for her service. There’s one portrait in existence, but most historians agree it is likely not an accurate portrayal— so the group has some leeway on the physical appearance of the actress playing her.

Even Betsy Ross's sewing techniques are authentic

Many of the actors started as storytellers dressed in green polo shirts and stationed at benches throughout Old City and armed with a cadre of real historical anecdotes tied to their locations.

Once they graduate to being a first-person interpreter, many play a cast of different characters depending on the need. Spacht plays the founder of the Girl Scouts, a suffragette, socialite women and Quakers in addition to Betsy Ross.

There are roughly a dozen Betsies. The group staffs the Betsy Ross House, providing actresses every day it's open to raise the flag in the morning and do actual sewing work in Ross's upholstery workshop.

Spacht trained most of the other Betsies, teaching them authentic Colonial sewing methods. When she's in costume, she keeps a period-accurate pair of sewing scissors tied to her waist by a ribbon and a stack of paper squares in her pocket. She pulls them out to tell the story of how Ross claimed to have persuaded Washington to change his design from a six-point star to a five-point star. A few folds, two quick snips, and out comes identical stars to represent the colonies.

It's that experience, the ability to stay in character without seeming hokey, that delighted spectators and made her a perfect choice to partner with Visit PA- Pennsylvania's official tourism arm — to appear at all of those quirky events throughout the year.

“The thing I take away from Betsy is her resilience,” Spacht says. “She lost two husbands by the time she was 29 and she didn't shrink back into her shell. She continues to run a business, to raise her children, to live."

Young Ben Franklin has an album dropping this fall

Many of the actors have other jobs throughout the year. Some come from several states away to participate during the prime season or on just weekends.

But even the actors who are full-time have side projects— one actor was cast in a play recently and another was hired to teach at a children's theater camp. Jackson Pavlik, who started playing Ben Franklin last year, has an album coming out this fall.

Pavlik says this has been a wild year full of unexpected bookings and experiences — mingling with baseball royalty like Derek Jeter at the MLB All Star game, for example.

“Being Ben Franklin... It's like you're Santa Claus,” Pavlik says. “Everybody treats you like they know you. They know the myth. But even in his time, Franklin was the most famous American. And you can use that when you're in character.”

It can take 500 freeze pops to get the Revolutionary Army through a summer

Thanks to Thomas Jefferson's diary, we know it was a cool 76 degrees on July 4, 1776. On the semiquincentennial, it was a less moderate 101 degrees, presenting a challenge for the actors as parades and celebrations across the country were shortened, canceled or moved inside for safety.

Dunphy says all the costumes at Historic Philadelphia are authentic down to their shoes— meaning the clothes are made from natural fibers that breathe. There's no polyester in their wardrobe.

“You'd be surprised how much that can help when it's hot,” she says. “I mean, corsets are still miserable if you're a woman.”

“But my secret weapon is to go to Costco before the season starts and buy those freezie-pops that come like 250 to a box,” she says. “I buy at least two.”

And when your cast is so dedicated that the regiment of soldiers refuse to remove their jackets even when given permission, those little tubes of flavored ice can be a lifesaver.

The group has spent decades focusing on underrepresented stories

From quirky stories about colonial-era prisoners being fed the overabundant lobsters of the time (and hating it) to accounts of a female Quaker spy hiding notes in her hair, their tales are meticulously researched and designed to pique people’s interest in history.

But as disputes about what parts of history are represented prominently at federal sites continue to roil in the courts, the group has maintained its mission of portraying diverse real characters that help people see themselves in history and in the nation’s founding. Philadelphia is appealing a federal court decision that allows the Trump Administration to remove an exhibit on slavery at the President's House in Philadelphia and replace it with an exhibit that opponents say has been whitewashed.

“There is that sort of added responsibility to tell the whole story. But in the same way … it wasn’t something that caused us to scramble because we have been doing this for 20 years,” says Jason Greenplate, the Once Upon a Nation Program Manager at Historic Philadelphia.

Greenplate says the group adds stories regularly about women, immigrants, both free and enslaved Black residents and poor people who joined the cause that became America.

Keith Henley has been portraying abolitionist and entrepreneur James Forten for more than a decade. The free Black man heard the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence when he was a boy and apprenticed as a sailmaker before serving in the Revolutionary Army.

“As historians and Americans, we know our situation seems somewhat bleak,” Henley says. “What the current administration is trying to do with American history as a whole, if we the people allow them to do that, then we have failed. So I make sure children and adults who walk away from James Forten — they will know the real story.”

The Penguin Random House imprint Crown announced Wednesday that “The Call of Freedom: Portraits of Political Prisoners and Dissidents” will be released March 9 and coincide with an exhibition of Bush's art at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. The new book will include Bush's portraits of such symbols of oppression as the late Mahsa Amini, whose death in 2022 while in the custody of Iranian authorities led to nationwide protests, and the imprisoned Nicaraguan bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.

“The Call of Freedom,” the third collection of Bush's art, will include 44 paintings and biographical sketches of each subject. Former Soviet Union dissident Natan Sharansky is contributing a foreword.

“This book, coupled with our work at the Bush Institute, is a chance for me to send a message that the United States cares deeply about people seeking freedom,” Bush writes in the book. “And hopefully these stories will remind us that we who live in liberty have a duty to stand with those who do not.”

The book champions human rights even as Bush's own record as president has led to frequent criticism, whether the CIA’s use of waterboarding or the abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Bush took up painting after leaving office in 2009. His previous books include “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors” and “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.”

Temperatures at Levi’s Stadium are expected to be in the 70s, with low humidity and plenty of California sunshine. Kickoff is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET.

The Dolphins (0-1) are looking for their first win of the season against the 49ers (1-0), who are coming off a win over the Los Angeles Rams.

Local 10 viewers can also get the latest local forecast from our Weather Authority Team by clicking here and by downloading the free Local 10+ Platinum app.

Sunny, a 13-year-old Portuguese water dog the Obamas got in 2013 while living in the White House, died Tuesday.

“We got Sunny at the start of our second term in the White House, and all of us – including our first dog, Bo – immediately fell in love,” he said on social media.

He remembered Sunny as athletic, full of energy and protective of Bo. Despite Sunny's breed, she hated getting wet.

“We will miss her terribly, and imagine she’s with her big brother now, making sure he’s okay,” Obama said.

Bo died in 2021.

While many presidents have kept dogs as companions, President Donald Trump does not have any pets at the White House.

George H.W. Bush’s English springer spaniel, Millie, “wrote” the bestseller “Millie’s Book.” Bill Clinton’s chocolate Labrador retriever, Buddy, was in the family as Clinton weathered the scandal over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

George W. Bush’s Scottish terrier, Barney, had an official web page and starred in “Barneycam” videos that were filmed by a camera around his neck. Lyndon B. Johnson angered animal lovers by lifting his beagle, Him, by the ears in front of news photographers.

Harry S. Truman famously advised: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

Retail sales rebounded at a better-than-expected 1.2% increase last month after recording a revised 0.5% dip in July, according to Commerce Department data released Wednesday. Economists were anticipating a 0.7% gain for the month, according to FactSet.

The decline in July was notable because there had been few signs of fatigue from U.S. consumers. Americans spent heavily during the World Cup and Amazon Prime Day sales this summer. That followed solid retail sales in April and May as Americans dipped into their government tax refunds.

Even excluding business at gas stations, retail sales rose 1.1% in August, underscoring the resilience of the American consumer. The government figures aren’t adjusted for inflation. The roar back in spending is happening even as consumer confidence took another hit in July, according to the latest reading by the Conference Board.

The strong spending report comes as the Federal Reserve lifted its short-term interest rate Wednesday for the first time in three years to fight stubbornly high inflation. The quarter-point increase lifts the Fed’s key rate to roughly 3.9% and, over time, could result in higher borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.

Much of the strength in retail last month reflected a bounce back in nonstore sales, which declined sharply in July, according to economists. That was “seasonal noise” driven by shifts in the timing of Amazon’s Prime Day shopping event, which also coincides with heavy promotions from other major online retailers, according to Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. Rising gas prices also propped up gasoline station sales, he said.

But even accounting for these factors, gains in most spending categories were “decent,” led by discretionary sectors such as food services, electronics, and sports and recreation, Pearce wrote.

“American consumers are still opening their wallets and buying,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a report published Wednesday. ”August retail sales showed a big bounce back after a weak July."

The so-called control group — which excludes food services, autos, building materials and gas station sales and is used to calculate economic growth — rose a strong 1.4% last month from the prior month.

Many Americans continue to spend despite skyrocketing gas prices that have accompanied renewed fighting in the Middle East. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose overnight to $4.37 on Wednesday, according to motor club AAA. That is about 47% more than a gallon cost before the war began, when it cost less than $3.

Diesel, which has an outsized impact because it’s used for shipping, transportation and manufacturing, has risen even faster, up 68%.

The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices rose 3.4% last month from a year earlier, and they’re up 0.4% from July, quadrupling the 0.1% registered in the previous month.

Still, Americans have grown more selective about what they buy, according to retailers who reported their quarterly financial results in the past few weeks, but some, like Walmart and Macy’s, are using a portion of their tariff refunds from the government to lower prices.

Macy’s received $116 million in tariff refunds from the government, Macy’s CEO Tony Spring said, and some of those proceeds are being used to lower prices on certain big-ticket items like furniture and fine jewelry.

Executives at the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, said that retail sales have been better than expected this year.

Mark Mathews, chief economist at the NRF, also noted he’s seeing in recent months a softening of the K-shaped spending trends — the upper part of the K refers to higher-income Americans seeing their incomes and wealth rise while the bottom part points to lower-income households struggling with weaker income gains and steep prices.

Underscoring consumers’ resilience, September is expected to be the busiest month of the year for import volume at the nation’s major container ports, according to the retail group’s Global Port Tracker. The tracker is produced for the NRF by a consultancy firm called Hackett Associates.

Typically, the peak month is either July or August, NRF executives said.

But economists still worry about how rising gas prices will impact future spending.

“We have a consumer that’s willing to spend, and up until this point, we have had a consumer who’s been able to spend,” Mathews said. “Now looking forward that looks a little bit more challenged because if gas prices remain high, then you know you have to start questioning where the consumer is going to fund that spending growth from."

Pearce echoed those worries, noting that while the solid labor market has helped prop up spending among lower-to middle-income shoppers this year, he sees a “deeper bifurcation of the consumer returning in the coming months.”

“Higher gasoline prices will deliver a renewed squeeze on real incomes, holding back spending on other goods and services by those households,” he wrote.

The reason is their decision to cover up part of the message on a T-shirt in support for Ceuta — a small Spanish city located on the north African coast — that players for both Madrid and Elche were supposed to wear before their league game on Tuesday. Ceuta was overwhelmed by a mass crossing of some 80,000 people, mostly from neighboring Morocco, in late July.

While Mbappé and Vinícius and teammate Ibrahima Konaté put on the shirts, they wore them rolled up to their chests so that some of the words were obscured. They then removed their shirts before they shook hands with the Elche players and referees ahead of kickoff.

The players did not speak about it after the match, which Madrid won 3-2.

But their gesture has generated an outpouring of comments in Spanish media and social media, with some arguing that the players were showing solidarity with the plight of the migrants while others criticized them for not fully supporting the Spanish citizens of Ceuta. Others blamed the business group which organized the shirt initiative for putting the players on the spot.

Jorge Calabrés, a journalist with the online newspaper El Español, wrote that “I am outraged by Mbappé, Vinícius and Konaté. You are in Real Madrid, not just any club. Support for Ceuta is not a political or religious issue.”

Sports commentator Santiago Segurola backed the players.

“The businessmen behind this are idiots,” Segurola said on Onda Cero radio. “They are completely out of bounds and put the players in an awkward situation, making them position themselves. Now people are holding the players accountable.”

The shirts were made and distributed by a business association representing companies the eastern region of Valencia. La Liga said it approved the gesture in accordance with the standard procedure applicable to any ceremonial gesture before a match. Elche and Madrid also gave their approval.

Madrid said the shirts were to “show support for Ceuta,” which is still struggling to provide for several thousand migrants who remain the city.

The shirts read “Todos somos caballas,” which means in local Ceuta slang “We are all from Ceuta."

Caballa, “mackerel” in Spanish, is used locally to also mean a resident of the Spanish exclave.

Vinícius is used to being at the center of social debates. The Brazilian has been at the heart of fierce debate in Spain about racism in soccer after he was repeatedly targeted with racist slurs by opposing fans.

Mbappé's mother is of Algerian descent, while his father immigrated from Cameroon to France, where the striker was born in Paris.

Abde criticized by fellow Moroccans

The night before Madrid visited Elche, the players taking the field for Real Betis’ game at Villarreal also all wore the shirts.

Real Betis forward Abde Ezzalzouli, who plays for Morocco, was harshly criticized by some Moroccan fans on social media when images of him wearing the shirt in support of Ceuta began to circulate.

Abde, who moved with his family to Spain when he was a child, said on social media that he wouldn’t apologize for wearing a shirt that he said had no political aim nor intended to show “disdain for the Moroccan people.”

“It was a shirt with a social message of support for a city and its inhabitants, who, regardless of their nationality, are going through a complicated situation,” he wrote. “I will continue to hold my head high and represent my roots with pride and a sense of sacrifice.”

Ceuta has become a political flashpoint

The Ceuta crisis, during which some 140 people died crossing the frontier via the sea, has become the dominant political talking point in Spain. The far-right and conservative opposition parties are hoping they can leverage it in national elections next year and oust the left-wing, pro-legal migration government.

It has also led many in Spain to question the government’s policy of moving closer to Rabat in recent years, all with the backdrop of the two countries preparing to host the 2030 World Cup along with Portugal.

Ceuta is one of two Spanish territories on the north African coast along with Melilla. Ceuta has been in Spanish possession since 1580. Christians and Muslims, Spanish and Moroccan residents and day workers all live there in relative harmony behind a border fence that many migrants from across Africa attempt to cross or swim around for a better life in Europe.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

For a third time, the U.S. House has voted to end the war in Iran, approving a war powers resolution that would halt President Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval. The roll call was similar to earlier efforts this summer. None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto the measure.

Trump will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to campaign with Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley as the former national party chairman tries to shore up his campaign against Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper.

Here's the Latest:

Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks at campaign event for Michael Whatley

The nation’s top law enforcement official made a very unusual appearance at an expressly political event in North Carolina that is meant to bolster the Republican Party’s Senate candidate.

Blanche’s appearance Wednesday came as he’s increasingly erased the longtime independence and distance from expressly political activity that the attorney general’s office has traditionally sought to preserve.

Blanche last week spoke at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.

Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley blames economy on Democrats

Trump’s handpicked North Carolina Senate hopeful is appearing in Gastonia, outside of Charlotte, with Trump. And the former national GOP chairman is telling supporters that whatever economic pain they’re feeling isn’t the president’s fault.

“When it comes to our economy, and we talk about affordability, we talk about high prices, we talk about the ditch that Roy Cooper and Joe Biden put America in with the economy,” Whatley said.

Cooper, Whatley’s Democratic opponent, was governor from 2017 to 2025. He and Biden have been out of office almost 20 months.

Whatley has tried to thread a needle in his campaign, acknowledging that voters are paying more for gas, groceries, housing, healthcare and other consumer goods. But as a close Trump ally, he has little choice but to maintain his support for Trump’s tariffs and his Iran war that have played a part in inflation.

Park Service awards contracts to work on East Potomac golf course, Democrats say

The Trump administration quietly awarded contracts to begin work on Trump’s planned takeover of the East Potomac golf course in Washington, according to Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the panel’s top Democrat, revealed during a committee hearing Wednesday that the National Park Service hired a civil engineering firm to start work on the historic public golf course, with no public announcement.

Huffman accused Trump of “systematically moving” to turn the federal site “into another gilded private golf club for the mega-rich.”

A contract approved last week authorizes nearly $400,000 to a Massachusetts-based company for environmental and historic preservation compliance work. A projected construction contract is worth up to $49 million, with work to begin next year.

AI researcher says Congress has about a year to act

Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, the 2024 recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics who is often know as the “godfather of AI,” says Congress doesn’t have long to craft a response to the technological advancements.

“Maybe a year,” he told reporters after briefing lawmakers Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “But not much more than a year.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who convened the briefing, said it was “basically insane … that we’ve allowed the development of a dangerous technology that could escape human control.”

Trump says US interest rates should be “1% or less” after Federal Reserve hikes rates

The president posted on social media that the world should feel obligated to charge lower interest rates on the U.S. national debt.

He didn’t mention the Federal Reserve in his post, but the U.S. central bank hiked its benchmark rate on Wednesday to reduce inflation. Trump has long maintained that rates should be lower even though most economists have warned that drastic cuts could worsen inflation.

“Interest Rates in the United States should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR,” Trump said. “We are ‘carrying’ almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer.”

Rates are elevated because of rising U.S. national debt and higher energy prices because of the Iran war. The interest rate on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was above 5% in Wednesday afternoon trading.

El-Sayed meets with Senate Democrats in Washington

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is meeting Wednesday with Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running for Senate in Michigan.

El-Sayed is in Washington talking with Senate Democrats after he defeated Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who Schumer had backed, in a primary last month. Schumer has pledged to help the Democrat even as he has run on an anti-establishment platform.

After meeting with several Democratic senators, El-Sayed said that the party is united and “we’re having really productive conversations about what it takes to win” his race against Republican Mike Rogers.

He said the party needs solidarity because “we really can take the majority back, and that path runs through Michigan,” El-Sayed said.

Turkey tells Iran’s major airline to suspend flights to the country following US sanctions

Turkish officials told Mahan Air to suspend flights Wednesday to its neighboring country, according to a person briefed on the matter, a week after the U.S. Treasury issued new penalties targeting the remaining facets of Tehran’s already beleaguered aviation ecosystem.

The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public, said the decision is also a direct result of recent travels by Treasury officials to Ankara and the larger region to reinforce America’s economic campaign against Iran.

There was no official announcement from Ankara as of Wednesday afternoon, but the Turkish aviation news website, AirportHaber, had reported the details earlier.

House votes to name T. Rex as the country’s national fossil dinosaur

The legislation also names the American mastodon as the national fossil mammal of the United States.

Indiana Republican Rep. Erin Houchin said he hopes the measure inspires young people and encourages them to “put down their phones, go outside and go dig.”

The bill was approved unanimously, without a formal roll call, after a brief debate. It would next go to the Senate.

Top Democrat places hold on Trump administration’s plan to sell $2.8B in heavy munitions to Israel

The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says he is going to block a proposed sale of $2.8 billion in heavy weaponry to Israel over concerns that the munitions would not be used in accordance with U.S. and international law.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-NY, the ranking member of the committee, said he would withhold approval for the sale because of “grave, unresolved concerns about how these munitions could be used in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon.”

Meeks’ objections, along with any other potential ones, will not likely affect the sale, which was informally notified to lawmakers on Tuesday, because once it is formally notified to Congress, Secretary of State Marco Rubio can bypass the normal process by making an emergency determination that the transaction is in the national security interest.

The $2.8 billion package includes 40,000 powerful 2,000-pound bombs, according to two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the plan.

Kamala Harris to campaign with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan next week

The former vice president’s appearance with the Senate nominee comes as the Democrats push to unify voters in a battleground state that could determine which party controls Congress. The two will attend a roundtable discussion about Black maternal mortality on Tuesday, according to El-Sayed’s spokesperson.

Harris and El-Sayed have spoken multiple times since she endorsed El-Sayed after his primary victory, but this is the first time they’ll appear publicly together.

Michigan’s bitter primary highlighted divisions among Democratic voters, notably on U.S. support for Israel. El-Sayed, running on a progressive platform, beat Rep. Haley Stevens, who was backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, by about 1 percentage point.

Some other top-ranking Democrats have joined the unification effort. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged a crowd of hundreds in Detroit last month to vote for Democratic candidates down the ballot.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles says she is cancer-free

Wiles said in a post on the social platform X on Wednesday that her pathology results came back clear.

Wiles, 69, announced in March that she had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and that she would remain in her position while seeking treatment.

She is a longtime Trump ally who rose from his campaign co-chair to become his closest adviser and counsel.

FBI, Coast Guard board 2 U.S-bound oil tankers following indications of cyberattacks

The FBI and Coast Guard boarded two oil tankers bound for the United States to investigate following indications that cyberattacks had compromised the ships’ networks, officials said Wednesday.

The FBI said in a statement that investigators on Aug. 21 and Aug. 24 responded to reported network breaches of two foreign-flagged commercial oil tankers, and that a multi-agency team of cyber experts boarded both vessels in the Gulf of America to assess potential harm to the ships’ operational and information technology systems.

“Currently, there are no reports of operational disruptions, vessel instability, physical danger to crews, or environmental impacts,” the statement said, adding that the crews of both ships had cooperated with the investigations.

The FBI statement did not identify a potential culprit of the breaches.

Fed chair stays mum on Trump wanting rate cuts, instead of rate hikes

Warsh declined to say what message he sent Trump after the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate to curb inflation.

Trump has repeatedly called for rate cuts and attacked Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, on social media for not lowering rates. Higher rates generally lower inflationary pressures, while lower rates can foster more growth and rising price levels.

“I’ve got nothing for you on a discussion with the president,” Warsh told reporters at a news conference.

Fed chair portrays rate hikes as an optimistic sign for US economy

Warsh said the economy appears resilient and the labor market is strengthening, which is why Fed officials felt comfortable raising the benchmark interest rate to combat elevated levels of inflation.

The Federal Reserve chair said he “would be hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive,” so officials agreed a rate hike would not hurt the economy as the Fed tries to return inflation to its 2% target.

Fed officials separately estimated median inflation of 3.7% this year.

“Given that resilience and the potential for even greater performance, an attitude of optimism is exactly what I heard,” in the two-day meeting among Fed officials, Warsh said.

Fed hikes key rate for first time in 3 years despite Trump demands for a cut

The rate hike is a surprising turnaround for Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who was appointed by Trump and took over the top job in May. Warsh often suggested last year when under consideration by Trump that the Fed could reduce its key rate, echoing the president’s call for lower borrowing costs.

And in April, when Warsh’s nomination was under consideration by the Senate Banking Committee, Trump said in a television interview that he would be disappointed if Warsh didn’t cut rates. On the same day, however, Warsh told the committee he did not promise Trump he would cut rates and said he would be “an independent actor” as Fed chair.

Yet the ongoing disruptions from the Iran war, which have pushed up average gas prices more than 7% from just a month ago, threaten to spread through the economy and keep broader inflation stubbornly high.

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House nears vote on Russia sanctions bill named after late Sen. Lindsey Graham

The House will soon vote on a broad package of sanctions targeting Russian officials and key pillars of its economy as lawmakers look to deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of the financial resources needed to wage the war against Ukraine.

The bill is named after Graham, the late South Carolina senator who spent more than a year working on it.

If the House passes it on Wednesday, it would then go to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

The bill represents the most ambitious effort to support Ukraine since Trump returned to the White House.

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Fencing goes up around the main Kennedy Center building

The fencing went up Wednesday, a day after the Trump-aligned board voted to close most of the performing arts center for repairs.

That vote came after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning Trump’s name to the building.

The Republican president had said in a social media post that the closure was necessary for safety repairs. But he said the repairs, which Congress has allocated $257 million to cover, would proceed only if the board was permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.

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Saphier hearing has ended

The Senate health committee hearing adjourned after Saphier was questioned about vaccine safety and whether she would follow the law or potentially unlawful orders from administration officials.

Saphier said she would follow the law.

Carney received a standing ovation at the European Parliament

Canada has retaliated against U.S. tariffs and rejected trade terms that Carney says would weaken its sovereignty. The EU has taken a different course, reaching a trade agreement with the Trump administration that set a 15% U.S. tariff ceiling on the vast majority of EU exports even as Europe eliminated tariffs on U.S. industrial goods.

That contrast has loomed over Carney’s push for closer European ties. In a closely watched speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, he urged middle powers to work together to increase their leverage in an era of great-power rivalry.

“When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered,” Carney said. “It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”

Carney’s Davos speech drew a personal rebuke from Trump, and von der Leyen’s overture to America’s neighbor could raise the temperature again.

European Commission president wants Canada to become the EU’s 1st associate member

Ursula von der Leyen made the striking overture as Trump’s threats drive Ottawa closer to Europe.

Trump’s tariffs and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have soured the relationship between the North American neighbors. Canada is seeking to reduce its dependence on the United States, the destination for roughly 70% of its exports, and Prime Minister Mark Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with the EU.

In her annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday, von der Leyen said Canada and the EU would build on their existing free trade agreement, known as CETA, with a broader “Alliance for the Future” aimed at creating “a common prosperity and economic security space,” rooted in shared democratic values.

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Mamdani says he won’t protest Netanyahu at UN

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he’ll skip any possible protests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly next week.

The Democrat told reporters “I do not have any plans to attend any protests at the U.N. General Assembly” when asked about Netanyahu’s incoming visit, instead saying he is focused on security and getting the city ready to host world leaders.

Mamdani has been a fierce critic of Netanyahu and Israel’s military actions in Gaza, saying during his campaign that he would direct the city’s police to arrest the prime minister under the International Criminal Court’s warrant over his role in the war in Gaza. Mamdani later acknowledged that the city lacks such authority.

Netanyahu is expected to arrive late on Sept. 23, address the General Assembly the next day and fly back to Israel that night, according to Israel’s U.N. envoy.

Trump administration still plans signs outside of Smithsonian museum

Trump signed an executive order in July calling for signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History warning of what it argues are exhibits that present history inaccurately.

Though none have appeared, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently told Sen. Jeff Merkley they’re still happening.

“The purpose of these signs is straightforward: Americans should enter the NMAH with relevant information about curators’ interpretation of history and their stated goal of changing the viewpoints of visitors to the museum,” Burgum wrote in a Sept. 3 letter to Merkley. The Atlantic first reported Burgum’s letter.

The Smithsonian is in the midst of a leadership change after Lonnie Bunch announced plans this month to step down as secretary. In an interview with the AP last week, Anthea Hartig, the American history museum’s director, expressed faith in the institution’s ability to do its work.

“I wake up every day confident in Americans’ ability to embrace the complexities of their past,” she said.

House Democrats vow to ‘end this national nightmare’ in midterm pitch to voters

Standing on the Capitol steps before lawmakers head home to campaign, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries assailed the “do nothing” Republican majority and promised Democrats will do better.

“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans promised to bring down grocery prices on Day One. They promised to stop endless wars in the Middle East,” Jeffries said. “But Republicans have done nothing to make life more affordable for the American people.”

He said the Democrats’ message is simple: “We hear you… And we are committed to making life better for you.”

Jeffries also warned that it’s time for the corruption to end: “House Democrats are going to hold the crooks accountable.”

Saphier is confronted about her stance on vaccines

Sen. Cassidy asked Saphier what her message would be to parents on vaccines, in light of Trump’s comments on the causes of autism. Trump and Secretary Kennedy have repeatedly suggested a link between childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine, and the development of autism, even tough studies by the CDC and others have ruled that out.

“I don’t know what causes autism, but I have not seen reputable evidence that would suggest that vaccines cause autism.” Saphier told Cassidy, “I can tell you that I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal. I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combatting measles.”

If confirmed, Saphier will be in the difficult position of navigating Kennedy’s efforts to scale back vaccine guidance at a time when the U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles in decades.

The roll call late Tuesday, 220-204, was similar to earlier efforts this summer, with a few more Republicans joining all Democrats voting to bring an end to the conflict. None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto the measure.

“Remember when Donald Trump said that this war would last just a few weeks?” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who served as a Marine during the Iraq War and pushed the resolution forward.

He said it’s time for Congress to “actually ask tough questions, as the Constitution directs us to do, rather than be subservient to another warmongering administration.”

Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, questioned which military resources Democrats would want to remove from the region where he said Iran remains a threat.

Mast said Trump is against “forever wars, and that is what he is ending” — the decades of hostilities from Iran.

“They are a continuous ongoing threat to the United States,” Mast said. “Enough is enough.”

Last war powers vote before the midterms

The action is likely the last House vote on the Iran war ahead of the midterm elections, where the conflict overseas is playing a substantial role in the political campaigns. The war that Trump launched Feb. 28 has dragged, with on-again, off-again deadly missile strikes being exchanged and causing havoc in the region for nearly seven months.

Lawmakers are heading home at the end of the week to campaign nearly full-time, with less than 50 days to go before the elections that will determine control of Congress as Democrats try to wrest power from Republicans.

Voters are confronting high prices, particularly for gas at the pumps, as the conflict disrupts the flow of oil resources through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the war has cost more than $38 billion, as of Aug. 1, and is projected to be costing between $2 billion and $3 billion monthly, depending on the intensity of the fighting. The budget office projected inflation will be 0.5 percentage points higher than expected heading into 2027 due to the war.

Trump himself had promised not to involve the U.S. in foreign wars when he won a second term in the White House, and his actions against Iran are weighing on the Republican Party that controls the House and Senate. Most Americans say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting, according to an AP-NORC poll in July.

In the previous House actions, four Republicans voted to halt the war in Iran, but that number rose to seven in Tuesday’s war powers vote, including GOP lawmakers from battleground Iowa, Rep. Zachary Nunn and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and retiring Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.

They joined GOP Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky voting in favor of the war powers resolution, with all Democrats.

War powers being put to the test

Congress has tried repeatedly to alter the trajectory of the war against Iran, but efforts to limit the Trump administration’s military action remain a longshot so long as the president is able to fend off or veto the measures.

The House first approved a war powers resolution in June, and followed up with another one in July, all seeking to halt U.S. action in Iran. The Senate on its 10th try also approved a war powers resolution to end the conflict, but GOP senators quickly reversed course the next day after Trump berated them during a closed-door lunch.

While the Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war, it also gives the president authority as the commander in chief to engage in some military actions. The War Powers Act, created in the aftermath of the Vietnam conflict, sought to put a more specific time limit on the president’s power, requiring congressional approval for sustained military actions after 60 or 90 days.

House Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged at a press conference Tuesday the need to bring gas prices down.

But the Republican speaker said he believes the Iran conflict is entering a “new phase” as allies step up to help stabilize the region. When that happens, he said, “you’re going to see, as the president said, anytime gas prices will go down again, the cost of groceries will as well.”

Johnson said Trump expects the shift after the election, and the speaker added, “I’d love it to happen today.”

Esta inestabilidad, señaló, la llevó a proponer un nuevo Plan Europeo contra las Olas de Calor, así como una futura flota europea de aviones para combatir incendios. Actualmente, la UE opera una pequeña flota propia, pero coordina una red de aeronaves, camiones cisterna y voluntarios que se desplazan por el bloque de 27 países a medida que se producen los incendios.

“Este verano fue el verano de la verdad. Casi ninguna parte de nuestro continente se salvó”, afirmó Von der Leyen durante su discurso anual sobre el Estado de la Unión Europea en Estrasburgo.

“Ríos clave como el Danubio, el Rin o el Garona están desapareciendo ante nuestros ojos. Más de 35.000 muertes adicionales durante las olas de calor. Residencias de ancianos y hospitales peligrosamente sobrecalentados”, añadió.

El calor extremo, que golpeó a Europa de forma excepcionalmente dura y temprana este año, parece haber provocado un aumento de muertes mucho mayor de lo esperado. No está claro de dónde proviene la cifra de 35.000 de Von der Leyen, pero triplica las estimaciones de “muertes en exceso” de grupos de monitoreo en julio.

Los incendios obligaron a cientos de miles de personas a huir de sus hogares en Francia y España, paralizaron reactores nucleares en Hungría y Francia, hicieron estallar municiones centenarias en la frontera de Bélgica con Alemania y revelaron barcos previamente perdidos hundidos en lechos de ríos, como un remolcador en Serbia.

El calor y la humedad que batieron muchos récords durante el verano no habrían sido posibles sin el cambio climático, según un estudio del grupo World Weather Attribution.

“Todo esto es apenas un anticipo. Estos fueron los meses de verano más calurosos jamás registrados, pero probablemente los más frescos de los años venideros”, advirtió Von der Leyen. “La ciencia es clara: Europa se está calentando al doble del ritmo global”.

Mientras elogiaba a quienes combatieron los incendios este verano, Von der Leyen señaló que ha pedido a los equipos de respuesta a emergencias y a altos mandos de bomberos que “piensen en grande y aprendan más rápido” para diseñar “nuevas capacidades” con las que la UE pueda afrontar la inestabilidad climática.

Cuando rindió homenaje a un piloto danés de helicóptero llamado Rune Kyndal, que murió en agosto mientras combatía incendios en Grecia, la asamblea estalló en aplausos.

"Rune dio su vida para salvar a otros y hoy toda Europa está en deuda con él”, dijo Von der Leyen.

___

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

Residents of Piddington, which has a population of about 350, voted overwhelmingly for secession in the non-binding referendum. The results announced on Wednesday showed 285 votes in favor of breaking away, with 26 villagers voting against.

“We have given an absolute message, not just to the region, not just to the country, but to the world,” said the parish chairman, Tim McNally. He said the district will henceforth be known as “the Principality of Piddington.”

The attention-grabbing vote was called to oppose plans to turn the former Ministry of Defense Bicester base — which is about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from the village — into housing for male migrants. The government says the site is “designed to be largely self‑sufficient to minimize any impact on the local community.”

Residents in the Oxfordshire village have raised fears about safety, crime and the effect on house prices in the affluent area, 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of London.

Supporters called the declaration of independence a victory for people power and local democracy. Some media coverage compared the gesture to the classic 1949 Ealing comedy film “Passport to Pimlico,” in which a London neighborhood breaks away from Britain.

Others said the campaign had a darker side and stirred up fear of newcomers. Some backers of the Piddington referendum compared their fight against the asylum accommodation to the 1940 Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany.

Villager Herbert Owen, 76, said after voting on Tuesday that the independence referendum “isn’t just about Piddington,” adding: “It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for. Today is the Battle of Britain.”

Comparing unauthorized immigration to an invasion has become increasingly common among politicians including Nigel Farage of Reform UK, and far-right groups that have been active in organizing and attending anti-immigrant protests.

The U.K. has seen a wave of anti-immigrant demonstrations since riots erupted two years ago after a teenager killed three young girls during a dance class near Liverpool. The U.K.-born attacker had been wrongly identified on social media as a Muslim asylum seeker.

Protesters clashed with police last year outside hotels housing asylum seekers in London and several other cities.

In June, masked men in Northern Ireland set fire to several homes in Belfast they believed to house immigrants after a Sudanese man was arrested over a stabbing.

Earlier this month, masked demonstrators blocked the port of Dover, in southeast England, and tried to stop a boatload of migrants being taken ashore in Portsmouth on the country’s south coast.

The center-left Labour Party government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham says it is making progress in processing asylum claims more quickly, so that migrants spend less time in state-sponsored accommodation, and stopping people crossing the English Channel in inflatable dinghies.

More than 41,000 people made the hazardous journey in 2025, but the number so far this year is down by more than 40% from the same period last year.

The government has also pledged to move migrants from hotels and rooming houses — often in poorer neighborhoods — into more suitable accommodation.

“I understand the strength of feeling,” Burnham said on Wednesday. “I will look at the issues being raised by the community and in the referendum, but we have to ensure that we have a fair plan” that spreads the burden of accommodating new arrivals across the country.

Refugee groups said military barracks aren’t the right place to house asylum seekers, but cautioned that migrants should not be made scapegoats.

“For people who have fled war and violence and come to the U.K. to be safe, being accommodated in such remote and unsettling environments only exacerbates their sense of insecurity,” said Jon Featonby, chief policy analyst at the Refugee Council.

“And as we’ve seen from other sites, they’ve undermined social cohesion.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently sent more humanitarian aid to Cuba, and it is being distributed by the non-governmental organization (NGO) associated with the Catholic Church, Caritas of Cuba.

At the same time, Rubio warned international banks and businesses not to collaborate with any Cuban business entities that have been sanctioned by the U.S.

Secretary Rubio also called for the Cuban government to change and become a democracy.

By now, we should understand that changing governments like Cuba, which have been under totalitarian control, is not easy and will take time. Especially countries like Cuba that, in their political history, have had unsustainable democratic governments.

Sept. 15: Cuba becomes a betting market for U.S. prediction markets

Cuba has become a betting market in the USA.

The betting site Polymarket shows how people in the U.S. are betting on everything from the removal of Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power to when and if the U.S. will invade Cuba or make an economic agreement with Cuba.

The last prediction is whether the U.S. will go and get indicted Cuban leader Raúl Castro.

Sept. 10: Russia denies Cuba full membership in BRICS

BRICS is an organization of 11 emerging economies around the world. The organization works to influence their global importance and reshape economic governance.

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The membership includes Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

Partner nations include Belarus, Cuba, Nigeria and Thailand.

The Russians turned down Cuba for full membership into the organization because of Cuba’s poor economic conditions and poor predictions by economists moving forward.

Sept. 9: Cuba and the U.S. stuck in diplomatic rhetoric

Cuba’s Brigadier General Emir Mesa Corona, who is in charge of personal security at the Ministry of Interior, sent a strong message to the U.S. not to even think of trying to kidnap Raul Castro or anyone in Cuba’s government or they will face serious consequences.

At the same time, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla admitted that backroom negotiations with the U.S. continue but the U.S. will not soften their positions. Cuba wants the economic embargo lifted while the U.S. wants regime change.

Sept. 8: Blind passion for Cuban politics leads to a political circus between Miami, Havana and DC

As a little boy growing up in Miami, I remember when every presidential candidate from both political parties would come to campaign in Miami and promised that if elected, they would work to see a “Free Cuba.” They would end their speeches with “Viva Cuba Libre.” Local politicians representing different municipalities in Miami-Dade would talk about U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba like they controlled it, and yet, they had nothing to do with it within their scope of responsibilities. But it got them the votes they needed to be elected and remain in power, while political leaders in Cuba continued to blame everything wrong on the island on the U.S. economic embargo, or as they call it, “the blockade.”

On Jan. 3, the U.S. military captured Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela with the assistance of their current Interim President Delcy Rodriguez and brought him to the U.S. to face justice. Shortly thereafter, President Donald Trump announced that Cuba would be next.

The Trump administration began to sanction Cuban organizations and individuals of the government in an attempt to squeeze them out of power. So far, they are still in power. The Cuban government began to prepare for a U.S. invasion. To this date, it has not happened and probably never will.

On May 20, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Raul Castro for the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996 in a theater-like political rally at the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami. So far nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen. There is no Delcy Rodriguez in Cuba. A week ago, many media outlets across Miami reported, based on sources from inside the island, that Raul Castro was gravely ill. This past weekend, Raul reappeared surrounded by Cuba’s military elite.

Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the three Cuban-American members of Congress from South Florida had announced that by the end of 2026, Cuba would fall. Now it has been pushed back to 2029. Furthermore, Rubio recently said that the problem in dealing with Cuba is the Helms-Burton Law (Senator Jesse Helms and Richard Burton, both Republicans) that was enacted by Congress in 1996, also with the hard work of the late Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The three Cuban-American members of Congress made it clear that the goal was to return Cuba to democracy. What democracy? Cuba did not have a democratic government before Fidel Castro took power. How much do they really know about Cuban history? Or is it just a play on words and empty promises?

So as time passes each day, the Cuban-American community is beginning to ask itself, what is really going on in D.C.?

It would not surprise me that in the near future the Trump organizations would negotiate to buy the empty Melia Hotels in Cuba and put the Trump name on them. After all, we now own a big chunk of Venezuelan oil and there was no regime change as promised.

Will we ever learn? How much longer are we going to be blind by our passion?

Sept 6: Raul Castro makes public appearance

After much speculation about Cuba’s Raul Castro being close to death, the Cuban leader showed up at a military event yesterday accompanied by his grandson, Raulito, and Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Sept 3: Raul Castro stable, according to sources

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.

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.

Authorities said Matt Pawlowski, 48, was last seen at about 9 a.m. while paddling east.

They said Pawlowski was wearing a white hat, an orange shirt and gray shorts. He was on a 14-foot lime green and yellow paddleboard.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts is urged to contact the United States Coast Guard Miami Sector at 305-535-4472.

#Breaking @USCG crews are searching for a missing paddleboarder, 48 YOM, last seen @ 9 am approx 4 mi off Jupiter Beach, paddling east. He was wearing a white hat, orange shirt & gray shorts on a 14 ft lime green & yellow paddleboard. Call Sector Miami w/ info: 305-535-4472 pic.twitter.com/4bMatRPmD2

— U.S. Coast Guard Southeast (@USCGSoutheast) September 14, 2026

Vitale, a veteran fashion insider who spent some 15 years at Miu Miu, joins Armani after exiting Versace after just one season.

In a statement, Armani said Vitale’s appointment marked the “beginning of a new chapter” for the brand and “opens a dialogue between innovation and identity.”

Giorgio Armani, a defining figure of Italian luxury ready-to-wear, died in September 2025 at age 91.

The designer’s niece and head of womenswear design, Silvana Armani, and longtime menswear designer Leo Dell’Orco are carrying on his creative legacy at Armani's principal collections. Emporio Armani is the line for more youthful dressers.

Vitale’s debut collection at Versace in September 2025 was a colorful, full-throttle return to the overtly sexualized Versace of the 1980s and 1990s. Vitale left the house after just one season though. Prada, parent company of Miu Miu, acquired Versace in December.

Armani’s will instructed his heirs to sell a 15% stake in the company, which includes the Emporio Armani label as well as Armani/Casa and Armani Hotels, within 18 months of his death.

“We weren’t internet kids,” King said.

Instead, nature pulled him in

“My love just grew from there and continued over the years,” he said.

That curiosity eventually led King to South Florida, where the Everglades has become both his laboratory and his classroom.

At Everglades National Park, King studies the vast ecosystem and pays close attention to even its smallest creatures.

King holds a master’s degree in environmental biology from Florida International University and has conducted extensive research on soil across the Everglades.

The ecosystem he studies is critical to South Florida. The Everglades helps provide drinking water and serves as a natural buffer that helps protect communities from flooding, he said.

But before King can explain the science, he sometimes finds himself having to break down stereotypes.

“A lot of people see me at first, and they think I’m a rapper,” King said. “When I tell them I’m a scientist, they don’t believe me because of my appearance.”

And just like his work, King’s style stands out. He often wears grills in his mouth.

“I wanted it to symbolize my research journey in marine biology and also the Everglades,” King said while pointing to the different colors and shapes on the grills in his mouth.

His scientific journey extends well beyond the park.

On social media, King goes by “Kidflamess,” where he combines education and entertainment to teach hundreds of thousands of followers about the natural world.

During a recent trip to the Everglades, a park ranger stopped to congratulate King on earning his master’s degree and thank him for his work educating the public.

“Thank you for putting people on,” the ranger told him. “You’re doing a lot to help people in the community connect with the ecosystem.”

John Kominoski, one of King’s professors at Florida International University, has watched that passion firsthand.

“He genuinely cares that people understand and get excited about what he’s excited about,” Kominoski said.

Kominoski said King is also unafraid to approach his work with curiosity and enthusiasm.

“He’s unafraid. Nothing scares him. He approaches things with his whole heart,” Kominoski said.

For King, that passion comes back to the Everglades itself.

“I love how peaceful it is, how much diversity there is in nature,” he said. “There’s so much to see and learn about the system.”

Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, faced tough questioning about her views on the safety of childhood vaccines by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who pressed her to declare whether she believed there was a link between vaccines and autism — which widespread scientific consensus has concluded doesn’t exist, yet which the Trump administration has repeatedly pushed to revisit.

“I do not believe childhood vaccines cause autism,” Saphier said. She also said “the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles,” in response to a question by Cassidy over whether parents should give children that shot. MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella, and the president recently called for the shots to be spaced out.

She suggested support for vaccines as a critical tool to prevent infection and said she appreciated the administration's attempts to address questions and concerns among “the vaccine hesitant people,” which Cassidy countered was only creating more confusion. Cassidy pushed Saphier to speak with clarity on some of her answers on vaccines, which she repeatedly presented as a belief rather than a known scientific fact.

Saphier is nominated for a position that carries limited policymaking power but serves as a loud megaphone as the nation’s top communicator to Americans on public health issues.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Trump have both suggested that childhood vaccines, such as MMR, may play a role in causing autism. Evidence from decades of studies and real-world use of vaccines have proven there is no link between vaccines and autism.

The administration has taken steps to upend the nation's vaccine guidance — many of them since halted by a judge — including downsizing the childhood immunization schedule. Medical groups and doctors have warned that the changes could stoke vaccine hesitancy.

Saphier is Trump's third pick for surgeon general

Saphier is Trump’s newest pick after entrepreneur and wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means saw her path forward stall in the Senate over her background and vaccine views. Trump withdrew his first nominee, Fox News medical contributor Janette Nesheiwat, after questions arose about her academic credentials. The position has been vacant throughout Trump’s second term.

Like Means, who is a close Kennedy ally, Saphier has questioned whether every child needs to get the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, a longtime recommendation that the Trump administration has been trying to weaken. On Wednesday, she said the universal birth dose of hepatitis B was safe and effective.

An author and podcaster who previously hosted her own show, “Wellness Unmasked with Dr. Nicole Saphier,” Saphier frequently commented on the Trump administration’s approach to health, often positively. She also used the phrase “Make America Healthy Again” years before Kennedy popularized it. It was the title of a 2020 book she wrote that criticized the government’s handling of healthcare and the Affordable Care Act.

While being supportive of the Trump administration at large, Saphier has, however, disagreed with Trump and Kennedy on some issues, telling The Associated Press last fall that Trump’s cautions to pregnant women who take Tylenol were oversimplistic and “patronizing.”

Last year, she decried the administration's long-anticipated first attempt at a MAHA report, which cited some studies that didn’t exist, calling it "pretty embarrassing.” She said Kennedy’s firing of his first Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Susan Monarez, after less than a month on the job was “a mess.”

“When we keep hearing radical transparency and we’re going to regain trust, I can tell you these shenanigans are taking us farther away from that mission,” Saphier said on her podcast. On Wednesday, she said she promised to restore public trust if confirmed.

At the start of the Senate health committee hearing, Cassidy noted the “serious health issues” facing the country, highlighting Kennedy's efforts to scale back vaccine guidance at a time when the U.S. is enduring its worst year for measles in decades.

“That is going to be a terrible legacy for this administration,” Cassidy said, telling Saphier and other nominees appearing alongside her at the hearing that he hoped they would restore confidence in public health.

Cassidy, who was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in his Republican primary earlier this year, then criticized what he called “irresponsible” health policy leadership.

During lawmakers' questioning, Saphier was also asked whether she would follow unlawful orders by the president or Kennedy — she said she would follow the law — and was tested on her knowledge of the medication mifepristone, which is used to manage miscarriages and abortions.

It was not immediately clear when the committee planned to vote on whether to advance Saphier, who would still need a vote by the full Senate to be confirmed.

Also facing lawmakers’ questions Wednesday was Chris Klomp, chief counselor of the Health and Human Services Department, who has been nominated to serve as Kennedy’s second-in-command. Timothy Westlake, chief of staff at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration who is seeking confirmation to be assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, was also questioned.

Saphier says she would divest from some holdings

Saphier is director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, according to her profile on the New York-based institution’s website. She has a doctor of medicine degree from Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados along with fellowships at the Mayo Clinic, the profile said.

Her latest ethics filing, dated Sept. 7, shows holdings with various healthcare and insurance firms, as well as processed food companies, like Coca-Cola, Yum Brands, the Hershey Co. and cigarette maker Philip Morris.

Before entering politics and throughout his tenure at the health department, Kennedy has criticized big pharmaceutical companies and insurance firms for alleged corruption and decried ultraprocessed foods as contributing to a nationwide chronic disease crisis.

Additionally, Saphier owns DropRx, a firm that produces controversial, unregulated tinctures — concentrated liquid extracts promoting focus and calm — that contain ingredients, including kava kava root, described by the FDA as potentially causing severe liver injury.

Her filing says she will resign from her position with DropRx and Empower MD LLC, which owns DropRx, if she is confirmed.

She states in the document that she would partially or fully divest from holdings that would present a conflict to serving as surgeon general.

The cuts affected all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with health, nutrition, the environment and disaster relief making up the largest share of cuts, the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness organization found.

Among the grants that were eliminated, frozen or delayed were ones related to maternal health in Michigan, education research in Mississippi and assistance to minority farmers in Iowa, the researchers found. California, Texas, New York, Illinois and North Carolina saw the highest amounts of interrupted grant money. The tracking tool is called Lost Funds.

“By bringing thousands of funding disruptions from the Trump administration together in a publicly accessible, verified database, Lost Funds puts the magnitude of their impact on full display,” Scott Delaney, co-founder of Grant Witness, said in a statement.

The $177 billion finding represents nearly 10% of federal discretionary spending, the groups said.

The tracker’s organizers said the disrupted grants were beyond the kind of cuts that typically happen when administrations change.

“Lost Funds shows the extraordinary scale and real human impact of these disruptions, and how states are once again on the front lines protecting their residents,” said Kelly Rader, States United Democracy Center’s research director.

In some cases, courts have ruled against the administration’s grant funding cuts.

The new tool, which is being made available for public use, relies on data from USASpending.gov, an open data source of federal spending information, according to the groups’ methodology. They said the tracker would be updated regularly as the administration takes new action and lawsuits move through the courts.

States United bills itself as a nonpartisan group dedicated to the rule of law and free, fair, secure elections. It was cofounded by Norm Eisen, an attorney who has been involved in prominent lawsuits against the Trump administration, including over the Kennedy Center. Eisen left the States United center in 2024.

Grant Witness is a group of scientists, researchers and attorneys who document how funding is changing under President Donald Trump's administration.

A message seeking comment on the analysis was sent to the White House.

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This story has been updated to correct when Eisen left States United. It was in 2024, not 2021.

It is the latest tragedy in a nation mired in a devastating war.

Survivors said the collapse happened at the al-Zara gold mine, in Nuhud, a town in West Kordofan province, which is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that have been fighting against the Sudanese military for over three years.

Suleiman Abu Hmeida, a member of the Emergency Response Rooms, said rescuers pulled out 82 bodies by Wednesday afternoon. “But dozens remain unaccounted for,” Abu Hmeida told The Associated Press.

The Emergency Response Rooms is a grassroots network that monitors the conflict and provides support for communities across war-torn Sudan.

A local administration official also said 82 bodies were recovered.

The official said the collapse began on Sunday in one of the mine shafts and spread to the other interconnected shafts. He said only one privately owned forklift is available for the rescue efforts, complicating the search for survivors.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

“The collapse is massive and the situation is very dire,” Khairal-Sayed Gabara, one of the survivors, told AP when reached by phone. He said the machinery meeded to remove the collapsed soil and rubble was not available.

“We do not have the machinery to lift dirt and stones and search for survivors at depths of more than 30 meters (98 feet),” he said. “There were dozens of people working in the mine.”

The al-Zara gold mine is one of thousands of small-scale and informal mines scattered across Sudan, which has been engulfed in a war that has at times pushed parts of the country into famine.

Despite being a major gold producer, deadly mine collapses in Sudan are not uncommon in a country where safety standards are not widely applied. A 2023 collapse killed 14 miners and one in 2021 claimed 38 lives.

Al-Amin Suliman, another survivor, said 60 bodies had been recovered as of Wednesday morning. “There are still people stuck inside,” he said.

The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical group tracking the war in Sudan, reported earlier that 67 bodies were pulled out from under the rubble, predicting the death toll could increase as rescuers continued to search for people trapped under the rubble. The group said the mine — an informal site that employs unregulated workers — lacked basic safety and protective measures.

Earlier, survivors reached by phone and the physicians network said the tragedy took place on Tuesday evening.

The Kordofan Observatory monitoring group said at least 70 miners were killed or missing at the site, which stretches over 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) across a wide swath of fragile, sandy soil. It described the miners as unregulated and informal workers.

Large quantities of gold have been smuggled out of the country to finance the paramilitary RSF, which controls gold-producing areas in Darfur and Kordofan regions, according to experts commissioned by the United Nations.

Sudan plunged into an all-out war in April 2023 as fighting erupted between the RSF and the Sudanese military.

The conflict has killed at least 59,000 people, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a monitoring group. Aid organizations say the figure is an undercount, and the true number could be many times higher.

The strike occurred in the Nikopol district of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, near the war's southern front line. Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said that all five were killed at the scene while the seven wounded were receiving medical care.

Zelenskyy described the vehicle as a minibus and said in an X post that the strike had “no military rationale" and that it was "just another atrocity." He said the strike was connected to Russia's targeting of logistics and critical infrastructure that has continued “unabated.”

Zelenskyy said that a passenger train was also struck in the Mykolaiv region on Wednesday, damaging a railway station and a diesel locomotive. Nearly 170 passengers on board the train were evacuated before the strike. An electric locomotive in the northwestern city of Kovel was also struck, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine requests locomotives from partners

Russian strikes on Ukraine's rail network have resulted in more than 500 locomotives being damaged or completely destroyed since the beginning of the all-out war on Feb. 24, 2022, with more than half those strikes occurring this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X on Tuesday.

Sybiha described such attacks as “systematic” and aimed at disrupting logistics across Ukraine. He said that Ukraine urgently needs replacements for damaged locomotives, and called on the country's partners to assist in finding locomotives compatible with its 1,520-millimeter rail gauge and to assist in financing.

In another post on X on Wednesday, Sybiha said that Russian forces were striking passenger trains, locomotives, stations and railway routes “knowing exactly how essential they are for civilians, evacuations and Ukraine’s economy.”

“This is not collateral damage. It is a systematic hunt for people and an attempt to (paralyze) civilian life,” he wrote.

Zelenskyy says there is no truce on halting energy strikes

In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Zelenskyy pushed back against an earlier claim by U.S. President Donald Trump that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to mutually cease attacks on each other's energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy said that Ukraine was ready to enter such an agreement, if Russia stops striking Ukrainian energy facilities.

Trump said in a social media post Monday that such a truce had been reached, but didn’t offer details on the purported agreement. Previous efforts to broker even a partial ceasefire have repeatedly fallen apart within hours, with both sides accusing the other of violations.

In the CBS interview, Zelenskyy said that the possibility of an energy truce was discussed during a recent meeting in Kyiv with Trump’s representatives, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, but that he had told them: “If the Russians are ready for an energy truce, that means there will be no attacks on energy facilities at all.”

Russia decorates ship captain who fired flares at Danish helicopter

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the captain of a Russian warship that fired two signal flares toward a Danish military helicopter on Monday, drawing ire from Denmark, has been awarded a medal for his “competent and resolute action.”

The ministry said in a statement that the Soobrazitelny corvette was on a mission in neutral waters in the Baltic Sea when its crew spotted the approaching helicopter, which failed to respond to calls made via the international communication channel.

“To prevent a provocation by the Danish helicopter, the corvette commander decided to fire two red signal flares, after which the helicopter left the area where the Russian warship was located,” the ministry said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow has no aggressive intentions toward Europe, but that if countries on the continent were to launch an attack on Russia, “it would be a completely different kind of war, and a very short one.”

Russia confirms the death of a general in Donetsk

The deputy head of the Russian armed forces’ military-political department, Lt. Gen. Apti Alaudinov, confirmed Wednesday that a decorated Russian general had been killed in the occupied Donetsk region.

Alaudinov, who didn't provide details on the circumstances of Maj. Gen. Anton Grunis' death, hailed the officer as “a hero” and “one of the most respected generals … a real man and officer and a great patriot.”

The confirmation of Grunis' death came after Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, alleged on Wednesday that Grunis had been killed in occupied Donetsk by a Ukrainian drone while at a command post in the village of Kindrativka.

In July, Grunis reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his troops had captured the town of Kostiantynivka and he was later awarded the Hero of Russia medal. Ukraine has disputed that Kostiantynivka was fully taken by Russian forces.

Grunis had previously fought in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim republic whose bid for independence after the Soviet Union’s collapse led to years of war with Russian government forces. He also took part in Russia’s campaign in Syria.

In Ukraine, he commanded the 4th Guards Motorized Infantry Brigade.

Meanwhile, 17 other sites were damaged in Ukraine’s Kyiv region between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, according to the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, Tymur Tkachenko. Eight private homes, five vehicles, a municipal building, a hangar and a production facility were among the sites damaged, Tkachenko said on Telegram.

Zelenskyy said on X that the Kherson, Donetsk and Poltava regions had also come under attack.

In the northern city of Sumy, six people were injured in a Russian guided aerial bomb attack, including a 14-year-old girl, according to the head of the Sumy regional military administration Oleh Hryhorov. Two homes were destroyed and 10 others damaged in the strikes, along with damage to an educational facility, Hryhorov said, adding that two other men were hospitalized after a separate strike hit an industrial zone.

In the port city of Odesa, one person was killed in a Russian attack that sparked a fire at garages and damaged vehicles and private homes, Serhii Lysak, head of the city's military administration, wrote on Telegram Wednesday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its air defenses downed 71 Ukrainian drones overnight. In the Belgorod region, one person was killed and four others were wounded by Ukrainian strikes over the last 24 hours, according to acting governor Alexander Shuvayev.

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

Honda’s HR-V is the little sibling to the larger CR-V and sets a benchmark for what to expect from an extra-small SUV. Kia’s Seltos is less well known but enters 2027 with a full redesign that brings more space, revamped styling and a newly available hybrid powertrain. Both are compelling options, but which one is the better buy? Edmunds put these two SUVs head-to-head to find out.

Comfort and convenience

Both the Kia Seltos and Honda HR-V make good use of their compact dimensions, offering roomy cabins with generous space in both rows. The Seltos has an especially accommodating rear seat, even for taller passengers. Easy-access child seat anchors add to its family-friendly appeal. For a small SUV like this, the Seltos also boasts a reasonably smooth ride over bumps.

The HR-V is similarly roomy, with large door openings and a comfortable seat height that make entry and exit a breeze. It also has a pretty smooth ride. But Edmunds noticed a difference in seat comfort between these two SUVs. The HR-V’s overly firm front seat cushions and lack of lumbar adjustment take a toll on long-distance comfort. If you frequently have rear passengers, the Seltos has another advantage by way of its rear air vents. You don’t get them in the HR-V.

Winner: Kia Seltos

Power and fuel economy

Neither the 158-horsepower Honda HR-V nor the 147-horsepower Kia Seltos is quick off the line. In Edmunds’ testing, the HR-V needed 10.2 seconds to get from zero to 60 mph, while the Seltos posted a 10.6-second run to 60 mph. Thankfully, you can get a Seltos with a more powerful 190-horsepower turbocharged engine that livens up the car’s acceleration. The HR-V is only available with its base engine.

Both SUVs can deliver impressive fuel economy. The EPA estimates that the HR-V will get up to 28 mpg in combined city/highway driving. The Seltos gets up to an estimated 30 mpg combined, though the available turbocharged engine drops to 26 mpg combined.

There’s not much of a difference here, but the upcoming hybrid-powered version of the Seltos could tip the scales later this year.

Winner: tie

Cargo and utility

The Seltos offers 27.8 cubic feet of cargo capacity behind the second row and up to 64.2 cubic feet with the rear seats folded, putting it among the roomiest vehicles in its class. Front storage is less impressive since the narrow center console is deep but not particularly spacious, but there are plenty of additional compartments for smaller items.

The HR-V offers less capacity behind the rear seats at 24.4 cubic feet, but the cargo area is well thought out and makes good use of the space. The rear seatbacks fold nearly flat with the cargo floor, making it easier to haul longer items while expanding total cargo room to 55.1 cubic feet. Cabin storage is adequate, with a rubberized bridge compartment behind the shifter for wireless charging and a deep center-armrest bin, though the door pockets and glovebox are smaller than we’d prefer.

Winner: Seltos

Value

The HR-V makes a strong impression with a well-built, thoughtfully designed interior that features soft-touch surfaces and high-quality-feeling controls. It’s also reasonably priced, with the HR-V LX trim starting at $28,150 including destination fees. The HR-V EX-L tops the lineup at $32,000.

The Seltos has a lower starting price of $26,485, and while fully loaded trims can approach $40,000, you’re generally getting more for your money here. The Seltos has a bigger standard touchscreen, more available driver aids, and more convenience features — such as a power-adjustable driver’s seat or leather upholstery — at a lower price. Kia also has a significant advantage in warranty coverage, with five years/60,000 miles of basic coverage and 10 years/100,000 miles on the powertrain.

Winner: Kia Seltos

Edmunds says

The Honda HR-V covers the bases for what’s expected from an extra-small SUV. But the redesigned Kia Seltos has raised the bar to an all-new level with its generous passenger and cargo space, range of powertrain options, and appealing value. If you want top versatility and style from a small SUV, the Seltos is the way to go.

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

The high school was among 20 schools to receive facility upgrades as part of FPL’s effort to expand access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

The renovated aeronautical STEM lab includes flight simulators, updated computers and other technology designed to give students greater exposure to aviation-related careers.

Jay Schwartz, an adjunct professor involved with the program, said the cost of pursuing aviation careers can be a significant obstacle for young people.

“The biggest challenge to get young people into aviation is the financial barrier,” Schwartz said. “FPL has allowed us to break through that barrier, to allow these young minds to pursue great things in the future.”

FPL said the upgrades are intended to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM fields by providing modern facilities and hands-on learning opportunities.

The company said its investment is aimed at helping prepare and inspire the next generation of students interested in aviation, technology and other STEM careers.

The Office for National Statistics said rising prices at the pump and airfares were largely behind the increase in the U.K.’s consumer prices index to 3.1% in August from 2.9% the month before. The increase moved inflation further away from the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target.

However, rate-setters are widely expected to keep the bank’s main interest rate at 3.75% when they conclude their meeting on Thursday as a majority of the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee appear to want to see whether higher prices are feeding into higher wages that could further stoke inflationary pressures. A soft labor market is currently keeping wage demands in check.

“August’s inflation increase is unlikely to trigger a rate hike tomorrow, as policymakers will take some comfort from a cooling jobs market,” said Suren Thiru, chief economist at ICAEW. “However, it will probably harden the Bank’s hawkish tone and leave the door open to higher rates later this year.”

Interest rates in the U.K. had been trending downward from a 15-year high of 5.25% until the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The Iran war led to sharp increases in oil and gas prices, partly because the crucial Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed to traffic ever since.

As well as impacting the cost of personal loans and mortgages, the uptick in interest rate expectations is a growing problem for the British government as the servicing of its debt accounts for a higher proportion of its spending.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham insisted the British economy is still showing “resilience across the board” and that next month’s annual budget statement would take a prudence-first approach.

“We won’t take risks with people’s living standards or with the economy as a whole," he said.

Attorneys for the family said Kirk's death resulted from a string of “reckless decisions” by officials at Utah Valley University that left him exposed to a rooftop sniper, who fired a fatal shot from more than 400 feet (122 meters) away on Sept. 10, 2025. The university has faced harsh criticism for a lack of key safety measures on the day of the shooting.

Kirk, 31, had been debating students in an outdoor courtyard surrounded by tall buildings and with several thousand people in attendance. An Associated Press review following the shooting showed the campus in Orem did not use several public safety practices that have become standard safeguards at events around the country.

Campus police staffing was far below recommended levels for a school of that size. They also did not fly a drone to monitor rooftops or coordinate with local law enforcement to secure the event attended by about 3,000 people. There were no bag checks or metal detectors.

“The risk of a rooftop shooter should have been especially top-of-mind given the attempted assassination of President Trump, Charlie Kirk’s close friend and political ally, by a rooftop shooter the previous year,” Kirk family attorney D. Loren Washburn wrote in the notice to state and university officials.

The document, dated Sept. 9, a day before the one-year anniversary of Kirk’s death, is a required step under state law before his family can file a formal claim or lawsuit. It names the university and its then-president, Astrid Tuminez; the campus police department and its chief, Jeffrey Long; and the state of Utah.

A spokesperson for Utah Valley University said the school was aware of the notice and would address it “consistent with our established processes.”

“Our focus remains on supporting our campus community,” spokesperson Sharon Turner said in a statement.

The Utah Attorney General’s Office said it does not comment on potential litigation.

Attorneys for Kirk's family alleged additional lapses by officials, including not conducting an adequate risk assessment before approving the event, failing to establish a secure perimeter and having no first responders immediately available, resulting in Kirk being taken to a nearby hospital in a private vehicle rather than an ambulance after he was shot.

“Tragically, the UVU Parties took none of these safety measures — steps only they had the authority to take — resulting in a situation that rendered Mr. Kirk helpless before his assassin,” Washburn wrote.

Long said after the shooting that six of his officers staffed the event and coordinated with Kirk’s eight-person private security team. The school said it was expanding its police force following the shooting.

Utah resident Tyler Robinson turned himself in a day after Kirk's killing. Prosecutors say he told his romantic partner that he “had enough of his (Kirk's) hatred.”

Robinson is charged with aggravated murder, making him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. A judge on Sept. 1 ordered the case to proceed toward trial. A date has not yet been set.

Prosecutors during a preliminary hearing in July presented what they characterized as overwhelming evidence against Robinson. That includes surveillance video of Robinson on the campus, DNA tests linking him to a rifle found near the assassination site and a handwritten note he allegedly left for his romantic partner that read, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”

Kirk's parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, and widow, Erika Kirk, attended the hearings.

State law allows heirs or personal representatives of people who die to file lawsuits seeking damages if the death was caused by a wrongful act or negligence. The notice from Kirk’s family did not specify what damages they may seek.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Un estudio publicado el miércoles en la revista Scientific Data señala que el calentamiento de la Tierra está acelerando el derretimiento de las dos principales capas de hielo del planeta. Según el estudio, cinco sextas partes del deshielo no provienen de un aire más caliente, sino de aguas más cálidas que van erosionando las capas de hielo por debajo y por los costados, mientras los glaciares fluyen hacia los océanos. Los autores del estudio afirmaron que eso son malas noticias para el futuro aumento del nivel del mar.

“Las capas de hielo se están derritiendo rápidamente. Estamos derritiendo las regiones polares, el nivel del mar está subiendo en todo el mundo y eso agravará la vulnerabilidad de las regiones costeras” indicó Eric Rignot, científico del hielo de la Universidad de California en Irvine y coautor del estudio.

Grandes cifras de deshielo, inundaciones en zonas habitadas

Las cifras detrás del deshielo son a la vez descomunalmente grandes y engañosamente pequeñas.

El informe indica que todo ese hielo derretido se convirtió en casi 11,3 cuatrillones de litros (3 cuatrillones de galones) de agua, lo que elevó el nivel del mar global alrededor de 3,1 centímetros (una pulgada) desde 1979, además de otros factores climáticos que están aumentando la altura de los océanos.

Puede no parecer mucho, pero por cada centímetro (o tercio de pulgada) de aumento del nivel del mar, entre 2 y 3 millones de personas más se inundan al menos una vez al año, explicó la autora principal del estudio, Ines Otosaka, científica del hielo de la Universidad de Northumbria, en Inglaterra.

Otosaka añadió que el glaciar Jakobshavn, en Groenlandia, ahora retrocede hasta 50 metros (164 pies) por día.

La colaboración internacional de científicos polares, encabezada por la Agencia Espacial Europea, antes solo había analizado el deshielo de las capas de hielo desde la década de 1990 con base en datos de satélites europeos. Pero al incorporar satélites de la NASA, los científicos pudieron trazar los volúmenes de hielo en la Antártida hasta 1979 y en Groenlandia hasta 1972.

El deshielo se está acelerando

“Hay una tendencia clara a que las capas de hielo están perdiendo más masa y eso ha ido aumentando de década en década, especialmente si se observa el hielo que se descarga al océano. Y es bastante evidente que hay un vínculo con el cambio climático”, afirmó Otosaka.

Otosaka indicó que el análisis mostró que en las décadas de 1970 y 1980, y hasta bien entrada la de 1990, las capas de hielo fueron relativamente estables, pero luego comenzó el deshielo y se intensificó de verdad durante la década de 2010.

El coautor del estudio Andrew Shepherd, también de Northumbria, advirtió: “Esto es algo que debe preocupar porque muestra que los cambios van con décadas de retraso respecto del calentamiento global, lo que significa que podemos esperar que continúen durante décadas más —incluso si logramos dejar de calentar el planeta”.

Los autores del estudio señalaron que las cifras aceleradas parecieron hacer una pausa de 2020 a 2023, pero que eso refleja más variaciones meteorológicas de corto plazo que tendencias de largo plazo. Otosaka precisó que el estudio se detuvo con datos de 2023, pero que ella ha revisado mediciones posteriores y encontró que la tendencia de aceleración se ha reanudado.

Los autores explicaron que gran parte de la estabilidad en la Antártida se debió a que la Antártida Oriental registró nevadas récord, lo que compensó el rápido derretimiento en la menos estable Capa de Hielo de la Antártida Occidental.

Rignot comentó que la pausa de tres años fue “solo un bache en el registro”. Añadió: “El aumento prolongado es climático y la amenaza es absolutamente clara”.

Preocupación por un escenario de colapso

Otosaka señaló que los mayores cambios que observaron los científicos están en lo que llaman procesos dinámicos, que son más abruptos y activos que el derretimiento lento y constante provocado por el aire, y que eso es algo propenso a detonar “puntos de inflexión” descontrolados.

El científico del hielo de la Universidad de Nueva York David Holland afirmó que eso es lo que le preocupa “porque la mayor parte de la pérdida de hielo es dinámica y eso es exactamente lo que cabría esperar en un escenario de colapso por inestabilidad de una capa de hielo”.

El equipo internacional utilizó 45 estudios independientes y 27 satélites diferentes. “El uso de métodos relativamente independientes me da mayor confianza en el resultado. La tendencia al alza es real”, señaló Holland, que no participó en el estudio.

El científico del hielo de la Universidad de Colorado Ted Scambos, que tampoco participó en el estudio, señaló que “los ‘comodines’ de la pérdida de masa en la Antártida siguen planteando un desafío para la gestión humana del planeta: un peligro claro y presente, pero a muchas décadas en el futuro. Ahora, como sociedad, somos lo bastante inteligentes para conocer el futuro, pero no lo bastante prudentes para actuar en función de ese conocimiento”.

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La cobertura climática y ambiental de The Associated Press recibe apoyo financiero de múltiples fundaciones privadas. AP es la única responsable de todo el contenido. Consulte las normas de AP para trabajar con filantropías, una lista de patrocinadores y las áreas de cobertura financiadas en AP.org.

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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.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he would revoke U.S. visas or reject visa applications from foreign nationals found to be responsible for, or complicit in, enacting or enforcing laws and policies that allow for uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority ethnic and racial groups in South Africa.

“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked,” Rubio said in a statement. “These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy.”

The South African government has strongly rejected U.S. allegations of discrimination against whites, calling the claims made by the administration since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office last year baseless and a result of misinformation.

It's the latest U.S. move to sanction South Africa

Rubio did not identify any officials who would be targeted with the travel restrictions, though a lobby group for minority whites in South Africa has previously called for the U.S. to sanction officials of the African National Congress party, the party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and the largest in South Africa's Parliament.

It's the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa over its claims that whites, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against by their Black-led government. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were at the heart of South Africa's previous apartheid system of racial segregation.

There are approximately 4.5 million white people in South Africa's population of 62 million, which also includes whites with British or other heritage.

The Trump administration casts South Africa as anti-white

The U.S. has cited a contentious South African law that allows for the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for Blacks and others, and a small number of violent crimes against white farmers as evidence of a larger anti-white stance in South Africa.

The Trump administration has also strongly criticized South Africa’s move to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a highly emotive case at the United Nations’ top court. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.

South Africa asks the U.S. to respect its sovereignty

South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said Wednesday that some of the domestic policies that the U.S. had branded as discriminatory were designed to address the injustices of apartheid and hundreds of years of colonial rule before that, when Black people were stripped of their rights.

“South Africa respects that the United States may hold differing views on certain policy measures and their implementation. ... The people of South Africa likewise respect the right of the American people to develop legislation that addresses their own circumstances,” Lamola said in a statement. “We expect that the same respect will be accorded to the people of South Africa, as the principle of sovereignty requires.”

The U.S. says more sanctions will follow

The U.S. has enforced a series of other sanctions against South Africa during Trump's second term for purported anti-white and anti-American policies. They include barring South African officials from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the U.S., and phasing out aid for South Africa's HIV treatment program.

The U.S. has also launched a refugee program for Afrikaners and other whites, claiming baselessly that they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.

The U.S. says the sanctions are because South Africa has not changed its policies, and warned of more to follow.

“This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter,” the official U.S. Ambassador to South Africa account posted on X, referring to Rubio's visa announcement.

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AP writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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“It was interesting to see how many were going up,” said Tapia, a 30-year-old Republican from Arlington, Virginia, who works in higher education advocacy and policy. He said the data centers lend valuable computing power that can help keep the U.S. competitive with other nations, but he also worries about how much electricity they use.

Like Tapia, Americans have grown more concerned about the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence over the last year, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

The survey data say about half, 53%, of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about artificial intelligence's environmental impacts. That is up from 41% last year. Democrats are driving much of the increase in environmental concern, but the poll also reveals broader worries about the local impact of data centers, which power AI and cloud computing.

“We're undertaking a massive experiment in real time, and I don't think there'll be any putting the milk back in the bottle. Change is scary, and I think some of that is being reflected here,” said Michael Greenstone, who directs the University of Chicago institute that collaborated on the survey.

Rising concern among Democrats about AI's environmental impact

There are thousands of data centers in the U.S. with construction planned for more. Those include smaller, conventional centers that have been around for decades, as well as larger hyperscale ones that are being built to serve artificial intelligence’s added processing needs. Virginia and Texas have the most facilities currently in operation, and other top contenders include California, Ohio and New York.

While 87% of existing data centers are in urban areas, most new data centers are planned for rural areas, according to a Pew Research Center analysis from earlier this year.

“I think that decisions are being made for the company, not for the community that they're being built in,” said Nancy Antunes, a 60-year-old retired Democrat from Waltham, Massachusetts.

A recent United Nations University report predicted that data centers' environmental footprint, which already rivals some of the world's largest countries, will grow rapidly as AI is more widely adopted.

Democrats are increasingly worried about AI's environmental consequences. About two-thirds of Democrats say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about how AI will affect the environment, the poll found, up from about half in 2025. By contrast, about half of independents and about 4 in 10 Republicans are highly concerned about the environmental impact of AI.

Overall, Americans are more worried about the environmental impact of AI than other industries with a substantial environmental footprint. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults are highly concerned about the impact of meat production or air travel.

Dan Diorio, an executive vice president at the Data Center Coalition, said data centers are committed to operating responsibly and have already supported new jobs and contributed to the U.S. economy.

“The data center industry provides significant, tangible benefits that are currently being felt in localities across the country,” Diorio said in a statement.

Most Americans support limits on new data centers

While concerns about environmental impacts are higher among Democrats, there is a broad sense of wariness about a rapid data center boom.

About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, including most Democrats and Republicans.

“There’s a lot of water usage by AI data centers that’s taking away from other things like agriculture and farmers and places that really need it, and people who really need it,” said 21-year-old computer science student Gedeon Kebede, a Democrat from Cincinnati, Ohio.

A majority of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.

Data centers' use of water to cool AI chips and computers is “nationally modest but potentially locally decisive,” energy systems engineer Fengqi You with Cornell University said in an email. While data centers aren't the largest water gobblers in the country, a single large campus can still place stress on a smaller municipal area.

The centers are also powered by tremendous amounts of electricity, particularly larger ones, raising concerns about where that energy will come from. Data centers could account for 11.8% of the U.S.' electricity consumption by 2030, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report.

“We’re talking about building electric infrastructure on a scale of entire cities, or in some cases, entire states just to serve one data center,” said Erik Nordman, director of Michigan State University's Institute of Public Utilities.

About two-thirds of U.S. adults support requiring data centers to use clean energy sources, such as wind or solar, to supply their electricity needs. About 8 in 10 Democrats support this, along with 56% of Republicans.

Still, some Americans say data center worries feel distant. Mary Fisher, 68, hasn't seen any come up in her Jacksonville, Florida, neighborhood.

“You know, it hasn’t come across my desk as something I should be concerned about,” said Fisher, who is retired and identifies as a Republican.

Republicans see more benefits to data centers than Democrats

About one-quarter of U.S. adults say data centers are “extremely” or “very” beneficial when it comes to technological advancement, and about 2 in 10 say the same about job creation. Many U.S. adults say data centers are “somewhat” beneficial or aren't sure, while about one-quarter say they're “not very” or “not at all” beneficial for technological advancement, and about a third don't see a benefit for job creation.

“I see a huge increase in the number of temporary construction workers that are coming to areas, which is vitally important to the U.S. economy,” said Tapia, the higher education advocate.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to see data centers' benefits. But about 3 in 10 Republicans still think the centers are “not very” or “not at all” beneficial for improved infrastructure and job creation.

Kebede, the computer science student, said he feels pressured to use artificial intelligence. Despite his concerns surrounding the technology, he still wants to be a competitive applicant for the jobs of the future.

“I think a lot of people just feel that it's very much a bubble,” he said. “Ultimately, when it pops, it's going to be very detrimental to everyone, whether you bought into the AI hype or not.”

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The AP-NORC poll of 3,424 adults was conducted July 6-24, 2026, using a combined sample of interviews from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. The AmeriSpeak panel is recruited randomly using address-based sampling methods, and respondents later were interviewed online or by phone. To incorporate the nonprobability sample, NORC used TrueNorth calibration, an innovative hybrid calibration approach developed at NORC to explicitly account for potential bias associated with the nonprobability sample.

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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.

F1 released a 24-race schedule for 2027 on Wednesday starting with the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 14 and then Saudi Arabia a week later, with events also scheduled for Qatar and Abu Dhabi at the end of the year. All have long-term contracts to host F1 and Bahrain also hosts preseason testing in February.

Races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were called off this year due to the Iran war. An extra race in Malaysia next month will have Bahrain Grand Prix branding.

The Qatar Grand Prix on Nov. 29 and the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Dec. 6 remain on the schedule. F1 has considered a change to Europe if they can't go ahead but tickets remain on sale for both races.

Bahrain has opened most F1 seasons in recent years and was only moved from that position in 2025 and 2026 because of a clash with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Next year’s schedule avoids clashes with two other auto racing highlights, the Indianapolis 500 on May 30 and the Le Mans 24-hour race on June 12-13. F1 scheduled races on the same days as both this year. Four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen has said he wants to race at Le Mans in future.

More sprint races, including in Monaco

F1 is also expanding from six to 10 sprint races in 2027, including a first at the Monaco Grand Prix, where overtaking is almost impossible.

A sprint is also scheduled for the season-opening race in Bahrain. That would mark the first time an F1 season has begun with a short-format race before the first Grand Prix of the year.

F1 said race weekends that featured sprint races attracted an average viewership that was 12% higher than those without sprints. By increasing their number, F1 is “giving our fans even more intensity, drama, and the wheel-to-wheel action that make our sport so special,” chief executive Stefano Domenicali said.

F1 returns to Portugal in June for the first time since 2021 as the Portimao circuit replaces the Dutch Grand Prix, while the Turkish Grand Prix is also back in October 2027 after signing a five-year contract in April.

There will be no race at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona for the first time since 1990. It lost the title of Spanish Grand Prix to Madrid this year but stayed on under Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix branding. It will now alternate with the Belgian Grand Prix and next returns in 2028.

Racing in the Middle East is lucrative but comes with security concerns

There was no indication Wednesday that F1 is any closer to calling off or moving the Qatar or Abu Dhabi races.

Among potential alternatives in Europe, a season-ending race at Italy’s Imola circuit is widely considered the likeliest option. Domenicali indicated in July that a decision could come in mid-September.

The races in the Middle East are especially valuable for F1 and its teams. They contribute large hosting fees to F1, while Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Aramco and Qatar Airways are major sponsors for the series.

Next week's Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be the closest F1 has been to Iran since the outbreak of the war earlier this year. Azerbaijan shares a land border with Iran.

FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem defended the wait for confirmation on this year’s races in an interview this month with The Associated Press, arguing F1 was right not to “jump the gun” on deciding.

“Are we going to allow our people, our staff, the drivers or the teams to go at risk? No, of course not. We will not,” he added.

Speculation over possible changes to this year’s Qatar and Abu Dhabi races heightened this week as Formula 2, which is due to support F1 in both venues, added an extra race to its schedule next week in Azerbaijan. F2 said it would still race in Qatar and Abu Dhabi with a “usual weekend format.”

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A warming Earth is accelerating the melting of the planet's two major ice sheets, with five-sixths of the melt not coming from hotter air, but from warmer waters eating away at the ice sheets from below and the sides, with glaciers flowing into the oceans, according to a study in Wednesday's journal Scientific Data. That's bad news for future sea level rise, the study's authors said.

“The ice sheets are melting away fast,” said study co-author Eric Rignot, an ice scientist at University of California, Irvine. “We are melting the polar regions, sea level is rising worldwide and will exacerbate the vulnerability of coastal regions.”

Huge numbers for ice melt, people flooded

The numbers behind the melt are both mind-bogglingly huge and deceptively small.

All that melted ice turned into nearly 3 quadrillion gallons of water (11.3 quadrillion liters), which pushed global sea levels up about an inch (3.1 centimeters) since 1979, on top of other climate factors raising ocean heights, the report said.

An inch may not sound like much, but for every third of an inch (or centimeter) of sea level rise, another 2 to 3 million people get flooded at least once a year, said lead study author Ines Otosaka, an ice scientist at Northumbria University in England.

The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is now retreating up to 164 feet (50 meters) a day, Otosaka said.

The international collaboration of polar scientists, headed by the European Space Agency, had in the past only looked at ice sheet melt since the 1990s based on European satellite data. But by incorporating NASA satellites, the scientists were able to chart ice sheet volumes in Antarctica back to 1979 and in Greenland back to 1972.

The melting is accelerating

“There is a clear trend that the ice sheets are losing more mass and it has been increasing from decade to decade, especially if you look at the ice being discharged to the ocean,” Otosaka said. “And that’s quite clear that there’s a link to climate change.”

It showed that in the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, the ice sheets were relatively stable, but then melt started happening and it really kicked in during the 2010s, Otosaka said.

“That’s something to be concerned about as it shows that the changes are tracking decades behind global warming, which means we can expect them to continue for decades more — even if we are able to stop heating the planet,” said study co-author Andrew Shepherd, also of Northumbria.

The accelerating numbers seemed to pause from 2020 to 2023, but the study's authors said it more reflected short-term weather variations not long-term trends. Otosaka said the study stopped with 2023 data, but she's looked at measurements since and found the accelerating trend has picked back up.

A lot of the stability in Antarctica was because East Antarctica had record snowfall, which compensated for the rapid melting in the less stable West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the authors said.

The three-year hiatus was “just a bump in the record,” Rignot said. “The long rise is climate and the threat is crystal clear.”

Worrying about a collapse scenario

The biggest changes scientists saw are in what they call dynamic processes, which are more abrupt and active than the slow steady melting from the air, and that's something prone to trigger runaway “tipping points,” Otosaka said.

New York University ice scientist David Holland said that's what concerns him “because most of the ice loss is dynamical and that is exactly what you would expect in an ice sheet instability collapse scenario.”

The international team used 45 independent surveys and 27 different satellites. “The use of relatively independent methods gives me greater confidence in the result,” said Holland, who wasn't part of the study. “The upward trend is real.”

“The ‘wild cards’ of Antarctic mass loss continue to pose a challenge for human management of the planet — a clear and present danger, but many decades in the future,” said University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos, who wasn't part of the study. “We are now as a society smart enough to know the future, but not prudent enough to act upon the knowledge.”

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.