The public can tour the majestic room and view its gilded ceilings and Greek frescoes en route to the nearby Mona Lisa, but they won’t see any crown jewels or empty display cases. The collections and precious jewels once displayed there have been removed, as the museum said the gallery is returning to its 17th-century original ceremonial purpose.

The stolen jewels remain unrecovered nine months later.

The gallery's former exhibits will be relocated elsewhere in the museum, said Christophe Leribault, the Louvre's director. “It’s also an opportunity to rediscover the splendid architecture and decor of this gallery,” he said.

Leribault was named to lead the Louvre in February after previous director Laurence des Cars resigned after the October crown jewels heist and a string of failures that battered confidence in the leadership of the world’s most-visited museum.

“That sinister day, when iconic pieces were taken, cannot be forgotten, and indeed, I believe, should not be,” said French Culture Minister Catherine Pegard. “It was a trauma for the entire world, which, for several days, expressed its shock and sadness in every language. It was a trauma for us, discovering the fragility of a place we thought unshakeable, and which, like so many others, proved vulnerable.”

Security at the Paris museum has been boosted with the addition of new surveillance cameras and anti-intrusion systems.

On the day of the heist, thieves took less than eight minutes to force their way through a window into the Apollo Gallery and steal crown jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million), in a weekend operation that stunned visitors ad exposed glaring security vulnerabilities.

Security improvement is a priority of the decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan launched last year, with an estimated cost of up to 800 million euros ($933 million) to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Mona Lisa a dedicated gallery by 2031.

Nawaf Salam's appearance in Zawtar Al Gharbieh comes a day after President Joseph Aoun's landmark White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, who promised to back the Lebanese government in its bid to claim state control across the country.

Lebanon and Israel in late June signed the agreement, which calls for the Lebanese military to deploy in areas in southern Lebanon where Hezbollah had a military presence and influence, and from where Israeli troops that have occupied dozens of villages would withdraw.

Both sides later agreed on a pilot zone made up of a series of villages to test the implementation of the agreement. While Israeli troops have struck and conducted ground operations in those towns and villages, none of them are under their occupation, but the Lebanese army has also not been there in large numbers.

The latest war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group started March 2, after the group fired rockets toward Israel in solidarity with war-torn Iran, its main backer. In response, Israel launched an aerial campaign and ground invasion in Lebanon, killing more than 4,000 people and displacing 1.2 million others.

Lebanon's top political leadership criticized Hezbollah for dragging the country into another war, but also condemned Israel for its widespread bombing and ground invasion.

Salam, alongside Lebanon’s defense minister and senior military officials, pitched a Lebanese flag near a destroyed building in the town, vowing the government will start rebuilding destroyed homes and infrastructure.

“We have insisted since the beginning that our goal is the complete Israeli withdrawal from all our territory,” Salam said. “What we are seeing today is just the beginning, but we remain determined and steadfast, and will continue to mobilize all political and diplomatic efforts to secure a full withdrawal from all of Lebanese territory.”

The army did not immediately allow civilians to enter as they cleared unexploded ordinances. Residents tried to storm the barrier in a desperate bid to enter the village and check on their homes and properties.

Hezbollah has condemned the government for holding direct talks with Israel and rejected the agreement, but the militant group has not tried to sabotage it through military means. Its leadership believes Israel cannot be pressured to withdraw its troops by diplomatic means only, and that Lebanon lacks the leverage of its key ally Iran in negotiations.

Trump, in his meeting with Aoun, did not speak much about the pilot zone going into its implementation phase, but pledged to support Lebanon without going into details.

Aoun and the Lebanese government have urged the international community to invest in the tiny country and its army to help rebuild its infrastructure and military capacity.

Se espera que Bertha toque tierra el miércoles por la noche en la zona costera y poco poblada de Luisiana, al sureste de Nueva Orleans, y que el viento sea la mayor amenaza, según Michael Buchanan, meteorólogo del Servicio Meteorológico Nacional en el estado.

En la madrugada del miércoles, la tormenta estaba a unos 235 kilómetros (145 millas) al oeste-suroeste de Panama City, Florida, y a 120 kms (75 millas) al este de la desembocadura del río Misisipi. Se desplazaba en dirección oeste a 9 kilómetros/hora (6 mph) con vientos máximos sostenidos de 85 km/h (50 mph), informó el Centro Nacional de Huracanes (NHC, por sus siglas en inglés), con sede en Miami.

Había un aviso por tormenta tropical desde la división entre los condados de Bay y Gulf, en Florida, hacia el oeste hasta Morgan City, Luisiana, así como para el área metropolitana de Nueva Orleans y el lago Pontchartrain, de acuerdo con el NHC.

Se prevén marejadas ciclónicas de hasta 1,2 metros (4 pies) en Luisiana desde la desembocadura del río Misisipi hasta la frontera estatal entre Alabama y Misisipi, con marejadas menores en partes de Florida y Alabama, según los meteorólogos.

Podrían caer entre 5 y 10 centímetros (de 2 a 4 pulgadas) de lluvia desde el oeste de Florida hasta la costa sur de Luisiana, con cantidades mayores en zonas dispersas que podrían causar inundaciones repentinas en áreas urbanas.

Se espera que Bertha se debilite a medida que avance hacia Texas, apuntaron los expertos.

Puntos de distribución de sacos de arena

Las autoridades de Misisipi, Luisiana y Florida habilitaron sitios para distribuir sacos de arena a los residentes, mientras se colocaban avisos de bandera roja a lo largo de algunas playas para alertar a los nadadores sobre los peligros de las corrientes de resaca. A lo largo de la costa, banderas rojas dobles indicaban que las aguas del golfo estaban cerradas al baño.

Las playas cerca de Pensacola, Florida, estaban en su mayoría desiertas, salvo por turistas que tomaban fotos del oleaje que golpeaba con fuerza.

“Para los locales, esto es solo otra tormenta", apuntó Candice Henderson, gerente de Crab Trap, un restaurante junto a la playa que estuvo lleno el martes en Perdido Key, Pensacola. "Cuando estás de vacaciones y está lloviendo, o vas de compras o sales a comer”.

Bertha, 2da tormenta tropical del año en el Atlántico

Bertha es la segunda tormenta tropical de la temporada de huracanes en el Atlántico. Arthur, otra tormenta tropical registrada en junio, dejó lluvias intensas en el sureste de Estados Unidos.

Bertha podría descargar fuertes precipitaciones en zonas costeras de Misisipi que aún se recuperan de las inundaciones causadas por Arthur, que destruyó y dañó viviendas.

“Debido a eso, la gente está prestando atención, o al menos eso se esperaría”, apuntó Jeff Clark, portavoz del condado Harrison, en Misisipi, donde se habilitaron seis puntos de reparto de sacos de arena.

Clark señaló que hasta el martes no había sido necesario abrir refugios ni ordenar evacuaciones.

La Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica prevé que la temporada de huracanes del Atlántico esté por debajo del promedio este año, aunque eso no elimina las posibilidades de una tormenta catastrófica.

El huracán Fausto, en el Pacífico, está lejos de tierra

En el Pacífico oriental, el huracán Fausto se movía lejos de tierra el martes. Estaba a unos 1.295 kms (805 millas) al oeste-suroeste del extremo sur de Baja California, y se desplazaba hacia el oeste-noroeste a 15 km/h (9 mph) con vientos máximos sostenidos de 130 km/h (80 mph).

Según los pronósticos, ganará fuerza gradualmente, y el NHC advirtió que el oleaje generado por Fausto podría causar condiciones de resaca y corrientes de resaca potencialmente mortales en la costa de Baja California.

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Los periodistas de The Associated Press, Kimberly Chandler en Montgomery, Alabama; Stephen Smith en Nueva Orleans, y Haya Panjwani en Washington contribuyeron a este despacho.

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

The blast triggered by a buildup of methane gas tore through the tunnel Monday at the 500-megawatt Teesta Hydroelectric Project in northeastern Sikkim state in the Himalayas. Authorities have recovered the bodies of 12 workers who died inside the tunnel about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the state capital Gangtok.

Rescue teams equipped with specialized breathing equipment and night-vision gear were having difficulty entering the tunnel because of the gas and a buildup of water, administrative official Anupama Tamling said.

Gandura Oraon, 38, said he and other workers were eating lunch inside the tunnel when a loud explosion forced them to run for the exit.

“Luckily, we found the vehicle that had delivered lunch to us sometime earlier. We got into it and drove out,” he said.

As they escaped, Oraon said, they came across their supervisor and urged him to leave with them as well. Instead, he headed toward the site of the blast to see what had happened and was later found dead, Oraon said.

The Teesta River basin, where the hydropower project is being built, lies in a seismically active region marked by young, fragile rock formations riddled with fractures and underground pockets that can trap ancient gases. Fragile mountains, seismic activity and unpredictable underground conditions make tunnel projects especially risky in the region, according to experts.

A February explosion in a coal mine in neighboring Meghalaya state killed 18 workers. A tunnel section collapsed in 2023 in northern Uttarakhand state, trapping 41 workers for 17 days before they were rescued.

Ukraine has made significant progress in the war this year, and a rift between the country’s outgoing army chief and its defense minister threatened to derail its efforts. Both men lost their jobs following Zelenskyy’s major government reshuffle last week.

The top-level changes late Tuesday were intended to draw a line under an unwelcome spasm of political turmoil that lasted almost a week and prompted rejoicing in Russia. It was not clear whether Zelenskyy's measures would achieve that goal.

The new army chief, 43-year-old Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, belongs to a new generation of Ukrainian generals who have come up through the ranks during the battle against Russian aggression. He became known for his daring and courage in 2014, the year that Russia seized and illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula — eight years before Moscow's all-out invasion.

Zelenskyy said Drapatyi and other commanders must present an updated defense strategy, including continued reform of the corps system, faster weapon and drone deliveries, stronger air defense against Russian strikes, and a clearer mobilization plan.

Fedorov's future is still uncertain

Zelenskyy met separately Tuesday with outgoing defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a 35-year-old tech-savvy entrepreneur credited with swiftly developing Ukraine’s drone technology that has given it a battlefield edge.

Fedorov locked horns with outgoing commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, a 60-year-old veteran trained in the Soviet Union before Ukraine’s independence.

Street protests in Kyiv and other cities demanded Fedorov’s return, viewing him as a key military modernizer, and urged Zelenskyy to fire Syrskyi, regarded as part of the old guard.

Zelenskyy offered Fedorov what he called a respected position in the government that would unify the country’s technology sector. It wasn’t clear if Fedorov accepted the offer -- or whether the latest moves would satisfy protesters and calm the streets.

Fedorov said after his dismissal last week that he had been offered jobs by some global defense tech companies.

Fedorov supported Drapatyi's appointment, calling it a “new hope in the fight of free people for freedom and justice” and “a voice for change that could not go unheard.”

Fedorov had criticized Syrskyi publicly before his dismissal, saying the general was blocking his reform efforts and needed to be replaced for Ukraine not to fail in its resistance against Russia.

Outgoing military chief points to recent battlefield achievements

Syrskyi defended his wartime record in a statement Wednesday.

Among other things, he claimed Ukrainian forces had clawed back 743 square kilometers (287 square miles) of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory this year and said he was handing his successor an army that was not only defending but also conducting offensive operations.

It was not possible to independently verify his claim.

Fedorov called Syrskyi to thank him for his military triumphs, including defending the Kyiv region at the time of Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion, the Kharkiv counteroffensive operation later that year and other battles, calling them “already an important part of Ukraine’s history.” But he added that the country must “move even faster and write new chapters, correcting all previous mistakes.”

The political crisis began last Thursday, when Zelenskyy overhauled his wartime government, replacing his prime minister and firing Fedorov after just six months in the post.

The reshuffle immediately drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Kyiv and other cities, framing Fedorov’s removal as Zelenskyy siding with an entrenched military old guard over a reformer.

Russia and Ukraine keep up their long-range strikes

The political maneuvers took place against a backdrop of continued deadly strikes by Russia and Ukraine onto each other's soil.

Ukrainian drones overnight struck two more sprawling warehouses of Russia’s major online retailer, Wildberries, in Russia’s southern regions of Krasnodar and Stavropol, Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim and Russian officials said Wednesday.

The strikes came four days after Ukraine’s long-range drones hit massive Wildberries warehouses in the Moscow region and in the Tambov region, killing eight people and wounding dozens, according to officials.

Zelenskyy said, without naming the facilities, that they were used by Russia to supply sanctioned components for the production of drones and navigation equipment.

Russian attacks, meanwhile, have also struck several major Ukrainian logistics hubs and retail facilities over the past week.

Russia attacked Ukraine with four missiles of various types and 216 long-range strike drones overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to the Ukrainian air force.

In the southern Odesa region, a Russian drone killed a woman when it struck a two-story apartment building, regional military administration head Oleh Kiper said.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Bertha was forecast to make landfall Wednesday night in the coastal and lightly populated part of Louisiana southeast of New Orleans, with wind as the biggest threat, according to Michael Buchanan, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Louisiana.

Early Wednesday, the storm was centered about 145 miles (235 kilometers) west-southwest of Panama City, Florida, and 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was moving west at 6 mph (9 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the line between Bay and Gulf counties in Florida west to Morgan City, Louisiana, as well as for metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, the hurricane center said.

Storm surges up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) were possible in Louisiana from the Mississippi River mouth to the Alabama-Mississippi state line, with smaller surges in parts of Florida and Alabama, forecasters said.

Rain between 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) could fall from western Florida to the southern Louisiana coastline, with higher amounts in scattered areas that could cause flash flooding in urban areas.

Bertha was expected to weaken as it pushes into Texas, forecasters said.

Sandbag distribution sites set up

Authorities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida opened sites to provide sandbags to residents while red flag warnings were posted along some beaches advising swimmers about the dangers of rip tides. Up and down the coast, double red flags signaled that Gulf waters were closed for swimming.

Beaches near Pensacola, Florida, were mostly deserted except for tourists taking photos of the pounding surf.

“For locals, this is just another storm,” said Candice Henderson, manager of the Crab Trap, a beachside restaurant that was packed Tuesday on Pensacola’s Perdido Key. “When you’re on vacation and it's raining, you either shop or you go out to eat.”

Bertha is the second tropical storm of Atlantic season

Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Storm Arthur in June brought heavy rainfall to the southeastern U.S.

Bertha could dump heavy rain on coastal areas of Mississippi that are still recovering from flooding brought by Arthur that destroyed and damaged homes.

“Because of that, people are definitely paying attention, or at least you would hope so,” said Jeff Clark, a spokesperson for Mississippi's Harrison County, where six sites were open for sandbag distribution.

There had not been a need by Tuesday to open shelters or order evacuations, Clark said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects a below-average Atlantic hurricane season this year, although that doesn’t eliminate the chances of a catastrophic storm.

Hurricane Fausto in the Pacific is far from land

In the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto churned far from land Tuesday. The hurricane was about 805 miles (1,295 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California moving west-northwest at 9 mph (15 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph).

It was forecast to gradually strengthen and the hurricane center warned that ocean swells generated by Fausto could cause life-threatening surf and rip tide conditions on the Baja California coast.

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Associated Press journalists Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, Stephen Smith in New Orleans and Haya Panjwani in Washington contributed to this report.

On the other side of the wall, visitors watch the work unfold on the bones of the nearly six-meter (20-foot)-long skeleton. Children point with excitement while parents contemplate the creature the massive bones once belonged to.

The painstaking restoration is part of an unusual public science project. More than 2,000 volunteers are helping Polish scientists restore the skeleton of the Mastodonsaurus, a fearsome aquatic predator from around the dawn of the dinosaur age.

The work is meticulous. Bone must be separated from surrounding rock millimeter by millimeter with a pneumatic chisel, whose needle gently breaks away rock while ultraviolet light reveals where the bone ends and the surrounding rock begins.

The volunteers are managers, cleaners, tattoo artists — not geologists or paleontologists. They receive training and special protective gear, before they begin two-hour-long chiseling sessions under supervision.

“I imagine that those bones were lying underground for 240 million years and I am the first human on earth to touch them," said Tatyana Kozyk, the coordinator of the volunteer teams. “I'm still trying to wrap my head around this experience.”

An ancient aquatic predator

One of the largest amphibians ever to exist, the Mastodonsaurus lived about 240 million years ago during the Middle Triassic, while the earliest dinosaurs were appearing but before they came to dominate Earth. It was an underwater ambush hunter, preying mainly on fish and smaller amphibians.

Scientists believe it could grow to nearly six meters (20 feet) in length. It had a broad, flat head, long jaws and sharp conical teeth, its appearance resembling a crocodile's, though it belonged to a different branch of the vertebrate family tree.

When the restoration is complete, it will be the largest exhibited in a museum anywhere in the world, said Tomasz Sulej, a paleontologist and professor at the Institute of Paleobiology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its skeleton weighs 1,300 kilograms (2,865 pounds).

Sulej and his colleague Wojciech Pawlak from the Faculty of Geology at the Warsaw University are credited with discovering the skeleton in southern Poland in 2023 and coming up with the idea to invite volunteers to help with its restoration.

Sulej says there are no other known Mastodonsaurus skeletons this large anywhere else in the world, and the discovery promises to help scientists learn more about the species.

“The structure of the body is different from what we knew so far," he said. "This is information that is completely new to the scientific world.”

Other Mastodonsaurus skeletons have been found elsewhere, including in Germany and Russia, Sulej said, but they are around 2 to 3 meters (6½ to 10 feet) long.

A chance to reflect on the past and future

Dorota Serafin, a 51-year-old manager from Warsaw who volunteers for the project, said working with the skeleton of an ancient animal is an experience that is at the same time “relaxing and philosophical, even mystical.”

Serafin said she plans to return for other sessions and eventually bring her family to Copernicus when the restored skeleton is exhibited, which is expected to happen in October or November.

In addition to the startling experience of touching the remains of an animal that lived hundreds of millions of years ago, contact with the Mastodonsaurus offers an opportunity to reflect on the future, those involved in the project said.

The amphibian inhabited Earth’s waters after the largest known mass extinction and just before the dinosaurs appeared. As humanity contemplates the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, Sulej says the story of the Mastodonsaurus offers some hope.

“The Mastodonsaurus lived after the great extinction, which shows one thing, that nature always manages,” Sulej said. “It's not true that humans can destroy life on this planet. Nature and life always find ways to survive.”

Rubio spoke at the start of an annual meeting in the Philippine capital, Manila, with counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations who have expressed alarm over the resurgent war in the Middle East that has battered their region. Despite Washington’s preoccupation with the war in the Middle East, Rubio reassured “we’re with ASEAN 100%.”

“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll and if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region,” he said.

Top diplomats from the U.S., China, Russia and several other countries are in Manila this week to take part in the gathering of Southeast Asian foreign ministers. Newly minted British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband was arriving Wednesday, his office said.

Rubio also met with foreign affairs ministers of the four-nation Quad partnership — made up of the U.S., Australia, India and Japan — where they discussed shared priorities around technology, humanitarian assistance, emergency response as well as maritime and transnational security.

They issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to their maritime security initiatives that seek to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

“We are united in our conviction that peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain underpin the security and prosperity of the region,” the leaders said in a statement.

Rubio added in a post on X that, “The Quad remains a priority, and we will meet again later this year.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea to the disadvantage of smaller claimant countries like the Philippines, Washington's oldest treaty ally in Asia.

The territorial disputes, which also involve Taiwan and ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, are high on the agenda of three days of talks that started Tuesday in Manila.

Rubio later met with his Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, where they discussed both regional issues and the Iran war, according to a U.S. State Department spokesperson, along with a yet-to-be completed trade agreement to lower U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Indian goods.

“The Secretary and Minister Jaishankar agreed on the importance of finalizing the interim trade deal, which is almost complete,” spokesperson Tommy Pigott said.

Rubio was scheduled to meet separately with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the meetings in a tightly secured convention complex by Manila Bay.

France's CAC 40 edged up 0.6% in early trading to 8,410.68, while the German DAX rose 0.4% to 25,106.51. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.8% to 10,666.51. U.S. shares were set to drift lower with Dow futures down 0.2% at 52,366.00. S&P 500 futures lost 0.4% to 7,518.75.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.2% to finish at 66,115.60, after the government reported that both imports and exports rose last month from a year earlier, as the weakening yen raised the value of both when converted from dollars to yen.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.3% to 8,823.00. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.7% to 6,797.70. The Hang Seng dipped nearly 1.0% to 24,892.66, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed, adding less than 0.1% to 3,867.03.

More climbs for oil prices have come after the continued attacks between the United States and Iran. Benchmark U.S. crude added $2.90 to $87.24 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose $2.91 to $93.92 a barrel.

“Oil makes the situation more difficult because Japan imports most of its energy. A weaker yen and higher crude prices arrive together like two waves hitting the same sea wall,” said analyst Stephen Innes, a former trader.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched down to 163.11 Japanese yen from 163.14 yen. The euro cost $1.1409, up from $1.1404.

Rising oil prices are again pushing inflation higher, just as increases for prices were slowing more than economists expected. That in turn could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates, which would slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.

Trump will be at Dover Air Force Base when the remains of the troops killed in action are returned to their families, the White House said. The ritual is one of the most somber duties of a commander-in-chief. It will be the third that Trump has attended since he launched the war in Iran in February.

Two U.S. Army soldiers killed in Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan will be returned during the dignified transfer, according to an administration official who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The remains of a third service member who is believed to be the soldier missing after the Jordan attacks will also be returned, the official said, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in Iraq during a detonation of an Iranian drone.

“I'll be going to Dover for something that I feel is — it’s a great honor for me to do it,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

The soldiers killed in Jordan were identified by the Defense Department as Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. The soldier who disappeared after the Jordan attacks and is now believed to be deceased is Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York, the Defense Department said.

The soldier killed in Iraq was identified as Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who lived in Spring Lake, North Carolina.

“We feel very badly, but you know, those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting so that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. He added that the U.S. was striking Iran “in honor” of the fallen troops.

The U.S. has launched multiple retaliatory strikes against Iran as an interim agreement to end the war falls apart. Trump on Monday said that every time Iran kills an American soldier, “they will pay for that killing many times over!”

Since the war began on Feb. 28, 18 U.S. service members have been killed.

Trump on Tuesday said that while almost all the incoming fire in Jordan was stopped, some made it through.

“They did slip something through in Jordan," he said. "If we had other operators, you know, it would have not happened, unfortunately.”

He went on: “We’ve stopped almost everything, but when you let other people do your job with the United States — we let other people do the job — and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.”

Trump did not elaborate on his comments, and it was not immediately clear who Trump was saying was responsible for protecting U.S. forces in Jordan.

Trump has attended two previous dignified transfers since the outset of the war, most recently in March. During his first term, he described the ritual as “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.

During the ritual, transfer cases draped with the American flag and holding the remains of the fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that transported them to an awaiting vehicle to take them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the service members are prepared for their final resting place.

Feehan, a first lieutenant who was killed Saturday, will be posthumously promoted to the rank of captain and awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge. He was assigned out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.

Gonzales, who was killed Friday, was a private with the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany. She graduated last year from Hebron High School in Carrollton, near Dallas, school officials said.

Rampersad, a sergeant who was believed to have been killed in Friday's attacks, was assigned to the 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.

Swinton, a sergeant who was killed Sunday, will receive a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge, and will be promoted to staff sergeant. He enlisted in the Army in 2017 and was assigned to the 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Trump on Wednesday plans to speak at a Georgia high school to promote the investment accounts, which offer $1,000 in seed money to every child born during his second term. The accounts went live July 4, two days before Trump rang the opening bells for both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ from the Oval Office.

The tax-advantaged accounts, created last year through Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill, can be opened for any child under the age of 18. The Treasury Department boasts 6.5 million sign-ups for Trump Accounts, with 1.5 million of those eligible for the $1,000 seed funding for babies born from 2025 through 2028.

Boosters of the program say it’s a chance to give more Americans a stake in the stock market. They hope it will stem the rising popularity of democratic socialists, who seek to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy to ease the cost of things like food and healthcare for low-income and middle-class Americans.

After the Trump Accounts are set up, parents, relatives, friends and employers can contribute to them. Some billionaires have also pledged philanthropic contributions. The money is turned over to private firms that invest it in index funds, a type of mutual fund that tracks the performance of the stock market. The money can’t be accessed until the child turns 18, and only then for specific purposes, such as going to school, opening a business or buying a home.

For babies born since Trump took office last year, $1,000 from the U.S. Treasury is supposed to kick off the accounts. While some parents report receiving the money, others said in interviews and on social media they're still waiting for the accounts to receive $1,000.

Masaki and Kristina McLellan, new parents from Bergen County, New Jersey, said in an interview they were wary of signing up for the accounts because they worried it was a promotional stunt for the president. But the $1,000 incentive persuaded the couple, whose daughter Maya was born in late March, to start an account anyway.

Masaki McLellan said he applied for the account July 6. At first, the application was rejected, but the account was activated after he spent an hour on the Trump Account hotline. He was told he'd see the money in the account in 10 days. Now, he says, he's been told it will take up to four weeks.

Kristina McLellan said she was disappointed it was taking so long to fund her daughter's account. But the infant has multiple other investments already compounding for her. Maya's parents have already started a 529 college savings plan and a custodial brokerage account for her. The Trump Account is the third investment account in the little girl's name.

“We definitely want to give her options for her future and make sure she can choose what she wants to do,” said McClellan, a studio director for a local news station, who returns from maternity leave next week.

The Treasury Department said the lag between opening an account and receiving the seed funding constitutes “standard processing time, like receiving a tax refund” and that the overwhelming majority of parents are only waiting one to two days. But the department likes to give parents a conservative estimate for how long it might take for the money to be transferred, such as the estimate of up to four weeks given to the McLellans.

“Trump Accounts level the playing field by allowing every parent to invest in their children’s future, not just wealthy families with trust funds,” the department said. “With roughly 1 million sign-ups per month before launch, Trump Accounts have become the most popular and successful government-backed savings product in U.S. history.”

Trump's stop in Georgia comes as he and fellow Republicans face pressure in the midterm elections for their handling of the economy. Only 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s economic leadership, among the lower ratings of his second term, according to a June survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Trump pledged to lower costs, but his tariffs and the war in Iran have instead helped to increase prices.

Trump Accounts are similar to “ baby bonds,” championed by Democratic-led cities and states meant to shrink the wealth gap between low- and high-income children. But unlike most baby bonds, which generally target kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, Trump Accounts are available to families of all incomes.

The program has faced criticism from those who say it does nothing to help families in a child's first years of life, when children are most likely to experience poverty, homelessness and hunger. And the bill that created the program, the president's signature One Big Beautiful Bill, also slashed funding for programs that are disproportionately used by children, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

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Associated Press writer Adriana Morga contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Burnham, from Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party, faces restive voters seeking relief from the high cost of living. At the same time, the investors who help finance the government by buying its bonds are demanding that he reduce public sector debt that has ballooned to levels last seen in the 1960s.

In an effort to balance the competing demands, Burnham surprised pundits by naming former Defense Secretary John Healey as his Treasury chief. Healey, who served in the Treasury under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is seen as someone who will make sure the government lives up to its pledge to reduce Britain’s debt pile.

Then, first thing Tuesday morning, Burnham made a down payment on his commitment to ease the pressure on cash-strapped consumers. The government announced it would scrap the tax on home electricity use for at least six months beginning in October, saving the average household 45 pounds ($60) a year.

Importantly, the government said the move would be paid for by canceling plans to introduce digital ID, in an effort to reassure investors that Burnham isn’t about to go on an unfunded spending spree.

Treasury chief has a big job ahead

“Healey has a daunting task on his hands,’’ said Victoria Scholar, the head of investment at interactive investor.

“The government has ambitious plans to tackle cost-of-living pressures … but he faces a very difficult set of public finances to carry these expensive plans through.”

Now that he’s controlling the purse strings, Burnham faces the same issues that have bedeviled every prime minister since the financial crisis of 2008. And their failure to find answers is a big part of the reason that the eight men and women who have taken up residence behind the famous black door at 10 Downing Street in that period have had an average tenure of two years.

Burnham, like his predecessors, faces the challenge of finding a way to reinvigorate an economy that has grown an average of less than 1.5% a year since 2009, compared with an annual average of 3% in the 15 years before the financial crisis.

Burnham received a boost to his cost-of-living reduction agenda Wednesday when inflation fell to its the lowest rate in 15 months in June, buoyed by a drop of food and fuel prices. The rate of the Consumer Prices Index was 2.6% in June, down from 2.8% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics. But experts warn the good news may be short-lived because the conflict in the Middle East will continue to put pressure on wholesale energy prices.

As he develops his economic plans, Burnham will be constrained by promises to reduce government debt, which now exceeds 95% of gross domestic product. According to Britain’s budget watchdog, debt interest payments rose to 111.2 billion pounds ($149 billion), or 8.3% of government spending, in the financial year that ended in April, leaving less money to spend on government services ranging from healthcare to education and defense.

New challenges are added to the old ones

But he also faces a new challenge after his predecessor, like most other European governments, pledged to increase defense spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035. That came after pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has criticized his allies for not paying their fair share of Europe’s defense.

Meeting that commitment will cost about 36 billion pounds a year, or 500 pounds for each person in the U.K., according to estimates from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a respected independent researcher.

“We should absolutely acknowledge that these constraints are structural,” said Olivia O’Sullivan at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “They would be tough for any prime minister at this time.”

And that’s why boosting economic output is so crucial to all of Burnham’s plans.

Stimulating economic growth is key to Burnham's plans

Without faster growth, British taxpayers will either have to pay higher taxes or accept cuts in popular programs such as the National Health Service, which offers free medical care to everyone. A booming economy, on the other hand, would boost the revenue generated by existing taxes and tax rates because the value of company profits, worker salaries and other transactions would rise.

Sluggish growth doomed former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government when angry Labour lawmakers forced him to cancel welfare cuts designed to help balance the budget. More recently he was widely criticized for failing to offer a credible plan for increasing defense spending.

Some Labour supporters have grumbled that the government “shouldn’t be in hock to the bond market.” But economists say Burnham and Healey must take the financial constraints seriously if they are going to succeed in bolstering the economy and increasing the pot available to fund popular programs.

“It’s not some imaginary bogeyman in the bond market,” said David Aikman, director of the independent National Institute of Economic and Social Research. “We need people to buy the debt we’re issuing.”

So far, Burnham has offered little detail on his plans for the British economy.

His big idea is to “reindustrialize” the economy by shifting investment away from London to other parts of the country that were hard hit by the decline in manufacturing. Burnham also says he will increase construction of public housing to address the nation’s housing shortage and bolster the construction industry, and support the small and medium-size businesses that account for 60% of private employment.

At the same time, he has pledged to stick to Labour’s promises not to raise taxes on working people and to maintain the “triple lock” on state pensions, an expensive policy that guarantees pensions will rise each year by the annual increase in consumer price inflation, average wage growth, or 2.5%, whichever is higher.

Jim O’Neill, a former chief economist for Goldman Sachs and member of the House of Lords who has advised Burnham in the past, told the BBC last month that Britain’s new prime minister must “get real.”

“We need somebody that’s prepared to do something bold and different,” he said.

Burnham, he added, “has got the same challenge that everybody else seems to avoid and that’s doing something about things like welfare, stop this never-ending spectacular rise in the spending on NHS. … Do something about the triple lock, etc., etc., and get out of this weird sort of prison of being owned by every little small group that opposes anything anybody wants to do. “

Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail ever since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home in a stunning middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.

Both have pleaded not guilty. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation” in a criminal case first brought six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.

U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.

“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country," he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.

Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s “military abduction.”

The lawyers have said there are complex legal defenses that the court must address before a trial can begin.

Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date.

Opening statements are set for Wednesday in Hadi Matar's trial in the federal courthouse in Buffalo, New York. It's about 70 miles (113 km) from the arts and intellectual retreat where the renowned author and free-speech advocate was attacked as he was about to discuss writer safety.

The Booker Prize-winning Rushdie, now 79, is expected to be among the first witnesses, again describing the stabbing that nearly killed him and left him blind in one eye. He has recounted the moment and his lengthy recovery in testimony at Matar's state-court attempted murder trial, in a memoir and in multiple interviews.

“The thing that happens when you get really a close-up look at death — that’s as close as you can get without actually doing the dance of death and heading off to nowhere — it stays with you,” he told The Associated Press in 2024. “There’s a shadow.”

Matar, 28, already is serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on a state-level attempted murder and assault conviction. That case focused mostly on the details of the knife attack itself; the federal one delves more into questions of motive.

Matar has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. If convicted, he faces a potential life sentence.

Prosecutors have argued that he was acting out of loyalty to Iran's theocratic government and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group after the Islamic Republic's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Rushdie's death because of his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.”

Matar's electronics included information on the fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, that sought Rushdie's death, and Matar kept a journal and sticky notes logging his research on Rushdie and possible ways and places to kill him, prosecutors said in a 2025 court filing. In Matar’s New Jersey bedroom, federal agents found photos of Khomeini and now-deceased successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the filing said.

“When he attempted to carry out the fatwa, he believed he was doing so on behalf of” Hezbollah, which the U.S. government designates as a terrorist organization, assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy Lynch and Charles Kruly wrote in the filing.

Asked about the case Tuesday, Matar's attorney Nathaniel Barone said he planned to give an opening statement. In the years leading up to the trial, Matar's lawyers tried unsuccessfully to exclude some evidence from his social media accounts and other digital activity, arguing that the government's electronic searches cast too big a net.

Matar declined to testify at his state court trial, and it's unclear whether he will take the stand in federal court. At his state court sentencing, Matar said he believed in free speech, but he asserted that Rushdie was “a hypocrite” who ”wants to bully other people."

Matar also spontaneously spoke out in support of Palestinians while heading into and out of the state courtroom.

Born in the U.S. to parents who immigrated from Lebanon, Matar is a citizen of both countries. His mother has said he turned moody and withdrawn after a 2018 trip to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

Rushdie was born in India, raised in Britain — where he was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II — and now is a U.S. citizen. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for “Midnight’s Children,” a magical realist novel about a personal and national journey that begins at the instant when India became independent.

But Rushdie became most famous, and notorious, for “The Satanic Verses,” particularly a passage featuring a dream sequence about the Prophet Muhammad. Some Muslims saw it as blasphemous, and often-violent protests erupted against Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family.

Khomeini's 1989 fatwa drove Rushdie into hiding for years. Although Iran hasn't focused in recent years on the decree, it was never rescinded. Iran's government denied involvement in the 2022 stabbing, but its Foreign Ministry's then-spokesperson suggested Rushdie invited trouble by insulting Islam.

After “Knife,” Rushdie's memoir about the stabbing, he returned to fiction with last year's “The Eleventh Hour,” a book of short stories and novellas. He was recognized with a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.

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Peltz reported from New York.

A tiny Texan town along the border with Mexico is fighting the administration's efforts to build a border wall running through a levee system protecting the community. The town argued in court Tuesday that the wall could cause flooding and that the administration isn't following the law as it rushes forward with its plans.

The hearing in federal court came as the Department of Homeland Security charges forward with its $46 billion plan to complete a border wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and deliver on what has long been a signature promise of President Donald Trump. But the department is running into opposition by landowners, environmental groups, Native American tribes and others who argue that the government's rapid construction endangers historical and religious sites and a way of life along the border, when crossings from Mexico are already at extreme lows.

The lawsuit brought by the development district of Presidio pits a small town of a little over 3,200 residents against a department key to the Trump administration's plans to carry out its mass deportations agenda. It also showcases a context that has long been important to many Americans, particularly Republicans: the scratchiness that sometimes arises between the most local of municipalities and the federal government in Washington.

Lawyers for the development district contend the government's plans could compromise the levee system protecting the town from flash flooding — a formidable problem in Texas — and that the government flouted a key act that requires it to seek permission from the Army Corps of Engineers before building on or near the levees.

The government argues that there is no final plan for where the border wall will go or how it will be built. Regardless, the administration asserts it has the authority to waive a vast swath of regulations to build the wall as it seeks to get the number of people crossing the border every day to zero.

The town worries about levees along the Rio Grande

The town is worried about the effect the wall would have on a series of berms and levees built in the 1970s and 1980s along the Rio Grande and tributaries to combat flooding.

In court documents, Presidio’s development district said Customs and Border Protection plans to “replace the earthen slope of the existing levee with a concrete wall, with 30-foot steel bollard panels installed on top.” The district says it has asked the agency for more details but has been told they can’t be shared due to “national security.”

“There is unfortunately a long history here of CBP construction causing or increasing flood risks,” said Laura Bakst, a lawyer for Democracy Forward, which is representing Presidio’s development district in the case.

A lawyer for the government said during Tuesday's hearing that it's too soon to argue that the proposed wall could harm Presidio because Customs and Border Protection hasn't actually decided on a final plan for it.

The department has waived numerous regulations to build the wall faster

In the race to build the wall, both former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the current secretary, Markwayne Mullin, have waived numerous requirements protecting the environment or archaeological sites that the federal government normally has to follow when building infrastructure projects.

Under legislation passed by Congress, Homeland Security does have the authority to waive certain requirements specifically to speed up the building of walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. But critics argue the department is going much further than Congress intended by issuing broad waivers all along the 2,000-mile or 3,200-kilometer length of the frontier.

In Presidio's case, the development district is arguing that Homeland Security is running afoul of the Rivers and Harbors Act. The department has waived it, but lawyers for Presidio argued that because of the wording of the Act, Homeland Security was still required to consult with the Army Corps of Engineers before launching the project.

Louis Katz, a lawyer for Democracy Forward, warned that the way the department was waiving state and federal laws as it moves forward with the wall is an “extraordinary exertion of authority.”

Construction could start as early as August or as late as October

A key question: When would construction start? Timing has been an issue beyond Presidio as landowners up and down the border look for an answer. Construction crews have pre-positioned supplies — including the steel bollard wall panels — but no actual wall-building has started in the area.

A lawyer for the Justice Department gave some insight into the government's timeline. In response to questions about whether construction could start as early as the beginning of August, Alexander Yun told the judge that it was unlikely to start that early. Yun said construction could begin in late August or September or October.

Homeland Security has indicated that getting the wall built is a priority.

Mullin said during congressional testimony in June that the preliminary layer of the wall will be finished by “this time next year.” The head of Customs and Border Protection, Rodney Scott, has said the agency is putting up 6 miles (10 kilometers) of wall a week.

The judge seemed a bit skeptical of both sides

The Trump administration is pushing forward with the wall when border crossings are at the lowest levels in decades. The Big Bend Sector has not experienced the high number of border crossings seen in recent years in other areas farther south along the Rio Grande or in Arizona or California, owing to the remote and challenging terrain on both sides of the border.

But the Justice Department lawyer said low border crossing numbers seen over the last year are an “anomaly" and the goal is “zero illegal crossings.”

Judge Reggie Walton scoffed at that idea, saying that it's “just a reality” that people will always try to cross the border.

Walton also said he was struggling with the issue of how much authority he had to limit the department considering that Congress had given it the ability to waive certain requirements.

The judge said he would issue a ruling in the coming week.

In the video Mamdani described the Israeli prime minister as a “war criminal” and said he is not welcome in New York City.

“It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” he said in a video posted on X. “The federal government however does and I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant,” he added, referring to the International Criminal Court.

Mamdani had told the New York Times earlier this month that he and the city’s legal department were discussing arresting Netanyahu if he comes to New York City for the U.N. General Assembly in September.

President Donald Trump on Monday told Netanyahu in a social media post that he “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.” The post did not directly mention Mamdani.

Mamdani had said throughout his mayoral election campaign last year that he would seek to order the city’s police to arrest Netanyahu under the criminal court's warrant over Netanyahu’s role in the war in Gaza.

In his video message Tuesday, Mamdani said his administration has reviewed all avenues available and determined the city can't execute the arrest warrant.

“I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large," he said.

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N., responded by telling the mayor “enough.”

“You were elected to serve New Yorkers, not Hamas’ propaganda,” he said in a statement on social media. “Do your job!”

The world’s top war-crimes court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and others in 2024, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

They said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and have intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza — charges Israeli officials deny.

It happened just after 4 a.m. Monday near 86th Street and Harding Avenue in Miami Beach.

The collision left gas pipes damaged and forced evacuations in the area.

Two people were taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center due to respiratory problems related to the gas leak, authorities said.

Crews shut down several streets in the area while working to repair the leak.

Jenitar Sau Na’amoana, who is 34 years old and already had four children, delivered the babies last week at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in Queensland state.

“We are very excited to be able to care for this amazing little family, a big family now,” Dr. Alexa Bendall, a maternal fetal medicine specialist who cared for Na’amoana, said in an interview released by the hospital.

The babies were conceived naturally and came from one fertilized egg that split into four, “which was incredible," Bendall said.

“We think the figures are probably around 1 in 15 million for a case like this to be spontaneously conceived,” she said. “We don’t think it’s ever happened in Australia.”

Overall, experts say, the chance of conceiving quadruplets naturally is only 1 in 700,000; most are conceived with the assistance of medical technology.

Hospital officials said Na’amoana and her husband, Jortham, hadn’t planned to have more children and were quite surprised when she became pregnant with the quadruplets.

Na’amoana faced a high risk of complications, especially given the fetuses shared one placenta. In general, being pregnant with any multiple fetuses puts a mom at increased risk for problems such as preterm birth, miscarriage and birth defects, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Na’amoana was monitored by a large medical team at the hospital since 10 weeks gestation and was admitted as an inpatient at 25 weeks so she could be monitored, hospital officials said. She delivered the babies by cesarean section on July 14.

“The fact that we’ve got four beautiful, healthy babies born at 28 weeks and four days is incredible,” Bendall said. "Mum did lose a little bit of blood but not an excessive amount for having quads, and she’s doing well.”

The babies are doing well in the neonatal intensive care unit. Their names are Emily, Harriet, Catherine and Alexa, in honor of Bendall. The doctor called the name a “beautiful tribute,” and said she feels privileged to have helped bring these children into the world.

“From an academic perspective, it’s really interesting,” she said. “But also from a human perspective, to be able to be part of the family’s journey and come out with four beautiful babies and a healthy mum is very precious.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

For more than five decades, Florida has required independent licensed motor vehicle dealers to carry a $25,000 surety bond intended to protect consumers when a dealership fails to meet its legal obligations.

The requirement is contained in Florida Statute 320.27(10), which requires licensed motor vehicle dealers to maintain the bond as a condition of doing business. The bond is designed to compensate consumers who suffer financial losses because of certain dealer violations, including failing to properly transfer ownership of a vehicle.

But while the cost of buying a car has increased dramatically since the law was enacted, the required bond amount has not.

Today, a South Florida woman’s experience and court records involving multiple consumers competing for the same dealer bond are raising new questions about whether the law still provides meaningful protection.

Pamela Wright says she has spent nearly two years looking at a car she cannot legally drive.

The 74-year-old retired realtor purchased a used Mazda in June 2024 for just under $6,000. She bought it for her grandson after he graduated from high school and needed transportation to get to work.

The car remains parked in her driveway.

Not because it doesn’t run.

Because Wright says she never received the title.

“I cannot register the car. I cannot insure the car. I cannot drive the car,” Wright told Local 10 News. “I have no use for it more than it’s sitting in my driveway.”

Wright alleges Superior Car Sales repeatedly promised the paperwork would be corrected but never delivered the title before the dealership ultimately closed.

“I’m just like, ‘How can this happen?’” she said.

According to court records reviewed by Local 10, Wright is not alone.

A lawsuit filed by Hudson Insurance Company shows 11 consumers are asserting competing claims against the same $25,000 dealer bond issued for Superior Car Sales. Hudson filed the case, asking a judge to determine how the limited bond proceeds should be distributed among the competing claimants.

If the court were to divide the bond equally among all 11 claimants, each person would receive approximately $2,270, an amount far below what several consumers claim they lost.

Josh Feygin, a South Florida attorney whose practice includes representing consumers in disputes with automobile dealerships, says the law no longer reflects today’s marketplace.

“It’s definitely outdated at this point,” Feygin said. “When the average cost of a vehicle is much more than $25,000, it doesn’t make sense that there’s only a $25,000 pot to go after.”

Asked whether the current bond adequately protects consumers, Feygin offered a blunt assessment.

“No. More often than not, absolutely not,” he said.

Feygin said he has represented numerous consumers who obtained judgments against dealerships only to discover there was little or no money remaining in the dealer’s bond.

“I’ve had many times where clients have gotten judgments against car dealerships and went to apply against the bond, and there’s no more funds left in the bond,” Feygin said. “So yes, it happens quite often.”

Local 10 reviewed the legislative history of Florida Statute 320.27 and found the $25,000 bond requirement dates back to the 1970 legislative session.

Richard Nixon was president, gasoline averaged about 36 cents per gallon, and the average cost of a new vehicle was only a fraction of what consumers pay today.

Yet despite decades of inflation and rising vehicle prices, the amount of financial protection required by state law has remained exactly the same for 56 years.

Only the Florida Legislature has the authority to change the law.

To find out whether lawmakers believe the current bond still adequately protects consumers, Local 10 contacted legislators from both political parties representing South Florida.

Emails seeking comment were sent to Representatives Christine Hunschofsky, Fabian Basabe, Daryl Campbell, Kevin Chambliss, Chip LaMarca, Daniel Perez, Juan Carlos Porras, Mike Redondo, Felicia Simone Robinson and Marie Paule Woodson.

Local 10 also contacted Senators Brian Avila, Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia, Tina Polsky, Jason Pizzo and Barbara Sharief.

Each was asked essentially the same question: Does Florida’s $25,000 dealer bond still provide adequate protection for consumers, or should lawmakers revisit the law?

Only two legislators responded.

State Rep. Dan Daley told Local 10 that his office is reviewing whether Florida’s current dealer bond law adequately protects consumers and plans to evaluate the issue before next year’s legislative session.

State Rep. Daryl Campbell said didn’t know enough about the issue to comment.

The remaining lawmakers did not respond before publication.

Local 10 also contacted the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, the agency responsible for licensing motor vehicle dealers and enforcing dealer laws.

The department was asked whether it has ever recommended increasing the $25,000 bond amount, whether it believes the current law adequately protects consumers and whether it has proposed legislative changes to modernize the requirement.

Despite four separate requests for information dating back to June 2, the department did not answer those questions before publication.

Meanwhile, Wright says she continues searching for answers.

“I call the State of Florida and the Attorney General’s Office,” she said. “They tell me there is nothing they can do for me.”

“All they do is just send me around in circles,” she added.

Wright believes Florida’s elected leaders should take another look at the law.

“The politicians should do better,” she said. “The governor needs to step in. The Attorney General’s Office. It don’t make no sense.”

For Wright, the issue is a car that has sat in her driveway for nearly two years.

For Florida lawmakers, the question is much broader.

Has a consumer protection law written in 1970—and unchanged since then—kept pace with the realities of buying a car in 2026?

That is a question only the Florida Legislature can answer.

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar won the seat in 2020 after defeating Democratic incumbent Donna Shalala, a former Secretary of Health and Human Services.

“I think it’s time for a change,” said Arias, 68, who has a private law practice in Coral Gables.

Campaign finance reports show Salazar, a retired broadcast journalist and author who took office in 2021, received the most donations out of seven candidates, five of them Democrats.

“When you look at the resumes and the experience, I’m head and shoulders above everybody who is running right now,” Arias said.

Arias, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney, said he wants to focus on fiscal responsibility.

“Some of that starts with reducing the deficit. It’s out of hand. It’s causing a great deal of inflation, and I know this through my background in finance,” Arias said. “To reduce inflation, you have to reduce the deficit.”

Arias, a former assistant state attorney in Orlando, said there are problems with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that need to be fixed.

“We have ICE arresting and shooting people in the streets. One of those problems may be improper training,” Arias said. “The government should provide thorough training of its agents. That would go toward improving public safety.”

Arias said ICE also needs to prioritize deporting violent criminals and treat violators with dignity.

“The ones who are here illegally should be detained and deported, but it should be done in a more humane manner,” Arias said.

Salazar sided with Democrats who want the Trump administration to extend the temporary protected status of Haitians and Venezuelans. She co-authored the Dignity Act to speed up asylum processing.

“It’s legislation that is needed in this country, fix the broken immigration system once and for all, TPS is part of that,” Salazar, 64, said earlier this month on This Week In South Florida.

Salazar also told Local 10 News anchor Glenna Milberg on TWISF that she had voted for $25 million in federal funding for projects in the district even though she voted against the broader omnibus spending bill.

“I represent the interests of my constituents,” Salazar told Milberg.

Salazar’s victories include the Take It Down Act to criminalize the nonconsensual sharing of authentic or AI-generated intimate images, and worked with Democrats on the Dispose Act to stop fentanyl before it crosses the border.

The mail-in ballot request deadline is Aug. 6, the primary is Aug. 18, and the general election is Nov. 3.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS

Salazar had more than $1.95 million in receipts, and Vincent had nearly $134,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.

With over $1.02 million in receipts, Robin Peguero, a former federal prosecutor, was the Democrat who had raised the most donations after Salazar.

Richard Lamondin, Jr., followed with more than $743,700; Eliott Rodriguez had more than $616,700; Michael Davey had over $45,190, and Alexander Fornino was last with about $25,150.

Related reports

• Democratic candidates for District 27 discuss reasons for running, plans if elected
• VOTER GUIDE: Here is how to prepare for Florida’s Aug. 18 primary election

WATCH INTERVIEWS

Peguero on TWISF on July 12

Rodriguez on TWISF on July 12

Salazar on TWISF on July 5

The people, who were not authorized to comment publicly about the yet to be formally announced decision, said the agreement is expected to be announced publicly as early as Wednesday.

The deal is expected to last 30 years and is also expected to involve U.S. firms in developing the program. The deal could allow for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia following a joint U.S.-Saudi study.

But the deal, which is expected to be submitted to Congress for review, could face headwinds among lawmakers who fear that helping the Saudis fulfill their long-standing desire to enrich their own uranium would open new rounds of nuclear proliferation and competition.

Saudi Arabia is a member state of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a Vienna-based agency which promotes peaceful nuclear work but also inspects nations to ensure they don’t have clandestine atomic weapons programs.

But the agreement is not expected to include the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would allow for more monitoring, inspections and verification, according to one of the people.

The expected announcement comes in the midst of the war against Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel, in part, to wipe out Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted its nuclear enrichment program is peaceful.

The White House and Saudi officials in Riyadh did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Both Trump and former President Joe Biden tried to reach a nuclear deal with the kingdom to share American technology.

But nonproliferation experts warn any spinning centrifuges within Saudi Arabia could open the door to a possible weapons program for the kingdom, something its assertive de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested he could pursue if Tehran obtains an atomic bomb.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Saudi Arabia last year shortly before Trump visited the kingdom and discussed building out the kingdom’s commercial nuclear power industry with his Saudi counterpart. The U.S. Department of Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.

Already, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact after Israel launched an attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials. Pakistan’s defense minister then said his nation’s nuclear program “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if needed, something seen as a warning for Israel, long believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state.

Enrichment isn’t an automatic path to a nuclear weapon — a nation also must master other steps, including the use of synchronized high explosives, for instance. But it does open the door to weaponization, which has fueled the concerns of the West over Iran’s program.

The United Arab Emirates, a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, signed what is referred to as a “123 agreement” with the U.S. to build its Barakah nuclear power plant with South Korean assistance. But the UAE did so without seeking enrichment, something nonproliferation experts have held up as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power.

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Price reported from Manila, Philippines, and Gambrell from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP writers Will Weissert and Matthew Daly contributed from Washington.

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Yusiel Lopez Insua, who changed his not guilty plea, will not be going to trial in the case of the deaths of 7-year-old Mila Yankelevich, 10-year-old Arielle Buchman, and 13-year-old Erin Ko Han.

“We are going to let the judicial process take its course, see what happens in October, and allow justice to play out,” Erin Ko Han’s uncle Alvin Wu said in a statement after the hearing.

Lopez Insua was awaiting sentencing on Oct. 13, and he could face up to 10 years in prison. Attorney Walter Reynoso, who represents him, said he was remorseful.

Lopez Insua had been charged with seaman’s manslaughter after the July 28, 2025, collision off Hibiscus Island, as the girls participated in a youth sailing camp.

“Our thoughts today remain with each of the families,” Reynoso said.

“My client will not put the families through a trial and expose them to relive this terrible tragedy,” Reynoso said.

Lopez Insua was using his cellphone around the time of the crash, and data “indicated activity on internet marketplaces, including at the time when the collision occurred,” according to the indictment.

Prosecutors also alleged the tugboat’s pilothouse view was obstructed by a deckhouse and crane on the barge, and that the vessel lacked adequate lookout systems such as cameras or radar.

Court filings reported Lopez Insua had prior “near-misses” in the same area. The crash is also the subject of at least one lawsuit in Miami-Dade County civil court.

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According to Fort Lauderdale police, at about 2 a.m., officers responded to the 400 block of Southeast 32^nd Street after receiving a report about a car accident involving a pedestrian.

Police said officers arrived at the scene and discovered that the driver and pedestrian knew each other and had gotten into a physical altercation at a local hotel.

According to police, the man attempted to leave the hotel in his vehicle, but the woman jumped on the hood of the SUV and fell off as the vehicle was in motion.

Police said the woman was critically injured and the man stopped his car and called 911.

The woman was then transported by Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue medics to Broward Health Medical Center, where she died, authorities said.

Police said detectives are investigating the incident and the woman’s identity is being withheld as they work to notify her next of kin.

They did not confirm why the two were allegedly fighting to begin with.

Anyone who witnessed anything related to the case is urged to call the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

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BSO officials said deputies and Pompano Beach Fire Rescue medics responded to a crash that occurred shortly before 1 p.m. in the 1000 block of U.S. 1.

Authorities said a preliminary investigation found that a driver struck a pedestrian who was on a sidewalk. They said deputies pronounced the pedestrian, who has not been identified at this time, dead at the scene.

Witnesses told Local 10’s Roy Ramos that the driver lost control of the car and crashed into a bench at the bus stop where the pedestrian, who was covered with a yellow tarp at the scene, had been sitting.

“All of a sudden cops flew in, roped off the road and made me turn around and drive five miles the other way,” witness Bill McKain said. “I don’t know how fast you can really get on this road with stop lights in between.”

Authorities said the driver of the vehicle was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries.

The crash also damaged other vehicles at a nearby car dealership and left the destroyed bus bench in the roadway.

“My heart goes out to them and their family,” McKain said. “I couldn’t even image being there and having something like that happen.”

They said BSO’s Traffic Homicide Unit is investigating the circumstances surrounding the crash. The car involved in the crash was towed away.

Authorities said the southbound lanes of U.S. 1 between Southeast Ninth Street and Southeast 12th Street were temporarily closed during the investigation but have since reopened.

No other details about the crash were immediately released.

• BSO: Pedestrian killed, driver injured in crash that left portion of US 1 closed in Pompano Beach
• Exclusive video: Woman dies after jumping on hood of man’s SUV, falling off in Fort Lauderdale, police say
• Tugboat captain pleads guilty over Biscayne Bay crash that killed 3 girls in sailboat

You can watch a live feed of our news broadcast at Local10.com/Live.

Tuesday’s vote comes as Kast, who took office just over three months ago, struggles to jolt a sluggish economy. The economy shrank 0.5% in the first quarter of 2026 after several months of weak growth. Unemployment rose to 9.4% in the March-May period, its highest level since June 2021.

The legislation aims to revive Chile’s private sector, drive job creation and eliminate the fiscal deficit. It will gradually slash the corporate tax rate for large companies from 27% to 23%, exempt newly built homes from the country’s value-added tax, limit which new universities can join Chile’s free tuition program and allow private companies to seek compensation when environmental disputes delay investment projects.

Last week the Senate approved the bill, but it modified certain articles, sending it back to the lower house for a final vote. On Tuesday, lawmakers approved every change except one dealing with how municipalities will be compensated for tax breaks. To become law, the bill awaits a resolution on that final, minor sticking point.

Kast welcomed the vote on his government's signature economic project.

“I hope all political sectors will work together so the remaining issue can be resolved quickly," he said, speaking to reporters in the northern city of Copiapó, where he was overseeing the government response to severe storms.

Kast, 60, took office in March promising to crack down on crime and illegal immigration while reducing public spending and boosting private sector revenues. His election marked Chile’s sharpest shift to the right since the end of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship, and he has pledged a return to the market-oriented economic policies associated with that era.

“The president’s efforts have essentially been focused on deepening and returning to the orthodox neoliberal model of the late 1970s and early 1980s,” said political analyst Gilberto Aranda. “What existed before was neoliberalism tempered by subsidies and other measures."

Finance Minister Jorge Quiroz said the reform would give investors greater certainty, reduce bureaucratic hurdles for investment projects and make the Chilean tax system more competitive.

“We are enormously satisfied,” Quiroz said after the vote.

Opposition lawmakers have criticized the legislation for favoring Chile's big corporations and wealthiest citizens and vowed to challenge it in the Constitutional Court.

“It has become clear that all of José Antonio Kast’s talk about security, jobs and immigration was simply a Trojan horse to advance the project he truly cares about: cutting taxes for the richest Chileans,” said Constanza Martínez, president of the left-wing Broad Front coalition.

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

The majority Black congressional district was redrawn by the state legislature in May to favor Republicans in November's midterm elections. A month earlier, the Supreme Court ruled that Fields' district relied too heavily on race and was an “unconstitutional gerrymander.”

“After a great deal of prayer and reflection, I have decided not to seek reelection, to Congress, in the 6th District or any other district in Louisiana," Fields said.

Fields, who a longtime fixture in Louisiana politics, said he would instead seek a seat in the state Senate.

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the map favoring Fields' district escalated a nationwide redistricting battle, largely fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect Republicans in the midterm elections.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama could use a map that favored Republicans in this year’s elections.

Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map this year that would have given the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more registered Democrats to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with GOP losses.

The new map renews Fields’ district to cluster it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana.

Fields had previously served two terms in the U.S. House from 1993 to 1997 and was the state's second Black member of Congress in Louisiana.

___ Wilder 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.

In announcing the tariffs, Trump accused Canada of unfairly discriminating against U.S. automobiles, alcohol and dairy products, escalating tensions with one of the United States’ closest allies.

“In light of trade action threatened by the United States earlier this week, it would be inappropriate to proceed with a celebratory event between the two countries,” said Jenna Ghassabeh, a spokesperson for Canadian Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson, in an emailed statement.

The move came after U.S. and Canadian officials reached an agreement earlier this month to open the Gordie Howe International Bridge following delays tied to disagreements between the two countries.

Canada now plans to hold its own ceremony Friday. It is now unclear whether the United States will hold a separate ceremony.

Two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said they still expect the bridge to open to traffic July 27 but are less certain than they were before.

"We remain committed to opening the bridge on July 27th, and to celebrating this milestone among Canadians on July 24th," said Ghassabeh.

The 1.5-mile-long (2.4-kilometer-long) bridge spans the Detroit River and connects Detroit with Windsor. A ribbon-cutting ceremony had initially been scheduled for June 12 but was abruptly postponed after officials said the United States and Canada were still working to resolve “outstanding issues.”

Canada financed construction of the bridge under an agreement allowing it to recover the cost through toll revenue. The Trump administration had sought changes to that arrangement.

The project, negotiated under former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, has been under construction since 2018 and cost nearly $4.4 billion.

The bridge is named after Canadian hockey great Gordie Howe, who spent 25 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings. It is expected to become another major economic artery between Canada and the United States.

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

Those tensions resurfaced this week. The White House said the tariffs would take effect in 30 days, leaving time for negotiations. Trump has previously delayed or backed away from some threatened import taxes.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement about the tariffs that his government believes in the “benefits of free and fair trade” and remains prepared to negotiate with the Trump administration.

The tariffs could escalate into a broader trade war as Canada weighs how to respond.

“If these tariffs proceed, Canada should respond tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford posted on social media.

Before Tuesday night’s game against the Seattle Mariners, Ferguson said it was “unprofessional” for him to express his frustrations toward Miller the way he did. Miller got in the way of Reds second baseman Edwin Arroyo on a single by Victor Robles, shortly after Cal Raleigh hit a grand slam off Ferguson to make it 7-0. The Mariners won 8-0.

When asked about the play after Monday night’s game, Ferguson said, “You have to ask Bill,” referring to the umpire, and walked away. Various social media accounts posted videos that made it clear Ferguson was insulting Miller.

“As long as I’ve been in this game, I don’t think you’ll find a clip of me going at an umpire like that,” Ferguson said Tuesday. “I’ll wear that on the chest, seek Bill out and definitely make it right with him. Very unprofessional on my part. I’ve got to be better.”

After Monday’s game, Reds manager Terry Francona was asked about Miller’s positioning on the field and said questions should be directed to Miller.

“I don’t know,” Francona said. “I don’t ever look up and think, well, where should an umpire be? That’s on them. It’s discouraging that it happened.”

A day later, Ferguson was more measured. He said he wished he'd seen the videos earlier and that he'd apologized to Miller sooner than he did.

“It’s just a very unprofessional thing on my part,” Ferguson said. “I know these things happen within the game. But I don’t like that I was kind of the centerpiece of this.”

___

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

“We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement posted on social media.

AI startup Hugging Face said last week that it had detected an intrusion into its data processing systems that it suspected was caused by an AI agent autonomously acting on its own.

“We suspected last week’s cyberattack might have come from a frontier lab, given the sophistication of the agent,” Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clément Delangue said in a statement. "Turns out it did!”

The disclosure comes amid heightened concerns about the cybersecurity capabilities of powerful models that led President Donald Trump in June to sign an executive order creating a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release.

“AI is accelerating the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities,” OpenAI said in its statement Tuesday. “The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities.”

Delangue said he spent the past 24 hours working with OpenAI, “and we strongly believe there was no malicious intent on their part. It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!"

Delangue added that it “might be the first incident of its kind.”

OpenAI said the intrusion was caused by a combination of its AI models, including its newly released GPT‑5.6 Sol and an “even more capable” model that is still being tested internally.

OpenAI said its AI used stolen credentials and discovered a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face servers.

It went to “extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal” and “found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation,” the company said.

Ambos son investigados por una agencia estatal independiente tras señalamientos de irregularidades en la Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos de Puerto Rico.

Domenech también se desempeñó como director ejecutivo de la Autoridad de Asesoría Financiera y Agencia Fiscal de Puerto Rico.

Las acusaciones comenzaron cuando el exjefe de desarrollo económico de Puerto Rico, Sebastián Negrón, renunció en mayo y acusó a la administración de la gobernadora Jenniffer González de interferir con el trabajo de la agencia. Más de 10 funcionarios —entre ellos, el jefe de gabinete, el asesor jurídico general y el jefe de finanzas de la agencia— también renunciaron.

González describió a Negrón como “una estrella” y manifestó en ese momento que lamentaba su renuncia.

Negrón acusó a Domenech de irregularidades relacionadas con la tramitación de contratos y de una injerencia indebida del gobierno, lo cual él ha negado.

Mientras tanto, a García se le acusó de presionar a Negrón para que nombrara a la esposa del presidente de Politank —una poderosa firma de cabildeo y relaciones gubernamentales que Domenech fundó— en la Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos de Puerto Rico.

Negrón también remitió al Departamento de Justicia de Puerto Rico y a su Oficina de Ética Gubernamental los hallazgos de una investigación interna encabezada por la agencia de desarrollo económico contra dos funcionarios del gobierno, acusados de interferir en el proceso de una subasta de un contrato que involucra fondos federales.

Domenech y García habían enfrentado crecientes llamados a renunciar, incluso de miembros del propio partido de la gobernadora, en particular Thomas Rivera Schatz, presidente del Senado de Puerto Rico.

El propio Schatz remitió recientemente a García a la Oficina del Panel sobre el Fiscal Especial Independiente de Puerto Rico y a la Oficina de Ética Gubernamental.

La gobernadora agradeció a Domenech y a García por su trabajo y lealtad, y añadió que “culmina una etapa de servicio público” y que no permitiría que el trabajo de su administración fuera “silenciado” por “agendas y los continuos ataques” de ciertas personas a las que no identificó.

Domenech y García hablaron brevemente y no abordaron directamente las acusaciones.

“Regreso a mi vida privada con la tranquilidad de haber servido con integridad”, afirmó Domenech.

Mientras tanto, García dijo que creció profesionalmente en su cargo y agregó que fue un privilegio trabajar con ciertos funcionarios antes de quebrarse y tener que hacer una pausa.

“Concluyo esta etapa, pero no mi compromiso con Puerto Rico”, expresó.

Domenech había presentado previamente declaraciones juradas contra Negrón en las que alegaba corrupción y conflictos de interés, lo cual el funcionario ha negado.

Domenech dijo el viernes que se le informó que la Oficina del Panel sobre el Fiscal Especial Independiente de Puerto Rico lo investigaba tras las acusaciones de Negrón, las cuales, según él, estaban “plagadas de mentiras, medias verdades, documentos acomodaticios, caracterizaciones subjetivas y tergiversaciones”.

Las acusaciones de corrupción y la profundización de la crisis política en Puerto Rico han llamado la atención de algunos legisladores federales, quienes cuestionaron si los fondos federales se utilizan de manera adecuada.

Legisladores locales de partidos de oposición criticaron el discurso de la gobernadora y sus elogios a Domenech y García, y señalaron que su inminente salida no es suficiente.

“Esto no resuelve la crisis ni limpia a la administración actual. Es un lavado de cara descarado”, escribió en X Juan Dalmau, secretario general del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño.

“Permitir que funcionarios señalados por graves alegaciones abandonen sus cargos casi con honores de Estado constituye una burla... y un intento de proteger políticamente a quienes los nombraron, sostuvieron y defendieron”.

Se espera que Domenech deje el cargo el 7 de agosto y García el 15 de agosto. No se han anunciado sus reemplazos.

___

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

The Health Ministry said hantavirus was also suspected in the deaths of two health workers in the southwestern state of Barinas. Those cases remain under investigation and were not linked to the three fatalities in the eastern state of Anzoátegui, about 655 kilometers (407 miles) away.

Both states were spared the worst of the back-to-back major earthquakes that hit northern Venezuela earlier this month.

The ministry described the deaths in Anzoátegui and Barinas as isolated incidents that “do not represent a risk to the general community." But it added that health workers would be sent to the affected states to “guarantee the health security of all Venezuelans,” without elaborating.

The Venezuelan Medical Federation, a national professional group, said the deaths in Anzoátegui were from the same family in the rural municipality of Miranda in the south of the state.

Hantaviruses exist throughout the world and are spread mainly by contact with rodents such as rats and mice. It’s rare and not easy for a hantavirus to spread between people. In severe cases, the virus can cause a deadly lung infection or kidney failure.

As a recent deadly outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic showed, some hantaviruses can spread between people in rare cases. The little-studied Andes hantavirus, detected in the outbreak that killed three passengers and infected several others on the MV Hondius in May, raised concerns around the world due to its mortality rate, as high as 30%, and the current lack of treatment and vaccines.

Weeks later in Argentina, from where the hantavirus-stricken cruise set sail, authorities are still trying to figure out the origin of the outbreak.

An early hypothesis circulated by officials suggested that patient zero, a Dutch ornithologist, may have become infected in the southernmost city of Ushuaia, famed for its location “at the end of the world." But Argentine scientists who tested rats for the Andes hantavirus in the area recently ruled out Ushuaia as the source of the outbreak — to the relief of the Antarctic cruise hub heavily reliant on foreign tourism.

Argentina also concluded the wine-producing province of Mendoza was not the source of contagion earlier this month, after local investigators and biologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no trace of hantavirus in rodents collected from areas visited by the Dutch man and his wife.

Smart didn’t offer specifics. ESPN reported that Dowdell was involved in an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accident. The outlet confirmed with Smart that Dowdell is receiving care at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, a medical facility specializing in treatment and rehabilitation for spinal cord and brain injuries.

“The Dante Dowdell situation is tough,” Smart told reporters. “I don’t know when he’ll be back. He had an off-campus accident back home during our break, and we’re praying for him and his family. We expect a full recovery, but the outlook right now is we’re waiting to see.”

Dowdell transferred to Georgia after rushing for 560 yards and three scores last season for Kentucky. The tailback from Picayune, Mississippi, was slated to compete for carries behind starter Nate Frazier. Dowdell spent the 2024 season with Nebraska and the '23 season at Oregon.

Smart told ESPN that Dowdell was “out of the really tough range, but as far as his complete health and coming all the way back, I don’t know what that looks like in terms of this year.”

___

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Funcionarios de la BSO informaron que agentes y paramédicos de Pompano Beach Fire Rescue respondieron a un choque ocurrido poco antes de la 1 p.m. en la cuadra 1000 de la U.S. 1.

Las autoridades informaron que una investigación preliminar determinó que un conductor atropelló a un peatón que se encontraba en una acera. Indicaron que los agentes lo declararon muerto al peatón en el lugar de los hechos, quien por el momento no ha sido identificado.

Testigos dijeron a Roy Ramos, de Local 10, que el conductor perdió el control del vehículo y chocó contra una banca de una parada de autobús donde el peatón estaba sentado.

“De repente llegaron los policías, cerraron la carretera y me hicieron dar la vuelta y conducir cinco millas por otra ruta”, dijo el testigo Bill McKain. “No sé qué tan rápido se puede conducir realmente por esta carretera con semáforos entre un tramo y otro”.

Las autoridades informaron que el conductor del vehículo fue trasladado a un hospital cercano con lesiones.

El choque también dañó otros vehículos en un concesionario de autos cercano y dejó la banca de la parada de autobús destruida sobre la vía.

“Mi corazón está con ellos y con su familia”, dijo McKain. “Ni siquiera puedo imaginar estar allí y que ocurra algo así”.

Indicaron que la Unidad de Homicidios de Tránsito de la BSO investiga las circunstancias del choque.

Según Carey Codd, portavoz de la BSO, los carriles en dirección sur de U.S. 1 entre Southeast Ninth Street y 12th Street permanecieron cerrados mientras continuaba la investigación. Se pidió a los conductores evitar el área.

No se divulgaron de inmediato más detalles sobre el choque.

Según la Policía de Fort Lauderdale, alrededor de las 2 a.m., agentes respondieron al llamado en el 400 de Southeast 32nd Street, tras recibir un reporte sobre un accidente de tránsito que involucraba a un peatón.

La policía indicó que los agentes llegaron al lugar y descubrieron que el conductor y la peatón se conocían y habían protagonizado un altercado físico en un hotel de la zona.

Según la policía, el hombre intentó salir del hotel en su vehículo, pero la mujer saltó sobre el capó del auto y cayó mientras el vehículo estaba en movimiento.

La policía informó que la mujer sufrió heridas de gravedad, mientras el hombre detuvo su vehículo y llamó al 911.

La mujer fue trasladada por paramédicos de Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue al Broward Health Medical Center, donde murió, informaron las autoridades.

La policía indicó que los detectives investigan el incidente y que la identidad de la mujer no ha sido divulgada por el momento trabajan para notificar a sus familiares.

Las autoridades no confirmaron por qué ambos presuntamente comenzaron a pelear.

Cualquier persona que haya presenciado algún hecho relacionado con el caso debe comunicarse con el Departamento de Policía de Fort Lauderdale.

The U.S. has championed peace in Lebanon but has been increasingly distracted by new escalation of the war in Iran, which has destabilized much of the Middle East. Trump says he now has little interest in talks with Iran’s leaders to end the war.

In the meantime, Lebanon and Israel have held rare direct talks mediated by Washington.

“It’s been a very badly treated place and country, and we’re going to have it properly treated and treated with the respect it deserves,” Trump told Aoun during a meeting which wrapped the Lebanese leader’s four-day visit to Washington. “We’re gonna help it a lot,” he said of Lebanon, without giving concrete details.

Hours later, Trump made the surprise announcement that he’d allow American carriers to resume direct flights to Lebanon for the first time in 40-plus years after the US suspended the route.

“I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” Trump said on social media after Aoun had left the White House.

It is highly unlikely U.S. carriers will want to fly into Lebanon in the near future, however, as the situation in Iran disrupts larger air traffic and questions Hezbollah’s influence in parts of the country remain. Direct flights between the U.S. and Lebanon were suspended in 1985 by the Reagan administration following the hijacking of TWA Flight 847.

Lebanon hopes the Washington talks result in Israeli troops withdrawing from large swaths of southern Lebanon that they currently occupy, and the Lebanese military receiving support to assert full control in areas where Hezbollah militants had held sway.

Trump said of Israel’s army withdrawing from Lebanon, “They’re in the process of doing that,” but didn’t elaborate.

Aoun told Trump, “Your vision is peace,” calling it Trump’s “legacy.” He also said Trump was a “great president.”

Trump responded by joking, “I do agree with that” and said Aoun was handsome and “knows how to get to me,” adding, “Now he can have anything.”

A framework agreement is being tested

Lebanon and Israel announced a “framework agreement” on June 26, setting a plan for Israeli forces to withdraw and for the disarmament of Hezbollah, which for decades had a strong presence in southern Lebanon. The deal’s implementation was to begin in small “pilot zones.”

The U.S. State Department said Monday that operations in three villages of one pilot zone had begun. Two of them — Froun and Srifa — were not under Israeli military control to begin with, and the Lebanese army was already present there, while Israeli forces were at one point in a part of the third village, Zawtar al-Gharbieh.

The Israeli military said it would “adjust its force posture in one of the pilot areas in order to enable the Lebanese Armed Forces to carry out their mission,” without specifying the location.

The Lebanese army said it began deploying troops in Zawtar al-Gharbieh.

The June 26 agreement also lays out steps toward an eventual Israel-Lebanon peace agreement. The two countries have never had formal diplomatic ties and have been nominally in a state of war for nearly 80 years after Israel’s establishment.

Trump noted Tuesday of Lebanon, “There’s a Hezbollah problem” and suggested that he personally could speak with that group if Aoun wanted him to. He also again floated the idea of having Syria intervene to fight Hezbollah — though he didn’t fully commit to that.

Such a concept would be highly unpopular in Lebanon and potentially embarrass Aoun.

Confusion over pilot zone implementation

It remained unclear whether Israeli troops actually withdrew from any territory. A Lebanese military official said the Lebanese army was unsure whether Israeli forces had been in Zawtar al-Gharbieh before Tuesday, but that they were in adjacent areas and would open fire on anyone who tried to enter.

An Israeli military official said Israeli forces had not been in Zawtar al-Gharbieh “for quite a time” and “we didn’t withdraw from there.” Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with military regulations.

Still, the pilot zones got off to a rocky start.

The Lebanese military said Israeli troops fired Tuesday near an area where they were deploying. The Israeli military said Lebanese soldiers had entered an area that was not part of the pilot zone and Israeli troops fired warning shots in the air.

The Lebanese army disputed this, saying its soldiers were within the pilot zone when Israeli troops opened fire. It called on Israel to resolve disputes through “established coordination and communication channels, instead of resorting to aggression.”

A village mayor is cautious

Abed Ezzeldine, mayor of Zawtar al-Gharbieh, was waiting for word from the Lebanese military on whether it’s safe for displaced residents to check on their homes.

He said the civilians would go in, but “only to check it out and see how things are and then we will leave.”

“We can’t stay because the infrastructure is completely damaged and houses have been leveled. They (the Israelis) have bulldozed the roads,” he added.

The Lebanese military last week increased its presence in some of the areas expected to be included in the pilot zone, with troops patrolling and setting up checkpoints.

Rubio says US will support the framework agreement

Aoun also met Sunday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said Washington will continue to endorse the Lebanese agreement. Rubio warned that Lebanon will “never be fully at peace” as long as the Hezbollah issue is not resolved.

“How do you replace Hezbollah? You defeat and replace them with a government that is strong enough to be the sole force of arms in the country,” Rubio said.

Skeptics in Lebanon fear that a military confrontation with Hezbollah could lead to a civil war.

Government officials have urged investment in the country’s battered infrastructure to empower the weakened state, which Rubio echoed.

Israel plans on a long-term presence

Israeli officials, meanwhile, have said they plan to keep troops long-term in a “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has dismissed the U.S.-brokered direct talks and instead backed Washington’s talks with its key ally and patron Iran to end their war, which includes ending the war in Lebanon as a condition.

Lebanon’s government came to power on a reformist platform in early 2025, vowing to disarm all non-state groups, including Hezbollah, which it blames for dragging the country into another war with Israel in March, when the militant group fired several rockets toward northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

Beirut’s leadership, however, has condemned Israel’s subsequent ground invasion and massive aerial campaign in the country, which has killed over 4,000 people and displaced 1.2 million others.

While grappling with stark political opposition from Hezbollah and allies within the deeply divided country, Lebanon’s leadership insists that Israeli withdrawal and international financial support for Lebanon’s cash-strapped army are crucial for a sustainable security solution.

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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Giovanna Dell’Orto and Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Stephen Curry: Beyond the Arc is set to open Friday, celebrating the career of a two-time MVP and the NBA's career leader in 3-pointers.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced the exhibit Tuesday, saying it was the first time in the museum's nearly 75-year history that an active player would have a dedicated feature experience.

“When I think about my journey, I think about the people who believed in me, the work that happened when nobody was watching and the moments that shaped me on and off the court. To have that story told while I’m still playing is something I don’t take lightly," Curry said in a statement. "My hope is that fans walk through this experience and feel the joy, the purpose and the gratitude that basketball has given me, and maybe see a little bit of their own journey in it too.”

Developed in partnership with Curry's Thirty Ink business team, the exhibit will feature video footage of Curry's career, memorabilia and audio and video components that tell the story of a player who was overlooked going into college and has gone on to become a 12-time All-Star who led Golden State to four NBA championships.

“For him to become the first active player to have an exhibit in the Basketball Hall of Fame is a testament to what he represents to the game, to the Warriors, to the NBA and to his millions of fans around the world,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy said. “Obviously, this is only a prelude to his eventual induction in Springfield, but a fitting tribute to an iconic player and an amazing human being who has single-handedly changed the game.”

The Hall of Fame expects Curry's to be a limited time exhibit, likely to last through the summer of 2027 before closing.

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

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On average over the past 30 years, the second named storm has formed on July 17 in the Atlantic basin.

Bertha’s disheveled appearance a sign of its struggles

Hurricane Hunters flying Bertha Tuesday morning found pressures down slightly from earlier missions with thunderstorms trying to build near or over to its earlier exposed center, which could give the storm a brief window to organize further today. That said, wind shear is high and is forecast to only strengthen in the days ahead, which should mean any strengthening will be short-lived and limited.

The strong upper-level winds from the north responsible for the high wind shear will also keep the storm lopsided, with a relatively dry north side and the heaviest rainfall and worst weather to the south of the center.

Heaviest rainfall to remain well offshore

The lopsided nature of Bertha means its highest rainfall totals exceeding a foot will remain well offshore and widespread flooding isn’t expected as it skirts westward along the northern Gulf Coast this week.

Locally heavy rain is possible in outer bands near and north of the center, however, and some parts of the Florida Panhandle, coastal Alabama, and southern Mississippi and Louisiana could see localized flooding through Thursday.

Bertha not so big and full of bluster

Overall, the threat Bertha poses to the coast is low. The storm is likely peaking or will peak today as a mid-tier tropical storm (highest winds in the 50-60 mph range; hurricane winds start at 74 mph) and weakening should commence in earnest by tomorrow.

Although Tropical Storm Warnings are posted from extreme southeastern Louisiana to the Alabama/Florida border for the likelihood of tropical storm conditions, Bertha doesn’t pose a widespread damaging wind threat and sustained tropical storm winds (winds of 40 mph or higher) should be contained mostly to rain squalls and periodic gusts over the next few days.

High surf along the north Florida and Alabama shoreline will lead to treacherous beach conditions and life-threatening rip currents. If you’re on a beach vacation in these areas, this is a week you’ll want to stay out of the water.

Deafening crickets across the Atlantic

Elsewhere, the Atlantic appears closed for business for the rest of the month. As we’ve discussed in previous newsletters, we’ll keep an eye to the subtropics this season (like the zone in the Gulf where Bertha formed), but for now, we’re not seeing any candidates for at least the next few weeks.

Yusiel Lopez Insua no irá a juicio en el caso de las muertes de Mila Yankelevich, de 7 años; Arielle Buchman, de 10 años; y Erin Ko Han, de 13 años.

“Vamos a permitir que el proceso judicial siga su curso, ver qué ocurre en octubre y dejar que la justicia haga su trabajo”, dijo en un comunicado Alvin Wu, tío de Erin Ko Han, tras la audiencia.

Lopez Insua tiene prevista la lectura de su sentencia el 13 de octubre y podría enfrentar hasta 10 años de prisión. Walter Reynoso, abogado que lo representa, dijo que su cliente estaba arrepentido.

Lopez Insua había sido acusado de homicidio involuntario marítimo tras la colisión del 28 de julio de 2025 frente a Hibiscus Island, mientras las niñas participaban en un campamento juvenil de vela.

“Nuestros pensamientos siguen hoy con cada una de las familias”, dijo Reynoso.

“Mi cliente no someterá a las familias a un juicio y las expondrá a revivir esta terrible tragedia”, dijo Reynoso.

Lopez Insua utilizaba su teléfono celular alrededor del momento de la colisión y los datos “indicaron actividad en mercados de internet, incluso en el momento en que ocurrió la colisión”.

Los fiscales también alegaron que la vista desde la cabina del remolcador estaba obstruida por una caseta y una grúa en la barcaza, también que la embarcación carecía de sistemas adecuados de vigilancia, como cámaras o radar.

Documentos judiciales indicaron previamente que Lopez Insua había operado la embarcación durante años y tuvo anteriores “casi accidentes” en la misma zona.

La colisión también es objeto de al al menos una demanda del condado Miami-Dade.

The rally is set to take place in Oakland County on Monday, according to a person familiar with the plans who was not authorized to discuss the event publicly.

Early in-person voting begins Saturday ahead of the Aug. 4 primary, when voters will also select nominees for U.S. House and other statewide offices. Republican Mike Rogers is unopposed in the Senate primary, while the GOP gubernatorial contest has intensified between Trump-backed U.S. Rep. John James and businessman Perry Johnson.

The visit will allow the president to take his messaging on the road as Republicans grow concerned about how rising gas prices and an unpopular war in Iran might affect their midterm chances. Republicans are defending slim majorities in the House and Senate.

Trump carried Michigan in 2016 and 2024, and both parties view the battleground state as central to the 2026 midterm elections.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrats are facing the most competitive race in the Aug. 4 primary, with U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed battling for the party's Senate nomination. The winner will face Rogers, who lost narrowly in 2024 to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin.

Republicans have faced a bruising contest for the gubernatorial nomination, however, with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer term-limited. James has been endorsed by Trump, but Johnson has spent millions attacking James on television and digital advertising.

Johnson's campaign has already advertised a “Trump Tailgate” on Monday.

Oakland County, where Trump is set to appear, was long considered one of Michigan’s premier political bellwether counties. Democrats have steadily expanded their margins there even as Trump carried the state in 2016 and again in 2024.

Republicans saw 2026 as a chance to finally gain back power in a state that has been dominated by Democrats — outside of Trump's wins — over the past decade. But surging gas prices, an unpopular war in Iran and tariffs that have hit the state’s auto industry hard have all contributed to concerns about a worsening political environment for Michigan Republicans.

In May, a Democrat won a special election by almost 20 points in a state Senate district that Kamala Harris won by less than 1 point in 2024. The previous officeholder, a Democrat, carried the seat by 6 percentage points in 2022.

La policía de Lauderhill informó de que agentes acudieron poco antes de las 22:15 horas del domingo a un complejo de apartamentos ubicado en la manzana 6800 de Landings Drive, tras recibir avisos sobre disparos donde encontraron a Sean Blake con múltiples heridas de bala.

Los vecinos describieron haber oído una ráfaga de disparos.

“Fueron entre 12 y 15 disparos”, dijo un vecino. “Era como “bam, bam, bam, bam”. Todos nos tiramos al suelo. Era un ruido ensordecedor. He oído escopetas antes, así que supe que era justo ahí fuera porque estaban muy cerca y sonaban muy fuerte".

Otra vecina afirmó que oyó voces antes del tiroteo.

“Al principio oí como si estuvieran hablando y luego gritos, y después hubo muchos disparos”, explicó. “Apagamos la tele y todo eso, y un par de minutos más tarde oímos a la policía, la ambulancia y todo lo demás”.

Los paramédicos del Cuerpo de Bomberos de Lauderhill declararon a Blake fallecido en el lugar de los hechos, según informaron las autoridades.

Los detectives aún no han identificado a ningún posible sospechoso y, por el momento, el motivo sigue sin estar claro.

Se ruega a cualquier persona que tenga información, se ponga en contacto con Broward County Crime Stoppers en el 954-493-TIPS (8477). Los informantes pueden permanecer en el anonimato y podrían optar a una recompensa de hasta 5,000 dólares

The hearing stems from a lawsuit filed by Republican opponent and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who alleges Fishback falsely certified on his candidate paperwork that he met the state’s requirements to run for governor, including Florida’s seven-year residency requirement.

Tuesday’s proceedings began with a heated confrontation between Fishback, his supporters and members of Collins’ campaign before testimony got underway.

Collins’ attorneys argued that Fishback’s voting, mortgage, tax and homestead records in Washington, D.C., show he established his primary residence there, making him ineligible to run for governor.

During the hearing, Collins’ legal team presented D.C. voter registration, mortgage, tax and homestead records, along with testimony from a handwriting expert who said Fishback signed the disputed voter registration form.

Fishback later took the stand in his own defense. He acknowledged signing mortgage documents for a home in Washington but testified that he signed the paperwork without carefully reading it.

“We were off to lunch, really hungry, and I was just kind of signing through stuff,” Fishback said.

Fishback also admitted registering to vote and casting a ballot in Washington, D.C., during the 2020 election, saying he was stranded there during the COVID-19 pandemic. He testified that he had a Florida driver’s license and voted for President Donald Trump.

“On Nov. 3 on Election Day, I inadvertently registered and voted in that election,” Fishback said.

Fishback spent hours testifying that the Washington condo was a lightly used investment property near his parents. He pointed to low utility bills, Florida business filings, deliveries, vehicle records and his statewide debate nonprofit as evidence that Florida remained his primary residence.

Judge David Frank is expected to issue a ruling by Monday.

If Collins prevails, Fishback’s name could still appear on the ballot, but any votes cast for him would not be counted.

A photo snapped by a passing boater sometime Sunday apparently shows them about thigh deep in the Scioto River, fishing poles in hand, standing around a big log. Calm as the surface appeared, the river was running high and fast, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. All five adults ended up drowning, authorities have said.

After the photo was taken, if it was indeed them, the group might have returned to shore. It is not quite clear. What Delaware County Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer has said is that one of the adults was struggling to swim in the river when several others went into the water to help. All five were swept under, he said.

The two women's bodies were recovered Sunday and the three men's bodies were found Monday.

On Tuesday, Honduran authorities confirmed that four of the five adults were Honduran citizens — Dias and Regalado and another married couple whose names have not yet been released. The fifth adult also has yet to be identified.

Flabia Zamora, director of consular affairs at the Honduran Foreign Ministry, told reporters Tuesday that they were working with U.S. authorities to bring their bodies home.

Zamora said that once U.S. officials have identified all the victims, Honduras will start the repatriation process, which could take at least a month.

She said the couple’s children are in the care of the state of Ohio and that arrangements will be made to reunite them with relatives in Honduras.

One of the children, a boy wrapped only in a towel, fled the riverbank in a panic and ascended to the road as the adults were drowning. According to a passing driver who called 911, “He was screaming, ‘Mama! Mama!’ and he was about to come out onto the road, and he was crying.” She said she was afraid he was headed onto a multilane road that snakes along the Scioto's eastern banks.

Brenda Raya, who described herself as a relative, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover funeral and transportation costs, as well as childcare costs for the two orphaned children. She said they are 8 and 10.

“The emotional and financial burden is overwhelming, and we want to honor the memory of our loved ones while providing for the children left behind,” she wrote.

The drownings occurred along the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir. The reservoir and its 18 miles (29 kilometers) of shoreline are the property of the city of Columbus. According to the city’s Recreation and Parks Department, Jet Skis, tubing and swimming are not permitted in any city of Columbus reservoir.

Lt. Heather Byers, of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said rivers can be deceptively calm on the surface.

“Even though the water doesn’t seem to be moving very quickly, you can still get swept away in very slow-moving water,” she said. “Also, since you can’t always see the bottom, you never know if you’re in, you know, you could be in 2 to 3 feet of water, what you’re comfortable standing in, and then the next thing you know you’re at 4 or 5 feet.”

Besides the currents and the depths, people can catch a foot between the rocks, snag their clothes on a branch or lose their balance on slippery algae.

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González reported from Honduras. Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

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Lauderhill police said officers responded to an apartment complex in the 6800 block of Landings Drive just before 10:15 p.m. Sunday after receiving reports about gunfire and found Sean Blake suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

Neighbors described hearing a barrage of gunfire.

“It was about 12 to 15 rounds,” one neighbor said. “It was like ‘bam, bam, bam, bam.’ All of us were hitting the deck. Super loud. I’ve heard shotguns before so I knew it was right outside because they were that close and that loud.”

Another resident said she heard voices before the shooting.

“At first I heard like talking and then screaming, and then there were a lot of gunshots,” she said. “We turned off the TV and stuff, and then a couple minutes later we heard the police and ambulance and everything.”

Lauderhill Fire Rescue medics pronounced Blake dead at the scene, authorities said.

Detectives have not identified any possible suspects, and a motive remains unclear at this time.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477). Tipsters can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000.

La semana pasada, los senadores dieron su visto bueno para el proyecto que busca invertir en la reconstrucción nacional y el desarrollo económico a través del fomento a las inversiones, reducciones de impuestos y generación de empleo. Sin embargo, la cámara alta realizó diversos cambios a la iniciativa original, por lo que ésta regresó al pleno de diputados, que ya habían dado su aval al proyecto previamente.

En la jornada, los distintos cambios apuntados por el Senado fueron sancionados en 26 votaciones separadas, que terminaron con la aprobación de todos los puntos salvo la normativa que dice respecto a las compensaciones a los municipios por la exención de contribuciones a las personas mayores de 65 años. La discrepancia entre el Senado y la Cámara deberá resolverse ahora en una comisión mixta-

Mientras, el grueso de la reforma propuesta por el Ejecutivo logró ser aprobado.

Entre las normativas despachadas figura el corazón del proyecto de ley: la rebaja gradual de los impuestos a grandes empresas desde el actual 27% al 23%; la exención del IVA a viviendas nuevas; las restricciones a nuevas instituciones de educación superior para ingresar a la gratuidad, y el acceso de empresas privadas a indemnizaciones económicas en caso de paralizaciones de proyectos por cuestiones ambientales.

Tras conocer los resultados, Kast valoró el avance de lo que es considerado uno de los pilares de su gobierno desde que asumió la Presidencia el pasado marzo.

“Valoramos el paso que se ha dado en pro de aprobar esta reforma”, dijo Kast a los periodistas desde Copiapó, donde se encuentra para acompañar la emergencia climática que avanza por el norte del país. ”Espero la buena disposición de todos los sectores políticos para que ese punto que quedó ahora pendiente, se resuelva rápido”.

La discusión del proyecto se produce en momentos en que Chile vive un estancamiento económico, con una caída del Producto Interno Bruto de 0,5% en el primer trimestre del año y varios meses consecutivos con cifras negativas en la actividad económica. Además, el país registró una tasa de desempleo de 9,4% en el trimestre móvil entre marzo y mayo, la cifra más alta desde junio de 2021.

Kast, de 60 años, tomó las riendas del país con la promesa de instaurar un gobierno mano dura con la delincuencia y la inmigración y reestructurar las finanzas públicas. Su asunción supuso el giro más pronunciado de Chile hacia la derecha desde la dictadura militar (1973-1990) y también la defensa de una política económica de tintes neoliberales que propone una drástica reducción del Estado y mayor autonomía a la iniciativa privada.

En ese marco, el ministro de Hacienda, Jorge Quiroz, afirmó que el proyecto permitirá entregar mayores "certezas" a quienes desarrollen inversiones en Chile, así como reducir barreras asociadas a permisos y mejorar el funcionamientos de sectores productivos, por lo que alabó que el Congreso haya ratificado la “necesidad imperiosa que tiene Chile de volver a tener competitividad tributaria”.

“Estamos enormemente satisfechos”, recalcó tras la votación.

Pese a las celebraciones del oficialismo, los parlamentarios de la oposición anunciaron que ingresarán con un recurso en el Tribunal Constitucional para frenar el proyecto, al que ya habían acusado “fallos jurídicos”.

"Ha quedado demostrado que toda la preocupación que tenía José Antonio Kast respecto a seguridad, empleo, inmigración, era simplemente un caballo de Troya para hacer avanzar el proyecto que realmente le importa, reducirle los impuestos a los más ricos”, disparó Constanza Martínez, presidenta del Frente Amplio, alianza que fusionó a diversas agrupaciones políticas de izquierda y centroizquierda hace unos años.

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State Department officials gathered at Miami International Airport as pallets of food, medical supplies, hygiene kits and other essentials were loaded onto the aircraft.

“We are shipping pre-packaged boxes of commodities, so it is food, medical equipment, daily essentials, hygiene kits,” said Jeremy Lewin, the State Department’s under secretary for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom.

Officials said the shipment is the first in what is expected to become weekly humanitarian aid flights to Cuba.

The aid effort stems from a proposal Rubio announced in May, when he challenged the Cuban government to accept U.S. humanitarian assistance.

“Our preference is always a diplomatic solution, always, and a negotiated agreement,” Rubio said at the time.

Lewin said Cuba’s willingness to accept the aid reflects the country’s worsening humanitarian situation.

“The reason they did not want to accept it admits what everyone knows, which is it is a government that is incapable of providing for its own people, needs external assistance like that,” Lewin said.

Local 10 News Cuba analyst Dr. Andy Gomez said Cuba’s acceptance of the aid could signal the severity of its economic crisis.

“Cuba had delayed making their decision, but they’re such dire need, they have no other choice but to accept it,” Gomez said. “They realize that they’re at the very end.”

Gomez said while a political collapse does not appear imminent, the country’s economic decline could eventually trigger broader changes.

“The political collapse has not happened, and I don’t see it happening right away, but an economic collapse could lead to a political collapse. We have to wait and see,” Gomez said.

He said the humanitarian effort also weakens one of the Cuban government’s longstanding arguments.

“By getting humanitarian aid, the Cuban government loses that propaganda message that they continue to blame the economic embargo in their argument to the Cuban people,” Gomez said.

Lewin said the agreement allowing the aid into Cuba followed ongoing diplomatic negotiations.

“This is something we have been negotiating in our ongoing diplomatic talks with the regime, and we are pleased to say they have agreed in principle to allow these distributions,” he said.

To help ensure the supplies reach Cuban families, the State Department partnered with Catholic Relief Services and Caritas Cuba, which will distribute the packages through churches across the island.

“They have an extensive network of volunteers to reach out to those who are most in need,” Catholic Relief Services President and CEO Sean Callahan said.

Lewin said organizers distributing the aid will report any interference by Cuban authorities.

“We will know immediately if the regime interferes and takes a box that is intended for a Cuban family, and if that is the case, then we will hold them accountable, and we expect the Cuban people all around the world will hold them accountable for that,” he said.

He also emphasized that U.S. sanctions include exemptions for humanitarian operations.

“While we take on the national security threats posed by the regime, our commitment to the Cuban people is ironclad and want to be able to deliver critical assistance that their government should be able to provide to them, but isn’t,” Lewin said.

Callahan said aid will be delivered to all 15 dioceses in Cuba using a combination of air and ground transportation to minimize the impact of fuel shortages.

“We are doing different shipments to all the different 15 dioceses, so either by land or by air to minimize any internal transport because of the shortage of fuel, and then once it is there, the Catholic Church is getting it out by a volunteer network, whether that is push carts, donkey carts, or people carrying it one place or another,” he said.

State Department officials said they expect the humanitarian flights to continue on a weekly basis.

En conferencia de prensa, Milagros Samillán, hermana de uno de los 50 civiles asesinados en protestas contra el gobierno de la entonces mandataria Dina Boluarte (2022-2025), cuya gestión fue protegida por el partido de Fujimori, indicó que no iban a conversar con la “responsable” de blindar a Boluarte, además de ser "la hija de un dictador” que violó derechos humanos y "esterilizó mujeres sin su consentimiento".

Boluarte sucedió al expresidente Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) quien fue destituido por el Parlamento tras intentar disolver sin éxito el Congreso. Castillo luego fue condenado a 11 años de cárcel por conspiración para una rebelión. También es investigado por presunta corrupción. La remoción de Castillo provocó protestas que exigían la renuncia de Boluarte y convocatoria a nuevas elecciones que dejaron 50 civiles muertos entre 2022 y 2023.

Keiko Fujimori es hija del fallecido expresidente Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) quien en 1992 disolvió el Congreso e intervino el Poder Judicial. En 2007, Alberto fue condenado por corrupción y por el asesinato de 25 peruanos ejecutados por un grupo clandestino de militares que, usando métodos de guerra sucia, se enfrentaba al grupo violento Sendero Luminoso. Los militares fueron protegidos por Fujimori.

Pese a morir en libertad, en 2024, Alberto Fujimori seguía investigado por su presunta autoría intelectual en la modalidad de lesiones, seguidas de muerte, en el caso de cinco mujeres y por lesiones graves contra otras 1.307 mujeres, todas esterilizadas a la fuerza durante un programa de salud reproductiva entre 1996 y 2000.

Gisela Ortiz, hermana de uno de los 25 asesinados por militares durante el gobierno de Alberto Fujimori, indicó que la presencia de políticos del gobierno de Alberto Fujimori en el partido de Keiko Fujimori “nos hace señalar que no estamos ante un nuevo gobierno... estamos ahora en una consolidación de un proyecto autoritario".

Dos senadoras electas por el partido de Keiko Fujimori fueron congresistas durante el gobierno de Alberto Fujimori.

Ortiz es hermana de un universitario secuestrado en 1992 por militares de dormitorios de la Universidad La Cantuta junto a ocho estudiantes y un profesor. Según testimonios judiciales, todos fueron llevados a una zona deshabitada, obligados a cavar fosas y luego asesinados con tiros en la cabeza. Sus cuerpos fueron incinerados y cambiados de lugar para evitar hallazgo e identificación. Al momento faltan encontrar cuatro restos.

“No vamos a reconocer jamás a Keiko Fujimori, fue parte del gobierno corrupto de su padre” de quien fue primera dama durante su gobierno, dijo Ortiz.

Partidos opositores le han pedido a Keiko Fujimori que impulse la búsqueda de justicia para las víctimas de las protestas de 2022 y 2023 donde, según un informe de Naciones Unidas, las fuerzas de seguridad violaron derechos humanos, dispararon armas de fuego y torturaron. Fujimori no se ha pronunciado.

Hace una semana, Fujimori dijo sin dar detalles que cree “profundamente en la reconciliación”.

"He aprendido a pedir perdón, pero sobre todo a perdonar”, señaló.

La víspera el partido de Fujimori —que preside el saliente Parlamento (2021-2026)— aprobó una controvertida ley para que los delitos cometidos por policías y militares —incluidos asesinatos, violaciones sexuales, torturas o coimas— ya no sean juzgados por tribunales civiles, como ocurre, sino por tribunales militares.

Joel Leiniz informó que había asistido a un concierto de la iglesia con sus tres hijas antes de perder el control y chocar su Audi Q7 modelo 2017 contra un poste, según el informe de un agente de la Oficina del Sheriff de Palm Beach (PBSO).

Personal de rescate de bomberos respondió a Military Trail, cerca de Vicliff Road, en Greenacres, y trasladó a Leiniz, de Margate, y a sus tres hijas al Centro Médico St. Mary’s en West Palm Beach, según los agentes.

La hija de Leiniz, Zoë, de 8 años, fue declarada muerta poco después de las 10:45 p.m. en el Centro Médico St. Mary’s, mientras que sus otras hijas, de 6 y 12 años, sobrevivieron a sus lesiones, según agentes de la PBSO.

La tragedia familiar ocurrió aproximadamente nueve días antes de que las niñas conmemoraran el primer aniversario de la muerte de su madre, Sasha Christine Leiniz, ex directora del ministerio infantil de la iglesia New Covenant Church en Pompano Beach.

Un detective de la PBSO investigó la causa del choque del 17 de enero y determinó que Joel Leiniz tenía un nivel de alcohol en sangre ligeramente superior al límite legal de 0.08 en Florida, según los registros.

“El informe toxicológico mostró que la muestra de sangre tomada al ingresar al hospital contenía 0.081/0.083 de alcohol. Con base en la declaración de [Leiniz] de que no había bebido, los resultados de sangre y un análisis retrospectivo, determiné que su nivel de alcohol en sangre era de 0.097/0.104 al momento de la colisión y que [Leiniz] estaba bajo los efectos del alcohol en el momento de la colisión”, escribió un agente, según el informe de arresto.

Los datos del vehículo mostraron que Joel Leiniz conducía a 104 mph antes de chocar contra el poste en una zona con límite de velocidad de 40 mph, según el informe de arresto de los agentes.

Leiniz “declaró que circulaba por el carril izquierdo e intentaba cambiar al carril central. De repente, había un vehículo frente a él y giró bruscamente a la derecha para evitar una colisión, perdiendo el control. No recordaba qué tan rápido conducía ni cuál era el límite de velocidad, pero no creía que estuviera excediendo la velocidad permitida”, escribió un agente, según el informe de arresto.

Un video grabado por una cámara de vigilancia en el 2450 de South Military Trail mostró a Leiniz “circulando a alta velocidad” y “girando bruscamente a la derecha para evitar la colisión”, según el informe del agente.

“Con base en los extensos daños del Audi, el video que muestra la elevación y rotación del vehículo durante la colisión y la marca de carga de los neumáticos que evidencia la velocidad y el giro extremo del volante, determiné que [Leiniz] circulaba a alta velocidad”, escribió el agente, según el informe de arresto.

Los agentes arrestaron a Joel Leiniz el 19 de julio. Enfrenta cargos de homicidio vehicular y homicidio por conducir bajo los efectos del alcohol, según los registros.

El lunes, Joel Leiniz compareció en una audiencia de fianza ante el juez Donald Hafele, del Tribunal de Circuito del condado Palm Beach, quien fijó una fianza de $150,000 dólares, o de75,000 dólares por cada uno de los cargos, según agentes de Palm Beach.

Los registros judiciales muestran que la jueza Sherri L. Collins, del Tribunal de Circuito del condado Palm Beach, presidirá el caso y que la próxima audiencia de Leiniz está programada para el 24 de septiembre.

The plane, the Clipper Endeavor, made a hard landing after losing engine power shortly after takeoff. The 17 passengers and crew who survived told investigators everyone lived through the landing, but panic set in as many passengers struggled to find life vests and the crew had a hard time pulling out life rafts.

Within minutes, the plane sank. Explorers found the wreckage of the DC-4 last month by using an autonomous sonar drone to locate the fuselage and tail in 2,000 feet of water.

Now before takeoff, flight attendants instruct passengers about exit locations and where life vests are located and how to inflate them.

“This one became a catalyst, and it helped drive safety steps forward of better flotation equipment and the preflight briefings,” said aviation safety expert John Cox, a pilot and founder of Safety Operating Systems. “So this is one steppingstone along the path to what we today enjoy as aviation safety. It was a rallying cry at the time.”

And now the discovery of this wreck could offer new hope for families who lost loved ones in other ocean crashes like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared 12 years ago with 269 people aboard.

Years of research helped locate the wreckage

This crash first caught the attention of Russ Matthews in 2019 when he saw a blurb about a luggage tag from the flight washing ashore in Florida. He said the historical significance of the Clipper Endeavor prompted him to dig deeper.

That led to years of digging through the Pan Am Airlines and Coast Guard archives looking for clues about the location of the plane's watery grave. Reports from the Civil Aeronautics Board, which was the predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration, also helped.

But the key to finding the wreckage was found in records in Puerto Rico from a hearing that was held on the crash, and a map estimating the location of the crash that was done by Air Force pilots who witnessed the crash because they just happened to be in the area on a training flight.

Bad weather disrupted a previous attempt to locate the wreck in 2024 with a towed sonar array that was also documented by the Discovery Channel's “Expedition Unknown” show. But Matthews said he and the volunteers who work with his Air/Sea Heritage Foundation dreamed of making a second attempt to find it before next year's 75th anniversary of the crash with one of these newer advanced drones that were originally developed for military uses like finding undersea mines.

Undersea drone played a key role in the search

Tony Romeo, who is CEO of the undersea exploration firm Deep Sea Vision, had been talking with Matthews for a while about the possibility of helping try to find this plane if one of his ships was ever in the area, and then in April one just happened to be passing right by Puerto Rico between two other jobs while carrying an advanced underwater drone with the right sensors to be able to find it.

“There we were, and everything kind of came together at the moment: good weather, the right team, and the right equipment and ship. So we took a shot at it,” Romeo said.

Deep Sea Vision previously led an unsuccessful six-month search to find Amelia Earhart's plane, but Romeo had a special interest in this case because his father was a mechanic and pilot for Pan Am airlines. In fact, the drone they used in the search already had a Pan Am sticker on the side.

Capturing the moment of discovery

All the research Matthews' group had done, combined with weather data from the time of the crash, was synthesized to create a map of the most likely location and a search area of 10 square nautical miles. The drone actually found the wreckage on its first pass over that area, although the explorers didn't know that until it returned to the surface with its images.

The Discovery Channel’s Josh Gates and his crew were again along for this latest search to capture the moment the plane showed up on images from the drone after they were downloaded. The search will be featured in a special episode of the show this fall, but a few highlights released Tuesday show the moment everyone in the control room realized what they had found. Shouts of “Oh God!” and “That's a plane!” erupted when the image loaded on screen.

“To have a front-row seat to an expedition like this as it’s unfolding is tremendous, and so I feel really lucky that we were able to be a part of it,” Gates said.

No fee was officially disclosed but media reports say it is worth 117 million pounds ($156.5 million), which surpasses England teammate Elliot Anderson's 116 million pounds ($155 million) switch from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City earlier this month.

The all-time record Premier League transfer is still Sweden striker Alexander Isak's 125 million pounds ($167 million) move from Newcastle to Liverpool last year.

The 23-year-old Rogers, established as one of the Premier League's top attacking talents, has signed a contract with the London team until 2033.

“I’m so excited,” he told the club's website. "For me, Chelsea are the biggest club in London and a club I’ve always admired since I was a kid.

“I’m really excited about the project with the new manager, the players we’ve got and where the club is heading. That’s why I’m here and I can’t wait to get started.”

Rogers is the third major signing made in the offseason by new Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso, following wingbacks Marco Palestra and Geovany Quenda.

Rogers was in England's team beaten at the World Cup last Wednesday. Trailing 1-0 going into the 85th minute of their semifinal, Argentina rallied for a 2-1 victory.

He scored 21 goals in 85 Premier League appearances for Villa, and last season helped guide the club to a top-four finish and to the Europa League title.

Rogers joined Villa from Middlesbrough in February 2024 for a reported fee of 8 million pounds.

He made his England debut in November 2024 and has now won 22 caps for his country.

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

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Residents are pushing back against a plan to remove dozens of mature trees near Legion Memorial Park.

Construction workers are already hard at work on a new development called Adella 3 that Acre Developments plans to build on the site.

But first, for it to go up, trees have to come down. A total of 46 of them, including five large oaks.

Some residents, including Peter Ehrlich, are livid and have filed appeals with the city.

“Every tree is crucial,” he said. “The developer’s architect should work diligently to save those trees, not to just kill them, because some of the oak trees are 120 or 150 years old.”

Attorney David Winker represents an environmental group that has also filed an appeal.

“We feel strongly that they should stay, and also that they haven’t met the code requirements which are to show that there’s no alternative, that they can’t build their building because of these trees that are on a public park,” said Winker.

The issue has sparked strong emotions among dozens of residents who say preserving the tree canopy helps reduce heat, provides shade, improves air quality, and protects wildlife.

“It’s crucial, but unfortunately, developers in such a desperate bid to build as quickly as they can to help their general contractors to have sites with no trees and city officials who receive campaign contributions from developers bend over backwards to kill trees as quickly as they possibly can,” said Ehrlich.

As mitigation for the tree loss, the developer has agreed to plant 103 new trees in and around the property once construction is complete.

“We’ve got eight appeals tonight, its unprecedented,” said Winker. “Tonight it’s just going to be, we have so many appeals going on and some people have expressed frustration with the number of appeals, but it really is, why are the appeals happening? Because the city shouldn’t be approving these in the first place.”

Local 10 News reached out to the attorney representing the developer but have not heard back as of the time of this story’s publication.

Funcionarios del Departamento de Estado se reunieron en el Aeropuerto Internacional de Miami (MIA) mientras se cargaban en la aeronave palés con alimentos, suministros médicos, kits de higiene y otros artículos esenciales.

“Estamos enviando cajas previamente empacadas con suministros, incluyendo alimentos, equipos médicos, artículos de primera necesidad y kits de higiene”, dijo Jeremy Lewin, subsecretario de Estado para Asistencia Exterior, Asuntos Humanitarios y Libertad Religiosa.

Los funcionarios informaron que este envío es el primero de lo que se espera sean vuelos semanales de ayuda humanitaria hacia Cuba.

El esfuerzo de ayuda surge de una propuesta que Rubio anunció en mayo, cuando desafió al gobierno cubano a aceptar asistencia humanitaria de Estados Unidos.

“Nuestra preferencia siempre es una solución diplomática, siempre, y un acuerdo negociado”, dijo Rubio en ese momento.

Lewin afirmó que la disposición de Cuba para aceptar la ayuda refleja el deterioro de la situación humanitaria del país.

“La razón por la que no querían aceptarla es una admisión de lo que todos saben: que es un gobierno incapaz de atender a su propio pueblo y que necesita asistencia externa”, dijo Lewin.

El analista de Cuba de Local 10 News, el Dr. Andy Gómez, dijo que la aceptación de la ayuda por parte de Cuba podría ser una señal de la gravedad de su crisis económica.

“Cuba retrasó la decisión, pero tiene una necesidad tan extrema que no tiene otra opción que aceptarla”, dijo Gómez. “Se dan cuenta de que han llegado al límite”.

Gómez afirmó que, aunque un colapso político no parece inminente, el deterioro económico del país podría eventualmente provocar cambios más amplios.

“El colapso político no ha ocurrido y no creo que ocurra de inmediato, pero un colapso económico podría conducir a un colapso político. Habrá que esperar para ver”, dijo Gómez.

También afirmó que el esfuerzo humanitario debilita uno de los argumentos históricos del gobierno cubano.

“Al recibir ayuda humanitaria, el gobierno cubano pierde ese mensaje propagandístico con el que sigue culpando al embargo económico ante el pueblo cubano”, dijo Gómez.

Lewin explicó que el acuerdo para permitir el ingreso de la ayuda a Cuba fue resultado de negociaciones diplomáticas en curso.

“Esto es algo que hemos estado negociando en nuestras conversaciones diplomáticas continuas con el régimen, y nos complace decir que han aceptado en principio permitir estas distribuciones”, afirmó.

Para ayudar a garantizar que los suministros lleguen a las familias cubanas, el Departamento de Estado se asoció con Catholic Relief Services y Cáritas Cuba, que distribuirá los paquetes a través de iglesias en toda la isla.

“Cuentan con una amplia red de voluntarios para llegar a quienes más lo necesitan”, dijo Sean Callahan, presidente y director ejecutivo de Catholic Relief Services.

Lewin dijo que los organizadores encargados de distribuir la ayuda denunciarán cualquier interferencia de las autoridades cubanas.

“Sabremos de inmediato si el régimen interfiere y toma una caja destinada a una familia cubana. Si eso ocurre, les exigiremos responsabilidades y esperamos que el pueblo cubano, tanto dentro como fuera de la isla, también lo haga”, afirmó.

También enfatizó que las sanciones de Estados Unidos contemplan exenciones para las operaciones humanitarias.

“Mientras enfrentamos las amenazas a la seguridad nacional que representa el régimen, nuestro compromiso con el pueblo cubano es inquebrantable y queremos entregar la asistencia crítica que su gobierno debería poder proporcionarles, pero no lo hace”, dijo Lewin.

Callahan explicó que la ayuda será entregada a las 15 diócesis de Cuba utilizando una combinación de transporte aéreo y terrestre para minimizar el impacto de la escasez de combustible.

“Estamos realizando diferentes envíos a las 15 diócesis, ya sea por tierra o por aire, para reducir al mínimo el transporte interno debido a la escasez de combustible. Una vez que la ayuda llega, la Iglesia Católica la distribuye mediante una red de voluntarios, ya sea con carretillas, carretas tiradas por burros o personas que la transportan de un lugar a otro”, dijo.

Funcionarios del Departamento de Estado informaron que esperan que los vuelos de ayuda humanitaria continúen semanalmente.

Broward Health is working to make the process a little less intimidating by connecting expectant families with resources, doctors and information before delivery day.

The health system recently hosted its first Bump, Baby and Beyond Fair in Fort Lauderdale, an event designed to help moms-to-be feel more confident about pregnancy, labor and postpartum care.

For first-time parents, the unknown can often be the most stressful part of becoming a mom.

Four months into her pregnancy, Faith Speicher is preparing to welcome her first child — a baby boy.

“I’m four months pregnant now,” Speicher said. “It was a little rough in the beginning, but I’m feeling really good. I’m very grateful. Excited to have my little boy.”

Even with a background in health care, Speicher said she quickly realized there were still many things she didn’t know.

“I think I was expecting to know a lot more,” she added.

That’s why she spent her Saturday at Broward Health’s first Bump, Baby and Beyond Fair, speaking with doctors, touring the maternity unit and learning about topics ranging from breastfeeding to birth plans.

Samantha Rooney, labor and delivery nurse manager at Broward Health Medical Center, said the goal was to make sure expectant parents have access to the information and support they need.

“We want all moms to be able to get the best care possible,” said Rooney.

Rooney said preparing families ahead of time is important because every pregnancy and delivery experience can be different.

“Every labor is different,” she said. “So, I think, you know, just going through the labor process, the unknown, the outcome. And then after postpartum, who’s gonna, you know, am I gonna be okay? Am I gonna be feeling some emotions? You know, maternal health is also very important to remember for delivery and postpartum.”

The goal is to replace some of the fear surrounding childbirth with facts and preparation long before delivery day.

For Speicher, the biggest takeaway from the event was confidence.

“I didn’t know all the different options that I had when I was gonna come and give birth,” she said. “I didn’t realize that you can kind of — not so much plan everything. It made me feel really good to know what to expect, and if it doesn’t go the way that I plan, what is the other option that I have. So it just gave me a lot of confidence.”

Doctors say communication between patients and providers is a key part of that preparation.

Dr. Katina Brown Burgess, chair of the Department of OBGYN at Broward Health Medical Center, encouraged expectant parents to ask questions and share their concerns.

“Communicate with your doctor,” she said. “Tell them what your worries are, what your desires are, what you’re afraid of, because a lot of times we have the resources and the answers they need.”

For Speicher, preparing for motherhood isn’t about having every answer — it’s about knowing where to find them.

“The more that you inform yourself the less scary it is. Don’t get your information from TikTok University,” she added. “Come to the people who know what they’re talking about and reach out to your community because you need to have people you can trust.”

Broward Health plans to make the Bump, Baby and Beyond Fair an annual event. Many of the resources shared during the event are also available year-round to expectant families.

Click here to read more stories from Local 10’s Mom to Mom collection.

Roger Rogoff is the latest in a series of judicially appointed U.S. attorneys to be ousted by the Trump administration from their posts but is believed to be the first of that group to sue over the removal. His action creates a first-of-its-kind court case that will test the Justice Department's authority to fire federal prosecutors who are appointed by judges,

Rogoff was unanimously appointed to the job of U.S. attorney for western Washington by the federal judges in the district. But shortly after he was sworn in last Wednesday, he received an email from the Trump administration informing him that President Donald Trump had ordered his termination.

The lawsuit contends that the abrupt firing was unconstitutional and disregarded the authority of the judges of the district to name Rogoff to the job until the vacancy could be filled through a Senate-confirmed nominee. The complaint seeks a court order declaring that the firing “was unlawful and is void” and that Rogoff at least temporarily remains U.S. attorney.

“The President’s actions violate the law, and they ignore the protections of the Constitution of the United States," Rogoff said in a statement issued through the law firm representing him. "His removal of me, like his removal of other court-appointed U.S. attorneys across the country, is illegal and cannot stand."

US attorneys are typically nominated by the president

U.S. attorneys, top federal prosecutors who oversee regional Justice Department outposts across the country, are typically nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate.

In the case of a vacancy, attorneys general have the authority to name an interim U.S. attorney who can serve for 120 days, but when those temporary appointments expire, the judges in a judicial district are then empowered to name a U.S. attorney — as happened in Rogoff's case — who can serve until the selection of a Senate-confirmed appointee.

But under Trump, the Justice Department has sought to leave unconfirmed prosecutors in their positions indefinitely or has moved to fire prosecutors appointed by the courts.

The acting attorney general had foreshadowed the firing

Rogoff's district has not had a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney since 2023. He submitted his name for consideration with the federal bench after the judges last January signaled their intent to fill a vacancy created by the end of the 120-day term of Charles Neil Floyd, who had been named to the job in an interim capacity last year by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Even before Rogoff was appointed, the lawsuit notes, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche foreshadowed his plans to fire whomever the judges selected, writing on X after the court announced its appointment of a merit selection panel that the candidates did not have the president’s support, “and I expect they will suffer the same fate as others have when judges ignore Article II” of the Constitution.

After Rogoff was fired, Blanche posted: “District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them.” Judges from the state’s western district, he said, “abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration so that the selected U.S. Attorney is qualified to serve in the administration. Roger Rogoff has been fired by the President.”

The Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday that “the district court did not coordinate with DOJ on this selection. Consistent with other firings of this type, this is wholly within the President’s authority.”

Other jurisdictions that have seen tussles between the judiciary and the administration over the prosecution posts include New Jersey, where Trump's former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, resigned in December after an appeals court said she had been serving in the post unlawfully.

Lindsey Halligan, another of Trump's personal lawyers who was installed by the administration, left her position as an acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge concluded her appointment was unlawful and that indictments she brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.

Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, 28, died July 14 after authorities said he darted across a busy road in St. Augustine and into the path of a truck. His death was the third in roughly a week involving encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, following fatal shootings in Texas and Maine.

Coronilla Durán traveled from his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, to Atlanta to visit family and friends, according to Isaret Jeffers, founder of Colectivo Arbol, a farmworkers advocacy group. He had stayed in Georgia for three weeks before traveling to Florida’s east coast to enjoy the beaches, Jeffers said Tuesday.

U.S. authorities have not publicly identified the man, but a Mexico official confirmed his name. Jeffers said Yezzika Alamilla, the man’s wife, told them he had been visiting the U.S. on a tourist visa.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday about whether Coronilla Durán had a valid visa.

Authorities say he ran from immigration officers

Coronilla Durán was one of four people in a vehicle that stopped in a gas station parking lot before 7 a.m. on the day he died. The four fled on foot during an encounter with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

It is unclear what prompted the encounter and what happened to the vehicle’s other three occupants.

The Highway Patrol and DHS have not provided additional details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Advocacy group says his wife sought help

Alamilla called Colectivo Arbol, which provides legal advice and assistance to farmworkers in Central Florida, the day after her husband died, Jeffers said. She was seeking help to travel from Mexico and repatriate her husband’s remains. The organization bought her a plane ticket and put her up for three days, until Monday, she said. The Mexican consulate has been helping her since.

“His wife said he was there on a tourist visa. She didn’t understand what was happening,” Jeffers said. “He didn’t come to work; he wasn’t working. He was here as a tourist.”

Alamilla “thinks he was very afraid, and that’s why he ran away,” Jeffers said.

His remains will be repatriated

According to information provided by the widow, Coronilla Durán “had been in the United States for only a very short time (and) had a tourist visa,” said Susana Guerra Vallejo, the undersecretary for assistance to migrants and mobility issues for the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

She said that Alamilla would be able to see the body of her husband at the Florida funeral home.

Coronilla Durán’s body will be transported to Mexico on a commercial flight from Orlando, Guerra Vallejo told The Associated Press. He will be buried in his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, a farming community in Guanajuato that is about 160 miles (260 kilometers) northwest of Mexico City, she said.

Coronilla Durán and Alamilla had two children, a 7-month-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, Jeffers said.

Coronilla Durán’s death was at least the 10th involving encounters with immigration agents since President Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign last year.

The Mexican government said it had asked state attorneys general in the U.S. to review the deaths of migrants in ICE custody or during raids for possible criminal prosecution.

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Sánchez reported from Mexico City. Associated Press reporter Maria Verza contributed from Mexico City.

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Joel Leiniz reported he had attended a church concert with his three daughters before he lost control and crashed his 2017 Audi Q7 into a pole, according to a Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office deputy’s report.

Fire rescue personnel responded to Military Trail near Vicliff Road in Greenacres, and took Leiniz, of Margate, and his three daughters to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, according to deputies.

Leiniz’s 8-year-old daughter, Zoë, was pronounced dead shortly after 10:45 p.m. at St. Mary’s Medical Center, and his 6-year-old and 12-year-old daughters survived their injuries, according to PBSO deputies.

The family tragedy was about nine days before the girls were set to mark the first anniversary of the death of their mother, Sasha Christine Leiniz, the former children’s ministry director at the New Covenant Church in Pompano Beach.

A PBSO detective investigated the cause of the Jan. 17 crash and found Joel Leiniz had a blood alcohol level just slightly above the legal limit of .08 in Florida, records show.

“The toxicology report showed that the hospital admission blood contained .081/.083 of alcohol ... Based on [Leiniz’s] statement of not drinking, the blood results, and a retrograde analysis, I determined the BAC to be .097/.104 at the time of the collision and that [Leiniz] was impaired at the time of the collision,” a deputy wrote, according to the arrest report.

Vehicle data showed Joel Leiniz was driving at 104 mph before crashing into the pole in a 40-mph speed zone, according to the deputies’ arrest report.

Leiniz “stated that he was traveling in the inside lane, attempting to change into the center lane. Suddenly, there was a car in front of him and he swerved right to avoid a collision and he lost control ... he did not recall how fast he was driving or what the speed limit was, but did not think he was speeding,” a deputy wrote, according to the arrest report.

Video recorded by a surveillance camera at 2450 South Military Trail showed Leiniz “traveling at a high rate of speed” and “swerving right to avoid the collision,” according to the deputy’s report.

“Based on the extensive damage to [the Audi], the video showing the amount of lift and rotation during the collision, and the tire loading mark showing the speed and extreme steering input, I determined that [Leiniz] was traveling at a high rate of speed,” the deputy wrote, according to the arrest report.

Deputies arrested Joel Leiniz on July 19. He faced charges of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter, records show.

On Monday, Joel Leiniz appeared in bond court before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Donald Hafele, who set his bail at $150,000, or $75,000 for each of the charges, according to Palm Beach deputies.

Court records show Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Sherri L. Collins was set to preside over the case and Leiniz’s next hearing is Sept. 24.

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Police arrested 30-year-old Hakam Shahin, of Oakland Park, on June 26 near the 5600 block of Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, jail records show.

According to investigators, the scheme targeted owners shipping expensive vehicles out of state.

Police said hackers accessed dispatch information for vehicle transport companies, obtained customers’ information and then posed as the legitimate towing company to steal the vehicles.

“A hacker hacks into the dispatch board, obtained the information of the victim, posed as if they are the tow company who were hired to transport the vehicle, and most times the victim never sees their vehicle again,” Miami Beach Police Officer Christopher Bess said.

Police said surveillance video shows a tow truck picking up a Range Rover valued at about $125,000 from a victim’s location.

“The video shows the tow truck company picking up the vehicle from the victim’s location,” Bess said.

Authorities said the tow truck drivers are often unaware they are participating in a theft.

Investigators said Shahin is linked to multiple cases.

In one incident, a victim was told she would have to pay $100,000 to get her stolen Porsche back, according to police.

Police said they have recovered several of the stolen luxury vehicles.

To help prevent similar thefts, investigators recommend that owners place a secondary GPS tracking device inside vehicles before shipping them.

Jail records show Shahin is facing one count each of first-degree grand theft of more than $100,000, organized scheme to defraud and threats/extortion.

Anyone with information on this case is urged to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que la Policía arrestó a Hakam Shahin, de 30 años y residente de Oakland Park, el 26 de junio cerca de la cuadra 5600 de Collins Avenue, en Miami Beach.

Según los investigadores, el esquema tenía como objetivo a propietarios que enviaban vehículos de alto valor a otros estados.

La Policía indicó que piratas informáticos accedían a la información de despacho de compañías de transporte de vehículos, obtenían los datos de los clientes y luego se hacían pasar por la empresa de remolque legítima para robar los vehículos.

“Un pirata informático accede al sistema de despacho, obtiene la información de la víctima, se hace pasar por la empresa de remolque contratada para transportar el vehículo y, la mayoría de las veces, la víctima nunca vuelve a ver su vehículo”, dijo el agente de la Policía de Miami Beach, Christopher Bess.

La Policía indicó que un video de vigilancia muestra una grúa recogiendo una Range Rover valorada en aproximadamente 125,000 dólares en la ubicación de la víctima.

“El video muestra a la empresa de remolque recogiendo el vehículo en la ubicación de la víctima”, dijo Bess.

Las autoridades señalaron que los conductores de las grúas con frecuencia desconocen que están participando en un robo.

Los investigadores indicaron que Shahin está vinculado a múltiples casos.

En uno de los incidentes, según la Policía, a una víctima le dijeron que tendría que pagar 100,000 dólares para recuperar su Porsche robado.

La Policía informó que ha recuperado varios de los vehículos de lujo robados.

Para ayudar a prevenir robos similares, los investigadores recomiendan que los propietarios coloquen un dispositivo GPS secundario dentro de sus vehículos antes de enviarlos para su transporte.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Shahin enfrenta un cargo de hurto mayor en primer grado por más de 100,000 dólares, un cargo por esquema organizado para defraudar y un cargo por amenazas/extorsión.

Cualquier persona con información sobre este caso puede comunicarse con Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers al 305-471-8477.

It’s the second satellite-saving mission to launch this month, all part of a growing, money-saving effort to keep spacecraft running as long as possible. Another company’s three-armed spacecraft rocketed into orbit on July 3 to boost NASA’s Swift Observatory so it doesn’t crash to Earth this fall.

Launched by SpaceX, Northrop Grumman’s mission robotic vehicle — dubbed MRV — and its jetpacks will spend the next year angling into the proper orbit 22,300 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth. Hundreds of satellites orbit at this so-called geosynchronous orbit, where they match the speed of Earth's rotation and keep to the same part of the sky for continuous coverage.

Once in place by mid-2027, the minivan-sized spacecraft will use its 10-foot (9-meter) arms to attach a jetpack to an aging communication satellite. Then it will zip off to two more satellites in need.

For its debut flight, the spacecraft was accompanied by three electric-propelled jetpacks that peeled away separately following liftoff. Like the MRV, the jetpacks will use their own xenon gas thrusters to get to the desired orbit. Once in place, the jetpacks will wait for the robot to grab them, one at a time, and plug them into their designated satellites.

Each jetpack — the size of a washing machine — will provide the necessary oomph for an out-of-gas satellite to keep operating for several more years instead of retiring. If it works, it will be a boon for satellite operators SES of Luxembourg and Optus of Australia, saving them millions of dollars in replacement costs.

This is Northrop Grumman's latest foray into the satellite-servicing business. In 2019 and again in 2020, the company launched a pair of spacecraft that latched onto faltering communication satellites and steered them, providing extra years of life.

Northrop Grumman designed its new robotic helpers to be even more resourceful. The company envisions future versions repairing and relocating live satellites, and even latching onto dead ones for removal from highly trafficked orbits. The company is collaborating with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Katalyst Space Technologies, meanwhile, continues to test its Link satellite helper in orbit before rushing to the Swift Observatory's rescue. Flight controllers had to overcome initial communication and pointing problems with Link, beaming up software patches.

Launched in 2004, NASA's Swift telescope has been sinking faster than usual because of all the recent solar activity. A boost by Link in the coming weeks could give the nearly $400 million gamma ray observatory many more years of studying some of the biggest explosions in the universe.

NASA is paying Kataylst $30 million to raise Swift to its original 373-mile (600-kilometer) altitude. Northrop Grumman provided Link's ride to orbit, using a plane-launched Pegasus rocket.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Andrew Arrabaca, 43, plotted the attack for months and considered striking other New York City targets before setting a fire, lighting fireworks and firing a pellet gun Monday morning outside 26 Federal Plaza, Assistant U.S. Attorney Samantha Fry said.

Arrabaca told investigators that he understood people could've been hurt or killed and that he he was willing to accept his own death in the process, Fry said. She called his actions “calculated, targeted and unacceptably dangerous."

Three people sustained minor injuries, including a person who had an immigration court hearing at the building, which also houses offices for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. The building has been a magnet for protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Arrabaca, wearing glasses and a black sweatshirt, sat quietly between his lawyers at his initial appearance in Manhattan federal court. He nodded at times as they explained what was happening. He was not required to enter a plea. The charge, arson or explosion causing damage to U.S. government property, carries a minimum sentence of seven years in prison.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky ordered Arrabaca jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, rejecting his lawyer's suggestion that he be sent to a locked ward at a Veterans Health Administration facility for a mental health evaluation. Instead, the judge said she wants Arrabaca to be evaluated at the jail as soon as possible.

“This is an individual who, notwithstanding what he appears to have done, has served our country and is quite clearly ill,” Tarnofsky said.

Arrabaca was living in his car and slept in a park the night before the attack, Fry said. In 2020, she said, he was prescribed medication for a mental health condition but he stopped taking it about a year later.

A military-style helmet that authorities say Arrabaca wore during the attack had words on it suggesting he was suicidal, defense lawyer Jennifer Brown said.

Brown noted that Arrabaca has no criminal history and, until recently, had a long history of employment. He is a U.S. citizen and a lifelong New York resident, she said. He grew up in Queens, public records show, and was linked to an address in Poughkeepsie.

Arrabaca repaired Patriot missile systems while in the Army from 2001 to 2004. He also served a year in the New York Army National Guard. He had no deployments and left the Army as a specialist, an Army spokesperson said.

Fry, arguing for jail instead of hospitalization or release, argued that Arrabaca is a danger to the community and a flight risk. Brown conceded “the nature of this offense is undoubtedly dangerous,” but that Arrabaca’s “expressed intention was not to cause damage to people but to cause damage to property.”

Arrabaca started planning the attack as far back as January and went to upstate New York to buy weapons and Pennsylvania to buy fireworks, Fry said. Outside the Manhattan building, he was tackled by a security officer after authorities say he dumped gasoline outside an employee entrance and set the sidewalk on fire.

Arrabaca had two axes, three fixed-blade knives, a hammer, a machete and a wagon affixed with a sign that said “ICE Off Our Streets," authorities said. As he was being arrested, he made “anti-government and anti-American statements” and derogatory remarks about ICE, James Barnacle, the head of the FBI’s New York field office, said at a news conference on Monday.

Fry said that while only a few people were injured, “this attack could have ended much more tragically” at a building where hundreds of federal employees work, parents leave children at a daycare and members of the public use a post office inside.

Fry said there is “overwhelming evidence of his guilt” including “his own fulsome confession."

Tarnofsky said she seriously considered the psychiatric ward option but rejected it because she wasn’t convinced Arrabaca would comply with treatment.

“The crime you’re charged with is troubling," she said, addressing Arrabaca directly. “The nature and circumstances, the fact that it was planned over time and carried out at a time when it could cause significant harm.”

“This wasn’t done on a Sunday when no one was at the building," the judge said.

___

Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Pfc. Benjamin Del Real Jr., 25, was visiting the capital on May 23 and hoping to snap pictures with his sister and father outside the White House when a gunman opened fire. Secret Service fired back, killing the man, and a bullet struck Del Real in the stomach, causing serious injuries that required emergency surgery. Part of his digestive system had to be removed.

Del Real filed notice of a personal injury claim on Tuesday, saying he plans to sue for $25 million under the Federal Tort Claims Act. He accused the Secret Service of botching its response to the shooting and failing to adequately protect him and other bystanders, he and his lawyer, Joseph Murphy, said Tuesday at a news conference.

“I, my father and Benjamin all feared for our lives, and the moment that I saw Ben bleeding was undoubtedly the scariest moment of my life,” said his sister, Sara Del Real.

The Secret Service has not said whether its agents fired the bullet that struck Del Real. The Metropolitan Police Department said earlier this summer that the ballistics on that bullet had not yet been returned. Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Lee Lepe said Tuesday the investigation is ongoing.

Federal law enforcement agencies are generally shielded from legal liability, but there are some exceptions, including some claims of employee negligence.

The Secret Service does not comment on pending litigation, according to Nate Herring, a spokesperson for the Service. He referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Del Real, of Salina, Kansas, and his family had spent hours that day touring the National Archives, Arlington Cemetery and other landmarks before passing by the White House at around 6 p.m. on their way to dinner. Just then, Del Real saw the shooter, about 20 yards closer to a Secret Service outpost, take out a gun and fire several rounds at their booth, prompting agents to return “a hail of gunfire,” Murphy said.

The shooter, 21-year-old Nasire Best, was killed.

Del Real pulled his father to the ground and dragged him behind a concrete barrier, saving his life, but a bullet struck Del Real in the stomach, causing him “life-threatening injuries,” Murphy said. He underwent an emergency surgery, then again two days later to remove the bullet, and is due for a third surgery next month. Doctors had to remove parts of his colon and small intestine.

Del Real, who joined the Army a year and a half ago, said he is “without a doubt, concerned” about his ability to continue a military career.

“He’s a young man, he’s 25 years old, and he’s had part of his digestive system taken out,” Murphy said. “It’s not going to get any better from here.”

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

That possibility prompted the state Democratic Party on Tuesday to make a plea to the state elections commission, urging it to allow voters who already cast an absentee ballot to vote again. More than 80,000 ballots have already been returned.

The request is all-but certain to result in a lawsuit with the primary just three weeks away.

Democrats want to allow voters to cast new ballots after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, a Democrat, ended her campaign for governor on Friday and another candidate, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, rejoined the race with the endorsement of current Gov. Tony Evers. There are now five Democratic candidates actively campaigning for governor ahead of the Aug. 11 primary.

Any voter who already returned an absentee ballot cast for Rodriguez would not be able to get a new ballot, based on guidance approved by the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission earlier this month. The guidance was adopted after another Democratic candidate for governor, Missy Hughes, dropped out in June. Both Rodriguez and Hughes remain on the ballot even though they have ended their campaigns.

The winner of the Democratic primary for governor is likely to face Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who has only token opposition. The seat is open after Evers decided against seeking a third term. Democrats hope to retain the office and flip both chambers of the Legislature to gain full control of state government for the first time since 2010.

Democrats say absentee voters must be allowed to vote again

The Democratic Party argues that the commission’s guidance must be rescinded because it reversed its own rule that was in place four years ago and is inconsistent with a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. That ruling said voting rules should not be changed close to an election.

If the elections commission does not reverse itself and allow for new absentee ballots to be cast, “some voters will not be able to truly participate in our Democratic primary process,” Democratic Party Chairman Devin Remiker said in a statement.

He said the party asked for the reversal after checking with all five of the candidates actively campaigning for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Rodriguez ended her campaign after discovering that she had far less money on hand than she thought. She blamed her campaign manager for double counting donations and underreporting expenses. A day after she dropped out, Crowley rejoined the race. He had gotten out on July 8 and endorsed Rodriguez.

Both Crowley and Hughes were at the bottom of the field in public opinion polls before they dropped out. Hughes ended her campaign June 22 and said Democrats needed to coalesce around a candidate who could win in November. She endorsed Rodriguez, who then dropped out less than a month later.

Absentee voting by mail has been going on since late June and early in-person voting begins on July 28. Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming criticized the push by Democrats to allow early absentee voters to cast a fresh ballot.

“Their primary is already chaotic enough," he said. “Election laws should not be changed to rescue one party from the consequences of its own actions.”

Fight over recasting absentee ballots dates to 2022

The rarely used practice known as ballot spoiling was the subject of a lawsuit in 2022. A Waukesha County judge sided with a Republican group that brought the lawsuit, ruling in October 2022 that the elections commission must rescind its guidance allowing for spoiling of ballots. But a state appeals court put that on hold just weeks before the midterm election that year.

And then in February, a state appeals court repealed the ruling, saying the lawsuit was not properly served. The appeals court did not address the merits of the case.

Despite that ruling, the elections commission voted 4-2 to prohibit voters who have already turned in their absentee ballot from getting a new one. One Democratic commissioner joined with three Republicans in voting in favor of the prohibition. Two Democrats voted against it.

It's rare for absentee voters in Wisconsin to seek a new ballot

There’s no way to know how many of the spoiled ballots were from Democrats or Republicans because voters in Wisconsin do not register by party. Voters who obtained an absentee ballot, but have not yet voted and want to obtain a new one, can still do that.

Previously in Wisconsin, voters who had submitted an absentee ballot could spoil it and cast a new ballot up to three times for any reason. But it very rarely happened.

From the 2018 midterms through the 2022 primary, less than 1% of all votes cast were cast by people who cast a new absentee ballot after spoiling an earlier one, data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission showed.

More recently though, Bloomberg’s latest dive into the topic cites research claiming for the first time on record, the Miami area is pricier than the Big Apple, saying South Florida’s consumer price index has jumped 36% since 2019.

“Cost of living is going up everywhere and the New Yorkers are coming down here, so I guess it is what it is,” said South Florida resident Robert Nordling. “The cost of living, the cost of anything from sandwiches to gas, it’s up one day, down the next.

It’s hard not to notice that many things are more expensive now than in 2019, no matter where you live.

“And it’s only gonna keep climbing from here,” said Miami resident Mario Torres.

The Bloomberg piece goes on to say Miami’s private-school tuition, insurance costs and how much people are spending at restaurants are higher now than they were a year ago.

So what does all of this mean? Will people start choosing New York over Miami?

“Always an appeal here, everybody wants to be in Miami,” said Nordling. “New York and Miami. I guess they’re dancing together now.”

Los residentes se oponen a un plan para eliminar decenas de árboles maduros cerca de Legion Memorial Park.

Los trabajadores de la construcción ya avanzan en un nuevo desarrollo llamado Adella 3 que Acre Developments planea construir en el lugar.

Pero primero, para que el proyecto pueda levantarse, tendrán que talar árboles. Un total de 46, incluidos cinco grandes robles.

Algunos residentes, entre ellos Peter Ehrlich, están indignados y han presentado apelaciones ante la ciudad.

“Cada árbol es crucial”, dijo. “El arquitecto del desarrollador debería trabajar diligentemente para salvar esos árboles, no simplemente para talarlos, porque algunos de los robles tienen 120 o 150 años”.

El abogado David Winker representa a un grupo ambientalista que también presentó una apelación.

“Creemos firmemente que deben permanecer y también que no se han cumplido los requisitos del código, que exigen demostrar que no existe una alternativa, que no pueden construir su edificio debido a estos árboles que están en un parque público”, dijo Winker.

El tema ha generado fuertes emociones entre decenas de residentes que afirman que preservar la cobertura arbórea ayuda a reducir el calor, proporciona sombra, mejora la calidad del aire y protege la vida silvestre.

“Es crucial, pero desafortunadamente los desarrolladores, en un intento desesperado por construir lo más rápido posible para ayudar a sus contratistas generales a tener terrenos sin árboles, y funcionarios de la ciudad que reciben contribuciones de campaña de los desarrolladores, hacen todo lo posible por talar árboles lo más rápido que pueden”, dijo Ehrlich.

Como medida de mitigación por la pérdida de árboles, el desarrollador acordó plantar 103 árboles nuevos dentro y alrededor de la propiedad una vez que concluya la construcción.

“Tenemos ocho apelaciones esta noche, es algo sin precedentes”, dijo Winker. “Esta noche simplemente será así, tenemos muchísimas apelaciones en curso y algunas personas han expresado frustración por la cantidad de apelaciones, pero en realidad la pregunta es: ¿por qué están ocurriendo? Porque la ciudad no debería estar aprobando estos proyectos desde el principio”.

Local 10 News se comunicó con el abogado que representa al desarrollador, pero hasta el momento de la publicación de esta nota no había recibido respuesta.

The flight carrying 700 packages is meant to bypass the Cuban government, with the items distributed directly to the Cuban people by Catholic groups in Cuba, according to the U.S. State Department.

Tuesday’s shipment is a $60 million first tranche of a total of $100 million the U.S. offered to Cuba some time ago. It comes after months of intensified U.S. pressure on the Cuban government and government-related institutions that has focused mainly on imposing significant sanctions against the country’s military and intelligence apparatus. The imposition of an energy and oil blockade has practically paralyzed the Cuban economy and the daily lives of people on the island.

The latest iteration of this was a lengthy document released by the State Department on Monday accusing Cuba of running a vast espionage and left-wing influence operation in the United States over the past five decades.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants, has taken a personal interest in pushing Cuba to make changes to its socialist system, while President Donald Trump has on several occasions suggested that the U.S. could take military action to topple the island’s communist government.

Jeremy Lewin, the State Department’s senior official for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom, said the partnership builds upon a program that last year delivered $9 million in direct support to the island following Hurricane Melissa.

He said challenges have included convincing the Cuban government to allow the aid’s distribution and agree not to intercept and take it for themselves. Lewin said that since local priests and Catholic groups are distributing the assistance directly, “there’s very little, if any, opportunity for the regime to interfere with the delivery of the assistance.”

Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, said he visited the island a few weeks ago to ensure accountability for the aid's distribution.

“We’re hoping that this is one small step forward on the humanitarian side,” Callahan said. “But hopefully we’ll bring the people of the United States and Cuba together into the future.”

Neither the Cuban government nor its press reported on Tuesday's humanitarian flight from the U.S.

In early July, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez dismissed the announcements of aid that had yet to arrive as “fantasy,” while downplaying the amount in contrast to all the losses the island suffers daily due to the energy blockade and sanctions imposed by the U.S.

“One hundred million dollars would certainly help, although we must acknowledge that it only amounts to five days of the blockade,” the foreign minister said.

___ Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee contributed from Washington, and Andrea Rodriguez contributed from Havana. Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Carl McDaniel, 65, suffered multiple bone fractures in the July 10 attack at the national park but lived to tell the tale, as seen in a video he recorded a few days later from his bed at Bozeman Health Deaconess Medical Center in southern Montana.

“He wasn’t showing aggression or anything like that until it picked a target. That target happened to be me,” McDaniel said in the video posted on Instagram on Saturday.

McDaniel was on a after-dinner stroll with his grandson when the attack happened at Bridge Bay Campground, not far from Yellowstone Lake.

“They move faster than you could ever imagine. He just kept coming,” he said. The bison did not connect with McDaniel’s grandson, who was not hurt.

Bison can run up to 35 mph (56 kph), faster than the men’s world record in the 100-meter dash. They stand up to 6 feet (2 meters) tall, weigh up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms), and are North America’s biggest land animal.

Yellowstone records on average a couple of bison attacks every year. At least two people were attacked in the park in 2025.

Bozeman Health emergency department Dr. Eric Lowe said in the video that McDaniel suffered fractures in multiple places. McDaniel said the hardest part wasn’t the creature’s horns.

“I didn’t get bruises from him launching me in air,” he said. “It was the landing that became the problem.”

During a two-hour bargaining session Tuesday at Major League Baseball’s headquarters, the union proposed allowing college sophomores to be eligible for the draft along with those finishing their junior years, a group eligible under the current rules along with high school seniors.

Players proposed moving the draft back to June, when it was held through 2020. They asked that draft slot values continue to be increased at the same percentage as industry revenue through 2027 and may not be decreased for the remainder of the agreement.

Baseball’s five-year labor contract expires Dec. 1 and a management lockout is expected that would halt offseason trades and signings, and threaten the start of spring training workouts on Feb. 9 and opening day on March 24.

MLB in May proposed a salary cap for the first time since players fought off a proposal during a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that led to the first cancellation of the World Series in 90 years. Players vow never to accept a cap.

MLB said last month it wanted to eliminate eligibility for high school seniors and junior college players, arguing college programs offer better preparation for professional careers. MLB also proposed cutting the draft to 12 rounds in 2027.

The union also wants maintain the ability for players to negotiate deals rather than have fixed slots, reduce penalties for exceeding signing bonus pools, allow more draft selections to be traded and keep competitive balance round selections.

It would allow a $2 million signing bonus pool increase for a revenue-sharing recipient team that is not in a large market in one draft from 2027-31 and also allow those teams to sign two players drafted before the third round to major league contracts rather than minor league deals.

Revenue-sharing recipients that reach the postseason would receive an extra $1 million in their signing bonus pool in the following draft.

Teams exceeding their signing bonus pools by up to 15% would not lose a pick in the next draft, up from 5%.

For players not drafted in the first 10 rounds, the signing bonus pool exemption would increase from $150,000 to $1,000 over the figure for the last 10th-round selection, which was $191,900 this year. For draft and follow players — those who play an additional junior college season after the draft — the signing bonus maximum would rise from $225,000 to $75,000 above the last 10th-round pick's slot value.

Players would agree to MLB's proposal that draft picks could be traded during a period of about a month starting in early November and for the month prior to the draft.

Selections acquired could be traded on to another team but cash couldn't be included except to offset salary of a player involved in the trade. Each team would be required to retain at least one first-round pick in a two-year period and no team could obtain more than three additional selections within the first three rounds. A newly drafted player could not be traded for the first 90 days after he signs or the day after the World Series ends, whichever is later.

Players proposed only picks in the first 10 rounds be tradable.

MLB claims the union's draft proposal in tandem with its revenue-sharing stance would not address payroll.

The union proposed that tax proceeds from penalties for exceeding amateur draft pools be split, with half going to joint funds and half to revenue-sharing recipients who made the playoffs in the prior season.

___

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

It was the second major change Zelenskyy has made under street pressure, after protests last summer forced him to undo a law weakening Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs.

Zelenskyy appointed Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new army chief, according to a statement on social media. “Our shared wish is one — victory over the enemy and conditions at the front and in pressure on Russia that would force Russia toward peace,” Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian leader said he made the decision after a series of meetings with military commanders. They began shortly after protests broke out demanding the reinstatement of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, seen by demonstrators as a driver of military modernization, and the removal of Syrskyi, who they said embodied the army’s old, Soviet-style command culture.

Zelenskyy thanked Syrskyi for his achievements in Ukraine's fight against Russia and praised him for the defense of Kyiv and for operations in Kharkiv and Kursk.

“I am grateful to Oleksandr Syrskyi and to every one of our warriors for Ukraine’s strong front-line positions,” he said. “I am grateful to Mykhailo Drapatyi for holding that same view.”

Drapatyi wrote in a Facebook post that serving Ukraine "has always been an honor for me, and during this war for independence, it means absolute responsibility.” He thanked Syrskyi for his consistent work strengthening the Ukrainian military.

“I grew up in it,” he added, referring to the army. “I will work responsibly, with focus and with respect for the people defending our state today.”

Zelenskyy said Drapatyi and other commanders must present an updated defense strategy, including continued reform of the corps system, faster weapons and drone deliveries, stronger air defense against Russian strikes and a clearer mobilization plan.

Former defense minister's future in the government remains unclear

Zelenskyy met separately with Fedorov on Tuesday and offered him what he called a respected position in the government that would unify the country’s technology sector. It wasn't clear if Fedorov accepted the offer — or whether the latest moves would satisfy protesters and calm the streets.

Fedorov congratulated Drapatyi, calling the appointment “new hope in the fight of free people for freedom and justice” and “a voice for change that could not go unheard.”

Fedorov had criticized Syrskyi publicly before his dismissal, saying the general was blocking his reform efforts and needed to be replaced for Ukraine not to fail in its resistance against Russia. He said Ukrainians’ high expectations must now be met with a clear vision for ending the war, decisive action to preserve soldiers’ lives, expand robotic warfare at the front, strike asymmetrically and exhaust Russia’s economy.

Fedorov called Syrskyi to thank him for defending the Kyiv region, the Kharkiv operation and other battles, calling it “already an important part of Ukraine’s history” but adding that the country must “move even faster and write new chapters, correcting all previous mistakes.”

The army chief's dismissal was sparked by protests

The crisis began last Thursday, when Zelenskyy overhauled his wartime government, replacing his prime minister and firing Mykhailo Fedorov as defense minister after just six months in the post.

Zelenskyy cited an unworkable rift between Fedorov and Syrskyi, telling reporters that as the two couldn’t resolve their dispute, he would “have to resolve it.”

Following his dismissal, Fedorov publicly accused Syrskyi of blocking military reforms and fostering a top-down command culture, criticism that echoed complaints from soldiers and veterans over heavy casualties in costly front-line assaults.

The reshuffle immediately drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Kyiv and other cities, framing Fedorov’s removal as Zelenskyy siding with an entrenched military old guard over a reformer.

The backlash promptly spread to inside the military: the Air Force’s deputy commander resigned in protest, warning the move would weaken Ukraine’s air defenses; veterans and soldiers on leave joined the protests in Kyiv and other cities, and numerous public figures among soldiers spoke out publicly against Syrskyi on social media.

Criticism of the military chief had escalated

Syrskyi has long been associated with a Soviet-style, top-down command culture, and many protesters said they wanted a new generation of generals who would place a higher priority on preserving soldiers’ lives.

Within the military, Syrskyi has earned the gruesome nickname of “Butcher,” which particularly spread during his command of the defense of Bakhmut, one of the war’s longest and costliest battles.

His already precarious public standing eroded further after Ukrainian outlet Babel published an investigation in June detailing allegations of abuse within the Skelia assault regiment, a unit closely associated with Syrskyi that has reportedly suffered higher-than-average battlefield losses. The investigation documented dozens of deaths among recruits.

The 9-8 vote came after some Democrats had praised Clayton and indicated that they might vote for him. But that shifted after a contentious hearing last week in which Clayton repeatedly refused to say that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, said at the end of the hearing that he was “bitterly disappointed” in Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, even though he had worked with him in the past.

The committee’s approval sets up a floor vote on Clayton’s nomination, potentially early next week. The vote took place behind closed doors, as is customary for the panel, and all Democrats voted against Clayton, according to a person familiar with the vote who requested anonymity to disclose it.

The Democratic pushback on Clayton comes as Trump has made revisiting the 2020 election, which he lost, a primary focus. On Thursday evening, he delivered a speech from the White House in which he again tried to cast doubts on that election and amplified debunked theories about Biden’s win.

Clayton told senators that he had no involvement with that speech, but he said repeatedly that the election was “certified” for Biden, declining to say outright that the Democrat won.

Warner said after the vote on Tuesday that he wants to see someone in the job “who is going to be a restraint, not an agitator.”

Republicans want to quickly confirm Clayton

Senators in both parties have expressed concerns about the interim director, Bill Pulte, who took over when Tulsi Gabbard resigned last month. Pulte has no known intelligence experience and investigated the president’s perceived enemies in his previous post as a federal housing regulator.

Republicans were hoping to confirm Clayton in June so he could replace Gabbard without Pulte serving as interim. But Trump delayed Clayton’s nomination before the Senate left for a two-week recess, allowing Pulte to take the job temporarily.

As the nomination heads to the Senate floor, it’s unclear whether Democrats will allow Republicans to speed up a vote. Though he is opposing Clayton's nomination, Warner said he didn't want to slow it down.

“We are between a rock and a hard place” with Pulte in the job, he said.

Clayton did not mention Pulte in the hearing last week. But he emphasized his own government and national security experience, attempting to assuage senators in both parties.

“I saw firsthand how a strong national security apparatus depends on decisive judgment, discipline, integrity, and effective communication and cooperation across different branches of the government,” Clayton said. “If confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, I will commit to upholding these principles every day.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who expressed frustration last month when the hearing was delayed, said that Clayton has a reputation for operating with “morality, decency and integrity” in his previous positions.

“Jay Clayton is a highly qualified nominee with a deep experience combating a wide range of national security threats," Cotton said in a statement on Tuesday.

In 2026, Florida and Tennessee will be complete strangers.

Their once-a-year matchup that, back in the day, featured Steve Spurrier, Peyton Manning, Phillip Fulmer and snark that sometimes even outweighed the stakes — “You can’t spell Citrus without ‘U-T'” — is absent from the schedule for the first time in 37 seasons.

Alabama-LSU — soon that’ll be gone, too, for the first time since 1963.

The Gators and LSU — they’ll miss each other this year for the first time since 1970.

Such is the price of progress in the Southeastern Conference, which has grown from 10 teams in the old days to 16 now.

The league is introducing a nine-game league slate this season in an attempt to boost strength of schedule for what is now a playoff system that has a committee awarding seven at-large spots in the 12-team field.

“When you look at our schedule, no one has created the kind of weekly competition that exists in the Southeastern Conference,” commissioner Greg Sankey said.

The divisions that once made Florida-Tennessee such a big deal — winner had an inside track for the East, a spot in the conference title game and maybe the national championship — are gone, another product of expansion.

Under the new system, in place through 2029, each school will play three “annual” foes. Some of the SEC’s most ancient rivalries, like Alabama-Auburn, Florida-Georgia and Auburn-Georgia, were preserved.

Others are now less-permanent affairs. Another oldie but goodie that's missing this year, Georgia vs. Tennessee, was first played in 1899 and became an annual event in 1992. The Volunteers got the best of the Bulldogs early, but Georgia has won nine in a row and 14 of the last 16 — a run that prompted a question to Georgia coach Kirby Smart on Tuesday about feeling like he has “one less win” on the schedule.

“You said that; not me,” Smart responded. “I got a lot of respect for Josh (Heupel) and their staff. I mean, they’re a tough prep. I’m glad other teams get an opportunity to do that, and then we get some new teams to play.”

Some new teams, yes. Some old rivalries will return, too.

For instance, Arkansas-Texas, a must-see game on the old Southwestern Conference schedule that produced the Game of the Century, attended by President Richard Nixon in 1969, is an annual affair again. Two years ago, Missouri renewed acquaintance with Oklahoma, reupping a rivalry that meant a lot in the Big Eight for a time in the 1970s. And Texas-Texas A&M, the “Lone Star Shootout” and a game held every year between 1915 and 2011, will now be played annually.

Asked about rivalries being renewed and others that, in another effect of realignment, are changing dates — Missouri's season-ending tradition against Arkansas has been moved to Week 8 — Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz said: “I don’t worry about that. I know each and every game in the SEC is extremely difficult.”

The SEC also mandated its teams play a 10th game against a Power Four opponent, which led Kansas and Missouri to renew their so-called “Border War” and created other early season matchups like Oklahoma-Michigan, Clemson-LSU, Ohio State-Texas, Auburn-Baylor, Arkansas-Utah and Arizona State-Texas.

SEC coaches believed moving to a nine-game league schedule would coincide with College Football Playoff expansion, which didn’t happen.

Now, they have tougher schedules, no increased access to the 12-team playoff and a few less rivalries.

“That’s what our conference looks like,” Oklahoma coach Brett Venables said. “Each and every week, you’re not going to sneak up on anybody.”

A brief look at the Tennessee-Florida series

The Tennessee-Florida rivalry decided the SEC East a dozen times between 1993 and 2009. Spurrier got under Fulmer’s skin with his “Citrus Bowl” comments. Manning, despite all his accolades, went 0-4 against the Gators. The importance of the rivalry diminished beginning in 2011, with both schools falling behind Georgia in the East.

A brief look at the Florida-LSU series

The Florida-LSU matchup has been filled with chaos, controversy and close games. Among the most memorable: LSU upset No. 1 Florida in 1997, and fans stormed the field and tore down goal posts; the top-ranked Tigers won another close one a decade later by converting five fourth-down plays; and in 2020, unranked LSU stunned the sixth-ranked Gators in Gainesville on Cade York’s 57-yard field goal through heavy fog after cornerback Marco Wilson inexplicably threw an opponent’s shoe and kept alive the game-winning drive.

A brief look at the LSU-Alabama series

Alabama and LSU played 12 times between 2008 and 2021 with one of them ranked first or second. It often had Western Division and national title implications. It comes off the schedule for 2027, no longer an annual fixture. Few matchups outweigh the 2011 showdown in which top-ranked LSU knocked off No. 2 Alabama 9-6 in overtime. The Crimson Tide won the rematch in New Orleans two months later for the national championship.

Could current rivalries be affected beyond 2029?

The SEC has been adamant that each team’s annual opponents will be revisited and potentially realigned to maintain competitive balance before the 2030 season. Of course, by then, there’s no telling what the SEC or college football will look like.

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Long reported from Gainesville, Florida.

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En un comunicado divulgado el martes, la firma hotelera informó que a partir del 24 de julio cesa la “prestación de sus servicios de gestión y comercialización hotelera en relación con todos sus establecimientos en la República de Cuba”.

Indicó que la medida "se extiende al uso de marcas con licencia, servicios turísticos receptivos y la cadena de suministro local asociada al abastecimiento de los establecimientos mencionados, cuyas operaciones también se interrumpirán”.

Agregó que la decisión se debe a "las importantes dificultades operativas, legales, económicas y financieras que han afectado persistentemente, y siguen afectando, al entorno en ese país (Cuba), impidiendo de hecho y legalmente un nivel mínimo de estabilidad operativa en sus actividades”.

Estados Unidos anunció el 13 de julio nuevas sanciones que pusieron en una lista negra al Ministerio de Turismo de Cuba, el socio comercial de más de una docena de hoteles que Melía todavía conservaba en la isla, por lo que la decisión ahora completa el repliegue de sus negocios en la isla.

En mayo, el Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos sancionó a GAESA, un conglomerado militar empresarial cubano propietario de la agencia de turismo con la que Melia tenía el convenio para la gestión de otra quincena de hoteles y de los cuales se retiró entonces.

Meliá llegó a tener 34 hoteles de cinco estrellas en Cuba, sobre todo en La Habana y los más paradisíacos puntos como el balneario de Varadero o los principales cayos. Fue además una cadena muy simbólica para la isla a partir de la apertura del turismo en la nación caribeña tras la caída del bloque de países socialistas del este hace más de 35 años.

Las amenazas de Estados Unidos para las cadenas que se atrevan a trabajar con Cuba incluyen desde el congelamiento de sus activos y la intervención de sus cuentas en Estados Unidos —o sea la posibilidad de operar en el mercado financiero norteamericano--, además de la prohibición de viaje de sus accionistas, inversores y empleados.

Estados Unidos impuso una política de máxima presión contra la isla a partir de enero pasado buscando la caída del gobierno y cambios en su modelo político y económico. Decretó, además, un cerco energético que ha agudizado a una crisis precedente y que sumió a la isla en uno de los momentos más drámaticos de su historia reciente.

Apagones diarios de más de 20 horas, desconexiones de su sistema energético nacional, desabastecimiento de medicinas y hospitales sin insumos, surtido de agua colapsado, transporte paralizado y afectaciones en todos los sectores del país fueron algunas de las consecuencias visibles.

Turismo antigua locomotora

La salida de Meliá es “significativa” porque demuestra el impacto contundente de las políticas del presidente Donald Trump que está “metódicamente y sistemáticamente cerrando cada fuente de divisa para el gobierno cubano”, dijo a The Associated Press Paolo Spadoni, profesor asociado en el Departamento de Ciencias Sociales de Augusta University, en Georgia.

“Considerando las cantidades de hoteles y habitaciones que gestiona en la isla y el hecho que también tiene varias empresas mixtas hoteleras, Meliá es la cadena extranjera que más tiene que perder al salir de Cuba y aún así decidió terminar sus negocios”, destacó Spadoni.

En sus 34 hoteles en Cuba, la cadena llegó a tener unas 14.000 habitaciones.

El turismo, antes la locomotora de la economía, cayó en picada con el retiro de las cadenas –la también española Iberostar o la canadiense Royalton-- más importantes como con la cancelación de vuelos de líneas aéreas como World2Fly, Air France o Iberia o la reducción de sus frecuencias.

Mientras los visitantes brillan por su ausencia, con mínimos históricos. La isla llegó a recibir unos 4,3 millones de turistas en 2019, pero según cifras oficiales en el primer trimestre del año los arribos fueron 48% menos que en el mismo periodo de 2025, apenas unos 298.000.

Paralelamente, las autoridades bancarias cubanas informaron que ya no se procesaban operaciones de pago con Visa o Mastercard debido a las amenazas de sanciones sobre sus contrapartes.

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Siga a Andrea Rodríguez en X: https://x.com/ARodriguezAP

The deadline for action is more than two months away, but House GOP leaders are not leaving to chance another possible shutdown souring the mood of voters shortly before they go to the polls. House Speaker Mike Johnson dared Democrats to vote against the bill, and if they did, "then they alone are going to own the chaos that ensues if the government shuts down after September 30.”

The House passed the measure by a mostly party-line vote of 220-205.

It’s highly unusual for Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill months before the end of the fiscal year. Lawmakers normally act just days or even hours before the deadline. But once lawmakers leave town this week, the House is scheduled to be in session for only 16 more days before the funding deadline.

GOP leadership is laying the groundwork to spend most of that time on another priority: a long-shot, party-line bill that spends $95 billion to boost defense, aid farmers and get portions of President Donald Trump’s elections overhaul bill passed into law.

“I think it's kind of smart to go ahead and take the potential chaos of a shutdown off the table because the amount of damage that does to the American citizens,” said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga. He said he believed a shutdown “probably works to the advantage of Democrats politically,” and he blamed the press for such a scenario.

Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the stopgap measure, which would generally fund agencies at current spending levels.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the legislation was dropped on Democrats on Friday without any bipartisan negotiations. She said that, among other priorities, Democrats would have pushed for provisions to reverse a proposed federal rule that could allow agency heads to block or terminate grants they claim don't match the president's priorities.

She said that instead of a bipartisan agreement, “we are scrambling to jam through a one-sided stopgap measure two days before everyone leaves for the August recess.”

Republicans said work on the dozen annual spending bills would continue in the months ahead, but that funding the government through Dec. 4 could help lawmakers avoid a repeat of the past year when the country experienced the longest federal shutdown in history followed by the longest partial shutdown in history.

“We've seen that happen twice in this Congress already,” said Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “I'm not willing to risk a third time if we can avoid that.”

Some of the more conservative Republican lawmakers were fine with the bill to extend funding to Dec. 4, known as a continuing resolution.

In this environment, that's "the best way to spend the least amount of money,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo. “You keep spending levels static for at least a period of time.”

It's unclear if the Senate will go along with the bill. Spending bills require support from 60 senators to advance to a final vote, so some Democrats would need to support it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters that Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins was working with Democrats on the committee to “find a path forward.”

Hottle was one of two passengers in the car when it went off the road and hit a culvert in Ijamsville before 3 a.m. The driver was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the other passenger declined medical treatment, according to a news release from the sheriff's office. Excessive speed is believed to be a factor in the crash, which is under investigation, the sheriff's office said.

Hottle was a native signer of American Sign Language, and her family members are also deaf. Her parents, Joshua and Ketsi Hottle, shared emotional video statements about her death on social media sites.

“Kaylee’s mom and four siblings are crushed,” her father said in ASL in a post from an airport. “They are together at home, grieving. I am on my way to Maryland to bring Kaylee’s body back home.”

Hottle’s heart stopped before she arrived at a hospital, transported by air from the scene of the accident, her father said. “Very grateful for the 18 years we had together — and wish we had more,” he said.

Joshua Hottle also reached out to the driver, described by the sheriff's office as a 19-year-old Frederick man.

“I have forgiven you,” her father said. “Don’t let this incident ruin the rest of your life.”

“I still feel Kaylee is with us,” her mother said in ASL in a post.

In “Godzilla vs. Kong” and the sequel, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” Hottle played an orphaned girl named Jia who sees beyond Kong's threatening appearance and forms a special bond with the monster, communicating with him using sign language.

“I’m so devastated to hear this. You will be deeply missed Kaylee,” her “Godzilla” co-star Millie Bobby Brown posted on Instagram.

Co-star Alexander Skarsgård, who learned ASL to communicate with Hottle, told the pop culture website Junkee in 2021 that he and others were impressed by the young ingenue's professionalism and her ability to quickly incorporate the director's notes into her acting.

In a 2024 interview with The Associated Press, Hottle said through an interpreter that she hadn't watched monster movies before she was cast in “Godzilla,” so her father helped her understand the genre.

“I look up to a lot of people, but the one person I look up to, the few people I look up to mostly, are my parents and my sisters,” Hottle said.

Hottle said that when she was working on the first film, she was a bit concerned about whether she would be able to return to her “normal life," afterward.

“People do recognize me at school, yes, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be,” Hottle said.

Hottle previously appeared in a 2021 television episode of “Magnum P.I.” She was listed as appearing in the upcoming film “What Doesn’t Kill Us.”

“I’m so heartbroken. My heart goes out to her family during this unimaginable time,” Alaqua Cox, her co-star in that film and fellow deaf actor, wrote on Instagram.

Other prominent deaf actors also shared messages of grief online.

“I am absolutely gutted about the passing of sweet Kaylee Hottle. May her beauty and talent be a memory for eternity,” Oscar winner Marlee Matlin wrote on Instagram.

Fellow Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, who starred in the film “Coda,” wrote that Hottle's death made him think of his own daughter, and reminded him not to take time for granted.

“I have no words to express on what happened this morning,” Kotsur wrote, offering his “deepest condolences” to the Hottle family.

Officials with Texas School for the Deaf in Austin also announced Hottle's death on Facebook, writing that counseling and support services would be available to her classmates and friends.

“Please keep Kaylee's loved ones in your thoughts as we mourn this tremendous loss together,” the school wrote. ___ Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. Lage reported from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the new actions — which come after previously announced Medicaid funding deferrals in those states — are part of the administration's strategy to “stop the fraud before it happens” rather than claw back problematic spending after bad actors are prosecuted, as previous administrations had done.

“We have a duty to stop the payments, demand answers and then follow the evidence wherever it leads,” Kennedy told a news conference.

The tactic is part of the administration’s sweeping campaign to show it’s cracking down on fraud and saving taxpayers money when rising healthcare costs and other economic stressors have made affordability a top voter concern in November’s midterm elections.

In March, Vice President JD Vance launched a new anti-fraud task force at the request of President Donald Trump, bringing together officials from various departments to use data and technology to identify and investigate suspected wrongful use of federal dollars.

But the federal government hasn't provided “data or explanation on how the deferral amount was calculated or what it was based on” to Minnesota, said John Connolly, the temporary commissioner and state Medicaid director for Minnesota's Department of Human Services.

“Today's actions show that the federal government is acting again in unprecedented and punitive ways as part of their war on Medicaid and its recipients,” he said in a statement. “Partnership — not politics — is required to stop criminals and protect services for the people who need them.”

Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz suggested the Republican administration was deferring the funds to pay for Trump’s tax cuts to wealthy Americans. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom accused the administration of targeting it for political reasons.

The Trump administration intensified anti-immigration efforts in Minnesota earlier this year, sending in a robust force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers whose actions there caused weeks of counterprotests and included the shooting deaths of two civilians. Trump himself has frequently denounced California as a badly governed state.

States are facing obstacles because of the actions

The strategy has led to some false starts and headaches for states.

In April, for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services acknowledged to The Associated Press it made a significant error in figures it used to help justify a fraud probe in New York. Last month, California's Medicaid director told a congressional committee that CMS had not yet provided “any instances of fraud, waste or abuse” to the state in its justification of a $1.3 billion Medicaid funding deferral announced in May.

And in Minnesota, state officials have been executing a thorough corrective action plan to defray CMS concerns that have led the agency to defer some $260 million in federal money and to threaten future cuts.

“We have cooperated in good faith and proactively engaged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to first raise the alarm on fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid program, to effectively investigate fraud and to institute further safeguards against future misuse of funds,” Connolly said.

Kennedy didn't specify in Tuesday's announcement whether the new deferrals — $867.5 million in federal Medicaid payments to California and $199 million to Minnesota — are in addition to, or overlap with, earlier deferrals announced this year.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz didn't provide concrete examples of fraud in the two states in justifying the deferrals. He did mention some patterns the agency noticed that it found questionable, including that some providers were billing for four or more patients at the same time, or billing after the date of a Medicaid beneficiary's death.

Oz also highlighted a fast rate of growth in California's home care program as a reason for concern. California officials have disputed that idea, explaining that the state's home care program has grown because of an intentional strategy to keep people out of more expensive nursing homes.

“In-home care growth reflects intentional, federally encouraged expansion, not improper spending,” said Anthony Cava, spokesperson for the California Department of Health Care Services. “California is calling on CMS to stop threatening care for California’s most vulnerable residents.”

Flow of money could be restored — with documentation

Kennedy and Oz said states could restart the flow of federal funding by providing documentation proving the payments in question were legitimate.

Officials in both states have previously acknowledged they are working with the federal government to provide the requested information. Oz said Minnesota had already returned documents to the federal government and they were being “reevaluated very carefully.”

Kennedy also suggested Tuesday that he would extend the power to exclude providers from Medicaid, Medicare and other federal health programs to CMS. In the past, that authority has rested solely with his department’s Office of the Inspector General.

“This is going to be a full force multiplier,” HHS Inspector General Thomas March Bell told a news conference. “It's going to create additional momentum, and it's going to exclude additional bad actors.”

Tropical Storm Bertha is spinning in the Gulf just south of the Florida Panhandle. The worst of it will stay over the open water, but very windy conditions with some occasional rain bands are expected on the northern Gulf Coast. Some water rise of 2-4 feet is also likely there. No effects are expected in South Florida.

The Trump administration is making it harder for the public to know, moving to toss aside a 60-year-old requirement for tens of thousands of private sector employers to submit workforce demographic reports each year to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.

The EEOC's Republican majority voted 2-1 Tuesday to rescind the data collection requirement, submitting the proposal to a 30-day public commentary period before final approval. The proposal is a quiet but profound salvo in President Donald Trump's shake up of civil rights enforcement, ending a practice that has endured through 10 Republican and Democratic administrations.

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity and inclusion practices who has urged white men to come forward with discrimination complaints, argued that requiring companies to submit the annual demographic reports risks encouraging companies to justify discriminatory practices to diversify their workforce.

“It may promote racial stereotyping at work, and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination," Lucas said during a hearing ahead of the vote.

Former Democratic EEOC commissioners and civil rights organizations have denounced the proposal, saying it will deprive the agency of a critical tool for uncovering discrimination patterns and tracking how women and racial minorities have fared since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which created the EEOC and prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin and religion.

The EEOC, which receives more than 88,000 worker complaints each year, has historically used the data to guide its enforcement priorities and inform some of its investigations.

Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the sole Democrat left on the EEOC since Trump moved to wrest control of the agency, voted against the proposal.

“Today, the commission discusses whether to turn back time to a period before the civil rights movement, kneecapping its ability to protect workers,” Kotagal said.

Here's what to know about the reporting requirement and the proposal to end it:

How the EEOC has collected the data

Since 1966, the EEOC has required companies with at least 100 employees, or federal contractors with at least 50 workers, to submit a form called the EEO-1 each year.

The form, which has evolved over time, identifies 10 job categories from “Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers” to “Laborers” and “Service Workers.” It asks employers to report on the number male and female workers in each job category, as well as the number of workers from different race and ethnicities.

The data typically covers more than 50 million employees and 73,000 employers nationwide.

A view into gender and race in the private sector

The EEOC launched during the Biden administration an interactive tool allowing the public to explore historical demographic metrics across industries and job categories. The most recent data is from 2023. Under the Trump administration, the EEOC last collected EE0-1 data for the year 2024 but has not publicly disclosed it. Collection of the year 2025 would have begun this year.

The data shows white men dominating executive and senior manager roles at private companies, though women and minorities have made inroads, especially in the years following the #MeToo and Black Lives Matters movements.

Women remain underrepresented in the top ranks of companies. While they make up nearly half the workforce at the companies surveyed, women held just 34.5% of executives and senior manager roles in 2023. That was up from 29.2% a decade earlier.

White and Asian women made the fastest gains, and by 2023, were no longer underrepresented in senior roles compared to their numbers in the overall workforce. In contrast, Black and Hispanic women remained sharply underrepresented in executive and senior manager roles despite making modest gains.

Asian men have been proportionally represented in senior roles for years, while Black and Hispanic men remained underrepresented in 2023.

Of those demographic groups, only one was overrepresented in senior roles: white men, who made up a third of the overall workforce at the companies surveyed but held 52.7% of executive and senior management roles.

Why the government wants to end the data collection

Lucas said the annual reporting requirements impose “hundreds of millions of dollars” on costs on employers, a burden she argued was unnecessary absent “any allegation, indication, or evidence of discrimination.”

The move was recommended by Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint that has guided many of the Trump administration’s policies.

A group of former Democratic EEOC commissioners and legal counselors said there is little evidence that companies are routinely using employment data to engage in quotas or race-based hiring.

“This is simply inaccurate and unsupported speculation, at odds with the ways in which this data is actually collected, managed and used,” the former officials said in a statement.

Instead, the officials said, tracking such data encourages companies to proactively examine their hiring, promotion, benefits and other policies to ensure they are not unnecessarily erecting barriers. The agency has also issued special reports on demographic employment trends across certain industries or roles.

Corporate retreat from demographic disclosure

The EEOC is prohibited from publicly releasing an individual company’s EEO-1 form, only publishing the information in the aggregate. In recent years, however, a growing number of the country’s top companies began publicly releasing their forms in response to pressure from shareholders and Democratic elected officials to show transparency in their diversity efforts.

That trend has started to reverse.

Companies have started to pull back on publicizing both EEO-1 forms and their own diversity reports, which conservative advocates and the Trump administration have seized on to argue that companies are using discriminatory tactics to add women and minorities to their ranks.

In 2025, 24 companies in the S&P 100 — the largest U.S. publicly traded companies — chose not to disclose their EEO-1 data after having done so the year before, according to Andrew Jones, principal researcher at The Conference Board Governance & Sustainability Center. Still, 60 S&P 100 companies did release the data.

Why companies may keep gathering data

Companies are still likely to keep track of their demographic data, whether or not they disclose any of those metrics publicly, and even if they are no longer required to submit annual EEO-1 reports. That's because Title VII requires employers to keep records that could be pertinent to any discrimination investigation, and the EEOC is empowered to request them.

“What we are generally advising is to stay the course,” Jennifer Robins, counsel in law firm Saul Ewing’s Labor and Employment Group. “Private litigants, employment discrimination lawsuits are not going away, and this data is helpful to defending oneself.”

The EEOC has demanded extensive demographic data from companies to bolster Lucas' own marquee cases. Those include an investigation into diversity, equity and inclusion practices of sports giant Nike, which Lucas has alleged discriminate against white employees.

Lucas emphasized Tuesday that the EEOC would continue to demand data in the course of its investigations. Kotagal warned employers that under future leadership, the EEOC could reinstitute the EEO-1 collection.

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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

It is not the first time he has lashed out at Infantino over fixture congestion and for considering a proposal to expand the 2030 men's World Cup from 48 teams to 64.

“Increasing the number of national teams makes no sense. The football industry isn’t just the World Cup, which is the most important event. But not everything can revolve around the World Cup,” Tebas told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“In my opinion, yes, I think his time is up,” he said of Infantino. “However, he has the support of the system and the federations, so there’s not much more to add, is there? There’s no opposition candidate, nobody wants to stand just to lose. This is the system and it’s rotten at its core.

“He shouldn’t stay, but he won’t leave. I’ve heard many people who are against Infantino. They say it, but then they do nothing. I don’t know what’s worse, the silence or the complicity, because those who stay silent are perfectly aware of the damage football is suffering.”

South American soccer’s ruling body CONMEBOL has made an official proposal to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams. The competition is already set to be the most sprawling edition with six host nations spread across three continents.

“It’s national competition that sustains this sport," Tebas added. "They are destroying the football industry, which generates tens of thousands of jobs, for an event that lasts 40 days and involves a minority of players.”

He also criticized world football’s governing body FIFA over the new hydration breaks implemented at the World Cup which ended Sunday, as well as the extended 27-minute halftime interval — rather than the standard 15 — during the final that saw Spain defeat Argentina 1-0.

The hydration breaks midway through each half were introduced to help players deal with the summer heat in the United States, Canada and Mexico. But critics say they had unintended consequences, ruining the flow of the game and giving coaches a chance to tactically shift momentum in their team’s favor.

“FIFA arranges things as it pleases, for what it wants, for its own interests — certainly not for football,” Tebas said. “Hydration breaks are a lie. We have them in La Liga, but only when it’s genuinely hot. Here, the pitches in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Atlanta had air conditioning. It was a lie — and just a break for advertising.”

Infantino announced in April that he would run for re-election for a fourth term as president. The vote for the 2027–2031 period is scheduled for March 18 in Morocco.

The Football Supporters Europe group also called on the wider soccer community to hold FIFA to account.

In a statement on its website headlined “A World Cup that failed supporters”, the FSE demanded “structural governance reforms to hand decision-making power back to the FIFA Council and Congress and ensure full consultation with clubs, leagues, players and supporters.”

It added: “The 2026 World Cup should have been a celebration of the game and the supporters who give it life. Instead, it has too often become a case study in what is so deeply wrong with football today.

"From the outset, supporters were asked to place their trust in FIFA and “chill”, but it prioritised spectacle and commercialisation over the match-going experience with key elements of football’s identity being messed with. Over the last month, we've seen football contorted to the whim of Gianni Infantino and the Trump administration.”

The FSE, accepted by European soccer's governing body UEFA as the recognized group representing fans in the region, then went on to attack “historically high ticket prices” and “skyrocketing transportation costs, bending of rules and procedures, exclusion of swathes of the global population and a lack of transparent communication.

“All this created an environment of confusion and distrust that has severely damaged the reputation of FIFA, the World Cup, and the integrity of football itself.

“The lessons from this World Cup are clear: FIFA is unfit to govern global football. The future of the game cannot rest in the hands of a man who has proven yet again that he puts financial and political interests ahead of the future of our game.”

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

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Police said Tehlia Madison Myrie was last seen around noon on Monday leaving her home. Investigators said she told family members she planned to take an Uber to HCA Florida Woodmont Hospital.

They said Myrie is approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds. She has brown eyes and shoulder-length braided black hair.

Police said she was last seen wearing a black sweatshirt, gray sweatpants and a white beanie.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to contact Margate police at 954-972-7111.

La policía indicó que Tehlia Madison Myrie fue vista por última vez el lunes, alrededor del mediodía, al salir de su domicilio. Los investigadores señalaron que la joven había comunicado a sus familiares que tomaría un Uber para dirigirse al HCA Florida Woodmont Hospital.

Según indicaron, Myrie mide aproximadamente 5 pies 5 pulgadas y pesa unas 120 libras. Tiene ojos marrones y pelo negro trenzado hasta los hombros.

La policía señaló que fue vista por última vez vestida con sudadera negra, pantalones deportivos color gris y un gorro blanco.

Se ruega a cualquier persona que tenga información sobre su paradero que se ponga en contacto con la policía de Margate en el 954-972-7111.

Both chambers of the Parliament voted in favor of the measure, a flagship initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron’s second term. The bill also bans the use of mobile phones in high schools.

Several families in France have sued TikTok over teen suicides they say are linked to harmful content. Children’s advocates and parents applauded the vote.

“We’ve been campaigning for this bill from the start because, frankly, we have no other option, no other way to counter tech giants,” said Gaëlle Berbonde, a 52-year-old who lives in the Paris region. “The only thing we can do is protect our children, just as we protect our children from drinking alcohol.”

Berbonde told The Associated Press that her daughter was in seventh grade when she got her first smartphone. A parental control app helped monitor what she did online, but Berbonde had no idea what TikTok really was. After a few months, the family realized that the daughter was cutting herself and was suffering from anorexia and depression. She spent a year and a half in the hospital but is now 16 and well.

Macron wants the ban in place for the new school year

The legislation is one of the final major measures adopted under Macron’s presidency before he leaves office next year. Macron wants the law to take effect at the start of the new school year in September. However, a review to determine whether the bill complies with the French Constitution is likely to take place and could delay its implementation.

“France is leading the way in Europe in protecting our children and our teenagers,” Macron said. “We will keep on going.”

The ban won’t cover online encyclopedias, or educational or scientific directories.

Lawmakers from the left-wing party France Unbowed opposed the bill, arguing that its constitutionality is unclear, that it would effectively end online anonymity, and that it would be impossible to enforce.

Ines Legendre, a legal adviser for the online protection group e-Enfance, said the law will not immediately translate into an outright ban.

“We’ll also have to address the issue of existing accounts for those under 15. How do we identify them? How do we suspend them? And then there’s the question of age verification for all new accounts that will come into effect,” she said.

According to France’s health watchdog, one in two teenagers spends between two and five hours a day on a smartphone. In a report published in December, it said that some 90% of children between 12 and 17 use smartphones daily to access the internet, with 58% of them using their devices for social networks.

The report highlighted a range of harmful effects stemming from the use of social networks, including reduced self-esteem and increased exposure to content associated with risky behaviors such as self-harm, drug use and suicide.

After the European Commission found that the latest version of the bill overlapped with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which sets strict rules aimed at keeping internet users safe online, lawmakers held final negotiations Monday. They reached an agreement on an amended version of the legislation, which was then submitted to both chambers for a final vote.

Other countries implement restrictions

Growing awareness of the dangers social media poses for young, developing brains has shown up in a wave of new restrictions globally.

In 2024, Australia became the first country to kick kids under 16 off social media. The law makes platforms — including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram — liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($35 million) if they fail to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.

In Europe, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced in February that the country wants to limit social media access for children under 16. Denmark and Greece have unveiled plans for bans for youngsters while the United Kingdom said it would also consider banning young teenagers.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — the EU's top executive — earlier this month called for limits to be placed on children using social media. A special EU panel looking into the issue recommended forbidding access for those under 13 until tech companies can prove their platforms are safe.

Von der Leyen said that children under 3 should have no exposure to screens at all. She noted infinite scrolling as one of the “addictive” traits that tech companies must address. The European Commission is likely to come up with a proposal for the 27 member countries to consider in the near future.

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Catherine Gaschka and Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed to this report.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team hadn’t made an announcement. ESPN first reported the deal, which said it is worth $51.3 million with $35 million guaranteed.

Brooks was an All-Pro selection for the first time in his career last season after leading the NFL with 183 tackles, including 99 solo tackles. He was a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing season that saw general manager Chris Grier and coach Mike McDaniel fired.

New GM Jon-Eric Sullivan has said the Dolphins wanted to keep Brooks long term.

Brooks, a 2020 first-round pick by Seattle, signed with Miami in free agency ahead of the 2024 season and has become a leader in the locker room. He has 326 tackles and 6 1/2 sacks over the past two seasons.

Including Brooks, the Dolphins have signed three core players as they begin their rebuild.

Miami signed star running back De’Von Achane to a four-year, $64 million extension in March and gave veteran center Aaron Brewer a three-year deal worth $52.5 million in June.

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Hegseth provided the new estimate, up from earlier assessments, during a combative Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, which came days after the Pentagon announced that three more American service members have died in the conflict, bringing the death toll to 17, and that more than 100 have been injured since early July. Several times protesters interrupted his opening remarks.

Hegseth said the supplemental war funding is an “urgent, necessary” injection of money, and with President Donald Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget a generational investment in the military.

“Without these funds, we face critical shortfalls,” Hegseth testified.

But Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the panel, warned of "another forever war.”

“This war is now spiraling out of control again,” Murray said.

President Donald Trump has said repeatedly that “a deal is near, and the war will be over soon,” she said. "But now, he’s asking for $70 billion more — and for us to just trust him it’ll all work out fine.”

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins were also testifying before the panel. The proposed budget package includes $60 billion and $12 billion for other national security needs, along with $10 billion for farm aid and $10 billion for voting law changes.

Before the hearing, the White House issued a statement urging support of the budget resolution, “without modification — immediately.”

War funds make up the bulk of the GOP budget plan

War funding makes up the bulk of the GOP's new budget proposal, one last priority package the Republicans hope to launch before lawmakers recess to campaign for the midterm elections. The package aims to help farmers struggling under Trump's tariffs and to pay for voter law changes, none of it paid for with offsets.

Most Americans continue to disapprove of how Trump is handling Iran, according to an AP-NORC poll. Gas prices have spiked as Iran works to control oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. munitions are running low from the onslaught of American missile strikes and Trump has shifted away from his own campaign promise not to draw the U.S. into prolonged military conflicts.

Nevertheless, Trump has showed no signs of backing off the war, and the Republicans have largely refused to confront his strategy or use Congress' power of the purse and war powers authority to halt the conflict.

“The commander in chief and the whole Department of War are working very hard to bring this to a resolution,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson at his weekly press conference Tuesday.

Hegseth faced questions over the war and his own leadership

Hegseth appeared before the panel facing a torrent of questions about not only the war, but his own leadership of the department.

Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the committee, opened the hearing saying it's “deeply troubling” that the Pentagon has blocked or denied promotions to various officers, particularly women and minorities.

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire questioned why Hegseth is asking for more money when the department has not yet spent about half the $150 billion Republicans provided the Pentagon in last year's big budget bill.

“Why are you asking the American people to absorb the cost of a war they don't support?” asked Shaheen.

When Hegseth started describing the “historic nature” of Trump’s military strategy, she cut him off. Hegseth later explained that the rest of last year’s budget package would be spent by September.

When GOP Sen. Mike Rounds wanted to know if this funding request would be enough to “get the job done,” the general demurred.

“I can’t answer the question on what it will cost, because the enemy has a vote,” Caine said.

Tensions flared during hours long hearing

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana was among several senators demanding answers over the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, asking if Iran will impose tolls on what historically has been an open waterway vital to the flow of oil.

Caine said, “That’s a hypothetical question, and I don’t know the answer to that.”

But Kennedy retorted: “Guys, we need straight answers.”

Tensions exploded toward the end of the more than three-hour hearing.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told Hegseth flatly that his war claims don't add up.

Has the U.S. obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities or not? she demanded to know.

“We're staying laser-focused on the objective,” Hegseth responded, “and you're trying to make campaign commercials.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., probed Hegseth's past assessments of the war, including the secretary's claims of Iran's surrender.

When Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said the administration's war strategy has been a complete "failure," Hegseth erupted.

“Shame on you and others who call this a quagmire and a failure,” Hegseth said.

Peters told the secretary: “You, sir, are the failure."

The senator said it’s not the U.S. troops who are failing, but their leaders. “You don't have a strategy," Peters said. “You don't have a long-term plan to actually win this war.”

Hegseth said Democrats have “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and won't give him the money he needs.

Peters said it's not about money, “but a question of leadership.”

This week, the Senate will consider another war powers resolution, having voted nearly a dozen times to try to halt the conflict.

Republicans work to pass budget over Democratic objections

The GOP budget proposal is expected to flow through the reconciliation process, which enables the majority to approve the plan on its own, over the objections of Democrats in the minority.

It's the same lengthy process Republicans used to approve Trump's big tax cuts bill last summer, as well as Homeland Security money earlier this year.

The proposal is headed toward a House vote this week, which would start the process by instructing various committees to begin drafting the legislation. Johnson can afford only a few defectors from his slim majority, and some conservatives want the funding offset with spending reductions elsewhere.

GOP senators have so far panned the House budget plan, but are waiting to see if Johnson can kickstart the process.

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Associated Press writers Matt Brown and Ben Finley contributed to this report.

The Democratic governor, who took office this year, blamed a Motor Vehicle Commission system software error but said a preliminary analysis showed that fewer than 400 of those who registered that way went on to cast ballots.

The revelation comes as President Donald Trump and other Republicans continue to assert that voting by noncitizens is rampant in U.S. elections, even though it’s rare and, when caught, can be punished as a felony that can lead to deportation.

Registrations were for Democrats, Republicans and independents

Sherrill promised immediate action and said she has ordered that all erroneously added voter registrations from that period be removed. She also is replacing the vendor who ran the system and is launching an investigation into how the error happened.

“I am appalled by the reckless failures that allowed this to happen and the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time,” she said in a statement.

She also attempted to head off any future criticism of the issue from the president.

“As the Trump Administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring we protect our elections,” she said.

The White House on Tuesday used the revelation to promote Trump's SAVE America Act, which would require people to show documentary proof of citizenship before they register to vote and impose voter ID requirements nationwide. The measure has passed the U.S. House but has not gotten a vote in the Senate, where even some Republicans oppose it.

“American voters deserve to have confidence that our elections are safe and secure,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Sherrill also noted that the noncitizens who registered did so as Democrats, Republicans and independents. About 6.9 million people in New Jersey are registered to vote and more than 4 million cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election.

Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, was governor when the error occurred. A representative for the former governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Christine Hanlon, chair of the Republican party organization in New Jersey, said voter registration needs to be improved and that a bipartisan investigation should dig into what happened, including why the registrations weren't disclosed previously.

"The system and verification process must be improved in order to safeguard our elections,” she said in a statement Tuesday. “The public also deserves to know why this was covered up and who was responsible for keeping this critical information from the public.”

Trump has focused on New Jersey, among other states

In a speech last week, Trump touted an investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, which said it had identified about 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections across the country. It said most of them were in California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Tuesday suggested it was that report that prompted Sherrill to take action.

“Appreciate you responding back to our letter, @GovSherrillNJ. This should’ve been done a LONG time ago,” he said in a message on X. “Just ONE illegal vote cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen.”

The Pennsylvania Department of State said in an emailed statement provided by Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office Tuesday that “evidence has shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare across the country, including in Pennsylvania.” The department added that it would review any information the Department of Homeland Security provided to “evaluate the validity of these claims.”

Other states have had problems with automatic voter registrations

New Jersey is among 19 states that allow people who are in the U.S. illegally to hold driver's licenses and other state-issued ID cards, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Every state allows noncitizens who have legal status in the U.S. to hold a license.

The NCSL also says that about half the states have automatic voter registration in which eligible people who obtain licenses or, in some cases, other state services, can opt in to voter registration.

In Oregon, officials in 2024 found that about 1,600 people were registered to vote through the state's DMV even though they didn't show proof of citizenship. Most of them were later confirmed to be citizens. The number of people wrongly registered grew by more than 100 by last year, but the state found that only about 30 ineligible voters had cast ballots.

Colorado officials said in 2022 that they had mistakenly sent postcards to 30,000 noncitizens to encourage them to register. The state said none would be allowed if they tried to do so.

A 2019 state audit of California's then-new DMV registration program found numerous errors, some that might have allowed about 1,500 people to incorrectly register to vote. Of those, some might not have been U.S. citizens.

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Associated Press writer Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.

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He plans to host sloth encounters in Margate, but he faces plenty of obstacles not limited to just permits and licensing.

That man, Larry Wallach, showed up to the May 6 Margate city commission meeting with a sloth in his arms.

Animal activists are outraged that anyone would attempt a sloth encounter after the atrocities that just took place in the transport of wild-caught sloths from Peru to Orlando, which caused the death of 55 sloths.

“Commissioner Tommy Rizzano brought in a guy with a sloth -- just seemed incredibly tone-deaf considering what just happened in Orlando,” said James Wildman, with the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida.

Added animal activist Ana Campos: “The last thing that we need is a Sloth World in Broward County. Nothing like that should ever open up here.”

Plans ended for the now defunct Sloth World in Orlando after 55 sloths died due to improper housing in a warehouse without heat, water, humidity or electricity.

“It just blew my mind that we learned nothing from what happened in Orlando and that they are even considering it,” said animal activist Ronald Roberts.

Margate City Commissioner Joanne Simone spoke publicly against Wallach’s plan to bring his wildlife adventure business to her doorstep.

“I personally do not want this store to open up in Margate. It’s unfortunate that this is happening in our city,” Simone said.

Wallach’s proposal for his new storefront was denied at the meeting due to code-related issues, but he was told he can resubmit.

PETA has filed local and state complaints while working to keep his business out of Florida.

“For years he’s disregarded city ordinances, court orders and even federal animal welfare laws in order to exploit sloths and other animals,” said Amanda Brody, with PETA. “Larry Wallach has a decades long rap sheet of over 60 animal welfare violations from the (U.S. Department of Agriculture) and he has been cited by them for improperly caring for sloths.”

After first not wanting to talk with us, the Animal Advocate team was invited inside for a sit-down with Wallach.

“They want to say violations, they are absolutely inspection reports. If I had 60 violations, like bad, I wouldn’t have any animals,” he said. “Fifty some odd years, 60 violations, I could live with it -- broken hose, water bowl.”

There is, however, an undercover video of his sloth encounters store in Long Island that was filmed by Humane World for Animals, showing what could have been a dangerous situation.

Wallach downplayed that too.

“She was bopping Chewbacca on the head, and I’m going to tell you right now, that did not hurt him. The only way we got them apart was me grabbing him by the nape of the neck and moving him,” said Wallach.

His New York location was shut down by the courts, which may be the reason he wants to make a move to Margate.

“Brick and mortar is closed,” he said. “Because I wasn’t zoned for that at that location.”

Wallach says he plans to renew his USDA license for the South Florida move.

There is no denying Wallach is a character. He claims he loves his animals and he does not believe in the bad publicity he has been receiving, but at a time when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is cracking down on sloth imports from the wild, and many sloth species are endangered or threatened, he claims his are merely exotic pets.

“Not one (came from the wild),” he said. “I get them from breeders.”

No evidence was provided to that end, but he did show Local 10 scrapbooks containing 50 years of his life spent with animals. It’s not a done deal that his life will continue with them here in the Sunshine State, though.

“There’s still a chance the Margate commission could vote no,” he said. “There’s a chance for everything, but I could always go to Loxahatchee, which is designated agricultural. I can do whatever the hell I want.”

Every team is 0-0 so there's hope in each city that this season ends with a championship parade.

Bryce Young and the defending NFC South champion Carolina Panthers report Wednesday. So do the Arizona Cardinals, led by rookie head coach Mike LaFleur.

The teams will meet in the Hall of Fame Game that kicks off the preseason on Aug. 6.

The reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots open camp on Friday. They’ll face off in a Super Bowl rematch that opens the regular season on Sept. 9.

Many teams have plenty of questions to answer before Week 1. It’s a long road to Los Angeles, which hosts Super Bowl 61 on Feb. 14. Valentine’s Day will be the latest date the game will have been played.

That just means more football.

Ten teams have new coaches. Some have new quarterbacks. A few superstars have changed teams.

Training camp starts

The Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers report to camp on Saturday, making it six teams in before the end of this week. The NFC West rivals will play the first regular-season game in Australia on Sept. 10. The remaining 26 teams are due in next Tuesday.

The head coaches in new places

John Harbaugh joined the New York Giants after he was fired by Baltimore following 18 seasons. He has Jaxson Dart and some talented players to build around.

Two-time AP NFL Coach of the Year Kevin Stefanski took over in Atlanta after six seasons in Cleveland. He inherits a team that has plenty of playmakers on offense, including All-Pro running back Bijan Robinson, wide receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts. They have to figure whether Tua Tagovailoa or Michael Penix Jr. will be the quarterback.

Robert Saleh is the new man in charge in Tennessee. The Titans are coming off consecutive 3-14 seasons but Saleh already has a franchise QB in Cam Ward and he brought in Brian Daboll to develop him and run the offense.

Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers are reunited in Pittsburgh. They won a Super Bowl together in Green Bay and aim to get the Steelers at least their first playoff win since January 2017.

The other six new head coaches are first-timers. LaFleur has a tough task in Arizona. Klint Kubiak helped Sam Darnold win a Super Bowl in Seattle and hopes to rebuild the Las Vegas Raiders. Jeff Hafley went from running Green Bay’s defense to leading the Miami Dolphins. Joe Brady replaced Sean McDermott in Buffalo after the Bills kept falling short in the playoffs.

Todd Monken replaced Stefanski in Cleveland and Jesse Minter is Baltimore’s new coach.

The quarterback carousel turns again

Tagovailoa has a chance to revive his career with Stefanski in Atlanta after a disappointing end in Miami. Kyler Murray left Arizona for Minnesota, where the Vikings hope he can stay healthy and regain his Pro Bowl form.

Kirk Cousins is the stopgap for the Raiders, who drafted Fernando Mendoza with the No. 1 overall pick. Malik Willis parlayed three solid starts in two seasons with the Packers into a $67.5 million contract with the Dolphins that includes $45 million fully guaranteed.

Geno Smith returned to the Jets. Justin Fields is the new backup for Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. Kenny Pickett is Carolina’s new No. 2, veteran Andy Dalton joined Philadelphia to play behind Jalen Hurts and Gardner Minshew went to the Cardinals.

Quarterback competitions in several cities

Tagovailoa and Penix will compete in Atlanta. Cousins is expected to start in Las Vegas but Mendoza could end up starting sooner than later. Murray has to beat out J.J. McCarthy, who was the Vikings’ first-round pick in 2024.

The most interesting battle will be for the Browns’ starting job. Deshaun Watson is back after missing 2025 to compete with Shedeur Sanders.

The other top storylines

Will Baker Mayfield get a contract extension from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Mayfield is in the final season of a three-year, $100 million deal. He's expected to get around $55 million per season and another three-year deal makes sense.

Will Aaron Donald come out of retirement to join two-time AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett in Los Angeles? The Rams acquired the five-time All-Pro from the Browns and bolstered their secondary by adding cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson. Donald, a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, is 35 and hasn't played since retiring after the 2023 season.

Joint practices

More teams choose to use practices against other opponents to prepare their quarterbacks and key starters for the regular season instead of preseason games.

Only the Lions, Chiefs, Broncos and Steelers are not participating in any joint sessions.

When are the roster cuts?

Teams can carry a maximum of 90 players throughout training camp and for all of their preseason games. Rosters must be trimmed to 53 by 6 p.m. EDT on Aug. 30.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Planea organizar encuentros con perezosos en Margate, pero enfrenta numerosos obstáculos que no se limitan únicamente a permisos y licencias.

Ese hombre, Larry Wallach, apareció en la reunión de la comisión de la ciudad de Margate del 6 de mayo con un perezoso en sus brazos.

Los activistas de animales están indignados de que alguien intente organizar encuentros con perezosos después de las atrocidades que ocurrieron recientemente durante el transporte de perezosos capturados en la naturaleza desde Perú a Orlando, lo que causó la muerte de 55 perezosos.

“El comisionado Tommy Rizzano trajo a un hombre con un perezoso; simplemente pareció increíblemente insensible considerando lo que acaba de ocurrir en Orlando”, dijo James Wildman, de la Fundación de Derechos de los Animales de Florida.

La activista de animales Ana Campos agregó: “Lo último que necesitamos es un Sloth World en el condado Broward. Nada de eso debería abrir jamás aquí”.

Los planes para el ahora desaparecido Sloth World en Orlando terminaron después de que 55 perezosos murieran debido a alojamiento inadecuado en un almacén sin calefacción, agua, humedad ni electricidad.

“Me dejó sorprendido que no aprendiéramos nada de lo que ocurrió en Orlando y que incluso lo estén considerando”, dijo el activista de animales Ronald Roberts.

La comisionada de Margate, Joanne Simone, habló públicamente en contra del plan de Wallach de traer su negocio de aventuras con animales silvestres a su puerta.

“Personalmente no quiero que esta tienda abra en Margate. Es desafortunado que esto esté ocurriendo en nuestra ciudad”, dijo Simone.

La propuesta de Wallach para su nuevo local fue rechazada en la reunión debido a problemas relacionados con el código, pero se le informó que puede volver a presentarla.

PETA presentó quejas locales y estatales mientras trabaja para mantener su negocio fuera de Florida.

“Durante años ha ignorado las ordenanzas de la ciudad, las órdenes judiciales e incluso las leyes federales de bienestar animal para explotar perezosos y otros animales”, dijo Amanda Brody, de PETA. “Larry Wallach tiene un historial de décadas con más de 60 violaciones de bienestar animal por parte del Departamento de Agricultura de Estados Unidos (USDA) y ha sido citado por ellos por cuidar de manera inadecuada a los perezosos”.

Después de que inicialmente no quiso hablar con nosotros, el equipo de Animal Advocate fue invitado al interior para una conversación con Wallach.

“Quieren decir que son violaciones, son absolutamente informes de inspección. Si tuviera 60 violaciones, como algo grave, no tendría ningún animal”, dijo. “Cincuenta y tantos años, 60 violaciones, puedo vivir con eso: una manguera rota, un recipiente de agua”.

Sin embargo, existe un video encubierto de su tienda de encuentros con perezosos en Long Island que fue grabado por Humane World for Animals, que muestra lo que pudo haber sido una situación peligrosa.

Wallach también restó importancia a eso.

“Ella estaba golpeando a Chewbacca en la cabeza, y les voy a decir ahora mismo, eso no le hizo daño. La única manera en que logramos separarlos fue que lo agarré por la nuca y lo moví”, dijo Wallach.

Su ubicación en Nueva York fue cerrada por los tribunales, lo que podría ser la razón por la que quiere mudarse a Margate.

“El local físico está cerrado”, dijo. “Porque no tenía la zonificación para eso en esa ubicación”.

Wallach dice que planea renovar su licencia del USDA para la mudanza al sur de Florida.

No hay duda de que Wallach es un personaje. Afirma que ama a sus animales y que no cree en la mala publicidad que ha recibido, pero en un momento en que la Comisión de Conservación de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de Florida está tomando medidas contra las importaciones de perezosos capturados en la naturaleza, y muchas especies de perezosos están en peligro o amenazadas, él afirma que los suyos son simplemente mascotas exóticas.

“Ninguno (vino de la naturaleza)”, dijo. “Los obtengo de criadores”.

No se proporcionó evidencia al respecto, pero mostró a Local 10 álbumes de recortes que contienen 50 años de su vida junto a animales. Sin embargo, no está decidido que su vida continúe con ellos aquí en el Estado del Sol.

“Todavía existe la posibilidad de que la comisión de Margate vote no”, dijo. “Hay una posibilidad para todo, pero siempre podría ir a Loxahatchee, que está designado como agrícola. Puedo hacer lo que demonios quiera”.

Navarro couldn't prove Trump had shielded him from the subpoena's requirements by invoking executive privilege, according to the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“In short, Dr. Navarro has acknowledged that even if executive privilege had been invoked, that would not have excused his categorical failure to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena,” D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett wrote.

Navarro already has served a four-month prison sentence for his contempt of Congress conviction. He was a White House trade adviser during Trump’s first term in office and is serving in a similar role during the Republican's second term.

In a book published in 2021, Navarro took credit for a plan to delay the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Ultimately, the mob's attack on the Capitol interrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College results.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued a subpoena for him to turn over documents and appear for a March 2022 deposition. He didn't comply with the subpoena's demands.

Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But the courts, including the D.C. Circuit panel, concluded that Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.

Abhishek Kambli, an attorney for Navarro, suggested that they aren't giving up on their appeal. Kambli described the panel's decision as “one step in a battle to correct decades of incorrect (D.C. circuit) precedent.”

"He intends to move swiftly with his appeal because his case affects every senior presidential advisor, regardless of political party, who believes in good faith they cannot comply with a congressional subpoena based on executive privilege,” Kambli said in a statement.

In September 2023, a jury in Washington convicted Navarro of two counts of contempt of Congress. In early 2024, Navarro reported to a federal prison in Miami.

Only hours after his release from prison, Navarro spoke on stage at the Republican National Convention, telling the crowd that “I went to prison so you won’t have to.” He continued to pursue an appeal after serving his sentence.

Navarro’s appeal also was heard by Judges Cornelia Pillard and J. Michelle Childs. Millett and Pillard were nominated to the court by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Childs was nominated by Biden. Navarro was sentenced by District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama nominee.

The department told lawmakers on Monday that the money would cover “a range of security-related activities associated with plans for the potential phased resumption of embassy operations in Libya,” according to a copy of the notification obtained by The Associated Press.

The move to reopen the embassy “is essential to advancing U.S. national security interests,” it said. “The United States must remain engaged in regions where near-peer competitors and other adversarial actors are actively expanding their influence.”

“Libya’s strategic location on the Mediterranean and its role in regional security, energy markets, and migration flows make it vital to U.S. interests,” it said. “The country’s instability has drawn increased involvement from near-peer competitors, notably Russia, which threatens U.S. and allied objectives in North Africa.”

Libyan officials representing both the western and eastern regions of the country that have been in conflict for more than a decade have recently met with top Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the senior adviser for Africa, Massad Boulos.

The State Department had told Congress in March that it was looking to begin preparations for a potential reopening of the embassy in Tripoli, which was shuttered in July, 2014, as conflict enveloped the country. Since then, U.S. diplomats assigned to Libya have been based in neighboring Tunisia and the Mediterranean island of Malta.

But, until Monday, the department had yet to program any money to support that effort. The new funding will be used to vastly expand the security posture at a satellite office in Tripoli that currently handles short visits by U.S. diplomats and other officials and set the stage for a permanent presence.

The move to fund the project comes as the Trump administration has reopened the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, following the ouster of former President Nicolas Maduro in January and is seeking to reopen the closed embassy in Damascus, Syria, to build ties with the new Syrian government.

Yet, it also comes amid new warnings of Iranian-related attacks against U.S. facilities in interests around the world, particularly in the Middle East.

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Both are hoping to take on incumbent Republican Maria Elvira Salazar in November’s election.

Local 10’s Jeff Derderain caught up with Rodriguez at the Miami home he grew up in.

“The people who grew up here, they are leaving,” he said. “They can’t afford to live here, and we need someone who is in Congress focused on these economic realities.”

He says he’ll fight for federal housing dollars.

“I will tell you when I’m elected to Congress, I will vow not to trade individual stocks,” he said.

Peguero told Derderain that Rodriguez refuses to debate.

“Will you debate him?” Derderain asked Rodriguez.

“I’ll run that by my campaign,” Rodriguez replied.

“That’s a half an answer, Eliott,” said Derderian.

“That’s what you’re going to get,” replied Rodriguez.

Peguero met with Derderain at a public library in Hialeah not far from where he grew up and was asked why he decided to run.

“To advocate for the people of this community who are suffering,” he said.

Peguero agreed with Rodriguez on term limits and stock trading.

“My plan says no stock trading while you’re in Congress,” he said.

Ambos esperan enfrentar a la republicana titular Maria Elvira Salazar en las elecciones de noviembre.

Jeff Derderain, de Local 10, se reunió con Rodriguez en la casa de Miami donde creció.

“Las personas que crecieron aquí se están yendo”, dijo. “No pueden permitirse vivir aquí, y necesitamos a alguien en el Congreso enfocado en estas realidades económicas”.

Dijo que luchará por fondos federales de vivienda.

“Les diré que cuando sea elegido al Congreso, prometeré no negociar acciones individuales”, dijo.

Peguero le dijo a Derderain que Rodriguez se niega a debatir.

“¿Debatirá con él?”, preguntó Derderain a Rodriguez.

“Lo consultaré con mi campaña”, respondió Rodriguez.

“Esa es una respuesta a medias, Eliott”, dijo Derderain.

“Eso es lo que van a obtener”, respondió Rodriguez.

Peguero se reunió con Derderain en una biblioteca pública de Hialeah, no lejos de donde creció, y le preguntaron por qué decidió postularse.

“Para defender a las personas de esta comunidad que están sufriendo”, dijo.

Peguero coincidió con Rodriguez sobre los límites de mandato y el comercio de acciones.

“Mi plan dice que no habrá comercio de acciones mientras estés en el Congreso”, dijo.

Marino's deal, announced on Tuesday, comes on the heels of a career-best season that included his first career playoff goal.

"We view John as a foundational piece of our future,” Mammoth general manager Bill Armstrong said in a statement. “His ability to control the game from the back end, his play in transition and our trust in him to make the right decisions in critical situations allows him to be a difference-maker on most nights. Beyond his skill, John brings a level of calmness under pressure that our group feeds off of and that’s exactly what you need from your veteran players.”

Marino had career highs of 36 points and 32 assists with four goals in his second season with the Mammoth after being traded from New Jersey in 2024. The 29-year-old ranked second among all NHL defenseman at plus-42 and played all six games in Utah's first playoff appearance since moving from Arizona.

Marino has 23 goals and 134 assists in seven NHL seasons with Utah, New Jersey and Pittsburgh.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The Trump administration is making it harder for the public to know, moving to toss aside a 60-year-old requirement for tens of thousands of private sector employers to submit workforce demographic reports each year to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.

The EEOC's Republican majority voted 2-1 Tuesday to rescind the data collection requirement, submitting the proposal to a 30-day public commentary period before final approval. The proposal is a quiet but profound salvo in President Donald Trump's shake up of civil rights enforcement, ending a practice that has endured through 10 Republican and Democratic administrations.

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity and inclusion practices who has urged white men to come forward with discrimination complaints, argued that requiring companies to submit the annual demographic reports risks encouraging companies to justify discriminatory practices to diversify their workforce.

“It may promote racial stereotyping at work, and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination," Lucas said during a hearing ahead of the vote.

Former Democratic EEOC commissioners and civil rights organizations have denounced the proposal, saying it will deprive the agency of a critical tool for uncovering discrimination patterns and tracking how women and racial minorities have fared since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which created the EEOC and prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin and religion.

The EEOC, which receives more than 88,000 worker complaints each year, has historically used the data to guide its enforcement priorities and inform some of its investigations.

Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the sole Democrat left on the EEOC since Trump moved to wrest control of the agency, voted against the proposal.

“Today, the commission discusses whether to turn back time to a period before the civil rights movement, kneecapping its ability to protect workers,” Kotagal said.

Here's what to know about the reporting requirement and the proposal to end it:

How the EEOC has collected the data

Since 1966, the EEOC has required companies with at least 100 employees, or federal contractors with at least 50 workers, to submit a form called the EEO-1 each year.

The form, which has evolved over time, identifies 10 job categories from “Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers” to “Laborers” and “Service Workers.” It asks employers to report on the number male and female workers in each job category, as well as the number of workers from different race and ethnicities: Hispanic or Latino, Black or African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian, American Indian or Alaska Native and two or more races.

The data typically covers more than 50 million employees and 73,000 employers nationwide.

A view into gender and race in the private sector

The EEOC launched during the Biden administration an interactive tool allowing the public to explore historical demographic metrics across industries and job categories. The most recent data is from 2023. Under the Trump administration, the EEOC last collected EEO-1 data for the year 2024 but has not publicly disclosed it. Collection of the year 2025 would have begun this year.

The data shows white men dominating executive and senior manager roles at private companies, though women and minorities have made inroads, especially in the years following the #MeToo and Black Lives Matters movements.

Women remain underrepresented in the top ranks of companies. While they make up nearly half the workforce at the companies surveyed, women held just 34.5% of executives and senior manager roles in 2023. That was up from 29.2% a decade earlier.

White and Asian women made the fastest gains, and by 2023, were no longer underrepresented in senior roles compared to their numbers in the overall workforce. In contrast, Black and Hispanic women remained sharply underrepresented in executive and senior manager roles despite making modest gains.

Asian men have been proportionally represented in senior roles for years, while Black and Hispanic men remained underrepresented in 2023.

Of those demographic groups, only one was overrepresented in senior roles: white men, who made up a third of the overall workforce at the companies surveyed but held 52.7% of executive and senior management roles.

Why the government wants to end the data collection

Lucas said the annual reporting requirements impose “hundreds of millions of dollars” on costs on employers, a burden she argued was unnecessary absent “any allegation, indication, or evidence of discrimination.”

The move was recommended by Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint that has guided many of the Trump administration’s policies.

A group of former Democratic EEOC commissioners and legal counselors said there is little evidence that companies are routinely using employment data to engage in quotas or race-based hiring.

“This is simply inaccurate and unsupported speculation, at odds with the ways in which this data is actually collected, managed and used,” the former officials said in a statement.

Instead, the officials said, tracking such data encourages companies to proactively examine their hiring, promotion, benefits and other policies to ensure they are not unnecessarily erecting barriers.

Kotagal said the agency has used the data to determine whether a discrimination charge might be part of a deeper pattern at a company. She cited a recent investigation of California supermarket chain Vallarta Food Enterprises, in which the EEOC alleges the grocer failed or refused to recruit, hire or promote non-Hispanic individuals. In that case, EEO-1 data showed that “nearly 100 percent of its employees were Hispanic,” Kotagal said. “It’s a key tool in our toolbox.”

The agency has also issued special reports on demographic employment trends across certain industries or roles.

Kotagal highlighted a 2024 report on the tech sector, which showed that women had made virtually no gains between 2014 and 2022, and that workers under 40 years old had actually lost ground. The report also found tech company workers were more likely that others to file age or pay discrimination charges, suggesting systemic barriers to women and older workers in the industry.

The report has been removed from the EEOC’s website.

Corporate retreat from demographic disclosure

The EEOC is prohibited from publicly releasing an individual company’s EEO-1 form, only publishing the information in the aggregate. In recent years, however, a growing number of the country’s top companies began publicly releasing their forms in response to pressure from shareholders and Democratic elected officials to show transparency in their diversity efforts.

Many of those companies have complained that job categories in the EEO-1 forms don't align with their internal structures, a point Lucas echoed Tuesday, saying the categories don't reflect the modern workforce. But advocates of EEO-1 disclosure argued it's the only standardized form that allows for comparison across companies, and offer more detail.

However, the trend toward transparency has started to reverse.

Companies have started to pull back on publicizing both EEO-1 forms and their own diversity reports, which conservative advocates and the Trump administration have seized on to argue that companies are using discriminatory tactics to add women and minorities to their ranks.

In 2025, 24 companies in the S&P 100 — the largest U.S. publicly traded companies — chose not to disclose their EEO-1 data after having done so the year before, according to Andrew Jones, principal researcher at The Conference Board Governance & Sustainability Center. Still, 60 S&P 100 companies did release the data.

Meanwhile, fewer companies are publicizing any form of demographic metrics. The number of Russell 3,000 companies that disclosed metrics on women in the workforce fell from 75% in 2024 to 62% in 2025, according to a study by The Conference Board. Those disclosing metrics on minority representation fell from 30.9% to 26.5%.

Why companies may keep gathering data

Companies are still likely to keep track of their demographic data, whether or not they disclose any of those metrics publicly, and even if they are no longer required to submit annual EEO-1 reports. That's because Title VII requires employers to keep records that could be pertinent to any discrimination investigation, and the EEOC is empowered to request them.

“What we are generally advising is to stay the course,” Jennifer Robins, counsel in law firm Saul Ewing’s Labor and Employment Group. “Private litigants, employment discrimination lawsuits are not going away, and this data is helpful to defending oneself.”

The EEOC has demanded extensive demographic data from companies to bolster Lucas' own marquee cases. Those include an investigation into diversity, equity and inclusion practices of sports giant Nike, which Lucas has alleged discriminate against white employees; a lawsuit against the New York Times for allegedly discriminating against a white man who was passed over for a promotion, and an investigation into alleged antisemitism against staff at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lucas emphasized Tuesday that the EEOC would continue to demand data in the course of its investigations. Kotagal warned employers that under future leadership, the EEOC could reinstitute the EEO-1 collection.

Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said she sees the elimination of EEO-1 data as part of an effort to obscure the prevalence of discrimination against racial minorities and women and create of a sense of urgency around protecting white workers from DEI-related policies.

But Frye said the data "doesn’t suggest that their top priority ought to be discrimination against white men.

"If the chair is moving forward with an agenda that thinks she ought to be focused on men and ought to be focused on white people, my answer is, ‘Well, does the data tell you that?’” Frye said.

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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. 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.

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Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue crews responded to the flaming truck, which was parked in a spot near Northeast Sixth Street and Fourth Avenue.

Once the flames were out, crews began to get a real sense of the damage.

The vehicle was a total loss for a mobile pet grooming business.

Investigators said the groomer left the vehicle to grab a client from a nearby business and returned to find the truck already on fire.

Officials said there was a lot of equipment inside, from the truck’s generator to essentials needed in the pet grooming process, all of which were destroyed.

There were no injuries reported, human or animal, authorities said.

A Honda that was parked behind the truck was damaged by the fire, with its front end partially melted down because of the intense heat.

Los equipos del Cuerpo de Bomberos de Fort Lauderdale acudieron al camión en llamas, que se encontraba estacionado en una plaza cercana a la calle Northeast Sixth Street y la avenida Fourth Avenue.

Una vez extinguidas las llamas, pudieron hacerse una idea real de los daños.

El vehículo pertenecía a un negocio móvil de peluquería canina y quedó totalmente destruido.

Los investigadores dijeron que el peluquero salió del vehículo para recoger a un cliente en un comercio cercano y al volver se encontró con el camión en llamas.

Las autoridades señalaron que al interior había gran cantidad de equipamiento, desde el generador del camión hasta los elementos esenciales necesarios para el proceso de peluquería canina, lo que quedó destruido en su totalidad.

No se reportaron heridos,humanas o animales, dijeron autoridades.

Un Honda estacionado detrás de la furgoneta resultó también dañado por el incendio, con la parte delantera parcialmente derretida debido al intenso calor.

The conversations appeared to focus on a public health fund that never materialized and a grant to the International Peace Institute, which was run by an associate of Epstein.

The roughly 30 meetings, which took place from 2011 to 2014, included several visits to Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and one meeting on the Gates Foundation campus, according to the review by law firm WilmerHale. The review found no evidence the foundation paid Epstein or did anything illegal. The foundation released a three-page summary of WilmerHale's report Tuesday and did not say if it would release the full version.

Gates, who chairs the Gates Foundation, has not been accused in connection with Epstein's crimes and has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein's abuse of girls. He told a congressional committee last month that he made a “grave error in judgment" by meeting with the disgraced financier.

Gates' name appears in the trove of documents released by the Justice Department as part of its Epstein probe. The Epstein files include the names of powerful men across tech, finance, politics and business, all of whom have denied involvement in Epstein's crimes.

Epstein was federally indicted in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. He died by suicide while awaiting trial.

The release of the Gates Foundation summary follows last week's revelation that Warren Buffett, a longtime friend of Gates who has put the majority of his charitable gifts toward the tech billionaire's philanthropy, omitted the Gates Foundation from his annual donations this year. Buffett explained that the decision was more about his belief that his three children are ready to manage his fortune than it was about Gates' “distasteful” association with Epstein.

That association began when an adviser to both the foundation and Gates' personal office introduced the two men, according to the review. Three years earlier, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Epstein recommended that Gates establish a charitable investment fund to pool wealthy individuals' gifts for global public health. Staff followed up with Epstein at Gates' request on the legal considerations and tax benefits to donors.

Those discussions led to a December 2014 breakfast at Epstein's Manhattan residence with Gates, foundation staff and potential donors. Gates concluded that Epstein had “misrepresented” the donors' willingness to contribute, according to the review, and the foundation stopped working on the concept.

Epstein also brought together Gates and the head of a nonprofit that would eventually receive money from the foundation. In 2012, the review concluded, Epstein introduced Gates to Terje Rød-Larsen, then the president of the International Peace Institute. The Gates Foundation reached a grant agreement the following year with the International Peace Institute related to polio eradication. Rød-Larsen resigned in 2020 over his connections to Epstein.

Throughout their interactions, according to the review, Gates knew about Epstein's sex offense and heard concerns about their association from staff working with Epstein on the charitable investment fund.

Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the board has approved measures that will strengthen their vetting process and risk management.

“The work we do depends on integrity and earning and maintaining the trust of partners,” Suzman said in a press release. The foundation offered no further comment.

WilmerHale noted that its five-month review did not include access to Gates' personal communications or encompass Epstein's interactions with Gates in a personal capacity.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

De acuerdo con el Departamento de Ingresos de Florida, del lunes 20 de julio al jueves 20 de agosto no se cobrará el impuesto sobre las ventas en la compra de:

• Ropa, calzado, carteras, bolsos, mochilas, cangureras y pañaleras con un precio de hasta 100 dólares por artículo.• Determinados útiles escolares con un precio de hasta 50 dólares por artículo.• Materiales didácticos y rompecabezas con un precio de hasta 30 dólares.• Computadoras personales y ciertos accesorios de computadora con un precio de hasta 1,500 dólares, siempre que se compren para uso personal o doméstico y no con fines comerciales.

La exención no aplica para:

• Portafolios, maletas o bolsas para prendas de vestir.

• Relojes, correas para reloj, joyería, paraguas y pañuelos.

• Esquís, aletas para nadar, patines en línea y patines.

• Prendas de vestir con un precio superior a 100 dólares.

• Útiles escolares con un precio superior a 50 dólares.

• Libros que no estén exentos por otras disposiciones.

• Computadoras y accesorios con un precio superior a 1,500 dólares.

• Teléfonos celulares, consolas de videojuegos, receptores de medios digitales o dispositivos que no estén diseñados principalmente para procesar datos.

• Computadoras y accesorios adquiridos con fines comerciales.

• Alquiler de cualquiera de los artículos elegibles.

• Reparaciones o modificaciones de cualquiera de los artículos elegibles.

• Compras de artículos elegibles realizadas dentro de parques temáticos o complejos de entretenimiento, establecimientos de hospedaje público o aeropuertos.

Para conocer todos los detalles de la exención del impuesto sobre las ventas de este año, consulte la información del Departamento de Ingresos de Florida.

Según la policía de North Miami, el accidente tuvo lugar en la zona de la calle Northwest 135 y la Séptima Avenida.

Un testigo declaró a Jeff Derderian, de Local 10, que la culpa fue del motociclista.

“No miró”, dijo Steve Antoine. “El conductor del coche blanco tenía luz verde, podía avanzar sin problemas. El motociclista debía de llegar tarde al trabajo o algo así, se metió en la carretera de golpe y, de hecho, chocó contra el coche”.

Antoine afirmó que el motociclista llevaba casco. No está claro si la velocidad fue un factor determinante en el accidente.

La policía de North Miami confirmó que está “ocupándose del accidente de tráfico”, mientras que la Unidad de Homicidios de Tráfico de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade lleva a cabo una investigación por homicidio de tráfico.

No se han dado a conocer más detalles por el momento.

Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a memo to employees Tuesday morning, obtained by The Associated Press, that most moves are the result of ESPN’s acquisition of NFL Network and other league digital assets last year.

The deal was announced last August and also included NFL Fantasy and the rights to distribute the RedZone channel to cable and satellite operators. In return, the NFL got a 10% equity stake in ESPN.

It was approved by government regulators in January. NFL Network employees became part of ESPN on April 1.

“Over the past several months, we’ve made significant progress integrating the NFL assets that we acquired into ESPN,” Pitaro wrote in the memo. “Throughout this process, we have taken the time to carefully evaluate our collective teams, resources and organizational structure to best position us for the future. As a result, we had to make some difficult decisions about job impacts that we will be communicating today.

“While most of the job impacts are tied to the acquisition, we will also notify colleagues in other parts of the company today that their positions have been impacted. We are committed to treating employees with compassion and respect and to providing support as they navigate this transition.”

While most of the layoffs affect production and behind-the-scenes personnel, some on-air talent were affected. Ryan Clark, who joined ESPN in 2015 as an NFL analyst, learned of his layoff while on “NFL Live” on Monday. A person familiar with the situation said Clark was originally going to be told Tuesday morning before reports leaked about the decision.

Clark was told by company executives rather than hear about it elsewhere. He did not finish his appearance on the show.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not at liberty to discuss personnel decisions.

Clark took to social media on Tuesday to address the layoffs. He also shared a video of himself working out.

“Sending prayers and love to all those laid off today by ESPN. So many of you have poured your life into that company, & I know how you’re feeling right now,” Clark wrote on X. “My hope is as this door closes another opens for you all. God bless!”

Other notable names include Karl Ravech, who had been with ESPN since 1993 and had been an integral part of its baseball coverage. Ravech was the voice of “Sunday Night Baseball” from 2022-25 before the package moved to NBC this season. He did call Monday night’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.

Tom Pelissero, who had been with NFL Network since 2017, is also part of the cuts. ESPN had recently signed NFL insiders Ian Rapoport and Adam Schefter to extensions.

The ESPN cutbacks are also part of other reductions that are taking place throughout the Walt Disney Company this week.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

La mayoría del Senado votó la víspera en contra de Alfredo Deluque, candidato apoyado por el conservador De la Espriella para ser presidente de la cámara alta, el cargo más importante en el Congreso. En cambio, eligió a Honorio Henríquez, congresista del Centro Democrático, partido que contó con el apoyo del Pacto Histórico, del mandatario saliente Gustavo Petro.

“Respeto plenamente la autonomía del Congreso de la República y la independencia de las ramas del poder público. Por eso no llamé a ningún congresista para pedir votos, ofrecer cargos, contratos o prebendas", aseguró De la Espriella en la red social X. "Hacía más de 30 años no se elegía la mesa directiva del Senado mediante una votación libre, sin repartos burocráticos”, agregó.

La elección de los presidentes del Congreso suele ser una negociación política que usualmente coincide con el apoyo que otorgue el gobierno electo, lo que hace más sencilla su gobernabilidad en el primer año.

Sin embargo, en la instalación del nuevo Congreso hubo una división entre el sector conservador que lidera De la Espriella y el Centro Democrático, dirigido por el influyente expresidente Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010), que decidió ser oficialista pero aclaró que no pretende perder “independencia” frente al Ejecutivo.

El Centro Democrático fue durante los últimos cuatro años opositor de Petro. Sin embargo, la alianza de opuestos para escoger al presidente del Senado fue celebrada por el petrismo como la “primera derrota” para De la Espriella.

De la Espriella, un abogado sin experiencia en cargos de elección popular, defendió el martes que nunca estuvo “obsesionado” por influir en la votación para la presidencia del Senado.

De la Espriella venció en el balotaje presidencial del 21 de junio al oficialista Iván Cepeda con el movimiento de ciudadanos Defensores de la Patria, rechazando el apoyo explícito de los partidos tradicionales con los que ahora lidiará en el Congreso.

El gobierno electo deberá tramitar iniciativas clave como el presupuesto estatal y el plan de desarrollo donde quedarán consignadas sus principales propuestas, entre ellas construir grandes cárceles al estilo de El Salvador.

Además, en los próximos días el Congreso también deberá decidir si permite que De la Espriella asuma el cargo el próximo 7 de agosto en una guarnición militar fuera de Bogotá, rompiendo la tradición de que sea en la capital del país.

Petro consiguió al inicio de su mandato las mayorías en el Congreso, lo que facilitó su agenda política, sin embargo, la relación se tensó con el tiempo y varias de sus reformas clave, como la del sistema de salud, fueron rechazadas en varias ocasiones.

El gobierno saliente radicó el martes en el Congreso una nueva reforma fiscal, pese a que el Legislativo ha negado iniciativas similares dos veces, para recaudar aproximadamente 6.770 millones de dólares aumentando los impuestos al patrimonio, a la renta, a los combustibles y a los juegos de azar.

“Lo fundamental del esfuerzo tributario... debe salir de los grandes patrimonios, de las grandes rentas que existen en una minoría muy excluyente del país”, afirmó a la prensa el ministro de Hacienda, Germán Ávila.

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Temporary Protected Status is set to end Friday for around 350,000 Haitians as well as around 4,000 Syrians.

Democratic State Rep. Marie Woodson, of Pembroke Pines, is someone who’s lived the American dream after being born in Haiti.

In 1981, when she was 21, Woodson moved to the U.S. in search of a better life.

She now says her heart is aching for people like her who could soon be deported.

“It’s really heart wrenching what the people are going through,” said Woodson. “And as a Haitian American serving in the state Legislature, I felt it could’ve been me because I’m also from Haiti.”

Woodson represents parts of both Miami-Dade and Broward counties and says she is constantly hearing from Haitians in need who are asking for help.

“They want to know what we are doing,” she said. “Even though immigration is a federal issue, I’m a state legislator, but they still want to know, ‘You are elected. What are you going to do about it?’”

This all comes after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Department of Homeland Security to end TPS for these groups, with the DHS claiming Haiti is now safe enough for people to return to.

The United Nations and the U.S. State Department, meanwhile, continue to warn of frequent gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti.

“When you look at what’s going on in Haiti, the gangs, everything, those people have nothing to go back to right now,” said Woodson.

Many South Florida Haitians work in hospitality and healthcare, and advocates have said that will hit those industries that are already dealing with staffing shortages hard.

“A lot of business owners, they come to me, their employees are mostly immigrants right, with TPS, so if they don’t have immigrants in their job, over 90% of their workforce will no longer be there,” said business owner Dinah Escarment.

Woodson is asking the president or Congress to do something before it’s too late.

“I’m just asking for compassion. I’m asking for humanity for my brothers and sisters,” she said.

While Woodson said she understands criminals being deported, she said most of the people impacted by this are hard-working, decent human beings who are just trying to have a better life.