The energetic pup came to the shelter from another facility, and staff say he would do best in a home without cats. Families with other dogs can schedule a meet-and-greet at the shelter to see if they are a good match.

“He’s active, he’s cute,” Humane Society of Broward County spokesperson Cherie Wachter said. “If you’re looking for an active dog to go on adventures with, Stewie could be the guy for you.”

The shelter is also looking for homes for a bonded pair of long-haired rabbits, Mischief and Angel, who need to be adopted together. The rabbits were surrendered after their previous owner was no longer allowed to keep them.

HSBC is also seeking foster families, including for a 1-pound kitten recently rescued after being found wandering on I-95 by Local 10’s Jason Carter.

For information about adopting Stewie, the rabbits or becoming a foster, click here.

Troopers said the crash happened at approximately 11:13 p.m. on Friday on the Florida Turnpike just south of Griffin Road.

FHP officials said a black 2001 Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle and a red 2012 Chevrolet Camaro were traveling southbound when the motorcycle moved from the outside center lane into the inside center lane, entering the Camaro’s path.

They said the front of the Camaro struck the rear of the motorcycle. The motorcycle rider, a 28-year-old Hollywood man, was thrown from the bike and suffered fatal injuries, according to investigators. His next of kin notification is still pending.

Troopers said the Camaro driver, a 22-year-old Hollywood man, was not injured.

They said all southbound Florida Turnpike lanes were closed as of 12:06 a.m. on Saturday.

No other details about the crash were immediately released.

But it also clashed with the reality on the ground, where Israeli strikes have continued since Trump first touted the deal late Thursday in Washington, and where few steps have been taken to advance a broader ceasefire agreement that went into effect in October.

Most of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians are still displaced or live in tent camps, where poor conditions and overcrowding have led to rodent infestations and outbreaks of infectious diseases such as chickenpox.

“They can talk about withdrawal and disarmament," said Abdel Moneim Aboul-Roos, 24, a tuk-tuk driver who lost his leg in an Israeli airstrike. “I don’t care about any of it as long as there is no food or medicine.”

Israel and Hamas signed a U.S.-backed ceasefire plan last year that ended major combat operations, saw the return of Israeli hostages and allowed for an increase in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave. It also called for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops, the creation of an international stabilization force and a program to decommission weapons held by Hamas.

But as each side accused the other of violating the ceasefire, negotiations stalled. Hamas held onto its weapons and the Israeli military refused to withdraw. Since October, Israel has killed more than 1,200 Palestinians in Gaza and expanded the amount of territory it controls. Five Israeli soldiers have also been killed in militant attacks.

Many Palestinians don't trust Israel or Hamas

The road map Trump announced — and that Hamas confirmed — addresses in more specific terms the type of weapons the militant group and its allies will be required to hand over to a new technocratic government. The document says Israel will not be involved in the decommission of Hamas' weapons and that it should halt all military operations in Gaza so the transition can proceed and recovery can begin.

But residents in Gaza say they have been repeatedly promised that the war will stop and their lives will improve. They see the road map as a positive development but remain skeptical that either Israel or Hamas will adhere to the terms.

“This is enough. We need improvement in our lives,” said Ayman Ahmed, a displaced Palestinian living in southern Gaza. He said he hopes Hamas gives up its arms but does not see it happening anytime soon.

“They don't care about Palestinians’ lives,” he said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 73,300 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which was part of the Hamas-run government.

The ministry maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of all fatalities.

Because of the high death toll and ongoing attacks, other Palestinians say they believe Israel will refuse to make concessions.

In southern Gaza, Ghazal Astal lives among the rubble. She said there is near-constant Israeli gunfire and that the territory has been transformed into an “indescribable battlefield.”

Ammar Kaskeen, 30, said he doesn't believe the road map will force Israeli troops to withdraw. For Israel, according to Kaskeen, the goal is not only to disarm Hamas but to also drive the Palestinian population out of Gaza.

"They will make us suffer,” he said.

Even as Israel digs in, Palestinians dream of returning home

Israel has not commented publicly on the road map but Israeli officials, speaking anonymously over the past two days, have signaled that the document does not align with the country's interests.

The officials also reiterated that Israel would not withdraw from the Yellow Line in Gaza, which divides Israeli-controlled territory in the east with the western part of the enclave.

In recent months, the military has built a massive earthen barrier roughly along the same line, developing what it described as a “security zone” adjacent to the berm, equipped with intelligence and technological assets.

Israel has also carried out controlled demolitions and clearing operations across much of the territory it controls. Palestinians who lived there have yet to return — and are unsure whether their homes are still standing.

Anas Nakla was displaced from Rafah in southern Gaza during the war. He said he knows his house has been destroyed but still wants to return home with his wife and children.

“It doesn't exist anymore," he said. "But we can return and rebuild.”

Similarly, Mohamed Hamad, who had to leave his home behind in northern Gaza, hopes that the U.S.-backed road map will pressure Israel to leave some of the areas it controls. He believes that even if only a small number of people could go back to their homes, “it will give hope to the rest that some day they may also return.”

___

Melanie Lidman and Sam Mednick contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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Wilton Manors police identified the suspect as 20-year-old Daniel Selvin Nunez Bonilla.

The shooting happened around 5:15 a.m. at the Palm Gardens shopping center near North Andrews Avenue and Northeast 26th Drive, according to investigators.

Police said surveillance video from the shopping plaza shows people running for cover as gunfire erupted and a bullet struck the ground.

According to a witness, an argument happened before several shots were fired.

Dwayne Lewis told Local 10 News he was waiting at a nearby bus stop when he heard the gunshots.

“From the car, I probably heard three or four,” Lewis said.

Police said a woman was shot in the leg and taken to the hospital. Lewis said she appeared calm and alert after the shooting.

“I think she’ll be alright,” he said.

A bullet also went through the driver’s-side window of a Honda Accord parked at the shopping center.

Lewis said he saw an argument before the shooting.

“They were just arguing and I heard a woman say, ‘Baby, no; baby, no,’ then he just let off some shots,” Lewis said. “Then the two he was shooting at just ran inside the little office area there, the tax office. The shooter turned around and went away to his car.”

Police said the suspect initially fled the scene in a white vehicle.

Officers provided aid to the injured woman before Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue transported her to Broward Health Medical Center.

The victim remained hospitalized as of Friday afternoon. Police have not released additional details on what led detectives to identify Nunez Bonilla as the suspect.

Jail records show he is facing two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill.

As of Saturday morning, he was being held without bond at the Broward County Main Jail.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact the Wilton Manors Police Department or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.

Authorities released an early note in the investigation into the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, hoping that someone will recognize the writing style. A second note said Guthrie died shortly after she was kidnapped and “is buried in nature now.” Both notes initially were sent to a Tucson television station days after Guthrie went missing from her home outside Tucson on Feb. 1.

“We are begging for help. We are desperate. We need someone to come forward. Someone knows something. Someone suspects something. Someone recognizes the writing in the ransom demand notes,” Guthrie wrote on her Instagram account, alongside a photo of her mother.

“Someone has noticed something different, strange, troubling or just unusual - perhaps with someone they deeply love," she wrote. "Perhaps they are afraid to come forward. Perhaps they are conflicted. Perhaps they are angry or upset for being in this situation. There is a way out - to tell what you know.”

Guthrie went on to say they “wanted to find out what happened to her, so that we can give her the dignity of a proper goodbye - a celebration of her remarkable life that she so deserves.”

Saturday is the six-month mark since Guthrie disappeared. No suspects have been arrested. The investigation has been dogged by unanswered questions, such as how many people are believed to have taken part in her abduction and whether she was taken by someone who knew her.

The FBI in Washington did not respond to questions about the ransom notes, including whether both messages sent to the Tucson station have been deemed legitimate.

In releasing the notes, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said “we believe these distinctive linguistic characteristics may be recognizable to someone who knows or has interacted with the notes’ writer.”

The first note, sent Feb. 2, said Guthrie was safe but scared and would be released unharmed once her captors received $4 million in cryptocurrency, with the ransom amount increasing if the first demand was not met. It said Guthrie would be released within 12 hours if the payment was received. It also included a threat to kill her if the ransom wasn’t paid.

“Your mother is aware of this and her life is in your hands,” the first note read. “It is in the best interest of everyone to have this completed as soon as possible.”

The second note was sent Feb. 6 and said Guthrie died shortly after she was taken. “She is buried in nature now,” it said. “Nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome.” The note ended with an apology: “We are truly sorry.”

The sheriff’s department said the notes reveal a distinctive pattern of word choices and provide insight into the writer’s mindset. The agency said someone who knows the notes’ writer may recognize the patterns.

Authorities similarly used a suspect’s own writings as a tool to apprehend Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI. Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured 23 others with mail bombs over a 17-year span, pressured The Washington Post, in conjunction with The New York Times, to publish his 35,000-word manifesto in 1995.

The sheriff’s office also said Friday that two videos recovered from Guthrie’s doorbell camera might be from two separate days and indicate an unidentified male prepared ahead of when Guthrie was taken. Authorities are seeking information on anyone who was behaving differently, changed their physical appearance, suddenly left the Tucson area, or had a noticeable or unexplained interest or disinterest in the case.

“Investigators continue to pursue every available technological and investigative lead,” the sheriff’s office said. “However, community members remain a vital resource as we seek to provide answers for Nancy’s family.”

The FBI had released surveillance videos of a masked person who authorities said appeared to tamper with a camera on Nancy Guthrie’s front porch and block it with a plant. They described the person as a male about 5 feet, 9 inches (1.75 meters) tall.

At United Way Miami, dozens of volunteers gathered Saturday for the organization’s annual back-to-school drive.

Event organizers said between 75 and 100 volunteers from United Way Miami partner and sponsor organizations are packing nearly 1,000 backpacks with essential classroom supplies, including notebooks, pencils, folders, crayons and other materials.

The effort aims to help ease the financial burden many families face as school costs continue to rise. School supplies can cost up to $150 per child, making it difficult for some households to afford everything students need to start the year prepared.

The filled backpacks will be distributed next week to students across Miami-Dade County.

United Way Miami leaders said the goal is not only to provide supplies but also to give students the confidence to walk into their classrooms ready to learn on the first day of school.

“We want to make sure that parents aren’t having to make a decision between, ‘Do we buy a third meal or do I buy school supplies for the kids?’” United Way Miami vice president Ivette Diaz said. “This is our way, one of the many ways in which we support the community and the folks that we provide resources to.”

Organizers said the backpack drive is one of several back-to-school initiatives planned this month. The organization continues to work with local businesses, donors and volunteers to support students and families throughout Miami-Dade County.

The backpack assembly event will continue through the morning, with volunteers working to fill each bag with the supplies students need to begin the school year on the right foot.

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Health officials said the agency and Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control are coordinating surveillance, prevention and control efforts.

Dengue is a mosquito-borne illness that can cause flu-like symptoms, including severe muscle and joint pain, fever and, in some cases, a rash. Respiratory symptoms are uncommon.

Health experts say symptoms typically develop within 14 days after the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito. Dengue is not spread from person to person.

The agency is urging residents to protect themselves from mosquito bites by taking basic precautions.

Officials say the agency continues statewide surveillance for mosquito-borne illnesses, including West Nile virus, eastern equine encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, malaria, chikungunya and dengue. Florida residents are also encouraged to report dead birds to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

For more information, visit the Department’s mosquito prevention webpage or view the weekly mosquito-borne illness surveillance reports.

Anyone experiencing symptoms should call the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County at 305-324-2400.

Las autoridades de salud informaron que la agencia y el Departamento de Control de Mosquitos de Miami-Dade están coordinando los esfuerzos de vigilancia, prevención y control.

El dengue es una enfermedad transmitida por mosquitos que puede causar síntomas similares a los de la gripe, incluidos dolor intenso en músculos y articulaciones, fiebre y, en algunos casos, sarpullido. Los síntomas respiratorios son poco comunes.

Los expertos en salud indican que los síntomas generalmente se desarrollan dentro de los 14 días posteriores a la picadura de un mosquito Aedes aegypti infectado. El dengue no se transmite de persona a persona.

La agencia insta a los residentes a protegerse de las picaduras de mosquitos tomando precauciones básicas.

Las autoridades informaron que la agencia continúa con la vigilancia estatal de enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos, incluido el virus del Nilo Occidental, la encefalitis equina del este, la encefalitis de San Luis, la malaria, el chikunguña y el dengue. También se recomienda a los residentes de Florida reportar aves muertas a la Comisión de Conservación de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de Florida.

Para obtener más información, visite la página web del Departamento sobre prevención de mosquitos o consulte los informes semanales de vigilancia de enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos.

Cualquier persona que presente síntomas debe llamar al Departamento de Salud de Florida en el condado Miami-Dade al 305-324-2400.

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Heat index values are expected to climb above 105 degrees this afternoon, creating hazardous conditions before scattered showers and thunderstorms develop later in the day, according to the National Weather Service.

Local 10 meteorologist Jennifer Collins said temperatures were already in the low 80s early Saturday morning, with readings of 82 degrees in Miami and 81 in Fort Lauderdale by 6 a.m. She says the highest heat index values will occur during the early afternoon before storms begin developing around 3 p.m.

Collins said South Florida has recorded 51 consecutive days with temperatures at or above 90 degrees, approaching the record of 54 straight days set in 2023.

With a primarily west wind, storms are expected to form inland across Miami-Dade and Broward counties before moving toward the east coast. Some storms could produce heavy rainfall.

Click here to receive the latest updates from Local 10’s Weather Authority team.

Se espera que los valores del índice de calor superen los 105 grados esta tarde, lo que generará condiciones peligrosas antes de que se desarrollen lluvias y tormentas eléctricas dispersas más tarde en el día, según el Servicio Nacional de Meteorología.

La meteoróloga de Local 10, Jennifer Collins, dijo que las temperaturas ya se encontraban en los bajos 80 grados durante las primeras horas de la mañana del sábado, con registros de 82 grados en Miami y 81 en Fort Lauderdale a las 6 a.m. Señaló que los valores más altos del índice de calor se registrarán durante las primeras horas de la tarde, antes de que comiencen a desarrollarse tormentas alrededor de las 3 p.m.

Collins indicó que el sur de Florida ha registrado 51 días consecutivos con temperaturas de 90 grados o más, acercándose al récord de 54 días consecutivos establecido en 2023.

Con vientos predominantes del oeste, se espera que las tormentas se formen tierra adentro en los condados Miami-Dade y Broward antes de desplazarse hacia la costa este. Algunas tormentas podrían producir lluvias intensas.

Haga clic aquí para recibir las últimas actualizaciones del equipo de la Autoridad del Tiempo de Local 10.

Según un informe de arresto del Departamento de Policía de Miami Beach, Francisco Javier Lara, de 55 años, quien es maestro de Austin, Texas, fue arrestado por dos cargos de negligencia infantil sin causar lesiones corporales graves.

La Policía informó que los agentes respondieron a reportes sobre un menor que corría entre el tráfico cerca de 33rd Street y Pinetree Drive alrededor de las 12:15 p.m.

Las autoridades informaron que los agentes localizaron al preadolescente corriendo hacia el sur antes de que ingresara a una vivienda en la cuadra 3000 de Pinetree Drive, donde pudieron ponerlo a salvo.

Los investigadores indicaron que el menor no pudo proporcionar mucha información, pero logró dar a los agentes un número de teléfono perteneciente a su padre de crianza. Posteriormente, el niño fue trasladado al Departamento de Policía de Miami Beach mientras los agentes trabajaban para localizar a su cuidador.

Utilizando bases de datos policiales e información de ubicación del teléfono celular, los detectives rastrearon el número hasta Lara y determinaron que se hospedaba en el hotel Catalina, en Collins Avenue, indica el informe de arresto.

Según el informe, cuando los detectives tocaron la puerta de la habitación del hotel, Lara finalmente respondió y aparentemente no sabía que uno de los menores estaba desaparecido hasta que los detectives le preguntaron por el paradero de su hijo de crianza.

“Con compasión y paciencia, pudimos obtener su nombre y un número de teléfono que permitió a nuestros detectives localizar dónde se encontraba su padre”, dijo el agente Christopher Bess, del Departamento de Policía de Miami Beach, a Rosh Lowe, de Local 10.

El informe indica que los agentes detectaron un fuerte olor a alcohol en el aliento de Lara. Cuando le preguntaron qué hora era, supuestamente respondió a los detectives que creía que eran alrededor de las 7 a.m., aunque en realidad eran aproximadamente las 2 p.m.

Dentro de la habitación del hotel, los detectives también encontraron al hermano de crianza del menor, de 10 años, quien no es verbal y también tiene autismo, informaron las autoridades.

El niño fue trasladado a la estación de Policía junto con su hermano, donde defensores de víctimas proporcionaron comida y zapatos a ambos menores, señala el informe.

Según las autoridades, durante una entrevista posterior a la lectura de sus derechos Miranda, Lara dijo a los detectives que había viajado desde Texas a Miami Beach con sus dos hijos de crianza para pasar unas vacaciones y que planeaba regresar con ellos el viernes.

La Policía informó que Lara aseguró que acostó a los menores alrededor de las 9 p.m. del miércoles antes de salir de la habitación del hotel cerca de la medianoche para comer en un restaurante mexicano cercano y consumir varias bebidas alcohólicas. Dijo a los detectives que tomó entre cuatro y cinco bebidas en el restaurante antes de ir a otro bar, donde consumió dos bebidas alcohólicas adicionales, indica el informe.

Según el informe, Lara dijo a los investigadores que regresó al hotel alrededor de las 4 a.m., encontró a ambos menores dormidos y luego “se desmayó”, sin recordar nada más hasta que la Policía tocó la puerta de la habitación más tarde ese día.

Sin embargo, los detectives indicaron que las cámaras de vigilancia del hotel mostraron a Lara regresando al hotel a las 5:10 a.m., saliendo nuevamente a las 9:03 a.m. y regresando otra vez a las 10:29 a.m. La Policía informó que Lara dijo a los investigadores que no recordaba haber salido nuevamente de la habitación y admitió que fue su culpa por haber bebido demasiado y perder el conocimiento.

Según el informe, las imágenes de vigilancia captaron al niño mayor saliendo solo del hotel mientras Lara estaba fuera, antes de correr hacia el norte por Collins Avenue.

Una revisión de los registros laborales confirmó que Lara trabajó el año pasado como maestro de escuela primaria para las Escuelas Públicas del Condado Miami-Dade. Actualmente vive en Texas y estaba de visita en Miami Beach por vacaciones, informaron las autoridades.

La Policía confirmó que ambos menores quedaron bajo la custodia del Departamento de Niños y Familias de Florida mientras Lara fue detenido.

Hasta la tarde del viernes, Lara permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza de $2,000 USD.

Según la Lotería de Florida, el caso surgió de una investigación conjunta entre la División de Seguridad de la agencia y la Oficina del Inspector General del Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos.

Los investigadores informaron que la investigación comenzó después de que una jugadora de la Lotería de Florida reportó que un boleto ganador de Pick 4 que había enviado por correo a través del Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos nunca llegó a su destino.

Según el informe de arresto, el boleto ganador fue comprado en una tienda Publix de Tampa y tenía un valor de $2,600 USD. Debido a que el premio superaba el límite máximo de $599 USD que puede cobrarse en un establecimiento autorizado de la lotería, el sistema indicó que el boleto debía ser devuelto a la jugadora, informaron los investigadores.

Indicaron que la ganadora posteriormente envió el boleto por correo a un familiar en Fort Lauderdale para ayudar a cubrir los gastos funerarios de otra persona, pero el boleto nunca fue entregado.

Un inspector de la Lotería de Florida determinó que el boleto fue cobrado el 19 de junio en la oficina del Distrito de Miami de la Lotería de Florida por Lekaysha Kenya Lockhart, de 28 años. Posteriormente, los investigadores identificaron a Lockhart como una cartera del USPS asignada a la oficina postal de Oakland Park.

Según el informe de arresto, Lockhart, quien tiene direcciones registradas en Lauderhill y Hollywood, “no era conocida por la propietaria del boleto ni estaba autorizada o aprobada por ella” para cobrar el premio.

Las autoridades informaron que agentes especiales de la Lotería de Florida e investigadores de la Oficina del Inspector General del USPS realizaron una operación conjunta que condujo al arresto de Lockhart el 23 de julio. Indicaron que, tras su arresto, Lockhart admitió haber robado el boleto ganador y haberlo cobrado en la oficina del Distrito de Miami.

“Nuestros jugadores merecen la confianza de que cada premio de la Lotería está protegido mediante sólidas medidas de seguridad y una supervisión rigurosa”, dijo en un comunicado el secretario de la Lotería de Florida, Reginald D. Dixon. “Reconozco el extraordinario trabajo investigativo de nuestra División de Seguridad y agradezco a nuestros socios de la Oficina del Inspector General del Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos y de la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward por su colaboración para proteger la integridad de los juegos de la Lotería de Florida y lograr una resolución exitosa de este caso”.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Lockhart enfrenta un cargo de hurto mayor, uno por tráfico de propiedad robada, uno por presentar un reclamo falso de pago y dos cargos por uso ilegal de un dispositivo de comunicación bidireccional y robo de correspondencia.

Funcionarios de la Lotería de Florida informaron que, debido a que los delitos ocurrieron en múltiples circuitos judiciales, los casos serán procesados por separado.

Hasta la mañana del viernes, Lockhart no figuraba como reclusa en los registros de la cárcel del condado Broward.

Local 10 solicitó una declaración al Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos sobre su arresto.

Los agentes identificaron a los sospechosos como David Williams, de 44 años, de Miami, y Alexander Oscar, de 46.

Según el informe, videos de vigilancia captaron a Williams y Oscar entrando al Aeropuerto Internacional de Miami por el área de llegadas en la acera en múltiples ocasiones y caminando hasta las bandas de reclamo de equipaje, donde ambos retiraban maletas antes de salir de la terminal y abordar “vehículos que los esperaban”.

Los investigadores informaron que los robos ocurrieron en abril e involucraron múltiples casos en el aeropuerto.

Indicaron que, en uno de los casos, Williams y Oscar presuntamente robaron equipaje valorado en $6,305 USD de la banda de reclamo 26.

En otro caso, ambos presuntamente sustrajeron equipaje valorado en aproximadamente $4,000 USD de esa misma banda, según los agentes.

El informe también señala que Williams fue captado en videos de vigilancia en varios incidentes adicionales, presuntamente retirando equipaje de las bandas de reclamo 22, 23 y 25 del aeropuerto.

Los investigadores informaron que el valor total de la propiedad robada en todos los casos asciende a $27,205 USD.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Williams enfrenta seis cargos de hurto mayor en tercer grado, mientras que Oscar enfrenta dos cargos por el mismo delito.

Los registros también muestran que Williams había sido arrestado anteriormente por un cargo de robo a mano armada con un arma mortal en un caso no relacionado.

Hasta la tarde del viernes, ambos permanecían detenidos en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight. La fianza de Williams fue fijada en $20,000 USD y la de Oscar en $7,500 USD.

Es posible que los padres les recuerden a sus hijos que terminen el trabajo, pero algunos estudiantes consideran que deberían tener más voz sobre cómo pasan sus vacaciones de verano.

Incluso algunos maestros no son partidarios de esta práctica.

Algunos dicen que se debería permitir que los estudiantes disfruten de su tiempo libre.

Otros dijeron que disfrutaron las asignaciones de lectura durante el verano a lo largo de los años, siempre y cuando los estudiantes no regresen el primer día de clases para enfrentar un examen sorpresa o entregar de inmediato un ensayo.

¿Y usted qué opina? ¿Las tareas de verano son útiles o las vacaciones deberían estar libres de tareas?

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Parents may be reminding their kids to get the work done, but some students feel they should have more of a say in how they spend their summer break.

Even some teachers aren’t fans of the practice.

Some say students should be allowed to enjoy their time off.

Others said they enjoyed summer reading assignments over the years, as long as students aren’t coming back on the first day of class facing a pop quiz or an essay due immediately.

So what do you think? Is summer homework helpful or should the break be homework-free?

Trump asserted in his Truth Social post that he would keep acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in his current role and press ahead on the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” if Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina refuse to back the former federal prosecutor who was key member of Trump’s defense team when the Republican battled four indictments.

The administration needs their votes but both lawmakers have protested Blanche's selection because of a lawsuit settlement that created a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system and provided Trump and family members with immunity from tax audits.

In a sign of apparent progress Friday, Trump pronounced the fund “dead.” As negotiations continued into the night, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, rescheduled a committee vote for Blanche that had been postponed earlier in the week.

A spokesperson for the committee said Grassley, R-Iowa, would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess and that putting the Tuesday vote on the calendar “gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee.”

But by Saturday morning, those plans were in jeopardy with a new announcement from Trump that appeared to put the fund back on the table — and dinged the two senators who are leaving Capitol Hill when their terms end in January.

“If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard” to restore the fund. The president insisted, as he previously has, that the fund “takes care of those who have been so badly treated” during the administrations of Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Tillis, who is retiring, took note of the president's turnabout by saying in a post on X that despite Trump's comments Friday, he “clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans in the Senate would be against.”

He added: “It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal. Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday."

Blanche had said at a hearing two months ago that the anti-weaponization fund would not move forward after Republican senators revolted and held up an immigration funding bill.

But Tillis and Cornyn, who lost reelection this year after Trump endorsed his primary opponent, said they want to ensure that the White House does not reverse course, especially as Trump continues to argue that a fund is needed.

The Department of Justice has provided the senators with language that says Blanche’s May 18 order establishing the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is “rescinded and shall have no force or effect,” according to a document reviewed by The Associated Press.

Cornyn and Tillis have said they also want some clarifications on a separate piece of the settlement that would grant Trump and members of his family immunity from tax audits. Cornyn said this week that it was his understanding that the audits could extend to more than 100 different Trump organization subsidiaries into the future.

“Todd Blanche said it was limited to the parties to the litigation — and it was retrospective, not prospective,” Cornyn said. “And all we’re doing is asking them to put that in writing.”

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An appeals court recently ruled that the agency is not protected by immunity and can be sued over allegations of negligence during the massacre, which left 17 students and staff members dead and 17 others injured.

The lawsuit was filed by survivors and families of the victims.

Former school resource deputy Scot Peterson is among the defendants named in the case. Prosecutors said Peterson stayed outside the building during the shooting and failed to confront the gunman.

Peterson was acquitted of child neglect charges in 2023.

The trial is expected to begin early next year.

Un tribunal de apelaciones dictaminó recientemente que la agencia no está protegida por inmunidad y puede ser demandada por acusaciones de negligencia durante la masacre, que dejó 17 estudiantes y miembros del personal muertos y otros 17 heridos.

La demanda fue presentada por sobrevivientes y familiares de las víctimas.

El ex agente de recursos escolares Scot Peterson figura entre los demandados en el caso. Los fiscales dijeron que Peterson permaneció fuera del edificio durante la balacera y no enfrentó al atacante.

Peterson fue absuelto de los cargos de negligencia infantil en 2023.

Se espera que el juicio comience a principios del próximo año.

La investigación se desarrolla en el centro comercial Palm Gardens, ubicado junto a North Andrews Avenue y Northeast 26th Drive.

Michaila Hightower, de Local 10, se encontraba en el lugar cuando un hombre fue detenido y colocado en la parte trasera de una patrulla.

En el suelo del centro comercial se podían observar lo que parecía ser sangre y prendas de vestir.

Dwayne Lewis, quien presenció la balacera, dijo a Hightower que una mujer había recibido un disparo en una pierna, aunque la Policía no confirmó de inmediato esa información.

“La víctima estaba justo a mi lado. Estaba perdiendo mucha sangre”, dijo.

Lewis contó que esperaba en una parada de autobús cercana cuando ocurrió la balacera.

“Desde el auto, probablemente escuché unos tres o cuatro disparos”, dijo.

Lewis señaló que parecía haber una pelea en el centro comercial antes de la balacera.

“Solo estaban discutiendo y escuché a una mujer decir: “Cariño, no; cariño, no”. Entonces él simplemente comenzó a disparar”, dijo Lewis. “Luego, las dos personas a las que les disparaba corrieron hacia una pequeña oficina, la oficina de impuestos. El tirador se dio la vuelta y regresó a su auto”.

Además del concreto manchado de sangre, también se observó un impacto de bala en la ventana del lado del conductor de un Honda Accord.

“Lo único que decía era: “Por favor, llamen a una ambulancia”. Estaba hablándole a una joven”, dijo Lewis.

A pesar de haber recibido un disparo en una pierna, Lewis dijo que la víctima permanecía tranquila y consciente.

The magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu on Tuesday. The Aeon Mall, in the town of Kashima, was one of the hardest-hit sites, after an explosion that followed the quake caused the walls and a floor to collapse.

The explosion, which the company said it believes was due to a gas leak, occurred after about 3,000 shoppers had been evacuated to a parking lot following the quake, but some employees remained inside. The mall’s second floor collapsed.

Rescuers extracted five people from under mall debris and retrieved the bodies of seven others over the past five days. On Saturday, officials said all the missing were accounted for and ended the operation at the mall.

The overall number of missing in the hit prefecture remains unknown, and search operations pressed on, with thousands of Self Defense troops, police, rescue workers and sniffing dogs deployed.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, at a government task force meeting Saturday, urged rescue personnel not to leave anyone behind.

At another hard-hit site in Kumamoto Prefecture, a chimney collapsed at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro city, trapping 11 employees. Nine have since been confirmed dead and two were rescued, officials said.

The earthquake has left 103 people injured in Kumamoto, authorities said, and two in addition to the reported deaths are being investigated to determine if they are quake-related.

The prefecture’s main challenge is the lack of fresh water affecting nearly 70,000 homes, and fuel shortages as Japan suffers sweltering heat, stoking fears of heat-related illness. Japan Meteorological Agency said temperatures reached an “extreme heat” level of 36.6 degrees Celsius (97.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kumamoto city Saturday.

More than 9,000 people remain at crowded shelters, such as converted community centers, school gyms and classrooms. Many others slept in cars parked at town hall parking lots and parks, or outside of their homes, for privacy.

Experts have long criticized Japan’s crowded conditions at emergency shelters, arguing that a lack of sanitation and privacy creates additional stress and increases the risk of health problems for disaster-hit people.

Water, food and other necessities, including portable toilets, as well as air conditioners and partitions, were being delivered to improve conditions at the evacuation centers, Takaichi said Saturday.

“The government is determined to do everything we can,” Takaichi said.

The prefecture said it has received more than 1,500 reports of power loss as of Saturday, but local power company serving Kyushu said it had no immediate reports of outages.

Over 180 homes were destroyed, officials said, and nearly 3,500 buildings were damaged — nearly double the number reported on Friday — with 20 of them severely affected, according to Kumamoto prefectural assessments.

Allegations against U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a White House adviser during President Donald Trump's first term, have been public for years but have recently drawn increased media scrutiny amid an escalating legal back-and-forth with his former spouse, who is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. That has Democrats sensing Miller could be vulnerable in a district he won two years ago with just over 51% of the vote.

Over the past week, they have called for Miller to resign, requested a congressional ethics investigation and suggested more help could be directed in the fall toward his Democratic opponent, union ironworker Brian Poindexter. Miller has denied the abuse allegations and filed defamation lawsuits against his ex-wife and a second accuser.

The House Majority PAC, a super political action committee aimed at electing a Democratic majority, said it is monitoring the race's dynamics as part of its strategy to push deeper into GOP territory in this year's midterm elections.

“HMP is willing to do whatever it takes to take back the House, and nothing is off the table,” spokesperson CJ Warnke said.

Republicans stick by Miller

as Trump advisers keep tabs on the situation

Republicans have so far remained in Miller’s corner, saying he has delivered for his district and is electable in November.

At the same time, the difficulties that Miller faces have not escaped the attention of the president’s inner circle as they work to retain GOP control on Capitol Hill. Trump's closest advisers are actively monitoring the situation, according to a Republican with knowledge of White House discussions who requested anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive matter.

The deadline for replacing Miller on the ballot is Wednesday, though no Republican has publicly pushed to take that step. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine told Ohio's Capital Journal that the accusations were troubling and “very serious” but that Miller's fate should be up to voters.

The tension comes Republicans are defending their narrow majority in the U.S. House in the November races.

Terry Casey, a longtime Republican consultant in Ohio, said Miller remains in a strong position to win the Republican-leaning district, which stretches south from Cleveland and was won decisively by Trump two years ago.

That is unless Poindexter, who has been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, can attract money significant enough to step up his advertising in the 7th Congressional District's multiple media markets.

“Unless serious people are willing to put in serious money, I’d say beginning around $2 million, it’s all nothing but lip exercises,” Casey said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee declined to discuss whether it would match any influx of Democratic cash. Miller has significantly outraised Poindexter, although the Democrat's campaign said it has seen a surge in social media followers in recent weeks.

Democrats call for and ethics investigation and some say Miller should resign

At issue in the couple's long-running dispute are claims leveled by Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno, that he scalded, hit and threatened her while they were married. Miller has denied the allegations.

A recent article in the magazine Mother Jones revealed a new point of contention in their legal battle: a broken collarbone on their 2-year-old daughter that led Moreno to contact authorities. The pair, who were married in 2022 and finalized their divorce last year, presented different theories about how the injury occurred, according to court filings and police reports reviewed by the magazine.

Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, said it “would be wise” for Miller to resign. The House Democratic Women’s Caucus called for an ethics investigation.

“The recent reports of domestic violence and child abuse against Representative Max Miller are deeply disturbing and Congress can’t ignore them," Democratic Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, Emilia Sykes of Ohio and Hillary Scholten of Michigan wrote in their letter. "Allegations of violence against women and children have to be met with the utmost seriousness.”

Bernie Moreno declined to comment about the allegations raised by his daughter or Miller's response to those, but his spokeswoman issued a statement saying the senator was focused on his family.

“Senator Moreno’s top priority is the safety and well-being of his daughter and granddaughter," said the spokeswoman, Reagan McCarthy. "While he will not litigate these matters in the media or respond to baseless public attacks, he will do whatever it takes to ensure a just outcome for his family.”

Miller's controversies escalated in July and he is facing a lawsuit by an ex-girlfriend

Miller has denied all allegations of abuse. He did not respond to inquiries left with his campaign, his Washington office or on his personal cellphone.

Last spring, his spokesperson provided documentation to The Associated Press that showed several allegations that he had abused his daughter had been investigated by the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services and were deemed unsubstantiated. He has sued Emily Moreno for defamation.

The couple's dispute escalated this week.

On Thursday, lawyers for Emily Moreno asked a judge for a temporary restraining order barring Miller from contact with her attorney, Andrew Zashin. The filing alleges that Miller shouted insults at Zashin and goaded him to “Come at me!” outside a court hearing last May, then physically grabbed Zashin during a different proceeding on Tuesday.

The court filing quotes Miller’s own lawyer as saying his client “just can’t control himself.” The attorney did not return a call seeking comment.

Earlier this month, Miller’s ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, filed a lawsuit against him. She accused Miller of violating terms of a confidential settlement agreement they struck to resolve his 2021 lawsuit against her.

That lawsuit alleged Grisham defamed him in her book and in a Washington Post op-ed when she said a former White House staffer — later identified as Miller — had physically abused her while they were dating. While the book is vague on the specific allegations, Politico reported at the time that Grisham and Miller’s relationship ended “when he pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.”

Grisham alleged in the new lawsuit filed July 7 that Miller dragged her name into his dispute with Moreno and violated their agreement not to disparage each other.

A campaign distraction for Miller that could turn off some voters

For Poindexter, the Democratic candidate, the accusations against Miller provide a possible path to an upset in November if some conservative-leaning voters opt for him or enough Republican voters are turned off by the domestic abuse allegations and stay home.

“These are serious allegations and deserve the full attention of law enforcement," Poindexter said in a statement. "If all the allegations against Congressman Miller prove to be true, Max Miller should be in jail, not worried about retaining a seat in Congress.”

Jim Trakas, a former state lawmaker and GOP party chair in northeast Ohio, said Miller is not helped by the fresh developments so close to the election.

“It's a difficult year for any incumbent,” he said. “Now you have to spend time on this when you want to focus on the main event, which is the pocketbook issues.”

Chocolate cake recipe (use your favorite recipe)

½ cup melted butter

½ cup brown sugar

1½ cups really good quality dark chocolate chips

2 large cans of good quality canned pears

For serving:

lightly sweetened whipped cream

Prepare your chocolate cake batter, stir 1 cup of the chocolate chips into the batter. And set aside.

Preheat the oven according to the instructions of the cake recipe.

Lightly grease a bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. Drain the pears from the cans, reserving the juice.

Place pears into the bundt pan to size how big they should be to fit snugly in the bottom. Cut according to the size of your pan and set aside.

Meanwhile, melt the butter and pour into the bottom of the bundt pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar on top of the melted butter.

Pour about ¼ - ½ cup of pear juice over the sugar and place the pears back into the bottom of the pan, cut side up. Scatter a few chocolate chips around. Slowly pour the chocolate cake mixture into your cake pan above the pears.

Bake according to recipe instructions until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack.

When room temperature, place a large serving plate upside down over the bundt pan and carefully flip the cake over to unmold. If any pears remain in the bottom of the pan, just tuck them back into the top of the cake.

Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

1 pound of gnocchi (can be purchased or use your favorite recipe)

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 cup heavy cream

½ cup chicken stock or broth

zest of 1 lemon

Juice of ¼ lemon, freshly squeezed

8 basil leaves, torn in half

¾ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Melt the butter in a large, wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, about 3 minutes. Stir in the cream and stock, bring to a boil, and cook until reduced by half, about 8 minutes. Stir in the lemon zest and juice.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add a few gnocchi at a time, and cook until they float, about 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the sauce and warm through.

Add the basil and cheese to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and toss well to combine all the ingredients. Serve immediately.

8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

1 cup all-purpose flour

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

1½ cups yellow onion, minced

1 cup red bell pepper, seeded, minced

½ cup dry white wine

1 cup of your favorite tomato sauce

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

¼ cup chopped Italian parsley leaves

1 teaspoons dried oregano

8 whole pepperoncini from a jar, drained of brine

½ cup water or chicken broth, if needed

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and dredge them in the flour, shaking off any excess flour.  Heat a wide, deep, heavy-bottomed braising pan or skillet over medium low heat and add the olive oil.  Add the thighs to the pan, skin-side down, and cook until rendered, golden and crispy, about 10-15 minutes.  Turn the thighs over and cook until for just a couple of minutes, then transfer the thighs to a large plate and set aside.

Pour out all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the skillet.  Add the onions, peppers and garlic and cook, stirring, until softened but not browned 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the wine and cook until the liquid has been reduced by half, about 2 minutes.  Add the tomato sauce and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the pepper flakes, parsley, and oregano, and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.

Return the chicken to the pan, skin-side up, and spoon the sauce over it. Add the pepperoncini, and season with salt and black pepper.  Cover the pan, transfer it to the oven and cook until the chicken is cooked through, 35 to 40 minutes, check the chicken thighs halfway through cooking, if the liquid is not at least ½ way up the thighs, add about ½ cup of water or chicken stock to the pan.  Serve over the potato gnocchi with basil cream sauce.

Wildlife officials are banning fishing during certain hours on rivers and streams across the U.S. West, following an exceptionally dry winter and amid widespread drought. Lower water levels mean rivers can heat more rapidly.

The restrictions aim to reduce stress on species including highly-prized trout. Anglers travel from around the world to find the fish in Yellowstone National Park or Western Montana’s Blackfoot River, featured in the movie “A River Runs Through It.”

More record temperatures are forecast this weekend as a heat wave in the Southwest expands north into the Rocky Mountains and east across the High Plains.

On the Yellowstone River near Livingston, Montana, California resident Mike Wever waded into the swiftly-moving water Friday with a fly fishing rod in one hand. He dipped his free hand into the water.

“Not very cold,” said Wever, 62.

He lacked the customary waders that keep fly fishers warm. Instead, he wore shorts. Stepping carefully across a rocky side channel, Wever said he was OK with the decision to close stretches of the Yellowstone to fishing after 2 p.m. daily.

“It's great for us to have this resource,” he said. “But we have to manage it.”

Many trout anglers let their catch swim free after netting it. But temperature-stressed rainbow or cutthroat trout can die if they're out of water even briefly for a commemorative photo, experts say.

Colorado has imposed restrictions this summer on 19 rivers totaling 635.5 miles (1023 kilometers), a situation state officials say is unprecedented.

Yellowstone on Wednesday expanded afternoon fishing restrictions to the whole park.

Also Wednesday, wildlife officials in neighboring Montana broadened afternoon fishing restrictions to now cover 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) of rivers.

Closures “have become very common over the last decade plus, some might even say very routine from late June through early September,” said biologist Adam Strainer, administrator of the fisheries division at Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.

That trend coincides with rising temperatures as human-caused climate change warms the planet and droughts become more frequent and severe. Yellowstone, for example, has restricted fishing due to high water temperatures during five of the past six years. That’s much more often than in the past, according to park officials.

The consequences aren’t just ecological; trout fishing is closely entwined with the economy in many Rocky Mountain communities.

Dan Gigone, who runs Sweetwater Fly Shop along the Yellowstone River in Montana, says many visitors are pushing trips to the fall to avoid low and warm summer water flows.

“People are realizing August is a crapshoot here in terms of whether you're going to be able to fish and how good the fishing will be,” Gigone said. “I’ve been here 22 years and this is the warmest stretch I remember.”

Warm water contains less oxygen, making it harder for fish to breathe. It also slows their growth.

Full reservoirs usually help buoy water levels during dry summers and low-water years, said Kirk Deeter with the conservation group Trout Unlimited. But many of those reservoirs are at near-record lows.

In Steamboat Springs where Deeter lives, drought and warm waters in the mid 70s (23 C) killed a massive number of fish on the Yampa River. “That’s a bad harbinger for the trout,” he said.

In 2016, wildlife officials closed 183 miles (295 kilometers) of the Yellowstone River to fishing, rafting and other activities to prevent a parasite suspected of killing tens of thousands of fish from spreading further in the low and warm water.

A study last year found “river heat waves" are increasingly happening in snow-dominated areas such as the northern U.S. and the Rockies, said Li Li, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at Pennsylvania State University and co-author of the study.

Climate change, she said, is changing the size and timing of the mountain snowpack, and that's contributing to river heat waves. The researchers also found more days when rivers were warm enough to stress cold-water species like bull trout.

Todd Tanner’s School of Trout in Bigfork, Montana, typically organizes fly-fishing classes from May to October in the northwest. But “the window for those trips seems to be growing narrower” as conditions get hotter, drier and more wildfire-prone, said Tanner, 65.

The school has shifted classes to avoid adverse conditions.

“I’ve been in Montana full time for the last 34 years,” he said. “This wasn’t something that we even thought about 30 years ago or 25 years ago.”

___

Pineda reported from Los Angeles.

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

In an interview as he becomes chair of the National Governors Association, the potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender ticked through Trump's efforts to restrict voting by mail, obtain voter information from states and possibly deploy federal troops or agents to polling places. Moore said there was a role for the NGA, a bipartisan group, to ensure states are able to oversee elections as designed by the U.S. Constitution.

“I don't think that the president is trying to hide the ball on this,” Moore said. “It's not even am I concerned about what the president could do? I'm concerned about what he's already doing in broad daylight.”

Moore's national profile is expanding and so is speculation about the White House

The 47-year-old governor's national profile is rising as he assumes the top leadership post for the nation's governors on Saturday, a role once held by Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. Moore is the subject of frequent speculation that he will announce a presidential run, a prospect he rules out, saying he will not “get distracted” before the November elections.

His travel to early presidential testing grounds such as South Carolina and Nevada, though, suggests he may run. Moore is proving himself a savvy digital communicator and crafts an image as a newcomer to politics while voters demand change.

The centerpiece of his agenda as NGA chair — a national program to build communities and draw young people into the workforce through service-oriented work — could be a pillar of a future campaign.

“Service will save us as a society because I know service saved me,” he said, recalling his time in the Army.

The “Service United” campaign opens with $10 million in philanthropic support to build on similar work Moore has done in Maryland, including a $5 million expansion of an apprenticeship program in the state announced this week.

“It's an opportunity to help people with a career path,” said Bechara Choucair, the executive vice president and chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente, which is building a youth mental health corps with Service United.

Dame Louise Richardson, the president of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, which is supporting the program, said she hopes to “see the day when you meet somebody, they don't just ask, ‘Where did you go to college?’ but they ask, ‘Where did you do your service year?’”

The contours of the initiative have drawn support from some Republicans, including Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, the outgoing NGA chair.

“One of the things I like is the apprenticeship model and getting kids out of the classroom and into more workforce learning,” Stitt said. “So I think that's brilliant.”

Divisions between parties run deep despite nods at bipartisanship

But that optimism masks the challenge facing Moore as he takes the helm of one of the few remaining political groups that bring top Republicans and Democrats together. For all the nods at bipartisanship, the divides between — and within — the parties run deep.

Even as he spoke warmly of Moore's program, Stitt warned against anything resembling a “big government program.”

Moore, meanwhile, spoke of public frustration with the government’s response to dramatic changes in the workforce, driven by advances in artificial intelligence that could erode entry-level work that has long helped young people start their careers. He said the White House has complicated the dynamic.

“We want to say that if a person goes on to a four-year college or chooses not to go to a four-year college, they still need to have pathways to long-term wages and wealth," Moore said. “What we have seen from the federal government thus far has just been simply executive orders that have told the states to stay out of it.”

Moore and Trump have sparred frequently and there's potential for more

Moore has a challenging relationship with Trump, who sought to bar him and Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., from a White House meeting organized by the NGA earlier this year. The president relented after Stitt intervened, though there is little to suggest that the relationship has recovered, raising the potential of another confrontation at the next NGA meeting, traditionally held February in Washington.

When asked about Trump, Moore noted his enjoyment at working with governors from both parties before saying “the president of the United States seems to consistently take an ideological view when it comes to securing the future of this country."

The White House did not comment on Moore's characterization.

But Moore also is contending with divides among his fellow Democrats.

At home in Maryland, where he is seeking reelection this fall, he has at times struggled to win over Democrats in the legislature, which reconvenes next week to consider a constitutional amendment on redistricting after an earlier effort he backed fell short.

Moore says party bosses should not rule

The Democratic National Committee is in turmoil. A string of democratic socialists has won primaries from New York City to Denver, prompting debate over whether the party is moving too far to the left and threatening its potential victories in the fall. Upcoming elections in Michigan and Wisconsin will further tug at the divide.

Moore did not take a firm stance with either of his party's ideological wings. He batted away questions about democratic socialists potentially imperiling Democratic wins, insisting it was up to voters to decide who their nominees would be.

“Party bosses shouldn't be determining who members of the party are,” he said, without specifying whether he was referring to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York as one of them. “The people should be the ones to have a final say on that.”

At the same time, Moore made clear that he did not support some of the left flank's positions.

“I know where I am on issues,” he said. “I don't believe in abolishing the police. I don't believe in abolishing prisons. I don't believe in open borders.”

Democrats sound alarm about Trump role in midterms

But perhaps the biggest test for Moore will be navigating the management of this year's elections without denting the bipartisan tone that typically defines the NGA. He will be in the middle of Republicans who are calling for tougher rules, particularly around voter identification and deadlines for mail ballots, and fellow Democrats who warn of voter suppression.

Democratic Gov. Josh Stein of North Carolina, who leads one of the most politically competitive states that includes a marquee Senate race this fall, echoed Moore's concerns about federal interference.

“I don’t think you can be a clear-thinking person and not be concerned because all the signals are very worrisome,” he said in an interview. “But that said, I have confidence that if the voters come out in droves and vote the way that they want to vote, that the government will represent their wishes.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said that "if Democrats really cared about securing our elections, they would pass the SAVE America Act,” referring to a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill that is stalled in the Senate.

Stitt expressed confidence that states would hold elections without federal intervention while noting his support for the voting bill. But he also rejected federal intervention and said: "States should control their own elections.”

Moore said he used to associate states’ rights arguments with segregationists like Bull Connor, the infamous public safety commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama, who turned fire hoses and dogs on peaceful protesters during the Civil Rights era.

Now, Moore said, the Trump era has reshaped his views and reinforced “the importance of having actually strong governors.”

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Deputies identified the suspects as David Williams, 44, of Miami, and Alexander Oscar, 46.

According to the report, surveillance video captured Williams and Oscar entering MIA through the curbside arrivals area on multiple occasions and walking to baggage carousels, where the pair removed luggage before leaving the terminal and entered “waiting vehicles.”

Investigators said the thefts happened in April and involved multiple cases at MIA.

They said in one case, Williams and Oscar allegedly stole luggage valued at $6,305 from Carousel 26.

In another case, the pair allegedly took luggage valued at approximately $4,000 from that same carousel, according to deputies.

The report also states Williams was captured on surveillance video in several other incidents, allegedly removing luggage from carousels 22, 23 and 25 at MIA.

Traveler Asha Warner told Local 10’s Aaron Maybin that she wasn’t surprised to hear of the crimes at the popular airport.

“I mean that makes sense. It’s pretty easy to get right in here. People put valuables in their bag,” she said. “They put jewelry, money, whatever. It sucks and that’s unfortunate but it’s like not surprising.”

Investigators said the total value of property stolen in all cases was listed at $27,205.

Travelers are relieved detectives tracked down the men before more people became victims.

“That’s great on the airport security,” said Warner. “I’m glad they committed to that and found the people and did what’s right.”

Jail records show Williams is facing six counts of third-degree grand theft, while Oscar is facing two counts of the same charge.

Records show Williams was previously arrested on one count of armed robbery with a deadly weapon in an unrelated case.

As of Friday afternoon, both men were being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, with Williams’ bond set at $20,000 and Oscar’s set at $7,500.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer also banned the pair from visiting MIA.

Toss in a crescendoing meteor shower and a six-planet parade on the same day, and the heavens will be overflowing with awe.

Daytime darkness will descend Aug. 12 across the Iberian Peninsula close to sunset — plus slivers of Greenland and Iceland — as the sun, moon and Earth align perfectly in the sky.

Starting near the North Pole before tracking south, totality will last up to two minutes and 18 seconds, an appetizer for an even longer solar show next year — a 6 ½-minute extravaganza that will sweep from Spain to North Africa and the Middle East.

It will take 1 ½ hours for the umbra, or moon’s sun-blocking shadow, to race along the 5,130-mile (8,260-kilometer) course, most of it over an empty Atlantic. Maximum totality will occur off Iceland’s west coast. By the time it reaches a small patch of Portugal and then Spain with its massive crowds, totality will have dwindled to a minute or so. The spectacle will end in the Mediterranean.

Eclipse chasers gear up for the solar spectacle

Hundreds of millions more on the sidelines are in for a treat as well.

A partial eclipse will delight as far away as Alaska and Siberia, enveloping Canada, the northern U.S., and much of Europe and West Africa.

The closer to totality’s course, the more the sun will vanish behind the moon – 94% coverage in Dublin and 83% in Oslo, Norway. Montreal will see an 18% bite out of the sun, tapering to 9% in New York and 2% in Norfolk, Virginia.

Special eclipse glasses are crucial. even if a morsel of sun is showing.

Adding to the cosmic wonder, the day begins with six of our neighboring planets forming an arc in the sky before dawn and end with the Perseid meteor shower peaking after nightfall under the new moon. Streaking meteors could photobomb totality, with some of the brighter planets and stars visible in the background.

Eclipse mapmaker Michael Zeiler is chasing an even more elusive interloper: the northern lights.

For his 13th total solar eclipse, Zeiler will be on a cruise ship in a Greenland fjord, sailing as a guest lecturer. He’ll point a video camera toward the north to capture any aurora forming during totality. A massive outburst from the sun would be the icing on his eclipse cake.

“What gets me excited is viewing rare phenomena,” Zeiler said in an email.

He’s not the only one revved up.

See who's hosting solar eclipse watch parties and science experiments

The European Space Agency will host a live webcast from Spain’s Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre and a public celebration in Leon. NASA will provide its own coverage, as will the Italian-based Virtual Telescope Project and others.

“For me, it’s not just a scientific moment. It’s not just an incredible alignment of heavenly bodies. It’s also a very human moment,” said ESA’s director of science Carole Mundell. “It’s a real human connection between us with our feet planted on the Earth and the cosmos.”

Two of ESA’s space telescopes will observe the eclipsed sun and its corona, or outer atmosphere. Proba-3, the space agency’s artificial eclipse-making satellite duo, will be in the wrong part of its orbit during totality as seen from Earth, but will try to sneak in some before-and-after shots.

U.S. college research teams are also pitching in, launching more than 60 high-altitude balloons from Spain and Iceland to study Earth’s atmosphere and other changes during the eclipse when the temperature momentarily drops. They launched 10 times as many balloons during the 2024 total solar eclipse that captivated North America.

“A couple of minutes isn’t a lot of time, but it’s still plenty to affect the atmosphere and to make that cold, dark shadow of the moon on Earth,” said Montana State University’s Angela Des Jardins, who leads the NASA-funded balloon project.

Southwest Research Institute’s Amir Caspi also expects a scientific bonanza from his study aboard a NASA high-altitude plane. Four cameras will record the corona in nine wavelengths as the jet chases the eclipse at 460 mph (740 kph), extending totality to nearly three minutes in the air. Caspi anticipates thousands of images gathered from each camera during those precious 180 seconds.

"It’s true the eclipse is short, but it’s still incredibly valuable," he said.

And there's more to come

An exceptionally long total solar eclipse is in store for 2027, yielding nearly three times more observation time.

The southern tip of Spain will take center stage on Aug. 2, 2027, with up to six minutes and 23 seconds of totality extending into Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia.

Then on Jan. 26, 2028, a ring-of-fire eclipse will round out Spain’s celestial trifecta — “a lucky coincidence,” according to ESA’s Mundell.

It’s all the more extraordinary considering Spain’s last full solar eclipse — not counting the Canary Islands — occurred two days before the Titanic’s sinking in 1912. Because that rare hybrid eclipse toggled between a ring-of-fire and just a few seconds of totality for Spain, some consider 1905 for the country’s last pull-out-all-the-stops solar eclipse.

The Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Andrei Zhukov can’t get enough of them regardless of their length or origin. His Proba-3 science mission has created more than 60 simulated total solar eclipses over the past two years, with the longest lasting five hours and 38 minutes from two satellites flying in formation.

“We’re looking forward to more eclipses,” Zhukov said, “natural or artificial.”

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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.

In the Mediterranean Var, a fire thought to have stopped advancing raced across 10 square kilometers (4 square miles) in six hours on Friday — “faster than a horse at full gallop,” the prefecture said.

The opposing movements — mass returns in France's Gironde region, renewed displacement in the Var and boat evacuations from a Greek resort — underscored how quickly days of firefighting progress can be reversed.

At their peak, fires in France and Spain alone drove a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, stretching firefighters, aircraft and emergency services across simultaneous crises.

Europe is Earth’s fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought dry vegetation, allowing fires to spread faster and burn more intensely.

Cap Ferret remains evacuated

The Gironde fire has burned 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of pine forest west of Bordeaux, an area four times the size of Paris.

Firefighters said it remained contained within that perimeter Saturday. But it had not been declared “fixed” — the point at which crews determine that a fire is no longer advancing — and active sectors and buried hot spots persisted.

Several communities remained largely deserted. Authorities kept much of the affluent, forested Cap Ferret peninsula evacuated because a nearby hot spot could flare again, cut its limited road access and trap people allowed back.

“Today, the fire is still not fixed. It is contained,” Lt. Col. Eric Pitault told reporters.

Crews used tactical burns overnight, deliberately consuming vegetation ahead of active sectors. They still faced about 240 kilometers (149 miles) of fire edges where heat can remain buried underground and erupt again.

The fire’s toll extended beyond people and property. Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of France’s League for the Protection of Birds, told RMC radio that animals affected already numbered in the millions.

Fire roars back in southern France

In the Var, defensive lines around the Gros Bessillon fire held overnight and no additional ground burned, Var Prefect Simon Babre told French media Saturday.

But the fire remained active. About 2,500 people were still unable to return home, and 1,300 firefighters were deployed.

The blaze’s sudden return “defies understanding,” Babre said.

Twenty French departments were under an orange heat warning Saturday, mostly in the east and southeast. Temperatures of 35 to 39 C (95 to 102 F) were forecast around the Mediterranean, while eight departments faced a high forest-fire risk.

Gale-force winds batter Greek resort

In Greece, hundreds of firefighters fought Saturday to protect Porto Germeno, a popular resort on the Gulf of Corinth, as gale-force winds drove flames through the coastal area west of Athens.

The fire broke out Friday near the neighboring village of Agios Vasileios. About 300 people were evacuated by sea, and authorities issued further evacuation orders Saturday.

Towering flames devoured thick pine forest around Porto Germeno as smoke blocked out the sun.

“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” said Minas Tzortzanis, a 60-year-old farmer and local resident. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”

Tzortzanis said homes, trees and animals in the forest had been destroyed.

Theodore Giannaros, a wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory of Athens, estimated that 40 to 50 square kilometers (15 to 19 square miles) had been affected, although authorities had not issued an official burned-area figure.

Nearly 500 firefighters, including crews from France and Romania temporarily stationed in Greece, were backed by 19 water-dropping planes and 11 helicopters. Local authorities said homes had been destroyed, but a complete count was not immediately available.

New fires broke out elsewhere in Greece on Saturday. A blaze east of Nafpaktos prompted evacuation alerts for at least four villages.

“The very strong to gale-force winds continue to create exceptionally difficult conditions,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Evangelos Tournas said. He said extreme turbulence was preventing some aircraft from collecting water or approaching the fires closely enough to make drops.

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Adamson reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, and Michael Varaklas in Porto Germeno, Greece contributed to this report.

The social media posts of the world's most powerful man are going on sale Saturday when his Truth Social business begins offering sneak peeks of them to Wall Street traders willing to pay up. The move raises the prospect of big profits for Trump's company and big questions about insider trading and using public office for private gain.

Similar fast speed feeds are sold by other social media firms and media providers, but Truth Social doesn't just distribute the news, it makes it, regularly rattling markets as Trump posts policy changes on everything from war to central bank leadership to tariffs.

“If this was the CEO a public company, this would be jail time," said Irene Aldridge, head of Able Alpha Trading, which doesn't plan to buy the service. “We have a President of the United States who has the front seat to all the action, who makes all the decisions, and he's disclosing this ahead of time to a select group.”

Trump's company says critics just aren't capitalist enough

Asked about the propriety of the new service and whether White House lawyers had vetted it, Trump’s press office declined to comment, referring questions to Truth Social’s publicly traded parent. That company, Trump Media & Technology, issued a statement blasting Democratic critics for mischaracterizing the service “out of ideological opposition to free markets or a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information — or, quite possibly, both.”

A prolific poster, Trump has sent stocks, bonds and currencies soaring and plunging with his online musings and threats. That presents opportunities for so-called high frequency traders that specialized in buying and selling within milliseconds, exploiting tiny, fleeting difference in prices.

Profits aplenty betting on oil, stocks and currencies

Just this month, Trump has threatened on Truth Social to slap higher tariffs on Canada, kill a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and widen the Iran war. With advanced knowledge, traders betting on a plunge in the Canadian dollar, a drop in nuclear energy stocks and a jump in oil futures could have raked in big profits.

“For the big guys, it’s going to be something they need,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-founder of Themis Trading, who estimates about 100 of high frequency firms might be willing to pay for the service. “It’s market-moving information.”

Dubbed Truth API, the service comes as these firms are spending more on feeds and servers that bypass slower internet connections with direct lines to news and data sources. The chance for profits is greater than ever thanks artificial intelligence’s ability to read posts and articles more accurately for market-making changes and Trump’s penchant for making news online.

When Trump makes surprise announcements, traders pounce

Traders profit when prices jump up and down, and with his taste for cliffhangers, threats and policy reversals America's first reality-TV president provides plenty of potentially market-moving content.

The reversals are especially profitable, allowing traders to win both ways — jumping ahead of stocks moving up or down to a post threatening something, then cashing out within thousands of a second, then betting the other way.

In addition to Trump, the service will include posts from other “high ranking” Truth Social contributors, including possibly his two oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, who along with the father are heavily followed by users.

Truth Social has said that the information will be released to the traders and the general public at the same time so there really isn't an issue of fairness. But Themis Trading's Saluzzi, a critic of high speed trading, says that's a red herring because when the posts are received, not when they are released, is what matters.

“Somebody who buys the info and has a system built to process it will be able to act quicker than you and me,” said Saluzzi, adding in reference to everyday, small stock buyers, “The loser is always the retail investor."

Trump posts about a company he likes, and stocks jump

Aside from policy scoops, another reason to sign up has emerged in recent months: Trump is posting more about publicly traded companies, praising ones he likes in a way that sets off buying frenzies.

“The pimping of specific companies — obviously Wall Street would like to know that before other people,” said Dylan Hedler-Gaudette, a federal ethics rule expert at the watchdog Project on Government Oversight. “It's a real mess.”

In April, moments after Trump praised Palantir Technologies in a post that included its stock symbol, the price briefly jumped the most it had in an entire year. Later that month, Trump posted, “Congratulations on Intel doing such a great job,” and the stock immediately jumped in after-hours trading.

Just which firms are signing up for the feed is unclear. Asked for comment, none of the half dozen most well known high-speed traders such as Citadel Securities and XTX Markets replied. If just three sign up for the $100,000 a month fee, that would double revenue at Trump Media, which reported taking in $3.7 million last year.

Trump Media needs big money customers

The company can use their business.

Stock in the Truth Social parent has plunged 75% since Trump took office last year as the company keeps reporting hundreds of millions in losses despite the president's help driving traffic to its site by posting major decisions there.

In fact, the president breaks news on Truth Social so often that the White House press office will copy his posts into an email when responding to questions from the media seeking details on policies. If his posts aren’t available yet, journalists are sometimes told, “Wait for the Truth.”

Another problem for Truth Social is looming if the Democrats take control of Congress and launch investigations, as vowed by Massachusetts Senator Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a statement Friday specifically attacking the new service: “We will haul in those responsible for this open corruption to answer to the American people.”

If the losses keep mounting for the company, though, some predict the president will push things further, using the platform even more for policy announcements.

“That’s absolutely going to happen,” warns Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the good government group Public Citizen. “Trump knows how to sell products.”

—-

AP reporters Will Weissert and Josh Boak contributed from Washington.

Both notes initially were sent to a Tucson television station days after the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie went missing from her home outside Tucson on Feb. 1. Authorities have not said whether Nancy Guthrie is still alive.

Saturday is the six-month mark since Guthrie went missing. No suspects have been arrested in her disappearance. The investigation is dogged by unanswered questions, such as how many people are believed to have taken part in her abduction and whether she was taken by someone who knew her.

In her latest video about her mother’s disappearance, Savannah Guthrie said earlier this week that her family has been living an unending nightmare and pleaded with the kidnappers to “tell us where to look for her.”

The FBI in Washington did not immediately respond to questions about the ransom notes, including whether both messages sent to the Tucson station have been deemed legitimate.

In releasing the notes, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said “we believe these distinctive linguistic characteristics may be recognizable to someone who knows or has interacted with the notes’ writer.”

The first note, sent Feb. 2, said Guthrie was safe but scared and would be released unharmed once her captors received $4 million in cryptocurrency, with the ransom amount increasing if the first demand was not met.

It said Guthrie would be released within 12 hours if the payment was received. It also included a threat to kill her if the ransom wasn’t paid.

“Your mother is aware of this and her life is in your hands,” the first note read. “It is in the best interest of everyone to have this completed as soon as possible.”

The second note was sent Feb. 6 and said Guthrie died shortly after she was taken. “She is buried in nature now,” it said. “Nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome.” The note ended with an apology: “We are truly sorry.”

Investigators hope the writing itself will help identify its author

The sheriff’s department said the notes reveal a distinctive pattern of word choices and provide insight into the writer’s mindset. The agency said someone who knows the notes’ writer may recognize the patterns.

Authorities similarly used a suspect’s own writings as a tool to apprehend Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI. Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured 23 others with mail bombs over a 17-year span, pressured The Washington Post, in conjunction with The New York Times, to publish his 35,000-word manifesto in 1995. Federal authorities encouraged its publication, leading Kaczynski’s brother and sister-in-law to recognize the syntax and anti-technology themes and tip off the FBI, bringing to a close the agency’s longest and costliest investigation at the time.

In a statement Friday, the sheriff’s department also appealed to people who may know something about the case, saying it may be difficult to come forward due to a personal relationship with someone involved or just for their own safety.

“We recognize relationships and loyalties change over time as do people and their perspectives,” the sheriff’s department wrote. “It is not too late to come forward.”

Authorities say new evidence suggests the kidnapping was planned

The sheriff’s office also said Friday that two videos recovered from Guthrie’s doorbell camera might be from two separate days and indicate an unidentified male prepared ahead of when Guthrie was taken. Authorities are seeking information on anyone who was behaving differently, changed their physical appearance, suddenly left the Tucson area, or had a noticeable or unexplained interest or disinterest in the case.

“Investigators continue to pursue every available technological and investigative lead,” the sheriff’s office said. “However, community members remain a vital resource as we seek to provide answers for Nancy’s family.”

The FBI had released surveillance videos of a masked person who authorities said appeared to tamper with a camera on Nancy Guthrie’s front porch and block it with a plant. They described the person as a male about 5 feet, 9 inches (1.75 meters) tall.

On Feb. 4, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings first shared a video statement saying they were aware of media reports of a purported ransom letter and that they were ready to talk and listen, but they wanted proof that their mother was alive. Camron Guthrie, the brother of the “Today” co-anchor, said the following day that the family had not heard directly from whoever took their mother.

A day after the second note was sent, Savannah Guthrie said on Feb. 7 that the siblings received a message and “understand,” without sharing details. She said they were begging for their mother to be returned to them. “We will pay,” Guthrie said.

The family has continued to share their pleas for information in videos posted to social media.

Two men who were previously detained have filed a lawsuit

Also, two men detained and released early in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance are seeking a combined $3 million against a southern Arizona sheriff’s department. In a legal claim, they say they were wrongfully held by law enforcement.

The claim made Thursday against Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos’ department centers on the separate detentions of Carlos Alfredo Palazuelos and Daniel Maddow on Feb. 10. It said they were released hours later but have suffered from having been mentioned in the investigation.

Nanos’ office declined to comment on the notice of claim, a necessary precursor to filing a lawsuit against government entities.

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Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.

The second half kicked off Saturday with what seemed a clear aim of ending Infantino’s decade-long presidency.

“No option should be off the table,” said European soccer body UEFA, whose president Aleksander Čeferin has led the fight against Infantino in a seismic week for FIFA.

“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.”

Infantino had proposed creating a $20 billion company to run the World Cup with private investors but drew backlash that grew every day since Tuesday’s announcement.

Infantino was forced to scrap the plan early Saturday after his senior adviser who sat on a White House panel resigned and Asia’s soccer body joined Europe and North America in opposing it.

UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, issued its blistering statement hours after FIFA announced it was withdrawing its private equity plan.

“We cannot keep going on like this with secret schemes on fast-track timescales, cooked up by faceless individuals and of dubious benefit to the game," UEFA said. “We must identify those responsible and hold them to account.

“It is right that, in the coming days and weeks, UEFA will work with its associations and in close cooperation with other confederations to reflect on how this happened and devise a plan to make sure that it cannot occur again.”

Norwegian soccer federation president Lise Klaveness, an elected member of the UEFA executive committee, said steps must be taken to protect the integrity of the sport.

“The entire framework of international football cooperation was unnecessarily put at risk in pursuit of individual interests rather than the best interests of the game,” Klaveness said Saturday. ”This has been visible to many for a long time, including those of us elected to positions intended to safeguard checks and balances and provide ongoing oversight. We have to recognize that these mechanisms have not worked well enough.”

The president of the Asian soccer confederation, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, said “the future of global football must always be shaped through proper consultation, collective dialogue and respect for the established governance structures of our game."

Infantino' audacious bid fell apart after UEFA’s 55-member nations agreed Thursday to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA competitions. North America’s CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation also said they opposed the plan.

There was also an internal revolt.

Infantino’s senior adviser, Carlos Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs banker who represented the soccer body on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned on Friday and urged other senior FIFA staff to speak out.

Hours later, FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying FIFA staff were deceived by Infantino’s lack of openness in planning the sale over recent months and that the project must not continue.

“It is the project of one person,” wrote Lamour, a longtime colleague of Infantino at both FIFA and UEFA. “Not only must this project not go ahead … but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.”

Infantino had proposed spinning off FIFA’s commercial businesses — including World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women — into a $20 billion subsidiary with 20% owned by private investors.

The “anchor investor,” described by FIFA, is a New York-based investment firm launched by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

This is not Infantino's first big plan to flop

A tumultuous week in international soccer is at least the third time Infantino has rocked it with an ambitious plan many in the sport saw as reckless.

But the fallout from FIFA’s Kushner-backed plan is the first time UEFA has acted quickly to create momentum for removing the man who was its former long-time employee.

In 2018, Infantino pushed a secretive offer of $25 billion from Japan’s SoftBank to create new competitions, that posed a long-term risk to continental events for clubs and national teams.

In 2021, Infantino proposed playing World Cups every two years instead of four — an idea that also angered the International Olympic Committee where he is an elected member.

Both plans created big rifts in the sport and were eventually dropped by FIFA.

Despite the turmoil, Infantino was re-elected unopposed in 2019 and 2023.

The third time shapes to be different.

Here is the calendar for the FIFA presidency

Nov. 18 is the deadline for candidates to enter the next presidential contest, exactly four months ahead of the vote in Rabat, Morocco, where FIFA has its African headquarters.

FIFA statutes allow Infantino one more four-year term in office. The failed spinoff venture seemed like a way to create a commissioner-like role for Infantino beyond 2031, likely paying much more than his current annual salary and a bonus deal of more than $6 million.

It would take 106 votes to ensure a majority in a contested election. Continents surely do not vote uniformly en bloc, but most of Europe’s 55, plus Asia’s 46 and CONCACAF’s 35 FIFA members would be a solid base.

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Wilson contributed to this report from Barcelona, Spain.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and AP World Cup coverage

Some of those storms, mainly between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., could cause localized street flooding in poor-drainage neighborhoods. Similar conditions are on tap for Sunday, so plan your outdoor activities early and be prepared to spend your afternoon indoors.

In the tropics, all is quiet right now, although some models spin something up off the southeastern U.S. coast by later next week.

Hours later on Saturday, Kuwait said it responded to a new round of drone attacks from Iran while a tanker was struck in the strategic waterway.

Meanwhile, Israel carried out heavy strikes on the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed to disarm.

Here are the most important developments in the Middle East today:

US threatens new strikes in the conflict with Iran

Speaking to reporters Friday during a meeting with members of his Cabinet at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, Trump said “we just want to win” in Iran and signaled that he expected U.S. military action to continue for some time.

He said the U.S. will hit Iran “very hard” until they can’t take it anymore.

Later that day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt expressed the U.S. administration’s frustration anew, charging that Tehran last month signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. on a truce but then quickly “broke it, shot at commercial ships, and killed American soldiers.”

“President Trump is not going to stand by and allow this terrorist behavior to occur,” Leavitt said in a statement on Friday evening. “Iran will continue to pay until they come to the table in, what President Trump deems, a meaningful way.”

On Saturday, the U.S. State Department issued new security alerts for Americans in 10 countries in the region to exercise heightened caution due to the escalating tensions with Iran.

The warnings — covering Bahrain, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates — urged U.S. citizens to prepare for the possibility of flight cancellations, temporary airspace closures and other travel disruptions.

New attacks on Kuwait and on shipping

Kuwait’s military said Saturday that its forces were responding to drone attacks, which were part of Iran’s assaults on the country.

In a statement, Maj. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, spokesman for Kuwait's Defense Ministry, said the drones hit “a number of vital facilities,” including a government structure in the country's north. He said there were no casualties.

The British Navy said Saturday that a tanker was struck and a separate explosion hit close to a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman. No casualties were reported in either incident, it said. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization said an unknown projectile hit the vessel on Friday 11 nautical miles northeast of Lima, Oman. The attack damaged the vessel’s engine room.

The group said that on Saturday a large splash and an explosion were reported close to another tanker while it was sailing 21 nautical miles northwest of Khasab city.

Iran has repeatedly attacked vessels attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz without its authorization as part of its ongoing conflict with the U.S.

Israel strikes Gaza after Hamas says it will disarm

Intense Israeli strikes Friday night and Saturday killed at least four people in central and northern Gaza and wounded dozens more, according to local health officials.

The strikes overnight in Gaza followed evacuation warnings by Israel’s military, which said on Saturday that it had struck Hamas targets across the territory and dismantled five Hamas storage facilities.

The strikes came after Hamas confirmed Friday that it will disarm in a potential breakthrough for ending the war in Gaza, though major obstacles remain. Israel has not officially commented on the Hamas deal, which is part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire announced last October.

That agreement called for Hamas to disarm and hand over power to an independent Palestinian administration. Israel was to withdraw and an International Stabilization Force was to be deployed.

In a post on X Friday, Israeli far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir called the deal “unacceptable” and said the killings in Gaza must continue. “Israel must win,” he said.

Egypt, a key Gaza ceasefire mediator, lauded Hamas and other Palestinian groups for “their positive response” in the phased peace plan, Egyptian state-run media reported.

The Associated Press is tracking the progress of Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.

Click here for full coverage from AP on the disarmament deal for Hamas.

Elsewhere in the region

— Houthi rebels forced eight Saudi ships to reroute from the Bab el-Mandeb strait after the Iranian-backed rebels announced a blockade on Saudi shipping in the chokepoint. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the military spokesman for the Houthis, said in a statement Friday that the vessels changed route to the Cape of Good Hope around Africa to avert the blockade.

— In southern Lebanon, Israeli forces set off explosions Friday to destroy an underground tunnel network under the Crusader-built Beaufort Castle that Israel says had been used by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants as a command center. The 12th-century castle, also known as Al-Shaqif, was seized by Israeli forces in May. It was recently added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List over Israel’s objections.

— Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun said the Israeli operation sent “negative messages” ahead of upcoming talks in Rome. Israeli and Lebanese negotiating teams are set to meet again there to continue hammering out a plan under which Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

— An Israeli army officer was moderately wounded during operational activity in southern Lebanon overnight into Saturday, Israel's military said. It was not immediately clear how the officer was wounded. There was no immediate comment from Lebanese authorities or Hezbollah. Thirty-eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon or northern Israel since that conflict reignited when Hezbollah fired at Israel shortly after the start of the Iran war.

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Madhani reported from Washington.

The death toll climbed to 67, including some who drowned and others who were killed in a stampede to cross a breakwater barrier, the Spanish government said Saturday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez slammed the reaction of some other European Union leaders to the events in Ceuta, saying calls for Spain to be suspended from the EU's borderless Schengen zone were “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest.”

A handful of exhausted migrants who swam to Ceuta's urban Tarajal beach Saturday morning were met by soldiers who escorted them back across the border. Spain's interior ministry says the majority of those who entered the territory have already returned to Morocco.

“We are relentless against those who break the law,” Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told journalists in Ceuta on Saturday.

Questioned how this massive border breach could have happened given the heavy security on both sides of the border and whether Morocco posed a threat to Ceuta, Marlaska defended the government in Rabat.

“The events require an evaluation by Spain and Morocco,” he said. But it was the cooperation with its neighbors that allowed Spain “to revert the situation in 24 hours.”

“Morocco is not a threat to Ceuta, or to the rest of Spain. It is a reliable partner,” Marlaska emphasized.

EU leaders call for coordinated response

The leaders of 22 EU countries called for a coordinated response to the situation in Ceuta.

In a letter to top EU officials, released Saturday by the Danish prime minister’s office, the countries asked the EU's current Irish presidency to urgently convene an extraordinary videoconference of the bloc's interior ministers.

“We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible. That a migrant’s illegal entry can turn into legal stay,” the letter said. “Such a perception would encourage further attempts, undermine confidence in our common migration policy and have repercussions for all Member States.”

The letter was signed by the leaders of Italy, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden.

Sánchez, Spain's prime minister, also asked for a videoconference of EU interior ministers to “enable us to establish a common response to situations of this kind and reaffirm that the security of our external borders is a shared responsibility of all Member States, and not only of those on the Union’s front line.”

Sánchez slammed the reaction of some EU nations who he said had “chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area.”

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has threatened to suspend Italy’s open-border Schengen agreement with Spain, and Italy was reimposing border controls for people arriving from Spain by air and sea.

“In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarizing and unlawful reaction,” Sánchez wrote in his letter.

Migrants head back into Morocco

Hundreds of migrants who recently crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta streamed back across the border on Saturday, telling an Associated Press reporter they were returning “of their own free will” after what they described as degrading treatment on the Spanish side.

Migrants walked along a long stretch of wave breakers before slipping into Morocco through a small breach in the border fence that had become an informal entry point. Moroccan police and soldiers stood by, watching. Most of the migrants were Moroccans, while a smaller number were from sub-Saharan Africa.

Hungry and angry, some barefoot or shirtless and others nursing visible injuries, those who returned said they had “seen hell in Ceuta.”

“I decided to come back on my own,” said Ouail Lamzeiz. “I spent eight days in Ceuta, and I was about to get a bed at the migrant center, but I hadn’t eaten for days. Even the Moroccans there didn’t help,” he added, showing a document supporting his account.

His friend, Salah Eddine El Arrage, said he decided to return to Morocco after, he said, Spanish police beat him.

Migrants interviewed by The Associated Press said they spent their nights sleeping in the forests around Ceuta because they could not find shelter, and that they often fought over food.

One, Othmane El Merzoug, stopped passersby to ask for a phone call so he could reach his family and ask them to send money for the journey back to his hometown, about 189 miles (305 kilometers) from the border.

The road linking the Moroccan town of Fnideq to the border crossing bore the scars of the previous night’s unrest. Burned-out vehicles sat along the roadside, while the acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air. Police barriers channeled traffic toward the crossing, and water cannons remained stationed nearby.

“Life in this city has been disrupted as a result of the border incident,” said Ceuta’s President Juan Jesús Vivas. “The return of people has begun satisfactorily but the process must be completed.”

In the Moroccan city of Tangier, about 75 kilometers (46 miles) west of Ceuta, the main railway station was busy with people returning from Ceuta or the border. Some slept on the ground, exhausted.

“I tried to cross, but I failed. I stayed near the border with Ceuta for two days, but I couldn’t find anything to eat,” said Abdalah, an aspiring migrant who asked that his last name not be published out of fear of retaliation for trying to cross illegally.

But some who made it to Ceuta were determined to stay. Among them was Mohamed Hatri, a 23-year-old Moroccan.

“They’ve closed everything down so that we can’t buy anything to eat, to force us to return to our country,” he said. “But even if they close it down … we’re round to stay here, whether we’re hungry or not.” —— Oubachir reported from Fnideq, Morocco. Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain and Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece contributed to this report.

Kelsey Mitchell also had 26 points for the Fever (19-10), who have won nine of their last 11 and had five straight games with 100 points.

Bridget Carleton had 26 points for the Fire (11-18), who have lost four straight.

The Fever pulled away in the third quarter, going up by 18 points to lead 90-72 heading into the fourth quarter. Makayla Timpson hit a layup that pushed the lead to 10 points to open the fourth.

Portland closed the gap, pulling to 98-88 on Carleton's 3-pointer with 4:08 left. She had a layup that made it 100-93 to get the Fire even closer. Clark hit free throws to make it 110-96 with just a minute to go and the Fire ran out of time.

There was a pregame rally outside of the Moda Center in support of Sophie Cunningham and her recent comments about barring transgender athletes from women's and girls' sports. A similar rally was held before the Fever's 105-94 victory at the Seattle Storm on Tuesday.

Cunningham was booed by the Moda Center crowd when she came into the game midway though the first quarter. Shortly thereafter, she hit a 3-pointer that put the Fever up 14-8. Cunningham finished with 13 points.

Megan DiLeo 3-pointer put the Fire up 36-30 but the Fever clawed back a 56-47 lead at the half. Clark led the Fever with 17 first-half points.

The game was a sellout with a Fire-record 19,959 in attendance.

Up next

Fever: At Minnesota on Sunday.

Fire: Host Los Angeles on Sunday.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

The Manchester low-rise is home to “No. 10 North,” the flagship of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s pledge to be a different kind of U.K. leader. Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester before vaulting back into national politics, and one of his first acts was to set up a branch office in the city. It’s both symbol of and engine for his pledge to give local leaders more powers and spread economic growth around the country.

Burnham calls it “a North Pole that balances the South Pole" of Westminster politics in London. Critics have called it a gimmick.

It’s certainly a novelty. While past British leaders have spent weekends in their local constituencies, or at the prime minister’s official Chequers country retreat, none in living memory has had a large-scale office outside London. Burnham plans to work there at least one day a week, alongside a full-time staff of aides, experts and civil servants.

“It’s not another office," Burnham said Friday. "It is a fundamental change to the way the country thinks about growth and investment."

The king of the north goes nationwide

Burnham believes Manchester holds the key to avoiding the fate of Keir Starmer, his predecessor as Labour Party leader and prime minister.

Starmer stepped down in July after two years in office, following missteps, policy U-turns and his failure to get Britain’s sluggish economy growing.

During nine years as Manchester mayor, Burnham was praised standing up to central government on behalf of a proud, battle-scarred northern city that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, movements for social change and a dynamic music scene. He gained the nickname King of the North for his championing of the city — and his political ambition.

Burnham promoted what has been called “Manchesterism,” a form of business-friendly socialism that involves harnessing private investment for major projects and decentralizing government to give communities more control over housing, transport, training and public services.

The city center boomed during his mayoralty. Skyscrapers sprouted from vacant lots, service industries grew, a thousand coffee shops bloomed and a municipally run network of bright yellow buses and trams crisscrossed the city.

Now Burnham wants to replicate the approach across the country, using No. 10 North as the engine room for redistributing wealth and economic opportunities to areas blighted by shuttered industries, lost jobs and an exodus of young people.

In a first step, Burnham announced Friday that mayors will get to keep a greater share of income and business tax revenue from their areas, calling it the “biggest transfer of power, funding and responsibility from Westminster in a generation.”

Many of the details haven’t been announced, however, including how much new money mayors will be getting.

Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said Burnham’s bold early moves suggest “he does mean business in terms of changing the overall mechanics of government.”

“We have one of the most centralized countries out of all developed democracies in terms of how much money and decision-making power gets hoovered into the center, how little there is for the provinces to do,” Ford said. “He does seem quite determined to change that, but that’s a huge job.”

Burnham's critics point out that Manchester’s boom hasn't spread to all its outskirts, and the anti-immigration party Reform UK has been a beneficiary of voters’ discontent.

Supporters welcome the government’s northern tilt

It’s envisioned that No. 10 North will eventually get a brand-new headquarters as part of an inner-city redevelopment project. For now, it shares a building with a chain pub, a civic register office and a branch of the cyberintelligence agency GCHQ.

It’s very different to cramped, stuffy 10 Downing St, a 350-year-old townhouse awkwardly converted into the hub of a government that has grown too big for it.

Supporters say No. 10 North is already a breath of fresh air. Rose Marley, chief executive of Cooperatives UK, an umbrella group for member-owned businesses, felt the difference when she was invited to a meeting there.

“It was so refreshing that it wasn’t us having to travel to London all the time,” she said. “Westminster might start realizing how bad the trains are and how much it costs when they have to come back the other way.”

Marley, who advised Burnham when he was mayor, likens the impact to when the BBC moved production of some programs to Salford in Greater Manchester.

“For the first time ever, the likes of me were asked onto the BBC sofa,” she said. “It meant voices like mine started to appear on the sofa and a diversity of thinking started to be heard.

“The voices that are furthest away from what you’re saying and what you believe, that’s when you need to listen the most," she said. "Westminster really does need to listen to all the parts of the country.”

Burnham urged to look beyond Manchester

Most Mancunians are proud of their city, and many support the idea of it getting more control over its own affairs.

“I think it makes sense,” said Sam Turner, a nursing lecturer. “Because the north is very different to the south, there are different house values, there’s different land values, with different salaries.”

But Ford says Burnham will need to show that he is giving power to all parts of the country, not just Manchester.

“You could go to Liverpool down the road, or Leeds, or Sheffield and they’ll say, ‘Well, you know, an office in Manchester isn’t necessarily an office for us,’” Ford said. “So that’s an argument he still has to win.”

Lesley Lebbon, visiting Manchester from Newmarket in eastern England, said No. 10 North is “a start,” but that other regions need attention, too. She’d like to see “more No. 10s, maybe an East and a West No. 10.”

Still, “I like the idea of what No. 10 North represents,” she said. “I think any progress has got to be better than no progress.”

Dozens and often hundreds of immigrants' cases a day are being assigned to individual judges in courthouses across the country, in what are known as “mega” master hearings, which have seen a significant increase this year. More than 1,300 such hearings were held in June alone, a nearly threefold jump from the previous June, according to data analyzed by Mobile Pathways, a nonprofit that tracks immigration court data to help immigrants, their lawyers and other organizations.

At the same time, the data shows, courts have severely cut the length of time many people are getting to prepare for complex immigration proceedings, from about six months to often just a little more than a month.

They're subsequently missing hearings, receiving deportation orders and being told they've abandoned any asylum claims at unprecedented rates.

“The combination of collapsed lead times and packed hearing blocks is a schedule designed for people not to have their case heard,” said Bartlomiej Skorupa, chief operating officer of Mobile Pathways. “The data shows valid claims are closed before being adjudicated.”

Those who favor stricter immigration laws see the swift hearings as a course-correction for a longstanding problem.

“There’s no credibility in the system that never reaches an end,” Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, said.

Still, he worries that these rapid-fire hearings could affect judges’ performance.

“You don’t want to put so many cases on that the judges get burned out or that there’s a danger of denying due process to anybody,” Arthur said.

The Justice Department office that handles immigration courts said in a statement that judges were adjusting their schedules to resolve cases more quickly, while making sure all cases get handled fairly and lawfully. It said court delays harm immigrants who have valid claims, and that the public interest is served when the government deports people without legal grounds to stay.

Immigration courts are overwhelmed

Attending immigration court in Harlingen, Texas, on days where there are mega master hearings can mean waiting outside in the hot, crowded entrance for over an hour until the lobby can accommodate the next wave of people. Adults with cases often are accompanied by relatives and attorneys, and detained children are brought in with shelter case managers and legal advocates.

The courts call it a “mega” day when a judge has more than 50 cases scheduled. Although the practice is not new, it became much more frequent starting in mid-May.

On a recent day, about 90 cases were scheduled with Immigration Judge Delia Gonzalez. More than 20 people did not show up, but even so she ran out of time to hear each case and rescheduled a handful of people who had waited more than eight hours.

“There’s a real limit to how many cases a judge can hear with any care in one morning,” said former immigration judge Elizabeth Young. “When you cram that many hearings into a single docket, you’re working through a list, not holding court.”

Some immigrants requested more time before their next hearings, presenting evidence of having been defrauded by unscrupulous attorneys profiled in local news reports. Others without any attorney asked for more time to figure out the proper evidence filing procedures.

A Colombian man who submitted more than 1,500 pages as evidence in his asylum claim said he still wanted to obtain more documentation from members of the military, businesses and politicians back home.

Gonzalez declined the requests. Most cases lasted less than five minutes.

There is no leeway for no-shows

That same day in West Valley City, Utah, Immigration Judge Brock Taylor was assigned 159 cases. By noon, Taylor recited a dozen names of people from Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela who failed to show up. Without elaborating, he said each was properly notified of their hearing date and failed to appear. He ordered them removed from the United States and they would have no right to appeal.

In Chicago, attorney Peter Meinecke, a lawyer for the Resurrection Project, which runs a legal clinic for immigrants, said one of his clients was issued a removal order when he couldn’t attend a mega master hearing across the country in Seattle after a vehicle accident fractured both of his legs and confined him to a wheelchair.

At the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, about 20% of people missed scheduled immigration court hearings nationwide, according to Mobile Pathways. As hearing notice times shrunk, that no-show rate doubled to 40% by this June, the organization said. A nonprofit group that tracks and analyzes immigration court data and gives that information to immigrants and other organizations.

Deportation orders have risen alongside the no-show rates. Almost 33,000 deportation orders were issued in January 2025. This June, there were about 79,000, according to Mobile Pathways' data. And once a deportation order is issued, an immigrant’s asylum claim is almost always considered “abandoned.”

The national rate of cases considered abandoned is now nearly five times the historical average dating back to 2009; in New York and Chicago specifically, it’s roughly six times higher, according to Mobile Pathways.

“That’s a recipe for disaster, because more people are going to be ordered removed in absentia who truly have a valid case,” said Katie Fleming, a director at Acacia Center for Justice, a network of legal service providers.

Some people have even been issued deportation orders while they were inside the building that houses the Chicago immigration court, but confused about where to go and how to get help, according to Alex McGriff, an attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center, which runs a legal help desk there.

“The court ordered them removed despite the fact that they were not absent,” McGriff said.

The backlog is shrinking, but caseloads are not

Advocates for stricter immigration policies call the strategy a time-saver.

“It really is economizing the judge’s time,” said Arthur, the Center for Immigration Studies fellow. “It is increasing the number of final orders that are going out, so that’s decreasing the backlog entirely.”

The backlog, which grew significantly under the Biden administration, has decreased for the first time in at least 10 years. The number of pending cases with the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, decreased from 3.7 to 3.5 million in fiscal year 2025 and continued to drop this year.

“It can be a tough job when you’re doing it at scale,” Arthur said.

Attorneys representing immigrants have similar challenges keeping up as their own caseloads intensify.

Jaime Diez, a veteran immigration attorney based in Brownsville, Texas, recently had almost 20 cases called in one day, nearly 10 times his previously normal pace.

“Due process is being thrown out of the window,” Diez said standing outside the courtroom with a six-inch thick file for one client. “It’s very worrisome, I don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

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Mayes-Osterman reported from Chicago and 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. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat contributed from West Valley City, Utah.

Suddenly, the 2-year-old blue heeler mix wanted nothing to do with Brian’s textured brown skin or furiously rattling tail. Ripley was never in danger because Brian had his venom glands removed years ago.

Dog trainer J.J. Belcher of Sublime Canine in Tucson, Arizona, said the single shock delivered one recent morning from an electronic training collar should be sufficient to keep Ripley away from venomous snakes that can sicken or even kill a dog. Belcher said Ripley can come back in a year for a free training session to make sure the lesson stuck.

Ripley’s owners, Amber Schneider and Wendy Timm, said they opted for the training because the dog regularly hunts small animals.

“We have an acre of natural desert and respect all the snakes, but she’s very curious about wildlife,” said Timm. “We are doing this because we want to keep our dog safe.”

How common are dog-snake interactions?

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says as many as 150,000 dogs are bitten by venomous snakes each year in the United States. In the rattlesnake hot spot of Arizona, emergency veterinarian Dr. Sarah Carotenuto says the Veterinary Specialty Center of Tucson treats four to six dogs daily for rattlesnake bites, along with an occasional cat.

Training programs to protect canines from poisonous snakes are offered around the U.S., especially in the Western deserts, woods and grasslands that are home to western diamondbacks. The snakes can reach over 5 feet long (1.5 meters) and strike in less than a second when they feel threatened.

There are also classes from Illinois to Florida to guard animals against eastern diamondbacks, timber rattlers and other venomous snakes.

Carotenuto said the snakebite survival rate for pets is 94% with quick treatment, which can cost thousands of dollars depending on how much antivenom and hospitalization is needed.

“Do bring us your dog quickly, but please don’t bring us the snake!” emphasized Carotenuto. Some people have brought in the guilty snake, but it’s unnecessary to identify the exact species before administering antivenom effective against all kinds of rattlers.

Which method is best?

Carotenuto, who teaches at the University of Arizona’s College of Veterinary Medicine, said she’s participating in a research study there into whether rattlesnake-aversion training works, and which method is most effective.

Like Belcher, most trainers insist that the use of the electronic collar is necessary to ensure a dog will avoid poisonous snakes.

“It’s a very fast and effective form of training,” said Belcher, who has traveled around the Western U.S. for more than two decades teaching rattlesnake avoidance to thousands of pet and working dogs, including search-and-rescue animals and the occasional police dog.

He acknowledged the growing debate about the use of electronic training collars, a method that the American Humane Society has opposed as cruel.

The ASPCA doesn’t explicitly oppose electronic collars, but insists they be used correctly.

“This type of training can be highly effective — however, we recommend that such training be conducted only under the guidance of a trainer knowledgeable in the principles of avoidance learning,” said Pamela Reid, vice president of ASPCA's behavioral sciences team.

“It is imperative to weigh the dog’s risk of a snakebite against the potential fallout from using an electronic collar,” she said.

Training a dog to come reliably when it’s called and to “leave it” when it is interested in something dangerous “can go a long way toward keeping a dog safe,” she said.

Belcher said he has developed an alternative positive-reinforcement program for clients who are squeamish about electronic collars, but nobody has wanted to pay the $2,500 he would charge for the multiple sessions. A single visit with the collar costs $125.

Another trainer, Mike Parmley in Salt Lake City, teaches as many as 500 dogs every year, usually in small classes of four to six. He uses an electronic collar set on a low level, emphasizing, “You don’t have to shock the hell out of the dog.”

He aims to help dogs steer clear of the Salt Lake area's Great Basin rattlesnakes.

“They are a pretty big problem up here in the foothills,” said Parmley, who owns Barley’s Canine Recreation Center. “They came out a lot earlier this year because of a trend of warmer weather, and we had more than 100 dogs signed up by early June.”

Other steps to prevent encounters with snakes

Here are some tips from trainers and veterinarians for protecting your dog:

— Learn about snakes in your area. Venomous snakes exist across the U.S., with various rattler species not only in the West but as far east as New York and North Carolina.

— Clear your yard of long grass and other foliage or debris that can attract small rodents hunted by snakes. Trimming back growth can eliminate hiding places.

— Stay on well-worn trails while hiking and keep your dog on a leash.

— Don’t let your guard down even if your dog has had avoidance training. A viper can surprise and attack a person or pet without warning.

— Seek emergency care immediately if your dog is bitten because the venom will move quickly through its body, destroying tissue.

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For more AP pet stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/pets

The president likes to vilify high rates as an affront to the size and strength of the U.S. economy, saying that America deserves the cheapest borrowing costs in the world. Trump for months publicly pressured the Federal Reserve to slash its benchmark rates, claiming it would be “Rocket Fuel!” for growth and make housing more affordable.

But since the war in Iran began at the end of February, borrowing money has become more expensive, meaning fewer families can afford mortgages or auto loans. The government is getting squeezed, too — as it has spent $827 billion so far this fiscal year to service the national debt, more than it has devoted to national defense.

The scope of the problem became clear this past week when Kevin Warsh, the Fed's new chair picked by Trump, said in his second press conference on the job that inflation continues to run hot but offered no clear guidance on how to fix the problem.

Interest rates are rising, even though Trump pledged they would fall

Rates on 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds hit their highest levels in nearly two decades, the exact opposite of what Trump had pledged to voters. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note saw its interest rate shoot up above 4.7% on Friday, surpassing what the president inherited when he returned to the White House last year.

But Trump has largely ignored the jump in interest rates and has portrayed the economy as booming, even though the government recently reported that the annual growth rate for the prior three months was a sluggish 1.5%.

“We have the most successful environment that we’ve ever had,” Trump told his Cabinet on Friday. “There’s never been anything like it from the standpoint of investment into our country.”

Neither Trump nor his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, discussed interest rates during the public portion of the meeting. But White House spokesman Kush Desai said the end of the Iran war would ultimately reduce energy costs and allow the Fed to reduce rates. “Oil prices — and thus overall inflation — will plummet again when President Trump forces a successful resolution with Iran, further paving the way for additional interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve,” Desai said.

Higher interest rates are weighing on voters ahead of the midterm elections

The prospect of higher borrowing costs has become troublesome for Republicans in the November elections, as Trump’s own policies helped drive the increase.

His tariffs that began last year caused rates to jump so quickly that he backed off and reformulated them. Trump has championed the construction of data centers for artificial intelligence, but the bonds financing those projects appear to have helped push up interest rates. And the war in Iran has fueled rising oil prices.

Republicans had hoped to show clear progress on affordability to voters ahead of the midterms. Trump can point to a low unemployment rate and solid consumer spending as proof that the economy remains stable, yet there are few signs that these arguments have connected with the public.

One possible reason why Trump's economic messaging has struggled is that voters care more about whether their incomes are outpacing inflation, according to research released in June by Georgetown University's Juan Felipe Riaño and the University of California, Berkeley's Francesco Trebbi.

Trump and Republicans not only promised lower interest rates in the 2024 elections, but they indicated that prices could fall outright if their policies were in place. But over the last 12 months, inflation has nearly kept pace with hourly wage gains — and that understates the extent of the problem because debt service costs are not included in the consumer price index.

“It cut against Democrats in 2024, and if prices and borrowing costs keep outrunning wages into the fall, the same logic points at Republicans now,” Riaño, the Georgetown University economist, told the AP.

Housing affordability has been a sore point for voters

Earlier this year, the Trump administration directed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two mortgage firms under government conservatorship, to buy at least $200 billion in home loans to bring down mortgage rates.

Earlier this year, Republicans had hoped to campaign on falling rates and a bipartisan bill to increase home construction to help defend their House and Senate majorities. One GOP lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said the hope was that Trump would sign the bill as mortgage rates fell below 6%, which could improve housing affordability and public sentiment toward the overall economy.

However, Trump called the bill a “big yawn” and allowed it to become law without his signature. And the mortgage company Freddie Mac said Thursday that 30-year rates were averaging 6.66%, essentially unchanged from a year ago.

Markets don't expect interest rates to drop before the election

Warsh, the Fed chair since May, has said he has been content to let the financial markets do more to set the rates, rather than the central bank. Even though the Fed has held its benchmark rate steady this year, the markets on their own have chosen to charge a premium for holding U.S. government debt.

“Markets reflect the higher inflation, policy uncertainty,” said John Silvia, the CEO of Dynamic Economic Strategy. “They are the product of events.”

Warsh on Wednesday portrayed that as a positive, even if the result goes against what Trump expected from his new Fed chair.

“Market participants are learning to play the ball, not the referee — and market prices will continue to respond in the direction and magnitude they see fit,” Warsh said. “This is, in my view, a change for the better — and we are just getting started.”

But time might not be on Trump's side for fixing high interest rates. The next Fed meeting on rates will conclude on Sept. 16. Markets currently expect Fed officials to vote to raise rates in order to reduce inflationary pressures, according to CME FedWatch.

Cunningham made the comments before the Fever's game Friday night against the Portland Fire. Outside, a group rallied for the second straight game in support of Cunningham and her recent comments about transgender athletes.

“I think at the end of the day, I come in and I do my job,” Cunningham said. "I think everyone who knows me personally, they know that I’m full of love. I’m bubbly. I love the people around me. I love basketball. I love inspiring the next generation and doing that in a positive light. And so that doesn’t even cross my mind. Doesn’t cross my teammates’ minds.

“And again, I’m here to play basketball, but I’m also here to be me, and I’m not gonna like shadow that or hide or, you know, dim my light just because maybe people don’t agree with that.”

Portland's rally came after a similar rally for Cunningham earlier in the week before the Fever's game at the Seattle Storm. Both rallies only attracted about two dozen participants and a bevy of onlookers.

“I have honestly had nothing to do with them,” Cunningham said. “I think it’s people just practicing their rights of freedom of speech and doing what other fans have been doing since the WNBA has started. And so props to them, props to everyone who is able to be competent and be bold and courageous enough to to speak their truths.”

Another rally was planned for Sunday in Minneapolis when the Fever play the Minnesota Lynx.

In Seattle on Tuesday, two Cunningham supporters sat courtside at Climate Change Arena holding signs. A co-owner of the Storm, Celeste Keaton was later fined an undisclosed amount and suspended for five games by the WNBA for an exchange with the two supporters.

The Storm also apologized for the incident, but did not provide details about the exchange, releasing a statement that said: “We remain committed to creating a welcoming and respectful environment for anyone who attends a Storm game.”

The Seattle rally promoted statewide ballot initiative, IL26-638, that would bar transgender students from participating in girls’ athletics at Washington schools. It also praised Cunningham, who voiced support for barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in recent interviews.

“I am here to be a cheerleader for Sophie Cunningham, who has so bravely put her head above the parapet to protect women and girls in our sports and in our locker rooms,” said Amy Souza, who was among those at the Portland rally. “I was an organizer of this event, I was a co-organizer of the Seattle event. I’m also here, standing in solidarity with those teen girls who, unfortunately, were harassed when they were just trying to be fans of the sport, fans of Sophie Cunningham.”

Cunningham was booed by the Moda Center crowd in Portland when she entered the game midway though the first quarter. Many waved small pink, blue and white transgender flags.

The Fever downed the Fire 112-98 for their fifth straight win. Cunningham finished with 13 points and Caitlin Clark had her fourth career triple-double with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.

Coach Stephanie White said she was concerned that the controversy was distracting from the team's play.

“You know there is a frustration, of course, because we want to we want to talk about basketball and we want to continue to work on our game and we want to continue to grow as a team.,” White said. “But I also understand this is part of our growth edge as a league, right? It’s part of our growth as a league, and we have to to be able to manage, we have to be able to insulate as much as we can, and then we have to be able to lead with conversation.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

The strikes follow a major Russian attack two days earlier that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow apparently looks to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses. The relentless cycle of attacks dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

Deaths and damage across Kyiv

A five-story residential building in the city's Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.

Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.

Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.

Lithuania’s foreign minister said the country’s embassy in Kyiv was damaged when missiles struck nearby overnight.

Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday it had launched a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centers in Kyiv.”

Zelenskyy presses for more air defense

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.

“Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without them results in more casualties,” he wrote on X following the latest attacks.

The Ukrainian leader late Friday said he spoke to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and discussed a meeting with President Donald Trump earlier this week in Washington, which Zelenskyy described as “positive and productive.”

“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defense, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on Telegram.

At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems, but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.

Resident describes more frequent attacks

From a basement shelter where she was taking cover as a second air alarm sounded for another wave, Liudmyla Nakonechna, 64, described how she was woken by loud explosions at 1:30 a.m.

“I ran into the corridor and was standing there when the bathroom door was blown off its hinges and struck me in the leg,” said Nakonechna, whose health is poor after undergoing cancer treatment. “I heard the sound of shattering glass. My balcony was covered in glass and it was completely blown apart, while the windows in my bedroom were also blown out.”

Nakonechna had not taken cover in a shelter since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, but the stress became too much, she said.

“It’s getting worse by the day,” Nakonechna said. “Whereas before there was an attack once every two weeks, or maybe once a week, now it happens practically every day. It is incredibly hard to bear this psychologically.”

In other developments

— In Russian-occupied Crimea, the Moscow-appointed head of the city of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Saturday that a 60-year-old woman was killed and two other people wounded in a drone attack on the city.

— Ukrainian drones struck three Russian oil refineries overnight in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, Zelenskyy said Saturday. The refineries “process millions of tons of oil each year” and are located nearly 1,600 kilometers (994 miles) from Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on social media.

The Russian online news outlet Astra reported Saturday that a Ukrainian drone set an oil refinery in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, ablaze. Local officials said debris from a downed drone caused “smoke” at an unnamed “industrial zone.”

Ukraine’s almost daily long-range drone and missile strikes using domestically developed weapons have battered Russian oil facilities for months. The operation has brought a fuel crisis that is embarrassing the Kremlin more than four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor.

— A sanctioned Russian container ship, the Yanina, sank in the Black Sea after being hit by Ukrainian drones, Zelenskyy said Saturday, listing the ship as among “facilities that sustain the war effort.”

Russia’s state nuclear energy company, Rosatom, whose shipping subsidiary FESCO operates the vessel, said the ship was carrying “civilian goods” such as frozen food and construction materials.

School presidents from both conferences voted to back the bill after receiving last-minute concessions over language regarding third-party name-image-likeness deals and the so-called “associated entities” that often broker those arrangements between players and schools.

More details need to be worked out, but the headline is that the bill still has a chance to earn the 60 votes it needs to halt debate and head to an up-or-down vote before the Senate heads for summer break next Friday.

The summer recess is increasingly looking like an intractable deadline for the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan effort headed by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

After the conferences, which had balked at large sections of the bill, put out a short release announcing they supported the act “as currently drafted,” Cruz put out a short statement on social media thanking the leagues and saying: “Let's save college sports.” And Cantwell said: “Good. Now progress can be made in protecting women and Olympic athletes and moving the legislation closer to the President’s desk.”

President Donald Trump, who has also been seeking fixes for an industry that now pays its players millions, got involved late Thursday, which helped push the parties back to the negotiating table.

Cody Campbell, the Texas Tech regent who has played a big role in shaping this policy, called the SEC and Big Ten support “ a major breakthrough that moves us closer to a Senate vote — and a better future” for college sports.

Increased salary cap, new language entice holdout leagues

The most groundbreaking part of the reworked deal is the $27.5 million that schools would be allotted to retain players, in addition to the $21.3 million cap that already exists.

It could represent a major reworking of the House settlement — the groundbreaking agreement that governs paying players. The idea is that the extra money will take the place of payments from “associated entities” that were allowed above and beyond the $21.3 million cap. It was those payments that, many schools complained, obliterated any idea of a cap or controlled cost.

The SEC and Big Ten sought stronger language in the bill to guarantee that any third-party deals are truly outside deals and not coming from the schools’ multimedia-rights partners, which currently arrange the majority of those deals.

Among the questions still unanswered are whether the new cap will comport with the House settlement, which had very specific instructions about the hard cap (22% of a certain part of athletic department revenues, which equals $21.3 million this season).

Also, what would happen to the College Sports Commission, the main NIL enforcement arm that spends the bulk of its time analyzing third-party NIL deals that would be greatly reduced under this arrangement?

Even with a victory, a long road remains for bill

Even with Friday night’s victory, the bill has a long road ahead. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has been a staunch opponent of the bill since the beginning. Before the latest compromise, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said that “as written today,” the act “creates chaos and eliminates opportunity for student-athletes.”

Whether the SEC’s approval is enough to get those senators and others from SEC states on board is one issue. If the bill clears the Senate, it would still then need to pass the narrowly divided House, which flailed on another college bill called the SCORE Act, for more than a year.

There’s also the matter of whether smaller conferences, long in favor of the bill, would remain so now that their bigger competition is being allowed to directly pay players more than double what was previously allowed.

Compromise comes on a day where NCAA loses two more court rulings

Almost everyone involved in college sports agrees that the status quo isn’t working.

The news broke only hours after the NCAA lost a pair of key court cases involving its new rule that would give most Division I athletes five years to complete five seasons of eligibility.

Using those losses as another chance to urge for passage of the bill, NCAA President Charlie Baker said “It is long past time leaders across college sports call for the immediate passage of the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act.”

Two-time national champion hoops coach Dan Hurley of UConn used social media to outline the stakes in more colorful terms: “Somebody please come and fix College Sports. It’s a complete (expletive) show,” he said, using an emoji where the expletive would go.

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The ruling from U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Denver, expected to be appealed, undercuts the NCAA's plan to have the so-called “five for five” rule go into play starting with athletes who enroll in college in fall 2027.

It also has potential to wreak havoc on rosters across the country — for instance, opening the possibility that an undrafted player in an NFL training camp could decide to try to head back to college for a fifth year this upcoming season.

In granting the preliminary injunction, Sweeney said the players “will suffer irreparable harm without” it. She did not sign onto the governing body’s argument that applying the new rule retroactively would create “roster chaos.”

But NCAA President Charlie Baker said it would in responding to the rulings while referencing a bill in Congress designed to provide the NCAA antitrust protection on the eligibility issues.

“Today's rulings and the chaos they bring to college sports are exactly why it's time to pass this bill,” Baker said.

The Colorado ruling came hours after a Tennessee court granted Jalen Washington, who most recently played at Vanderbilt, and 18 other basketball players a fifth season of eligibility.

In June, the NCAA approved its new eligibility model for Division I athletes that will allow five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

While the ruling in Tennessee applied to those 19 basketball players, the one in Colorado cast a wider net, granting the class certification the plaintiffs sought. It means the ruling applies to all Division I players who started their college careers in the 2022-23 season, not just a select list.

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

Bader has been out since late May dealing with plantar fasciitis in his left foot. The team said the injury got worse following the accident early Sunday morning in San Francisco.

“Over the weekend, Harrison Bader was involved in an accident that has delayed Harrison’s prior treatment timeline for plantar fasciitis and, unfortunately, his return to the field,” Giants President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey said in a statement Friday. "We are still investigating the circumstances of the accident, but will be suspending payment to Harrison until he is able to resume performing services for the club.”

Bader signed a two-year, $20.5 million contract with the Giants before this season that includes a $4.5 million base salary for this season. He is owed $1.42 million for the remainder of the season.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Bader was involved in a vehicle collision while riding his scooter around 2 a.m. Sunday morning in San Francisco's Marina District. He was taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

The 32-year-old Bader was batting .170 with five homers, 14 RBIs and a .557 OPS in 30 games before going on the injured list.

This isn't the first time Bader has gotten into trouble in a scooter accident. He was suspended in college at Florida in 2014 after he hit a curb and ran into a truck while driving a motorized scooter, according to a report from the Gainesville Sun. He was unresponsive on the ground and, according to the incident report cited, smelled of alcohol.

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

El exmandatario salió en un auto plateado vestido de terno azul y dijo en una desordenada y breve declaración a la prensa que “yo, mi familia y el Partido Nacionalista (el nombre de su partido político) hemos sido víctimas de una persecución política y judicial; el 15 de abril de 2025 fui secuestrado por el Estado”.

El Tribunal Constitucional indicó que Humala fue condenado en 2025 por lavado de activos en la modalidad de receptación patrimonial, una conducta que recién fue sancionada desde 2016 y que castiga a quien recibe o posee bienes de origen delictivo con conocimiento o posibilidad de conocer su procedencia ilícita.

La máxima instancia constitucional usó el mismo razonamiento por el que hace nueve meses ordenó el archivo de otra pesquisa contra la actual presidenta, Keiko Fujimori, que fue investigada por el mismo delito y para quien la fiscalía pedía 35 años de cárcel. A Humala y Fujimori se les acusaba de haber recibido dinero ilícito para sus respectivas campañas presidenciales de 2011 y 2016.

La noche del 15 de abril de 2025 la Corte Superior Nacional condenó a 15 años de prisión a Humala y a su esposa, Nadine Heredia. Humala se presentó a la Corte y, tras la sentencia, fue rodeado de policías y encarcelado de inmediato. Su esposa no asistió y se asiló en Brasil junto al hijo de 15 años de la pareja.

Humala fue enviado a una cárcel construida para expresidentes. En la actualidad alberga a Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) condenado a 20 años por lavado de activos, Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020) sentenciado por corrupción a 14 años y Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) condenado a 11 años por conspiración para una rebelión.

La Corte Superior sostuvo que Humala y su esposa recibieron 3,6 millones de dólares de Odebrecht y del gobierno del entonces presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez (1999-2013). La pareja realizó actos para ocultar el origen del dinero, incluido el uso de más de 100 personas —varias de modestos recursos— presentados como aportantes. Algunos incluso se enteraron que fueron aportantes cuando fueron requeridos por la justicia.

Humala y su esposa estuvieron presos de forma preventiva entre 2017 y 2018 a pedido de la fiscalía para evitar una posible fuga. Keiko Fujimori también estuvo encarcelada por más de 16 meses durante la investigación de su caso en periodos que abarcaron parte de 2018, 2019 y 2020.

En septiembre de 2025, el abogado de Humala, Wilfredo Pedraza, dijo a The Associated Press que el expresidente —militar retirado de 64 años— dedicaba sus días en prisión a revisar su proceso judicial, correr en el patio y entrenar con un equipo básico de gimnasio.

The British designer was creative director at Christian Dior for nearly 15 years, the very pinnacle of the fashion world, before he made a series of antisemitic and racist comments in 2010 and 2011 that went viral, leading to his conviction in an antisemitism trial. Dropped by Dior, he spent several years involved in public and private efforts to rehabilitate.

He made a comeback in 2014 when he was hired by Paris fashion house Maison Margiela, where he remained for a decade.

Now, he'll become only the third living designer to be the subject of a solo show at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Long a red carpet favorite for his flamboyant, even fantastical style, Galliano and his creations should make for an intensely watched carpet at next May’s Met Gala — which every year launches the spring exhibit at the Costume Institute.

Not surprisingly, the museum is taking pains to emphasize that the exhibit will not shy away from the problematic aspects of Galliano’s history.

“Alongside Galliano’s extraordinary creative accomplishments, the exhibition will address the derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception,” said a statement issued by the museum on Friday. “In doing so, the exhibition will consider how artistic achievement should be understood alongside ethical accountability.”

The show’s main curator, Andrew Bolton, who curates nearly all the Met’s big fashion exhibits, noted that the exhibit “considers both how Galliano has remapped the world through fashion and how his conduct, its consequences, and changing cultural values have reshaped our understanding of his work.”

Even so, organizers had to tread carefully when planning the show. Preparation included meetings with Jewish community leaders in New York to gauge their feelings, the museum said, confirming a report in The New York Times. Those meetings included Bolton, Galliano and Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor who masterminds the Met Gala every year.

The show will be organized into three parts, the museum said.

The first, “Bearings," will “directly address the rupture caused by his antisemitic, racist, and anti-Asian conduct in 2010 and 2011, which resulted in his dismissal from Christian Dior and his eponymous label and his conviction by a Paris court for public insults based on race, religion, ethnicity, or origin," the museum said. It will also deal with his treatment for substance addiction and later public acknowledgment of his actions.

The second, “Horizons,” will examine the designer's sources of inspiration — such as history, geography, art, storytelling and performance. And the third, “Atlas of Transformation,” will focus on "Galliano’s creativity, craftsmanship, experimentation, and technical innovation," the museum said.

The 2024 documentary “High & Low — John Galliano” suggests Galliano was overworked and abusing alcohol and drugs when he made a series of antisemitic and racist comments in 2010 and 2011. A video of him saying “I love Hitler" in a bar went viral.

The Times quoted Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, as saying of the planned show: “We believe John Galliano has genuinely worked through the issues that led to his antisemitic outburst years ago in Paris, and we have long since accepted his apology."

"His efforts to repair the damage his words caused and to learn from that incident should be applauded.”

The show, John Galliano: Horizons, will run from May 9, 2027, through Jan. 9, 2028.

Petro aterrizó en horas de la tarde y en su agenda se incorporó una reunión con su homólogo cubano en la Plaza de la Revolución, aunque no se ofrecieron más detalles. La Cancillería cubana indicó que el líder colombiano volvería a Bogotá el sábado.

Petro defendió el viernes su visita a Cuba y resaltó el apoyo dado por la isla en los esfuerzos de paz en Colombia.

“Quiero desde Cuba oponerme a una guerra en el Caribe”, expresó el mandatario colombiano en X. “Ahora se habla de invasiones y misiles en la isla de Cuba que ha educado 2.000 médicos y médicas colombianas, que ayudó (al entonces presidente Juan Manuel) Santos a hacer la paz en Colombia con las FARC y que salvó centenares de miles de personas en el mundo con su vacuna anticovid”.

“Ni los misiles, ni la invasión ni el bloqueo son soluciones dentro de los problemas de la humanidad”, agregó el líder colombiano.

Petro comparó en abril el bloqueo económico hacia Cuba con un “genocidio” que podría “matar un pueblo de hambre”, por lo que abogó por una solución basada en el diálogo. La isla sostiene un fuerte programa de cooperación para la formación de colombianos, sobre todo en medicina.

Al iniciar su mandato en 2022, Petro dio un giro en las relaciones con Cuba al estrecharlas después que su antecesor Iván Duque (2018-2022) apoyara la inclusión de Cuba en la lista de estados patrocinadores del terrorismo en 2021, cuando Estados Unidos acusó a la isla de refugiar a “terroristas”, incluyendo a miembros de la guerrilla Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) que sostenían conversaciones con representantes de la propia administración colombiana.

En la pasada década, la isla fue sede durante cuatro años de las conversaciones de paz y actuó de intermediaria para un acuerdo entre las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) y el gobierno de ese país que llegaron a buen término y que ahora destacó Petro en sus comentarios en X.

Se espera que la relación se tense nuevamente con la llegada al poder el 7 de agosto del presidente electo de Colombia, el conservador Abelardo de la Espriella, apoyado por el presidente Donald Trump y quien anunció que romperá relaciones con Cuba y Nicaragua al considerar que son “tiranías”.

Esta semana, el gobierno cubano lamentó la decisión de De la Espriella porque dijo que “subordina” la política del país a las exigencias de Washington.

Esta será la tercera ocasión en que Petro viaje a Cuba como mandatario. Los dos viajes anteriores fueron en junio de 2023 cuando llegó para el cierre de un ciclo de diálogos con el ELN, y en septiembre del mismo año, para asistir a una Cumbre de Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno del Grupo G77 + China.

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La corresponsal en Colombia, Astrid Suárez, contribuyó con este reporte.

“It was kind of motivating as a kid to watch it because even though there wasn’t a platform for us to play professional baseball when I was growing up, playing Little League and youth baseball, like there was a vision that there could be,” Schroder said. “And we’re here now.”

They sure are.

The inaugural season of the Women’s Pro Baseball League begins on Saturday — weather permitting, with rain in the forecast — when Denae Benites and the New York Heights face Mo’ne Davis and the Los Angeles Queens. The other two teams in the league — the Boston Hunters and San Francisco Firebells — play on Sunday.

Each team will have 15 active players for the seven-inning games. The 15 regular-season games for each club and the playoffs will be held at Springfield's Robin Roberts Stadium, a historic ballpark that has a seating capacity of 5,200 and opened in 1925.

“What excites me most is having the chance to compete against players who have been my teammate, as well as Team USA players, and other athletes I’ve always considered rivals,” Japanese right-hander Ayami Sato, one of Los Angeles' top pitchers, said Friday through a translator. “Being able to play against them in this league is something I’ve been really looking forward to.”

The opening weekend of the WPBL marks another major moment in a scattered history for women's professional baseball in the United States. The AAGPBL, which ran from 1943-54, was the first professional women’s league in the U.S. There were at least two attempts to start a league in the 1990s, but each one was short-lived.

The WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, who became the first woman to coach for an MLB team with the Athletics in 2015. And its players, taking the field in an era of unprecedented popularity for women's sports, have big dreams.

The fledgling league got a lift Thursday when it announced a media rights deal with ESPN and the Scripps Sports Network to air regular-season and postseason games in its inaugural campaign.

“We want to make this thing last forever and ever,” Los Angeles infielder Ashton Lansdell said. “We want this to become the MLB of women’s baseball.”

Lansdell, Benites, Schroder and Kelsie Whitmore were named team captains on Friday. Schroder plays for Boston, and Whitmore was selected by San Francisco with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

“We were talking earlier today, I was telling them we’re a family now,” Whitmore said. “This is our new team, this is our crew, all 15 of us. And my goal is just to lead them the best way that I can, both on and off the field.”

Whitmore and the Firebells will be managed by Matt Williams, a five-time All-Star during his 17 years in the major leagues. Former Boston Red Sox closer Keith Foulke is the manager of the Hunters, and former big league infielder Eric Young is the skipper for the Queens. Rachelle “Rocky” Henley, a former player with a long history in women's baseball development, rounds out the managers with the Heights.

With only 15 active players for each team, the managers and their coaching staffs are going to be busy as they execute their strategy for each game.

“When I saw them play down in (Florida) this spring, it was like, ‘Wow. These aren’t women playing baseball, these are athletes playing baseball,’” Foulke said. “And I just want to bring that passion to my club, to the league, help build this and just be able to go out there and have a good time, put on a good product.”

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This story corrects Ayami Sato's team to Los Angeles.

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

Infantino’s decision came after his senior adviser who sat on a White House panel resigned and Asia’s soccer body joined Europe and North America in opposing it.

“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” Infantino said in a statement early Saturday. “Our purpose has always been — and will always be — to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed.”

Infantino had proposed creating a $20 billion company to run the World Cup with private investors including the Kushner family, but drew backlash that grew every day since Tuesday's announcement.

UEFA’s 55-member nations agreed to boycott the World Cup and all other FIFA competitions over Infantino’s plan on Thursday. North America’s CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation also said they opposed the plan.

“Some things are simply too important to sell,” UEFA said in a statement. “The FIFA World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale.”

Infantino’s senior adviser, Carlos Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs banker who represented the soccer body on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned on Friday and urged other senior FIFA staff to speak out.

“I cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup,” Cordeiro said in a statement, just hours after FIFA insisted: “Nobody is selling football.”

Hours later, FIFA chief operating officer Kevin Lamour issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying FIFA staff were deceived by Infantino's lack of openness in planning the sale over recent months and that the project must not continue.

“It is the project of one person,” Lamour, a longtime colleague of Infantino at both FIFA and European soccer body UEFA, wrote. “Not only must this project not go ahead … but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.”

Infantino has proposed spinning off FIFA’s commercial businesses — including World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women — into a $20 billion subsidiary with 20% owned by private investors.

The “anchor investor,” described by FIFA, is a New York-based investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The next FIFA competition is the Women’s Under-20 World Cup starting Sept. 5 in Poland — which UEFA members said they would boycott.

The misstep could prove costly for Infantino, particularly after the interventions by Lamour and Cordeiro.

Reelected unopposed in 2019 and 2023, Infantino is allowed one more four-year term under FIFA statutes. The deadline for the next presidential contest is Nov. 18, exactly four months ahead of the vote in Rabat, Morocco, where FIFA has its African headquarters.

Infantino's job seemed secured despite long-term unease with his style and previous attempts to force through unpopular projects, but could become more tenuous with the failed private equity proposal.

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AP Sports Writer John Marshall contributed from Phoenix.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and AP World Cup coverage

Despite survival rates steadily improving in the U.S., nearly 125,000 people are expected to die from lung cancer this year alone, making it the deadliest cancer.

Over the past five years, the lung cancer survival rate has increased by 26%, but the disease remains the leading cause of cancer deaths among both women and men.

“We still have a ways to go to draw the right awareness around this very deadly and morbid disease,” said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, medical spokesperson for the American Lung Association.

A new national survey by the American Lung Association reveals a critical gap. Only about one-third of those surveyed were aware that quick, low-dose CT scans are available for people at the highest risk of developing the disease.

That’s a growing concern, as catching lung cancer early significantly raises the odds of survival.

“It’s a little challenging to see that it’s so underused and so underutilized,” Galiatsatos said.

Those considered high risk and eligible for screening include smokers between the ages of 50 and 80 with a 20 pack-year smoking history — such as smoking one pack a day for 20 years or two packs a day for 10 years — as well as former heavy smokers who quit within the past 15 years.

“We have a good deal of patients who are very not forthcoming to their doctors to say that they actively still smoke, because they don’t want to be judged or shamed,” Galiatsatos said.

Experts say smoking stigma is part of the problem. They also note that lung cancer screening is relatively new, having only been recommended since 2013. The scan does not require an IV or contrast and takes less than a minute to complete.

“It probably takes longer to fill out the forms for the lung cancer screening than it does to actually get the test done,” Galiatsatos said.

While lung cancer screening is currently only recommended for current or former smokers, experts say more people who have never smoked are being diagnosed with the disease.

They say talking to a doctor about your risk factors is important, including whether you have a family history of lung cancer or have received radiation therapy for other cancers.

I’Ashea Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court issued a temporary injunction to Jalen Washington and 18 other players to retain their eligibility.

“Defendant shall recognize Plaintiffs as eligible for the 2026–2027 basketball season and shall not deny or impede their recruitment, transfer, or certification on the basis of the challenged eligibility determination,” Myles wrote in her 33-page ruling.

A few hours later, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney in Colorado granted a preliminary injunction giving student-athletes from the high school Class of 2022 another year of eligibility for the upcoming school year. Former Minnesota basketball player Cade Tyson was among the 12 athletes named in the Colorado case.

Sweeney ruled that the injunction should cover the entire class of 2022 high school graduates facing similar circumstances.

Myles, who heard motion arguments July 22, also ordered that the transfer portal open at noon Monday until 8 a.m. on Aug. 10 for any player wanting to enter and schools wanting to reach out.

The NCAA referred The Associated Press to a statement from President Charlie Baker on X on proposed legislation to regulate college sports. Baker called the “chaos” from Friday's rulings are why it's “long past time” leaders in college sports call for the immediate passage of the Protect College Sports Act.

“Failed professionals will continue to use college sports as a fallback option — robbing the next class of young athletes of college scholarships," Baker said.

On June 23, the NCAA approved a new eligibility model for Division I athletes that will allow five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

Washington, who played last season at Vanderbilt, was the lead plaintiff in the complaint filed July 6 by the Texas Trial Group seeking the injunction. Others include Chendall Weaver, last at Texas; A.J. Storr, Mississippi; Jason Edwards, Providence; Daniel Egbuniwe, St. Bonaventure; and Zachary Davis, Memphis.

“On the eve of congressional consideration of the Protect College Sports Act, the NCAA points to its inevitable judicial losses as evidence that Congress should grant it broader legal protections,” the Texas Trial Group said in a statement to The Associated Press.

"The timing is difficult to ignore. First create the litigation. Then point to the litigation as the reason judicial oversight should be curtailed. No one should be surprised to learn that Mr. Baker is a career politician paid millions of dollars a year to essentially running a lobbying campaign under the guise of a `voluntary association.'”

Myles wrote in her 33-page ruling granting the injunction that “the NCAA has not applied the challenged eligibility rules uniformly among similarly situated student-athletes" with a pattern of extending years of eligibility to “certain groups of players.”

She noted a waiver for the 2025-26 season for those who played at least one season at a junior college or NAIA school, and Myles wrote each plaintiff played against students who got waivers to play additional seasons or attended junior colleges.

The chancellor's order also enjoined the NCAA from enforcing its rule of restitution against the athletes and colleges they play for this season.

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

“I was thinking 55,” he said.

Young cooled off with two birdies on his back nine in a bogey-free round, closing with a Detroit Golf Club-record tying 61 to reach 10 under for the tournament to tie Patrick Cantlay (66) and Patrick Fishburn (66) atop the leaderboard Friday.

“You hate to call it a disappointing 61,” he said, lamenting missing many birdie opportunities that preventing him from breaking Jim Furyk's record 58 that has stood for a decade.

Young, the No. 3 player in the world with three wins this season, shot a 59 in 2024 at the Travelers Championship and had a chance to join Furyk with multiple sub-60 rounds on the PGA Tour.

“It felt like I had a 10-footer for birdie on pretty much every hole,” Young said.

A lot of players took advantage of one of the easiest courses on the PGA Tour.

Matt Wallace (64) and Rickie Fowler (68) were two shots back.

Fowler surged into the lead — briefly — at 11 under before falling back to the pack. He three-putted from 24 feet to bogey No. 11 and went from thigh-high fescue to a greenside bunker at No. 13, leading to his second of three bogeys on the back nine.

“Nice to finish with birdie on 18,” said Fowler, whose sixth and last win was the 2023 Rocket Classic. “A lot of good stuff today and nice to be in a good spot for the weekend.”

First-round leader Peter Malnati, who followed up his 61 on Thursday with a 71, was another stroke back in a large group that included Xander Schauffele (66).

Hideki Matsuyama (68) extended the PGA Tour’s longest active cuts streak to 30 by getting to 5 under with a slew of players, including Tony Finau (67), who is hoping to improve his positioning to be among the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings after next week's Wyndham Championship.

“I check it pretty much every tournament just kind of see where I’m at, even on off weeks,” said Finau, the 2022 Rocket Classic champion, who entered the tournament No. 87 in the standings.

Matt Kuchar was another stroke back, getting a boost from his seventh career ace with a 9-iron on the 156-yard, par-3 5th hole. Kuchar invited a kid to join him inside the ropes to retrieve the ball, which he signed with a black marker.

“I saw a little boy that was kind of the right age where you know they’re so excited to be out here, just very impressionable,” Kuchar said. “One of those things where it’s easy to make their day. I think anytime you get to make a kid’s day, it makes your day.”

The Rocket Classic, which is in its eighth and final year, drew a stronger than usual field and some notable names missed the cut at 3 under.

U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark (74) was 5 over. Chris Gotterup, a three-time winner this year and ranked No. 7 in the world, was 1 over to end his streak of making the cut in 14 straight starts. Akshay Bhatia (71) — No. 12 in FedEx Cup standings — also dropped out at 1 under.

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

There's no lesson learned more vital than this: Cool first, transport second.

Almost an hour and a half passed from when Stringer exited a blocking drill during training camp and arrived by ambulance at a hospital with a core body temperature of 108.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Though he was moved to an air-conditioned trailer by the practice field that morning in Mankato, Minnesota, the lack of effective diagnosis and treatment by the team's medical staff during that time made his outlook all the more dire. About 15 hours after he collapsed, Stringer was pronounced dead, the only known NFL player to die from exertional heat stroke.

“I’ve been an expert witness in 85 court cases of people dying from heat stroke, and in every single one the person didn’t need to die if they were properly treated and cooled,” said Douglas Casa, the executive director of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut that was established in 2010 as part of the settlement of the wrongful death lawsuit his family brought against the league. “With a $150 tub of ice and water, these people would still be alive.”

Casa got connected with Stringer's widow, Kelci Stringer, and agent, Jimmy Gould, through the litigation. The professor of kinesiology had a personal interest in the subject of heat safety, from his own brush with death at age 16 while running a 10-kilometer race at the Empire State Games in New York.

Casa collapsed on the final lap with 200 meters remaining, got back up and fell again with about 80 meters to go. He was unconscious for two hours.

Fortunately, a quick-thinking physician placed him in a cold water immersion tub. Though that came after he was taken to a hospital, the effective on-site care he received from an athletic trainer and in the ambulance from emergency medical technicians gave him a fighting chance to survive.

“If Korey had gone in a cold immersion tub, we would not be chatting right now,” Casa said in a recent interview. “He would’ve had dinner with his teammates that night.”

Casa, who is on the NFL's general medical committee, regularly advises the league on player safety matters. The mandatory presence of cold tubs near the practice fields for every team, one of many protocols enhanced in the 25 years since Stringer's death, can be traced to the work that's been done in his honor.

“When I tell Korey’s story, it takes it from such a sad, morbid place to a place of such action,” Kelci Stringer said. “It’s better to be proactive than reactive.”

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

The onetime Republican lawmaker from New York said he settled with the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission to “put this matter behind him,” noting that he did not admit to doing anything wrong.

“He chose a prompt, practical resolution, rather than protracted, costly litigation, and that choice should not be mistaken for admission of any wrongdoing, because it is not one,” Santos’ lawyer Joseph Murray said in a statement Santos shared on X.

The commission said Friday’s settlement represents the more than $17,000 Santos earned from the unlawful trading as well as a fine of $17,500. The agency also imposed a three-year trading ban on Santos.

Kalshi, which had reported Santos to regulators, said it will also pursue its own enforcement action and work to reimburse traders if monetary penalties are recovered.

Leading up to Trump's February speech, Santos had talked frequently about his plans to be in the crowd. But minutes into the speech, he posted on X to say that he had been waylaid at the airport and couldn’t make it to Capitol Hill.

Social media users called him out, noting that Kalshi had put the odds of Santos attending the address at close to 75%.

Santos shrugged off the complaints at the time.

“I guess people lost money,” he said on his podcast in March. “Some people made unexpected money. That’s to show you how fragile these markets are.”

But the federal probe into the Kalshi trading prompted rival online prediction platform Polymarket to cut ties with Santos in June.

Santos’ lawyer, in his statement Friday, said his client had a “genuine intention” to attend the State of the Union, even booking a hotel and plane ticket before a winter storm scuttled the plans.

“Mr. Santos concealed neither his intention to attend, nor his change of plans to not attend the SOTU, from anyone," Murray said. “There was absolutely no intent to deceive any person, nor intent to manipulate any market."

Santos, who is set to appear on Fox’s reality contest “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” this fall, shot to political fame after winning a seat representing parts of the New York City borough of Queens and Long Island.

But his bogus life story of being a wealthy Wall Street player with a college degree and other accomplishments quickly unraveled.

Santos was eventually expelled from Congress and charged with federal wire fraud and identity theft charges as investigators probed how he funded his campaign. He pleaded guilty and served less than three months of a more than seven-year sentence before Trump granted him clemency last year.

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo.

But there’s something else that people are selling: medicines.

In 2021, due to a severe lack of medicine, the government allowed Cubans to bring pretty much as much medicine as they wanted into the country, but legally, they cannot sell it. The police turn a blind eye.

“I have a heart condition. I am on a heart transplant protocol. My medication has not come in anymore,” Havana resident Eulises Darias said. “Where do I have to buy it? On the black market, at exorbitant prices.”

That is set to change.

On Wednesday, the Cuban government announced that the private sector will soon be able to open its own pharmacies.

“There need to be more medications in the pharmacy so people do not have to buy them on the street,” Havana resident Yudisleisis Garbey said.

Shelves in many pharmacies are completely barren. But it didn’t used to be like that.

Up until 2020, pharmacies in Cuba had most of the medicines people needed and they were sold at affordable prices that regular people could afford.

“All our lives, the state accustomed us to buying medications at the pharmacy at a low price,” Havana resident Iván Miray said.

Then came the pandemic and also maximum-pressure U.S. sanctions that bankrupted the country.

The Cuban government says that state pharmacies won’t shutter; they’re going to coexist with private sector pharmacies.

Hopefully, that will mean that regular Cubans have more access to medicine.

The Cabinet meeting, the 13th such gathering of Trump’s second term, came just three months before the November midterm elections that could serve as a check on his power if Democrats take control of one or both chambers of Congress. His warnings about Spain echoed language he used ahead of the 2018 midterms, when he warned of caravans of migrants headed to the southern U.S. border.

“You know, I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place. It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people,” Trump said. “And that same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected. Except worse, much bigger.”

Some 60,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into Spain’s tiny Ceuta territory over the past 24 hours. Roughly half of them have already made their way back voluntarily, according to the Spanish government, but at least 57 have died on the journey.

Separately, he deflected blame for a series of cyberattacks that targeted 30 water systems in Minnesota on the state’s “grossly incompetent” Democratic leadership. Officials have not publicly identified who was behind the attacks, though the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other agencies warned in an advisory last week that Iranian hackers have been targeting water and wastewater systems and the operational controls of other critical infrastructure sectors.

“They blame it on Iran,” Trump said, without offering evidence. “I don’t think so. I think I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent.”

The president regularly convenes his Cabinet throughout his terms as a setting to promote his administration’s policies while fielding questions on the news of the day, but what made Friday’s unusual was that it was at Camp David, the government-owned retreat nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains where Trump held one Cabinet meeting during his first term.

Trump began the meeting by noting it was “something very unique.” The White House called it the first-ever televised Cabinet meeting from the presidential retreat.

“It’s Camp David, and this room is a very, very special room,” Trump said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were among the Cabinet officials who spoke before Trump took questions from journalists. The public portion of the meeting ended after about an hour.

Trump fields questions on Iran, Hamas deal and Blanche confirmation

In the lengthy question-and-answer session, Trump commented on the latest developments regarding the war in Iran and a deal he announced Thursday that would lead to the disarmament of the Palestinian group Hamas. He also lamented that a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate his allies was “dead” and appeared to back off a pledge he made earlier this month to grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air defense systems.

“I don’t think this would ever happen, but, you know, there’s people that, you give that technology, they can someday turn on you,” Trump added. “You look at war, that’s happened a couple of times over the years, right? So we have to be very careful.”

On the Hamas agreement, Trump acknowledged that the agreement that would also lead to Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza will have “ups and downs.” Still, he called it a “great breakthrough” that has been helped along by the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, which has served as Hamas’ prime backer.

Trump also remarked on the anti-weaponization fund that is holding up the confirmation of Todd Blanche as his attorney general, saying the pot of money is “dead” and that “I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you.”

The president continued to defend the people who could potentially benefit from the fund, mainly those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over him.

“Their families have been ruined,” Trump said. Those people “wanted to go to a rally or an event and ended up spending the rest of their lives in horror.”

Trump said Blanche has been a “pawn in this whole thing.” Blanche, who was present, did not speak in the public portion of the Cabinet meeting.

Camp David has been a retreat for presidents since FDR

The camp’s primary purpose is to provide presidents a place to rest, relax and recharge. It was established in 1942 during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency and has been used by every president since.

Roosevelt had enjoyed relaxing aboard a presidential yacht, but the military and the U.S. Secret Service began to worry about his safety on open water during World War II. As a result, Roosevelt asked the National Park Service to find sites within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the White House that he could use for rest.

He chose what is now known as Camp David. He gave it the original name of Shangri-La, from James Hilton’s novel “Lost Horizon.” President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it Camp David, after his grandson and father.

Trump spent more weekends at the retreat in his first term but has visited sparingly in his second, most recently in June for Father’s Day.

In 2019, during his first term, Trump announced on social media that he had canceled a secret weekend meeting at Camp David with Taliban and Afghanistan leaders — scheduled for just days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — after a bombing in the capital of Kabul killed a dozen people, including a U.S. soldier.

Presidents throughout history have turned to Camp David when they needed security and privacy for sensitive diplomatic talks with foreign leaders. Jimmy Carter took the leaders of Egypt and Israel there in 1978 for talks that produced the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between the two countries.

The 180-acre (73-hectare) retreat, which is run by the Navy and guarded by Marines, has a cabin named Aspen that’s reserved for the president, plus about a dozen other cabins for guests. A main lodge has conference rooms, a dining room and an office for the president.

___

Superville and Kim reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Collin Binkley, Will Weissert and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

“She doesn’t deserve this,” Fischbein, 87, said. “She is so giving.”

Fischbein said she lost more than someone who worked for her.

“I lost, not a lady working for me, I lost a friend,” she said. “I don’t know if this is enough to describe why I did not sleep all night today.”

Miriam Singer, the CEO of Jewish Community Services of South Florida, said the agency had to terminate Fischbein’s aide and 17 others when their work permits expired after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the path for the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals.

“So here is another level of trauma for a group of individuals that have already experienced horrific trauma in their lives and horrific loss,” Singer said. “Here is another separation from the person that they trust to care for them.”

Singer said two areas of work at Jewish Community Services included team members who were Haitian nationals with TPS, including home care services, “mostly serving Holocaust survivors and some other seniors.”

Also stripped from Haitians who were in the U.S. on TPS: deportation protections.

Attorney Lourna Rosembert-Joseph said immigration authorities can now enforce the fact that people no longer have protection.

“So let’s say ICE has a raid and they are looking for individuals, can they deport anyone that they arrest? Yes,” Rosembert-Joseph said. “Can they arrest you? They can. Because technically you don’t have a status inside the United States as of now.”

Leonie Hermantin, director of special projects at Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, said conditions have not improved in Haiti.

“Temporary is attached to the country condition,” Hermantin said. “But it is clear that in the past 10 years we have seen that, particularly in the case of Haiti, things have gotten worse — gang violence — making it unsafe to return.”

She added, “To say that it is temporary, fine, if the situation ends. But in the case of Haiti, it had not ended.”

Fearing their safety if deported to gang-riddled Haiti, some TPS Haiti advocates have told Local 10 News that families are considering a move to Canada.

The Canada Border Services Agency told World News that, as of July 26, the most asylum claimants being processed at land border ports of entry this year are from Haiti, followed by the United States.

Julia Sande, an Amnesty International Canada lawyer who specializes in refugee and migrant rights, said anyone considering a move to Canada should know there are legal mechanisms that can make that move difficult.

“Under the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S., unless you qualify for one of the limited exceptions — for example, you’re an unaccompanied minor or you have a close family member in Canada — Canada says that the United States is a safe third country and will send you back to the United States and tell you to make your claim there,” Sande said.

She added, “They won’t consider your refugee claim in Canada. So the only way, really, to get around the agreement, unless you qualify for one of those limited exceptions, is to cross in between a port of entry and make a claim for refugee protection after 14 days.”

But she said that still leaves Haitian asylum seekers in a difficult position.

“The problem is that for Haitian asylum seekers, if you’ve crossed in that way — or if anyone crosses in that way — their claim is deemed ineligible to be referred to the Refugee Protection Division, the administrative body that hears claims in Canada,” Sande said. “So while Canada won’t send you back to the States, your claim becomes ineligible.

“But Haiti is on the list of countries that Canada does not deport to, and so, while that’s a good thing, you would not be facing deportation to Haiti.”

Sande said people can become stuck in “legal limbo” with no real pathway to regularize their status, which can make it “difficult to reunite with family.”

“They’re outside of the Safe Third Country Agreement if they have a close family member in Canada,” she said. “They won’t be sent back to the United States. But Canada is not going to hear their claim and because they’re not actively facing deportation, they don’t have that final sort of avenue to regularize their status.”

Sande said Amnesty International is currently challenging the Safe Third Country Agreement in Canadian court.

She said Canada’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the constitutionality of the agreement depended on the existence of “safety valves” being available at the border for people who could face a “real risk of unfair detention if they’re sent back to the United States.”

“Canada has failed to make any sort of safety valve available at the border, and so we launched our newest challenge to the Safe Third Country Agreement,” Sande said.

Sande said Amnesty International’s position has been that the agreement is unconstitutional and that Canada should withdraw from it.

“Given the Trump administration’s dismantling of the asylum system, the mass detention and deportation agenda, it’s abundantly clear that the United States is not safe for asylum seekers, and that Canada cannot be relying on the United States to discharge its legal obligations,” Sande said.

According to Canada’s Border Services Agency, the CBSA “gives serious consideration to the conditions in destination countries of removal.” If existing conditions could “endanger the lives or safety” of a person, an Administrative Deferral of Removal is imposed.

It is a temporary measure in Canada to prevent individuals from being deported to a country facing a humanitarian crisis. According to the Canadian government’s website, an Administrative Deferral of Removal is in place for certain regions and countries, including Haiti and Venezuela.

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Superintendent Howard Hepburn did not shy away from the challenges facing the district, saying enrollment is down and more schools will have to close.

“We will have to close schools again this year. We have to align ourselves to our enrollment realities and inherently align ourselves to our budget realities,” Hepburn said.

The superintendent said the district has about 50,000 vacant seats, and projections show the decline is continuing.

At the same time, Broward schools are expanding their curriculum to attract and support students.

All elementary schools will now offer at least three special courses, including art and physical education.

“These are challenging times for us financially, but we prioritize our students first and went through the budget line by line, and we did some trade-offs to make sure something like this could happen,” Hepburn said.

The district is also adding special space programs and expanding access to high-tech tools, including 3D printing and virtual reality. Technology currently available in a lab at Nova Middle School will be offered across the district.

Students using the virtual reality equipment can create 3D drawings while building skills like spatial reasoning.

Hepburn said the goal remains to provide opportunities for all students.

El superintendente Howard Hepburn no evitó hablar de los desafíos que enfrenta el distrito y dijo que la matrícula ha disminuido y que será necesario cerrar más escuelas.

“Tendremos que cerrar escuelas nuevamente este año. Tenemos que ajustarnos a la realidad de nuestra matrícula y, por ende, a la realidad de nuestro presupuesto”, dijo Hepburn.

El superintendente indicó que el distrito tiene alrededor de 50,000 cupos vacantes y que las proyecciones muestran que la disminución de la matrícula continúa.

Al mismo tiempo, las escuelas de Broward están ampliando su currículo para atraer y apoyar a los estudiantes.

Todas las escuelas primarias ofrecerán ahora al menos tres cursos especiales, incluidos arte y educación física.

“Estos son tiempos financieramente difíciles para nosotros, pero nuestra prioridad son los estudiantes. Revisamos el presupuesto partida por partida e hicimos algunos ajustes para asegurarnos de que algo como esto pudiera hacerse realidad”, dijo Hepburn.

El distrito también está incorporando programas especiales de ciencias espaciales y ampliando el acceso a herramientas de alta tecnología, incluidas impresión 3D y realidad virtual. La tecnología que actualmente está disponible en un laboratorio de la escuela secundaria Nova Middle School será ofrecida en todo el distrito.

Los estudiantes que utilizan los equipos de realidad virtual pueden crear dibujos en 3D mientras desarrollan habilidades como el razonamiento espacial.

Hepburn dijo que el objetivo sigue siendo brindar oportunidades para todos los estudiantes.

Craig won 66.3% of the votes in a runoff with Sian Astley from the anti-immigration party Reform UK.

“To those that voted for me, thank you,” Craig said after the result was declared. “And for those of you that didn’t vote for me, I will still be your mayor. I will defend this city region with every bone in my body and I will fight for a better life for all of us.”

Turnout in voting held Thursday was only 25%, the lowest in any of the four elections since the northwest England city got a directly elected mayor in 2017.

Voters were able to mark a first and second choice on their ballots. Since no candidate reached 50% of the votes in the first round, the top two competed in a runoff in which the second-preference choices of five eliminated candidates were added.

Craig is the outgoing leader of Manchester City Council, one of the 10 boroughs that make up Greater Manchester. She fell just short of getting 50% of the first-round votes, so didn’t match the performance of Burnham, who won three straight elections without ever facing a runoff.

But the decisive result is still a boost for the center-left Labour Party, which was trounced by Reform UK in elections for local council seats across Greater Manchester less than three months ago.

Labour’s rout in those local elections across England helped trigger the resignation of then- Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Burnham’s rapid rise to the prime minister’s office.

“Labour got an absolute pasting, a shellacking in those local elections,” said Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester. He said Craig's rebound from that low ebb is “a really powerful moment" for the party.

Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years until he won a special election for a seat in Parliament and was selected as Labour leader after Starmer resigned. Burnham became prime minister on July 20.

Daniel Ramirez, de 47 años y residente de Lubbock, Texas, fue arrestado la mañana del viernes por el Departamento de Policía de Miami en una terminal de cruceros de Royal Caribbean en PortMiami. Enfrenta un cargo grave de agresión.

La Policía de Miami informó que el incidente ocurrió el domingo por la noche después de que la empleada sorprendiera a Ramirez “dentro de un área exclusiva para empleados consumiendo guarniciones” y le pidiera que dejara de hacerlo.

Las autoridades indicaron que Ramirez respondió: “Perra, ¿qué quieres que haga, que lo escupa?”, y ambos abandonaron el área del bar.

Sin embargo, según el informe de arresto del Departamento de Policía de Miami, el gerente de la mesera la llamó nuevamente después de que Ramirez presentara una queja.

“Según la víctima, (Ramirez) le dijo al gerente que ninguna mujer podía decirle qué hacer y que la víctima debía ser reprendida”, señala el informe de arresto.

La Policía informó que el gerente le pidió a la mesera que fingiera que estaba siendo reprendida.

Las autoridades indicaron que más tarde, después de que la víctima entró por la puerta principal para hablar con otro empleado, Ramirez “la empujó con fuerza, provocando que cayera contra un perchero metálico”.

“Como resultado de la caída, la víctima se golpeó la cabeza y se fracturó uno de los dientes frontales”, señala el informe.

La Policía informó que la víctima logró tomarle fotografías antes de que se marchara, pero cuando Ramirez “se dio cuenta de que ella lo estaba fotografiando, se dio la vuelta, le golpeó el teléfono celular de la mano, la empujó en el rostro y provocó que cayera al suelo” y perdiera el conocimiento. Luego, Ramirez huyó, según la Policía.

Según el informe, un agente del Departamento de Policía de Miami “intentó entrevistar a la familia que permanecía en la mesa con el acusado para obtener la identidad de (Ramirez)”, pero todos se negaron a cooperar o proporcionar información.

La Policía informó que, tras recibir la pista de Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers, logró identificar a Ramirez y la víctima lo reconoció en una rueda de reconocimiento.

Alrededor de las 6:40 a.m. del viernes, la Policía indicó que la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de Estados Unidos (CBP) informó al Departamento de Policía de Miami que había detenido a Ramirez en el puerto.

Los investigadores señalaron que, al ser detenido, Ramirez “de manera espontánea manifestó que había ‘chocado con una mujer’”.

La Policía indicó que posteriormente se negó a hablar con los investigadores del Departamento de Policía de Miami.

Hasta la tarde del viernes, Ramirez permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight y, según los registros de la cárcel en línea, su fianza figuraba como “pendiente de fijarse”.

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Early voting starts Monday, and election workers spent Friday putting the finishing touches on all 23 early voting locations, including the Office of the Supervisor of Elections in Doral.

Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia said her office is focused on making the voting process smooth and efficient for voters.

“It’s five minutes, but you have to do your homework,” Garcia said. “People take long because they don’t know who their candidates are.”

Early voting will run through Aug. 16.

For specific hours and voting locations, check your county elections website or by clicking this link.

La votación anticipada comienza el lunes y los trabajadores electorales dedicaron el viernes a ultimar los preparativos en los 23 centros de votación anticipada, incluida la Oficina de la Supervisora de Elecciones en Doral.

La supervisora de Elecciones de Miami-Dade, Alina Garcia, dijo que su oficina está enfocada en hacer que el proceso de votación sea ágil y eficiente para los votantes.

“Son cinco minutos, pero hay que hacer la tarea”, dijo Garcia. “La gente se tarda porque no sabe quiénes son sus candidatos”.

La votación anticipada se extenderá hasta el 16 de agosto.

Para conocer los horarios específicos y los centros de votación, consulte el sitio web de elecciones de su condado o haga clic en este enlace.

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Daniel Ramirez, 47, of Lubbock, Texas, was taken into custody by the Miami Police Department Friday morning at a Royal Caribbean cruise terminal at PortMiami. He’s facing a felony battery charge.

Miami police said the incident happened on Sunday evening after the employee spotted Ramirez “inside an employee-only area consuming garnishes” and told him not to eat them.

Authorities said Ramirez responded, “B----, what do you want me to do, spit it out?” and both left the bar area.

However, according to an MPD arrest report, the server’s manager called her back over after Ramirez made a complaint.

“According to the victim, (Ramirez) told the manager that no woman was allowed to tell him what to do and that the victim needed to be reprimanded,” the arrest report states.

Police said the manager told the server to pretend like she was being reprimanded.

Authorities said later, after the victim went inside through the front entrance to talk to another employee, Ramirez “forcefully shoved her, causing her to fall into a metal garment rack.”

“As a result of the fall, the victim struck her (head) and chipped one of her front teeth,” the report states.

She was able to snap photos of him before he left, police said, but when Ramirez “realized she was photographing him, he turned around, struck the cellular phone out of her hand, pushed her in the face and caused her to fall to the ground” and lose consciousness. Ramirez fled, police said.

According to the report, an MPD officer “attempted to interview the family who had remained at the table with the defendant in an effort to obtain (Ramirez’s) identity,” but they all refused to cooperate or provide information.

Police said after receiving the Crime Stoppers tip, they were able to identify Ramirez and the victim picked him out of a lineup.

At around 6:40 a.m. Friday, police said U.S. Customs and Border Protection informed MPD that they apprehended Ramirez at the port.

Investigators said Ramirez, upon being apprehended, “spontaneously stated that he had ‘run into a lady.’”

Police said he later declined to speak with MPD investigators.

“I’m really thankful that he was apprehended and arrested and that he’s sitting there thinking about his actions,” the server, who has asked to remain anonymous, told Local 10 News. “It’s very disgusting ― and I wonder how he would feel if it was done to somebody in his family.”

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

The focus is a one-of-one Shohei Ohtani dual gold Logoman autograph card, now believed to be the third-highest sale ever for a sports trading card.

“It’s crazy to think we had a $10 million card sitting here in my store,” said David Davidov of Boca Sports Cards.

Davidov said collectors everywhere had been chasing the rare Ohtani card.

“Everybody was trying to pull this card, buying up hobby boxes, retail boxes,” he said.

Also searching for the card was Secure Collectibles, an investment group made up of three men who own some of the world’s rarest sports cards. The group’s collection is worth more than $32 million.

On July 25, Michael Allen of Miami and Secure Collectibles announced a $6.5 million bounty for the card.

Meanwhile, back at Boca Sports Cards, a loyal customer was opening multiple jumbo boxes.

“He was trying to chase the big card,” Davidov said. “He came and opened up boxes. He didn’t hit anything here.”

Before leaving for vacation, the customer bought one more jumbo box. Inside was the redemption card.

“I’m sitting having dinner. He FaceTimes me, he says, ‘You’re not gonna believe it,’” Davidov said. “I said, ‘Don’t tell me.’ He showed me the redemption card and it was just — I was so happy for him.”

The customer, who requested to remain anonymous, later connected with Secure Collectibles and sold the card for $11 million.

The sale makes it one of the most expensive sports cards ever sold, behind a Michael Jordan-Kobe Bryant card and a Mickey Mantle card.

“Ohtani is going to end up being the greatest player of all time for what he’s doing and continuing on doing,” Davidov said. “Will there be other cards? Probably.”

The excitement isn’t over. Davidov said the next big chase begins next week with the release of Topps Chrome Debut Basketball, featuring Cooper Flagg’s autograph and a patch from his NBA debut. He said that card could sell for more than $5 million.

Saturday will feature a sun/cloud mix with the possibility of afternoon showers and storms.

A touch of Saharan dust could reach the area on Sunday and bring a hazy hue to the sun/cloud mix. There may be spotty, morning showers, followed by scattered showers and storms during the afternoon.

Temperatures will make a run for the low and mid 90s this weekend -- factor in humidity and it will feel like 100°F+.

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According to an arrest report from the Miami Beach Police Department, Francisco Javier Lara, 55, who is a teacher from Austin, Texas, was arrested on two counts of child neglect without great bodily harm.

Police said officers responded to reports of a child running in and out of traffic near 33rd Street and Pinetree Drive at about 12:15 p.m.

Officers located the pre-teen running southbound before he entered a home in the 3000 block of Pinetree Drive, where officers were able to safely secure him, authorities said.

Investigators said the boy was unable to provide much information but was able to give officers a phone number belonging to his foster father. The child was then taken to the Miami Beach Police Department while officers worked to locate his caregiver.

Using police databases and cellphone location information, detectives traced the number to Lara and determined he was staying at the Catalina Hotel on Collins Avenue, the arrest report stated.

According to the report, when detectives knocked on the hotel room door, Lara eventually answered and appeared unaware that one of the children was missing until detectives asked about his foster son’s whereabouts.

“Utilizing compassion and patience, we were able to get his name and a phone number which allowed our detectives to get a location of where his father was at,” MBPD Officer Christopher Bess told Local 10’s Rosh Lowe.

The report states that officers detected a strong odor of alcohol on Lara’s breath. When asked what time it was, he reportedly told detectives he believed it was around 7 a.m., although it was approximately 2 p.m.

Inside the hotel room, detectives also found the child’s 10-year-old nonverbal foster brother, who also has autism, authorities said.

The boy was taken to the police station along with his brother, where victim advocates provided both children with food and shoes, the report stated.

According to authorities, during a post-Miranda interview, Lara told detectives he had traveled to Miami Beach from Texas with his two foster children for a vacation and planned to return home with them Friday.

Police said Lara claimed that he had put the children to bed around 9 p.m. on Wednesday before leaving the hotel room around midnight to eat at a nearby Mexican restaurant and have several alcoholic drinks. He told detectives he consumed four to five drinks at the restaurant before going to another bar, where he had two additional alcoholic beverages, the report stated.

According to the report, Lara told investigators he returned to the hotel around 4 a.m., found both children asleep and then “passed out,” remembering nothing else until police knocked on his hotel room door later that day.

However, detectives said hotel surveillance video showed Lara returning to the hotel at 5:10 a.m., leaving again at 9:03 a.m., and returning once more at 10:29 a.m. Police said Lara told investigators he had no recollection of leaving the room again and admitted it was his fault for drinking too much and blacking out.

According to the report, surveillance footage captured the eldest boy leaving the hotel alone while Lara was out before running north on Collins Avenue.

A review of employment records confirmed Lara worked as an elementary school teacher for Miami-Dade County Public Schools last year. He now lives in Texas and was visiting Miami Beach on vacation, authorities said.

Police confirmed that both boys were handed over to the Florida Department of Children and Families as Lara was taken into custody.

As of Friday afternoon, Lara was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $2,000 bond.

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According to an Opa-locka Police Department arrest report, the suspect was identified as Kolei Kulani McKinney, 41, of northwest Miami-Dade. His attorney, Stephan Lopez, said McKinney is a Miami Gardens police officer and a U.S. Navy veteran.

The report states that McKinney and the victim had been in a romantic relationship for about eight months but maintained separate residences.

Investigators said the incident began around 5:45 a.m. July 17 after the couple, who were driving separately, stopped near Northwest 22nd Avenue and State Road 9 in Opa-locka following what the victim described as McKinney driving erratically.

According to the report, McKinney got into the passenger seat of the victim’s vehicle, where the two argued.

The victim told detectives McKinney said, “I can’t f---ing take this no more; I’m just going to end this s---,” before pulling a black handgun from his waistband, pointing and waving it toward the windshield," investigators said.

The report states the victim asked McKinney to put the firearm away. Instead, investigators said he threw it onto the dashboard, continued acting erratically and repeatedly struck the passenger-side dashboard.

According to the report, when the victim asked McKinney to leave her vehicle, he grabbed her by the neck with both hands and began choking her. Investigators said he then placed the handgun in the vehicle’s center console and told her, “Here, you want to end it, just f---ing end it.”

The victim told detectives she feared for her life because she did not know what McKinney intended to do after he pulled out a gun, according to the report.

Authorities said the victim reported the incident to the Miami Gardens Police Department on July 19, and an Opa-locka police officer completed the initial incident report.

According to investigators, McKinney was served with a temporary injunction on July 20. The victim later told detectives that McKinney contacted her and asked her to recant her statement and stop cooperating with the investigation, the report states.

The report also states that McKinney also contacted the victim by phone on July 22 while she was at work, prompting her to file a separate report with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department alleging he violated the temporary injunction.

Investigators noted they observed no visible injuries on the victim’s neck during an interview, and there were no known witnesses or surveillance video capturing the altercation.

Police said McKinney voluntarily surrendered at the Opa-locka Police Department on Thursday while accompanied by Lopez. He was taken into custody without incident and transported to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Jail records show McKinney is facing one count each of aggravated assault with a firearm, illegal use or display of a firearm while committing a felony and misdemeanor witness or victim tampering.

As of Friday evening, he remained jailed at TGK on a $6,000 bond.

In a statement to Local 10 News, Lopez said McKinney “vehemently denies these allegations” and alleged the claims were “manufactured by an obsessed woman” who had been stalking and harassing his client. Lopez also said McKinney previously sought, but was unable to obtain, an injunction against her for alleged stalking and harassment.

Según un informe de arresto del Departamento de Policía de Opa-locka, el sospechoso fue identificado como Kolei Kulani McKinney, de 41 años, del noroeste de Miami-Dade. Su abogado, Stephan Lopez, dijo que McKinney es agente de la Policía de Miami Gardens y veterano de la Marina de Estados Unidos.

El informe indica que McKinney y la víctima mantenían una relación sentimental desde hacía aproximadamente ocho meses, pero vivían en residencias separadas.

Los investigadores informaron que el incidente comenzó alrededor de las 5:45 a.m. del 17 de julio, después de que la pareja, que conducía en vehículos separados, se detuvo cerca de Northwest 22nd Avenue y State Road 9, en Opa-locka, luego de que la víctima describiera que McKinney conducía de manera errática.

Según el informe, McKinney entró al asiento del pasajero del vehículo de la víctima, donde ambos comenzaron a discutir.

La víctima dijo a los detectives que McKinney expresó: “Ya no puedo soportar esta m—; simplemente voy a acabar con toda esta m—”, antes de sacar una pistola negra de la cintura, apuntarla y agitarla hacia el parabrisas, informaron los investigadores.

El informe indica que la víctima le pidió a McKinney que guardara el arma de fuego. En cambio, los investigadores señalaron que él la arrojó sobre el tablero, continuó comportándose de manera errática y golpeó repetidamente el tablero del lado del pasajero.

Según el informe, cuando la víctima le pidió a McKinney que saliera de su vehículo, él la sujetó del cuello con ambas manos y comenzó a estrangularla. Los investigadores indicaron que luego colocó la pistola en la consola central del vehículo y le dijo: “Toma, si quieres acabar con esto, hazlo de una maldita vez”.

La víctima dijo a los detectives que temió por su vida porque no sabía qué pretendía hacer McKinney después de sacar el arma, según el informe.

Las autoridades informaron que la víctima denunció el incidente al Departamento de Policía de Miami Gardens el 19 de julio y que un agente del Departamento de Policía de Opa-locka elaboró el informe inicial del caso.

Según los investigadores, McKinney recibió una orden de protección temporal el 20 de julio. Posteriormente, la víctima dijo a los detectives que McKinney la contactó y le pidió que se retractara de su declaración y dejara de cooperar con la investigación, indica el informe.

El informe también señala que McKinney contactó a la víctima por teléfono el 22 de julio mientras ella estaba en el trabajo, lo que la llevó a presentar un informe por separado ante el Departamento de Policía de Fort Lauderdale, alegando que él violó la orden de protección temporal.

Los investigadores señalaron que no observaron lesiones visibles en el cuello de la víctima durante una entrevista y que no había testigos conocidos ni videos de vigilancia que captaran el altercado.

La Policía informó que McKinney se entregó voluntariamente el jueves en el Departamento de Policía de Opa-locka acompañado por Lopez. Fue detenido sin incidentes y trasladado al Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que McKinney enfrenta un cargo de agresión agravada con arma de fuego, un cargo por uso o exhibición ilegal de un arma de fuego durante la comisión de un delito grave y un cargo menor por manipulación de un testigo o una víctima.

Hasta la noche del viernes, permanecía detenido en el TGK con una fianza de $6,000 USD.

En un comunicado enviado a Local 10 News, Lopez dijo que McKinney “niega enérgicamente estas acusaciones” y aseguró que las denuncias fueron “fabricadas por una mujer obsesionada” que, según él, había estado acosando y hostigando a su cliente. Lopez también afirmó que McKinney intentó previamente, sin éxito, obtener una orden de protección contra ella por presunto acoso y hostigamiento.

Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing that additional documents provided by the Interior Department since the indictment of David Hearn show that the damage was the result of a botched installation by a contractor as well as “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.” In addition, a recent visual inspection revealed damage throughout the pool, including in the middle — where prosecutors say a vandal would not likely have attempted to peel the lining.

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” said the filing from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, which asked a judge to formally dismiss the case.

Hearn's lawyers said in a statement that the case against him should never have been brought.

“Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology,” the lawyers said.

The dismissal marks an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark where President Donald Trump had launched a massive renovation project before the country's 250th anniversary celebrations. Trump, without providing evidence, has alleged the damage was caused by vandals.

But the case has long been saddled with evidentiary problems and challenges. Hearn has for weeks maintained his innocence and his supporters have characterized the prosecution as a politically motivated attempt by the Trump administration to deflect blame and scapegoat others.

Earlier this week, Hearn's lawyers sought access to grand jury transcripts because of what they said were “irregularities” in the process. They said a National Park Service official testified that the pool already was damaged before Hearn allegedly touched it, couldn’t quantify any damage attributable to Hearn and said the same repairs would have been required regardless of his conduct.

“The witness’s testimony established that the pool had substantial preexisting damage requiring repair before any alleged conduct by Mr. Hearn,” his lawyers wrote. “According to the witness, the pool was leaking more than one million gallons of water per week; its expansion joints had exceeded their service life; and the liner already contained a rip.”

Hearn pleaded not guilty earlier this month to one felony count of property destruction and had a trial scheduled to start Sept. 28 in D.C. Superior Court. The charge, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years upon conviction, accused Hearn of causing at least $1,000 in damage to the pool.

In court papers Friday, prosecutors said they had only recently received new information that undermined the basis for the prosecution.

“It was not until after these documents were produced that (prosecutors) first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented” by the Interior Department. Prosecutors could “only rely,” they wrote, on the initial information suggesting that the damage was caused by vandals.

Hearn has told The Associated Press he was detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police for five hours after stopping by the pool during a bike ride on June 19. He said he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool, but said he obeyed a park worker who told him to let go of it.

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.

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Clenney, 30, has been in the Miami-Dade jail since August 2022, charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of her boyfriend Christian Obumseli.

Miami police said the crime happened on April 3, 2022 at the One Paraiso condominium building, located at 3131 NE Seventh Ave. in the city’s Edgewater neighborhood.

Clenney ― also known as Courtney Tailor ― admitted to stabbing Obumseli, 27, after an altercation, though her attorneys claimed the then-25-year-old did so in self-defense.

Prosecutors said Obumseli was unarmed and the stabbing was not in self-defense.

Clenney was facing a possible life sentence.

Her attorneys declined to comment further on the plea deal ahead of an Aug. 10 hearing in Miami-Dade court.

Larry Handfield, the attorney for the Obumseli family, told Local 10 News that his clients were very involved in the conversations about the plea, saying all parties have agreed to a resolution and that the agreement will start their healing process.

Clenney, de 30 años, ha permanecido en la cárcel del condado Miami-Dade desde agosto de 2022, acusada de asesinato en segundo grado por la muerte a puñaladas de su novio, Christian Obumseli.

La Policía de Miami informó que el crimen ocurrió el 3 de abril de 2022 en el edificio de condominios One Paraiso, ubicado en el 3131 de la avenida NE Seventh, en el vecindario de Edgewater, en la ciudad de Miami.

Clenney, también conocida como Courtney Tailor, admitió haber apuñalado a Obumseli, de 27 años, tras un altercado, aunque sus abogados afirmaron que la entonces joven de 25 años actuó en defensa propia.

Los fiscales señalaron que Obumseli estaba desarmado y que el apuñalamiento no fue en defensa propia.

Clenney enfrentaba una posible condena de cadena perpetua.

Sus abogados declinaron hacer más comentarios sobre el acuerdo de culpabilidad antes de una audiencia programada para el 10 de agosto en un tribunal de Miami-Dade.

Larry Handfield, abogado de la familia Obumseli, dijo a Local 10 News que sus clientes participaron activamente en las conversaciones sobre el acuerdo y que todas las partes han llegado a una resolución, además de que el acuerdo marcará el inicio de su proceso de recuperación.

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According to the Florida Lottery, the case stemmed from a joint investigation by the agency’s Division of Security and the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.

Investigators said the investigation began after a Florida Lottery player reported that a winning Pick 4 ticket she mailed through the U.S. Postal Service never arrived at its intended destination.

According to an arrest report, the winning ticket was purchased at a Publix store in Tampa and was worth $2,600. Because the prize exceeded the $599 maximum payout that can be claimed at a lottery retailer, the terminal instructed that the ticket be returned to the player, investigators said.

They said the winner later mailed the ticket to a relative in Fort Lauderdale to help pay for another person’s funeral expenses, but the ticket was never successfully delivered.

A Florida Lottery inspector determined the ticket was instead redeemed June 19 at the Florida Lottery’s Miami District Office by 28-year-old Lakaysha Kenya Lockhart. Investigators later identified Lockhart as a USPS letter carrier assigned to the Oakland Park post office.

According to her arrest report, Lockhart, who has listed addresses in Lauderhill and Hollywood, “was not known to, approved or authorized by the ticket owner” to redeem the winning ticket.

Authorities said Florida Lottery special agents and USPS OIG investigators conducted a joint operation that led to Lockhart’s arrest on July 23. They said Lockhart admitted after her arrest to stealing the winning lottery ticket and redeeming it at the Miami District office.

“Our players deserve confidence that every Lottery prize is protected through strong security measures and diligent oversight,” Florida Lottery Secretary Reginald D. Dixon said in a statement. “I commend our Division of Security for their outstanding investigative work and thank our partners at the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for their collaboration in protecting the integrity of Florida Lottery games and bringing this case to a successful resolution.”

Jail records show Lockhart is facing one count of grand theft, dealing in stolen property, filing a false claim for payment, and two counts of unlawful use of a two-way communications device and mail theft.

Florida Lottery officials said that because the offenses occurred in multiple judicial circuits, the cases will be prosecuted separately.

Lockhart was not listed as an inmate in Broward County jail records as of Friday morning.

A USPS spokesperson told Local 10 News that Lockhart joined the agency on April 21, 2025, and remains employed by USPS but is currently off duty.

The United College Athletes Association said as part of the push, members of the Oregon State women's team filed a petition with state regulators, marking a formal effort to seek collective bargaining rights under state law.

The announcement comes two years after a group of women's basketball players co-signed letters to Southeastern and Big Ten Conference leaders in 2024, requesting a formal collaboration process on issues affecting college athletics.

Since those efforts were denied, more than 100 female athletes have signed union authorization cards with the UCAA, agreeing to representation in collective bargaining.

The announcement comes a few days after the College Football Players Association revealed that Stanford has become the first football team to organize a player-led chapter — another effort by college athletes to unionize.

The UCAA says its mission is to represent and protect athletes through collective bargaining, ensuring that college sports are safe, fair, sustainable and that athletes have a say in decision-making.

“As interim president of the UCAA, I’m proud to help lead a movement that gives college athletes a real voice in the decisions that shape our lives and careers," University of Maryland basketball player Oluchi Okananwa said in a statement.

NCAA leaders have long opposed the idea of players becoming employees of their schools, though the idea isn't universally opposed by college leaders. Tennessee athletic director Danny White has been among those who have said collective bargaining is the only real solution to the problems that confront schools that are now paying millions to their players.

Attempts to create unions for college athletes at Dartmouth and Southern California stalled in 2024 due to the changing landscape in college sports and the then-incoming Trump administration's new National Labor Relations Board, which wasn't expected to approve the moves.

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According to the department, eligible new correctional officers at select institutions may also qualify for an existing $5,000 retention bonus, bringing the total available incentives to as much as $6,000.

Institutions with a $6,000 bonus include:

• Apalachee CI (Sneads)
• Gulf CI (Wewahitchka)
• Hamilton CI (Jasper)
• Jackson CI (Malone)
• Liberty CI (Bristol)
• Northwest Florida Reception Center (Chipley)
• Okeechobee CI (Okeechobee)
• Santa Rosa CI (Milton)
• Taylor CI (Perry)

The department said officers become eligible for the bonuses after receiving certification through the Florida Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission.

“The Florida Department of Corrections is committed to investing in the men and women who choose to serve and support Florida’s public safety mission,” Assistant Deputy Secretary of Institutions Hope Gartman said in a statement.

Gartmen added that a career in corrections offers competitive pay, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, and the chance to make a meaningful impact on public safety.

According to the FDC, newly hired correctional officers earn a starting salary of $22 per hour and receive paid training, high-risk retirement benefits, State of Florida employee benefits, and opportunities for career advancement.

The push for expanded use of Starlink comes as Zelenskyy looks for alternate ways to mitigate the need for U.S. Patriot air defense systems to thwart the steady barrage of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian territory. The interceptors are in shorter supply as the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran continues to rage, and Trump on Friday appeared to back away from a recent commitment to give Ukraine a license to produce them.

Zelenskyy made the request directly to Trump in an Oval Office meeting this week during his whirlwind trip to Washington, according to one person familiar with the matter. He also told lawmakers later on Capitol Hill that he wanted Starlink to help with targeting inside Russia, according to a person in the room. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive private discussions. Trump did not commit to Zelenskyy’s request.

Zelenskyy has been pushing to expand Starlink use for weeks

Musk has allowed the Ukrainians to use Starlink inside their own territory, including in Ukrainian regions occupied by the Russians, but has restricted use of the satellite system inside Russia.

Zelenskyy has been making the case for expanded use of Starlink with U.S. officials for at least several weeks. The White House, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington and officials at SpaceX, which owns Starlink, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Zelenskyy’s request. Zelenskyy’s efforts to get Musk’s permission to use Starlink to help with Ukrainian attacks inside Russia was first reported by The Atlantic.

Granting permission for an expanded use of Starlink could come with risk for Musk. The Associated Press reported in December that two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Musk’s Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel.

The intelligence findings were shown to the AP on condition that the services involved were not identified, and the news organization was not able to independently verify the findings’ conclusions.

Russia views Starlink as a grave threat, the findings indicate. The thousands of low-orbiting satellites have been pivotal for Ukraine’s survival against Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.

Ukrainian leader also pitched US lawmakers during recent visit

Zelenskyy had traveled to Washington to attend Sen. Lindsey Graham's memorial service and used the visit to check in with Trump and allies on Capitol Hill.

Zelenskyy visited the Capitol following his meeting with Trump in the White House earlier in the day. Senators said the requests the Ukrainian president made were similar to what he had told them earlier in July during a meeting at the NATO summit in Turkey.

“They need access to Starlink long term to make their longer-range and intermediate-range systems more accurate,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“They prefer to be exactly on target, as opposed to, in the general area,” Rounds said. “He made that pretty clear.”

Zelenskyy spoke with lawmakers late Tuesday evening ahead of a Senate vote on a punishing new Russia sanctions package, which advanced toward a final vote expected next week.

Zelenskyy also reiterated Ukraine's need for more U.S. Patriots and the previously discussed licensing agreement so Ukraine could start producing the system in house, said Rounds, who was part of the delegation of U.S. lawmakers at the NATO conference in Ankara.

“There was a consistency from what President Zelenskyy shared with us in Turkey two weeks ago to what he shared with us again once again, in terms of what their needs are,” Rounds said. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

Trump appears to edge away from Patriots licensing commitment

But Trump appeared to edge away from the earlier commitment to give Ukraine a license to make Patriots for its military needs during a gathering of his Cabinet at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday.

Trump at the NATO summit in Turkey declared “we’ll give them the right to make Patriots” to counter missile attacks from Russia in their more than four-year war.

The president told reporters on Friday that the licensing matter remains under discussion and said he hasn't made a decision on it.

“We’re talking about it. But it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology,” Trump said.

Trump's relationship has improved with Zelenskyy as Ukraine has gained strength on the battlefield with Russia in recent months. And Zelenskyy has sought to portray that his war with Russia is connected to the U.S. and Israel's conflict with Iran.

U.S. intelligence has shown that Tehran provided Russia with drones to use against Ukraine. More recently, Russia has prepared to ship drones for Iran, including upgraded versions of the technology that Tehran originally supplied to Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine, according to U.S. and European officials.

Zelenskyy said ahead of this week's visit to Washington that he'd share evidence with the United States that shows Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. bases in the Middle East via satellite surveillance.

Zelenskyy also has been making the case to the Trump administration that his country is well positioned to help the U.S. counter Iranian drone attacks on U.S. bases in the Middle East and Gulf allies' infrastructure.

“He has been very emphatic they are going to provide more aid to us in unmanned warfare, aerial unmanned warfare, which has been so instrumental in Iran — his people have been there, they’ve been providing technology and know-how — and they’re ready, willing and able to do it in even greater magnitude,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, who sits on the Armed Services Committee. “He was very emphatic on that point.”

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AP writers John Leicester in Paris and Emma Burrows in London contributed reporting.

Skattebo declared himself nearly fully healthy at New York Giants training camp, nine months removed from his gruesome right ankle and leg injury. But after getting into some hot water with the organization for doing a backflip and landing awkwardly on that surgically repaired ankle earlier this month, he's planning to stay grounded for a while.

“Obviously, I do some dumb things here and there, but I learn from it,” Skattebo said Friday. “We’ll see when game time comes around. But right now, we’re focused on training camp, and we’ll keep the backflips off the field for now.”

Skattebo alarmed, among others, coach John Harbaugh and general manager Joe Schoen when they saw video of the backflip at Fanatics Fest in New York on July 18. He turned out to be fine, but a text message and some difficult conversations followed.

“He’s a young man that’s still getting used to the spotlight and in New York City, and you've got to be conscious of your actions, not only from a health standpoint but a perception standpoint,” Schoen said. “He knows I’d rather him not do that, especially this close to camp.”

It is not the first time Skattebo has been second-guessed for something off the field since reaching the NFL and getting hurt. He took part in a WWE show in November, weeks after surgery, took criticism from radio hosts but was not worse for the wear.

The botched backflip was a much riskier endeavor the Giants would rather he not repeat.

“The big picture message is you want to take care of yourself," Harbaugh said. "You want to take care of your team: do everything you can do to be healthy, be back, be right, be good.”

The 24-year-old running back declared in May he'd be ready for the season opener Sept. 13 against Dallas. Skattebo also told the coaching staff he'd be good for the start of camp and hit that deadline.

As a result, he has no limitations and is doing just about as well as he can.

“I've felt 99%,” Skattebo said. “I think the 100% is when I put shoulder pads on and I'm able to hit someone. That's when I tell you I'm 100%, but for now I'm 99.9% OK."

Skattebo will get that chance when the pads go on beginning Monday.

A 2025 fourth-round pick out of Arizona State, Skattebo rushed for 410 yards and five touchdowns on 101 carries before having his rookie year cut short Oct. 26 at Philadelphia. This past spring, he set a goal of playing 17-plus games and rushing for over 2,000 yards on 300 carries.

Skattebo didn't shy away from those lofty aspirations — which would give him a top-10 season in league history — but his main focus is on moving past the injury and rehab process and getting back to what he does best.

"It was a long, hard road," Skattebo said. “It’s time to play football.”

Malik Nabers did not practice Friday

After being the talk of the start of camp for getting on the field for individual drills after his own lengthy rehab from a torn ACL, Malik Nabers did not take part in practice Friday. Harbaugh called it “part of the process.”

“We’ll work through it, and every single day will be what it is that given day,” Harbaugh said. “He’s worked real hard, made a lot of progress and that’s what we decided to do today for practice.”

Neither Nabers nor the Giants have set a timetable for his return to game action.

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The leadership change came as police continue searching for people involved in a fatal, gang-related shootout at a food festival near the Space Needle last weekend. A 15-year-old was arrested at the scene and has been charged with assault, but charging documents say the gun he was seen firing wasn't involved in the deaths of two bystanders.

Wilson and then-Police Chief Shon Barnes faced criticism for being slow to release key information about the shootout on Sunday, including whether suspects remained at large.

Barnes, who was the city's second Black police chief, has been credited with boosting the recruitment of officers and helping reduce crime downtown. A number of Black community organizations, a major business group and several City Council members issued statements criticizing Wilson's decision to replace him Thursday.

At a news conference Friday with Andre Sayles, a Seattle deputy chief the mayor named as interim chief, Wilson credited Barnes for his service and said that as mayor she had a clearer window into the operations at the Seattle Police Department than her critics.

The lack of communication about a mass shooting at a major public event in Seattle was not the only reason she asked Barnes to resign, she said.

“There were multiple factors,” Wilson said. “The events of Sunday played into it.”

Sayles told the news conference the department would boost police staffing at public festivals for the remainder of the summer. He also said he believed investigators are close to finding and arresting additional suspects in the shootout.

The gunfire erupted in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle, an annual three-day festival that draws hundreds of food and retail vendors and performers. Three people, including a suspect, were killed, and four people were wounded. One of the people injured was a 2-year-old boy.

Broadcasters like ABC, Carr said in an interview on the Fox Business Network, “struck a deal with the American people. You broadcasters get subsidized access, free access to a valuable public resource, the airwaves, worth billions of dollars. In exchange, you have to operate in the public interest.”

“Look, as a country, we should have a trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there,” Carr told anchor Maria Bartiromo. “So I hope more broadcasters return to their public interest obligations.”

The FCC has been pushing ABC

The remarks came a day after ABC, issuing another salvo in an ever-escalating battle with President Donald Trump’s FCC, again accused the agency of a brazen attempt to chill its constitutionally protected free speech — and by extension, that of every media outlet in the country.

ABC accused the agency of retaliating against it simply because it doesn't like the political content of ABC’s shows.

The network's new comments came in its latest filing to the agency, expressing its formal opposition to the FCC's early review, launched in April, of eight ABC local broadcast licenses well before they expire.

“There is no question why the Commission is singling out these eight stations,” the filing said. “Each is owned by ABC, and the Administration has openly and repeatedly called for the revocation of ABC’s licenses, because it dislikes the content and viewpoints expressed on ABC network programs.”

“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country,” it continued. “Accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price. … The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely. “

The license review is only one part of a long-simmering confrontation between ABC and the FCC. The network is also battling Carr’s efforts to make "The View,” a talk show whose hosts and guests have frequently angered Trump, subject to equal-time rules — a question ABC says the agency itself resolved more than two decades ago.

The rules require granting equal airtime to competing candidates for office. Bona fide news programs are exempt. The FCC qualified the show as such in a 2002 decision.

Kimmel has also been a target

Trump has also repeatedly called for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired.

When the FCC launched its early review of ABC’s licenses in April, it came amid a fight with Kimmel over a joke that offended Trump. The agency, however, cited diversity, equity and inclusion practices at the company, and Carr brought them up in the Fox interview.

Operating in the public interest, he said, “means you can’t run news distortions, broadcast hoax. You can’t be engaging in this invidious form of DEI discrimination.” He did not elaborate.

In its filing Thursday, ABC referred to over 140,000 comments from viewers, part of the public comment period on the issue, posted to the FCC website — more than 95% of which it said were supportive of ABC’s position.

“The outpouring of support for the Stations has been unprecedented for a license renewal proceeding," it said. “These supporters span the ideological spectrum but share a fundamental commitment to free speech and press freedom.”

In its lengthy filing, ABC also noted how rare it is that the FCC would call for early license renewal applications.

“Until the day before the Commission took this step, it had not called for license renewal applications ahead of schedule for more than fifty years,” ABC said. “The Commission’s departure from those norms lays bare what is really going on: the Administration is retaliating against ABC for the exercise of its First Amendment rights.

"That alone should stop these proceedings in their tracks.“

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Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.

Agobiado por el fétido olor que llega desde la orilla, el mesonero mexicano Alan Vázquez observaba desde la barra de un restaurante vacío en la turística localidad de Playa del Carmen, en el Caribe mexicano, cómo el sargazo descompuesto teñía de marrón las aguas turquesas.

“Es triste que un lugar tan bonito y tan alegre, que era para la fiesta y para brindar emociones a la gente, haya terminado así”, lamentó el mesonero de 32 años.

Vázquez admitió que teme correr la misma suerte que otros cuatro compañeros, que fueron despedidos hace dos meses ante la merma de turistas que ha golpeado a hoteles y comercios del estado de Quintana Roo, una de las joyas del turismo mexicano, donde las ventas cayeron 30% en la primera mitad del año, según estimaciones del empresariado local.

La cantidad de sargazo en las costas del Caribe mexicano se ha cuadruplicado este año en comparación con 2025, y es 27 veces mayor que el promedio histórico. Hasta junio ya se habían acumulado unas cinco millones de toneladas, según el Observatorio de Oceanografía Óptica de la Universidad de Florida.

El sargazo que está llegando al Caribe es de las especies Sargassum natans y Sargassum fluitans, originarias del Atlántico, las cuales flotan gracias a vesículas de aire.

Para María Eugenia Allende Arandía, del Laboratorio de Ingeniería y Procesos Costeros del Instituto de Ingeniería de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, el sargazo se ha vuelto un “problema muy severo” para las comunidades de las costas caribeñas.

Pese a la adversidad, Vázquez afirmó que no está dispuesto a rendirse ni a retornar a su estado natal de Michoacán, de donde salió hace 12 años. “Me adoptó Playa del Carmen y no lo voy a dejar ahora; sé que las cosas van a mejorar”, expresó.

Un problema que se expande por el Caribe

En Puerto Rico el sargazo ha cubierto las aguas que rodean zonas turísticas muy frecuentadas, entre ellas La Parguera.

“No recuerdo haber tenido tanta concentración en tantos sitios a la vez”, expresó Waldemar Quiles, secretario de Recursos Naturales del territorio estadounidense.

En 2025 una cantidad récord de 40 millones de toneladas métricas de sargazo flotó a la deriva por el océano Atlántico. Gran parte acabó en la costa de Puerto Rico, lo que llevó al gobernador a declarar el estado de emergencia.

“Ya no se trata de un fenómeno aislado”, señaló Emmanuel Maldonado González, sociólogo medioambiental de la Universidad de Carolina del Este. “Se está convirtiendo en un peligro cada vez mayor”.

Aunque el sargazo proporciona un lugar de cría para animales como tortugas, peces y aves marinas, también reduce el oxígeno del agua, asfixia las raíces de los manglares e impide que la luz solar llegue a los corales y a las praderas marinas. Una vez que arriba a la costa también impide que las tortugas recién nacidas alcancen el océano, según los científicos.

La macroalga contiene altos niveles de arsénico y otros metales pesados y contaminantes orgánicos. Al descomponerse en las playas produce sulfuro de hidrógeno, un gas que huele a huevo podrido y que puede causar irritación respiratoria.

El sargazo también ha llegado a las costas de las Islas Vírgenes de Estados Unidos, donde actualmente es posible caminar unos 7 metros (22 pies) mar adentro sin mojarse los pies, según la consultora ambiental Amy Dempsey, quien considera que la situación es la peor de los últimos cinco años.

Es la primera vez que los científicos observan un crecimiento a gran escala del sargazo en zonas como el Caribe y el golfo de México. Por lo general, estas algas se reproducen de forma asexual a medida que se desplazan desde África occidental, explicó Brian Barnes, científico marino y profesor asistente de investigación de la Universidad del Sur de Florida.

El sargazo que ha comenzado a reproducirse en la región antes de lo habitual este año tiene su origen en la cifra récord de 40 millones de toneladas métricas registrada el año pasado.

“La floración de 2025 fue tan grande que, en realidad, nunca desapareció”, explicó Barnes. “Fue suficiente para dar lugar a una nueva floración a nivel local”.

Pesca del sargazo en alta mar, la estrategia mexicana

Desde hace siete años, el gobierno de México dejó en manos de la Secretaría de Marina la recolección de las miles de toneladas de sargazo que llegan a diario a sus costas en el Caribe.

Para esa operación, de la que participan unos 500 marinos, se han dispuesto 11 buques sargaceros, un buque oceánico, un sargacero anfibio, 18 embarcaciones menores y 16.000 metros (52.400 pies) de barrera de contención, que se han colocado en puntos de alta afluencia turística en las localidades de Cancún, Tulum, Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen y Mahahual.

Según las autoridades esta operación permite recoger aproximadamente 1.200 toneladas de sargazo por día, apenas el 30% de lo que llega al Caribe mexicano.

Ante la previsión de un aumento en el arribo de la macroalga y su consecuente efecto social, económico y ambiental, la presidenta mexicana Claudia Sheinbaum anunció la víspera una inversión de unos 115 millones de dólares para adquirir dos remolcadores, seis sargaceras costeras, barreras de contención y otros equipos, con el fin de elevar este año a 1.800 toneladas diarias la recolección y llevarla a 4.000 toneladas diarias el próximo año. La Armada mexicana construirá todas las embarcaciones.

Con las nuevas embarcaciones se busca incrementar la recolección en el mar y no en las playas, que en la actualidad concentran la mayor parte de la actividad, dijo a The Associated Press el contraalmirante Topiltzin Flores Jaramillo, coordinador de la Estrategia de Contención del Sargazo.

La reutilización es otra alternativa

Desde la iniciativa privada, la academia y el gobierno se han impulsado varias iniciativas para reutilizar el sargazo como una alternativa para enfrentar el fenómeno y garantizar una fuente de ingresos a las comunidades costeras mexicanas.

Una de esas iniciativas es impulsada por un grupo interdisciplinario de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, que desde 2021 trabaja en siete escuelas de las comunidades turísticas de Cozumel, Akumal y Puerto Morelos, en Quintana Roo, con el fin de promover entre los adolescentes proyectos para la reutilización del sargazo en la elaboración de jabones, calzado y libretas, entre otros productos, indicó Allende Arandía, una de las integrantes del grupo de investigadores.

Además, diferentes empresas privadas de ese estado han desarrollado pequeñas plantas para procesar la macroalga y transformarla en biofertilizantes, ladrillos y hasta productos cosméticos.

La empresa mexicana Carbonwave se dedica a la transformación del sargazo en bioestimulantes agrícolas y emulsionantes cosméticos.

Rafael Carranza, director de Operaciones y Finanzas de Carbonwave, reconoció que, aunque el arranque de la planta en 2020 fue difícil, en los últimos años han logrado posicionar el bioestimulante agrícola en el mercado local e incluso exportarlo a Estados Unidos, Ecuador y Brasil.

El año pasado la planta procesó cerca de 300 toneladas de sargazo fresco, y este año espera superar esa meta, precisó Carranza.

En tanto, el gobierno mexicano busca coordinar los empeños internacionales para combatir el sargazo, y tiene previsto celebrar un encuentro el 1 y 2 de octubre con países del Caribe, Brasil y Japón.

La secretaria de Medio Ambiente, Alicia Bárcena, dijo la víspera que la ayuda de Brasil es fundamental, porque la falta de tratamiento del agua en el río Amazonas hace que al desembocar en el mar tenga más compuestos que alimentan el alga. Indicó también que Japón ya ha mostrado su disposición a apoyar con barcos balleneros que ya no utiliza, y que pueden ser adaptados para recolectar sargazo.

Antonio Oseguera Cervantes worked for cartels with his brother Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, the drug lord known as “El Mencho” who was killed by the Mexican army in February, according to federal prosecutors.

El Mencho co-founded and led the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, known by its Spanish-language acronym CJNG. Last year, President Donald Trump’s administration designated the CJNG and other cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, 67, of Michoacán, Mexico, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell is scheduled to sentence him on Nov. 13.

Besides the conspiracy charge, Oseguera Cervantes also pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Oseguera Cervantes was transferred from Mexico to the U.S. for prosecution in February 2025. He was a member of the Milenio Cartel before his brother co-founded the CJNG.

Trump told reporters at Camp David on Friday morning that administration officials had “agreed not to have a fund” that compensates his political allies, yet made clear that he disagrees with that decision.

The comments came hours after an early morning social media post in which Trump said people who had been prosecuted by the Justice Department — many of them for their involvement in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — “are suffering still, many ruined, and I felt that they should be given compensation for what has been done to them.”

Trump’s reluctant declaration that the fund won't be created came as Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, say they won’t support Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general until they see that promise in writing. They have been working for weeks with the White House and Blanche, who is now the acting attorney general, to produce a document to that effect, but both senators have said they aren’t satisfied so far.

“The President made it clear today that the so-called Anti Weaponization Fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it,” Tillis said after Trump’s initial social media post.

As negotiations continued late Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley rescheduled a committee vote for Blanche that had been postponed earlier in the week.

A spokesperson for the committee said Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess and putting the Tuesday vote on the calendar “gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee.”

Cornyn, Tillis want promises in writing

Blanche said at a hearing two months ago that the anti-weaponization fund would not move forward after Republican senators revolted and held up an immigration funding bill.

But Tillis, who is retiring when his term ends in January, and Cornyn, who lost reelection this year after Trump endorsed his primary opponent, said they want to ensure that the White House doesn’t reverse course, especially as Trump continues to argue that a fund is needed.

The Justice Department has provided the senators with language that says Blanche’s May 18 order establishing the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is “rescinded and shall have no force or effect,” according to a document reviewed by The Associated Press.

Cornyn and Tillis have said they also want some clarifications on a separate piece of the settlement that would grant Trump and members of his family immunity from tax audits. Cornyn said this week that it was his understanding that the audits could extend to more than 100 different Trump organization subsidiaries into the future.

“Todd Blanche said it was limited to the parties to the litigation — and it was retrospective, not prospective,” Cornyn said. “And all we’re doing is asking them to put that in writing.”

Blanche nomination is delayed in the Senate

The Judiciary Committee postponed the vote on Blanche’s nomination that had been scheduled for Thursday morning after Tillis and Cornyn said they needed more from the administration before they could provide the necessary votes.

After the meeting was delayed, Trump said in a social media post that he might pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it after Cornyn and Tillis leave office next year. But the two sides continued to negotiate through Thursday afternoon, when Blanche, Cornyn and Tillis met on Capitol Hill.

On Friday, a person familiar with the negotiations said talks had been positive but the senators were still awaiting a new offer from the Justice Department. The person requested anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.

The two senators have repeatedly said the Justice Department seemed interested in reaching an agreement, but the White House wouldn’t budge even to aid the confirmation of Trump’s loyal former personal attorney, who has aggressively pursued the administration’s priorities as acting attorney general.

“I think as far as Blanche and the Department of Justice, we were pretty much on the same page,” Cornyn said Thursday. “But then when the president got wind of it, he wasn’t willing to go along with it.”

Tillis said Blanche “has been forthright, thoughtful and patient” but attributed the holdup to an “incompetent personal adviser” to the president, even as Trump himself continued to advocate for the fund.

Behind the scenes, Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn is being blamed as an obstacle to an agreement that would let Blanche move forward, according to three people who have direct knowledge of the discussions and requested anonymity to discuss them.

Saying the AP’s “sources are wrong,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said “anyone trying to assign blame to the President or his team has no earthly idea of what is going on and clearly is trying to deflect from the issue at hand — Todd Blanche will be an exceptional Attorney General and he should be confirmed immediately.”

Also on Friday, Trump’s attorneys notified a court it would appeal a judge’s scathing ruling that characterized the settlement of the president’s lawsuit against the IRS as an improper exercise in self-dealing. The judge in her order earlier this month referred one of Trump’s attorneys for potential disciplinary action and criticized Blanche’s involvement in the settlement, given his prior representation of Trump.

Blanche has said he disagrees “with the judge’s insinuations” about him.

Settlement fund could have benefited Jan. 6 rioters

Even as they are usually deferential to Trump, a number of Republican senators have expressed strong objections to the settlement.

“The criminals who assaulted police officers and defiled our nation’s Capitol are not ‘great American patriots’ who are ‘victims of government abuse,’” Tillis said, echoing Trump’s comments about the rioters who could potentially have received payouts. On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who had been charged in the attack.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said Thursday that the majority of Senate Republicans aren’t comfortable with the settlement fund.

“Blanche said it’s dead, and he testified that it’s not coming back,” Kennedy said. “But for whatever reason, somebody didn’t want to put it in writing.”

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This story has been updated to correct the year of the Capitol riot. It was 2021, not 2001.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Según la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward (BSO), agentes y equipos de Oakland Park Fire Rescue respondieron alrededor de las 6:35 p.m. del miércoles a la intersección de Northwest 44th Street y Northwest 31st Avenue tras reportes de un accidente.

Los detectives informaron que Milton Pérez, de 51 años, conducía un BMW 640i modelo 2012 en dirección sur por Northwest 31st Avenue, acercándose a Northwest 44th Street, cuando ocurrió el accidente.

Los investigadores dijeron que una mujer, cuya identidad no ha sido divulgada públicamente, giraba a la izquierda desde Northwest 31st Avenue hacia Northwest 44th Street cuando el BMW impactó su Honda Civic modelo 2014.

Según los detectives, el impacto provocó que el Civic girara en sentido contrario a las agujas del reloj. Mientras el vehículo giraba, la conductora salió expulsada por la ventana del lado del pasajero y quedó junto al vehículo.

Paramédicos de Oakland Park Fire Rescue declararon muerta a la mujer en el lugar, informaron los investigadores.

Según la BSO, Pérez fue trasladado a un hospital local con heridas que no ponen en peligro su vida.

Los detectives no han informado a quién consideran responsable de la colisión.

La investigación continúa en curso.

Leer en español

According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, deputies and Oakland Park Fire Rescue crews responded around 6:35 p.m. Wednesday to the intersection of Northwest 44th Street and Northwest 31st Avenue following reports of a crash.

Detectives said 51-year-old Milton Perez was driving a 2012 BMW 640i southbound on Northwest 31st Avenue, approaching Northwest 44th Street when the crash occurred.

Investigators said a woman, whose identity has not been publicly released, was making a left turn from Northwest 31st Avenue onto Northwest 44th Street when the BMW struck her 2014 Honda Civic.

According to detectives, the impact caused the Civic to rotate counterclockwise. As the vehicle spun, the driver was ejected from the passenger-side window and came to rest next to the vehicle.

Paramedics with Oakland Park Fire Rescue pronounced the woman dead at the scene, investigators said.

Perez was transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to BSO.

Detectives have not said who they believe was at fault for the collision.

The investigation remains ongoing.

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According to an arrest report, Maguadalupe Barajas Sandoval, 66, and Cynthia Leslie Hurtado, 35, were arrested Thursday by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office following a multi-agency investigation involving the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

The report states investigators began looking into the operation in July 2025 after receiving information that Barajas Sandoval and other suspects were involved in trafficking “multi-pound quantities of crystalline methamphetamine” from Las Vegas to the Miami area.

Investigators said the organization used USPS facilities in Nevada to mail packages containing methamphetamine to Miami-Dade County.

The report states undercover agents received multiple shipments during the investigation that tested positive for methamphetamine.

According to the report, investigators in June intercepted two USPS Priority Mail Express packages addressed to undercover agents in Miami.

The report states one of those packages contained about 1,425 grams of suspected methamphetamine, or roughly 3 pounds, while another contained about 955 grams, or roughly 2 pounds.

The report also states undercover agents arranged several drug purchases from the suspects and sent payments through Zelle accounts connected to members of the alleged organization.

Investigators said Barajas Sandoval, Hurtado and other suspects communicated with undercover agents about the drug transactions, including arranging payments and shipments.

Barajas Sandoval is facing five counts each of controlled substance importation into Florida, trafficking more than 200 grams of amphetamine and unlawful use of a communications device, according to jail records. Hurtado is facing four counts each of the same charges.

As of Friday, Barajas Sandoval was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $1.025 million bond. Hurtado was also being held at TGK on an $820,000 bond.

Según un informe de arresto, Maguadalupe Barajas Sandoval, de 66 años, y Cynthia Leslie Hurtado, de 35, fueron arrestadas el jueves por la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade tras una investigación conjunta en la que participaron el Departamento de Cumplimiento de la Ley de Florida (FDLE), Investigaciones de Seguridad Nacional (HSI), la Administración para el Control de Drogas (DEA) y el Servicio de Inspección Postal de Estados Unidos.

El informe indica que los investigadores comenzaron a indagar sobre la operación en julio de 2025 tras recibir información de que Barajas Sandoval y otros sospechosos estaban involucrados en el tráfico de “múltiples libras de metanfetamina cristalina” desde Las Vegas hacia el área de Miami.

Los investigadores dijeron que la organización utilizaba instalaciones del Servicio Postal de Estados Unidos (USPS) en Nevada para enviar por correo paquetes que contenían metanfetamina al condado Miami-Dade.

El informe indica que agentes encubiertos recibieron múltiples envíos durante la investigación que dieron positivo a metanfetamina.

Según el informe, en junio los investigadores interceptaron dos paquetes de USPS Priority Mail Express dirigidos a agentes encubiertos en Miami.

El informe señala que uno de esos paquetes contenía aproximadamente 1,425 gramos de presunta metanfetamina, es decir, alrededor de tres libras, mientras que otro contenía aproximadamente 955 gramos, o alrededor de dos libras.

El informe también indica que agentes encubiertos coordinaron varias compras de droga con los sospechosos y enviaron los pagos a través de cuentas de Zelle vinculadas con miembros de la presunta organización.

Los investigadores dijeron que Barajas Sandoval, Hurtado y otros sospechosos se comunicaban con los agentes encubiertos sobre las transacciones de droga, incluida la coordinación de pagos y envíos.

Según los registros de la cárcel, Barajas Sandoval enfrenta cinco cargos de importación de sustancias controladas a Florida, cinco cargos de tráfico de más de 200 gramos de anfetamina y cinco cargos por uso ilegal de un dispositivo de comunicación. Hurtado enfrenta cuatro cargos por cada uno de esos mismos delitos.

Hasta el viernes, Barajas Sandoval permanecía detenida en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza de $1,025,000 USD. Hurtado también permanecía detenida en el TGK con una fianza de $820,000 USD.

Una zona clave del océano Pacífico que se usa para medir la fuerza de El Niño alcanzó esta semana su nivel más cálido e intenso jamás registrado por 15ta semana desde que se formó, lo cual es muy temprano en su ciclo de vida, informaron científicos de la Universidad de Columbia.

El Niño, un calentamiento natural del Pacífico cerca del ecuador que distorsiona los patrones meteorológicos en todo el mundo, no alcanzará su punto máximo sino hasta dentro de varios meses y debería durar hasta la primavera de 2027. La Organización Meteorológica Mundial OMM), un organismo de la ONU, advirtió el viernes que probablemente desencadenará calor extremo, sequía y lluvias intensas hasta bien entrado el próximo año.

“Hace dos meses advertí que El Niño estaba llegando a nuestra puerta. Ahora está dentro de la casa, y subiendo la temperatura”, dijo el viernes a los periodistas el secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, Antonio Guterres. “Ya hemos soportado un verano de extremos: domos de calor que rompieron récords, incendios forestales apocalípticos que arrasan España, Francia y mucho más allá, miles de vidas perdidas en condiciones abrasadoras”.

“Pero según la ciencia más reciente, esto es solo un acto de preparación”, afirmó Guterres, y añadió que, a medida que El Niño se fortalezca, estará “echando leña a un planeta que ya está en llamas”.

“Estamos en territorio desconocido”, sostuvo. “La crisis climática está a toda marcha”.

La mayoría de los modelos de pronóstico por computadora muestran que este fenómeno de El Niño probablemente romperá el récord histórico de intensidad cuando alcance su punto máximo, en algún momento hacia finales del otoño o por esas fechas, pero eso no está garantizado, señalaron los científicos.

Se avecinan extremos caóticos de lluvia, sequía y un calor nunca visto

Aún es temprano en la vida —casi de un año— de un El Niño típico como para ver muchos efectos directos, pero llegarán, indicaron los científicos, lo cual coincide con las advertencias de Guterres. Los efectos de El Niño se combinarán con el calentamiento global de largo plazo provocado por la quema de carbón, petróleo y gas.

“Estamos viendo algo que es el julio más cálido jamás registrado para esa región específica”, utilizada como indicador de El Niño, dijo Jeffrey Shaman, climatólogo de la Universidad de Columbia. “Dentro de un año, va a hacer muchísimo calor en el hemisferio norte. Y posiblemente tengamos un verano como nunca hemos experimentado a nivel mundial”.

Pero antes de eso, es probable que el potente fenómeno cause cambios en los patrones de lluvia que traerán extremos caóticos a distintas partes del mundo en otoño e invierno. Hay una alta probabilidad de sequía e incendios forestales en Indonesia, India y otras partes de Asia, el sur y el este de Australia, zonas de Sudamérica y regiones del sur de África, advirtió la OMM. Otras áreas, entre ellas, gran parte de Estados Unidos y el sur de Europa afectado por incendios, recibirán lluvias por encima del promedio.

“Este El Niño, que se desarrolla sobre el telón de fondo de un calor oceánico sin precedentes y temperaturas en aumento, brinda a los gobiernos y las comunidades una ventana de oportunidad para anticipar riesgos y actuar antes de que se desplieguen los impactos”, dijo Celeste Saulo, secretaria general de la OMM.

El Niño amplifica el calentamiento causado por el ser humano

Aunque El Niño y el cambio climático son fenómenos separados, sus efectos crean una combinación dañina, y la gente no toma este vínculo con la seriedad suficiente, dijo Guterres.

“Escuchamos mucho sobre calor, sequía e incendios forestales récord, pero no lo suficiente sobre el verdadero cambio que impulsa estos eventos: la crisis climática que se acelera, alimentada por los combustibles fósiles”, expresó Guterres.

Guterres señaló que el mundo está demasiado absorto en dramáticas guerras en Ucrania, Oriente Medio y Sudán como para notar los peligros del cambio climático. Además, “existe una campaña deliberada, en particular por parte de la industria de los combustibles fósiles y algunos países, para fingir que los problemas que estamos presenciando en realidad no existen”.

La ONU debe ser más activa y movilizar la opinión pública “para decirles a los gobiernos que es hora de reconocer esta amenaza como una amenaza existencial para todos nosotros”, declaró a los periodistas.

Gran parte del calor producido por la quema de combustibles fósiles queda atrapado en los océanos, pero “durante un El Niño el océano, en cierto sentido, puede devolver parte de las acumulaciones de calor del calentamiento global a la atmósfera”, explicó Shaman. Aunque este El Niño terminará, el calor liberado permanece en el aire, junto con las temperaturas más altas, que volverán a subir en el próximo El Niño, agregó.

Guterres pidió más sistemas de alerta temprana y sistemas de enfriamiento para afrontar el calor extremo. Afirmó que la industria y los gobiernos deben hacer que el trabajo sea más seguro, y destacó la industria de la confección, que cuenta con 90 millones de trabajadores, la mayoría mujeres. En 17 de los 23 mayores centros de fabricación de ropa, los días peligrosamente calurosos aumentaron en más de un 10% en los últimos 20 años, “y sin embargo la mayoría de las marcas globales no fija ningún estándar de calor para las fábricas que las abastecen”.

Pero, sobre todo, dijo Guterres, “el mundo debe dejar de alimentar la crisis.... Más carbón, petróleo y gas provocarán un futuro más combustible”.

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Borenstein informó desde Washington.

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La cobertura climática y ambiental de The Associated Press recibe apoyo financiero de múltiples fundaciones privadas. La AP es la única responsable de todo el contenido. Encuentra los estándares de la AP para trabajar con organizaciones filantrópicas, una lista de las fundaciones y las áreas de cobertura que financian en AP.org.

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

Friday marks the last day of a contract under which the federal government pays for legal services for children who enter the U.S. without a parent or guardian. The government contracts out those services to a network of nearly 100 legal groups across the country that provide services to roughly 20,000 children.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why it was allowing the contract to expire. But it comes as the administration has redoubled its efforts to achieve its policy of mass deportations, and after migrant children became a target for removal from the country during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office.

As part of the expiring contract, the legal groups can enter government-funded shelters and give presentations to children about their legal rights, and directly represent the children as they go through immigration court proceedings.

But as that contract ends, the providers say it’s unclear what will happen come Monday or whether they'll be able to visit their clients in the shelters where they live.

“We have no understanding of what’s going to happen to those children come next week. We don’t know if they’re going to have legal representation. The government as of yet has not identified who will take over this representation,” said Melissa Lopez, the executive director of Estrella El Paso, during a news conference earlier this week. The organization currently represents 243 unaccompanied children in western Texas and New Mexico.

The providers say their ability to enter the shelters, check on their clients and give presentations to new arrivals serves as an important oversight measure for a vulnerable population. The providers warn that without a lawyer to assist them in court and help them navigate the complexities of immigration law, children will be much more likely to be deported back to countries they initially fled.

“The government is trying to eliminate our work in this program because they know that without attorneys children will be deported,” said Lopez.

Health and Human Services, which is responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant children while they are in government care and which administers the contract, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

In a Texas immigration court, children play with action figures as lawyer warns of future

Dozens of children and teens filed early Friday morning into the Harlingen courthouse for a hearing before an immigration judge. In the lobby, other children waiting for their hearings played with puzzles and action figures or drew in coloring books.

One 8-year-old boy walked into the courtroom holding an Etch-a-Sketch as he sat next to his attorney.

These were children who had come to the U.S. without a parent or guardian and now their cases were making their way through the immigration courts. But Lauren Fisher Flores, an attorney for the American Bar Association’s ProBar project, which is contracted to provide legal services in southwestern Texas, warned the court of the looming contract expiration.

She explained that come Monday, lawyers wouldn't be able to provide the legal information sessions that they usually give to children in shelters that let children know their rights and lawyers also would no longer be able to step in and provide the “Friend of the Court” services where they assist those children who sometimes show up in court without a lawyer. Fisher Flores said the organization didn't know what the government's plan was going forward.

“We sincerely hope there will be someone to step in next week,” she said.

The judge thanked the attorney and said she was sorry to hear the news.

Legal groups already laying off staff after months of no payments

The end of the contract comes as the legal service providers representing these children say they have not been paid for more than half a year. The organizations say that the Trump administration has been withholding payments as it demands detailed information from the providers about their clients that the providers say they have never been asked for before and that they ethically cannot provide.

“They are clearly trying to destroy the program by grinding down the financial health of nonprofits. We’ve seen layoffs and furloughs, and we will see a lot more of that if these invoices aren’t paid,” said Michael Lukens, the executive director of the Amica Center

Some groups have been trying to secure private funding to continue their work, while others have begun laying off staff and shuttering offices. ProBar in south Texas this week laid off 20% of its staff.

Mid-South Immigration Advocates is a nonprofit law firm based in Memphis, Tennessee, which helps over 400 unaccompanied minors. The organization’s legal director, Sally Joyner, said the organization is owed over $500,000 from the federal government to reimburse them for their work with the children. They've already had to lay off seven employees since 2025 and more layoffs are planned. They're closing their physical offices in Nashville and Memphis at the end of September and expect to close their law firm entirely soon.

As their budget tightens, she said they're doing everything they can to continue representing the children who are their clients. She warns that without attorneys to represent them, migrant children, including infants and teens, could be ordered deported in the coming weeks.

“These are kids who have been living in our communities, going to our schools for you know three, four, five years,” Joyner said. “Some of them they only know the United States and will have gone to high school, graduate high school just in time for ICE to send them to prison.”

Migrant children coming to the U.S. alone usually have special protections

Migrant children traveling alone are usually entrusted to U.S. government care, and there are various legal protections that apply to them once they’re in the U.S. and navigating the immigration system, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

The law said the government should facilitate legal representation for children put into deportation proceedings.

With some limited exceptions, it requires that children be placed in the “least restrictive setting possible,” which generally means they can be released to a sponsor, such as a relative in the U.S., while their immigration proceedings play out.

The children can apply for a specially protected status if they can’t return to their home country because of abuse or neglect and they can also apply for asylum.

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Santana reported from Sacramento. Associated Press reporter Laura Turbay in Little Rock contributed to this report.

The Big Ten calls its reputation as a top-heavy conference unfair.

Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti considers those three College Football Playoff championships — from Michigan in 2023, Ohio State in 2024 and Indiana in 2025 — testaments to the league’s strength from top to bottom.

“You cannot send your top teams out into the CFP unless they’ve played — and have them be successful, which we have been very successful — if they’re not going through a gauntlet in the regular season,” Petitti said this week. “This idea that the middle of our conference isn’t hard is just not right.”

The balance of power between college football’s heavyweight conferences has been a major talking point at the leagues’ media days.

Petitti spoke to reporters while standing beside the Big Ten’s three recent CFP trophies. Illinois coach Bret Bielema said the SEC was living in the past. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said “there’s no doubt” the Big Ten is best.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” Cignetti said. “We don’t run a hype machine up here in the Midwest. We believe everything is earned, not given. When we fall short, we say, ‘We fell short.’ We don’t cry a river, whine and complain. That’s why we’re the best.”

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey argued his league’s case a week earlier.

“When you look at our schedule, no one has created the kind of weekly competition that exists in the Southeastern Conference,” Sankey said.

Five different SEC schools combined to win 13 national titles from 2006-22, but no SEC team has reached any of the last three championship games.

Both have evidence to support their claims

In the first two years under a 12-team CFP format, seven different SEC schools have made a combined eight playoff appearances. The Big Ten had four schools total seven playoff berths.

Certain metrics support the idea that the 16-team SEC is stronger than the 18-school Big Ten at the bottom. ESPN’s Bill Connelly produces the SP+ rankings, a predictive measure rating each team’s efficiency while adjusting for tempo and an opponent’s strength.

The Big Ten had three of the top four teams in the 2025 season-ending SP+ rankings, while the SEC had nobody in the top five. But seven Big Ten programs ranked below the lowest SEC team on the list: No. 67 Kentucky.

Recent head-to-head results favor Big Ten

Over the last two seasons, the Big Ten went 10-7 against the SEC, including a 3-0 playoff record and a 5-2 mark in other bowl games. The Big Ten won as an underdog in all five of those non-playoff victories.

Illinois produced two of those upsets, beating South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl in 2024 and defeating Tennessee in the Music City Bowl last season. So Bielema had reason to feel good about himself and his conference this week when he commented that SEC backers “kind of want to live in 2005 forever.”

The 2005 reference was curious because Texas won the title that season when it was still a Big 12 member, a year before the SEC began a string of seven straight titles. Bielema said he chose 2005 because that’s the year before his head coaching career began at Wisconsin.

“The transfer portal and revenue share or NIL, however you want to describe it, when those two elements came into college football, the whole world changed,” said Bielema, who went 29-34 while coaching SEC school Arkansas from 2013-17. “I mean, it’s overly obvious to say that, but I think anything to predate that is just a different time in college football. It just is.”

Big Ten capitalizes on changing times

Fourteen of the 22 playoff games over the last two years have featured Big Ten teams, including two in which conference rivals faced off. No wonder even Big Ten coaches with SEC backgrounds claim bragging rights.

“I just look at what the stats are, you know, and the last three years, the national champion has come out of this conference,” said Purdue’s Barry Odom, who went 25-25 at Missouri from 2016-19. “You also look at the number of playoff wins compared to any other conference, we’ve won twice as many as the next conference in the playoffs.”

UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava has experience playing in both conferences after reaching the playoff with Tennessee in 2024.

“I think it’s two great leagues — two great, physical leagues,” Iamaleava said. “I think the SEC brings a lot of physicality, but over the years, it’s kind of leveled out in terms of the playing field. I think everybody is able to get high-level athletes. ... I think there’s definitely a lot of tough SEC teams, so that every week is going to be a game, but I feel the same way in the Big Ten.”

The intensity of the debate frustrates coaches eager to settle it on the field, perhaps with more head-to-head matchups.

“You never hear in the NFL, ‘Wow, the NFC’s better than the AFC,’” Washington coach Jedd Fisch said. “You don’t ever hear, ’Check us out, we’ve won the Super Bowl the last few years.' We’ve kind of made this some competition rather than just take a step back and say, ‘Who cares?’ Let’s play.”

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AP freelance writer Luke DeCock contributed to this report.

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

The jet went down Friday near the Miramar air base in San Diego. “The pilot ejected, was transported to a local medical facility in stable condition for evaluation and treatment of non-life-threatening injuries,” the Marine Corps said in an updated statement.

Aerial video from a news helicopter showed a plume of black smoke rising from the wreckage in a dirt field, with multiple military and firefighting vehicles and people standing nearby. What appeared to be white flame retardant covered the ground, and at least one person was spraying the wreckage with a fire hose.

Wade Lott saw the crash as he drove to work at a concrete company just south of the flight line.

“It just blew up, it was crazy,” said Lott, 36, who watched from his truck as two jets descended toward the runway together. The first landed without incident, but the second suddenly began slowing down, almost as if it were trying to hover, Lott said. When the jet was about 100 feet (30 m) above the ground, the pilot ejected and their parachute deployed as they rose about 200 feet (61 m) into the air just in time.

“The jet hit the ground right next to another plane,” said Lott. “It plowed into the runway and just blew up.”

Candace Hadley, a spokesperson for San Diego Fire, said firefighters were on scene to respond to a vegetation fire that sparked near the crash site. She referred additional questions to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

The base used to host the Navy fighter pilot training school depicted in the original “Top Gun” movie, and was known as “Fightertown USA” in its heyday. The school was relocated to Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada in 1996 after the base was transferred to the Marine Corps.

The U.S. Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force together have more than 630 F-35s, according to a 2024 analysis by the Government Accounting Office. The F-35B is one of several versions, and has an engine designed for short takeoffs and vertical landings. A single F-35B costs about $109 million. The report estimated that the overall F-35 program will cost roughly $2 trillion after the military buys more than 1,800 more jets and operates them for decades to come.

A Marines statement called Friday’s crash a “Class A mishap.” That’s the most severe mishap category, used when the damage totals more than $2 million, an aircraft is destroyed or a service member killed. In the Air Force alone, there have been at least 17 other “Class A mishaps” involving F-35 aircraft since 2000, according to Air Force Safety Center statistics.

At least seven other military aircraft mishaps have happened in the U.S. this year, according to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network database.

The F-35s are considered the safest and most capable fighter jets the military has in its fleet, according to the Lexington Institute think tank that focuses on defense technology and national security.

There have been fewer crashes involving any of the F-35 models since the jet was adopted in 2015 compared to other fighters when those planes were new, and fatal crashes are rare in F-35s.

In five F-35 crashes, the pilots were able to eject, though at least one sustained injuries. That pilot was injured when an F-35 crashed near the international airport in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in May 2024. The jet was heading an Air Force base in California from Texas.

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AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska. Rebecca Boone contributed from Boise, Idaho.

Two major rail unions praised the proposed rule announced Friday that would also strengthen the standards for certifying that crews can safely operate a train.

The government had concerns after inspecting two Texas railyards near the border last fall on the two railroads directly affected by these restrictions on Mexican crews — CPKC and Union Pacific. CPKC and the Association of American Railroads trade group declined to comment while they study the rule.

“We have the same goals — safe, secure operations that keep the supply chain fluid,” Union Pacific said in a statement. “And we will continue working with our federal partners through the regulatory process.”

Inspections documented language concerns

The Federal Railroad Administration sent letters to both CPKC and UP in December after those inspections found several instances of train crews having trouble understanding English. The government urged those railroads to reexamine their practices and make sure that Mexican crews can speak English and don’t operate a train more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) inside America.

The Federal Railroad Administration said at the time the concern was that these Mexican crews bringing trains into Union Pacific’s Eagle Pass rail yard and CPKC’s facility in Laredo were having a hard time understanding operating bulletins and U.S. regulations that require information about hazardous materials and emergency responses to be maintained in English.

Both UP and CPKC have pledged to make sure they were following the existing rules, including that the Mexican crews do not travel more than 10 miles into the United States. But now the federal government wants to strengthen the rules “because railroad crews must be able to communicate fully and accurately when crossing into the United States, most notably with dispatchers and emergency responders during a crisis, as a safety-critical function.”

Rail unions and the Transportation Department worry

This rail safety effort aligns closely with the Transportation Department's efforts to ensure that truck drivers can understand English, so they can read road signs and warnings and communicate with first responders after an accident or during an inspection. The government has tried to withhold millions of dollars in highway funding from New York and California because it isn’t satisfied with the steps those states have taken to make sure the commercial driver’s licenses they issue are valid.

Mark Wallace, the national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union, has been raising concerns about this practice of using Mexican train crews for several years because of safety, security and job concerns.

The union has said that the handoffs used to happen right at the border, but now Union Pacific and CPKC routinely ask Mexican crews to bring trains several miles over the border to one of their railyards where the crew switches can be done more safely. But the firm 10-mile (16-kilometer) restriction in this rule will prevent the railroads from expanding this practice to railyards further into America like the union said UP was considering in New Mexico.

“Trains originating from Mexico, operated by foreign crews were unable to communicate with dispatchers in English and the language barrier posed a hazard in the event of a derailment or other incident,” Wallace said.

Trains started crossing the border to limit smuggling

But the railroads have said that this practice of using Mexican train crews to bring the trains into railyards in America was developed in 2018 with the approval of the first Trump administration to address smuggling concerns. When trains are stopped at the border smugglers often try to conceal drugs or other contraband aboard them and immigrants might jump aboard to get into the United States.

It is also routine for Canadian crews to bring trains a few miles over the northern border with the United States before handing off to American crews.

New rules should strengthen crew certification standards

The SMART-TD union that represents conductors and other rail workers also said the provisions of the rule that will prohibit train crews from using a system that's similar to cruise control for freight trains when they take their certification tests will help ensure they can operate a train safely.

“Railroad certifications should represent proven ability, not simply possession of a certificate,” said Jared Cassity, who is SMART-TD’s top safety expert. “When lives are on the line, the FRA must know that an engineer can safely operate a train, not just supervise a computer doing it.”

A draft notice published Friday in the Federal Register says a nearly year-long review “provided sufficient data” to suggest the bond program effectively enforces compliance with visa conditions, and would be made permanent.

The notice is to be formally released on Monday, the day the program becomes permanent, and additional countries may be added to the list, which can be found here. The pilot program set the maximum bond amount at $15,000, with lower amounts of $5,000 and $10,000 based on a consular officer’s discretion. The final regulation raises the maximum to $20,000 and removes the $5,000 low-end payment.

The program requires holders of passports from the affected countries to pay the bond to be interviewed for business and tourist visas — known as B1 and B2 visas — to travel to the United States. The bond is refunded if the visa application is denied or, if granted, if the person adheres to the visa terms.

The Trump administration rolled out the program last August to crack down on visa overstays and as part of its broader efforts to curtail illegal migration. The government estimates that arresting and deporting visitors who have overstayed their visa costs about $18,000 per person.

State Department officials have hailed the program as a great success. In 2024, nearly 45,500 visitors from the 50 countries in the program overstayed their visas, according to the notice. In the first 10 months of the pilot visa bond program, the number of overstays from those countries was fewer than 50, it said.

Critics have said it imposes an unnecessarily harsh burden on people from impoverished countries to visit family members or to pursue education or business opportunities in the U.S.

According to government projections and statistics from the first year of the program, the State Department initially expected that about 2,000 visa applicants would be required to post the bond. Instead, the department found that roughly 20,000 applicants were covered by the bond requirement.

Nearly half of those applicants chose not to pay the bond and there was an 83% decline in the number of business and tourist visas issued to citizens of countries on the list.

“The department expects that this final rule will contribute to the continued reduction of demand for B1/B2 visa applications from nationals of countries subject to the program,” the notice said.

The week before the Jacksonville Jaguars opened training camp, Hunter was photographed wearing a police vest posing with Sheriff T.K. Waters and members of the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department. It had the look of a ride-along, though Hunter wasn't saying.

“I was just out there just having fun with Sheriff T.K.,” Hunter said Friday.

Hunter, the Heisman Trophy winner out of Colorado whom the Jaguars made the No. 2 pick in last year's draft, has enough to keep him occupied in training camp. Hunter is returning from injury, his rookie year ending two months into the season when he tore knee ligaments during noncontact drills.

In seven games, he played 324 snaps at receiver and 162 snaps at cornerback. The plan to use him on both sides of the ball has not changed, especially after the Jaguars shored up the core of their secondary by re-signing Montaric “Buster” Brown in March.

Hunter has been wearing a teal jersey for offense in three days of camp, with a white bib and his No. 12 he can slip on when he plays in the secondary.

“How do we balance his reps here, knowing that we’re trying to ease him in, but he also at some point needs to get double the amount that a normal player gets,” coach Liam Coen said. “And so what does that ramp-up look like? We have it all kind of mapped out ... on every single practice schedule, his reps are highlighted in here — where he’s in, what plays he’s in, where he’s at on the field. We’ve been extremely intentional about it.”

Hunter, who had surgery Nov. 11 to repair the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee, was limited during offseason workouts. But he used that time to build up some 10 pounds of muscle in his upper body and managed to get even faster.

He was clocked running at 22.6 mph at the team's facility last week.

“I was a small guy coming in. Everybody was like, ’Gain weight, gain weight,’” Hunter said. “I was scared at first. I'm like: ‘Dang, I’ve never played at this weight. I'm going to feel heavy, not going to be able to do what I do.' Training and being able to put those months in — not just on the grass but in the weight room — just putting in extra work, it made me feel lighter on my feet when I finally touched the grass.”

He looked like he was flying on grass when he ran the 22.6 mph — no pads, no one around him, not in a game — but it was another indication all was well.

“I'm trying to hit 23 now,” Hunter said. “That's the next goal.”

The Jaguars could use the production considering how much they gave up in a trade to get the second pick in 2025 — their No. 5 pick last year and No. 1 pick this year. They won nine of their last 10 games last year after Hunter was injured to win the AFC South.

For his part, Hunter feels like last year never happened in terms of his health.

“I put nine months in, so it doesn’t feel like I’m coming off an injury,” he said. "Just get the rust off right now. I’ve been gone for nine months, not able to be out here with my teammates for nine months, so finally being able to hit the grass, knock the rust off and just continue to click with the quarterbacks and click with the defense.”

Defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile said Hunter is getting back into the flow, and the added muscle in his upper body is noticeable.

“You never want to see anybody get injured, but I think he really put his best foot forward in the weight room as he was recovering from a lower-body injury,” Campanile said. “He just looks really physical in the team work and in the individual period. So he's done a good job.”

And now it's all football, though the Engine 36 B-Shift crew said in its Facebook post for Hunter to let them know when he was ready for a ride-along.

“We promise, it's just as hot as training camp,” the post said.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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Hallandale Beach police said officers responded to a 911 call about a shooting at approximately 10:39 p.m. Monday near the 1000 block of Pembroke Road.

Officers arrived and found the victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds inside a vehicle, police said.

Police say they provided emergency aid until Broward Sheriff’s Office Fire Rescue personnel arrived. Salomon later died from his injuries.

Detectives said their preliminary investigation indicates the shooting occurred at 642 NW Fourth Court.

According to investigators, the vehicle travelled to Pembroke Road, where the call for help was made.

The motive for the shooting remains under investigation, with no arrests made, police said.

Detectives added that they have no information indicating there is an ongoing threat to the public.

According to the department, this case remains active, and detectives continue to work through evidence and interviews to identify those responsible.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the Hallandale Beach Police Department at 954-457-1400 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477. Tips to Crime Stoppers can remain anonymous and tipsters may be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000 if the tip leads to an arrest and conviction.

La Policía de Hallandale Beach informó que los agentes respondieron a una llamada al 911 por una balacera aproximadamente a las 10:39 p.m. del lunes cerca de la cuadra 1000 de Pembroke Road.

Los agentes llegaron al lugar y encontraron a la víctima dentro de un vehículo con múltiples heridas de bala, informó la Policía.

La Policía indicó que los agentes brindaron asistencia de emergencia hasta la llegada del personal de Broward Sheriff’s Office Fire Rescue. Posteriormente, Salomon murió a causa de sus heridas.

Los detectives informaron que la investigación preliminar indica que la balacera ocurrió en el 642 de Northwest Fourth Court.

Según los investigadores, el vehículo se desplazó hasta Pembroke Road, donde se realizó la llamada de auxilio.

La Policía informó que el motivo de la balacera continúa bajo investigación y que no se han realizado arrestos.

Los detectives agregaron que no tienen información que indique una amenaza continua para el público.

Según el departamento, el caso permanece activo y los detectives continúan analizando las pruebas y realizando entrevistas para identificar a los responsables.

Cualquier persona con información debe comunicarse con el Departamento de Policía de Hallandale Beach al 954-457-1400 o con Broward Crime Stoppers al 954-493-8477. Las denuncias a Crime Stoppers pueden hacerse de forma anónima y quienes proporcionen información podrían ser elegibles para una recompensa de hasta $5,000 USD si esta conduce a un arresto y una condena.

The deadline is Monday at 6 p.m. EDT.

Skubal — a 29-year-old left-hander who will be a free agent this offseason — is in the midst of another strong year for the Detroit Tigers after winning back-to-back Cy Youngs in 2024 and 2025. The left-hander missed about five weeks earlier in the season because of surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow, but he has bounced back quickly.

He's been excellent over his last five starts, with a 2.03 ERA and 41 strikeouts in 31 innings.

One thing complicating Skubal's availability is the Tigers have played better of late and they're hanging around the American League wild-card race, just 4 1/2 games back for the final playoff spot going into Friday's games — albeit with five teams ahead of them. But if a juicy offer is presented, it'll be hard to say no.

Detroit's uncertain playoff fate is a common problem for teams as the deadline approaches.

There is a handful of obvious buyers at the deadline like the Yankees, Rays, Brewers, Braves and Dodgers. There is also a small group of obvious sellers like the Rockies, Giants, Angels, Mets, Athletics and Royals.

But that leaves nearly 20 other teams who are in the middle and could be buyers, sellers or a combination of both.

Here's a look at some of the top trade candidates as Monday's deadline approaches.

The starting pitchers

— Peralta, Mets: The right-hander has had a disappointing season, which is a common refrain for the Mets, but his strikeout numbers are still good. He was excellent for the Brewers over the previous three seasons. If he can fix his command issues, he could help a contender.

— Joe Ryan, Twins: Another powerful arm, the right-hander has been an All-Star in each of the past two seasons. It's unclear if the Twins are buyers or sellers in a crowded American League race — they added reliever A.J. Minter from the Mets on Friday, so continued buying seems more likely. If the Twins decide to move Ryan, though, it could bring back a solid return.

— Foster Griffin, Nationals: The veteran lefty has been outstanding in his return to MLB after spending three seasons in Japan with a 12-2 record and 2.76 ERA. The Nationals are still in the mix for a playoff spot in the National League, but they will likely still be willing to listen to offers.

— Reid Detmers, Angels: The left-hander has been a bright spot in a mostly dismal season for the Angels with 145 strikeouts in 125 innings. Los Angeles will want a sizable return for the 27-year-old, who is still under team control for the next two seasons.

— Clay Holmes, Mets: The 33-year-old made a successful transition from reliever to starter in 2025 and was having another solid season before he fractured his right fibula on a comeback liner in May. The right-hander is in the midst of a minor-league rehab assignment and nearing his return.

— Robbie Ray, Giants: The two-time All-Star and 2021 Cy Young winner doesn't have the wipeout, strikeout stuff that he possessed early in his career, but he's been very good for San Francisco this season with a 10-6 record and 3.08 ERA.

The relief pitchers

— Miller, Padres: The game's most dominant closer, Miller has a jaw-dropping 85 strikeouts over 45 2/3 innings, 28 saves and an 0.79 ERA. Relievers usually don't command huge returns during trade deadline deals, but Miller is an exception, particularly because the 6-foot-5 righty is still under team control for three more years.

— Adrián Morejón, Padres: The left-handed Cuban has been a key part of the Padres' bullpen for the past three seasons. He's a free agent after the season which means he could be on the move.

— Luke Weaver, Mets: The veteran righty has found his niche after making the full-time move to the bullpen in 2024. He's not necessarily a closer, but he does have some experience in the role. He was very good for the Yankees in the playoffs during their run to the World Series in 2024.

— Jeff Hoffman, Blue Jays: The right-hander lost his job as the team's closer earlier this season, but his strikeout numbers are still excellent with 72 punchouts over 46 innings.

Position players

— Luis Arraez, Giants, 2B: The three-time batting champion and four-time All-Star is in the midst of one of his best seasons and has flashed improved defense at second base. He is an elite contact hitter who rarely strikes out and is a free agent after the season.

— Ryan Jeffers, Twins, C: Jeffers recently returned from the injured list and has a career-high .928 OPS this season. His ability to provide pop from the right side will make him a popular trade target, though the Twins might not be willing to make a deal since they're still in the playoff hunt.

— Daulton Varsho, Blue Jays, OF: The 30-year-old slugger is one of the game's better athletes and won a Gold Glove in 2024. He's an upcoming free agent, but he has playoff experience and can still provide great defense with some left-handed power.

— CJ Abrams, Nationals, SS: Washington will want a big return for the All-Star shortstop, who is in the midst of his best year and is under team control for the next two seasons. But if a contender is willing to offer a big package of prospects, the ascending Nationals will likely listen.

— Zach Neto, Angels, SS: Neto has been one of the Angels' best players over the last three seasons. He's a solid defender and provides a good amount of right-handed power, though his strikeout numbers have been high this season.

— Luis García Jr., Nationals, 1B: The left-handed slugger has quietly put together his best season with 23 homers and 76 RBIs. He doesn't walk much, but has one more year of team control and is still just 26 years old.

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

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday jointly announced the proposed changes to the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that requires regulators to document how well banks do in lending to low-to-middle income neighborhoods. It would be the first major revision of the law’s rules and regulations in nearly three decades.

Under the proposed revisions, bank examiners would put more weight on the lending banks do in certain communities and geographies, and less on how many branches they open or how much in deposits they take in from a local community.

The number of banks that would need to comply with the law would be reduced as well. The definition of a small bank will increase from banks with under $412 million in assets to banks with $1 billion in assets. Banks between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets will now be classified as an intermediate bank.

This would reduce the number of banks who need to comply with parts of the CRA by 800 banks. Only 86 banks, or roughly 3% of all institutions, would be subject to the full extent of CRA under the new regulations.

Another change that is likely to be fought over relates to how banks give money to community development groups. Under the CRA, banks can donate money to local organizations that do poverty or low-income housing work in their communities to show they are providing resources to a local community. The new regulations could narrow the groups and programs that banks could donate to in order to meet those obligations.

In a summary of the changes, the bank regulators said these changes would ensure community development grants “are not diverted to activist causes or consumed by excessive operating costs.” Banks would also need to collect more detailed information on who gets their community grants, including addresses, which would give more transparency to who is receiving grants from banks.

That change could negatively impact groups like the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an umbrella group for community development groups that often receive money from banks under the CRA. The new rules discourage banks making grants to national organizations and instead focus their grants on local groups.

Jesse Van Tol, the CEO of NCRC, said that it was “unfortunate” that the bank regulators were politicizing grant making under the CRA.

“CRA was created to work for low-to-middle income people. A lot of these changes are going to discourage banks from making grants, particularly in rural areas, where I expect there will be significant drops in activity,” Van Tol said.

The proposal announced Friday by the OCC and FDIC did not include the other major bank regulator, the Federal Reserve. Banking groups had been pushing for a joint proposal from all three regulators, to make sure all three were aligned on the same requirements under the CRA.

The CRA was passed in 1977 to combat redlining, a practice whereby banks would discriminate against the poor and minorities by choosing not to lend or open branches in minority-majority neighborhoods or in poor neighborhoods.

The law is complex, requiring banks to document how they do business in the cities and areas they operate in. Banks must sit for regular examinations to see whether they are complying with the law. A bad CRA examination could restrict a bank’s ability to open new branches or merge with another bank or have other consequences. The data collected through CRA is also used by the Department of Justice in redlining cases.

The last major revision of the CRA’s regulations happened in 1995, and there have been repeated attempts by administrations of both parties to update the rules to reflect how banking and financial services have changed in the past 30 years. But those revisions have repeatedly failed, either due to opposition from other regulators, the banks, or community groups, or have been blocked by courts. The Biden administration tried its own revisions of the CRA rules but those changes were blocked by courts in Texas.

The proposed rules will now go out for a 60-day comment period where they will be finalized after banks, community groups and other parties have a chance to weigh in on the changes.

Some 27 million metric tons of self-sustaining sargassum have been recorded in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in July, according to a report released Friday by the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab.

The prickly seaweed covers miles of coastline, releasing a foul smell as it rots onshore.

This year marks the first time that scientists have observed sargassum growing in large quantities in areas including the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, instead of being swept into those areas by ocean currents.

The algae usually reproduces asexually as it travels from Western Africa, said Brian Barnes, a marine scientist and research assistant professor at the University of South Florida. “None of this is normal,” he said. “Every year is a little bit of a new story.”

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has been growing since 2011, dumping an increasing amount of seaweed along coastlines in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Experts have said that agricultural runoff, warming waters and changes in wind, current and rain could be factors.

The sargassum that began reproducing in the region earlier than usual this year stems from a record 40 million metric tons reported last year.

“The 2025 bloom was so big it never really left,” Barnes said. “It was enough to start a new bloom locally.”

Seaweed threatens tourism

Sargassum levels in the Caribbean reached record levels in June, while the amount present in the Gulf hit 5 million metric tons in June, nearly double last year’s record, according to the University of South Florida.

Scientists expect 2026 to be the second largest amount of sargassum recorded in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, noting that June alone saw 34 million metric tons, which was only 10% lower than the year-earlier period.

Mexico said Thursday it plans to invest $115 million to tackle the blooming algae, which poses an environmental and economic threat. The government estimates that up to 9,000 tons reach its Caribbean coastline on the worst days. Given current resources, Mexico says it can only gather 1,200 tons of sargassum a day.

On a recent evening, Alan Vázquez closed the restaurant where he works as a waiter in the popular tourist town of Playa del Carmen because there were no customers. He had resisted closing for several hours, hoping he would receive a tip and salvage the day, but vast quantities of decomposing sargassum are turning the famed turquoise waters black, driving away tourists.

“It’s sad that such a beautiful and lively place...has ended up like this,” Vázquez said.

He fears suffering the same fate as four of his colleagues who were laid off two months ago due to a drop in tourism that has devastated hotels and businesses in the state of Quintana Roo, one of Mexico’s tourism gems, where sales fell 30% in the first half of the year, according to estimates from local businesses.

In Puerto Rico, sargassum blankets the waters around popular tourist areas, including La Parguera.

“I don’t recall ever having that much concentration in so many places at once,” said Waldemar Quiles, the U.S. territory’s natural resources secretary.

Much of the record sargassum reported last year ended up along Puerto Rico’s coastline, prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency.

It surpassed the previous record set in 2022 with a peak of some 22 million metric tons.

“It’s not a one-off event anymore,” said Emmanuel Maldonado González, an environmental sociologist at East Carolina University. “It’s becoming a growing hazard.”

Experts warn proliferation will worsen

Patches of sargassum in open waters provide a healthy breeding ground for wildlife, including turtles, fish and seabirds, and can be “a bit of an oasis of life in the middle of the ocean,” Barnes said.

But once it’s closer to shore, it reduces oxygen in the water, smothers mangrove roots and blocks sunlight from reaching coral and sea grass.

Once it washes ashore it can prevent newly hatched sea turtles from reaching the ocean, while the heavy machinery used to remove it from beaches risk destroying fragile turtle nests, scientists say.

“The coastlines are not built for this,” Barnes said.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, people are walking up to 25 feet (seven meters) on mats of seaweed before even reaching the water, according to Amy Dempsey, an environmental consultant.

“This is by far the worst I’ve seen it in the last five years,” she said. “We are getting slammed in the Virgin Islands.”

The smell of rotten eggs permeates communities where large piles of decaying sargassum emit ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.

“The effects of these gases on people can be severe,” warns the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, noting it can cause nausea, headaches and lung irritation.

Used in composting and bioenergy production

Officials on the French Caribbean island of Martinique recently opened a shelter to temporarily house those affected by the toxic gases after residents protested.

So far this year, crews in Martinique have collected more than 11,500 tons of sargassum — including 638 tons in four days alone this month — according to government data. Sea barriers catch some of the seaweed, while crews on shore collect the remainder by hand, storing and processing it for composting and bioenergy production.

Researchers at the University of South Florida and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used artificial intelligence and found that from 2003 to 2022, macroalgae blooms increased by more than 13% per year in the tropical Atlantic and Western Pacific.

Overall, the blooms reached 16.9 million square miles (43.8 million square kilometers), according to a study published earlier this year.

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Associated Press reporter María Verza in Mexico City contributed.

The Trump administration has faced pushback from some European allies over the use of air bases in support of its war with Iran.

But lawmakers in Bulgaria — a member of NATO and the European Union — voted earlier in July to allow the deployment of up to eight U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft, as well as 250 personnel with personal weapons and ammunition and airfield equipment, at Bezmer Air Base.

Under a 2006 U.S.-Bulgaria defense agreement, the Bezmer facility, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) southeast of the capital, Sofia, is a joint-use facility. Any new use of the base requires parliamentary approval.

The deployment, requested by the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria, is authorized until Oct. 1, 2026.

U.S. President Donald Trump thanked Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev in a Truth Social post for allowing the deployment “despite Iran’s threats.”

On Thursday, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova assured her Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, that the deployment “in no way means a change in Bulgaria’s approach toward Iran." The two countries are important trade partners.

A Bulgarian Foreign Ministry statement quoted Petrova as saying “it was out of the question" that any direct military actions linked to the conflict in the Middle East would be carried out from Bulgarian territory.

The statement did not indicate what Araghchi said. But the Bulgarian state news agency, BTA, said Araghchi protested to Petrova over Bulgaria’s support for U.S. military operations against Iran during a telephone conversation initiated by the Bulgarian side. The report cited a report from Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.

Residents of the village of Bezmer and nearby settlements, including the regional capital Yambol, have staged peaceful protests in recent days against the deployment of the U.S. aircraft.

Government officials visited the region to address people’s fears, assuring them that the deployment is solely for logistical missions involving in-flight refueling outside Bulgarian airspace.