The plan, which Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had originally promised to release by mid-August, comes after the Trump administration has been trying to kickstart efforts to help states protect voting systems. Election officials have argued that such efforts are too little, too late after the Trump administration gutted the agency’s election security work last year, forcing the officials to pay for private services to ensure they were prepared for the upcoming elections.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is housed under the Department of Homeland Security, has since its founding in 2018 helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments.

But CISA, as it’s known, was largely absent from that role in last year’s elections after the Trump administration dismantled much of its role on election security. The administration cut some 1,000 employees from CISA and slashed $10 million from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one dedicated to helping state and local election officials.

CISA has also gone the entirety of Trump’s second term without a Senate-confirmed director, instead cycling through a series of acting leaders.

The 13-page document released Thursday says DHS has “consistently supported CISA’s delivery of cybersecurity and physical security services to election officials,” and that such services are provided at no cost to state and local election officials at their request.

Numerous state and local election officials around the country have told The Associated Press otherwise, noting that services previously provided by CISA, like tabletop exercises and penetration tests to evaluate security of their systems, were not available in the lead-up to this year's midterm elections.

Authorities said the crime happened early Sunday morning after the victim brought Alexia Jocelyn Flores, 24, of downtown Miami, back to his unit in the Panorama Tower skyscraper, located at 1100 Brickell Bay Drive, after their dinner date.

Miami police said the two “spent several hours drinking together” and the man eventually asked Flores to leave at around 2:30 a.m.

Authorities said as the woman got dressed in the bedroom and bathroom, the victim remained on the couch.

An arrest report states that surveillance video shows the victim “escorting (Flores) to the elevator, where they kissed goodbye.”

“Upon returning to his apartment, he discovered that two watches were missing from the nightstand beside his bed,” the report states.

Authorities said he tried to contact the Uber driver he had arranged for her “and discovered that she had blocked him.”

Police said they spotted Flores on Wednesday in the area of North Miami Avenue and 21st Street in the Wynwood neighborhood and taken to the downtown police station for an interview.

“(Flores) recalled meeting the victim through tinder, going to dinner, and returning to his apartment,” the report states. “She stated that she believed she had been drugged and could not recall what happened afterward. She denied taking the watches. No police report concerning her allegation was identified.”

Detectives arrested her on a grand theft charge.

As of Thursday morning, Flores was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $7,500 bond.

Leer en español

It happened in the 700 block of Southeast Eighth Street in the city’s Rio Vista neighborhood.

According to Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue, nobody was hurt. The boom truck belonged to Cooper Crane, a company based in West Park.

“Luckily, there was nobody home at the time,” Frank Guzman, an FLFR spokesperson, said.

Officials said crews were working to install a fumigation tent when the weight of the load pulled the crane down.

Video from Sky 10 shows that the crane took out a small section of the outer portion of the home’s roof; it did not appear to have significantly penetrated it.

Guzman said that city inspectors “determined that it is an unsafe structure.”

Cooper Crane had to bring out another crane to lift the equipment off of the home.

Neighbors said the mishap represents a setback for a family that was about to move into the home.

Leer en español

Deputies identified the man as Colin Peter De Verna and arrested him on Wednesday on U.S. 1 in Tavernier, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Verna, 62, faced two felony charges: Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated stalking, according to inmate records.

Los agentes identificaron al hombre como Colin Peter De Verna y lo arrestaron el miércoles en la U.S. 1 en Tavernier, según la Oficina del Sheriff del Condado Monroe.

Verna, de 62 años, enfrentaba dos cargos graves: agresión agravada con un arma mortal y acoso agravado, según los registros de reclusos.

Leer en español

Authorities said the investigation into Manouchka Jean-Noel, 27, of Homestead, came after a victim reported to authorities that she ripped her off.

An MDSO arrest report states that Jean-Noel “advertises that she is a nurse and a certified massage therapist” on Instagram for her business, Luxury Cosmetic Curves, touting services like lymphatic drainage massages, drain removal and incision care.

“In one video, (Jean-Noel) is seen giving a patient a lymphatic massage while blood and other fluids are squirting out of an open wound,” the report states.

Authorities said the victim who reported Jean-Noel had paid her a $550 deposit to care for her after surgery, believing that she had the proper credentials.

“The victim never received services from (Jean-Noel) because her surgery was rescheduled,” the report states. “(She) refused to refund the victim and told her to pursue formal options to recover (the) payment.”

Authorities said the victim’s bank refunded her $450 but she was unable to get the $150 back.

Deputies said an undercover investigator began setting up a meeting with Jean-Noel, who agreed to take $3,110 for three days of post-operative care.

Authorities said the two agreed to meet on Wednesday afternoon at the Homewood Suites by Hilton at 5500 Waterford District Drive, near the Miami airport.

She said she told that investigator, accompanied by another undercover investigator “that she was a licensed nurse and that she was a licensed massage therapist,” providing care to post-op clients since 2018.

Authorities said she took a $1,500 deposit and was subsequently arrested in the parking lot.

Deputies said Jean-Noel claimed she didn’t actually provide the care and claimed that a nurse named “T” was the one doing the work. They said she couldn’t give them “T”'s full name or phone number.

Jean-Noel faces two felony and two misdemeanor unlicensed practitioner charges, as well as a felony charge of organized scheme to defraud.

As of Thursday, records show she was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $7,000 bond.

China and the zoo had said in April that Ping Ping, a male, and Fu Shuang, a female, would go to the United States. But Xi’s announcement at the White House, in opening remarks before talks with President Donald Trump, marked the first public confirmation of the timing. Beijing had reclaimed four pandas from Atlanta in 2024, the last of the animals on loan from China to the U.S. at the time.

Xi said Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, “will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people” in “a few days.” He called it “a piece of good news” and hailed the panda loan program as an example of “friendship between the Chinese and Americans.”

The pandas are part of a conservation agreement between the zoo and the China Wildlife Conservation Association. Both pandas were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

In 2024, Lun Lun, Yang Yang, Ya Lun, and Xi Lun returned from Zoo Atlanta to China, ending a 25-year partnership and leaving the U.S. without any of the animals for several months. The National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China in 2023 before accepting new arrivals Bao Li and Qing Bao, in October 2024 after Atlanta lost its pandas. Other American zoos sent pandas back to China before that as loan agreements lapsed.

When the pandas' Atlanta return was officially promised in the spring, Zoo Atlanta CEO Raymond B. King celebrated “the wonder and joy of giant pandas" and said his facility was “delighted and honored to yet again be trusted as stewards of this treasured species.”

Las autoridades dijeron que la investigación sobre Manouchka Jean-Noel, de 27 años y residente de Homestead, comenzó después de que una víctima denunciara ante las autoridades que ella la había estafado.

Un reporte de arresto de la MDSO indica que Jean-Noel “anuncia que es enfermera y terapeuta de masajes certificada” en Instagram para su negocio, Luxury Cosmetic Curves, promocionando servicios como masajes de drenaje linfático, retiro de drenajes y cuidado de incisiones.

“En un video, se ve a (Jean-Noel) dando un masaje linfático a una paciente mientras sangre y otros fluidos salen a chorros de una herida abierta”, indica el reporte.

Las autoridades dijeron que la víctima que denunció a Jean-Noel le había pagado un depósito de $550 USD para que la cuidara después de una cirugía, creyendo que tenía las credenciales adecuadas.

“La víctima nunca recibió servicios de (Jean-Noel) porque su cirugía fue reprogramada”, indica el reporte. “(Ella) se negó a reembolsar a la víctima y le dijo que recurriera a opciones formales para recuperar (el) pago”.

Las autoridades dijeron que el banco de la víctima le reembolsó $450 USD, pero ella no pudo recuperar los $150 USD restantes.

Los agentes dijeron que un investigador encubierto comenzó a coordinar una reunión con Jean-Noel, quien aceptó recibir $3,110 USD por tres días de cuidados posoperatorios.

Las autoridades dijeron que ambos acordaron reunirse la tarde del miércoles en el Homewood Suites by Hilton, ubicado en 5500 Waterford District Drive, cerca del aeropuerto de Miami.

Las autoridades dijeron que Jean-Noel le dijo a ese investigador, quien estaba acompañado por otro investigador encubierto, “que era enfermera con licencia y que era terapeuta de masajes con licencia”, y que brindaba atención a clientes posoperatorios desde 2018.

Las autoridades dijeron que recibió un depósito de $1,500 USD y posteriormente fue arrestada en el estacionamiento.

Los agentes dijeron que Jean-Noel afirmó que en realidad ella no brindaba la atención y aseguró que una enfermera llamada “T” era quien hacía el trabajo. Dijeron que no pudo proporcionarles el nombre completo ni el número de teléfono de “T”.

Jean-Noel enfrenta dos cargos graves y dos cargos menores por ejercer sin licencia, así como un cargo grave por un esquema organizado para defraudar.

Hasta el jueves, los registros muestran que permanecía detenida en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza de $7,000 USD.

The run will begin with three dates next month in Europe. It kicks off at Dublin's 3Arena on Oct. 26, followed by Paris' Accor Arena on Oct. 29 and London's OVO Arena Wembley on Oct. 30.

Additional artist announcements, as well as U.S. dates, are forthcoming.

An artist presale begins at 10 a.m. local time Monday at Macklemore.com.

According to a press release from Live Nation, the shows will benefit several Palestinian aid organizations, including Anera, Glia, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Taawon, HEAL Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Jewish Voice for Peace, Medical Aid for Palestinians. Institute for Middle East Understanding, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and an U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA USA.

“If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years. There has been a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires that try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now,” Macklemore wrote on Instagram in the caption of his “Free Palestine” announcement. “When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention.”

What to know about Macklemore's pro-Palestinian comments — and Ed Sheeran

Last week, Macklemore made headlines when it was revealed that he was dropped as an opener for Ed Sheeran’s tour of North and South America because of the rapper’s onstage pro-Palestinian comments. Since then, all of Sheeran’s other supporting acts dropped out, including a group that plays with Sheeran during part of the show.

At the time, Sheeran said the decision to cut Macklemore from the Loop Tour was the promoter’s, not his own.

Macklemore said his removal was the result of an effort led by Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots. His Kraft Group also owns Gillette Stadium, where the NFL team plays and where Sheeran is scheduled to perform later this month.

Macklemore also announced he would donate $1 million from his net earnings from the tour to six organizations helping Palestinians.

The weekly average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan rose to 7.03% from 6.95% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.30%.

The average rate is now the highest its been since Jan. 16, 2025, when it was at 7.04%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also rose this week. That average rate increased to 6.42% from 6.26% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.49%.

Higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month to borrowers’ costs, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power. As rates rise, that can also lead prospective home shoppers to delay buying.

Leer en español

Florida City police said Vickie Denise Snow entered the home, located in the 700 block of Northwest 14th Street, through an unlocked rear door at around 11 a.m. and began taking the victim’s property.

An arrest report states that the victim, five months pregnant, came out and saw Snow with her “clothing, laptop and a tablet.”

Police said when the victim told her to “let go” of her items, Snow punched her several times “around her abdomen.”

According to the report, the woman’s mother saw the attack and Snow punched her as well ― in the face ― as she left the home empty-handed.

Police said they found Snow, who is homeless, about a block away at Northwest Seventh Place and Lucy Street and took her into custody on charges of home invasion robbery with aggravated battery and misdemeanor battery.

Jail records listed her bond as “to be set” as of Thursday morning. Records show she refused to appear in court.

The horse’s name drew attention after winning his debut Monday at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Hitler was born in Austria and was an artist before becoming the head of the Nazi Party in Germany.

“The Registrar determined that the name is ineligible under Rule 6.F.9.d, which prohibits names that ‘are likely to be offensive or threatening based upon factors including, but not limited to, color, creed, disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, race, religion, politics or sexual orientation,’” the Jockey Club said in a statement announcing its decision.

Owner and breeder Scott Herbertson said on social media it was a reference to Austrian painter Gustav Klimt and that his filly originally called New Order was named for his favorite band. New Order is also a term for the Nazis' plan for occupying Europe.

The Jockey Club said that horse, a full sister to Merrylegs, had also been unnamed.

“We take these matters seriously and appreciate that they were brought to our attention,” the Jockey Club said.

___

See AP’s full horse racing coverage here

La policía de Florida City dijo que Vickie Denise Snow entró a la vivienda, ubicada en la cuadra 700 de Northwest 14th Street, a través de una puerta trasera que estaba sin llave alrededor de las 11 a.m. y comenzó a llevarse las pertenencias de la víctima.

Un reporte de arresto indica que la víctima, con cinco meses de embarazo, salió y vio a Snow con su “ropa, computadora portátil y una tableta”.

La policía dijo que cuando la víctima le pidió que “soltara” sus pertenencias, Snow la golpeó varias veces “alrededor del abdomen”.

Según el reporte, la madre de la mujer presenció el ataque y Snow también la golpeó, en el rostro, mientras salía de la vivienda con las manos vacías.

La policía dijo que encontró a Snow, quien no tiene hogar, aproximadamente a una cuadra de distancia, en Northwest Seventh Place y Lucy Street, y la detuvo bajo cargos de robo durante una invasión de vivienda con agresión agravada y agresión menor.

Los registros de la cárcel indicaban que su fianza estaba “por determinar” hasta la mañana del jueves. Los registros muestran que se negó a comparecer ante el tribunal.

But there's something different near the end — a bit of text at the bottom that says “paid for by the U.S. government.”

According to AdImpact, which tracks media spending, the advertisement cost $14,000 and it ran during conservative shows on Fox News and Newsmax.

It's not clear what part of the U.S. government paid for the spot, which includes background music with singers crooning “love me” over and over. The White House did not immediately return a request for comment. Neither did Fox News or Newsmax.

The advertisement does not say who voters should support in the midterms, but it meshes with campaign messaging from Trump and other Republicans, particularly during the party's unusual convention in Dallas earlier this month.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is in line to chair the House Judiciary Committee if his party wins the majority in November, said in a social media post that it's a violation of the Hatch Act for government employees to work on such a video.

“It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns,” Raskin wrote.

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge from a state moving to rein in popular and now-ubiquitous betting apps that allow people to place wagers on most anything, including sports, weather, elections and technology.

Prediction market platforms have argued states do not have the authority to govern them because they are regulated at the federal level by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

New York officials filed Thursday's lawsuit against Polymarket in state court and want the company to face fines and be forced to pay restitution to users because the platform did not get a gaming license from the state. The state has previously sued other platforms such as Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini using a similar argument.

“By running an unlicensed gambling operation, Polymarket has done more than just knowingly violate state law, they have put New Yorkers at risk, especially those underage who are most vulnerable to problem gaming,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.

In a statement, Polymarket’s Chief Legal Officer Neal Kumar said, “We'll fight for our users.”

“Polymarket was founded in a tiny NYC apartment and now has more than 350 employees here, embodying why people and businesses come here to make it. We believe in New York and we’re staying here,” Kumar said.

Prediction market platforms have said they operate differently than traditional gambling operations, because consumers are trading against other consumers, similar to how stock markets work. They allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. The platforms say prices are based on trading and they only take a fee from the trading.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has opposed state regulation of the platforms, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he believes the rising number of hybrid incidents in NATO countries shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and that the best way to respond is to give more weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces.

“All the response options are there, and we will use whatever we need,” Rutte said, speaking at a ceremony in New York marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

He said that citizens of the 32 NATO countries can remain calm. “Putin is in a bad place,” Rutte said. “He is not winning the war in Ukraine.”

Danish agency says Russia is more willing to take risks

In a new risk assessment released Thursday, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service said Russia is likely to step up its hybrid campaign — a term for the use of non-conventional hostile acts such as sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation and an array of other methods — to pressure adversaries in the West and NATO.

“This could include destructive cyberattacks that cripple critical societal functions as well as sabotage attacks that carry a high risk of casualties,” it said.

“Russia has become more willing to take risks,” the agency said.

Hybrid attacks can aim to destabilize a country, test its defenses, strain resources, or influence public opinion — often in a way that makes it hard to identify those responsible.

An Associated Press interactive map tracking the incidents of hybrid attacks shows an escalation, from 59 in March 2025 to more than 200 at this point.

Poland's prime minister is also worried about Russia's hybrid warfare

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned last week that Russia is planning hybrid strikes with drones or rockets on European countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland.

He said Russia will likely pretend the attacks are “accidental” in order to “paralyze or at least weaken the motivation of NATO countries” to rush to the defense of a member state coming under attack.

The Danish agency said there is “a low but growing risk that Russia will launch a limited military attack against one or several NATO countries bordering Russia,” but that this “could potentially take place in the coming months.”

The aim would be to divert European resources away from supporting Ukraine and sow division in NATO, the service said. At the same time, it noted there are “no indications that Russia will launch an outright invasion of one or several NATO countries.”

NATO and European Union officials have said that Russia's armed forces are too tied up in Ukraine and that no unusual military activity has been noted near European countries close to Russia.

The US warns against over-reacting

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said earlier this week that the number of incidents right now does not indicate a conflict might be imminent.

“I don’t think it’s at a volume that would mean that it’s the beginning,” Whitaker said on Tuesday in Iowa, where he attended a panel about NATO alongside Rutte.

“I don’t think that it’s in anybody’s interest to head towards a conflict,” he said. “I think one of the things that we have to be very careful (about) is overreacting to any sort of hybrid activity.”

“We haven’t reached that threshold,” he said.

___

Moulson reported from Berlin.

The New York-based CPJ says it regularly updates its findings as new information comes to light. It removed another three Palestinians from its list because their role as journalists could not be established. It reinstated six cases, including two Israeli journalists killed in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war.

“The accuracy and credibility of CPJ’s research are fundamental to our mission,” CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “We base the determinations we make solely on whether individuals meet our definitions of who we consider to be a journalist, not an individual’s affiliation or views, nor in response to pressure or intimidation from any government or interest group.”

The group said that even after the review, its figures show that Israeli forces were responsible for “by far the majority of killings of journalists and media workers worldwide since 2023.”

Among those killed during the war was Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who worked for The Associated Press and other outlets. She was killed, along with 21 other people, including rescue workers and other journalists, when Israel carried out a double strike on a Gaza hospital in August 2025.

Israel denies targeting journalists and has said a number of slain journalists were members of Hamas or other armed groups posing as reporters. In some cases, it has provided evidence of such ties that was rejected by their employers.

The Israeli prime minister’s office and the military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Critics accuse Israel of deliberately targeting journalists to silence war coverage. Israel has barred foreign reporters from entering Gaza outside of brief military-run visits since the start of the war. CPJ says that it considers all Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza to have been killed in connection with their work since they can do their work anywhere and because they are not allowed to leave the territory.

Journalists are protected under international law

CPJ said obituaries for Hamas and other militants released after the October 2025 ceasefire deal identified fighters who the rights group had previously classified as journalists.

That prompted CPJ to launch an internal review in June and commission an auditor the following month to examine its findings.

Since the Oct. 7 attack, CPJ has removed a total of 27 people from its list of slain journalists after finding that they participated in combat or belonged to a militant group. It removed another nine for other reasons. The updated list also includes a Palestinian journalist killed by a Palestinian militia and four Israelis killed by Hamas.

Journalists are considered civilians under international law regardless of their political views or affiliations, unless they participate in hostilities. Israel says militants posing as journalists have used such protections to collect intelligence and help target Israeli forces.

Hamas and other armed groups operate media outlets, as well as political parties, charities and other civilian institutions alongside their highly secretive armed wings. They also have military media units embedded with fighters that film attacks and release propaganda and hostage videos.

CPJ said it initially did not consider membership in a military media unit alone as proof of engagement in combat, but has since revised its criteria to exclude "anyone with active membership of any military arm of a state or non-state actor." Five of the 19 were removed because of those new criteria, it said.

AP Executive Editor Julie Pace is on the CPJ board.

Israel has faced heavy criticism over the killing of civilians

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 people. The last remaining hostages were released, or their remains were returned, under the ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its figures but says around half were women and children. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records, and its figures are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

Israel says it only targets militants and takes extraordinary measures to avoid harming civilians, blaming their deaths on Hamas because it operates in dense residential areas. Major rights groups and experts have accused Israel of genocide, allegations it vehemently denies.

The Senate vote, days after Trump's bombastic address to the United Nations in which he threatened to “annihilate” Iran, is likely to be the last chance for lawmakers to go on record about the war ahead of November. More Republicans are peeling way from the president as the war drags on, a rare slap back to Trump, as they campaign for control of Congress.

“They have been carrying water for this ridiculous and illegal war for months and months and months and not listening to their constituents,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who pushed the war powers resolution forward. “And now they finally are.”

About half of rural American voters believe the economy is worse off now than when Trump returned to office, according to a new survey from The Associated Press in partnership with KFF. The costs of groceries, gas and healthcare rank as top pain points for the rural voters.

"We’ve got to break the cycle,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who now says he is leaning toward voting for the resolution to end the war.

War powers resolutions are largely political statements, without the full force of law, but stand among the sharper tools the House and Senate have to express disapproval of the White House, short of halting funds for Trump's military actions. As resolutions, they do not go to the president's desk for his signature.

As gas prices climb, Republicans start to question the war

Republicans in control of Congress have shied away from directly confronting Trump over the war, now stretching past the seven-month mark. But their unrest is beginning to surface as stubbornly high gas prices leave voters in a cash crunch back home.

Diesel costs, in particular, have almost doubled, topping $6 a gallon, according to AAA.

Just returning from a swing through Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska stumping for GOP candidates who are suddenly at risk in their elections, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana called on Trump to hold a prime-time address to the nation to explain the Iran war strategy and the end game.

“People are confused about the war and upset about the cost of living,” he said.

But he and others are not yet ready to vote against the war.

“My own view is that the focus right now needs to be on attacking the cost of living issues,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who opposes the war powers resolution and believes the president is acting within his authority to conduct the military action.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries scoffed at the handful of Republicans now trying to distance themselves from what he called Trump's failed economy. “Now all of a sudden they’re waking up,” he said.

Democrats keep pushing war powers votes in Congress

This would be the 14th time the Senate has considered a war powers resolution, since Trump launched the conflict on Feb. 28.

Earlier this month, the House for a third time approved a war powers resolution, this time with seven Republicans joining the Democrats, including two from battleground Iowa, Rep. Zach Nunn and Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks, where affordability issues among rural voters are dominating the campaigns.

Senators, though, have rarely been able to confront Trump by passing a war powers resolution.

In June, the Senate approved a war powers resolution after four GOP senators joined Democrats, but Republicans abruptly reversed course the next day after Trump berated them during a private lunch over the outcome.

One GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, stood up to defend his vote only to end up in a shouting match with Trump. He later switched to oppose the war powers resolution after receiving a personal briefing from the White House.

Other options to halt the Iran war

As the war drags on, costing $43.5 billion so far, Congress is also seeking other ways to force Trump to rethink his military strategy in Iran.

Rep. Thomas Massie, the renegade Republican from Kentucky, pushed forward articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth before the GOP leadership abruptly adjourned the House and sent lawmakers home to campaign for the election, avoiding any potential vote on the matter.

Lawmakers also have the power of the purse to curtail military spending, something Republicans have been reluctant to do but Democrats are sure to tackle if they win power in the midterm election. The White House's request for an additional $87.6 billion funding package for the war and other needs has idled in Congress.

First created in the aftermath of the Vietnam War as a way to hold a president accountable for military actions, the war powers act has long posed a test of the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government.

While the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, the president as commander-in-chief is also able to engage the military. The war powers act seeks to provide clarity by requiring the president, within 60 days of any such action, to seek approval — or risk disapproval — from Congress.

___

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Leer en español

The blaze broke out at around 5:45 a.m. in the 3500 block of Northwest 101st Street.

Resident Peyton Hernandez said she was one of three people displaced in the fire, which started in the home’s garage. Medics took her grandfather to a trauma center.

“We tried to put it out with water ourselves, but it wouldn’t (go out). And my grandfather, he tried to put it out and he ended up passing out and getting some burns,” Hernandez said. “So he got sent to the hospital. We’ve just been out here waiting for (the firefighters). I think they’re trying to clean out the room because there was a lot of stuff in that room where the fire started at. So it’s just a lot.”

According to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, the man was stable as of Thursday morning.

Authorities haven’t said whether they’ve identified a suspected cause for the blaze.

Officials put up an unsafe property notice outside the house.

Family members have set up a GoFundMe page to help them get back on their feet.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao provided the information to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a letter dated Tuesday after the New York Democrat inquired last month about the strike group's crew of thousands. The Lincoln's extended deployment drew the nation's attention following reports of crew stress and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products.

Gillibrand asked Cao specifically if there were any suicides.

“There have been no suicides on board during this deployment,” Cao wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press and reported earlier by CNN. “Since the beginning of LINCOLN'S deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group — this number includes the LINCOLN crew and Sailors from the carrier wing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers, and all embarked aviation squadrons.”

President Donald Trump had downplayed reports about conditions on the Lincoln, which left its homeport in San Diego in November, arrived in the Middle East in January in support of Iran operations, and spent a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 260 days.

The carrier and some of its supporting ships stopped in Thailand in early September on their way back home to California. The Lincoln’s commanding officer, Capt. Dan Keeler, said then that the ship will be heading home soon but may make further supply stops. He declined to comment on the exact date the strike group is expected back in the U.S.

Last month, Trump called the nearly nine months at sea that the sailors endured a “good period of time” but added that “over the years, we’ve had them out there much longer.”

Trump told reporters in August that he spoke with a retired admiral who recounted being on ships for “much longer.” Trump said the admiral assured him that the Lincoln is “beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.” Trump did not name the admiral.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also had said that conditions about the Lincoln were “completely misrepresented.”

Gillibrand took aim at both in a statement released this week in response to Cao's letter.

“What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members," she stated.

“Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect,” Gillibrand said. "That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable.”

Extended deployments of carriers wear on service members who are away from home for long periods and increase strain on the ship and its equipment. The Navy is continuing to enforce a blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

Ocurrió en la cuadra 700 de Southeast Eighth Street, en el vecindario Rio Vista de la ciudad.

Según el Departamento de Bomberos y Rescate de Fort Lauderdale, nadie resultó herido. Un video compartido por la agencia mostró que el camión con pluma pertenecía a Cooper Crane, una empresa con sede en West Park.

Un video de Sky 10 muestra que la grúa dañó una pequeña sección de la parte exterior del techo de la casa; no parecía haberlo atravesado.

El fuego comenzó alrededor de las 5:45 a.m. en la cuadra 3500 del Northwest 101st Street.

La residente Peyton Hernandez contó que es una de las tres personas que quedaron desplazadas por el incendio, que se inició en el garaje de la casa. Los paramédicos trasladaron a su abuelo a un centro de trauma.

“Tratamos de apagarlo nosotros mismos con agua, pero no se apagaba. Mi abuelo intentó apagarlo y terminó desmayándose y con algunas quemaduras”, relató Hernandez. “Por eso se lo llevaron al hospital. Nosotros hemos estado aquí afuera esperando a los bomberos. Creo que están tratando de vaciar el cuarto, porque había muchísimas cosas en el cuarto donde empezó el fuego. Así que es bastante”.

Según Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, el hombre se encontraba estable el jueves por la mañana.

Las autoridades no han dicho si ya identificaron una posible causa del incendio.

Los funcionarios colocaron un aviso de propiedad insegura en la entrada de la casa.

“The Palestinian people face one of the most dangerous times in its history,” Abbas said, citing long-term military occupation in the West Bank and the war in Gaza. Israel, he said, “has targeted all of the basic necessities of life.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak in person early in the afternoon. As Abbas spoke, the Israeli delegations' seats in the General Assembly hall sat vacant.

In his speech, Abbas once again implored the international community to take more vigorous action and speak out more loudly against Israel.

“How much longer will some states continue to remain silent against Israel or supply it with the weapons it uses against our people? The world has witnessed the tremendous cost in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” Abbas said. He added: “What is the international community waiting for in order to protect the Palestinian people?”

Though negotiations have not taken place for years, Abbas urged the international community to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu has said no Palestinian state will be established while he is Israel’s leader and has argued that the Palestinian Authority is not a partner for peace.

The international community has backed Trump’s plan for a group of apolitical administrators to govern Gaza under the Board of Peace. But Abbas said the territory could not remain politically separate from the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the long term.

He said the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank needed to be governed by “one state, one government, one law and one legitimate entity authorized to bear arms.”

Since 2005, the now-90-year-old Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. But his support among Palestinians has withered during years of corruption and the sometimes violent advance of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Under Abbas, Palestine has been recognized as a country by a majority of U.N. member states. But on the ground in the West Bank, the mostly symbolic moves have not affected Israel’s decades long military occupation. Throughout the war in Gaza, Abbas and the authority have been largely sidelined from negotiations over its future in favor of a transition process shepherded by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.

The Palestinian Authority was created under a series of peace agreements with Israel in the 1990s and administers semiautonomous areas of the West Bank, while relying heavily on foreign aid. It is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people.

It was ousted from Gaza after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and violently seized control. Abbas was elected to what was supposed to be a four-year term in 2005. The authority has not held presidential or legislative elections since 2006.

Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

Abbas recorded the video on Wednesday.

En una conferencia de prensa el miércoles, el secretario de Estado Marco Rubio dijo, en referencia a Cuba, que no podemos esperar cambiar en seis meses un país que ha estado bajo un régimen totalitario durante 60 años. Primero, señor secretario, este próximo 1 de enero se cumplirán 68 años (2027-1959 = 68) desde que los Castro tomaron el poder.

Trump, Rubio y los miembros cubanoamericanos del Congreso del sur de Florida han dicho varias veces que para finales de 2026 el gobierno cubano caería. Ahora dicen que para finales de 2029. Tal vez el 6 estuvo invertido desde el principio.

En segundo lugar, capturamos a Nicolás Maduro en Venezuela el pasado enero. La semana siguiente, el presidente Trump dijo que en dos semanas (una semana tiene 7 días. 7x2 = 14), Cuba sería la próxima. Revisemos las matemáticas, señor presidente. Han pasado ocho meses desde la captura de Maduro. Eso equivale a unos 240 días.

La política exterior de esta administración continúa siendo un desastre. Tenemos 101 nombramientos de embajadores vacantes en todo el mundo de un total de 196. Hay 40 designados esperando una audiencia y confirmación del Senado. Pero sus credenciales son tan malas que probablemente no serán confirmados. El 95% de los nombramientos de embajadores del presidente Trump son políticos con conocimientos limitados sobre relaciones internacionales y diplomacia.

Además, 42 veces la administración Trump ha anunciado un alto el fuego con Irán porque ambas naciones estaban cerca de un acuerdo. Hasta ahora, la guerra continúa sin una estrategia clara de salida.

Mientras tanto, los cubanoamericanos y venezolanos del sur de Florida se han dado cuenta de que las estrategias de la administración Trump son solo un juego de promesas vacías.

Todavía hay tiempo para corregir sus cálculos, pero se les está acabando el tiempo, las elecciones de mitad de mandato están a la vuelta de la esquina. Hagan las cuentas.

22 de septiembre: Trump califica a Cuba de “Estado fallido que caerá”

Esta mañana, el presidente Donald Trump se dirigió a la reunión anual de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas.

En su discurso, calificó a Cuba de “Estado fallido que caerá”. Además, afirmó que “el comunismo nunca llegará a Estados Unidos, pero la libertad pronto llegará a Cuba”. Trump también afirmó que Cuba representa una amenaza para la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos, todas estas acusaciones sin ofrecer detalles específicos.

22 de septiembre: Cubanoamericanos ricos e influyentes con vínculos con Trump hacen planes para una Cuba “poscomunista” si cae el régimen

Según un artículo del Wall Street Journal, cubanoamericanos ricos e influyentes con vínculos con el presidente Donald Trump y el secretario de Estado Marco Rubio se han estado reuniendo en oficinas de abogados y salones de conferencias de hoteles para planificar una Cuba “poscomunista” si el régimen cayera pronto.

El modelo de “cambio” parece intentar primero estabilizar a Cuba mediante la reestructuración de la economía, lo que posiblemente podría conducir a una nueva forma de gobierno.

Muchas de estas personas planean desempeñar personalmente un papel en la reconstrucción de Cuba. Estas personas dirigen empresas prósperas. Sin embargo, en su mayoría, los grupos de oposición del sur de Florida han quedado fuera de estas conversaciones y de cualquier papel que pudieran desempeñar en el futuro de Cuba.

21 de septiembre: Liderazgo de Cuba continúa culpando a todos los demás por sus problemas, excepto a ellos mismos

El viceministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, hizo ayer una declaración surrealista, afirmando que todos los altos dirigentes del gobierno cubano reciben, en promedio, dos horas de electricidad al día.

Sabemos que la mayoría del círculo interno de poder de Cuba tiene generadores o paneles solares que les proporcionan electricidad las 24 horas del día.

Lo que Fernández de Cossío no admite es que el problema eléctrico ha sido causado por la incapacidad del gobierno cubano de reparar las obsoletas plantas eléctricas que son la causa del problema.

18 de septiembre: Congresista republicana María Elvira Salazar rompe con Trump por política migratoria

Después de apoyar la política migratoria del presidente Donald Trump, la congresista republicana María Elvira Salazar publicó ayer un video criticando a Trump.

El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional reaccionó rápidamente y dijo que la administración Trump continuará aplicando la política.

Debemos preguntarnos si el cambio de postura de Salazar tiene más que ver con su supervivencia política, ya que enfrenta una difícil contienda en las elecciones de mitad de mandato de este próximo noviembre contra el conocido residente del sur de Florida Eliott Rodriguez (D).

17 de septiembre: Cuba no es Venezuela

Una nueva encuesta realizada recientemente por FIU dentro de Venezuela y Cuba muestra lo diferentes que son las situaciones para la política exterior de Estados Unidos.

La encuesta muestra que el 90% de los venezolanos quiere elecciones libres y democráticas este año, algo que no creo que la actual presidenta interina Delcy Rodríguez acepte. También estoy seguro de que utilizará el plan del secretario de Estado Marco Rubio de “estabilización, recuperación y fase de transición” para decir que la primera etapa no se ha completado por completo. No se estableció un cronograma para el plan.

El caso de Cuba es muy diferente. La población quiere que sus necesidades económicas y sociales sean atendidas antes de las reformas políticas, lo que respalda mi argumento de que Cuba tiene una historia muy corta de gobiernos democráticos.

Así que, como recordatorio para nuestros miembros locales del Congreso. Decir que “debemos devolver a Cuba a la democracia” no sucederá pronto.

16 de septiembre: Últimas acciones de Rubio sobre Cuba

El secretario de Estado Marco Rubio envió recientemente más ayuda humanitaria a Cuba, y está siendo distribuida por la organización no gubernamental (ONG) asociada con la Iglesia Católica, Cáritas de Cuba.

Al mismo tiempo, Rubio advirtió a bancos y empresas internacionales que no colaboren con ninguna entidad empresarial cubana que haya sido sancionada por Estados Unidos.

El secretario Rubio también pidió que el gobierno cubano cambie y se convierta en una democracia.

A estas alturas, deberíamos entender que cambiar gobiernos como el de Cuba, que han estado bajo control totalitario, no es fácil y llevará tiempo. Especialmente en países como Cuba que, en su historia política, han tenido gobiernos democráticos insostenibles.

15 de septiembre: Cuba se convierte en mercado de apuestas para mercados de predicción de Estados Unidos

Cuba se ha convertido en un mercado de apuestas en Estados Unidos.

El sitio de apuestas Polymarket muestra cómo personas en Estados Unidos están apostando por todo, desde la salida del poder del presidente de Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, hasta cuándo y si Estados Unidos invadirá Cuba o llegará a un acuerdo económico con Cuba.

La última predicción es si Estados Unidos irá a buscar al líder cubano acusado Raúl Castro.

10 de septiembre: Rusia niega a Cuba membresía plena en BRICS

BRICS es una organización de 11 economías emergentes de todo el mundo. La organización trabaja para aumentar su importancia global y reformar la gobernanza económica.

Entre sus miembros se encuentran Brasil, China, Egipto, Etiopía, India, Indonesia, Irán, Rusia, Arabia Saudita, Sudáfrica y los Emiratos Árabes Unidos.

Entre las naciones asociadas se encuentran Bielorrusia, Cuba, Nigeria y Tailandia.

Los rusos rechazaron la membresía plena de Cuba en la organización debido a las malas condiciones económicas del país y a las negativas proyecciones de los economistas para el futuro.

9 de septiembre: Cuba y Estados Unidos estancados en retórica diplomática

El general de brigada cubano Emir Mesa Corona, encargado de la seguridad personal en el Ministerio del Interior, envió un fuerte mensaje a Estados Unidos para que ni siquiera piense en intentar secuestrar a Raúl Castro o a cualquier integrante del gobierno cubano, o enfrentarán graves consecuencias.

Al mismo tiempo, el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, admitió que continúan las negociaciones tras bastidores con Estados Unidos, pero que Estados Unidos no suavizará sus posiciones. Cuba quiere que se levante el embargo económico, mientras que Estados Unidos quiere un cambio de régimen.

8 de septiembre: Pasión ciega por la política cubana conduce a un circo político entre Miami, La Habana y DC

Cuando era un niño que crecía en Miami, recuerdo cuando todos los candidatos presidenciales de ambos partidos políticos venían a hacer campaña en Miami y prometían que, si eran elegidos, trabajarían para ver una “Cuba Libre”. Terminaban sus discursos con “Viva Cuba Libre”. Políticos locales que representaban a diferentes municipios de Miami-Dade hablaban sobre la política exterior de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba como si la controlaran y, sin embargo, no tenía nada que ver con el alcance de sus responsabilidades. Pero eso les daba los votos que necesitaban para ser elegidos y permanecer en el poder, mientras que los líderes políticos de Cuba continuaban culpando de todo lo que estaba mal en la isla al embargo económico de Estados Unidos, o como ellos lo llaman, “el bloqueo”.

El 3 de enero, las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos capturaron a Nicolás Maduro en Venezuela con la ayuda de su actual presidenta interina, Delcy Rodríguez, y lo llevaron a Estados Unidos para enfrentar a la justicia. Poco después, el presidente Donald Trump anunció que Cuba sería la próxima.

La administración Trump comenzó a sancionar a organizaciones cubanas y a individuos del gobierno en un intento por sacarlos del poder. Hasta ahora, siguen en el poder. El gobierno cubano comenzó a prepararse para una invasión estadounidense. Hasta la fecha, no ha ocurrido y probablemente nunca ocurrirá.

El 20 de mayo, el Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos acusó formalmente a Raúl Castro por el derribo de los aviones de Hermanos al Rescate en 1996 durante un mitin político con apariencia teatral en la Freedom Tower, en el centro de Miami. Hasta ahora no ha sucedido nada y no va a suceder nada. No hay una Delcy Rodríguez en Cuba. Hace una semana, muchos medios de comunicación de Miami informaron, basándose en fuentes dentro de la isla, que Raúl Castro estaba gravemente enfermo. Este pasado fin de semana, Raúl reapareció rodeado de la élite militar de Cuba.

Trump, el secretario de Estado Marco Rubio y los tres miembros cubanoamericanos del Congreso del sur de Florida habían anunciado que para finales de 2026, Cuba caería. Ahora se ha aplazado hasta 2029. Además, Rubio dijo recientemente que el problema para tratar con Cuba es la Ley Helms-Burton (el senador Jesse Helms y Richard Burton, ambos republicanos), que fue promulgada por el Congreso en 1996, también con el arduo trabajo del fallecido congresista Lincoln Díaz-Balart y firmada como ley por el presidente demócrata Bill Clinton.

Los tres miembros cubanoamericanos del Congreso dejaron claro que el objetivo era devolver a Cuba a la democracia. ¿Qué democracia? Cuba no tenía un gobierno democrático antes de que Fidel Castro llegara al poder. ¿Cuánto saben realmente sobre la historia cubana? ¿O es solo un juego de palabras y promesas vacías?

Así que, a medida que pasan los días, la comunidad cubanoamericana comienza a preguntarse, ¿qué está pasando realmente en D.C.?

No me sorprendería que en un futuro cercano las organizaciones Trump negociaran la compra de los hoteles Meliá vacíos en Cuba y les pusieran el nombre Trump. Después de todo, ahora poseemos una gran parte del petróleo venezolano y no hubo un cambio de régimen como se prometió.

¿Aprenderemos alguna vez? ¿Cuánto tiempo más vamos a estar cegados por nuestra pasión?

6 de septiembre: Raúl Castro hace aparición pública

Después de mucha especulación sobre que Raúl Castro, de Cuba, estaba cerca de morir, el líder cubano apareció ayer en un evento militar acompañado por su nieto, Raulito, y el presidente de Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

3 de septiembre: Raúl Castro está estable, según fuentes

Fuentes en Cuba dicen que Raúl Castro, de 95 años, está estable a pesar de los reportes sobre el deterioro de su salud. Según las fuentes, el general retirado Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, conocido como “El Fury”, se encuentra actualmente en peores condiciones. Colomé Ibarra fue jefe del Ministerio del Interior y era muy respetado por los hermanos Castro y las fuerzas armadas cubanas.

3 de septiembre: Presidente Trump tiene las manos atadas con respecto a Cuba, dice Rubio

Después de meses diciendo que Cuba sería la próxima, el secretario de Estado Marco Rubio dijo hoy que el presidente tiene las manos atadas debido a la Ley Helms-Burton, que exige que no haya normalización entre Estados Unidos y Cuba a menos que haya un cambio de régimen y un avance hacia un gobierno democrático.

Incluso si Raúl Castro muriera en un futuro cercano, no espero un cambio de régimen.

Solo Estados Unidos puede cambiar la Ley Helms-Burton y no espero que eso suceda pronto ni después de las elecciones de mitad de mandato.

2 de septiembre: Niños en Cuba comienzan nuevo año escolar en medio de más desafíos que cualquier otro año anterior

Los niños en Cuba comenzaron el martes el nuevo año escolar enfrentando falta de suministros, libros, uniformes y maestros, además de edificios que se están deteriorando y falta de alimentos para alimentar a los niños.

Según la ministra de Educación de Cuba, este será un año muy difícil, diferente a cualquier otro.

La educación cubana fue alguna vez uno de los grandes logros de la revolución. Sin embargo, también fue utilizada para adoctrinar a los estudiantes en una ideología en la que ya nadie en la nación insular cree.

1 de septiembre: Raúl Castro hospitalizado, dicen fuentes

Fuentes confiables dentro de Cuba me informaron esta tarde que Raúl Castro ha sido hospitalizado. Debemos ser cuidadosos y no especular demasiado sobre lo que podría suceder hasta nuevo aviso.

El Dr. Andy S. Gomez es analista de Cuba de Local 10. Gomez es considerado uno de los principales expertos sobre Cuba. Trabajó en educación superior durante 32 años antes de retirarse de la Universidad de Miami en 2012.

The Kentucky-born brand opened a new restaurant in McKinney, Texas, on Thursday to serve as a test lab in its home market. Called Open House, it serves breakfast — a U.S. first for KFC — and stays open late. The menu will feature new drinks like boba-filled refreshers and crunchy-topped milkshakes, an expanded lineup of tenders and sauces, and new side dishes like fried green beans and spicy pickles.

The restaurant has double drive-thru lanes and a mobile order pickup station. But KFC designed it to encourage customers to stay a while. After ordering at a digital kiosk, they can sit and wait for employees to bring the food to their table. There is also a photo booth and a counter selling branded merch.

KFC did not say how much of Open House’s design or menu will eventually reach the rest of its 3,424 U.S. restaurants. The new beverages are likely to spread more widely; the company already introduced a similar drink menu in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Turkey and other markets.

KFC is trying to make fast food more of an experience

The Texas concept and gleaming, multi-story flagships set to open in Dubai, Seoul and London show KFC is trying to make grabbing fast food more of an experience.

“People don’t remember what they eat, but they remember how they were feeling when they were eating,” KFC Chief Concept Officer Christophe Poirier, who leads new restaurant design, said.

Poirier said KFC is automating tasks like ordering so employees can focus on hospitality. Ideally, KFC will function more like an Apple Store or a luxury retailer, he said, without the stressful lines or grumpy cashiers that plague the fast-food industry.

“You leave the retailer and say, ‘Wow. The product is amazing, but beyond that the service was amazing. For 10 or 15 minutes I was feeling like a king,’” he said.

Kentucky-born brand is thriving abroad but its US sales are down

KFC was the pioneer of fast-food fried chicken. The brand got its start in 1930, when Harland Sanders bought a roadside motel in Corbin, Kentucky, and started serving fried chicken to travelers. In 1952, the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in Utah.

Now owned by Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands, KFC has grown into one of the world's largest fast-food chains. As of June, the brand counted more than 34,000 restaurants in over 150 countries. A new branch opens somewhere in the world every 3 1/2 hours, according to Poirier.

Sales are strong in international markets. China alone accounts for almost 40% of KFC restaurants worldwide. But U.S. sales have faltered as fast-growing competitors raced to meet rising demand for chicken from American consumers seeking leaner sources of protein.

Chick-fil-A and Popeyes began expanding rapidly in the 2010s; both brands now have nearly as many U.S. locations as KFC. Newer chains like Raising Cane’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken and Wingstop focused on chicken tenders and sauces, making KFC’s buckets of bone-in chicken look out of date.

McDonald's said this week that it's bringing hand-breaded chicken, like KFC has long made, to the U.S. and other markets. Even Long John Silver’s recently added fried chicken wings to its menu.

In 2015, KFC commanded a 20% share of the $21.8 billion in U.S. chicken-chain sales, according to Technomic, a restaurant market research company. By 2025, KFC’s share had fallen to 8%, even as sales at chicken chains more than doubled to $57.7 billion.

KFC wants to attract younger customers without losing older ones

Younger diners see the brand as old and tired, said Neil Saunders, a managing director with the market research company GlobalData.

“Some of their locations honestly aren’t very nice. They’re down at the heel and grubby. They don’t feel contemporary,” Saunders said.

KFC has pursued a turnaround for a while, shedding underperforming U.S. locations even as it expanded overseas. Since the beginning of 2022, 529 KFC restaurants in the U.S. have closed, according to company filings.

The brand has also experimented with its menu. Work to develop KFC's portfolio of 20 sauces and improve its chicken tenders advanced at a small concept store in Florida called Saucy by KFC, which opened in 2024, said Dhiren Karnani, KFC’s global head of food and experience. Beverages became a focus after research indicated that younger consumers often decide where to eat based on drink selections, he said.

Karnani said KFC had to ensure menu changes fit the brand and elevate its chicken, which still uses Sanders’ original recipe. KFC wants to respond to consumer demand for more beverages and tenders, he said, but will still serve bone-in chicken and sides like gravy.

“We're just providing more choices and more ways a consumer can enjoy KFC, rather than saying goodbye to the past as we look into the future,” he said. “Because who are we if not really for our heritage? I think we celebrate it.”

Phil Kafarakis, the CEO of IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, which represents restaurant suppliers and manufacturers, said KFC struggled to get attention from Yum Brands while the parent company dealt with problems at Pizza Hut. Yum, which also owns Taco Bell, sold Pizza Hut for $2.7 billion earlier this year.

“I personally think it’s going to be an exciting time for KFC,” Kafarakis said.

Robert M. Murphy Jr. was arrested Wednesday night and was being held in the Marion County jail on out-of-state fugitive warrants from North Carolina. The Marion County Sheriff's Office listed 23 charges of sexual battery and nine for felony sexual contact on its online database as of Thursday morning but offered no additional details.

ESPN was first to report Murphy's arrest.

Jared Hammett and Seth Blum, two Raleigh-based attorneys who have represented Murphy in the civil lawsuits, didn't immediately return an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The case originated with a federal civil lawsuit from a single athlete filed four years ago. That complaint alleged years of misconduct by Murphy, such as improper touching of the genitals during massages and intrusive observation while collecting urine samples during drug testing.

The case eventually landed in state court in 2025 with 14 former Wolfpack athletes, with that number growing to 31 joining the lawsuit by February outlining similar allegations.

In June, a judge dismissed the lawsuit against Murphy and multiple N.C. State athletics officials tied to their oversight roles, citing procedural reasons such as the statute of limitations expiring in claims dating back as early as 2013. Attorneys for the players had appealed that dismissal.

All but two of those 31 athletes were “John Doe” plaintiffs to protect their identity, while two former men’s soccer players were named.

One is Benjamin Locke, who filed the original complaint in August 2022. The other is one of two athletes who filed their own federal lawsuits in February 2023 and April 2023. The AP typically doesn’t identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted or abused unless the person has spoken publicly about it, which Locke has done.

Durham-based attorney Kerry Sutton, who has represented players going back to the original case, told the AP that the number of athletes who have contacted players’ attorneys with similar allegations has grown to 35.

Attorneys for Murphy have denied any wrongdoing by their client in previous comments. That notably included Blum forcefully defending his client after the lawsuit moved to state court last fall, saying Murphy had been falsely accused and there was yet to be “one scrap of credible evidence he assaulted anyone.”

The judge’s dismissal of the civil case in June had covered claims against multiple athletics officials, such as former athletic director Debbie Yow and current AD Boo Corrigan on jurisdictional grounds. That ruling stated any complaint should go through the North Carolina Industrial Commission — a state agency that deals with workplace matters because N.C. State is a public university — rather than civil court.

___

See AP’s full sports coverage here

At a press conference Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in reference to Cuba that we cannot expect to change a country that has been under a totalitarian regime for 60 years in six months. First, Mr. Secretary, this coming Jan. 1 will mark 68 (2027-1959= 68) years since the Castro’s took over power.

Leer en español

Trump, Rubio and the Cuban American members of Congress from South Florida have said multiple times that by the end of 2026 the Cuban government would fall. Now they say by the end of 2029. Maybe the 6 was reversed from the beginning.

Secondly, we captured Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela this past January. The following week, President Trump said that in two weeks (a week has 7 days. 7x2=14), Cuba would be next. Let’s check the math, Mr. President. It’s been eight months since the capture of Maduro. That’s about 240 days.

The foreign policy of this administration continues to be a disaster. We have 101 ambassadorial appointments open around the world out of 196. 40 appointees are waiting Senate hearing and confirmation. But their qualifications are so bad they probably will not be confirm. 95% of President Trump’s ambassadorial appointments are political with limited international relations and diplomatic knowledge.

Furthermore, 42 times the Trump administration has announced a cease fire with Iran because both nations were close to a deal. So far the war goes on with no clear exit strategy.

In the meantime, Cuban Americans and Venezuelans in South Florida have realized that the Trump administration strategies are just a game with empty promises.

There is still time to correct your calculations but you are running out of time, mid-term elections are around the corner. Do the math.

Sept. 22: Trump calls Cuba ‘failed state that will fall’

This morning, President Donald Trump addressed the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting.

In his speech, he called Cuba a “failed state that will fall.” He further stated that “communism will never come to the U.S. but liberty will soon come to Cuba.” Trump further stated that Cuba represents a threat to U.S. national security -- all these accusations without giving any specific details.

Sept. 22: Wealthy, influential Cuban-Americans with ties to Trump planning for ‘post-communist’ Cuba if regimes falls

According to an article by the Wall Street Journal, wealthy and influential Cuban-Americans with ties to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been meeting in lawyer offices and hotel conference rooms to plan for a “post-communist” Cuba if the regime were to fall soon.

The “change” model seems to first attempt to stabilize Cuba by restructuring the economy that could possibly lead to a new form of government.

Many of these individuals are planning to personally play a role in rebuilding Cuba. These individuals run wealthy businesses. However, for the most part, the opposition groups in South Florida have been left out of these conversations or any role they might play in the future of Cuba.

Sept. 21: Cuba’s leadership continue to blame their problems on everybody else except themselves

Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernandez de Cossio made a surreal statement yesterday, claiming that everyone at the top of the Cuban government leadership get, on average, two hours of electricity per day.

We know that most of Cuba’s inner circle of power have generators or solar panels that provide them electricity around the clock each day.

What Fernandez de Cossio does not admit is that the electrical problem has been caused by the Cuban government not being able to fix the outdated electrical plans that are the cause of the problem.

Sept. 18: Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar breaks with Trump over immigration policy

After supporting President Donald Trump’s policy on immigration, Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar issued a video yesterday criticizing Trump.

The Department of Homeland Security was quickly to react and say that the Trump administration will continue enforcing the policy.

We need to ask ourselves whether Salazar’s change of heart has to do more with political survival since she faces a tough race in the midterm elections this coming November from well known South Floridian Eliott Rodriguez (D).

Sept. 17: Cuba is not Venezuela

A new poll recently done by FIU, inside Venezuela and Cuba, show how different the situations are for U.S. foreign policy.

The poll shows that 90% of Venezuelans want free and democratic elections this year, which I do not believe the current Interim President Delcy Rodriguez will agree to. I’m also sure that she will use Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plan of “stabilization, recovery, and transition phase” to say that the first stage has not been fully accomplished. There was no timetable put on the plan.

The case of Cuba is very different. The population wants their economic and social needs met before political reforms, which goes to my argument that Cuba has a very short history of democratic governments.

So to remind our local members of Congress. To say that “we must return Cuba to democracy” will not happen anytime soon.

Sept. 16: Rubio’s latest actions on Cuba

Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently sent more humanitarian aid to Cuba, and it is being distributed by the non-governmental organization (NGO) associated with the Catholic Church, Caritas of Cuba.

At the same time, Rubio warned international banks and businesses not to collaborate with any Cuban business entities that have been sanctioned by the U.S.

Secretary Rubio also called for the Cuban government to change and become a democracy.

By now, we should understand that changing governments like Cuba, which have been under totalitarian control, is not easy and will take time. Especially countries like Cuba that, in their political history, have had unsustainable democratic governments.

Sept. 15: Cuba becomes a betting market for U.S. prediction markets

Cuba has become a betting market in the USA.

The betting site Polymarket shows how people in the U.S. are betting on everything from the removal of Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power to when and if the U.S. will invade Cuba or make an economic agreement with Cuba.

The last prediction is whether the U.S. will go and get indicted Cuban leader Raúl Castro.

Sept. 10: Russia denies Cuba full membership in BRICS

BRICS is an organization of 11 emerging economies around the world. The organization works to influence their global importance and reshape economic governance.

The membership includes Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

Partner nations include Belarus, Cuba, Nigeria and Thailand.

The Russians turned down Cuba for full membership into the organization because of Cuba’s poor economic conditions and poor predictions by economists moving forward.

Sept. 9: Cuba and the U.S. stuck in diplomatic rhetoric

Cuba’s Brigadier General Emir Mesa Corona, who is in charge of personal security at the Ministry of Interior, sent a strong message to the U.S. not to even think of trying to kidnap Raul Castro or anyone in Cuba’s government or they will face serious consequences.

At the same time, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla admitted that backroom negotiations with the U.S. continue but the U.S. will not soften their positions. Cuba wants the economic embargo lifted while the U.S. wants regime change.

Sept. 8: Blind passion for Cuban politics leads to a political circus between Miami, Havana and DC

As a little boy growing up in Miami, I remember when every presidential candidate from both political parties would come to campaign in Miami and promised that if elected, they would work to see a “Free Cuba.” They would end their speeches with “Viva Cuba Libre.” Local politicians representing different municipalities in Miami-Dade would talk about U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba like they controlled it, and yet, they had nothing to do with it within their scope of responsibilities. But it got them the votes they needed to be elected and remain in power, while political leaders in Cuba continued to blame everything wrong on the island on the U.S. economic embargo, or as they call it, “the blockade.”

On Jan. 3, the U.S. military captured Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela with the assistance of their current Interim President Delcy Rodriguez and brought him to the U.S. to face justice. Shortly thereafter, President Donald Trump announced that Cuba would be next.

The Trump administration began to sanction Cuban organizations and individuals of the government in an attempt to squeeze them out of power. So far, they are still in power. The Cuban government began to prepare for a U.S. invasion. To this date, it has not happened and probably never will.

On May 20, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Raul Castro for the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996 in a theater-like political rally at the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami. So far nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen. There is no Delcy Rodriguez in Cuba. A week ago, many media outlets across Miami reported, based on sources from inside the island, that Raul Castro was gravely ill. This past weekend, Raul reappeared surrounded by Cuba’s military elite.

Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the three Cuban-American members of Congress from South Florida had announced that by the end of 2026, Cuba would fall. Now it has been pushed back to 2029. Furthermore, Rubio recently said that the problem in dealing with Cuba is the Helms-Burton Law (Senator Jesse Helms and Richard Burton, both Republicans) that was enacted by Congress in 1996, also with the hard work of the late Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The three Cuban-American members of Congress made it clear that the goal was to return Cuba to democracy. What democracy? Cuba did not have a democratic government before Fidel Castro took power. How much do they really know about Cuban history? Or is it just a play on words and empty promises?

So as time passes each day, the Cuban-American community is beginning to ask itself, what is really going on in D.C.?

It would not surprise me that in the near future the Trump organizations would negotiate to buy the empty Melia Hotels in Cuba and put the Trump name on them. After all, we now own a big chunk of Venezuelan oil and there was no regime change as promised.

Will we ever learn? How much longer are we going to be blind by our passion?

Sept 6: Raul Castro makes public appearance

After much speculation about Cuba’s Raul Castro being close to death, the Cuban leader showed up at a military event yesterday accompanied by his grandson, Raulito, and Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Sept 3: Raul Castro stable, according to sources

Sources in Cuba say Raul Castro, 95, is stable despite reports about his declining health. According to sources, retired General Abelardo Colome Ibarra, known as “ El Fury,” is currently in worse condition. Colome Ibarra was head of the Ministry of the Interior and highly respected by the Castro brothers and the Cuban military.

Sept 3: President Trump’s hands are tied with regard to Cuba, Rubio says

After months of saying Cuba would be next, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that the president’s hands are tied because of the Helms Burton Law which requires no normalization between the U.S. and Cuba unless there is regime change and a move towards a democratic government.

Even if Raul Castro was to die in the near future, I do not expect regime change.

Only the U.S. can change the Helms-Burton Law and I don’t expect that to happen anytime in the near future or after the mid-term elections.

Sept. 2: Children in Cuba start new school year amid more challenges than any other year before

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

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

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

Sept. 1: Raul Castro hospitalized, sources say

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

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

Leer en español

First responders could be seen converging on the airport shortly after 4 p.m.

The incident created a bit of a traffic issue for people coming and going from the airport.

According to airport officials, departure level doors 12 to 17 and the departure level roadway were closed due to the MDSO activity, with all traffic being diverted to the arrivals level.

Video from a Local 10 News viewer appeared to show a man being taken into custody by deputies at the scene.

Deputies later confirmed that one person was taken into custody.

Deputies identified him as 31-year-old Francisco Ivan Mendiola, who they say is homeless.

An arrest form says Mendiola fired four gunshots in the direction of the terminals. Three bullets hit a metal trash can, while the fourth hit the windshield of a parked car.

Officials said all passengers and employees of the airport were safe and that there were no reported injuries.

Deputies added that there was no ongoing threat to the public.

Mendiola faces charges of shooting or throwing a deadly missile, unlawfully discharging a firearm in a public place or on residential property, and criminal mischief causing more than $200 but less than $1,000 in damage, according to the arrest form.

The airport’s departure level roadway fully reopened shortly before 6 p.m., officials said.

On Wednesday, Geely Auto unveiled technology that can charge an electric vehicle battery from 10% to 70% in just 4.5 minutes, a leap analysts called a significant development for the Chinese auto group.

Geely is joining the ranks of BYD, which last year overtook Tesla as the world's biggest EV maker, as well as CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker, both of which this year rolled out around 5-minute EV ultrafast charging.

By comparison, some of the fastest-charging EVs available in the U.S. currently can take roughly 20 minutes, analysts said.

“China is way, way, way ahead in terms of multiple players engaged in the charging competition,” said Lei Xing, an independent analyst of China's auto industry based in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Geely, BYD and CATL lead ultrafast charging race

Chinese automakers are seeking to eliminate the “ultimate barrier” to EV adoption – range anxiety – by narrowing the gap between EV charging and the roughly five-minute refueling experience of gasoline vehicles, explained Stephen Chan, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings.

At a launch event Wednesday, Geely Auto announced its new system that can charge an EV from 10% to 70% in 4.5 minutes, and 10% to 97% in just 8 minutes and 40 seconds.

BYD in March launched a new generation of its “blade” EV battery that it said can charge an EV from 10% to 70% in 5 minutes, and from 10% to 97% in 9 minutes. In April, CATL rolled out technology that can charge an EV from 10% to 80% in 3 minutes and 44 seconds, and from 10% to 98% in 6 minutes and 27 seconds.

Despite the breakthroughs, experts cautioned there are other obstacles.

“The real challenge is whether the battery can accept that level of current quickly and repeatedly without overheating, excessive degradation or internal bottlenecks,” said Chris Liu, a Shanghai-based senior analyst at Omdia, a technology research and advisory group.

EV makers face intense competition inside China

With more than 100 domestic passenger car brands, Chinese auto makers face intense competition. Domestic car sales have fallen for months in China as automakers are exporting more cars overseas. A focus on technological advancements like ultrafast charging is a way to set themselves apart and try to improve sales.

But success will depend on factors including the scale of companies' charging network.

For one, the majority of China’s public charging stations still operate below 1 megawatt, while Geely, BYD and CATL’s ultrafast charging technologies rely on higher charging power to reach their full potential, said Chan at S&P. That means network expansions or grid updates will remain as hurdles for large-scale adoption.

Some in the industry are already taking ambitious steps. China's BYD, for instance, is targeting 20,000 superfast charging stations by the end of this year, followed by 30,000 more in 2027 and 40,000 in 2028, bringing the total to 90,000 stations by that time, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis.

China leading the world in EV fast-charging

Other countries including the U.S. is still behind China when it comes to ultrafast EV charging.

In the U.S., EV fast-charging sessions typically take roughly 20 to 40 minutes to charge from 10% to 80%, according to S&P, although newer models from brands like Hyundai, Kia and Porsche can reduce charging times to approximately 18 to 20 minutes under optimal conditions.

“Overall, while the battery-charging network in the U.S. is growing at a rapid pace, it is still well behind China’s ultrafast charging speeds by orders of magnitude,” said Neal Ganguli, a partner and managing director in the automotive and industrial practice at consultancy AlixPartners.

But Ganguli also believes the U.S. may not be attempting to match China’s “megawatt race” in EV charging at least in the near future, but to pursue a “more moderate” path to upgrades.

Equipos de emergencia fueron vistos llegando al aeropuerto poco después de las 4 p.m.

El incidente generó algunos problemas de tráfico para las personas que entraban y salían del aeropuerto.

Según funcionarios del aeropuerto, las puertas 12 a 17 del nivel de salidas y la vía del nivel de salidas fueron cerradas debido a la actividad de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade (MDSO), y todo el tráfico fue desviado al nivel de llegadas.

Un video de un televidente de Local 10 News parecía mostrar a un hombre siendo detenido por agentes en el lugar.

Los agentes confirmaron posteriormente que una persona fue detenida.

Los agentes lo identificaron como Francisco Ivan Mendiola, de 31 años, quien, según dijeron, no tiene hogar.

Un formulario de arresto indica que Mendiola disparó cuatro veces en dirección a las terminales. Tres balas impactaron un basurero de metal, mientras que la cuarta impactó el parabrisas de un automóvil estacionado.

Funcionarios dijeron que todos los pasajeros y empleados del aeropuerto estaban a salvo y que no se reportaron heridos.

Los agentes agregaron que no había ninguna amenaza activa para el público.

Mendiola enfrenta cargos por disparar o lanzar un proyectil mortal, descargar ilegalmente un arma de fuego en un lugar público o en una propiedad residencial y daños criminales por causar más de $200 USD, pero menos de $1,000 USD en daños, según el formulario de arresto.

La vía del nivel de salidas del aeropuerto reabrió completamente poco antes de las 6 p.m., dijeron funcionarios.

En 2020, Leila Cavett viajó con su pequeño hijo desde Georgia hasta el sur de Florida para venderle una camioneta pickup blanca al sospechoso, Shannon Ryan.

De repente, desapareció.

La última vez que se le vio con vida fue en las cámaras de vigilancia de una gasolinera RaceTrac en Hollywood.

Poco después, la policía encontró a su hijo abandonado, deambulando cerca de un complejo de apartamentos en Miramar.

Su padre describió a Leila como una madre amorosa que jamás habría abandonado a su hijo.

La investigación se centró rápidamente en Ryan. El FBI dijo que lo vinculó con la desaparición a través de videos de vigilancia, torres de telefonía celular y redes sociales.

Ahora está acusado de asesinato.

Ryan, quien se autoproclama brujo, le dijo anteriormente a Bridgette Matter, de Local 10, desde la cárcel del condado Broward que él no mató a Cavett.

“No puedo entrar en los detalles del caso porque esto se está grabando, pero ella y yo nos conocíamos de antes”, dijo Ryan.

Los detectives afirmaron haber descubierto, a través de mensajes de Facebook, que Cavett quería ser aprendiz de Ryan. Ryan dijo que le enseñó a leer las cartas del tarot.

“Enseño brujería, cosas de ese tipo. Sí, leo las cartas del tarot”, dijo Ryan.

El cuerpo de Cavett nunca ha sido encontrado, a pesar de que el FBI realizó varias búsquedas en un vertedero.

Por la época de la desaparición de Cavett, la policía informó que Ryan fue visto comprando bolsas de basura, cinta adhesiva y limpiador de alfombras. Según un informe de arresto, cámaras de vigilancia captaron a Ryan moviendo la camioneta de Cavett y tirando en un contenedor de basura ropa de mujer y juguetes de niño, además de lo que parecían ser toallas ensangrentadas, algo que Local 10 le preguntó directamente y que él negó.

La policía también dio a conocer información sobre las búsquedas que Ryan hizo en internet, entre ellas una en Google: “¿El cloro y el alcohol producen cloroformo?”.

Leer en español

Sopo-Elias, of Hollywood, said ICE was holding the man, who was born in Cuba and worked as a hair stylist in South Florida, at the ICE-ERO Center, at 2805 SW 145 Ave., in Miramar.

“My biggest fear is that he will die in there,” Sopo-Elias said.

At first, it seemed like her beloved friend “Mayito” had resigned himself to being deported and having to start his life again. He surrendered his dog to Sopo-Elias.

“He sounded very calm, says, ‘You know, don’t worry, you know I’m just going to go back to Mexico. Everything is going to be OK. Just make sure you keep my dog.’ He was very calm,” Sopo-Elias said. “That was on a Sunday.”

Sopo-Elias said he called her three days later. She was horrified when he reported the inhumane treatment that he was being subjected to.

“He sounded like I had never heard him before. He was hysterical, hysterically crying, yelling, begging me to ‘Please, help’ him,” Sopo-Elias said.

He said he didn’t have access to a shower or a proper bathroom.

“He had soiled himself, and they wouldn’t let him take a shower, that he was in a 60-men cell, that there were no beds, that he was sleeping on the floor,” Sopo-Elias said.

Earlier this week, members of the House Oversight Committee released a whistleblower’s photographs and a report that there were four portable restrooms for over 100 detainees.

“This is inhumane; this is wrong ... It’s inhumane. It doesn’t matter what your legal status is. Everyone should be treated with human dignity,” Sopo-Elias said.

He said he had not been given any medication to treat HIV and other conditions.

“These are very important medications that you cannot stop taking, especially all of a sudden,” Sopo-Elias said. “When I told him, ‘Speak to the people there! Ask them! That you need your medication!’ He told me, ‘There’s no medical personnel here.’”

A spokesperson for Homeland Security released a statement saying, “Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now.”

Related document:Images of Miramar Holding Facility provided by the whistleblower

Related reports

• American Friends Service Committee members call on lawmakers to visit ICE facilities
• Whistleblower report details alleged poor living conditions at multiple Florida ICE facilities, including in Miramar
• Congressman says Venezuelan man shot by ICE then taken into custody told he needs surgery

Sopo-Elias, de Hollywood, dijo que ICE mantenía detenido al hombre, quien nació en Cuba y trabajaba como estilista en el sur de Florida, en el Centro ICE-ERO, ubicado en 2805 SW 145 Ave., en Miramar.

“Mi mayor temor es que muera ahí dentro”, dijo Sopo-Elias.

Al principio, parecía que su querido amigo “Mayito” se había resignado a ser deportado y a tener que comenzar su vida de nuevo. Entregó su perro a Sopo-Elias.

“Sonaba muy tranquilo, dice: ‘Sabes, no te preocupes, sabes que simplemente voy a regresar a México. Todo va a estar bien. Solo asegúrate de cuidar a mi perro’. Estaba muy tranquilo”, dijo Sopo-Elias. “Eso fue un domingo”.

Sopo-Elias dijo que él la llamó tres días después. Quedó horrorizada cuando él denunció el trato inhumano al que estaba siendo sometido.

“Sonaba como nunca antes lo había escuchado. Estaba histérico, llorando histéricamente, gritando, rogándome: ‘Por favor, ayúdame’”, dijo Sopo-Elias.

Él dijo que no tenía acceso a una ducha ni a un baño adecuado.

“Se había ensuciado y no le permitían ducharse, estaba en una celda con 60 hombres, no había camas y estaba durmiendo en el piso”, dijo Sopo-Elias.

A principios de esta semana, miembros del Comité de Supervisión de la Cámara de Representantes divulgaron fotografías de un denunciante y un informe que indicaba que había cuatro baños portátiles para más de 100 detenidos.

“Esto es inhumano; esto está mal, es inhumano. No importa cuál sea tu estatus legal. Todos deberían ser tratados con dignidad humana”, dijo Sopo-Elias.

Él dijo que no le habían dado ningún medicamento para tratar el VIH y otras afecciones.

“Estos son medicamentos muy importantes que no puedes dejar de tomar, especialmente de repente”, dijo Sopo-Elias. “Cuando le dije: ‘¡Habla con la gente de ahí! ¡Pregúntales! ¡Diles que necesitas tus medicamentos!’, él me dijo: ‘Aquí no hay personal médico’”.

Un portavoz del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional emitió un comunicado diciendo: “Estar detenido es una elección. Alentamos a todos los inmigrantes ilegales a tomar el control de su salida con la aplicación CBP Home. Estados Unidos está ofreciendo a los inmigrantes ilegales $3,000 USD y un vuelo gratuito para autodeportarse ahora”.

Documento relacionado: Imágenes del centro de detención de Miramar proporcionadas por el denunciante

Reportes relacionados

• Miembros del American Friends Service Committee piden a legisladores visitar instalaciones de ICE
• Informe de denunciante detalla presuntas malas condiciones de vida en varias instalaciones de ICE en Florida, incluida la de Miramar
• Congresista dice que hombre venezolano baleado por ICE y luego detenido dijo que necesita cirugía

The bigger story for South Florida is a weak front moving through Friday. Fronts this time of the year don’t usually bring us a major cooldown, but they can drop our humidity to more comfortable levels. Even a slight drop will go a really long way. You will first notice it on Saturday, but more on Sunday and Monday. This will especially be the case in the evenings and mornings as temperatures drop to the low 70s.

As in years past, African leaders attending the U.N. General Assembly this year are demanding a reform of the powerful Security Council that would include permanent seats for countries from the continent in the global body's highest decision-making structure.

Many African heads of state who addressed the meeting since it began on Tuesday have decried the continent’s lack of permanent representation in the Security Council as it navigates global security issues that directly and indirectly affect their populations and governments.

These include the war between Russia and Ukraine, the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and, more recently, the U.S. war with Iran — issues that all loom large at this year's General Assembly.

The 15-member Security Council has five permanent members — the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China — that hold veto power. Other nations, which do not, are elected by the General Assembly rotate in and out every two years on a staggered basis. Africa holds three of those nonpermanent seats.

The representation question is becoming more urgent

While the calls for Africa to be represented permanently on the Security Council have often been debated by the General Assembly, many said the global conflicts currently faced by the organization made it more urgent for the body to be more inclusive.

According to most African leaders, the unfair representation in the Security Council has created doubt about the credibility of the organization and its oft-trumpeted commitment to multilateralism and equality among nations.

“Every nation is sovereign and equal under the (U.N.) charter. Yet, on the gravest question of war and peace, five nations possess a permanent power that the other 188 do not. The equality proclaimed in this assembly ends at the doors of the security council,” Kenyan President William Ruto told delegates on Wednesday.

They have also highlighted the large African population and the high number of African countries that are member states of the United Nations.

“How can a world led with a right conscience justify the denial of 1.6 billion Africans, the right to equal representation?” asked Ethiopia’s president, Taye Atske Selassie.

In 2024, the United States said it would support the addition of two new permanent seats for African countries on the council. That, however, was under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Artificial intelligence is a key example

As the world's leaders grapple with the future of artificial intelligence at the meeting, many in Africa also insisted that the decision-making about its rapid growth and development should include the developing nations as they were likely to feel its impact reverberate across the continent.

This came a day after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged global competitors in artificial intelligence to cooperate in addressing threats from the technology. And on the same day, the Security Council held a special meeting about AI that featured the industry's leaders calling for help in managing the technology.

On Wednesday, Botswana President Duma Boko was among the leaders calling for African nations to be included in the discussions. He said this extended to critical minerals, rare earths, and energy resources that power the technological developments. Many of those come from developing countries.

“Therefore, developing countries must have a meaningful voice in setting the standards and safeguards that will govern these technologies, ensuring that they expand opportunities, support decent work, and strengthen public services, while protecting human dignity, rights, and security,” Boko told delegates.

Most leaders are sticking the initial demands contained in the African Union's position on the issue adopted in 2005, which includes a demand for at least two permanent seats on the Security Council.

Said Namibia President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah: “The time has come for us to recognize that we have been negotiating for too long."

The Houthis later claimed they fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at the kingdom’s southwestern Jazan province. In recent days, they have been blamed for attempted attacks on the kingdom, including on Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

The statement by Saudi Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, who is also the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, followed alerts by Saudi civil defense authorities, who later noted the danger had passed.

The fighting near the crucial Red Sea shipping corridor has worried global markets as the Houthis pursue a blockade of Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, with Iranian support.

The new launches came as Yemen's internationally recognized government prepared to take its turn addressing the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

The situation in the Arab world's poorest country is grim as the fighting backed by the two Mideast powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, has pulled Yemen back into civil war after four years of relative calm. Over 125,000 people have fled the fighting as a humanitarian crisis grows.

While the Saudis have sought military support from allies, their key partner the United States has said it has been in contact with the Houthis and indicated it was sitting this fight out.

The rebels have asserted they are targeting only the Saudis and said commercial shipping on the Red Sea otherwise faces no threat, but they have warned other nations against stepping in.

Their new perch at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea after storming down Yemen's coast this month gives them better surveillance of passing ships on one of the world's busiest waterways.

For the Houthis' ally Iran, which has asserted control over the even busier Strait of Hormuz off its coast since the U.S. and Israel attacked it in February, the added pressure on shipping is welcome.

___

Anna reported from Jerusalem.

The Labor Department said Thursday that 197,000 people applied for unemployment checks last week, the fewest since mid-July and down from a revised 198,000 the week before. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week ups and downs, fell to 202,250 last week from 204,000.

Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and economists watch them because they can be a sign of where the job market is headed. So far this year, claims have mostly stayed below 220,000 — historically low.

The American job market has remained sturdy despite higher energy prices that have squeezed businesses and consumers since the fighting with Iran began Feb. 28.

Layoffs are low. Businesses, remembering the labor shortages that followed the end of pandemic lockdowns, are reluctant to let go of staff. They’re hiring — but modestly by the standards of recent years.

So far this year, employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — have been adding an average of 80,000 jobs a month, including a surprising 162,000 in August. That is an improvement on a dismal 2025 when monthly job creation averaged 9,700 as high interest rates and President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies discouraged hiring.

The Labor Department will release the jobs report for September next week. It's expected to show that employers added 52,500 jobs and that the unemployment rate remained low at 4.1%, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.

Hiring remains well below the 166,000 monthly jobs created, on average, in 2023 and 2024, and the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns.

Leer en español

It happened at around 4:45 a.m. in the 6500 block of Nova Drive, near College Avenue.

Officials said two cars were involved. A Chevrolet Corvette was sent into a utility pole and his or her car caught fire.

Authorities said that two people in the car were pronounced dead at the scene. The people in the other vehicle weren’t seriously hurt.

“I saw a fire and then a lot of police, no lights and people race down the street all the time,” witness Carlos Cusco said. “And then I saw there was a car. I didn’t know what kind of car it was and a body on the on the floor. So it looked like a Corvette they were saying.”

The crash knocked out power to traffic signals at the nearby intersection.

Officials have not provided additional details about the crash as of around 7 a.m. Thursday, including the victims’ identities.

A spokesperson for the Davie Police Department said that the agency’s traffic homicide detectives were investigating.

El accidente ocurrió alrededor de las 4:45 a.m. en la cuadra 6500 de Nova Drive, cerca de College Avenue.

Según las autoridades, dos vehículos estuvieron involucrados. Un Chevrolet Corvette terminó estrellándose contra un poste de electricidad y se incendió.

Las autoridades informaron que las dos personas que iban en el Corvette fueron declaradas muertas en el lugar. Los ocupantes del otro vehículo no sufrieron heridas graves.

“Vi fuego y después muchísima policía. Aquí no hay luces y la gente hace carreras por esta calle todo el tiempo”, dijo el testigo Carlos Cusco. “Luego vi que había un carro, no sabía de qué tipo, y un cuerpo en el suelo. Decían que parecía un Corvette”.

El choque dejó sin electricidad los semáforos de la intersección cercana.

Hasta alrededor de las 7 a.m. del jueves, las autoridades no habían dado más detalles sobre el accidente, incluida la identidad de las víctimas.

Un portavoz del Departamento de Policía de Davie indicó que los detectives de homicidios de tránsito de la agencia están investigando.

It is the second big round of store closures under Starbucks Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol, who joined the company in 2024. Last September, Starbucks closed 627 stores in North America and Europe.

In a letter to employees, Starbucks Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams said the locations targeted either aren't delivering acceptable financial results or can't provide the kind of experience that Starbucks wants for customers and employees.

The company didn't say Thursday which coffeehouses will close or how many are located in the U.S. It also didn't say how many of the affected coffeehouses are unionized. More than 700 U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late 2021, but the union and the company have yet to reach a labor agreement.

Grams said Starbucks is continuing to retrofit its North American coffeehouses to make them cozier and more inviting. The company expects 1,500 stores will be retrofitted by Sept. 30, which is the end of Starbucks' fiscal year.

“This progress has given us a clearer view of the performance of every coffeehouse,” Grams said in his letter. “While most are benefiting from this overall momentum, some coffeehouses continue to underperform despite the hard work and commitment of all of you.”

Grams said Starbucks is still committed to growing its store count in North America. At the end of June, the company had 18,371 stores in the region.

Starbucks said it will transfer employees to other stores if possible or provide severance support if it's not able to place an employee in another location.

Starbucks has also been cutting its corporate ranks. The company laid off 900 nonretail employees when it closed stores last September. In May, Starbucks laid off an additional 300 corporate employees and closed some underused U.S. offices.

The company said it will incur $300 million in restructuring charges with this round of closures, including $200 million in cash charges as it exits leases and pays employee separation benefits and $100 million in non-cash charges due to the disposal and impairment of coffeehouse assets.

Starbucks shares fell less than 1% Thursday in morning trading.

While Trump has many thorny issues to discuss with the president of America’s biggest economic rival, he focused on his long relationship with Xi as the two gathered with aides for opening remarks before formal talks.

Also, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s ban of three news outlets from the White House, ordering early Thursday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored. Reporters from all three outlets, however, said they remained blocked a few hours after the ruling.

Here's the latest:

US government pays for TV ad featuring Trump’s midterm messaging

An ad featuring images of President Donald Trump and saying America will never be a communist country looks like a typical Republican campaign advertisement, except that at the end, a bit of text says “paid for by the U.S. government.”

According to AdImpact, which tracks media spending, the advertisement cost $14,000 and it ran during conservative shows on Fox News and Newsmax.

It’s not clear what part of the U.S. government paid for the spot. The White House did not immediately return a request for comment. Neither did Fox News or Newsmax.

The advertisement doesn’t say who voters should support in the midterms, but it meshes with campaign messaging from Trump and other Republicans, particularly during the party’s unusual convention in Dallas earlier this month.

Trump makes a quip about Chinese press as he blocks most of the pool

The bilateral Oval Office meeting between Trump and Xi was scheduled to be closed press.

But at the last minute, the White House allowed only still photographers into the Oval Office to capture images of the two leaders meeting. They denied requests from the rest of the pool, including reporters who would be asking questions, to join.

Very briefly in front of news photographers, Trump noted that Xi has the friendliest press corps in the world. The U.S. president quipped that the Chinese press ask Xi for permission to speak.

China is one of the most oppressive environments for journalists in the world.

He later praised New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills, calling him “handsome” and complimenting his Pulitzer Prizes.

The first ladies are touring the Peacock Room

Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan on Thursday are touring one of the largest Asian art museums in the United States, celebrating cultural ties between China and the United States.

Leaving their husbands behind at the White House, the first ladies visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in a display of soft power that united two figures known for fusing style and diplomacy. It was the first public meeting in nearly a decade between the spouses, one a former fashion model and the other a famed soprano.

Trump presented a military review that was smaller in scale but had a story to tell

The White House staged a military review in the Rose Garden that was smaller in scale compared to the troop review Xi prepared for Trump in May.

But Trump had something special: a colonial band in celebration of the 250 years of America.

Twelve marines later performed rifling tossing and formations.

In Beijing, Trump and Xi walked down a red carpet to inspect hundreds of troops in a massive open space in front of the Great Hall of People. The troops later goosestepped in unison before the leaders.

Milwaukee mayor taunts Vance over ignoring calls to meet

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson is trying to take up Vice President JD Vance on his offer to meet in Washington to talk about election security.

But Vance isn’t responding.

Vance said during a visit to Milwaukee in July that he would be “happy” to meet with Johnson in the nation’s capital to discuss his concerns over how Milwaukee handled the 2020 presidential election in the battleground state.

Johnson sent Vance two letters seeking a meeting but never heard back. Johnson posted a video on social media Thursday from Washington, where he is for an event to connect local Milwaukee leaders with federal officials.

“Where is the vice president of the United States?” Johnson says in the video. “I thought this was an issue that was important to him.”

Vance was at the White House on Thursday where President Trump was meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Food and Drug Administration nominee appears before Senate health committee

Dr. Heidi Overton, a physician and top White House aide, has spent most of her career working for Trump or conservative groups aligned with his agenda.

Members of the Senate health committee considering her nomination will focus on her plans for vaccines, the abortion pill and other products that have come under new scrutiny at the regulatory agency.

In her current role as a domestic policy adviser, Overton worked on several White House health initiatives, including the revamped food pyramid and efforts to overhaul childhood vaccines. Previously she was an executive at the America First Policy Institute, authoring papers critical of abortion and transgender care.

▶ Read more

Senate to vote on resolution to halt the Iran war as gas prices upend midterms

Increasingly anxious about the Iran war, senators are set to vote Thursday on a war powers resolution seeking to halt President Trump ’s military action, which has been largely blamed for the spike in fuel prices and become a flashpoint in the midterm election.

The Senate vote, days after Trump’s bombastic address to the United Nations in which he threatened to “annihilate” Iran, is likely to be the last chance for lawmakers to go on record about the war ahead of November. More Republicans are peeling way from the president as the war drags on, a rare slap back to Trump, as they campaign for control of Congress.

“They have been carrying water for this ridiculous and illegal war for months and months and months and not listening to their constituents,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, who pushed the war powers resolution forward. “And now they finally are.”

▶ Read more

Military review concludes with a flyover

The flyover consisted of a B-2 bomber and four fighter jets soaring over the White House.

Trump and Xi do a military review

In the late morning, Trump and Xi participated in a military review in the Rose Garden.

With military band members positioned on the roof of the West Wing, the two leaders and their spouses watched as other musicians dressed in colonial wear and white wigs played.

The military review is a customary feature of state visits at the White House, but it’s usually done on the South Lawn.

Before they stepped out onto the Rose Garden for the review, Trump and Xi walked along the colonnade in front of the presidential “walk of fame,” where portraits of all U.S. presidents are displayed. Trump pointed to his own portrait.

Xi confirms 2 pandas will come to Zoo Atlanta in the coming days

The Chinese president announced that as a measure of good faith, China would send two pandas to Zoo Atlanta after Beijing reclaimed four pandas in 2024 as diplomatic tensions between China and the U.S. intensified.

China and the zoo first announced in April that two pandas, male Ping Ping and female Fu Shuang, would be coming to the U.S. as part of a giant panda conservation agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

Xi confirmed that “Ping Ping and Fu Shuang will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people” in “a few days.”

He called the panda loan programs with the U.S. “an envoy of friendship.”

Both pandas were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

Lun Lun, Yang Yang, Ya Lun, and Xi Lun returned from Zoo Atlanta to China in 2024. The National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China in 2023, and other American zoos have sent pandas back to China as loan agreements lapsed.

Chinese companies should be treated fairly in the US, Xi says

Xi said in his remarks in the White House that he hopes “Chinese companies are treated fairly here in the United States” while China keeps its door wide open and welcomes U.S. companies that want to invest in China and do business there.

Chinese investments are faced with increasing national security scrutiny in the U.S.

Trump granddaughter gets a notable spot at the state visit

The “Kushner” sign on one of the seats turned out not to be for Jared, but for his daughter, Arabella.

The president’s 15-year-old granddaughter was seated between mom Ivanka Trump and Rubio, the secretary of state, when the U.S. and Chinese presidents delivered their opening remarks.

It’s rare that a presidential granddaughter gets such prominent seating at a White House state visit event.

Nearly a decade ago, Arabella sang for Xi in Mandarin when the Chinese leader visited Mar-a-Lago.

US and China must avoid conflict, Xi says

Xi says the two countries “must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation.”

“We can certainly find the right path for two great countries to get along on this planet we both call home,” Xi said.

Xi says Washington and Beijing should put common interests ahead of differences

The Chinese president said he and Trump have established a “personal rapport” over the years and encourage their governments to communicate.

But Xi said those talks can be improved.

“We should strengthen communication,” he said. “China and the United States are different in national condition, but through candid, in-depth, and continued dialogue, our two countries can understand each other better, seek common ground, while shelving differences and build up mutual trust.”

Xi said he and Trump have pushed better communication among their lieutenants “in charge of foreign affairs, economic matters, financial cooperation and law enforcement and people-to-people exchanges.”

He added later that the nations’ militaries can “maintain regular dialogue” as part of an overall relationship that involves “healthy” competition that is “kept within bounds.”

China and the US must ensure AI is under human control, Xi says

Xi touched on artificial intelligence in his opening remarks, saying the two superpowers have a responsibility to ensure that humans always operate AI.

“We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that a development of AI is always under human control and serves the well being of the people,” the Chinese leader said.

The two countries’ finance ministers earlier this week met, with the U.S. proposing a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents between the two nations.

Xi thanks Trump for ‘warm hospitality’

The Chinese leader, in his opening remarks, said he was visiting the U.S. to “carry on our friendship, expand cooperation and promote well-being of both our peoples.”

Both are great countries with great people, Xi said through an interpreter.

“I’m very glad to pay a state visit to your beautiful country, the United States of America,” Xi said. “Thank you President Trump and Mrs. Trump for the warm hospitality that you have extended to me and my wife.”

Trump notes US-Chinese alliance in World War II

The U.S. president said World War II offers an apt lesson on how the world’s two super powers can work together.

“Brave American pilots volunteered to come to China and fight for the very survival of the legendary country,” he said, referring to the Flying Tigers air corps that helped defend China against Japanese invasion.

“They were just unbelievable,” Trump said.

He added that it was U.S. Marines’ interactions with Chinese citizens that inspired them “to adopt a Chines phrase that they still use today: “gung ho.”

Trump said Marines use the expression to denote “great enthusiasm” but that in Chinese “it literally means ‘working together.’”

Trump promised to work with Xi “as our people worked together to win that war.”

The presidents will see the US founding documents Friday

Trump noted that Xi’s state visit comes in the year the U.S. is celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding.

The U.S. president said he and Xi will visit the National Archives on Friday to “see some of the greatest treasures of that proud history, including the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”

Trump says he’s returning hospitality to Xi

The U.S. president said it was a “great privilege” to visit Beijing earlier this year and said Xi showed “spectacular and very beautiful hospitality.”

He said he and the first lady “are honored to host you” in “the beautiful White House.”

This is the first Trump-Xi meeting at the White House

The U.S. president noted that he and the Chinese leader have met all over the world, including in China and in Palm Beach, Florida, at the president’s club.

But this is actually the first time the two are meeting at the White House proper, Trump noted.

“We have spent time together all over the world,” he said.

During those visits, Xi and Trump have “forged a friendship, a truly great friendship, actually.”

Trump noted that a lot has changed at the White House since Xi was last there for an Obama-hosted state visit — a nod to his renovation projects.

Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, is among those at the state visit

Her husband is Jared Kushner, one of the president’s two main diplomatic envoys. Their daughter, Arabella, sang for Xi when the Chinese leader visited Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s first term in office.

Others in attendance, according to the seating chart in the Grand Foyer, where Trump and Xi are delivering opening remarks: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China.

Xi state visit underway at the White House

Just after 10 a.m. ET, the official state visit by China’s Xi Jinping was underway.

To the blare of trumpets, Trump and first lady Melania Trump walked out of the White House residence onto the South Lawn, where they were to greet Xi and Madame Peng.

China’s leader and his spouse then walked out of a black vehicle, where they warmly shook hands with the Trumps. Then the four posed for the cameras.

Anti-Beijing and pro-Beijing protesters gather outside the White House ahead of Xi’s arrival

“Down with Xi Jinping,” chanted those condemning Beijing’s brutal policy in Tibet. They also chanted “shame on Xi Jinping.”

Another group has gathered about a block away with banners welcoming the Chinese leader.

The two camps are separated and there has been no direct clash.

Trump-Xi schedule does not include a joint news conference

The presidents of the U.S. and China are scheduled to deliver remarks Thursday morning at the White House and again in the evening as part of a state dinner.

The schedule does not include a news conference and it’s unclear whether Trump and Xi will take questions from either American or Chinese reporters.

In a 2015 meeting, Xi and President Barack Obama held a joint news conference as part of a White House summit. In the Rose Garden, which Trump has since turned into a patio, each president made opening remarks. Then they each answered one question from a U.S. reporter and another from a Chinese reporter before taking additional, nation-specific questions.

The Trump-Xi summit comes as U.S. networks are boycotting White House pool coverage in protest of Trump stripping credentials from MS Now, Politico and CNN.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters still blocked from the White House

That’s a few hours after a federal judge temporarily blocked President Trump’s ban of the three news outlets from the White House and ordered early Thursday that their access must be restored.

The back-and-forth is the latest in an extraordinary showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

Trump makes a protocol error as he compliments China’s first lady

The U.S. president offered enthusiastic praise for China’s first couple — but with a social faux pas.

“I met President Xi at the plane (Airport!) yesterday and he looks strong, vibrant, and fit — Better than ever. Madam Xi, of course, BEAUTIFUL!” he posted on Truth Social.

The latter reference was to President Xi Jinping’s wife, Peng Liyuan.

She is properly recognized as Madame Peng. She is correctly listed that way by the White House in its public itinerary for the Trump-Xi meetings and state dinner.

Officials typically take great care in international meetings to honor the titles and protocols of other delegations.

In one visit with Queen Elizabeth II, Trump flouted royal protocol by walking ahead of the late British monarch. In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama continued speaking at a Buckingham Palace banquet as the queen’s band played “God Save the Queen.”

US-China trade truce welcomed but leaves issues unresolved

Analysts welcomed the extension of the trade truce U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday but said it left unresolved many of the issues that divide the United States and China.

“Agreeing to the extension is positive, but agreement to merely avoid an all-out tariff war for a few months is not a cause for celebration and is probably the minimum necessary to call the summit a success,” said Jeff Moon, a former U.S. diplomat and trade official specializing in China.

“The summit will be heavy on pomp and circumstance and light on substance, so the question is whether (extending the trade truce) will be the principal summit deliverable (or) whether the leaders will also tackle more ambitious goals as well,’’ said Moon, who now runs the China Moon Strategies consultancy.

Trump continues his rebranding effort on AI

In his Truth Social post Thursday on AI, Trump again referred to “Super Intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence.”

Trump used his new preferred term earlier this week at the United Nations, and he’s ordered U.S. diplomats to follow suit.

The U.S. president has said Americans’ widespread skepticism about AI is unfounded, and he’s trying to put the technology and its future in a better light.

It’s the latest example of how much Trump, a former reality TV star, cares about branding.

When Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill was lagging in 2025, he dubbed it “The Big Beautiful Bill.” His investment accounts for U.S. newborns are called “Trump Accounts.” In private business, Trump has put his name on everything from buildings and golf courses to steaks, shoes and Bibles.

Trump suggests summit with Xi won’t yield any shift on AI

The U.S. president and Chinese president have both taken a hands-off view of artificial intelligence. Trump said in a Truth Social post Thursday that AI would be a “big topic of discussion” when the two presidents meet later at the White House.

“But I want to leave it exactly where it is,” Trump said, adding “that is China’s position also.”

Trump said the U.S. Department of Justice is “our guardrail.”

Trump has said any AI regulation should be handled by the federal government, but he hasn’t pushed Congress for any major action on the matter. And he’s opposed state government regulatory moves.

The two former heavyweight world champions will meet at the Principality Stadium, promoter Turki Alalshikh said on social media.

“For 15 years no one has been able to make this fight,” he posted on X. “ I can now confirm that Fury Vs Joshua will be coming to the UK, as I promised British boxing fans. The time for talking is over...”

A clash between the British rivals has been one of the most anticipated fights for more than a decade.

Fury stepped out of retirement this year and made his return to the ring for the first time in more than a year with victories against Arslanbek Makhmudov and Mariusz Wach.

Joshua’s only fights since losing his IBF world title fight against Daniel Dubois in 2024 were against YouTuber Jake Paul and Kristian Prenga.

Alalshikh is a Saudi Arabian adviser who organizes boxing events for the kingdom.

While Fury and Joshua are arguably past their peak, it is fight that is still likely to garner global attention and will be streamed on Netflix.

“THE WAIT IS OVER. Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua finally collide,” Joshua's promoter Matchroom posted on X.

___

See AP’s full sports coverage here

The two-time Grand Slam singles champion is scheduled to play in the Florida Flamingos Racquet Club's home matches on Dec. 14 and 15. The team will play in Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, home of the NHL's Florida Panthers.

Gauff grew up in Delray Beach, Florida.

“I’m looking forward to playing at home in front of my family and friends in South Florida," Gauff said Thursday in a statement. "It’s not often, as a tennis player, that we get to compete as part of a team, so I’m excited for the new experience, not only for myself but, even more importantly, for the fans.”

The Flamingos were one of the original franchises when World Team Tennis began in 1974 as a way of having a mixed-gender team format for tennis, with Hall of Famer Billie Jean King among the founders.

It returns in December with the other teams based in New York and Toronto. U.S. Open semifinalists Frances Tiafoe and Jessica Pegula will be teammates for New York Empire Racquet Club, while the Toronto North Racquet Club features Canadian players Denis Shapovalov, Leylah Fernandez, Victoria Mboko and Gabriel Diallo.

Gauff's teammates include Tommy Paul, Learner Tien, Iva Jovic, Brandon Nakashima and Eva Lys.

The league will have a new match format featuring four singles sets (a men’s and women’s No. 1 and No. 2), and a mixed doubles super tiebreaker. Each team will start two men and two women.

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Today is a transition day as a weak frontal boundary that has kept South Florida locked in the soggy conditions will eventually clear the area by tomorrow.

Until then, there will be a northwest wind keeping rain chances low until this afternoon and eventually helping usher in lower dew points by Friday and the weekend. Keep it tuned to Local 10 for more.

“I hope, but like — I need to skate better because now I don’t think I skate good enough to go to the Olympics,” she said Thursday. "So I need the training, and like training really hard.”

Here's the thing: Wong isn't even the youngest competitor at the two-week Asian Games. That goes to Yuki Kurihara, an 11-year-old Japanese in esports. And they both make Yu Zidi, the 13-year-old Chinese swimmer who has won three gold medals, look like an old timer. In fact, Yu turns 14 in October.

The Asian Games, similar to the Pan Am Games in the Americas, are a proving ground for young athletes.

Shin Ohashi, a 17-year-old Japanese breaststroker, set a world record on Thursday about the same time Wong was skateboarding. He'll be a threat at the Los Angeles Olympics in two years. And at 17, he's absolutely ancient.

Wong's role model is Sky Brown, who won a bronze medal at 13 for Britain in the Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed until 2021 by the pandemic. She landed another bronze medal two years ago in the Paris Olympics.

“I like her style and she’s really happy and she skates really good and fast," Wong said of Brown.

Wong, who would be in school if she wasn't competing in Japan, said she started skating about six years ago.

The upside of skateboarding, Wong said, is landing her tricks.

The downside? It's easy to guess.

"If I fall really hard — hurts really much," she said. “But sometimes I’m really happy if I land a trick and it’s really fun skateboarding. Sometimes.”

___

SNTV video journalist Raj Mohan contributed.

___

See full AP coverage of Asian sports here

The money will go toward 31 projects across 26 states that are expected to produce more than 23 gigawatts of additional electricity capacity — enough to power 16 million homes. The projects will use new technologies such as sensors and other devices to measure real-time weather conditions to ensure safe transmission or direct power away from congested or overloaded paths, the department said.

The upgrades could improve power reliability and lower electricity costs for about 100 million Americans, officials said.

“These investments will get more out of the infrastructure we already have, move more electricity across the grid, and help deliver affordable, reliable and secure power that will fuel American prosperity for decades to come," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.

Wright was set to promote the grant program Thursday at a PPL Corp. facility in Allentown. The utility says two data centers in its territory came online this year and six more are under construction.

The announcement comes amid warnings that AI’s voracious demand for power is threatening to overwhelm U.S. power supplies, as massive new data centers come online faster than new power plants can be built. It also comes as electricity bills rise faster than inflation in many parts of the U.S., blamed in some areas on demand from data centers.

The snowballing opposition to data centers in communities across the country has thrown a wrench into the plans of the world’s richest companies and transformed the midterm election landscape.

Trump continues to stick up for data centers, even as politicians from both major political parties criticize them and many communities try to block them. Trump, a Republican, said last month that U.S. communities that don’t have data centers will “end up being backwards and poor.”

In the meantime, Congress and some states are trying to push regulators to require utilities to use technology and new components to make grids more efficient and better able to serve new customers without additional power sources.

Utilities — which have seen rising profits and share prices during the data center-fueled energy boom — tend to stay away from such efficiencies because they make more money from building new power plants and grid infrastructure projects that are more expensive and take longer to complete, utility critics say.

Projects being announced Thursday will involve component enhancements on more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of transmission lines and technological enhancements across nearly 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers), the department said.

Projects were prioritized based on those that can be put into operation quickly, officials said. Money for the grants comes from the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted by Congress under then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat. The government's $1.9 billion in funding will be matched by $3.35 billion in cost-share funding from the recipients, the Energy Department said.

Trump has vowed to “unleash” the nation's energy sector in his second term, aiming to drive up record-setting domestic oil and gas production, strip away pollution restrictions on power plants and keep expensive coal-fired power plants operating past their retirement dates.

His administration has pushed to help tech giants build and connect data centers to power plants and high-voltage power lines and convert Cold War-era uranium enrichment plants into data center and power plant complexes.

Trump's Environmental Protection Agency this summer issued a plan that would make it harder for the public to learn about and comment on proposed AI data centers.

___

Daly reported from Washingon.

Many gorilla families are used to people, but while their population grows, the forest available to them does not.

Communities have planted trees for medicine, firewood and crafts along the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in a bid to reduce pressure on gorilla habitats.

The idea is simple: If residents can find the trees they need outside the park, they will have less reason to cut them inside the forest.

Bwindi’s forest is home to about 450 mountain gorillas, close to half the world’s remaining population. A 2018 survey put the global population above 1,000, a significant recovery for a subspecies that once faced possible extinction.

“Being a neighbor to the park, I understand that the number of gorillas is increasing, but the forest habitat is not increasing,” said Christina Katushabe, founder of Change a Life Bwindi.

Her organization supplies useful trees, restores degraded land while improving biodiversity. Katushabe said members of the Batwa, an Indigenous community that has helped guide the project, select species used for medicine, timber and firewood.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority distributes seedlings, including medicinal trees that people might otherwise seek inside the park.

Joseph Muhindo, an assistant tourism and hospitality officer with the authority, said residents can harvest what they need in their communities “without tampering with the habitat for the gorillas.”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies mountain gorillas as endangered, an improvement from their earlier designation as critically endangered.

Tourism has helped support that recovery. Visitors trek through the forest to observe habituated gorilla families, generating jobs and revenue for nearby communities. Residents also sell locally made crafts.

Eunice Owembabazi, a member of a women’s crafts group, said the tree planting near the park means "we people and the gorillas do not inconvenience each other.”

The campaign has reached nearby schools, where students plant trees their families will be able to use.

“Now we are going to protect the forest, so that our gorillas can stay well,” said Davis Musinguzi, a student at Ruhijja Seed Secondary School.

The tree planting was among community conservation activities organized to mark World Gorilla Day, observed each year on Sept. 24.

The main combatants are Ethiopian federal troops and fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, an armed political group in Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost regional state.

Ethiopia's military said Thursday that dozens of TPLF fighters had been killed in ongoing operations and that federal forces “have been able to detain many” others and seize a large quantity of weapons from them.

The TPLF and Ethiopian federal troops waged war between November 2020 and November 2022, when a peace deal was signed in Pretoria, South Africa.

Eritrean troops fought alongside Ethiopian forces against the TPLF in that conflict. The civilian death toll was estimated by Ghent University researchers to be 500,000, including from violence, famine and the collapse of health services.

After both sides signed the Pretoria peace deal, a caretaker administration seen as loyal to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was installed in Mekelle, the Tigray capital. But tensions remained, with the TPLF maneuvering for political control in Mekelle.

Rebel fighters forge a coalition

This time, the TPLF appears to have mobilized widely, bringing together former foes in its stated goal of removing Abiy from power in Addis Ababa, the federal capital.

On Sunday, the TPLF and six other opposition groups announced that they had formed an alliance to overthrow Abiy's governing Prosperity Party, which was reelected in June polls that were boycotted by major opposition groups.

Both sides had been accusing each other of bad faith, and for months some civilians in Tigray expected a return to armed hostilities. In May, the TPLF forced out regional leader Tadesse Werede, who reported to Abiy, and replaced him with a new council led by TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael, who led the Tigrayans in the previous conflict.

Ethiopian federal authorities accused the TPLF of seeking to build an alliance with neighboring Eritrea to destabilize Ethiopia. The TPLF accused Ethiopian authorities of conducting drone attacks in Tigray. Eritrea said that it was alarmed by Abiy’s repeated assertions of his wish for sovereign access to the Red Sea via Eritrea.

Both sides deny responsibility for launching this round of hostilities, and most of the fighting is believed to be in remote areas of often ragged, mountainous territory. On Wednesday, TPLF fighters seized the airport in Mekelle from federal police, and national carrier Ethiopian Airlines canceled flights there and elsewhere in the region.

Observers say pressure is building on Abiy

The Ethiopian News Agency, the official news organization of the Ethiopian government, described the TPLF as a “Trojan horse,” saying that the group’s “repeated attempts to incite conflict” defy the government’s “patience, concessions and magnanimity.”

The coalition formed by the TPLF and six other opposition groups said that it would be known as the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival. In addition to the TPLF, the others include the Amhara Fano National Movement, the Oromo Liberation Army, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, the Benishangul Peoples’ Liberation Movement and the Gumuz Peoples’ Democratic Movement.

That alliance, which unites some groups previously opposed to each other, may put pressure on Abiy, according to Kjetil Tronvoll, an academic analyst of Ethiopia at Oslo New University College.

“The situation now differs substantially from the 2020-2022 war on Tigray,” he said in an analysis posted on X. “This time around Fano is an ally and Eritrea a backer. Supply lines are also secured through Eritrea.”

Regional blocs and the US call for an end to fighting

The African Union and a key regional bloc known as IGAD called for de-escalation of hostilities. U.S. Ambassador Ervin J. Massinga said in a statement that he felt disappointed by the TPLF’s “poor decision to launch a large-scale offensive.”

His statement said that the TPLF’s “unwinnable fight does nothing for the people. Other armed groups would be wise to avoid this.” A TPLF official, Amanuel Assefa, said the statement was unfair.

Abiy has been praised by many for his ambitious infrastructure projects that seek to turn Addis Ababa into a world-class city. To his supporters, the prime minister is a renaissance man trying to reimagine the old greatness of Ethiopia.

Abiy rose from relative obscurity to power in 2018 as a reform-minded pragmatist. Ties with Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 after decades of brutal guerrilla warfare, had been cold since the 1990s, and Abiy’s efforts to repair relations with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki helped him win the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

A year later, Abiy confounded expectations by launching a military operation against the TPLF.

Some of Abiy’s critics now see him as a provocateur whose actions could lead to hostilities in the Horn of Africa. His push for sovereign access to the Eritrean seaport of Assab has reignited tensions with Eritrea, which shares a border with Tigray. Abiy also angered Somalia by trying to negotiate access to the sea via the territory of Somaliland.

___

Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.

But what happens when the hackers aren't human?

That's the question at the center of a public policy debate roiling Silicon Valley and Washington following disclosures by leading tech companies that their artificial intelligence models went rogue and hacked into other organizations. The attacks have generated calls even from within the industry for greater oversight and regulation, spurred congressional inquiries and raised questions about whether a years-old legal framework designed to punish criminal hackers is sufficient in an era of autonomous actors capable of engineering their own havoc.

It all adds up to a “Wild West,” said Jack Nelson, chief information security officer and deputy general counsel at the software company Ivanti. Questions of accountability will focus on what the companies knew when they were developing the models, how much they understood about what could happen and what guardrails existed, he said.

“If you owned a tiger and you didn’t put a lock on the cage, the tiger probably did something bad you didn’t intend for it to but you knew it could have, so you are responsible for not putting a lock on that cage,” Nelson said.

“I don’t know if I would go so far as to say these models are tigers without locks, but that’s probably a decent framework to think of it as,” he added.

The prospect of legal accountability is unclear. Lawsuits are a possibility, but some legal experts believe any criminal investigations would face an extremely high burden given the autonomous nature of the attacks and the absence of evidence the AI models were designed with the intent to hack into other networks.

The FBI director has called the autonomous attacks ‘the new frontier’

The issue surfaced in July when OpenAI revealed that its artificial intelligence system escaped from a testing ground and used stolen credentials to break into the servers of Hugging Face, an AI development hub and marketplace, to obtain information it needed to carry out a task.

Since then, Anthropic said its AI models hacked into three other organizations during testing, triggering a company review into whether the models were able to access the internet from within testing environments that should have been sealed off. Meta has said a “misconfiguration” during testing resulted in an AI model accessing the internet on its own and hacking another company. Google recently made a similar disclosure.

The revelations contributed to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urging a development slowdown. The topic has likewise dominated Washington, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent telling lawmakers he opposed giving AI labs a “liability exemption — which is what they are asking for." President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has resisted calls for greater oversight but did announce plans to appoint an AI czar and task force.

The hacks could tee up a fight over liability reminiscent of the debate over Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields technology companies for material posted on their platforms.

The FBI has not publicly announced any investigations, but Director Kash Patel at a congressional hearing last week called the issue “the new frontier." He suggested in response to questions from Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who has launched a congressional investigation, that the bureau would limit scrutiny to models created with the intent of committing a crime.

“What we need to do on a resource basis is go after the people that created these models that are going rogue ...for the specific purpose and with the intention to commit a criminal act,” Patel said. “We can’t be punishing people if they created something lawfully and then a criminal took it and changed it and then dispersed it."

Attorney General Todd Blanche has said that the Justice Department had no plans to regulate AI but that “if anyone associated with AI violates criminal law, we’ll investigate that.”

The case law and FBI and Justice Department approach "is going to be fascinating because it can go a bunch of different ways,” said former Justice Department cybercrime prosecutor Sid Mody.

Various criminal statutes govern cyberspace

The Department of Justice does have statutes at its disposal for a company determined to have been "reckless in the way that it tests its AI agents," said Michael Zweiback, a former chief of the cyber and intellectual property crimes section of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

"And if in fact the AI agent gets loose in the wild and then causes substantial damage to other companies, then DOJ has to look at it from a prosecutorial discretion issue as to whether or not they want to make an example out of the particular company," he added.

Among the possibly relevant laws: a 40-year-old statute called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it illegal to knowingly access a computer without authorization. The White House cited the statute, which has been used against hacktivists, nation-state hackers and other cybercriminals, in an executive order directing prosecutors to pursue those who use AI to illegally access computers or further other crimes.

But some experts say even if there may be a basis to investigate, that hardly means a crime was committed.

For one thing, the law makes several references to behavior done “knowingly” or “intentionally," but there's no indication the autonomous agents were given any command or authorization by the companies to enter another network, said Kiran Raj, a former senior Justice Department official who specializes in cybersecurity law.

In detailed public accountings of the incidents, the companies have characterized the hacks as inadvertent outgrowths of testing and evaluation, with OpenAI calling its model behavior “unexpected" and “unprecedented" and Meta attributing the incident to a “misconfiguration.”

“I think it would be a pretty big stretch to say any of these companies are intentionally trying to do this. That's not their purpose. That's not what they're doing,” said Raj, also a former lead Microsoft program manager. “The fact that an AI agent may intentionally be doing something is going to be, I think, pretty hard to attribute the intent to the company.”

A strike on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region killed six agricultural workers and wounded 12 others, Interior Minister Ihor Vyhivskyi said. An attack on the capital Kyiv killed a man and a woman, he said, while officials in the southern port of Odesa also reported a major bombardment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed in a speech at the United Nations late Wednesday for countries to starve Russia of revenue through sanctions and trade bans, denying Moscow the money it needs to prolong the war. He and other leaders at previous U.N. general assemblies have sought to pressure Moscow into giving up its ambitions in Ukraine.

But despite years of diplomatic efforts there is no sign of a breakthrough in ending a war that has had repercussions for the global food and energy supply, as well as severely straining relations between Russia and Western countries.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Moscow’s demand for a comprehensive peace deal, not a temporary break in hostilities, following Ukraine’s call for a complete and unconditional ceasefire.

“We believe it’s necessary to seek peace, not a temporary truce,” Peskov told reporters Thursday. Russia's demands for Ukraine to surrender its territory, among other things, are unacceptable for Kyiv.

The aerial war has intensified in recent months. Russia keeps hammering Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missiles, powerful glide bombs and jet-powered drones, while Ukraine’s long-range drones target oil refineries and businesses that are a vital part of the Russian economy.

There have been few significant changes since last year along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (800-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, where a huge number of drones on both sides limit movement.

Russian strikes are an ordeal for Ukrainian civilians

The attack on Kyiv damaged more than 50 civilian sites, including apartment blocks, post offices, a maternity hospital and a textile plant, Vyhivskyi, the interior minister, said.

Russia has repeatedly hit Ukrainian trains, shopping malls, supermarkets and gas stations, among other sites, keeping civilians on edge.

Valentyna Kolosenko, a 49-year-old Kyiv resident, said a solid oak door she was standing behind saved her when three blasts occurred around her home. She said she would endure the hardship, even though she was scared.

“Everything is paralyzed. Nothing works,” she told The Associated Press. “Getting to work is incredibly difficult and frightening.”

Liubov Paziuk, a 74-year-old pensioner in the capital whose house windows were shattered, said she remained determined to resist the Russian onslaught. “We don’t get used to it, we adapt, because we have only one choice: to stay here, on our land, despite everything,” she said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the military overnight struck arms factories, telecommunications and logistical facilities in Kyiv and the Odesa region.

The United Nations said last week that more Ukrainian civilians were killed and wounded in the first eight months of 2026 than in the whole of last year. Russian attacks in August killed at least 368 civilians and wounded 2,314 others, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

“Russia’s escalation of terror demonstrates that active diplomacy must come hand in hand with devastating pressure on Putin’s regime and unwavering support for the defense of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.

As another Ukrainian subzero winter approaches, Zelenskyy said things are likely to get worse. But he promised to keep fighting.

“Ukrainians understand that this winter could be very harsh for us. But in response, we will have no choice but to make it painful for Russia, too,” the Ukrainian leader said on social media. “And that’s exactly why we say that de-escalation steps are important are needed before winter.”

Ukrainian drones strike in western Russia

Officials in western Russia on Thursday reported Ukrainian long-range attacks but provided few details.

Ukrainian drone fragments damaged an administrative building of an oil refinery in the Rostov region but there was no fire, Gov. Yuri Slyusar said.

In the Krasnodar region, Ukrainian drone fragments sparked a brief fire on the premises of an industrial facility, regional emergency officials said.

Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.

Drones fly into Romania and Moldova

Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said Thursday that a drone violated its airspace for four minutes before crashing near a town in the north of the country, near the border with Ukraine.

The ministry had earlier scrambled two Romanian F-16s and two Spanish F-18s to monitor its airspace in two separate locations after a spate of drones were detected in Ukraine near the border.

Authorities did not specify who the drone belonged to.

Also, Moldova’s Ministry of Defense said Thursday that it recorded a spate of airspace incursions during Russia’s attacks on neighboring Ukraine. The incidents prompted authorities to close part of Moldova’s northern airspace, the ministry said.

___

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Associated Press journalists Volodymr Yurchuk and Srdjan Nedeljkovic in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England contributed to this report.

___

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

Hamas said it was ready to move forward with the next stages of a Gaza peace agreement, while a top European Union official said only a small amount of the funds needed to rebuild the Gaza Strip has been collected.

Here is a look at the latest news from the Middle East. More coverage of the U.N. General Assembly is available here.

Netanyahu begins a whirlwind visit to address the UN

The Israeli prime minister's brief stay in New York for the U.N. General Assembly includes meetings with several world leaders — but not Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Arab leaders.

Netanyahu's office said he was on a “tight schedule” and needed to return to Israel before the start of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot at sundown Friday.

He will meet with the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama, and Ethiopia, the vice president of Colombia, and the prime ministers of Greece, Slovenia, and Papua New Guinea, according to his office.

Hamas says it's ready to advance the Gaza peace agreement

A Hamas spokesman said the group is ready to move forward with the next steps of a peace agreement, after Trump’s Board of Peace unveiled a six-month, $2.45-billion plan for Gaza's reconstruction.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem expressed the Palestinian militant group’s “full readiness to implement the Board of Peace’s roadmap” but made no mention of any disarmament plans.

Israel has said it will not allow reconstruction to move forward until Hamas disarms.

Hamas last year agreed to a plan that includes disarmament but has since traded accusations with Israel of ceasefire violations and has accused Israel of violating the agreement by continuing to occupy much of Gaza.

Hamas has publicly backed handing over power to Palestinian administrators operating under the Board of Peace. Board officials have blamed Hamas' failure to disarm and a lack of Israeli withdrawal as reasons for stalling progress in advancing reconstruction in Gaza.

The EU says only a fraction of needed Gaza funds have been collected

A top EU official says only 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) has been raised out of the 71 billion euros ($80.8 billion) that the United Nations, the World Bank and the 27-nation European Union estimate are needed to rebuild Gaza.

“We have to scale up our efforts,” said European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica.

She called for a unified recovery plan that would bring together Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the U.S.-backed Board of Peace, and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

The UN urges access to humanitarian aid for civilians in Yemen

The U.N. pleaded for all parties in Yemen to ensure humanitarian aid is delivered rapidly as fighting between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government forces intensifies an already dire humanitarian situation.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said people fleeing violence need protection and access to food, shelter and healthcare. Ground fighting, artillery and aerial strikes have killed and wounded at least 125 civilians since the beginning of August.

Türk also called for the release of 73 U.N. staffers “arbitrarily detained” by the Houthis in the past few years.

Saudi Arabia says it intercepted 6 missiles fired by Houthis

Six ballistic missiles targeting Saudi Arabia ’s Red Sea port of Yanbu and the southwestern city of Taif have been intercepted, a Saudi military spokesperson said, blaming Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Houthis, who in recent days have been blamed for attempted attacks on the kingdom, including on Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

The Associated Press could not immediately verify the latest claim by Saudi Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, who is also the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis. His statement followed alerts by Saudi civil defense authorities, who later noted the danger had passed.

Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 1 person

Gaza's Al-Aqsa Hospital said a man was killed when a car was hit on Thursday in Deir al Balah. There were also injuries in strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis, the hospital said.

The Israeli military said it struck operatives in both places and would provide more information later.

Earthquake shakes parts of Turkey and Syria

A moderate earthquake shook southeast Turkey and parts of Syria on Thursday, sending people rushing out of buildings in panic. There were no immediate reports of any damage.

The magnitude 5.4 quake was centered in Sanliurfa province, near the border with Syria, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency.

In 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces, including Sanliurfa. Another 6,000 people were killed in Syria.

___

This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

Tens of thousands of Catholic devotees are converging on St. Louis for a formal ceremony of beatification on Thursday, in which the prelate will be designated Blessed Fulton Sheen — one step away from sainthood.

The afternoon ceremony is taking place at the Dome at America's Center after years of delays. The stadium was chosen for the site because there wasn't a venue large enough in his home Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, to accommodate the anticipated number of attendees.

About 50,000 tickets were distributed as of Thursday, according to organizers with the diocese and the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, which advocates for his sainthood. By early morning, the downtown streets were filling up with pilgrims, many of them priests in clerical garb and nuns in habits. Scores of bishops, a thousand priests and hundreds of religious order members, seminarians and deacons were expected.

A temporary altar was set up on the stage in the indoor stadium, backed by photos — including Sheen's tomb at the Peoria cathedral, now a destination for pilgrims.

The event honors a prelate who was once a regular presence in the living rooms of millions of Americans — including that of the future Pope Leo XIV, who says he watched the broadcasts of his fellow Illinois native while growing up in Chicago.

Sheen's journey from Peoria to primetime

Sheen was a pioneering radio priest who quickly adopted the new medium of television in the 1950s, when he began hosting the program, “Life is Worth Living.” Dressed in a cassock, cape and skullcap, he stood at a chalkboard and delivered moral and religious lessons without a narrow Catholic focus.

The show competed favorably against entertainers Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra on other networks. In an Emmy acceptance speech, Sheen thanked his writers — Gospel scribes Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He’s been called America’s first televangelist.

“Archbishop Sheen was a beacon of faith, hope, and love who shone through radio and television for decades,” Pope Leo said in a June speech to directors of The Pontifical Mission Societies, which Sheen headed in the U.S. for 16 years. “I myself witnessed his evangelization efforts as I was growing up.”

Sheen was born in 1895 in the small town of El Paso, Illinois, and raised in Peoria. After becoming a priest and earning a doctorate in philosophy, he had a short pastorate in Peoria before becoming a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

He became known both for his academic lectures and his plainspoken addresses from the pulpit and the studio, first on radio and then on TV. He often signed off with the benediction, “God love you.”

Sheen appeared in a Time magazine cover article. He guided celebrities and others converting to Catholicism.

He met with popes and spoke at the reformist Second Vatican Council. He railed against communism, though he opposed the Vietnam War.

Sheen raised funds and traveled the world on behalf of Catholic missions. He served as a bishop in New York state, retiring as an archbishop. After his death at 84, he was buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York until his niece won a court battle in 2019 to move his body to Peoria’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.

The Illinois teen tied to Sheen's path to sainthood

It's there, where Sheen had been a young altar server and was later ordained a priest, that pilgrims now place crucifixes and other items on his marble tomb, giving them status as relics.

To qualify for beatification, the Vatican normally requires one miracle attributable to the faithful seeking the candidate's heavenly prayers.

The late Pope Francis approved the beatification, attributing to Sheen the resuscitation of an infant born in 2010 without a pulse and revived only after lengthy efforts by medical workers. The Peoria-area child, the now-teenaged James Fulton Engstrom, is slated to present relics of Sheen at the ceremony, accompanied by his family, who had sought Sheen's intercession for healing.

His mother, Bonnie Engstrom, said today's ceremony will feel like a “foretaste of heaven.”

She and her husband taught each of their eight children to have a devotion to their patron saint, giving them the sense that they have a heavenly “squad” cheering them on. They chose Sheen for James' patron after discovering the prelate's old videos, adding that his Midwestern-accented voice reminded her of her grandfather and great-grandfather. “He’s like a local boy,” she said at a morning news conference.

James, who just turned 16, has a devotion to Sheen, but he's largely avoiding the media spotlight. “He’s a delightful young man, but he’s still just a teenage boy, and he needs to be given the space and the grace to have his own journey of life," Engstrom said. "He didn’t ask for any of this.”

She said she'd been praying to Sheen throughout the pregnancy, and “it was just a very natural thing in the hardest hour of our life” to seek his prayers. James was born at home without a pulse and rushed to the hospital — where workers who were attempting to resuscitate him were about to declare him deceased — when his heart began beating normally, Engstrom and other witnesses said.

Sheen's beatification backstory

The beatification was originally scheduled for 2019, but the Vatican delayed the ceremony. The Diocese of Rochester, which Sheen briefly led in the 1960s, requested the delay out of caution, due to legal investigations taking place then into the oversight of priests accused of sexual abuse across New York state.

Church officials later concluded that Sheen’s record gave no cause for further delay, and plans for the ceremony resumed. Pope Leo XIV approved the beatification earlier this year.

“May the example and the intercession of this holy bishop, known for his evangelizing work through the media, inspire many others likewise to find new ways of spreading the gospel message with joyful enthusiasm,” Leo said Wednesday on the eve of the ceremony.

Monsignor Jason Gray, executive director of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, said church investigators review records and interview witnesses before determining whether a healing qualifies as a miracle. He said there are now six more cases under investigation; a second miracle would qualify Sheen for sainthood under Vatican rules.

Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said he believes the wait for canonization will be shorter than for the beatification, especially with an Illinois-born pope who's “very much aware of who Sheen is and how he influenced his own life.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

• Early morning crash leaves mess in Davie
• Suspect in custody following reports of gunfire at Miami International Airport
• Bodycam captures first responders racing to save mom, 2-year-old daughter

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

Gordon is well-placed to discuss the qualities of Spain’s World Cup-winning players, given he now trains daily with many of them — like Rodri, Lamine Yamal, Pedri and more — following his offseason move to La Liga champion Barcelona.

“They’re definitely built different,” Gordon said. “So I’m not sure we can ever get that.”

Long-held doubts over England’s ability to end the men’s team’s long wait to win a European Championship or World Cup returned over the summer when England squandered a lead — earned by a goal from Gordon — by conceding two late goals to lose 2-1 to Argentina in the World Cup semifinals.

Speaking at England’s training base this week, Gordon said he might never get over the defeat that has prompted questions over whether England’s players have the quality to control these high-pressure games like the Spanish can. That’s because England became ultra-defensive after taking the lead — Gordon was replaced by a defender, Ezri Konsa, in a telling substitution by coach Thomas Tuchel — and allowed Argentina to seize the initiative in the final half-hour.

So, Gordon was asked, couldn’t England just be more like Spain?

“I think culturally, it’s not just that tournament or that game where we couldn’t control a game,” he said, referring to the Argentina loss. “England, as a nation, we don’t have that strength like the Spanish, where we control games like they do. It’s not in us.

“It’s not in the English DNA,” Gordon added, “and it’s probably something I’ve only realized to that extent from playing in Spain now. Because I think we, as English players, are educated the same way as the Spanish players. We know how to keep possession but it’s the decision-making of certain players in Spain, which it’s just not a natural thing. I even look at some of the decisions they take on the ball sometimes and think, ‘I’m not sure how you’ve seen that.’”

Gordon believes England might have to pursue its own course, rather than trying to imitate Spain.

“We can definitely get better,” he said, “or maybe go the other way and really play to our strengths, which is to play physical, play direct football, and on the counter-attack.”

Spain's trip to play England at Wembley Stadium is its first match as world champion and marks the start of the teams' Nations League campaign.

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Se espera que Polo mantenga la intensidad de categoría 5 mientras bordea la costa de México los próximos días. Las intensas precipitaciones y los fuertes vientos ya han empezado a azotar la costa, con olas estrellándose contra unas playas normalmente inmaculadas.

Aunque se prevé que el vórtice del meteoro y sus vientos más intensos permanezcan en el mar, las lluvias torrenciales podrían provocar inundaciones y deslaves que pongan en peligro la vida de la población, de acuerdo con el Centro Nacional de Huracanes de Estados Unidos (NHC, por sus siglas en inglés) en Miami.

Más al oeste en el Pacífico, la tormenta tropical Nolo se arremolinaba a unos 475 kilómetros (295 millas) al sur de South Point, Hawai. Se espera que se convierta en huracán el jueves por la noche y que se acerque a la Isla Grande ya el viernes. Se emitió una alerta por huracán para el condado de Hawai.

La oficina del gobernador, Josh Green, dijo que las escuelas públicas y las oficinas estatales y del condado en Isla Grande cerrarán el jueves y el viernes, mientras que en condado de Maui será solo el viernes ante la amenaza de fuertes lluvias, vientos e inundaciones. Los meteorólogos dicen que la tormenta podría dejar hasta 51 centímetros (20 pulgadas) de lluvia.

Polo podría causar inundaciones y deslaves en el Pacífico mexicano

Concepción López Villegas se afanaba en reforzar su restaurante junto al mar en Lázaro Cárdenas, en el estado de Michoacán, ante la previsión de lluvias intensas. El fuerte oleaje golpeaba ya algunas playas y López Villegas comentó que temía que la tormenta pudiera destruir el pequeño negocio que tardó décadas en construir.

El estado de Guerrero corría un riesgo especial de sufrir inundaciones y deslaves, según el NHC.

Polo se encontraba a unos 209 kms (130 millas) al sur-suroeste de Zihuatanejo a primera hora del jueves y avanzaba en dirección noroeste a 11 km/h (7 mph). Se espera que vire hacia el oeste-noroeste más tarde en el día, lo que lo llevaría mar adentro, antes de girar hacia el noroeste el sábado.

El meteoro tenía vientos máximos sostenidos de 257 km/h (160 mph) y se espera que continúe siendo un huracán mayor los próximos días. Los vientos con fuerza de huracán se extendían hasta 65 kms (40 millas) desde su ojo y los vientos con fuerza de tormenta tropical llegaban hasta 185 kms (115 millas) de distancia.

La región más amenazada por Polo es rural y montañosa, salpicada por algunos pequeños pueblos turísticos y puertos. Gran parte de la zona está marcada por la pobreza y los residentes se quejan habitualmente de que las autoridades los abandonan para que se las arreglen solos durante los desastres naturales.

El gobierno de México ha pedido evacuar algunas zonas y habilitó refugios para los afectados. Miles de efectivos militares y personal de la Cruz Roja se han desplegado en la región como medida preventiva.

Otro huracán podría azotar Hawai el viernes

El Servicio Meteorológico Nacional indicó que la tormenta tropical Nolo probablemente ganará fuerza antes de acercarse a la Isla Grande el viernes o el sábado.

Podría convertirse en un huracán mayor, dijo John Bravender, meteorólogo de coordinación de alertas del servicio meteorológico, durante una conferencia de prensa el miércoles.

Aunque se esperan vientos fuertes, Bravender explicó que la principal preocupación es la posibilidad de inundaciones repentinas. Podrían caer entre 50 y 76 centímetros (de 20 a 30 pulgadas) de lluvia hasta el sábado en las zonas del sureste de la Isla Grande, la misma región golpeada con fuerza en agosto por el huracán Lala, agregó.

“Por sí solo podría causar inundaciones catastróficas, pero cuando lo sumas a suelos en los que ha llovido intermitentemente durante los últimos dos meses… esa lluvia podría causar aún más daños”, manifestó Bravender.

Instó a todas las islas del archipiélago a prepararse por si cambia la trayectoria de la tormenta.

“Deben actuar ahora. Hoy es realmente el último día seco que tienen para prepararse”, indicó.

El alcalde del condado de Hawai, Kimo Alameda, dijo a los residentes en un video publicado en redes sociales que deberían empezar a prepararse ya para la tormenta. Los instó a preparar un kit de emergencia con comida, agua y medicamentos, podar la vegetación y despejar los desagües.

“Esta es una situación muy grave", comentó. "Creemos que la lluvia va a llegar. Ya está llegando”.

El gobernador emitió una declaración de emergencia el martes y se ha movilizado a más de 230 miembros de la Guardia Nacional de Hawai, reportó el mayor general Stephen Logan, ayudante general del Departamento de Defensa del estado.

La cooperativa eléctrica de Kauai instó a los residentes a prepararse para “la posibilidad de cortes de energía prolongados” y a almacenar alimentos no perecederos y agua potable.

Más de 100 hogares en Kauai siguen sin electricidad debido al huracán Lowell, que pasó al oeste de la isla el 7 de septiembre.

Hawaiian Electric, la principal empresa de servicios públicos del estado, indicó que sus equipos regresarán a las zonas en riesgo para prepararse de cara a la próxima tormenta.

Odalys y Fay no suponen una amenaza

La tormenta tropical Fay se volvió a formar en la madrugada del jueves en el Atlántico norte con vientos máximos sostenidos que rondaban los 65 km/h (40 mph), indicó el NHC. Se encontraba a 1.505 kms (935 millas) al oeste-suroeste del archipiélago portugués de Azores y avanzaba hacia el oeste-suroeste a 15 km/h (9 mph).

En el Pacífico, el huracán Odalys tenía vientos de 137 km/h (85 mph) y estaba a unos 1.940 kilómetros (1.200 millas) al oeste-suroeste del extremo sur de la península de Baja California, en México.

___

Aoun informó desde San Diego. Los periodistas de The Associated Press Desiree Brooks en Atlanta y Hallie Golden en Seattle contribuyeron a este despacho.

___

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

Iraq, meanwhile, pledged to remove armed groups that Turkey considers security threats from the region of Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, according to a joint statement issued after the meeting late Wednesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

“In light of the progress Iraq has achieved through security measures, Turkish forces will gradually hand over the Bashiqa-Zelikan camp to the Iraqi federal government, in accordance with the agreed-upon mechanism and timeline,” according to the joint statement released by Erdogan and al-Zaidi’s offices.

Turkey and Iraq also agreed to “fully extend the authority of the Iraqi state in Sinjar and to end the presence of banned foreign armed elements,” the statement read.

The strategically-located Bashiqa base has long been an issue of contention between Turkey and Iraq, with Turkey failing to fully withdraw forces, despite previous discussions for their removal. Turkey established a military presence there in 2015 to support operations against the Islamic State group and help secure the region.

Although Turkey maintains several bases in northern Iraq for operations against the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, the Bashiqa camp is Turkey's furthest base from its border.

Turkey, for its part, has long been pressing Iraq to curb groups with links to the PKK and other non-state armed groups from operating in Sinjar.

The Iraqi government announced earlier this month that the Sinjar Resistance Units, a Yazidi militia affiliated with the PKK, had agreed to disarm and eligible fighters would be integrated into the Iraqi security forces. The group played a significant role in the fight against IS, but was seen by Turkey as a threat because of its PKK affiliation.

The agreement came as the U.S. is ending its decades-long military presence in Iraq, with officials saying the hundreds of troops remaining in northern Iraq will be out by a Sept. 30 deadline.

Turkey, meanwhile, is engaged in peace efforts with the PKK aimed at ending a decades-long conflict. The group, whose fighters have launched attacks on Turkish targets from bases in northern Iraq, has agreed to disband and lay down arms as part of the effort.

Polo has oscillated between Category 4 and 5 strength — both major-hurricane strength— and on Thursday morning dipped back to Category 4. It was slated to skirt Mexico's coast over the next few days. Rain and strong winds had already started to pummel the coast, with waves crashing onto the normally pristine beaches.

While the eye and the strongest winds were expected to remain at sea, the heavy rains could cause life-threatening flooding and landslides, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Farther west in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Nolo was churning about 285 miles (460 kilometers) south of South Point, Hawaii. It was forecast to become a hurricane by Thursday night and was expected to approach the Big Island as early as Friday. A hurricane watch was issued for Hawaii County, which covers the entire island.

Gov. Josh Green’s office said public schools and state and county offices on the Big Island will close Thursday and Friday, while Maui County will shutter them on Friday ahead of the threat of heavy rain, winds and flooding. Forecasters said the storm could drop up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain on Maui and up to 35 inches (89 centimeters) on the Big Island.

The series of hurricanes come as the weather phenomenon El Nino prompts major environmental shifts across the world, fueling drought in some areas and flooding in others. As El Nino traditionally dampens the Atlantic hurricane season, it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific, with moist air and little wind shear.

Polo could bring flooding and mudslides to Mexico’s Pacific coast

Mexican authorities were busy preparing shelters and clearing people from beaches, while coastal residents stacked sandbags in front of their businesses in fear that they might get swept away.

Much of the fear from locals came from hurricanes in past years that devastated cities along the Pacific coast, namely Hurricane Otis in 2023 which unexpectedly plunged Acapulco into turmoil for weeks.

“People here are scared because we already went through this with Otis. So many people said it wouldn’t happen and then it did. After that, you’re left on edge,” said Acapulco bartender Gonzalo Ramírez.

Guerrero state was particularly at risk of life-threatening flooding and mudslides, the hurricane center said.

Polo was swirling about 195 miles (315 kilometers) west-southwest of Zihuatanejo early Thursday and was moving northwest at 9 mph (15 kph). A turn west-northwest was forecast for later in the day, taking it further out to sea, before turning northwest Saturday.

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph), and was expected to remain a major hurricane for the next few days. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the eye and tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 125 miles (205 kilometers).

In recent days, there had been speculation about whether Polo would touch ground. On Thursday morning, projections from the U.S. National Hurricane Center show Polo could potentially arc back east as a weakened storm and hit Baja California on Tuesday.

The region most under threat from Polo is further south, along the coast of Michoacan and Guerrero, which is rural and mountainous, scattered with a few small tourist towns and ports. Much of the area is marked by poverty and residents routinely complain authorities abandon them to fend for themselves during natural disasters.

Mexico’s government has called for evacuations in some areas and set up shelters for those affected. Thousands of military and Red Cross personnel have been deployed to the region as a preventive measure.

Another hurricane could hit Hawaii as soon as Friday

The National Weather Service said Tropical Storm Nolo would likely strengthen before closing in on the Big Island on Friday or Saturday.

The storm has the potential to be a major hurricane, John Bravender, a weather service warning coordination meteorologist, said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

While high winds are expected, Bravender said the main concern is the possibility of flash flooding. He said 20 to 30 inches (50 to 76 centimeters) of rain could fall through Saturday on southeastern parts of the Big Island, the same region hit hard in August by Hurricane Lala.

“That by itself could cause catastrophic flooding, but when you put that on top of grounds that we’ve been raining off and on for the last couple of months … that rain could cause even more damage,” Bravender said.

He urged preparation across all Hawaii islands in case the storm’s trajectory shifts.

“You need to take action now,” Bravender said. “Today is really the last dry day you have to get ready.”

Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda told residents in a video message on social media that they should start preparing now for the storm. He urged people to put together an emergency kit with food, water and medications, trim vegetation and clear drains.

“This is a very serious situation,” he said. “We do believe that the rain is going to come. It's coming already.”

The governor issued an emergency proclamation Tuesday and more than 230 Hawaii National Guard members have been activated, said Maj. Gen. Stephen Logan, adjutant general of the state’s Department of Defense.

Kauai’s electric cooperative urged residents to prepare for “the possibility of prolonged power outages,” and to store nonperishable food and potable water.

Over 100 Kauai households remain without power from Hurricane Lowell, which passed west of the island on Sept. 7.

Hawaiian Electric, the state’s primary utility, said crews would return to at-risk areas in preparation for the coming storm.

Odalys and Fay are not near land

In the northern Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Fay re-formed early Thursday with maximum sustained winds near 50 mph (85 kph), the U.S. hurricane center said. It was 990 miles (1,590 kilometers) west-southwest of the Azores, moving west-southwest at 6 mph (9 kph).

In the Pacific, Hurricane Odalys had winds of 90 mph (150 kph) and was centered about 1,110 miles (1,785 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

___

Aoun reported from San Diego. Associated Press writer Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

It looks as good as over, but Baku has sprung surprises before and the 20-year-old Italian was beaten by teammate George Russell in both of Thursday's practice sessions.

A year ago, Baku was where Oscar Piastri's title shot began to fall apart. The Australian was leading the standings when he almost stalled on the grid, dropped to last and crashed, all in the space of about a minute on the opening lap.

That kicked off a run of six races without a podium finish for Piastri, who had to watch the title race become a fight between eventual champion Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.

Antonelli — whose practice was hampered by car problems Thursday — is sounding cautious as he aims to become F1's youngest-ever champion.

“Until you cross that finish line, it’s not over. It’s like tennis, one point at a time, here one race at a time," he said. “The sooner it’s over, the better it is. Still a long way and it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be intense but I’m ready to give my best and to keep having fun.”

There are key differences this year. For one thing, Antonelli’s lead is more than double the biggest advantage Piastri had last year. He’s coming off back-to-back wins, not the team orders controversy which was dogging Piastri and Norris a year ago.

As for Piastri, he says it's “love-hate in some ways” as he returns to a venue where he won in 2024 and endured a nightmare 2025.

“I think probably my best race ever has been at this track and probably my worst race ever has been at this track, so always eventful,” Piastri said.

Russell fastest in both practices as Antonelli has car trouble

Antonelli’s teammate George Russell was dominant in both practice sessions Thursday, heading the first by 0.4 seconds and beating second-place Antonelli by 0.552 in the other.

Max Verstappen was best of the non-Mercedes drivers as he went second-fastest in the first session and third-fastest in the second, with the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton close behind in both.

Lando Norris' flagging title defense hit another obstacle as he said the McLaren car was “miles off” the pace after placing 14th and sixth in the two sessions.

“The car didn’t feel that bad, so it’s just a little knife in the heart when you see how far off you are,” he added.

Antonelli's day was disrupted by a hydraulic failure which left his car smoking at the side of the track in the first session. Arvid Lindblad hit a barrier in second practice, causing a red-flag stoppage.

Antonelli's title rivals need to bounce back

The three British drivers behind Antonelli are all trying to recover from disappointing races at the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Russell all but ruled himself out of the title race after an uncompetitive run to fifth in Madrid, while Norris was left ruing a badly-timed virtual safety car which cost him the win. Hamilton retired, making it five races off the podium for the Ferrari driver.

“I’m going to keep fighting every single race until it’s mathematically impossible, but it doesn’t change how I go about my job," Russell said Wednesday. "There’s obviously a huge deficit, but it’s not even really a consideration right now.”

Red Bull's double bet on Isack Hadjar

Red Bull is backing Isack Hadjar's health and his potential in the hope the young French driver develops into one of F1's top talents.

It was a tough day for Hadjar as a car issue in first practice cost him valuable time to readjust to F1. After a fix for the problem, which Hadjar initially thought was the engine but turned out to be a gearbox failure, he went ninth-fastest in the second session.

Hadjar returns for Baku despite saying he still feels pain from the wrist fracture which ruled him out of the last three races. And he has a contract extension to partner Max Verstappen for 2027, too.

Wrist injuries can have long-term consequences. Lance Stroll rushed back from wrist fractures sustained in a preseason cycling crash in 2023 but ended up missing a race after all in 2025 when he needed a follow-up operation to deal with lingering pain.

A rare Saturday race amid broader F1 schedule uncertainty

It's an unusual race week in a very unusual F1 season, as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix is held on a Saturday to make way for a national day of remembrance on Sunday. That means Thursday practice and Friday qualifying.

This starts a run of three races in three weeks because of the extra round next week in Malaysia, still carrying branding of the called-off Bahrain Grand Prix.

___

See AP’s full auto racing coverage here

The affluent city of Scottsdale mainly uses purified water from the city's liquid waste to recharge aquifers that can be drawn when other sources are running low. But in June, as criticism mounted, the city council replaced funding for the recycling program and other water projects with a vague $100 million allocation for new water sources and supplies.

The recycling program has become a strange wedge in a three-way race for two seats on the council in the November election. One candidate supports adding purified wastewater to the drinking supply. Meanwhile, a former Republican state lawmaker and a conservative incumbent say they're skeptical and questioned the safety and cost of meeting new state regulations.

The city says the candidates’ claims of “toilet to tap” or untested “poop water” marginalize the science behind the treatment program. Less than 1% of the city’s liquid waste comes from toilets, water officials said.

The budget change killed a plan to add purified wastewater that exceeds federal drinking water standards directly to Scottsdale’s supply by 2027.

Some experts and residents said the budget change — along with a council majority that frowns upon wastewater reuse — could weaken resilience at a time when the West is mired in drought and cities are facing significant cuts from the Colorado River.

Looming shortages push cities to adapt

Scottsdale pioneered the wastewater recycling system in 1998. The city’s recycling facility is big enough to serve 60,000 households.

That expertise is vital for water officials elsewhere in Arizona who are looking to replicate the work in at least four other facilities.

“It’s so important to protect and reuse water in the Southwest,” said Bryan Cassens, an assistant senior director for Scottsdale Water, which runs the recycling program. “Here we already know it all. We’ve been doing it for 28 years.”

The city of 250,000 gets 70% of its water from the Colorado River, more than any other city with the same population or larger in Arizona and California.

Scottsdale Water employees said that reliance and decades of population growth pushed them to recycle to defend against drought. All wastewater is treated through intensive steps — like ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet photolysis, officials said.

Some was sold to breweries to make beer. Around 7,500 people tried the water after facility tours and other events, but no residents received it through their taps at home.

With the program expansion stalled, officials with Scottsdale Water said they'll be prepared to present options to the council in October.

Water reuse faces uncertainties

Former state lawmaker Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who is running for the city council, has been the most vocal opponent of the advanced water purification program.

She and actor Rob Schneider held up a glass of clear water and a glass of brown liquid in a May campaign ad that accused her opponents of pushing Scottsdale residents to drink sewage water, which her opponents denied.

A month later, the council approved the $100 million budget change.

Incumbent Councilman Barry Graham said the program is costly and an “alarmist” overreaction to drought.

Water officials in Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tucson also said some new state requirements on mixing purified water into the drinking water supply — like tracking chemicals and contaminants that are not federally regulated — unnecessarily raise costs.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is making the new rules easier to follow but won’t be finished until early 2027, said Randall Matas, who leads the department’s Water Quality Division.

Despite the debates, Cassens said the facility is operating as normal.

Ugenti-Rita did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press. Graham said advanced water purification would be a last resort in a water crisis, not now.

“I can’t just assume that every visitor and resident is going to trust the experts and is even going to listen to the experts,” Graham said.

Half of Arizona voters worry about water

The criticism in Scottsdale comes as two key barometers of the Colorado River's health — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — hit record lows this summer.

A federal proposal for the Colorado River outlines combined water cuts for Arizona, California and Nevada that could serve more than 25 million people annually through 2036.

“It’s not really a good time to start being selective,” said Cynthia Campbell, a former water resource management adviser for Phoenix. “Are you really going to play political games with the one thing that makes it possible to live in the desert?”

Since last year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has committed to investing more than $300 million in advanced water purification projects in the arid West.

In Arizona, just over half of voters in the 2022 midterm election said they were “very” or “somewhat” confident that the state would have enough water over the next 10 years, according to AP VoteCast, which surveyed more than 3,000 Arizona voters. The other half, 47%, said they were “not too” or “not at all” confident.

Communities shouldn't abandon long-term investments in public health and sustainability for short-term gain, said Ben Grumbles, the executive director of Environmental Council of the States, a nonpartisan group of state and local environmental agency leaders.

“It can be frustrating when there are politicians scoring a cheap, fast point,” Grumbles said. “I hope that over time, the facts will bear out.”

___

Associated Press journalist Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington, D.C., contributed.

Boone predicted during spring training that Rice would finish with 39 home runs this season. Rice hit Nos. 40 and 41 in Wednesday night's 9-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, tying for the American League home run lead.

He smiled and pointed at Boone when he returned to the dugout after driving Mason Englert's first pitch of the game into Yankee Stadium's right field second deck. Rice grinned at Boone some more after another solo homer in the fourth.

“I think I said, `Hey, there’s 40 for you,'” Rice recalled. “I was joking with him after the 41st one, saying, `Hey thanks for inspiring me this year.' But it’s all in good fun. Back in spring when he told me that, I knew that secretly meant he was hoping I’d hit 40.”

Rice is tied for the AL home run lead with Baltimore’s Pete Alonso, the Rays’ Junior Caminero and Houston’s Yordan Alvarez. He is hitting .263 and leads the Yankees with 97 RBIs and an .899 OPS, becoming a first-time All-Star and the biggest cog in an offense missing Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton for most of the season.

Boone deliberately picked an odd total rather than a round figure.

“I was confident he was going to have a really big year,” he said. “Probably wanted to make sure it was just south of a number, maybe to maybe let him know that.”

Rice, who had three hits and a walk, became the 13th Yankees player with a 40-home run season but just the third to reach the milestone during his first three seasons after Joe DiMaggio and Judge. Rice's plate appearances often prompt a rendition of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets″ from the stadium's organist, and Rice has sparked an often struggling offense with 16 go-ahead homers this year and three that have tied games.

“One thing I always tell guys the difference between minor leaguers and big leaguers is the consistency,” Judge said. “He’s one of the best. I can look up at the clock and I know exactly where he’s going to be in the cage. You know what he’s doing in the training room, the weight room. It’s just every single day, man, this guy’s a machine.”

A 12th-round pick in the 2021 amateur draft from Dartmouth, where he played just 30 games over three years due to the coronavirus pandemic, Rice was mostly a catcher but occasionally a first baseman in the minors. He made his big league debut in June 2024 at age 25 after Anthony Rizzo broke a forearm.

Rice hit .171 with seven homers and 23 RBIs in 50 games that year, then batted .255 with 26 homers and 65 RBIs in 138 games last year.

With Stanton sidelined for most of the season, the left-handed-hitting Rice has 93 games at DH this year and 52 at first.

“It's tough to pull him off his back leg,” Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole said. “He’s really able to stay balanced and deliver high-efficacy strikes on various pitches in all parts of the zone.”

Rice was hitting .306 through May, then batted .196 in June. An 18-for-58 (.119) slide after the All-Star break dropped his season average to .248 on Aug. 22 but he's rebounded to bat .333 (34 for 102) since.

“Went through a lull, which is inevitable, even in a great season,” Boone said. “Had a stretch in there where it was a struggle and he was grinding but kind of battled through that and feel like the last few weeks has been on a really good run.”

Rice's potential was evident on July 6, 2024, less than a month into his big league career, when he became the first Yankees rookie with three home runs in a game and tied Lou Gehrig's Yankees rookie record of seven RBIs. Consistency took time.

“A lot of it I always feel like is just experience-based,” Rice said. “You just see more pitching at the big league level, get exposed to guys who throw all different kinds of pitches from different angles and slots and all these things. I feel like I’ve always been a good learner in that way.”

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Early Thursday afternoon, CNN and MS NOW journalists were now back at the White House, after being denied access in the morning.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) —

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s ban of three news outlets from the White House, ordering early Thursday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored. Reporters from all three outlets, however, said they remained blocked a few hours after the ruling.

The news outlets asked in a court filing for an immediate hearing to address their continued ban from White House grounds. The filing said a Secret Service agent had confiscated the journalists' credentials.

The high-stakes jockeying is the latest in an extraordinary showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. It comes during a heavy news cycle with Chinese leader Xi Jinping visiting with Trump and world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump first announced he was banning the outlets Friday, assailing what he called “fake news,” and only later arguing that their reporting was a risk to national security. The outlets argued in a joint lawsuit that the ban was a blatant violation of the First Amendment because it singled them out for the content of their coverage.

In his late-night ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ access. He said they had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order, in effect for 14 days, and were likely to succeed in showing that their press passes were revoked without due process.

“This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” he wrote.

Kelly — whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 — said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass. He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick.”

The judge also made clear he did not buy the administration’s argument that the news outlets’ reporting endangered national security — and noted that Trump himself had not used that argument in the beginning, focusing solely on what he called negative coverage.

“Nothing in the record ... suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” he wrote.

The ruling came after Kelly heard arguments in an emergency hearing Wednesday. Temporary restraining orders are typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court.

“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law," Theodore Boutrous Jr., attorney for the outlets, said in an emailed statement. "We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”

But a few hours after the ruling, reporters from those outlets said they were not allowed to enter the White House.

The White House did not respond to emails from The Associated Press asking for comment on the order and whether it would let reporters back inside.

Attorneys debated access to the White House and any risk to national security

Boutrous argued in the hearing that there was an urgent need for renewed access, saying that the ban caused irreparable harm to the outlets at a time of momentous news events. “We’re at war. We have world leaders coming to Washington.”

Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik, in his argument, reiterated the administration’s point that the president has the right to choose who gets into the White House.

“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” Velchik said.

In arguing that Trump was not engaging in viewpoint discrimination — the government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say or publish — Velchik said the president had criticized other news organizations, but not banned them. He noted, for example, that Trump had called ABC “the worst."

He added: “The president should be able to take immediate action to protect national security."

In response, Boutrous said, “Suddenly it’s a national security case,” arguing that the president brought up that point only after the lawsuit was filed.

Trump “keeps proving our point,” Boutrous said, describing how the president has consistently used negative coverage of him as justification for the ban.

Kelly seemed to agree, writing of the national security claim: “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”

The Trump administration outlined ‘reporting incidents’ of each news outlet

In a filing Tuesday, administration lawyers detailed letters sent to each of the three news outlets that identified “a non-exhaustive list of reporting incidents, including those that have threatened national security and spread falsehoods.”

Among the incidents cited were: CNN reporting on “‘top-secret’ construction details related to the East Wing bunker”; MS NOW reporting “on an alleged leak investigation”; and Politico publishing “a document detailing funding for the White House ballroom containing intricate descriptions of how the Secret Service would invest in security improvements.”

Politico’s letter also included an incident in June of a report in which a “senior administration official … granted anonymity” predicted whether a preliminary deal would end the conflict with Iran.

That item appeared to reference a background briefing set up by the White House, where an official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration itself. Several other outlets also reported the official’s remarks.

Major networks refrained from covering Trump for the media pool

The ban prompted other media outlets to take action in solidarity. The U.S. network press pool — consisting of the five major networks, including CNN — has suspended coverage of Trump pool events pending further notice.

The ruling did not address that rotating pool. After the hearing Wednesday, the networks continued to refuse to air footage of Trump without assurances that CNN would be permitted into the White House pool.

Journalists from Fox News, CBS and NBC were present but not shooting video at Joint Base Andrews, where the president formally welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Other television outlets whose crews were present, according to signs on their tripods and cameras, were NewsNation, Newsmax, Right Side Broadcasting Network, One America News and LindellTV.

Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, an amicus brief was filed by other news groups, including The AP, urging the court to immediately restore the three outlets’ White House access.

___

Golden reported from Seattle and Kellman from London.

Texas will be the third stop for the franchise. The team moved to Connecticut in 2003 from Orlando. The Sun made three trips to the WNBA Finals, hosted a record four All-Star Games and Connecticut was the first team to turn a profit in the league's history. The team, which was purchased for $10 million, was sold for $300 million.

“It’s been an emotional week,” team president Jen Rizzotti told The Associated Press. “The silver lining of the chapter closing is it forces you to look at what this franchise has meant for over two decades and make sure the story is told and the legacy lasts forever.”

The franchise is moving to the home of the former Comets, who won the first four WNBA titles. Its time in Connecticut will end Thursday when the Sun face Toronto in the regular-season finale.

Rizzotti will move to Houston with the team as the president of basketball operations. She said that 75-80% of the front office staff will also make the move.

“It’s exciting to celebrate the past while also being emotional that it’s ending,” she said. “Thursday is a celebration of our fans with fan appreciation night. One game isn’t enough to show the appreciation of how much they poured into the franchise for 24 years.”

Why are the Sun moving?

The WNBA seems to have outgrown the Sun with the new collective bargaining agreement demanding standard amenities for all teams that include state-of-the-art practice facilities.

The Mohegan Tribe, which owns the franchise, sold the team to Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for $300 million.

The Sun had an offer for $325 million from a group led by Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca that would have moved the franchise to Boston. The WNBA basically blocked that deal from happening by saying that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams.”

Now the franchise is becoming the first to relocate since San Antonio moved to Las Vegas in 2017.

“It’s sad,” said former Connecticut Sun CEO Mitchell Etess in a phone interview. "I put a lot into it and to see it go is sad. It did confirm that it was a good business decision to bring it there in the first place. If I was still CEO I’d recommend we sell it for that much profit."

Being in the smallest market in the WNBA led to difficulties for the franchise to attract top free agents. Over the past two years the team has gone from being a WNBA Finals contender to rebuilding mode.

Still, despite a 10-33 record, the Sun were drawing nearly 8,700 fans a game in the 10,000-seat arena.

Sun honored their past this season

Throughout the season Connecticut honored some of the franchise's iconic players, including Jonquel Jones, Jasmine Thomas, Alyssa Thomas, Tina Charles along with coaches Curt Miller and Mike Thibault. The group joined other Connecticut standouts — Margo Dydek, Katie Douglas, Nykesha Sales, Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Lindsay Whalen and Asjha Jones — in the rafters at the arena.

Thibault was the last of the group to be honored as Connecticut hosted the event after last Sunday's game against Minnesota. Whalen, Charles and McWilliams-Franklin were in attendance for that contest as well as dozens of other former employees and front office staffers.

They told stories and stayed well after the game reminiscing about the franchise. Rizzotti expects a similar celebration after Thursday's finale.

“I know we’re going really blow the game out,” she said of celebration plans. “Lot of things we’re giving away, postgame mingles and autograph opportunities. When everybody leaves we’ll just pop Champagne on the court for the last time. I'm proud of what we built.”

Connecticut was ‘icebreaker’ with gambling partnership

Etess remembers trying to sell NBA Commissioner David Stern on moving a franchise to the Mohegan Sun. The late commissioner was concerned about putting a team in a casino, but as it turns out, he was ahead of his time.

“There was a lot of excitement at the beginning, still a casino and a professional sports team being together wasn’t well received everywhere,” Etess recalled in a phone conversation. “David Stern took a lot of the hard questions when that was happening. In retrospect, it was an icebreaker for a lot of the gambling stuff that happened since. The tribe was proud of having the team as it was great to bring national attention to the state and casino.”

The Mohegan Tribe bought the team for $10 million and with the WNBA in CBA negotiations the franchise had a few months to get everything ready to start in 2003. Thibault remembers when he was hired as the coach in January, the franchise had literally nothing.

Thibault said he had to order basketballs, uniforms and even sports bras for his players. The franchise quickly turned into contenders, reaching the WNBA Finals in 2004 and 2005.

Building a faithful fan base

Thibault joked that when the team first started fans came to games to cheer on former UConn players when they came to town, but soon they became fans of the franchise.

“The first year, we didn’t have as good attendance as we had hoped, but that changed quickly,” Etess said. “We didn't give tickets away. After the second year we were always up there in total attendance for many, many years.”

The Sun became the first team in WNBA history to make a profit when they made it happen in 2010.

“It meant a lot to us,” Etess said. “We really focused on doing everything right, trying to run the team professionally.”

Etess is sad to see the state lose its last professional team in an area that has been a women's basketball hotbed for so long.

“It's odd that the league didn’t want the team to stay in Connecticut,” he said. “Connecticut is such a crucial part of women’s basketball. The state that loves women’s basketball isn’t going to have a pro team, doesn’t feel right to me.”

___

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Meanwhile, the governing National Assembly of Independents, known by its French acronym RNI, suffered major losses while a moderate Islamist party made a strong comeback.

Moroccans voted for a new parliament Wednesday in an election shaped by mounting frustration among young people, high unemployment despite a thriving economy and demands for better schools, hospitals and housing.

Authenticity and Modernity, or PAM, won 97 of the 395 seats in the House of Representatives, Morocco's lower house. The party was followed by the Independents with 66 seats and the Istiqlal Party with 65. The Justice and Development Party, a moderate Islamist party that won just 13 seats in 2021, surged to 54.

Authenticity and Modernity and Istiqlal were members of the parliamentary majority that formed the outgoing Independents-led government.

Authenticity and Modernity was founded in 2008 by Fouad Ali El Himma, a childhood friend and close adviser to King Mohammed VI. The party emerged as a major political force seen as a counterweight to Justice and Development, which previously led the government for a decade.

Voter turnout was 38% — the lowest since 2007.

The vote was the first since deadly youth-led protests nearly a year ago and a mass attempt by migrants to cross Morocco’s northern border into the Spanish territory of Ceuta that left dozens dead. It will determine the next prime minister and the makeup of the government, which will serve alongside a powerful monarchy that retains broad authority over strategic affairs.

The next government will oversee billions of dollars in investment as Morocco prepares to co-host the 2030 World Cup, prompting some to describe it as the “World Cup government.” The new political leadership will also face pressure to address everyday concerns, including jobs, wages and the cost of living.

The Moroccan Constitution requires the king to appoint a prime minister from the party that wins the most seats in legislative elections.

Since no single party is expected to capture an absolute majority, the winner will need to build a coalition government. Portfolios are split among the political allies, but the palace traditionally keeps key posts such as defense and foreign affairs under royal control.

One possibility for prime minister is Faouzi Lakjaa, president of Morocco’s soccer federation, who recently joined the PAM party and has been buoyed by Morocco’s recent soccer achievements.

Fatima-Zahra Mansouri, 50, mayor of Marrakech and minister of urban planning, is another possibility. If selected, she would be Morocco’s first female prime minister.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.5% and is on track for a third straight decline after climbing to the brink of its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 334 points, or 0.6%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% lower.

Stocks have slowed under the weight of higher yields in the bond market, which make borrowing money more expensive for everyone. That includes discouraged people trying to keep up with high inflation, businesses wanting to build data centers for artificial-intelligence technology and the U.S. government needing to cover the massive gap between its spending and revenue.

Yields at their highest levels in years are slowing the overall economy while also undercutting prices for stocks and other investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed again Thursday, to 5.15% from 5.11% late Wednesday.

It’s back to where it was in 2007 and up sharply from its 3.97% level before the war with Iran sent oil prices much higher. The price for a barrel of Brent crude in the most actively traded part of the market rose another 4.1% Thursday to $102.20.

That’s helped push up the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline to $4.48 from less than $4.10 a month ago and from $3.16 a year earlier, according to AAA.

It’s not just worries about inflation that have sent Treasury yields higher. The U.S. economy continues to expand, which also supports yields. The bond market got a major jolt Wednesday after a preliminary report suggested U.S. business activity is growing at its fastest pace in years, while costs for corporate America are also rising quickly.

On Thursday, a report showed fewer U.S workers applied for unemployment benefits last week and further strengthened expectations for the economy.

Such numbers could convince the Federal Reserve that the economy can withstand more hikes to short-term interest rates. The Fed last week raised its main interest rate for the first time in three years in hopes of slowing the economy and removing some of the fuel for inflation.

Traders now see better than a coin flip’s chance that the Fed could raise rates twice more by the end of the year, according to data from the CME Group.

So far, the solid overall economy has helped U.S. companies continue to deliver strong growth in profits. That in turn has helped their stock prices remain relatively strong despite worries about war, inflation and tariffs.

“The headlines have turned more ominous, but the underlying drivers of growth remain intact,” strategists at Barclays wrote in a report. “As long as AI-related investment, US corporate profitability, and consumer spending continue to beat expectations, the economy and markets seem capable of absorbing tighter central banks and higher rates.”

Stitch Fix became one of the latest U.S. companies late Wednesday to report better quarterly results than analysts expected. But its stock nevertheless tumbled 24.6% after it said “a more challenging consumer environment” could hold back its revenue growth this upcoming fiscal year.

Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, fell 1.7% after reporting a profit for the latest quarter that matched analysts’ expectations.

High yields in the bond market hurt prices for all kinds of stocks, and they often hit those seen as the most expensive the hardest. That puts the target on AI stocks, which soared for years in the frenzy around the technology. Higher yields also make it more expensive for companies to borrow money to build AI data centers, which could slow their construction and restrain demand for AI chips.

Nvidia sank 1.5% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

Helping to keep the market's losses in check was Everpure. The data storage and management company's stock jumped 18.7% after it stood by its financial forecasts for this fiscal year and said it expects revenue growth to accelerate in the following one.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly around much of the world. A drop of 1.2% in Shanghai and gain of 0.8% in Tokyo were two of the world’s bigger moves.

___

AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

The women are among the thousands of federal workers and contract employees in the Washington region whose lives were upended when the Trump administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency overhauled the federal workforce last year, cutting jobs and grants.

A new survey released Thursday by Gallup and the Greater Washington Community Foundation shows the far-reaching impact on the nation's capital.

Despite living in one of the most affluent parts of the country, many in the greater D.C. area — which includes parts of Maryland and Virginia and is referred to as the DMV — now see a bleak local job market and rising costs. Some are even considering leaving the region.

“It wasn’t just about our jobs being gone. It was really this awful ripple effect of all these lives and destinies really disrupted," Nataro said.

The District of Columbia, which official figures show accounted for a fifth of the roughly 100,000 job losses in the region and is host to an ongoing deployment of the National Guard, has been particularly impacted. According to the survey, about two-thirds of D.C. residents said their household had been directly affected by the job cuts, one of the highest percentages in the region.

Federal job cuts impacted higher-income households

More affluent households were hit especially hard by the cuts, the survey found. A majority — 58% — of those in households with an annual income of $90,000 or more said they were impacted by the reductions, compared to 48% of lower-income households.

Trumbull earned over $130,000 annually at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After DOGE came for her job, she took a deferred resignation in the second-round offering, under threat of a forthcoming USDA reorganization that wasn’t really a decent option. She only secured new, part-time employment a year later.

During that time, she had to take a forbearance on her mortgage. She applied for public assistance. She and her husband took home just $2,000 a month, she said, while amassing debt from their home ownership.

When jobs didn’t come through, she did some contract work and taught to “cobble together enough money to make sure my kids were supplied — cause you don’t get to stop buying diapers.”

“I don’t see a future where I can go back to not worrying about moving money around constantly” to cover bills, she said.

Even though lower-income residents were less likely to report any impacts, the survey suggests that hardship was still acute among this group. About 1 in 10, 14%, DMV residents say that they or someone in their household accessed social services like food banks or job placement support for the first time in the past year, which rose to about one-quarter of those in households earning less than $90,000 per year.

Many residents worry about housing payments and healthcare

About one-third of DMV residents say they are “very” or “somewhat” worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage, down from about half in 2023 following the economic troubles of the COVID pandemic. Renters, Black and Hispanic adults, and lower-income residents are particularly worried about housing payments.

Nataro, 42, and a single mom of two young children, asked her landlord for a rent reduction after she lost her job at USAID, one of DOGE's first targets. She signed up for food stamps and unemployment assistance. She found work in academia quickly but took a substantial pay cut.

“It’s very humbling, because you know before that you’re paying all your bills and struggling but you’ve got enough to cover everything,” she said. Now, she has had to ask for help.

Roughly 2 in 10 DMV residents say there were times in the past year when they couldn't pay for healthcare, according to the survey. Nataro said she has had to make tough choices on her personal healthcare needs to cut costs.

Danielle Yates, the managing director of marketing and communications at the Greater Washington Community Foundation, said the survey found that a significant number of people in the region had trouble taking care of their basic needs.

About 1 in 10 DMV residents say they couldn't provide adequate shelter or housing for their family the past year, according to the survey, and roughly 2 in 10 say there were times when they couldn't pay for food.

A Capital Area Food Bank survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago last year also found broad food insecurity. “Thirty-eight percent of our area’s residents said that they needed some support in putting food on their tables so that they could lead an active and healthy lifestyle,” said Radha Muthiah, executive director of the CAFB.

Views of the local job market have dimmed

Residents' perceptions of the local job market are much less optimistic than just a few years ago. Only about half of DMV residents rate the availability of good jobs where they live as “excellent” or “good," down from 65% in 2023.

Those who have found work say they've been left with the scars of DOGE's ruthlessness.

A job Nataro loved and felt made a difference in the world was taken away, leaving her “traumatized.”

"I haven’t taken any real personal effects to the office. We haven’t really unboxed things.”

Some consider leaving the region

Rising costs and housing also influence how DMV residents think about the region, in addition to the job cuts.

About one-third of DMV residents expect that living conditions in the Washington area will be “worse” in the next five years, while about half think they will be “about the same.” Only about 2 in 10 expect things will get better.

About 1 in 10 D.C. residents, 14%, say they are considering leaving the DMV region in the next year, with most who are thinking about departing pointing to rising costs and housing expenses.

Barbera and her husband both worked at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a place where the staff was fired twice because of court decisions. A year and a half after they were fired in March 2025, the couple are considering leaving the area because of rising costs, especially childcare for their three children. Although both have full-time jobs doing consulting work, they are earning half of what they did, said Barbera.

The two had worked a collective 30 years for the peace-focused organization when they were let go. She said she feels lucky because they have family support and jobs but are being forced into considering a different future.

“This is the only place they’ve lived,” Barbera said of her children. “We don’t want to leave. But we have to have the conversation.”

___

The VoicesDMV analysis is based on a mail survey of U.S. adults aged 18 and older living in the Greater Washington Region using random address-based sampling. The survey of 2,801 residents was conducted Feb. 9 to April 6, 2026. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

"Our anniversary is really founded through this theme of ‘Welcome Home. Our Legacy Continues,'" said Shanita Brackett, the museum's acting director. "It means we are planning our next 10, frankly 20 years of exhibitions right now.”

Beginning with a full museum activation on Thursday, the celebrations extend through the rest of the weekend, both at the museum's National Mall home and The Wharf, located along the historic Washington Channel of the Potomac River. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, the museum's founding director who announced his plan to retire earlier this month, will headline “Understanding America,” a discussion to commemorate the anniversary.

The festivities come as the Smithsonian museum, affectionately called the “Blacksonian” by its most committed visitors and patrons, has faced outright hostility from President Donald Trump's administration.

The president last year signed an executive order seeking to change a range of museums and landmarks supported by the federal government. The Interior Department has also removed dozens of displays from national monuments that highlighted the history of social activists, people of color, women and LGBTQ people, among others.

The order instructed federal officials to work with Congress to bar the Smithsonian from using federal funding for exhibits that allegedly “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law.”

But the Smithsonian's leadership, which responds to a board that includes lawmakers from both parties, private donors and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, says they have continued their work without interference.

“We have not changed any exhibitions. We haven't changed our language. We know that what we do is steeped in scholarship,” Brackett said of the African American museum.

‘No changes’ to museum's mission amid targeting by Trump administration

The Smithsonian is supported by a mix of federal and private funding. The institution's significant funding and complex governance structure have made it difficult for the administration to directly influence its content, as officials have done with federal landmarks, which are maintained directly by the executive branch. That hasn't stopped an outpouring of concern from supporters of the African American museum's mission in response to any curatorial changes the museum has made over the last two years.

Administration officials have also expressed frustration at the Smithsonian's resistance and have outlined new measures. Trump, a Republican, has ordered officials to place signs in front of some Smithsonian buildings warning visitors they may experience exhibits with an inaccurate portrait of American history.

Brackett said her museum is confident they can continue with the museum's original vision “to capture and share the unvarnished truth of African American history and culture.”

“We know that Black history is a part of American history, and it's our job to ensure that everyone who comes to this museum, who engages in our programming, who visits us online, understands exactly how all of this evolved, how the contributions of African Americans have advanced this country, and that's really what people walk away with,” she said.

“There are no changes to exhibits other than rotating objects that need conservation,” she added.

Some visitors had expressed fears that exhibits, such as the casket of Emmett Till and a Greensboro lunch counter housed at the neighboring American History Museum, may have been altered to appease the administration’s concerns. Brackett was clear: “Nothing has changed.”

A decade of honoring Black history after more than a century of advocacy

The idea of a landmark recognizing the contributions of African Americans on the National Mall goes back more than a century.

In 1915, Black Civil War veterans called on lawmakers to establish a landmark honoring their contributions to the war effort, often fighting for their own liberty. The idea advanced in fits and starts over the 20th century until eventually calls to commemorate the legacy of the Civil Rights movement captured the interest of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The Museum of African American History and Culture was first approved by Congress in 2003 and opened its doors on Sept. 24, 2016. At its opening ceremony, then-President Barack Obama urged African Americans to see their story as an integral thread in the broader American story.

“It is a glorious story, the one that’s told here. It is complicated, and it is messy, and it is full of contradictions, as all great stories are,” Obama said. “The very fact of this day does not prove that America is perfect, but it does validate the ideas of our founding: that this country — born of change, of revolution, of we the people — that this country can get better.”

Since its opening a decade ago, the museum has welcomed close to 14 million visitors from 200 countries and has hosted more than 26,000 school groups, according to the Smithsonian. Across 10 floors — five above ground celebrating art and cultural achievements and five below ground exploring deep histories — visitors have learned of the complex history of African Americans in the U.S., a story that is by turns harrowing and triumphant, and how it fits into the broader narrative of American history.

Visitors ‘yearn’ to take in Black museum's offerings

A day before the anniversary, Shallary Duncan of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, visited the museum for the first time.

“Quite honestly, with all of the changes in our country, it made me yearn to be here. I don't want to see any changes that would mitigate the reality of this experience,” said Duncan, a psychologist and self-described “history buff.”

“We know that African Americans have been in this country for as long as the country has been here, so it's important for us that we are a part of a voice that says this is real, our history is real and we don't want it to change,” she added.

More than a dozen students from a consortium of historically Black colleges and universities also visited the museum on Wednesday, eager to learn from its exhibits. Some of the students said they had visited the museum repeatedly since they were children.

For Jaina Dotson, the trip was a special experience. Growing up in Maryland, she'd visited the museum once as a child and was “eager to see how my perspective has changed.”

Now a student at Tuskegee University studying architecture, the visit was also a chance to put her classwork into practice. Dotson said she had researched the museum’s design for her latest architectural project.

“Looking at the outside facade, the corona, and the intention of the design behind that, as well as the layout of the museum itself, was an integral part of my research,” Dotson said. “The layout of the museum, its architecture, is really important for the experience. So it'll be fun to actually experience that as a patron.”

Dr. Heidi Overton, a physician and top White House aide, has spent most of her career working for Trump or conservative groups aligned with his agenda. That connection may prompt questions from some members of the Senate health committee, which is considering her nomination.

In her current role as a domestic policy adviser, Overton worked on several White House health initiatives, including the revamped food pyramid and an executive order aimed at reducing childhood vaccinations. Previously, she was an executive at the America First Policy Institute, authoring papers critical of abortion and transgender care. During Trump’s first term, she served as a White House fellow.

If confirmed by the Senate, Overton would inherit a raft of controversial projects, including a safety review of the nation’s principal abortion drug, a plan to break up combination vaccines and new rules that make it easier to sell flavored electronic cigarettes.

All three policies break from FDA’s longstanding positions, especially on the safety of childhood vaccines. Overton stood beside the Republican president and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy in the Oval Office last month when they falsely suggested that the use of combination vaccines could be a contributor to autism.

Overton's views on abortion could be key

In opening remarks Thursday, committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy said Trump's order “is based on zero scientific evidence.” Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana, said he would also ask Overton to unequivocally reject a remark from Trump that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is “quite lethal.”

“This committee needs to know whether you will be radically honest, whether you will use your authority to stand up for sound science and protect children’s health," Cassidy said.

But Cassidy and other Senate Republicans may find common ground with Overton on abortion. Cassidy and several colleagues have spent months urging the FDA to restrict access to mifepristone, the pill currently used in most abortions in the U.S.

The FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000 and has repeatedly affirmed its safety while broadening access, including allowing it to be sent through the mail. But Kennedy ordered a reevaluation of the drug’s safety last year, following calls from anti-abortion groups and lawmakers aligned with Trump.

FDA officials have said almost nothing about the review, except that it is ongoing.

While working at the America First Policy Institute, Overton blasted the FDA’s 2023 decision — under President Joe Biden, a Democrat — to allow mail delivery of mifepristone, referring to the practice as “chemical abortion on demand.” She was similarly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to transgender care for children, including providing access to puberty-blocking drugs and gender-affirming surgeries.

And she co-authored a 2024 article calling Minnesota a “sanctuary" for physicians who perform abortions and gender-affirming surgeries.

Overton’s abortion views could complicate her efforts to win over two moderate Republicans on the panel: Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Both have bucked their party on the issue, supporting federal access to abortion. Collins is currently locked in a tight reelection race in which abortion access is a central issue.

To become commissioner, Overton will need a majority of votes from the 21-member health committee, followed by a positive vote from the full Senate.

Headquartered in the suburbs outside Washington, the FDA oversees U.S. medical products plus billions of dollars in food, cosmetics, tobacco and vaping products.

Under the current administration, leading the agency has involved balancing Trump’s demands for slashing regulations — such as those for vaping products — alongside Kennedy’s interests in scrutinizing vaccines, drugs and food ingredients.

The previous FDA head faced numerous challenges before quitting

Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head, Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May. Makary's time at the agency was defined by scientific disputes, leadership changes and a string of media stories detailing low morale and internal dysfunction among staffers. The FDA has lost about 20% of its employees to layoffs, buyouts, retirements or resignations since Trump took office.

Overton studied under Makary at Johns Hopkins University, where she received a doctoral degree in clinical research after earning her medical degree at the University of New Mexico.

Like Makary, Overton has no experience running a large bureaucracy, a critical skill for steering the FDA's 16,000 staffers spread across numerous U.S. and international locations.

In financial disclosure forms, Overton reported no investments in healthcare or food companies. That’s a stark contrast to Makary and other recent FDA nominees who have had to divest investments or cut other financial ties with companies regulated by the FDA.

Overton reported $50,000 to $100,000 in student loans.

___

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

Attorneys representing the 18-year-old Black college student's family have called for transparency, asking that the grand jury investigative materials and the official autopsy report be publicly released. Crump released the final independent autopsy report Tuesday on behalf of the family and scheduled a livestreamed release of the cellphone report Thursday.

The grand jury had been given access to that information when it convened last week, according to its report. But details of those findings have not been made public.

Wells' family and their legal team have slammed the grand jury report and have been working to keep the investigation open and active. They've asked for federal authorities to look into the events around Wells' death. His body was found two days after he went with a group of mostly white friends on a boat trip to a barrier island for a July 4 party.

The high-profile death in a Deep South state with a history of racial tension has sparked rampant speculation and suspicion. While state and local officials and several of Wells' white friends who had become the target of that speculation hoped that the grand jury report would quell critics, there was little sign that the suspicion was subsiding in the immediate days after the report's release.

Lingering family suspicions

Wells’ parents and their lawyers voiced suspicions after Wells’ friends left the island without him, saying he wanted to stay behind and talk to a girl. Wells’ phone was on the boat that took him to the island, and his family and their attorneys have expressed doubt that he would choose to stay behind without his phone.

They also raised concerns about the phone possibly being tampered with given that there were no recordings or messages in the hours before he was last seen on social media apps his family said he avidly used.

A number of the grand jury's written findings appeared to attempt to dispel those suspicions, such as that Wells chose to stay behind, that leaving on different boats was common on crowded days on the island and that it wasn't unusual for phones to be left on boats and eventually returned on the mainland.

The report also directly addresses the veracity of accusations against the white friends seen in a picture with Wells the day he went missing. The grand jury findings attempt to explicitly clear the people who left the island without Wells from any wrongdoing, and to squash online interpretations of a call to a sea towing company that suggested an attack could be heard in the background as being “not true and accurate.”

A lawyer representing several of the friends said the report had lifted a weight from his clients.

Inconsistencies and further investigation

The report said the grand jury found Wells' death to be “consistent with drowning” and found that he had not been in a fight or altercation while on the island.

Both Crump and Wells' parents questioned how the panel could determine Wells drowned, when both the official and independent autopsies said the cause of death could not be determined. They said both also noted that Wells had unexplained blunt force trauma on the back of his head.

A witness testified to the grand jury that he saw Wells slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4, but that Wells continued to socialize after the fall and didn’t appear injured, the report said. The panel said it couldn’t determine whether the fall caused the bruising on Wells’ body, but noted the bruising was not a fatal injury.

At a news conference Tuesday, Wells' mother, Christine Wonsley, Crump and representatives of the NAACP called for an independent investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. The grand jury report noted that federal law enforcement had been involved in the investigation, but it was unclear what role they played or the extent of their participation.

“What we have learned is that we still have no answers,” Wonsley said. “And the report reinforced the fact that Nolan was not given a thorough, transparent and honest investigation.”

While Trump has many thorny issues to discuss with the president of America’s biggest economic rival, he focused on his long relationship with Xi as the two gathered with aides for opening remarks before formal talks.

“From the time of my first election in 2016, President Xi and I have forged a friendship, a truly great friendship, actually, built on mutual respect and the vital interests of our people,” Trump said.

Trump and Xi have no shortage of difficult issues to cover when they sit down for the private discussions.

Xi speaks of a ‘healthy’ competition and says Chinese pandas are coming to Atlanta

China has resisted the Trump administration's urgings — and economic threats — to use its considerable leverage to prod Iran to agree to U.S. terms to end the nearly seven-month war. Xi wants to see Trump permanently halt arms sales to Taiwan and loosen export restrictions on cutting-edge advanced chips. The two sides on Wednesday agreed to extend by two months a one-year trade truce that was set to expire Nov. 10 as they work to find a more durable agreement.

Xi said in his remarks upon arriving that the “competition should be a healthy one and should be kept within bounds."

“It should be a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle in which one either wins or loses,” Xi added.

Xi also announced that China will invite 100,000 American youth to come to his country for studies and exchanges in the next five years and that China will send two pandas to the zoo in Atlanta. He called the beloved animals an “envoy of friendship" and that they will meet the American people in a “few days."

Xi says China and US should make sure AI is ‘always under human control’

Trump said in a social media post earlier Thursday that artificial intelligence — “superintelligence” as he is trying to rebrand it — will be high on the agenda amid growing global anxiety that the technology will kill jobs or potentially even wipe out humanity.

“I want to leave it exactly where it is,” Trump wrote. “That is China’s position also.”

Xi also touched on AI in his opening comments, saying that the two countries had a responsibility to ensure that humans always operate AI.

“We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that a development of AI is always under human control and serves the well being of the people,” the Chinese leader said.

The two countries’ finance ministers met earlier this week, with the U.S. proposing a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents between the two nations.

Trump rolls out the red carpet for Xi and faces criticism from some White House allies

Trump has made clear he wants to impress Xi with the visit. The Republican president made sure construction of a new helicopter landing pad on the White House's South Lawn was completed before the visit and he met Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on Wednesday evening when they flew into Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.

The White House also arranged for an elaborate military review that the leaders and their spouses observed before the Oval Office talks. Following the military review, first lady Melania Trump accompanied Peng for a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.

The U.S. president typically invites the news media into the Oval Office for the start of his meetings with visiting leaders. But for his talks with Xi, the White House only admitted photographers for a quick opportunity to capture images. Trump noted that Xi, who rarely takes questions from reporters, has the friendliest press corps in the world and quipped that the Chinese media ask Xi for permission to speak.

Trump has lamented about his planned White House ballroom not being ready for the state dinner in Xi's honor on Thursday evening. The black-tie event will be held in the White House East Room.

Trump's decision to roll out the red carpet for Xi has spurred criticism from lawmakers in both parties and some White House allies.

“Quite frankly, had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States of America based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

US and China still have work to do on trade truce

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump and Xi may be open to a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that could affect national security. But on AI and a host of other thorny issues, it remains unclear whether the leaders can make progress.

Shortly after Xi's arrival in Washington, Bessent announced on Fox News that the two sides had come to terms on extending the trade truce. Bessent said it was possible that Trump and Xi could come to a larger agreement by January or just decide to once again extend it further.

Trump and Xi have incentive to keep the truce alive.

Trump's Republican Party is facing headwinds as they try to maintain control of Congress in November's midterm elections and can hardly afford further economic disruption. Meanwhile, Xi is navigating an uneven Chinese economy — one in which its domestic economy is struggling while its high tech exports remain strong.

A breakthrough on Iran seems unlikely

The two sides are also expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in Iran. Trump has argued to little effect that China, which is far more dependent on Gulf oil than the U.S., has plenty of incentive to use its sway with Tehran to help force an end to the conflict.

But Trump's war of choice has unnerved Beijing, with the government condemning the U.S. and Israeli military action and Xi expressing concerns the conflict signaled a return to what he called the “law of the jungle."

The Chinese were also unsettled by the military operation Trump ordered to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power and bring him to New York City to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.

Xi expected to press Trump to end Taiwan arms sales

China has made clear it views Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in the U.S.-China relationship.

Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and vows to annex the island by force if necessary. The U.S. is obligated by law to provide Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter any armed attack from the mainland.

China has pressed Washington to permanently halt the arms sales, most prominently when Trump and Xi met in Beijing in May.

After that meeting, Trump said he was holding off on final approval for a record $14 billion arms package that was in the pipeline. He also described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

Xi made no direct reference to the Taiwan issue in his public remarks but said it was crucial that the two countries “must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation.”

“We can certainly find the right path for two great countries to get along on this planet we both call home,” Xi said.

___

Associated Press writers Bill Barrow, Collin Binkley, Josh Boak, Kevin Freking, Seung Min Kim and Darlene Superville and AP photographer Jacquelyn Martin contributed to this report.

The Minnesota Lynx have clinched the top seed and will face eighth-seeded New York in the opening round that begins Sunday. The Atlanta Dream will be the four seed after beating New York on Wednesday night. They will play either Indiana or Washington.

“Everybody in the playoffs are capable of winning on the road and stealing a series,” Atlanta coach Karl Smesko said. “I definitely think it's an advantage to have to play in front of your home crowd.”

Indiana plays at Minnesota and Washington hosts Chicago on Thursday.

Dallas is locked into the seventh seed and will face either Golden State or Las Vegas. The Valkyries visit Los Angeles and the Aces play at Phoenix.

The Lynx clinched the top spot in the playoffs on Tuesday after Golden State lost to Portland in overtime. Minnesota benched its starters after an awful first half against Indiana. The Lynx reserves battled back, but fell short. Minnesota has dropped four of its past five games and has one game left at home against the Fever on Thursday.

“The margin for error throughout this regular season is incredibly small and you’ll see that in the playoffs,” said New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart. “Like one through eight you don’t know who will be playing at the end of October, which is exciting. I feel like for us we’re going to get a fresh start when it comes Sunday.”

Stewart missed Wednesday's game with knee soreness. New York also lost Jonquel Jones to an ankle injury in the third quarter.

With New York finishing at 26-18, this is only the second time in league history that all the playoff teams have won at least 59% of their games. The 1998 playoffs, which only had four teams, had all four teams at 60% or better.

In the four major sports it's rare to find the last place team in the playoffs with such a high win rate.

___

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Los cuatro perros, mestizos de raza terrier, atacaron a Perez a unas seis calles de su casa, en la zona de Biscayne Gardens. Los vecinos que escucharon sus gritos de auxilio intervinieron y llamaron al 911.

“Cada perro se me prendió de un brazo o una pierna”, contó Perez.

Personal de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, agentes de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade y personal de Miami-Dade Animal Services acudieron a la esquina del Northwest 11th Court y la 145 Street.

Según los bomberos, Perez fue trasladada al Ryder Trauma Center del Jackson Memorial Hospital, donde fue sometida a una cirugía de emergencia.

El personal de Animal Services informó que capturó a uno de los perros el jueves y a los otros tres el viernes.

Recaudación de fondos relacionada: Ayuda a Ashley a recuperarse de un traumático ataque de perros

Melvin Diaz Cepeda murió baleado alrededor de las 5 a.m. del lunes en una casa ubicada en el 4606 NW 5th Ave., cerca del Design District, según el Departamento de Policía de Miami.

Christina Marie Hernandez describió a Diaz Cepeda como un buen amigo y contó que conocía al tirador, también DJ.

“Se conocían; tengo una foto de ellos juntos”, dijo Hernandez.

El teniente Pete Sanchez, vocero de Miami Fire Rescue, dijo que los bomberos declararon muerto a Diaz Cepeda. La oficial Kenia Fallat, vocera del Departamento de Policía de Miami, indicó que los detectives interrogaron a una persona.

Los detectives de homicidios de Miami sospechan que Diaz Cepeda entró como intruso a la casa del tirador.

“Yo no lo creo, y su madre, con quien estoy en contacto, tampoco. Nadie que lo conociera de verdad lo cree”, afirmó Hernandez.

Los detectives pidieron a cualquier persona con información sobre este u otros casos que llame de forma anónima a Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers al 305-471-8477.

Frine Gomez, editora principal de asignaciones de Local 10 News, contribuyó a este reporte.

Sopo-Elias, residente de Hollywood, dijo que ICE mantenía al hombre, nacido en Cuba y estilista en el sur de Florida, en el centro ICE-ERO, ubicado en el 2805 SW 145 Ave., en Miramar.

“Mi mayor miedo es que se muera ahí dentro”, dijo Sopo-Elias.

Al principio, parecía que su querido amigo “Mayito” se había resignado a ser deportado y a tener que empezar su vida de nuevo. Incluso le dejó su perro a Sopo-Elias.

“Sonaba muy tranquilo. Me dijo: ‘No te preocupes, simplemente voy a regresar a México. Todo va a estar bien. Solo asegúrate de quedarte con mi perro’. Estaba muy calmado”, contó Sopo-Elias. “Eso fue un domingo”.

Según Sopo-Elias, él la llamó tres días después, y ella quedó horrorizada cuando le contó el trato inhumano que estaba recibiendo.

“Nunca lo había escuchado así. Estaba histérico, llorando desconsolado, gritando, rogándome: ‘Por favor, ayúdame’”, relató Sopo-Elias.

Él le dijo que no tenía acceso a una ducha ni a un baño en condiciones.

“Se había ensuciado encima y no lo dejaban bañarse. Me dijo que estaba en una celda con 60 hombres, que no había camas, que dormía en el piso”, contó Sopo-Elias.

A principios de esta semana, miembros del Comité de Supervisión de la Cámara de Representantes publicaron fotografías de un denunciante y un informe según el cual había cuatro baños portátiles para más de 100 detenidos.

“Esto es inhumano, esto está mal... Es inhumano. No importa cuál sea tu estatus legal. Todo el mundo merece ser tratado con dignidad”, dijo Sopo-Elias.

Según ella, a su amigo no le habían dado ningún medicamento para tratar el VIH ni otras condiciones de salud.

“Son medicamentos muy importantes que no se pueden dejar de tomar, y mucho menos de golpe”, explicó Sopo-Elias. “Cuando le dije: ‘¡Habla con la gente de ahí! ¡Pídeles tu medicina!’, me respondió: ‘Aquí no hay personal médico’”.

Un portavoz del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional emitió un comunicado en el que afirmó: “Estar detenido es una elección. Animamos a todos los extranjeros ilegales a tomar el control de su salida con la aplicación CBP Home. Estados Unidos ofrece a los extranjeros ilegales $3,000 y un vuelo gratis para autodeportarse ahora”.

Poco después de las 4 p.m., se pudo ver a los equipos de emergencia llegando al aeropuerto.

El incidente causó algunos problemas de tráfico a quienes entraban y salían del aeropuerto.

Según funcionarios del aeropuerto, las puertas 12 a la 17 del nivel de salidas y la vía de ese mismo nivel fueron cerradas por el operativo de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade, y todo el tráfico fue desviado al nivel de llegadas.

Un video enviado por un televidente de Local 10 News parecía mostrar a los agentes deteniendo a un hombre en el lugar.

Más tarde, los agentes confirmaron que una persona fue arrestada.

Lo identificaron como Francisco Ivan Mendiola, de 31 años, quien según los agentes no tiene hogar.

De acuerdo con un formulario de arresto, Mendiola hizo cuatro disparos en dirección a las terminales. Tres balas impactaron un cesto de basura metálico y la cuarta dio en el parabrisas de un auto estacionado.

Las autoridades informaron que todos los pasajeros y empleados del aeropuerto estaban a salvo y que no se reportaron heridos.

Los agentes añadieron que no existe ninguna amenaza para el público.

La vía del nivel de salidas volvió a abrir por completo poco antes de las 6 p.m., según los funcionarios.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, would make up to $7 billion available through 2027 for projects in Argentina, the State Department said, helping companies in the country obtain loans to buy American equipment and hire U.S. firms to expand the country’s railways, pipelines, ports and power networks.

The deal advances U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to reduce reliance on China’s mineral processing industry, as well as bolstering his ally President Javier Milei, who is betting on oil, gas and mineral exports to transform Argentina’s economy and ease the chronic dollar shortages that have fueled repeated economic crises.

“Working together, the United States and Argentina seek to continue to build on our robust relationship through increased U.S. investment, close security cooperation and aligned values," the State Department said in a statement.

The relationship has already paid dividends for Milei's Argentina: Last year, Washington backed a $20 billion International Monetary Fund bailout for Argentina and extended a separate $20 billion currency-swap line to stabilize the Argentine peso. The countries also signed a free trade pact earlier this year.

On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said on Wednesday that the agreement aims to connect Argentina’s lithium- and copper-rich northwest and sprawling Vaca Muerta shale fields to the country’s ports, making it easier to ship minerals, oil and gas to the U.S. and other markets.

Inadequate transport and energy infrastructure has long hampered development of Argentina’s remote deposits. The country's history of protectionist trade policies, currency controls and sovereign debt defaults has also discouraged foreign investment.

Milei, a fierce believer in free markets, has moved to open Argentina's economy, scrapping import restrictions and offering tax breaks to attract investors. That has led to a surge in cheap imports, squeezing labor-intensive industries like manufacturing and retail already struggling under Milei's spending cuts and tight monetary policy. Booming oil production and mining exports have become an economic lifeline.

The country has vast deposits of lithium and copper, minerals that are necessary for the global shift toward green energy.

In South Florida, International Coastal Cleanup Miami-Dade is the third-largest cleanup in the U.S. and the largest single-day environmental community service event in Miami each year.

Nearly 4,000 residents are taking part in the effort to clean up the shorelines.

“Today we are at the Julia Tuttle Causeway,” said Dave Doebler, executive director of VolunteerCleanup.org. “This is one of 75 cleanups happening all over Miami-Dade, organized by VolunteerCleanup.org, but led by individual community leaders and nonprofits and government in all of the locations all the way from Aventura down to Homestead.”

At a cleanup near the bay, volunteers found plenty of plastic litter, including bottle caps.

“Last year we picked up 4,000 pounds of trash right here next to the bay which is so shocking and sad,” said Sophie Ringel, executive director of Clean Miami Beach. “But it’s also good that we’re getting the community together, that we’re reconnecting with nature and setting an example of how to do better.”

Plastic remains a major concern along Biscayne Bay. A recent study by FIU estimates that 18 billion microplastics pollute the bay.

“Plastic is awful. There’s no reason for plastic water bottles. You can use a recyclable, a reusable, a refillable one,” said Miami Beach Mayor Eileen Higgins. “They break down into microplastics. Those are embedded in our body, they found them in our brains. They’re in the water. They’re in the fish we eat.”

“We cannot be ruining Biscayne Bay nor our health with plastic,” Higgins said.

While cleanups remove tons of trash from the bay, organizers and county officials say keeping that trash from reaching the water in the first place is critical.

Miami-Dade County is pushing two master plans, one focused on stormwater and another focused on waste.

“The water flows in our city from west to east and empties into the bay and those areas,” said Damien Pardo. “So the plan is a way of making sure that that is draining properly and filtering properly. So when the water reaches the coastline, it’s clear water.”

The county’s Zero Waste Master Plan includes 31 strategies.

“On our website we have the entire Zero Waste Master Plan listed there. All 31 strategies that are there. We’re working right now on activating those 31 strategies,” said Dr. Aneisha Daniels.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava said reducing, recycling and reusing waste can help move the county toward its goal of zero waste.

“So a combination of reducing, recycling, and reuse of this waste is going to be close to zero waste,” Levine-Cava said.

Daniels said education is a key part of the effort.

“It’s about outreach and education. Educating our residents, educating our kids, so they have a better understanding of their responsibilities as learn how it relates to manages waste,” she said.

Education is also a foundation of the International Coastal Cleanup.

“We’re building a grassroots movement around the marine debris crisis,” Doebler said. “This cannot be solved by government, by business, or individuals alone.”

Levine-Cava said hands-on education can make a difference.

“People really are understanding and education is the key,” she said. “And by the way, hands-on education. It’s not just classroom learning which is very important. It’s actually going out and seeing it with your own eyes.”

Higgins said the goal is to eventually make coastal cleanups unnecessary.

“And if we all do our part, hopefully we’ll work ourselves out of a job and we won’t have to be cleaning up our coastlines anymore,” she said.

The message from volunteers was simple: “Don’t Trash Our Treasure.”

This year’s International Coastal Cleanup is breaking records, collecting more than 26,000 pounds of trash from South Florida’s shores.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced Jardon’s arrest during a news conference Wednesday night.

Jardon is the director of housing for the Citrus Health Network. Rundle said that over a three-year period, he turned the organization’s mission of housing homeless people into an elaborate scheme.

According to Rundle, Jardon created five fake companies, drafted bogus leases and collected payouts from the county.

“While our homeless people were sleeping on the street, he had four new automobile purchases,” Rundle said.

The case came to light late last year after a Citrus Health employee raised concerns.

“As soon as Citrus discovered these problems, they immediately reported the theft to the Inspector General’s Office,” Rundle said.

Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, said the problems were uncovered after the trust alerted Citrus that something was wrong with its invoicing.

“They got caught by our alerting Citrus that there was something wrong with their invoicing, that they didn’t add up, that two and two didn’t equal four,” Book said.

Citrus then conducted its own review and reported the matter to authorities, Book said.

“They went back and did their review and they then self-reported that to the authorities,” he said.

Exclusive body camera video obtained by Local 10 shows what happened when police and firefighters responded to a scene in Margate where a mother and her 2-year-old daughter had been struck by lightning.

The call came into a fire station in August, setting off an urgent response.

The body camera video shows first responders working to save 31-year-old Kenya Glasgow and her 2-year-old daughter, Kennedi.

Responders were also told to make sure arriving units did not block any entrances.

The lightning strike killed Glasgow and her daughter.

Once it was safe, first responders immediately began working to save them.

Responders also worked to keep the area clear as they continued the effort.

The body camera video shows firefighters continuing chest compressions as they worked to save the mother.

The baby was eventually taken to North Broward to be flown out.

At a memorial service in August, Glasgow’s husband and Kennedi’s father, Kameron Glasgow, spoke about how much he misses his soulmate.

“I want her to be remembered as the life of the party, the one that wants to help and never want anything in return,” he said.

Kameron Glasgow said he is appreciative of all the first responders, police and firefighters who never quit trying to save his wife and daughter.

He also said Kennedi’s twin sister is doing the best she can.

Wednesday marks one month since Glasgow lost his wife and daughter.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry did not directly confirm Zelenskyy’s comments but said it had been consulting with Kyiv and other relevant parties to resolve the matter in a manner that respects the soldiers’ free will and complies with international law and humanitarian principles.

The ministry said in a statement that it would not confirm details about the soldiers’ “disposition, the timing or route of their transfer or specific contents of consultations” with Ukraine, calling it a sensitive matter concerning the safety of the soldiers and their families.

In his speech to the U.N., Zelenskyy said Ukraine recently transferred the soldiers to South Korea, but did not provide more details about the transfer.

“These guys are not easy to capture alive,” he said. “One of them, when he realized he was going to ​be taken prisoner, tried to kill himself and he was shocked that ​fate didn’t let him die. This is how they raise people in the North.”

The soldiers were among thousands of North Korean troops sent to support Russia’s war on Ukraine. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has also supplied Russia with large quantities of weapons, including artillery shells and ballistic missiles, while leveraging his strengthened ties with Moscow to accelerate the development of his nuclear-armed military and pursue a more assertive foreign policy, positioning Pyongyang alongside Moscow and Beijing in a united front against Washington.

South Korea, the U.S. and their partners worry Russia may transfer high-tech technologies in exchange that can enhance North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Following the soldiers’ capture in Kursk in January 2025, South Korea urged Kyiv not to send them back to North Korea, where they could face persecution, and said it was willing to accept them if they wished to resettle in the South. In some media interviews, the soldiers appeared to express a desire to go to South Korea.

In April 2025, North Korea and Russia confirmed that their soldiers fought together to repel a Ukraine incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region. The two countries haven’t disclosed exactly how many North Koreans soldiers were deployed. South Korea’s intelligence service estimated in April 2025 that North Korea had sent about 15,000 troops to Russia since October 2024 and that about 2,000 of them were killed.

Atlanta coach Karl Smesko said after the game that Reese could have gone back in the game if she had been needed.

“She was cleared, but we made a decision that it would be smart for her to sit out the second half,” he said.

With 5.6 seconds left in the second quarter, Reese drew an offensive foul on Sabrina Ionescu. The Liberty guard's arm hit Reese in the face. The officials reviewed the play and upgraded it to a flagrant 1 foul.

Reese, who had gone back to the locker room, came out and made the two free throws. She then went back to the locker room. Atlanta led 41-26 at the half. Reese had six points and six rebounds in 17 minutes.

She wasn't on the bench at the start of the second half, but came back to the bench with 6:19 left in the third quarter.

___

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

He went 1 for 4 with two strikeouts and a walk while batting second as the designated hitter against the San Diego Padres.

“He looked good,” manager Dave Roberts said. “At-bat quality good, there wasn’t any chase, I thought he hit the ball hard his first at-bat, just missed a homer in that other at-bat, took a walk. It just felt like he wasn’t sped up at all and I think he came out of it pretty well.”

A roar went up from Dodgers fans as Ohtani walked to the plate to Michael Bublé's “Feeling Good.” He promptly lined a 2-1 pitch from Padres starter Robbie Ray into right field and the fans got loud again. Ohtani was out at second base when Will Smith grounded into a fielder's choice to third.

“Tonight showed that he's in a good spot physically,” Roberts said.

Ohtani didn’t speak to the media afterward. He’ll be back in the lineup Thursday for the series finale.

Mookie Betts was in Ohtani's usual leadoff spot, where he's been since the two-way superstar went on the injured list on Sept. 8.

Betts is hitting .366 with six home runs, 21 RBIs, 13 walks and 18 runs scored in 18 games in September. He's tied for third in the major leagues with 26 hits this month, and also ranks among National League leaders this month in extra-base hits, RBIs, total bases, doubles and runs.

Ohtani last played on Sept. 7 against Cincinnati and came in hitting .277 with 30 homers, 80 RBIs, 89 runs scored and 80 walks in 134 games. He appeared physically compromised at the plate, shaking out his arm and wincing at times.

“A few weeks ago you could see that he couldn’t hit a fastball, he was underneath everything and it was a slower swing,” Roberts said before the game. “Just controlling the swing, the barrel, I think that’s something I’ll look at and obviously stuff like the wincing, but I don’t expect to see any of that.”

Roberts said he likely would have Ohtani leading off and Betts hitting second against right-handed pitching.

Roberts expects to see a focused Ohtani at the plate.

“It’s go-time for all of us and I think he’s in a good spot,” Roberts said. “He's getting ready for the postseason. His mind should be there and my bet is that that’s where it’s at.”

In other moves, pitcher Tarik Skubal was reinstated from the bereavement list. He is scheduled to start Friday at San Francisco. Reliever Kyle Hurt was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Rookie Josue De Paula sent back to minors, could return for postseason

With Ohtani's return, Josue De Paula was sent down to Triple-A to join the Comets in the Pacific Coast League playoffs against the Las Vegas Aviators. De Paula had been in the lineup as the DH.

De Paula quickly became a fan favorite during Ohtani's absence. The 21-year-old New York native reached base safely in 10 of his first 11 games in the majors. He went 2 for 3 with a run scored and a walk while notching his first career triple in the Dodgers' 7-0 win over the Padres on Tuesday.

“He performed more than admirably,” Roberts said. “This also just gives us an opportunity to potentially have him back for the postseason. He’s a part of the conversation and he’s earned that, and that’s what I told him.”

If De Paula makes the postseason roster, he would serve as a pinch hitter.

“Josue has been awesome,” said Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations. “Injected some real life and energy into our team.”

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

“I asked him to bless our motherland with favorable weather and to make it even more prosperous,” Liu said while sitting outside the Golden Hall, a Taoist temple at the summit of Tianzhu Peak.

“This place watches over our country,” she added. “We’re Chinese and this is part of our faith.”

Tourists and pilgrims in a steady stream make their way through Wudang every day. Its scenic peaks, ancient palaces and religious sites drew 14 million visits in 2025, according to government figures.

Wudang’s Taoist buildings date as far back as the 7th century. The complex expanded over centuries through China’s Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Liu traveled several hundred kilometers (miles) from Hebei province with her daughter, Ji Jiaxin. She also prayed to Wudang’s protector, known as Zhenwu.

“He can guide people toward goodness,” Ji said. “He also watches over all the living things that grow across the land.”

Both women see Wudang as a place of scenic beauty and spiritual significance. Perched at about 1,610 meters (5,280 feet) above sea level, the Golden Hall is a place where they experience a sense of spiritual purification.

“Everyone comes here with a sincere heart,” Liu said. “With sincerity, the divine will respond.”

Philosophy and symbolism are woven into Wudang’s conception

The Wudang mountain range comprises 72 peaks, all thought to converge toward Tianzhu. Its lower slopes are associated with fire, while the deity enshrined at its summit is linked to water.

“Water at the top can moisten the earth, while fire below provides warmth and enables all living things to grow,” said Shu Chenghai, director of social education at Wudang Museum.

The Golden Hall’s construction reflects this symbolism too.

In the traditional Chinese concept of the Five Elements, metal is believed to generate water. And since natural sources can run dry over time, the bronze hall serves as a means to nourish Heaven and Earth.

“It embodies prayers for favorable weather, abundant harvests and peace and prosperity throughout the country,” Shu said.

Generations built their lives around Wudang’s temples

Taoist priests and monks look after the religious sites throughout Wudang. With their hair tied in high buns and dressed in distinctive blue robes, they glide through the temples, talking to visitors and scanning tickets at the entrances.

Their role also connects Wudang’s spiritual life with the communities that call the mountain home.

Cai Hongping was born in the area. Her family settled beside Zixiao Palace, a major Taoist temple complex.

“Some of the elderly Taoist priests there were exceptionally kind and compassionate,” Cai said. “Sometimes they gave us dates, peanuts or fruit.”

Life in the mountains was difficult when Cai was a child. Food and other material goods were scarce, but she remembers the temples as places of happiness and joy.

“I often went with the Taoist priests to identify Chinese medicinal herbs, practiced martial arts with them, and sometimes stole fruit that had been left as offerings,” Cai said.

Her connection to the mountain extended beyond its temples.

Cai’s grandfather was a heritage conservation worker in Wudang, a role focused on preserving and cataloging cultural relics. Her father also made walking sticks for visitors. Cai and other relatives sometimes joined him in gathering medicinal herbs to sell.

“The entire mountain was my childhood,” Cai said. “It has also given me a reverence for life.”

Ming emperors left their mark on Wudang

Wudang’s palaces and temples flourished during the Ming dynasty, when Emperor Zhu Di undertook a major building campaign to align his imperial regime with Taoism.

At its height, the complex included dozens of temples, palaces and monasteries. More than 60 sites survive today.

Wudang’s development coincided with another major project commissioned by Zhu Di: the Forbidden City in Beijing.

“When we say, ‘The Forbidden City was built in the north, and Wudang was developed in the south,’ we mean that these two World Cultural Heritage sites are like twins,” Shu said.

“The two places conveyed a message to the world: one represented Heaven, while the other represented the human realm,” he added.

Wudang’s special connection with Ming dynasty emperors remains visible today.

Along the route taken by tourists and pilgrims are several steles marking ritual proclamations made on behalf of emperors during the first year of each reign.

“An emperor needed to make a ritual proclamation to Zhenwu,” Shu said. “He would declare that he had succeeded to the imperial throne and express his hope for Heaven’s support.”

Visitors still seek meaning in Wudang’s landscape

Long before today’s visitors made their way to Wudang, the mountain drew people seeking solitude and spiritual cultivation.

Shu said its distinctive landscape embodies the traditional Chinese concept of “Dong Tian Fu Di,” or “grotto-heavens and blessed lands” — places traditionally regarded as sacred retreats.

“The idea is that a profound harmony between humanity and nature is not merely something human beings can create,” he added.

Beyond the Golden Hall, visitors encounter other temples and figures associated with different needs, from health and inner balance to martial arts.

Wang Xia recently traveled from Inner Mongolia and visited Taizipo, or Prince Slope, a Taoist temple complex linked to Zhenwu’s legendary early life as a prince.

“The fact that the crown prince once studied here makes it particularly appealing,” Wang said. “I wanted to pray for my child, to wish her academic success and a bright future.”

Her first encounter with Wudang came from books. She read about the Ming dynasty and began to dream about visiting the site herself one day.

“I imagined that coming here would give me the feeling of entering the world of Taoist immortals,” Wang said. “That is what this place feels like: a mountain of immortals.”

___

AP video journalist Wu Jia contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

At the company's annual Connect conference on Wednesday, Zuckerberg opened his keynote address by saying “it’s no secret that people in the industry have a wide range of views about how the future is going to go.” But at Meta, he said, “we are optimists because we believe in people.”

Zuckerberg has distanced himself and Meta from recent calls by rival companies for a coordinated slowdown in the development of advanced artificial intelligence, arguing that individual labs can and should ensure their technology is safe.

“We believe that the best way to create a positive future for everyone is to put power in people’s hands," he said at the conference. "We believe that empowering people is the source of prosperity in the world, that the highest purpose of superintelligence is creation and invention — not automation — and that the path to a safe future is to distribute this technology widely and create the right checks and balances, rather than concentrating it in the hands of just a few.”

Zuckerberg has long said he believes wearable AI will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people interact with technology. At the conference, the company unveiled a slew of updates to its smart glasses and virtual reality goggles, which let people control their interface using their voice, eyes and hand and finger movements.

AI agent Muse is the ‘centerpiece’ of Meta's vision

Zuckerberg said that Meta's recently launched agent Muse is the “centerpiece" of Meta's hopeful outlook for the future of AI.

Having an AI agent, which goes beyond chatbots in that it can act and perform tasks on a person’s behalf, has been a “sign of someone who is completely AI-pilled,” Meta's chief AI officer Alexandr Wang said at the conference. With Muse, Wang said, Meta is making agents more accessible and bringing “personal superintelligence” to everyone.

With the help of a mascot for the agent that looks like a plush toy, Wang and senior leadership at Meta demonstrated different uses for the Muse in everyday life. Users will be able to have real-time voice conversations and video chats with their version of the agent, which can also be customized to look and sound unique. The agent can help users plan travel, book reservations, order groceries and complete other helpful tasks. Meta has partnered with companies like OpenTable, Spotify, Ticketmaster and more to help its agents complete these tasks.

The company is working to bring Muse to its AI glasses lineup for hands-free access.

Zuckerberg also said Meta is planning to release a keychain-like device that has the “whole Muse experience” packed into it, called Muse Charm, in time for the holidays in December. The palm-sized device will allow users to engage with a personal AI agent without using a phone, computer or smart glasses.

New AI audio glasses and new updates to popular models

Meta is launching an audio version of its more widely known smart glasses. The new product will let users listen to music, make calls and talk with an AI assistant — there’s just no screen, and no video recording, which has raised privacy concerns with some users recording people without permission. Called Ray-Ban Meta Audio, it will be available in October and the cost starts at $349.

Meta is also building upon a previous feature that allowed glasses wearers to better hear a conversation in a noisy environment. Now, Zuckerberg said, a feature called hearing enhancement turns your glasses into an “FDA-cleared, over-the-counter hearing aid” that can “compensate for perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.” The feature will launch in the U.S. later this year and will be available to add to supported AI glasses for $150, or with a Meta One subscription.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses have been upgraded with new features, including improved cycling and transit navigation and a personalized hologram for video calls.

The company is also offering more styles to appeal to a broader range of people and says it will have more than 100 different options across its Ray-Ban, Oakley, and Meta Glasses by the end of the year. The glasses will also be available in more countries, including Turkey, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The newest generation of the classic Ray-Ban Meta glasses is also now available, with what the company touts as a slimmer, sleeker design and increased battery life, among other upgrades. The Generation 3 models are available now with prices starting at $449.

Virtual reality gets a makeover with Meta VR

Glasses

The most drastic update announced at the conference is to the company's VR device, now called Meta VR Glasses. That is because the previous bulky headset has been replaced by a set of glasses, which weigh about 100 grams (3.5 ounces), or roughly as much as a deck of cards. In comparison, the Meta Quest 3, which launched in 2023, weighs about five times that much. The difference feels similar to that between scuba diving and swimming goggles.

While they are significantly lighter and more sleek than VR predecessors, the glasses require a wired connection to an external puck for battery, storage and compute.

Instead of controllers or a neural wristband that past headsets or glasses required, the VR glasses use an eye-tracking camera and sensor that essentially lets your eyes be the computer cursor and your fingers the mouse clicker. If you want to open an app, for instance, you look at it and use hand and finger gestures, or use voice commands to talk to the Meta AI agent.

In a demo at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters on Tuesday, Meta showed off entertainment and work offerings on the glasses, including sports events and concerts that replicate the experience of having courtside or front-row seats. A new feature called “VR Enhanced Cinema,” meanwhile, seeks to immerse viewers in the movie by transforming their surroundings beyond the screen into a virtual world inspired by the movie, with dynamic effects, 3D visuals and spatial audio.

Once the glasses launch, users will have access to more than 100 immersive live sports events from that courtside-like view, because of partnerships with ESPN, MLB, NBC Sports, TNT Sports and UFC. The glasses can also function as a gaming console, Meta said, and there will be more than 75 games at launch that users can play solely with hand gestures.

The glasses can also be used for work. Users can conjure a virtual keyboard on any flat surface and use the display as their computer screen (or several screens) only they can see. For even more of a robust setup, users will be able to connect their Mac or Windows PC to seamlessly transition onto these screens, and bring their own keyboard and mouse. The VR glasses, unlike headsets of the past, will let wearers see their desk setup and surroundings while they work.

One of Zuckerberg's live demos of the night also showed off the glasses' ability to use hologram technology to project a photorealistic digital version of a person, including their real-time expressions and reactions, for hands-free video calling.

The VR glasses will launch in the spring of 2027 and cost $1,300.

An OpenAI agent infiltrated the public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal on June 18, he said. The portal hosted aggregate data about health spending and drug subsidies and is popular with researchers and academics. No personal information had been accessed, the government said.

Albanese made the breach public following a telephone conversation with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. Both are in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly.

Altman was among heads of major AI firms who in speeches Wednesday pleaded with the United Nations to save the world or at least its people by somehow regulating the fast-expanding technology that they have been designing.

“Today I spoke with … Altman to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident,” Albanese told reporters. “I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred and the nature of the way that notification occurred as well was unacceptable.”

OpenAI said in a statement it had reviewed activity involving several Australian government departments and discovered “our models took actions we did not intend.”

OpenAI notified Australia of the breach in an email to a government department’s generic address on Sept. 10, Albanese said.

An inquiry looking into the security breach would examine whether OpenAI could be criminally charged, Albanese said. The inquiry would also investigate how Australian security agencies failed to detect the breach before OpenAI revealed it.

Albanese said he assumed there were commercial reasons for the AI investigation of how much was being spent on particular medicines and where expenditures were changing.

Government Services Minister Katy Gallagher said OpenAI had advised on Sept. 10 that an “AI agent had accessed infrastructure behind the public-facing” portal. OpenAI shared with the government the vulnerability the agent had found.

The Australian government had not been confident that it knew what the agent had been doing until officials held a technical briefing with OpenAI on Tuesday, Gallagher said.

She said the portal had been closed and the data moved to more secure systems.

OpenAI said last week it was introducing a new framework for tracking, investigating and disclosing instances of what it called “misalignment,” including cases where AI models acted without authorization, coordinated with other models or evaded oversight.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the incident was the first time that an AI agent was known to have gained unauthorized access to the Australian government’s information technology systems.

“This is a warning about the technology being developed without safeguards and without guardrails in place,” Marles said.

OpenAI was engaging with the government but the situation was “fundamentally unacceptable,” Marles said.

When the agent was denied information, it engaged in “misaligned behavior” to gain unauthorized access, he said.

Marles said the information accessed was “not particularly sensitive” and had since been made public.

Marles used an analogy of the information sitting behind a fence.

“It was not sitting behind a particularly high fence. This AI agent scaled the fence ... and the point is it was unintended. It wasn’t asked to. That’s our concern here,” Marles said.

___

This story corrects the date of breach to June 18.

The F-35 Joint Program Office said in a statement that it and the Defense Department are aware of “a shipment issue" with F-35 components.

“We are actively working with U.S. authorities and industry partners to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence,” the office said.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles acknowledged that the jet components ended up in Hong Kong when responding to questions from reporters Tuesday. But he denied that the missing parts were “sensitive equipment.”

Australia is one of several nations whose militaries operate the stealth fighter jet.

“Yeah, so we are obviously working with the United States and obviously with its prime contractor Lockheed Martin, in respect of this,” Marles said.

He added: “My understanding is that there is a sense of comfort, and we’re not talking about sensitive equipment here or sensitive parts. Ultimately, though, this is an issue which is going to be managed by the United States and by Lockheed in terms of what has occurred.”

Lockheed did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Washington for a state visit with President Donald Trump. China's Foreign Ministry said it was not aware of the incident, and the Hong Kong government said it would not comment on specific cases.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that China has the F-35 parts — a cockpit canopy and weapons-bay door — after the shipment was unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong while on the way from Australia to the United States for either repair or disposal months ago. It was not clear how the shipment was diverted.

Politico earlier reported that it prompted a congressional inquiry over concerns that China could have access to key components of the highly classified technology.

Beijing has kept tight control over Hong Kong since the territory was returned from British rule in 1997. Hong Kong cannot maintain its own military or conduct its own diplomacy.

The first F-35 Lightning strike fighter rolled off an assembly line in Texas about 20 years ago and was hailed as a technological leap. Since then, more than 1,200 of the stealth jets have been made and 19 countries have placed orders for the planes, according to the Congressional Research Service.

China already may have had at least some intelligence, albeit several years old, on the planes already. The Defense Science Board, which advises the Pentagon, released a report in 2013 alleging that Chinese cyberattacks accessed data from dozens of Pentagon programs, including the joint strike fighter.

The F-35 is “widely recognized as America’s best and most advanced fighter jet,” according to Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington-based think tank.

Bowman told the AP in November that American military systems are constantly being updated and improved, counteracting any possible secrets stolen years ago.

Described as a fifth-generation fighter, the F-35's technologies include stealth coatings as well as advanced radar and sensors, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Bowman said the plane has advanced sensors to better detect enemies as well as networking capabilities to communicate with allied planes and ground forces during combat.

___

Associated Press writers Didi Tang in Washington and Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

The team said it was moving the Sunday afternoon game to Friday to create a split doubleheader. The first game is scheduled to begin at 1:05 p.m. EST. The originally scheduled 7:05 p.m. EST night game was moved up to 6:05.

The Red Sox said in a press release Wednesday that the change was made in consultation with Major League Baseball.

The Cubs are currently in a tight race for one of the NL’s three wild-card spots.

There was no mention of a change to Saturday’s game, which is slated for a 7:15 p.m. EST first pitch.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar visited a federal detention center in south Texas where Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was taken into custody after being shot Sunday in Austin by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Casar said Garces Perez was in a wheelchair and still in pain, but did not say whether the family had decided that he should undergo surgery. The Department of Homeland Security has said Garces Perez, who has been taken to a hospital twice since the shooting, is receiving around-the-clock medical care and pain medication.

"If they want to say it’s great medical care, they should start providing great medical care today by having him leave the detention center, go to a hospital or to a doctor, and do not delay his surgery if that’s what his family chooses to do,” Casar said.

Garces Perez remains in Texas detention center

Casar, whose district includes Austin, was the first member of Congress to visit Garces Perez in person since the shooting. He said the wound in Garces Perez's back remains bloody and medical staff change his gauze two or three times daily.

Following Casar's visit and a press conference, DHS issued a previous statement denying claims that Garces Perez was forced to sleep on a floor or that he was prevented from having the bullet removed, saying ICE would not advise on a medical procedure for a detainee.

Garces Perez was making a DoorDash delivery when ICE officers in an unmarked truck sideswiped his car twice, his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said. He was shot and taken to a hospital, then released into ICE custody with a bullet still in his back, she said.

ICE and DHS haven't said what led to the shooting beyond that Garces Perez was “the subject of a targeted vehicle stop."

ICE has not said if the agent who fired was wearing a body camera. At the beginning of September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he expected all field agents to have them by the end of the month.

Austin police released body camera footage from its officers who arrived just after the shooting. Garces Perez is seen hunched over in the front seat of his car and grabbing his shoulder and rocking back and forth. An officer later cut off Garces Perez’s shirt, and a wound can be seen in his upper back.

Garces Perez entered the U.S. in 2024 using CBP One, a program begun under President Joe Biden that allowed migrants to make appointments with U.S. authorities to be considered for asylum, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. President Donald Trump ended the program on his first day in office.

Garces Perez was an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit, according to Lincoln-Goldfinch. She said a judge issued a deportation order after Garces Perez missed an immigration court hearing because the notice was sent to a former address.

ICE crackdown in Austin sees more than 1,000 arrests

Garces Perez's shooting came at the end of a summer in which ICE notably ramped up enforcement operations in Austin and surrounding suburbs and increasingly targeted immigrants without criminal records in public places.

In all, ICE made more than 1,000 arrests in Austin, Pflugerville and other nearby cities during June and July, more than an 80% increase from a year earlier, which had been the previous peak, according to ICE data provided to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles, and analyzed by The Associated Press.

Unlike some other places, the increases in Austin were not driven by partnerships with local law enforcement agencies or by picking up jail inmates. Instead, the data shows that ICE officers made the vast majority of arrests in the community through traffic stops and other enforcement methods.

Nearly 2 out of 3 people who were arrested in the Austin area had no criminal convictions and no pending criminal charges, the data shows.

___

Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa. Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

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

Detective Tim Cooper of the Ada County Sheriff’s Office reopened a cold case investigation in 2019 that led authorities to identify Dr. Mathew Francis Betkouski posthumously. He fatally poisoned himself with cyanide more than 40 years ago and was buried anonymously.

Once detectives identified Betkouski and began to learn about him, they came to believe he was a possible suspect in the killings of seven people in the Chicago area with cyanide-laced Tylenol, Cooper said.

No one was ever charged in those killings, which triggered a widespread recall of the over-the-counter painkillers.

An engraved key found with the body in the Boise church led investigators to a street in Jacksonville, Florida, where a property owner disappeared in 1982. They used photos and DNA testing to confirm his identity.

Investigators then learned that Betkouski worked in drugstores. Former colleagues and acquaintances said he had a history of volatility, was fascinated by the idea of a “perfect crime” and once said cyanide was a means to kill without detection, authorities said.

Detectives found cyanide in Betkouski’s desk, which Cooper said appeared to be homemade and was a different compound than what was used in the 1982 killings.

Betkouski lived in five states throughout his life but never in Illinois or close to Chicago, according to investigators. Photos showed that Betkouski visited the Chicago area a year before the killings, but it was not clear if he returned the following year.

The Chicago Police Department said in a statement that its detectives have been in contact with Idaho authorities to determine whether their findings are connected to the Tylenol murders investigation, which remains an open cold case. It did not say whether they consider Betkouski a suspect.

Investigators long believed a man named James Lewis was responsible for the killings, though he was never charged. Lewis died in 2023 after serving more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson, the drug's manufacturer at the time, demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.”

When Lewis was arrested in 1982, he gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer might have operated. He always denied involvement, however.

“I wish to state this very clearly before this General Assembly: Elections will be held in Venezuela,” Delcy Rodriguez said, adding that her government has started a “political dialogue with opposition sectors” to secure a “process based on equal conditions for all.”

Rodríguez said the Venezuelan people will determine the best time to get elections moving and assured the United Nations that, when the time comes, the country’s institutions “will be prepared to guarantee an inclusive and transparent process.”

Rodríguez took over in Venezuela after a surprise U.S. military raid in January that captured then-leader Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.

This is the first trip to the United States by a Venezuelan head of state since 2018, when Maduro traveled to New York to participate in the U.N. General Assembly himself. He is currently being held only a few miles from the organization’s headquarters as he awaits trial.

She says Venezuela is coming back

Rodríguez’s participation in the international forum also marks a milestone in Venezuela’s reintegration into global diplomacy. Addressing global leaders, she said that “the last time that two presidents of Venezuela and the United States met was in 2009.”

She added that her country is coming back strong after “setbacks” suffered this year and thanked President Donald Trump for being willing to resume relations after the U.S. military spirited her predecessor out of the country.

The other setback to which she referred: On June 24, two powerful earthquakes, magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, struck north-central Venezuela and killed more than 6,500 people, leaving an untold number of missing and causing widespread devastation.

“I come to talk about a Venezuela whose national life has been affected by a crisis of political coexistence that disrupted the life of the nation and our interaction with the world," Rodriguez she said. “Interests alien to the common good of Venezuelans were imposed.”

Rodriguez faced a delicate balance in her speech, which needed to be addressed to both her people and the U.S. government that holds her predecessor. She thanked Trump for his willingness to resume the course of diplomatic relations and cooperation with Venezuela.

“We are working earnestly to resolve existing differences through dialogue, but above all to pave the way for cooperation in the energy sector, the promotion of security, the joint fight against transnational crime, and economic cooperation for the benefit of both peoples and our continent," she said. “Today, Venezuela is being reborn.”

Since rising to power, Rodríguez has forged a close working relationship with Trump. U.S. influence in Venezuela has grown following the lifting of sanctions against Rodríguez in April, one of several recent moves by Washington to recognize her as a legitimate authority ever since the U.S. military captured her predecessor.

Addressing some words to her people, Rodríguez said that she could not promise an “easy path,” noting that “the country’s recovery will take time.”

“Rebuilding the national soul will be our priority," she said. “We will walk united as a single nation that, after the pain, chose hope.”

Trump and Rodríguez met on the sideline of the UN

Before her speech at the U.N. Wednesday night, Trump and Rodríguez, who had been Maduro’s vice president, met at a pull-aside meeting late Tuesday during a reception the U.S. president hosted at a New York hotel.

It was the first time the two had met in person since the operation that captured the nation’s former leader and effectively put Rodríguez in charge.

“We discussed strengthening the bilateral relationship between our countries and advancing a cooperation agenda in strategic areas such as energy, mining, security, and other matters of mutual interest,” Rodríguez said on X after the encounter.

The meeting came after the two countries announced an agreement last month to give the United States a stake in Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. She described the deal as a step toward economic recovery that will modernize the country’s oil industry.

Rodríguez vowed to shoulder the “historic responsibility” of leading Venezuela “from a period of uncertainty and conflict toward a stage of full democracy, recognized by its own people and by the world.”

“Venezuela wants to breathe freely and exercise its rights as a sovereign nation without any kind of interference,” she said.

The filings are the latest against the world-famous amusement park operator and S&S Worldwide, the manufacturer of the X2 roller coaster cars. Six Flags recently settled a wrongful-death lawsuit from the family of a 22-year-old man who died after riding the coaster in 2022.

According to documents filed Monday, Pamela Guillen and her family visited the park in July for her daughter's 16th birthday and decided to ride the X2 roller coaster. When the ride stopped, her daughter saw her “sitting with a vacant stare and her mouth open,” confused and unable to exit the ride.

Shortly after she got out, the previously healthy 39-year-old collapsed and was taken to a hospital, where she underwent emergency brain surgery, according to the lawsuit.

Just five days later, 25-year-old Naomi Greer-Wilkinson boarded the ride with her siblings. She also collapsed shortly after the ride ended and was taken to a hospital, where she was found to have massive brain bleeding inside the skull that required emergency brain surgery. She remains in a vegetative state in the hospital, unable to speak or move and dependent on a ventilator. Her family filed the lawsuit on her behalf.

Their attorney, Gary Dordick, said the firm has been retained by more than 100 clients who suffered brain injuries after riding the X2 roller coaster within the past two years.

“It’s inexcusable that more isn’t done,” Dordick said. “It was known by Magic Mountain that those injuries and deaths occurred, and they kept the ride open.”

A spokesperson for Six Flags said it's the company's policy not to comment on pending litigation. The ride has been closed since the evening of July 12.

Extreme roller coaster has riders bracing for impact

According to the Six Flags Magic Mountain website, the X2 roller coaster reaches a top speed of 76 mph (122 kph) and has a total length of 3,610 feet (1,100 meters). The seats rotate 360 degrees “so your body will be flipping around the entire time,” and the ride features two “raven turns” — half loops that turn into sheer drops midway. It debuted at the park in 2002 as the world's first “fourth dimension” rollercoaster and reopened in 2008 with new trains and special effects. The uniqueness of the ride drew thrill-seekers from around the world and garnered a fervent fanbase.

Frequent riders of X2 have discussed on Reddit forums the “unspoken rules” of how to ride the roller coaster without getting injured. Many cite the final raven turn as the most extreme part of the ride and say they have gotten major headaches and what felt like concussions if they didn't brace their heads properly. One even said they wore a soft head helmet the last time they were on the ride.

“The snapping bangs the head against the headrest and it’s causing brain damage, it’s causing hemorrhaging within the skull,” Dordick said.

Another one of his clients, Michael Wilk, visited the park with his daughter and grandchildren in February. Immediately after going on the ride, he felt stabbing pain in his head, dizziness and had difficulty walking, the lawsuit states.

While he didn't seek medical attention immediately, his cognitive function quickly declined in the following weeks as he tried to return to his job as an insurance defense attorney. An MRI scan a few months later showed massive bleeding and swelling inside his skull, requiring multiple surgeries to relieve the pressure on his brain. He said he continues to suffer debilitating headaches, confusion, dizziness, memory loss, and personality changes, and can no longer practice law.

The lawsuit accused Six Flags of intentionally restricting “public disclosure of evidence concerning X2 injuries and safety issues.”

College graduate died after riding X2 in 2022

The new lawsuits follow a settlement for wrongful death in the case of Christopher Hawley, a 22-year-old who died the day after he rode X2 and was rushed to the hospital after the ride with severe brain bleeding. The medical examiner's office said his death was from “blunt head trauma.”

An engineer involved in testing the ride when it reopened in 2008 said in court filings for Hawley's case that the acceleration forces exerted on a rider by the X2 roller coaster abided by standard practices for amusement park rides that were adopted by California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The division also inspected the ride's seat restraints and head padding, a state employee said in a deposition.

The employee also testified that more testing was done in 2022 following Hawley's death, but Six Flags provided them with data showing the acceleration forces exerted by the roller coaster were still within standards. The division allowed Six Flags to reopen the rollercoaster after their findings.

Hawley's attorneys alleged in court filings that the ride's headrest failed to secure or protect the rider's head and neck from the extreme forces exerted by the roller coaster. They also alleged that there was inadequate maintenance when the wheels on the ride exhibited excessive wear or degradation, affecting the forces exerted on a rider.

Dordick said the amusement park operator has argued that people are accepting risk by voluntarily going on a thrill ride, and that people who suffer injuries often have preexisting conditions.

“The risk people reasonably assume is they get dizzy, maybe someone might throw up,” Dordick said. “No one goes to a family fun amusement park and assumes the risk of brain damage.”

New York manager Aaron Boone repeated he's not counting on Judge to play in the AL Wild Card Series opener Tuesday. Judge, sidelined since Sept. 16, said he's trying to do all he can to be in the lineup.

“The Bronx is a magical place in October,” Judge said after Wednesday night's 9-2 win over AL East champion Tampa Bay. “I don’t want to miss out on that opportunity.”

Judge had a platelet-poor plasma injection Monday. He was sidelined by a fractured rib from May 31 to Sept. 8 and played in just seven games before the latest injury.

“Any injection doesn’t feel too good that day, but I feel a lot better today and we’re going to keep making strides,” he said.

A three-time AL MVP, Judge is hitting .241 with 18 homers, 41 RBIs and an .871 OPS in 66 games this season, including .174 with one homer and three RBIs since coming back from the rib injury.

“We are going to listen to the body and see how he heals,” Boone said. “If he is in a position to do that, obviously we are going to want him. So, no, I haven’t ruled anything out, of course.”

Boone said Tuesday he wasn't planning on having Judge available for next week's best-of-three series, likely against Boston.

“Obviously as a player, you don’t want to hear that but that’s out of my control,” Judge said.

Boone said Judge had a moderate strain.

“Everybody’s `moderate' is a little different,” Judge said.

Stanton, trying to return from injuries to calf muscles in both legs, faced pitchers Wednesday at Double-A Somerset along with center fielder Trent Grisham, sidelined since straining his right hamstring on Sept. 4. Both ran the bases and Stanton homered while taking six or seven at-bats.

“Putting them on the outskirts of the conversation,” Boone, bothered by a cold, said in a raspy voice.

Following the end of the seasons for Yankees farm teams, New York has minor leaguers working out at Somerset in nearby New Jersey.

Stanton hasn't played since April 24 because of strained calf muscles in both legs after starting the season with a .256 batting average, three homers and 14 RBIs in 24 games. The 36-year-old former NL MVP had 38 homers and 100 RBIs in his first season with New York in 2018 but has missed 500 of 1,194 games since (41.9%), through the end of this regular season.

His other injuries included strains of his right biceps, right knee, left hamstring (three times), left quadriceps and both calf muscles along with right ankle inflammation, left Achilles tendinitis and tendon pain in both elbows.

“You’re looking more at a pinch-hit scenario,” Boone said. “We’ll see if that’s even a realistic option."

Stanton is owed $25 million next year in the final guaranteed season of a $325 million, 13-year contract that includes a $10 million buyout of a 2028 club option.

Lagrange could be brought up for major league debut

Carlos Lagrange, a 23-year-old right-hander who reached 100 mph with 98 pitches at Triple-A this year, threw to batters at Somerset. He was out between June 28 and Sept. 16 because of a right capsule strain.

Lagrange was shifted to the bullpen at the start of June.

“He’s in the conversation for something,” Boone said.

Clarke Schmidt still out

Right-hander Clarke Schmidt, who returned Sept. 16 following Tommy John surgery in July 2025, played catch but remains sidelined by right biceps cramps. New York had hoped to use him as a reliever in the postseason.

“Today was better than yesterday," Boone said. "If he’s not a real viable option by tomorrow, then we’ll probably go a different way.”

Postseason rotation

Boone said Cam Schlitter will start Game 1 or 2 of the playoffs. Max Fried appears set to start whichever game Schlittler doesn't, with Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón available for Game 3.

“Whoever goes 1 or 2 can pitch 2 and 5 in the next series,” Boone said.

Fernando Cruz throws a bullpen

Right-hander Fernando Cruz threw a bullpen this week and is to throw another one Thursday.

He hasn't pitched in a game since Aug. 25 because of right elbow discomfort caused by a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament.

“I’m in a really good position to be back I will say in the next couple of weeks,” Cruz said.

He took issue with the diagnosis of his injury.

“I had a real good inflammation, real stiffness and irritation," he said. “People can say it’s a partial tear, but in my heart it's not a partial tear.”

Volpe will see time at the hot corner

With second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. back from a sprained right thumb, Boone said Anthony Volpe will see time at third.

“I’ll probably get him on there a time or two,” Boone said.

Volpe entered Wednesday hitting .263 with one homer, seven RBIs and four stolen bases over 11 games since his recall from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He played three games at third base for the RailRiders.

“It didn’t feel that bad when I played there, but we’ll see,” Volpe said.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Otherwise, clouds linger over Miami-Dade and Broward counties.Thursday will feature a sun/cloud mix and light north winds. Scattered showers and storms could develop during the afternoon. Temperatures are forecast to peak near 90°F.

Watson is trying his best, though, to avoid saying anything that puts him at odds with fans again before this week's matchup against the Carolina Panthers.

“We’re moving forward. There’s great energy this week within the locker room and in the city. So let’s continue to build on that,” Watson said on Wednesday.

Watson was widely booed during the second half of an Aug. 22 exhibition game against the Buffalo Bills, when he was 5 of 12 for 36 yards and an interception. He drew further rebuke when he said the boos were “personal” and showed “disrespect” after he came back from two Achilles tendon injuries.

The 10-year veteran said it was an emotional response after Monken selected him as the starting quarterback two days later. Watson did not play in the Aug. 27 preseason home finale against New England.

“That’s in the past, so let’s push forward,” Watson said. “I never try to go at war with the fans. So I think the biggest thing is just be ready for support, ready to feel their energy and continue this great feeling that we have this week.”

Cornerback Denzel Ward — the Browns' longest-tenured player — is also hoping to see Watson get some support.

“We want them to back and support the entire team. I don’t think we're just looking at any individual person or any individual efforts, but I mean this is a team sport and we need everybody to play well, and we need the fans to help support us. And I think that’s the biggest thing,” Ward said.

Sunday will be Watson’s 22nd start for the Browns since being acquired from Houston in 2022. He is 10-11 with 22 touchdown passes, 13 interceptions and an 83.4 passer rating.

Watson comes into the game second in the league with a 76.9% completion rate. He was 24 of 30 for 238 yards and two touchdowns in last Sunday’s 23-19 win at Tampa Bay, marking the sixth time in franchise history a Cleveland QB has completed at least 80% with at least 30 pass attempts.

A significant part of Cleveland’s passing game in the first two games has been short passes. Watson has the second-highest rate of throws behind the line of scrimmage to 9 yards out at 76.9%. Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes leads at 79.7%.

However, Watson has been successful when he has had to go downfield, completing 7 of 12 for 215 yards with two touchdowns and an interception.

Watson has also received plenty of help from his receivers. Of his 443 passing yards, 266 have been yards after the catch, also second most in the league.

“Some of it is by design, some of it is we got pressure and couldn’t push it down the field,” Monken said. “We understand that you’re going to have to be explosive to score. With the pressure we were getting in the second half (against Tampa Bay), we had to get it out of our hands and force them to cover us. And I thought our guys did a really good job of that.”

Watson could have a favorable matchup against Carolina’s defense. The Panthers use zone coverage on 83.3% of drop-backs — seventh most in the league. Watson comes into the game with a 79.5% completion rate when facing zone, the third-highest rate in the league.

“They don’t give up big plays. They’re big, strong upfront. Great, reactive, experienced linebackers and then the secondary is very experienced,” he said. “We can’t give them free passes, and we got to take care of the ball.”

___

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Waltrip and his family shared a statement on Wednesday that noted the former driver, “has been diagnosed with Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) complicated by possible Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) – likely from injuries incurred during his racing career.”

The 79-year-old Waltrip was one of NASCAR’s storied characters, one of the first to build a brand around his supersized personality, and he served for decades as one of the sport’s strongest ambassadors.

Waltrip won 84 races and Cup Series championships in 1981, 1982 and 1985 before moving straight into the broadcast booth. He was inducted into the third class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in January 2012.

Waltrip was Fox Sports’ first hire when the network launched its NASCAR coverage in 2001 and became widely known for his signature “Boogity! Boogity! Boogity! Let’s go racing, boys” call.

A fearless Kentucky boy who first showed up on the NASCAR scene in 1972 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, Waltrip aggravated his competitors by beating them on the track and then running his mouth out of the car.

Rivals nicknamed him “Jaws” and Waltrip was at the forefront of parlaying his personality and fame into a lucrative side hustle of appearances, celebrity endorsing and, finally, the broadcast booth.

“While this disease will inevitably progress, thankfully it is currently limited to some minor noticeable symptoms,” the family said in a statement. "As a result, he will be stepping further away from the public limelight. Be assured, Darrell is happy and otherwise healthy — spending his time with his wife, Stevie, two daughters and his three young grandchildren. We are all grateful for your continued prayer, love and support!

Boogity! Boogity! Boogity!"

___

See AP’s full auto racing coverage here

Leer en español

Melvin Diaz Cepeda was fatally shot at about 5 a.m. on Monday at a home at 4606 NW 5th Ave., near the Design District, according to the Miami Police Department.

Christina Marie Hernandez described Diaz Cepeda as a good friend who knew the shooter as a fellow DJ.

“They knew each other; I have a picture of them together,” Hernandez said.

Lt. Pete Sanchez, a spokesman for Miami Fire Rescue, said firefighters pronounced Diaz Cepeda dead. Officer Kenia Fallat, a spokeswoman for MPD, said detectives questioned one person.

Miami homicide detectives suspect Diaz Cepeda was an intruder at the shooter’s home.

“I don’t believe it; neither does his mother, who I am in communication with. Neither does any single person who genuinely knew him,” Hernandez said.

Detectives asked anyone with information about this or other cases to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477 to remain anonymous.

Local 10 News Senior Assignment Editor Frine Gomez contributed to this report.

Location

It was only 112 days ago when Koivun helped lead Auburn to another NCAA title, the final chapter in a remarkable college career.

And on Thursday, the 21-year-old Koivun plays with Thomas in a fourballs match for his Presidents Cup debut. For a sport with a reputation of moving slowly, his career has been at warp speed.

“Definitely going to feel some nerves on the first tee, but we’re all human. I think everyone does," Koivun said Wednesday. “I told Justin once I get my first tee shot out of the way, I’m going to be good. Just kind of balancing adrenaline, nerves, everything like that to the best of my ability.”

Three days of practice on the No. 3 course at Medinah Country Club — rain-soaked when they arrived, drying out by the day — gives way to the opening session of five fourballs matches.

The Presidents Cup has a heavy favorite in the Americans — they have won the last 10 times and lost only once since the matches against the Internationals began in 1994 — and a sentimental favorite in Adam Scott, who has is playing for the 12th time without ever being on the winning side.

“History is history, and it’s nice to be a part of history on the good side,” Collin Morikawa said. “But history can always be changed. I think for us, starting tomorrow, it all starts 0-0.”

Pairings for the opening session

U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker wasted little time sending out world No. 1 Scheffler and Sam Burns against Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im.

They will be followed by Cameron Young and Xander Schauffele against the Japanese duo of Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune; Thomas and Koivun against Corey Conners and Nico Echavarria; Morikawa and Wyndham Clark against Scott and Ryan Fox; and the anchor match of Chris Gotterup and Patrick Cantlay against Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim.

“You kind of have an idea of how this thing’s going to go and got a good game plan set forth,” Snedeker said. “And now it’s just about getting out of these guys’ way and let them go do what they love to do.”

What to expect? Pretty much anything.

“I think everyone comes into these tournaments with optimism,” International captain Geoff Ogilvy said. “They’re very momentum-based tournaments.”

Ogilvy thought back to two years ago at Royal Montreal when the Americans made a big opening statement with a 5-0 shutout. The Internationals responded with a shutout of their own in foursomes in which three of the matches didn't even get to the 15th hole.

“You could never have predicted that,” Ogilvy said, a vice captain in 2024. “We've been thinking about this for a long time. So we're just excited to get going.”

The United States has another embarrassment of riches compared with the Internationals. With only five matches on opening day, Snedeker sat Russell Henley, the No. 6 player in the world, and Jacob Bridgeman, who came into his first Presidents Cup fresh off another PGA Tour victory.

Koivun is the X-factor for Team USA

It also has Koivun, one of the more intriguing characters in these matches considering how quickly he made it to this stage. Koivun won in his third start as a professional in the 3M Open — Scheffler was the runner-up — and Snedeker trusted his gut in picking him.

He wasted no time giving Koivun a taste of the matches.

“Jackson being a young kid, I feel like he’s really kind of found his way on our team really quickly,” Snedeker said. “I feel like he’s handled the adjustment really well. Justin is just a natural pairing for him. I think he’ll do a great job putting his arm around him and show him how USA golf is meant to be played.”

Koivun already has had a memorable week. As the only player who came without a plus-one, the Americans had him pose with the Presidents Cup trophy with all their wives and girlfriends. Clark told of the grief Koivun caught when he was the last one to show up for the bus ride to Medinah.

They all have high hopes for him between the ropes.

“The fact that he has the maturity and the correct outlook on everything, he’s obviously really competitive and he’s obviously really talented,” Thomas said. “I’m excited for him this week. It’s going to be an awesome experience for him.”

The Americans have won the opening session eight of the last nine times.

“We would love to be in front, have a winning session,” Ogilvy said. “That's the job tomorrow is to win a session. I'm sure we'll be in good moods either way, but the goal would be to win the session.”

___

See AP’s full golf coverage here

The problem, which officials in the Republican-controlled state have not publicly defined, also could have disenfranchised people who wanted to vote in the state's March primary but whose registration applications were never processed, local election officials said during a news conference Wednesday.

“This is really out of left field. Knowing that this one element of (state) applications didn’t come through, and we had no insight on it,” said Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials.

The size of the backlog statewide hasn’t been determined, but the association said it is in the tens of thousands for some of the state's most populous counties. In Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, the election office received about 45,000 backlogged voter registration applications.

Some election offices will need to hire temporary workers to handle the crush, officials with the association said.

The issue started last October in the Texas Department of Public Safety, which among other things allows people to register to vote or update their voter registrations when they renew their driver’s license.

An unspecified error failed to send a large number of records to applicants' home counties, where the applications are processed and verified. Those records could be a new voter registration application or an update to an existing registration, such as a change of address.

The association of local election officials said its members did not receive any communication from the Department of Public Safety about why the backlog occurred or why they were not informed of the issue for nearly a year.

In a statement, the Department of Public Safety said certain records submitted online “were incomplete and not fully transmitted” to the secretary of state’s office. It said the “system issue” had been resolved, without elaborating on the nature of the issue. The department did not immediately respond to a request for further explanation. County officials said the problem appeared to be with the department's online portal.

Counties have until early in-person voting starts on Oct. 19 to finish processing the late-arriving applications.

During their news conference, county election officials said it is possible that some people might have been prevented from voting in the state's primary earlier this year or initially turned away because there was no record of them registering to vote or updating their registration.

The unexpected backlog comes as counties are already inundated with tasks leading up to the November election in a state with a nationally watched U.S. Senate race between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office and county election leaders say voters don’t need to worry about their registration as long as it is submitted by Oct. 5. If a person shows up to vote and they do not appear on the voter rolls, election officials said they can cast a provisional ballot.

They also can check whether they are registered on the state's online registration site or call their county election office.

___

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

Lawmakers have long found little downside to taking a hawkish tone on China, but the U.S.'s war with Iran has inflamed tensions as U.S. officials accuse China of propping up Iran's economy and supplying its military with components and intelligence, endangering U.S. service members in the Middle East.

In speeches, letters, press conferences and hearings, lawmakers from both parties aired criticism of Xi's visit. Their actions and events stand in stark contrast to the warm welcome that Trump gave Xi on Wednesday as he arrived in Washington for a lavish state visit.

Republicans air their dissenting views

Sen. Roger Wicker, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took to the Senate floor Tuesday night, offering a list of issues for Trump to raise with Xi, but not before suggesting that Xi shouldn't have been asked to visit Washington at all.

“Quite frankly, had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States of America based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” Wicker said.

Wicker seemed particularly taken aback by the honor of a state dinner. Over the salad course, Wicker said the president could ask Xi about the Chinese Navy's harassment of Filipino fishermen and sailors. Then, while the servers are “switching from chardonnay to cabernet at the fancy state dinner,” perhaps the president could turn to the issue of Taiwan, he said.

He went on to say he hopes some progress will be made when the president discussed trade and artificial intelligence with Xi. But concluded with this: “During every minute of dialogue, our commander in chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected, and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”

House committee weighs in with a critical video

Ahead of Xi's visit, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a highly critical video that had been viewed more than 245,000 times on X. In the video, the committee details Xi's rise to power starting in 1974 and ends by labeling him "the biggest opponent of freedom and liberty in the world.”

The House created the panel in 2023. It's held several hearings on human rights issues in China and advocates for legislation on an array of economic and military issues. For example, the committee's chairman, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., recently introduced a bill that would prohibit the manufacture or sale of Chinese cars in the U.S.

Republican senators press for Taiwan aid

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and three other Republican senators used the Xi visit to press the Trump administration to move ahead with aid and arms sales to Taiwan.

In a letter, they reminded Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he had previously stated that “deterring an invasion of Taiwan must be our top priority.” And they noted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had once declared that the U.S. ”will not let our allies and partners be subordinated and intimidated."

China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a summit in May between Trump and Xi in Beijing. After that meeting, the United States paused the sale of a record-breaking $14 billion package — and Trump described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

“It is difficult to imagine how the United States might credibly project influence deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” the senators wrote, “if the price of keeping up diplomatic appearances is denying our partners key deterrent capabilities.”

Democrats pile on the criticism

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and three other Democratic senators held a press conference to warn against the U.S. weakening export controls for advanced semiconductor chips and equipment. They're concerned that such exports could erase the U.S.'s lead in artificial intelligence over China.

They touched on voter concerns about the safety of artificial intelligence and contrasted Democrats’ call for greater regulation with the president’s call to “encourage it, not rein it in.”

“We must reject the false choice Trump keeps making,” Schumer told reporters. “We can and must both maintain our lead on AI by restricting China’s access to our technology and put up guardrails to mitigate AI’s risk."

Meanwhile, on the Senate floor, Democratic senators urged Trump to confront Xi directly about the support his country is providing Iran.

“If we want to bring this war to an end, we need to cut off the outside support that allows Iran to keep fighting, and that starts with China,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democratic lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Mayor Edmund Malkoon told Local 10 News why he thinks voters should keep him in his current role, emphasizing his stewardship of town funds.

“I believe the last two years have shown a steady progress in our government. We’ve remained fiscally responsible. We’ve increased our investments for the town,” said Malkoon. “We are making sure that we are scrutinizing every expenditure, making sure that every dollar is spent wisely. We can ensure that we are moving forward with infrastructure and resiliency. Those are the items that really matter and keeping our town unique.”

Running against him is LBTS Vice Mayor Randy Strauss.

“First of all, we’re going to keep what works, fix what doesn’t,” he said. “We’re going to remain local, and that’s the key to the reason I am running.”

Strauss stressed the importance of keeping the notably charming beach town out of the national spotlight.

“We are going to take us back into direction or course that we were going in just a couple of years ago and maintaining our local identity, keeping our town and our town culture is priority to the reason I’m running,” he said.

Both candidates agree the preservation of the elements that make Lauderdale-by-the-Sea so special is a top priority.

“I know that generations have fought to protect what makes this community unique, and that is being a low-rise human scale town on the ocean, something old Florida, if you will,” said Malkoon. “I want to continue to preserve that.”

Said Strauss: “Our height limits are sacrosanct to our town and our people that live here. It allows us to have this small-town feel, our small-town culture. It enables us to have the walkability around town and still feel the sun in your face and the wind in your hair while you’re walking.”

Jurors heard two weeks of evidence and must now decide whether Facebook violated the state's Unfair Practices Act and if so, how many times. It would then be up to the judge to determine how much the company would pay per violation.

New Mexico is the only state that has taken the data breach claims to trial as part of its go-it-alone approach to press for more accountability from Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Earlier this year 48 states reached a landmark settlement with Meta that addressed child safety concerns and privacy issues surrounding the same data breach.

New Mexico is seeking the maximum civil penalties, up to $5,000 per violation, and an injunction to halt future breaches of user data.

The case centers on accusations that Facebook failed to protect users from a third-party personality quiz that harvested data from roughly 87 million profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, to generate targeted ads. The now-defunct firm’s clients included the 2016 campaign for Donald Trump.

“We became the product for Facebook. They turned our dreams into data they could sell to advertisers,” said Randi McGinn, an attorney for the state.

Attorneys for the social media company disputed that claim, telling jurors the platform does not sell user information.

A majority of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising, and McGinn argued that the company was incentivized to provide targeted advertising opportunities. She said there was limited enforcement if third-party apps harvested users’ personal information and the company did not investigate whether those apps were owned by foreign countries or organizations.

Dane Butswinkas, one of Facebook's lawyers, said the platform investigated suspicious third-party apps following the breach. He told jurors the company has improved safeguards and privacy policies significantly in the last five years, since the lawsuit was filed.

Butswinkas said Facebook’s revenue and product development teams were kept separate and that despite having five years to investigate the platform's privacy practices, the state identified only two data breaches.

“How many other Cambridge Analyticas have you heard about in the case? The answer is one,” he said.

Butswinkas also said evidence shows that Facebook protects users from 99% of content that violates its standards and it is in the platform's best interest to ensure that violent or hateful content is taken down.

The trial included a video deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who answered questions about a list of thousands of accounts that required additional checks before any of their content was removed from Facebook or Instagram.

The prosecution pressed Zuckerberg about an email in which he requested that employees add podcaster Joe Rogan’s accounts to the list.

“It’s not treating people differently to say we have a policy that’s about broad misinformation and not parsing political speech,” Zuckerberg said during the deposition.

Prosecutors said the list created a fact-checking backlog, allowing viral content to be seen by millions of users before being taken down.

Zuckerberg said the company needed to be careful about removing sensitive content and monitoring content is a challenging problem.

The state estimates that about 350,000 residents were exposed to the Cambridge Analytica breach, but McGinn asked jurors to consider that Facebook deceived all New Mexicans when making statements regarding privacy and violent content. Prosecutors estimated there were more than 1.3 million users in the state at the time of the breach.

If jurors agree, the company could potentially be forced to pay billions of dollars.

Meta agreed in August to pay up to $18 billion to settle the multistate suit surrounding child safety issues. Buried in the 130-page settlement was an agreement to release Meta from future liability related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, making New Mexico the only state to pursue a case. Florida was the only other state that did not sign the settlement, saying it was not tough enough on Meta.

Also this year, New Mexico won judgments totaling $942 million from Meta in a two-phase trial about the company’s safety protections for minors. Furthermore the court ordered Meta to implement new safeguards, including age-verification technology and time limits on its platforms.

The judgments are on hold pending an appeal.

___

Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed. ___

Schuettler 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.