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Aura Jean Rosello, the lead crime scene detective in the investigation, walked jurors through photographs and evidence collected after Gladys Machado, 29, and her daughters, 6-year-old Julia Padrino and 3-year-old Daniella Padrino, were found dead in a master bedroom closet on Nov. 13, 2012.

Rosello described documenting injuries on Machado’s body, including injuries to her foot and arm.

Jurors also saw blood stains on Gladys’ shirt, bra and leggings that crime scene technicians collected from the master bedroom.

During opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors said Sierra confessed to taking his clothes off with a knife.

Prosecutors also showed jurors photographs depicting the condition of the bodies after they had been left in the closet.

Prosecutors also showed jurors photographs depicting the condition of the bodies after they had been left in the closet.

When asked whether she was familiar with a particular character depicted on one of the evidence items, a bedsheet, Rosello answered, “Yes, Dora the Explorer.”

The testimony then turned to Machado’s face.

“Are you prepared to tell this jury what appears to be on her face?” a prosecutor asked.

“Ants,” Rosello replied.

Prosecutors have alleged that Alberto Sierra carved into Machado’s face with a knife so she would never be beautiful for another man.

Rosello also testified about Machado’s injuries and the restraints used on her.

“The injuries to the victim’s right hand and also the rag that was wrapped around” were among the evidence she described as jurors examined photographs showing that Machado’s arms had been tied behind her back.

“What is that on her?” a prosecutor asked.

“Alberto Sierra tattooed on her (left) shoulder blade,” said Rosello.

Sierra, 42, pleaded guilty in August to three counts of murder and three counts of kidnapping in the 2012 killings of Machado and her daughters.

Prosecutors say Sierra suffocated all three victims with yellow plastic Sedano’s shopping bags. They also allege that he sexually assaulted Machado and Julia after their deaths.

The jury is now weighing whether Sierra should receive a life sentence or the death penalty.

During opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors described the killings as “heinous, atrocious and cruel.”

The defense acknowledged the “horrific” nature of the evidence while asking jurors to consider Sierra’s background and the effects of a traumatic childhood brain injury on his personality and executive functioning.

Defense attorneys have said Sierra suffered a severe head injury in a childhood car accident that affected his cognitive functioning and personality.

The penalty phase is expected to continue with additional testimony and evidence before jurors make a recommendation on the sentence.

In a post on X Wednesday afternoon, incumbent U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who was appointed to the role by Gov. Ron DeSantis, said in part, “We must keep Florida out of the hands of a socialist.”

She added that she is the clear choice on Nov. 3.

“You’re going to have one side that I’m up against that wants to — and the platform says — defund the police, don’t fund our military, open up our border, noncitizen voting,” Moody said at a campaign rally. “I can go on and on.”

Moody’s challenger, State Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, made a stop in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Miramar early Wednesday morning.

“She can say whatever she wants to say, but (on) Nov. 3, she’ll be calling me ‘senator,’” Nixon said. “I am someone who has been working in this community for the past nearly two decades across the state of Florida, advocating to ensure people have a good, decent quality of life.”

Local 10 News spoke with Nixon about her final push and how she is essentially tied with Moody in the Senate race, according to a St. Pete Polls survey.

“We’re tied in the polls, and that’s because we are out here doing the work,” Nixon said. “Ashley Moody won’t come speak with people. She won’t even debate me because she’s scared, because she’d have to speak to her record, which has been an epic failure. Ashley Moody does not have in-person town hall meetings.”

Nixon might even get a monetary push from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed her right after she won the primary last month.

“We are working things out,” Nixon said. “There are a lot of people who are frustrated all across the country that coming down and really want to support unseating Ashley Moody.”

Nixon says has accepted every single debate and she’s going to be calling for another debate in the next few weeks, asking for Moody to come and talk about her record.

A cellphone video captured the moments a BSO K-9 bit Friscot Jerome on the ankle as deputies shouted commands for him to get on his stomach.

One witness, who asked not to be identified, said Jerome approached him near northwest 12th Court and Second Avenue and asked if he wanted to buy a toolbox. The witness said he told Jerome he had no money, and that was when BSO deputies arrived.

“He was confused. He didn’t know what was going on,” the witness said.

Jerome’s aunt, Sheila Burke, said her nephew suffers from mental health issues and has not been the same since his mother suffered a massive stroke.

“He is down on the ground, you’re sicking dogs on him, you punching him,” Burke said. “I just had to stop watching it because that hurt me to my heart.”

According to an arrest form, deputies responded after a resident called 911 and allegedly found Jerome with his toolbox. The document says Jerome then threatened the resident with a box cutter.

Burke said that, regardless of what Jerome was accused of, the response was uncalled for.

BSO said in a statement that when K-9s are used to apprehend suspects, the suspect receives medical treatment, while the use of force is reported to supervisors and documented for administrative review.

Jerome faces charges including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed burglary and resisting arrest.

“Se le aplicará la medida administrativa de expulsión del país por atentar contra la seguridad nacional”, aseguró el conservador De la Espriella en la red social X. “Nuestra patria no puede ser escenario de injerencias extranjeras ni de actividades que amenacen su seguridad”, agregó.

Migración Colombia no se pronunció de inmediato y dijo a The Associated Press que informará sobre el caso próximamente.

El mandatario aseguró que informes de inteligencia relacionaron a Sergei Vagin, de 40 años, con presuntas actividades de espionaje, contactos con la guerrilla Ejército de Liberación Nacional y “actos vandálicos” durante las manifestaciones contra el gobierno en 2021.

El “paro nacional” de 2021 se convirtió en el ciclo de protestas antigubernamentales más grande de la historia reciente en el país. Nació por el descontento de una reforma fiscal que se impulsaba desde el gobierno y derivó en el reclamo por la desigualdad existente en el país. Decenas de personas perdieron la vida y se registraron daños en la infraestructura de las ciudades.

Vagin también enfrenta un proceso judicial en Colombia por presuntamente formar parte de una estructura dedicada a mover dinero entre Rusia y Colombia. De la Espriella indicó que se trató de un presunto fraude a plataformas de apuestas que movió alrededor de 1.600 millones de pesos (aproximadamente 478.300 dólares).

The high gas prices took center stage in Ohio on Wednesday, as lawmakers passed a 90-day state gas tax holiday with broad bipartisan support. Ohio is among at least one-fifth of states that have implemented some form of fuel tax relief, with many taking action within the past week, according to an Associated Press review.

Some states have suspended their fuel taxes. Others have temporarily reduced taxes. And still more have targeted relief only to farmers, loggers and others who use a special type of diesel fuel.

The average price of regular gasoline stood at $4.43 a gallon on Wednesday, up roughly 50% since the war with Iran began, according to the AAA motor club. The average price of diesel was $6.41 a gallon — just a few cents shy of a record high set last week.

Here's what to know about states’ actions on fuel taxes:

Ohio governor's race at center of fuel tax action

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's office said he plans to sign legislation that will suspend the 38.5-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and 47-cent-per-gallon diesel tax through the remainder of this year. The plan taps $725 million from the state's general fund to pay for roads and bridges typically funded by fuel taxes.

Republican legislative leaders scrambled to recall lawmakers to the Statehouse after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton called for a gas tax holiday last week and rival Republican Vivek Ramaswamy announced a plan to do the same a few hours later. The two are locked in a closely fought contest to succeed DeWine, a term-limited Republican. Democrats criticized Ramaswamy for taking credit for Acton's idea, while Ramaswamy's allies said his plan had substance and Acton's consisted of “tweets.”

Ramaswamy's running mate, Rob McColley, is the Ohio Senate president. On Wednesday, McColley used a technical maneuver to quickly close debate on the measure, suggesting Democrats were preparing for nothing more than “theatrics.” Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio said one proposal would have called for an end to the Iran war.

Republican state Sen. Michele Reynolds, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it "will provide much-needed relief to Ohioans at a time when they are feeling the pressure of gas prices continuing to rise.”

In the House, Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo, a candidate for secretary of state, accused Republicans of an election-year “stunt” that will save Ohioans an average of $55 over the next three months.

Several states have already halted or reduced gas taxes

In March, Georgia became the first state to suspend its fuel taxes after the war in the Middle East sent prices spiraling. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp extended the tax break into June. More recently, he announced a 30-day resumption of the motor fuel tax holiday, which began Tuesday.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, has extended a fuel tax exemption multiple times since spring, with the current version running through Oct. 5.

A six-month, 6-cent reduction in Utah's fuel tax is in effect through the end of this year. Illinois and Kentucky have more modest fuel tax breaks in effect, delaying increases that were due to take effect in July.

Some states have relaxed diesel fuel regulations

In the past week, Republican governors in Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska and Texas all have taken steps to provide fuel tax relief for the agricultural industry amid the harvest season.

The executive orders target dyed diesel fuel, which is exempt from state taxes but normally can be used only for off-road machinery like tractors, logging equipment and irrigation pumps. The orders temporarily waive enforcement of those rules, allowing the tax-exempt diesel fuel to be used in vehicles driven on highways.

Governors noted that reduced costs for transporting crops could affect grocery prices.

California ends restrictions on cheaper fuel blends

The Environmental Protection Agency allowed an annual switch to cheaper, winter-blended fuels beginning Sept. 1, a couple of weeks earlier than normal. The change could save up to 15 cents a gallon, according to data from the National Association of Convenience Stores.

But California sets its own stricter environmental fuel standards. In many parts of the state, summer-blended fuel is required through Oct. 31. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ended the summer fuel requirement Monday, citing a recent state law that requires a reevaluation of regulations when retail gas prices rise substantially.

Fuel tax changes may have a delayed effect for consumers

State actions intended to provide relief from high fuel prices don't always have the effect some consumers expect. That's partly because fuel price volatility could cause costs to rise even as tax rates fall. But that's also because taxes typically are charged at the wholesale level, not at the retail pump.

“Customers expect the day that a gas tax holiday takes effect that the price at every pump will be reduced by that amount. But it’s way more complicated than that,” said Jeff Lenard, a spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores.

“The costs and the changes happen further upstream," he said. "The retailer may also have product that has already been paid for with taxes that needs to be sold before you can acquire the new fuel that is not taxed and you can lower the price.”

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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

The Phillies rallied with back-to-back homers from Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper after trailing 3-1 in the seventh. Harper's homer made up for a crucial fielding mistake an inning earlier.

Andrew Painter (1-0), a starter in the regular season, saved the Phillies’ beleaguered bullpen with three scoreless innings to close things out. Painter stranded two runners in the 10th when he struck out Dominic Smith with a successful ABS challenge.

Playing under traditional extra-inning rules that don't include designated runners at second base like in the regular season, Bohm delivered his third career postseason home run, a 357-foot shot to right field off right-hander Didier Fuentes (0-1).

The Phillies will try to continue their postseason dominance over the Braves in Thursday's Game 3. Philadelphia beat Atlanta in the 1993 NLCS and the 2022 and 2023 NLDS.

In the seventh, Drake Baldwin's double glanced off Harper's glove in right field, driving in Sean Murphy to give Atlanta a 2-1 lead. Harper, who resumed playing the outfield late this season for the first time since 2022, got a poor jump and was leaping for the ball near the warning track. He was not charged with an error. Matt Olson added a sacrifice fly.

“Probably should have been caught, obviously,” Harper said.

The Phillies pulled even with eighth-inning home runs by Schwarber and Harper off Dylan Lee, the winning pitcher in the Braves’ 5-3 opening win on Tuesday. Schwarber’s drive carried 447 feet and Harper followed with a 418-foot drive.

Tyler Mahle allowed one run on six hits in seven innings for Atlanta. Cristopher Sánchez allowed three runs in 6 2/3 innings for Philadelphia while throwing a career-high 116 pitches.

Painter gave up a one-out single to Mauricio Dubón in the 10th, then struck out Austin Riley before giving up a bloop single to Michael Harris II. Painter's 0-2 fastball to Smith was called inside by plate umpire Adam Beck, but Painter and catcher J.T. Realmuto immediately called for a robo-ump challenge. ABS confirmed the ball clipped the strike zone, the first time a postseason game has ended with a strike-zone appeal.

Harper, a first baseman before moving to the outfield at the trade deadline, was playing shallow and was late to adjust to Baldwin’s drive with runners on first and second. Harper reached up only to have the ball bounce off his glove for a double.

Ronald Acuña Jr. walked, stole second and then stole third with Edmundo Sosa not covering the bag before scoring on Olson’s single in the first.

Sánchez didn’t allow another hit until Sean Murphy doubled to center field with one out in the fifth.

Mahle kept pace, though he didn’t have a perfect inning until the fifth, when he struck out Schwarber and Harper. Sánchez issued an intentional walk to Acuña with two outs before Baldwin’s grounder to second base ended the inning.

Sosa leaves with injury

Sosa left the game after reaching on an infield single to open the ninth. Sosa appeared to aggravate a leg injury and was replaced by pinch-runner Derek Hill.

Up next

Braves RHP Grant Holmes (10-6, 3.44) is expected to either start or pitch in bulk relief in Game 3 on Thursday against Phillies RHP Aaron Nola (7-12, 4.67).

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

The transcript, which has not been publicly released, raises new questions surrounding the local district attorney's decision not to prosecute anyone at the time.

In recent days, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has maintained the woman's first account to police didn't include allegations that she was drugged, incapacitated beyond the ability to consent, or forced into sex. Yet, he also said he had reopened the investigation based on new information in the woman's lawsuit, which was filed this month.

The woman initially went to Cornell's campus police about three weeks after the alleged attack that began on Oct. 19, 2024, then went back on Nov. 14 and 15, 2024, to be interviewed.

“Yes. It was coercion, yes,” she told a campus police officer, according to the transcript. According to CBS News, she said she was “completely and totally incapacitated” before some of the sexual abuse.

The woman acknowledged she had been drinking alcohol and used drugs the night she visited the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024, and that she had gaps in her memory.

She also told police she was comfortable with an initial sexual encounter with two of the men, but not with what happened later in the night, when other men began to enter the room.

“And then, of course, I was being hit at the same time. Physically hit very, very hard," she told police, according to the transcript. “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped," she told investigators.

The woman, identified only by the pseudonym Jane Doe in the lawsuit, filed a complaint Sept. 16 saying she was sexually assaulted at the Chi Phi fraternity house after being pressured into snorting ketamine, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. She became completely incapacitated while fraternity members were sexually assaulting her, she said.

The district attorney, Van Houten, didn't immediately respond to emails and phone messages from The Associated Press on Wednesday, but he told CBS News he never saw the transcript of the woman's interview when his office declined to bring charges, and relied instead on a statement written by a campus police officer but signed by the accuser.

Van Houten has released a summary of that statement, with some of her direct quotes included. He has defended his office’s decision not to do additional investigation after the woman first came forward in 2024.

“There were no question marks. There was no additional need to find information because we had all of the information that the police collected from Jane Doe through her very detailed, very comprehensive statement that she provided,” Van Houten told CNN earlier this week.

Cornell University first publicly disclosed that it was investigating the woman's allegations on Nov. 8, 2024, the same day she first went to police. The school sent students an email alert warning them that a person had reported they had been sexually assaulted at a fraternity house and coerced into consuming drugs. Cornell suspended the Chi Phi fraternity the same day.

In another public statement to students in late November 2024, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff said campus police were investigating “deeply disturbing allegations of drug abuse and sexual violence” at the fraternity house.

Later, Cornell appointed a task force designed to address sexual assault on campus. But with the district attorney's decision not to pursue charges and the university's internal disciplinary investigation being shielded from the public, attention on the matter waned.

Cornell said in a statement this week that it supported the decision to reopen the criminal investigation, adding that its own investigation had led to some students being disciplined or expelled. The Chi Phi chapter remains barred from campus, but the university has declined to release more information on discipline for individual students, citing privacy rules.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the cases are part of hundreds of voter fraud investigations underway across the country.

“These cases are complex to investigate,” Blanche said.

The Justice Department said the 10 defendants are foreign nationals who are living legally in the United States. Prosecutors allege they lied about their citizenship status to vote or register to vote in elections dating back to the 2022 midterms.

“There are hundreds of investigations that are ongoing across the country,” Blanche said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud occurs in U.S. elections. This summer, Trump claimed that more than a quarter-million noncitizens were found on voter rolls in four states.

Since Trump returned to the White House last year, federal investigations have resulted in fewer than 100 people being charged with voter-related fraud offenses, according to the Justice Department. About 50 of those defendants are noncitizens.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the administration is investigating whether states failed to act on potential cases of illegal voting.

“We believe that some of these states maybe even knew about it and chose not to look into it, well, we are,” Mullin said.

The latest charges come as Republicans fight to maintain control of Congress in the November midterm elections.

Officials in Democratic-led states have pushed back against the administration’s efforts to examine voter rolls, accusing Trump of casting doubt on election systems.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) criticized the administration’s approach.

“It’s more of an issue of DHS saying ‘we want to have people feel uncertain about a system that actually works,” Evers said.

The administration is also planning a major deployment of Justice Department personnel to polling places on Election Day.

The DOJ is expected to dispatch more than 1,000 election monitors across the country. Federal election observers are not new and are generally deployed to monitor compliance with federal election laws.

The planned deployment would represent a significant increase from the 2022 midterm elections, when fewer Justice Department officials were sent to polling locations.

Since the arrival of Caitlin Clark three years ago, everything that happens on and off the court involving Indiana gets magnified and scrutinized by fans, the media and even members of Congress. Clark is an exceptional player and the Fever are a good team, but a lot of the conversations are not about points, assists or wins.

The latest incident involved A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces, who confronted a fan and shouted at him during her team's loss at Indiana in Game 2 of the teams' first-round playoff series. It happened only hours after Clark's name came up in a contentious congressional hearing in which former Donald Trump prosecutor Jack Smith was pressed by Republican senators about a basketball game he attended in 2024,

“There’s an infatuation with our team, and there’s an infatuation with some of our players, and there’s a lot of negativity that surrounds anything that’s different from what the fandom wants to see,” Indiana coach Stephanie White recently told ESPN. “And that is challenging as a coach to navigate.

“I think the vortex of everything that we deal with, with our team and our franchise, is definitely challenging,” White added. “It’s hard to escape it.”

Next up for her team is Thursday night's winner-take-all playoff game against the defending WNBA champion Aces. For Clark, it's the biggest basketball stage she's had in the U.S. since she her Iowa team lost to Angel Reese and LSU in the title game of the 2023 women's NCAA Tournament.

The Fever have drawn a series of off-the-court headlines

Indiana seems to consistently draw headlines for things that have nothing to do with the final score of a game.

— Aug. 6: Fans in Indiana also became a subplot at a Fever-Aces game. Jackie Young, a Las Vegas player who grew up in Indiana and played in college at Notre Dame, pointed out a fan courtside to security and two men were escorted to the back before being allowed to stay in the arena.

— Aug. 8: DiJonai Carrington was ejected after a hard foul on Sophie Cunningham, and Carrington ignited a firestorm after the foul with a social media post directed at the Fever in which she declared “WHITE PRIVILEGE.” White, who used to coach Carrington in Connecticut, initially downplayed the severity of the foul by her former player and was later booed by Fever fans. Indiana players defended their coach, calling the booing uncalled for.

— July: Cunningham said in an ESPN article that she was opposed to transgender girls and women competing in girls’ and women’s sports. That sparked a series of rallies at WNBA arenas.

— June 24: Alyssa Thomas hit Clark in the throat during a game between Phoenix and Indiana that resulted in a one-game suspension for the Mercury star. That play eventually led to a group of 11 Republican lawmakers sending a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert demanding the league take “accountability” for multiple attacks on Clark. The Fever said they had nothing to do with the letter being sent.

Clark's competitive edge

Clark is always at the top of the scouting report of opposing teams for her ability to impact a game. Teams devise schemes to limit her impact, which includes trying to restrict her movement.

That has led to created passionate debates about whether at times the physicality has crossed the line. Clark also tries to draw attention to it with demonstrative actions to get the attention of the referees.

Her actions are well-intentioned and all about winning, but emotions can run high on the court and in the stands during competition.

“Yeah, I think that’s just being a competitor, and like, that’s what’s fun. That’s what I love about it,” Clark said earlier this year when asked about her on-court celebrations. “I think that’s what gets the crowd into it too and gets my teammates hyped up. And I think there’s times I can probably find a little bit better of a balance because, like, doing all that is a little bit exhausting, too.

“I just love the game. I love being out there, and I love those moments and getting the crowd hype. And, you know, I think that just brings out the best in both teams.”

Fever and Clark spark record ratings

Clark has brought more viewers and fans to the WNBA. Her play on the court has been spectacular at times as she puts up numbers at a record pace. She stands out for her logo 3-pointers shots and pinpoint passes for assists.

She is a fierce competitor, and when she is on her game she lets fans and opponents know she feels impossible to guard — not unlike Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Diana Taurasi or Reggie Miller.

Let by Clark, the Fever have helped boost the WNBA to record ratings and attendance over the past three seasons. The first-round playoff opener against the Aces drew an average of 2.1 million viewers on ABC on Sunday, peaking at 2.6 million. That was the biggest audience ever for a WNBA playoff game on ABC and third most watched ever on an ESPN network — and the game went up against the NFL.

Prior to Clark’s arrival, the Fever were averaging just over 4,000 fans a game. This past season they were drawing over four times that, on average. Indiana has been the top road team in attendance all three years Clark has been in the league.

Clark is no stranger to drawing strong ratings. Her Iowa team played in the two highest-rated games in women's college basketball history during the Final Four in her senior year. The Hawkeyes' NCAA title game loss to South Carolina in 2024 drew an average of 18.7 million fans — outdrawing the men’s championship contest a day later.

The top five most watched WNBA games on the ESPN networks this year all involved the Fever.

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See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is linking his party even closer to the president, as Trump hits the trail to rally voters as Republicans try to boost what has been sluggish enthusiasm. Despite the prevalence of toss-up Senate races across the map, he said he remained confident Republicans can keep or even expand their Senate majority.

“Cash is king," Scott told reporters.

"President Trump and his agenda are on the ballot,” he said. “Knowing that they are going to invest completely in these races is incredibly helpful."

Republicans have watched their control of Congress come under increasing risk this November as voters reel from high gas and grocery prices largely stemming from the Iran war.

While the House, with its narrow majority of a few seats, has always been up for grabs, the Senate map is now expanding as once safe Republican-held strongholds are being contested.

Scott acknowledged that in Kansas, where newcomer Adam Hamilton is challenging GOP Sen. Roger Marshall, the race is closer than expected. He also said Republicans have “more work to do” if they hope to flip Georgia, where Republican Mike Collins is struggling to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

But Scott said that during a private meeting Monday evening with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, she assured GOP senators they would have the resources needed heading into the final stretch of the election. "She said money would not be our problem,” he said.

MAGA Inc. and affiliated groups have already poured hundreds of millions in the race for the Senate, giving the GOP a cash advantage over Democrats.

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The university said $2 billion of Griffin’s gift will support the launch of Carnegie Mellon University Miami, a new campus planned for more than 35 acres in Wynwood.

Construction is slated to begin in 2027, with the first students expected to enroll in 2028, pending regulatory approvals.

Griffin bought the land for $1.1 billion from Moishe Mana.

Mana describes selling the land as a passing of the torch, but continuing the same mission.

A $3 billion bet on Florida.@CarnegieMellon and Ken Griffin just chose Miami for a new research university built around problems that matter: human health, national security, energy, and advanced manufacturing.@EducationFL is a partner in that effort. Great campuses don’t… https://t.co/xYNpDLef8h

— Henry Mack (@HenmackIII) September 30, 2026

He also calls it the largest land assemblage deal in Florida history.

Once completed, CMU said the Miami campus will support more than 3,500 undergraduate, master’s and PhD students, nearly 300 faculty members and more than 600 staff members.

“Wynwood’s reputation as the place to be is further strengthened by the addition of CMU’s Miami campus,” Miami Commissioner Christine King, who represents District 5, said in a statement to Local 10 News. “This marks the next chapter in Wynwood’s evolution and a significant moment for our Miami community. The institution will create new opportunities for partnerships, jobs, education, and economic growth. Wynwood has always been a place where creativity and new ideas thrive. CMU’s arrival ensures this spirit will endure for generations to come.”

The remaining $1 billion of Griffin’s gift will support Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus. Half will provide flexible support for the university’s highest priorities, while $500 million will be invested in its School of Computer Science, which will be renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science.

According to CMU, the $3 billion contribution is the largest gift ever made by an individual in the history of higher education and is also Griffin’s largest-ever gift.

A new campus in Wynwood

CMU said its Miami campus will be designed differently from a traditional university, organizing education and research around major societal challenges rather than academic majors.

At launch, the university plans to focus on areas including human health and biological discovery, national security and strategic capabilities, energy and climate resilience, and advanced manufacturing and industrial transformation.

Interdisciplinary teams of students, researchers, industry leaders and government partners will work together on those challenges, according to the university. Humanities, arts and design will also be incorporated into the campus’ approach.

CMU said the Miami location will be developed as a comprehensive university campus where both education and research are central to its mission, rather than simply extending individual programs or research projects from its Pittsburgh campus.

Plans for the more than 35-acre Wynwood campus include space for industry research laboratories and venture studios, allowing students, faculty, industry and community partners to work alongside one another.

“We are deeply grateful to Ken Griffin for his extraordinary vision, partnership and belief in what Carnegie Mellon can achieve,” CMU President Farnam Jahanian said.

Jahanian said technological changes, including advances in artificial intelligence, require universities to rethink how students are educated, research is conducted and partnerships are formed.

“Together, we have an opportunity to extend the very qualities that have long distinguished Carnegie Mellon — our agility, creativity, interdisciplinary culture and relentless focus on impact — to build a new model for higher education that meets the urgency of this moment,” Jahanian said.

Griffin: Miami campus is a ‘generational opportunity’

Griffin said bringing Carnegie Mellon to Miami will place the city “at the heart of humanistic and scientific advancement” while expanding the university’s international reach.

“CMU Miami represents a generational opportunity to build a new center of research and intellectual life — one that will attract exceptional students, scholars, and researchers from across the globe and rank among the world’s most important academic institutions,” Griffin said.

He said the campus will also work to cultivate talent and knowledge that can launch new enterprises, contribute to Miami’s economy and community, and advance the country’s prosperity.

Griffin will also join Carnegie Mellon’s Board of Trustees.

Jahanian said the university intends to work with the Miami community as the project moves forward.

“Every great Carnegie Mellon story begins with partnership,” Jahanian said. “Our relationship with Pittsburgh has shaped CMU for more than a century, and we believe the connections we build in Miami will enrich both cities. We look forward to listening, learning and working alongside our neighbors to create new opportunities for collaboration, innovation and shared prosperity.”

Se prevé que Rachel, el nuevo huracán, se intensifique rápidamente y pueda alcanzar una gran magnitud, con vientos sostenidos que superarían los 178 km/h (111 mph). Sin embargo, la tormenta se encontraba a cientos de kilómetros (millas) mar adentro y no representaba ninguna amenaza para tierra.

En tanto, distintas partes de Nuevo México lucían cada vez menos como en los meses de sequía que vaciaron los embalses y provocaron que varios osos hambrientos deambularan por vecindarios en busca de comida.

“Hay mucha agua estancada en los campos y cerca de algunas viviendas”, afirmó Greg Lundeen, meteorólogo del Servicio Meteorológico Nacional refiriéndose a una zona donde el agua desbordó una pequeña presa.

El río Bravo, conocido en Estados Unidos como río Grande, que se había secado a lo largo de un extenso tramo del estado, ahora se desbordaba.

El patrón húmedo y tormentoso es coherente con un año de El Niño, con actividad de tormentas del Pacífico por encima del promedio.

El clima húmedo avanza lentamente hacia el este

Desde Colorado y a través de las Grandes Llanuras hasta Iowa, cayeron hasta 5 centímetros (2 pulgadas) de lluvia el martes, extendiéndose hasta el miércoles, y en algunas zonas se registraron cantidades aún mayores.

Se esperaban más tormentas en Texas y Oklahoma después de que una en Amarillo, Texas, inundó calles y generó un tornado la noche del martes. Los acumulados de tormenta en el área de Amarillo superaron las 3,5 pulgadas (9 centímetros).

El fenómeno meteorológico correspondía a los remanentes de sistemas tropicales, incluido el huracán Polo, un fenómeno de categoría 3 que tocó tierra durante la noche del lunes en la península de Baja California y luego más hacia el interior.

Los cuerpos de tres personas —dos niños de 3 y 15 años, y su madre— fueron hallados el domingo después de que la familia desapareció debido a la crecida de un río en la ciudad de Talpa de Allende, en el estado mexicano de Jalisco, antes de que Polo tocara tierra. El padre sigue desaparecido, según la agencia de Protección Civil del estado de Jalisco. También está desaparecido un turista debido al fuerte oleaje en Puerto Vallarta, pero la agencia afirma que ese caso tampoco está vinculado a Polo.

Rachel es el más reciente en una activa temporada de huracanes del Pacífico

Las autoridades mexicanas se mantienen en alerta en los estados de Michoacán, Colima y Jalisco debido al huracán Rachel.

En el estado de Jalisco, se cerraron escuelas el miércoles en 30 municipios como medida preventiva.

Rachel se ubicaba a unos 615 kilómetros (380 millas) al oeste de Lázaro Cárdenas, México, o a unos 350 kilómetros (220 millas) al suroeste de Cabo Corrientes, México. Sus vientos máximos sostenidos eran de alrededor de 140 km/h (85 mph), según un aviso del Centro Nacional de Huracanes, con sede en Miami.

El ciclón se desplazaba hacia el noroeste a 15 km/h (9 mph) y se pronosticaba que giraría hacia el oeste-noroeste y el oeste en los siguientes días de la semana, alejándose del territorio continental de México y pasando al sur de la península de Baja California.

El centro de huracanes indicó que el gobierno mexicano había suspendido todas las vigilancias y advertencias costeras. Pero advirtió sobre posibles acumulados aislados de lluvia de hasta 30 centímetros (12 pulgadas) y fuerte oleaje a lo largo de las costas de los estados de Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima y Jalisco.

Los vientos con fuerza de huracán se extendían hasta 35 kilómetros (25 millas) desde el centro de Rachel, y los vientos con fuerza de tormenta tropical se extendían hasta 260 kilómetros (160 millas).

En el océano Pacífico central, la tormenta tropical Nolo amenazaba con generar condiciones peligrosas para distintas partes del Monumento Nacional Marino Papahanaumokuakea, un área de conservación marina. La tormenta, que antes fue un huracán, provocó fuertes lluvias en varias partes de la Isla Grande de Hawái durante el fin de semana. Sus vientos máximos sostenidos se situaban cerca de (85 km/h (50 mph).

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Fabiola Sánchez en Ciudad de México y Julie Walker en Nueva York contribuyeron a este despacho con información.

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

It was an electric scene for fans at Truist Park — at least for those who decided to show up.

There has been a noticeable number of empty seats in Atlanta and Houston for day games during this week's Wild Card Series, with the Braves drawing 30,127 fans for Game 1 on Tuesday that started at 2 p.m. local time, well below the 41,108 capacity. The Astros announced that 34,011 fans attended Tuesday's 4 p.m. Game 1 at Daikin Park, also well below its 41,168-seat limit.

It's not the first time this has happened.

Since MLB permanently expanded the playoffs to a 12-team bracket in 2022, just six of 26 afternoon Wild Card Series games through Tuesday have reached or exceeded stadium capacity. Seven games failed to reach even 85% capacity. The Braves-Phillies game on Tuesday was 73.2% full, which is the lowest since the postseason expanded, according to research from Sportradar.

Game 2 of the Braves-Phillies series had an announced crowd of 37,150 on Wednesday.

The main issue for day games is obvious: It's hard for fans to attend day games during the week — particularly in late September and October — because people have to work and children are back in school. It doesn't help that those game times are announced with only a few days' notice.

Still, it's a less-than-ideal atmosphere for some of the most important contests of the year.

Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm shrugged off the smaller crowds before Wednesday's game, saying his team just wants to win games and advance.

“I don’t think anybody on our team is really focused on how many people are showing up here," Bohm said. "It’s just kind of -- I think, like you said, it’s a 2 o’clock game in the middle of the week, so I think that might have something to do with it.

“That doesn’t take away from what’s going on on the field and kind of the stakes of all that in our minds.”

All three ALWCS games in Cleveland last year between the Guardians and Detroit Tigers started at 1:08 p.m., and none drew more than 30,000 fans. The Tampa Bay Rays had just 19,704 for an ALWCS opener against Texas in 2023 that started at 3:08 p.m., the lowest attendance for a non-COVID MLB postseason game since the 1919 World Series.

MLB declined to comment on the attendance numbers, but the league spreads its wild-card games throughout the day on purpose so they have their own television window and capture the largest viewing audience possible. NBC is paying the league roughly $200 million per year to host “Sunday Night Baseball” and the Wild Card Series during a three-year deal agreed to last November.

The Astros fans who did attend Tuesday's game were in a bit of a foul mood, peppering the team with boos as they fell behind 5-0 by the fifth inning on the way to a 6-3 loss. Astros manager Joe Espada said he understood the fans' frustration but hoped for a better atmosphere on Wednesday.

“I do want our fans to know that we love them and we need them,” Espada said. “They’re part of what we are trying to accomplish here. They’re part of our family.”

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AP Sports Writers Charles Odum in Atlanta and Kristie Rieken in Houston contributed to this story.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

La presidenta del máximo organismo electoral, Roxana Soriano, informó que, además de presidente y vicepresidente, se elegirán a los 60 diputados de la Asamblea Legislativa, así como decenas de cargos municipales, en una contienda en la que están habilitados para sufragar 6,5 millones de salvadoreños, entre ellos 982.000 en el extranjero.

Las inscripciones de las candidaturas a presidente, vicepresidente y diputados se abren desde el jueves y se extenderán hasta el 19 de noviembre. De los diez partidos políticos convocados a participar en la contienda electoral, sólo cinco lo harán en la elección presidencial, según las autoridades electorales.

Bukele, un estrecho aliado del presidente estadounidense Donald Trump, buscará un tercer mandado después de que en julio de 2025 el Congreso, controlado por el partido oficialista Nuevas Ideas, ratificó las reformas a la Constitución para permitir la reelección presidencial indefinida y extender el mandato de cinco a seis años.

La reforma eliminó la segunda vuelta electoral, por lo que el candidato que obtenga el mayor número de votos se adjudicará la contienda, y estableció, además, una disposición transitoria para que el período presidencial más reciente de Bukele, el cual inició el 1 de junio de 2024 e iba a concluir el 1 de junio de 2029, finalice “anticipadamente” el 1 de junio de 2027, con el propósito de unificar las elecciones presidenciales, legislativas y municipales.

Nuevas Ideas ratificó en julio la candidatura de Bukele para los comicios del próximo año.

Bukele, quien ha impulsado en su gestión la guerra contra las pandillas, fue reelecto por primera vez en febrero de 2024 con el 84,65 % de los votos válidos luego de una resolución de la Sala de lo Constitucional de septiembre de 2021 que habilitó la reelección presidencial por una sola vez.

Marie-Célestin Karondwa, a local official with Congo’s ruling Union for Democracy and Social Progress party, was attacked Sunday at his home in Butembo, an Ebola hotspot in the eastern North Kivu province, after defending the government’s response efforts during a radio program, the party said.

“They beat him up and then set the house alight,” Sagesse Kavira, Karondwa’s granddaughter, told The Associated Press at his funeral on Wednesday. He later died from his injuries at a local hospital.

The killing follows a series of attacks on health workers and other responders as the Central African nation battles its 17th and deadliest Ebola outbreak, which has so far recorded over 8,000 cases including nearly 4,000 deaths.

Authorities this month launched a village-centered approach to fight the Ebola outbreak. But those efforts continue to face resistance from some residents who dismiss Ebola as a hoax amid a widespread distrust in the country’s government for various reasons, ranging from how it’s managed past Ebola outbreaks to chronic corruption.

Responders say skepticism about the disease has complicated efforts to work with residents, including in remote communities and emerging hot spots that already face shortages of medical supplies and healthcare workers.

The mistrust is particularly difficult to overcome in eastern Congo's rebel-controlled territories, where decades of conflict with rebels as well as human rights abuses have left many residents wary of outsiders and state authorities.

The local politician killed in Butembo had been using the radio show to call on the public to obey response measures, particularly social distancing and handwashing, Jean-Baptiste Katsongo Lwatswa, first federal vice-president of UDPS in Butembo, told the AP.

“That is believed to have provoked the anger of certain young people,” he said.

Enoch Muhindo Balimatangi, a resident of Butembo, said there's fear and mixed feelings about Ebola among locals. "Some say that the illness exists, while others refuse to accept that it does. That’s frightening!” he said.

A key challenge in slowing this particular outbreak is the absence of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus that is causing it. Clinical trials for those are currently ongoing in Ituri province, the epicenter.

In its latest situation report, the World Health Organization warned the disease remains serious and there are “persistent challenges in timely case detection and access to early and adequate patient care.”

WHO has also said the outbreak continues to outpace efforts to track and slow it, and is on track to exceed the deadliest on record, West Africa’s regional outbreak between 2014 and 2016, which killed 11,000 people.

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Brennan reported from Dakar, Senegal. Justin Kabumba in Goma, Congo, contributed.

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For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The 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.

In a Wednesday order, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ruled that the proposed consent decree was a “fair, reasonable, and good faith approach to address the competitive harms” alleged by the states' lawsuit. Paramount previously called the antitrust challenge the last hurdle ahead of closing its Warner merger, and signaled that it aims to close its Warner acquisition as soon as early October.

Shortly after Martínez-Olguín's ruling on Wednesday afternoon, the company announced that Ynon Kreiz — current chief executive at toy giant Mattel — will join Paramount on Oct. 5 and serve as co-CEO alongside David Ellison of the combined company.

A Paramount-Warner marriage will bring together two of Hollywood’s last five legacy studios. HBO Max, a library full of titles including “Harry Potter” and cable networks such as CNN will also find themselves under the same roof with CBS, the likes of the “Top Gun” franchise and the Paramount+ streaming service.

Top prosecutors from 12 states — led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta — sued in July with an initial goal of blocking the merger altogether. They alleged a Paramount-Warner combo would “extinguish competition” and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly movie theatergoers and cable customers.

Last week, the states agreed to settle these claims through new commitments from Paramount, including pledges to increase film production in the U.S. over the next five years, commit millions of dollars to a fund aimed at supporting workers displaced by the merger and establish new editorial monitoring of CNN and CBS.

When announcing the deal on Sept. 21, Bonta said the settlement was about “protecting people’s careers, the lives they’ve built here in California, the livelihoods their families rely on,” while maintaining it was not a vote of support for the merger.

Many critics of the tie-up, however, quickly decried the deal as capitulating to corporate pressure and said the proposed terms were too weak. Martínez-Olguín didn't greenlight the terms right away — maintaining at a hearing on Thursday that the court isn’t merely a “rubber stamp” on a settlement of this kind and that she, like many others, still had questions.

The judge granted outside critics of the settlement — including members of the Block The Merger coalition and the League of United Latin American Citizens — a brief window to share their opposition with the court through amicus briefs. She also instructed Paramount and the settling states to respond to a letter from Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, who called for a more thorough review of the deal.

By Wednesday's order, however, she concluded that the hopes for settlement terms to go further "do not rise to the level of legal violations upon which the Court can reject the parties’ negotiated resolution.”

The Block the Merger coalition on Wednesday maintained the settlement was a “toothless” deal.

“Allowing the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger to move forward with no meaningful structural remedies will cost jobs, mute creativity, weaken independent journalism, and damage our First Amendment rights,” Block the Merger said in a statement. But, the coalition added, “if there is one discernible benefit to the approval of this corporate takeover, it’s that people are now wide awake and paying attention –- and their anger is not going to fade away."

The Writers Guild of America, which had filed its own suit shortly after the states in July, also reached a settlement agreement with Paramount last week — concluding that it couldn’t continue its legal fight alone.

Deputies with the Broward Sheriff’s Office said Travis Holloway was found suffering from gunshot wounds after they received a report of a shooting at about 8:30 p.m. on May 21, 2022, in the 2800 block of Northwest Fourth Street.

Deputies said they provided first aid to Holloway before he was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

They said detectives with BSO’s Homicide Unit and Crime Scene Unit are investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting. No suspect has been identified at this time, according to authorities.

Investigators are asking anyone who may have information about the killing to call BSO Detective Kevin Nitsch at 954-321-4876 or submit information through the SaferWatch app.

Anonymous tips that lead to an arrest may qualify for a Broward Crime Stoppers reward of up to $5,000.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed the names of detainees with final removal orders from its Online Detainee Locator System on Sept. 15 in an apparent effort to speed up their deportations. The change, which ICE did not announce and has not explained, applies to more than 16,000 of the nearly 69,000 detainees who are in ICE custody.

The move has interfered with detainees' ability to challenge looming deportations by impeding access to their lawyers while devastating families who lost track of their loved ones, immigration lawyers say.

A coalition of more than 30 groups who advocate for noncitizens in the U.S. petitioned the U.N.’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to declare the policy a violation of international law and to push for its end.

“A system with no transparency is a system with no accountability, and that should terrify all of us,” said Sarah Decker, an attorney at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, one of the petition's signatories. “Disappearing people into a network of remote detention sites, hiding their whereabouts, and cutting off their access to outside help is the definition of an enforced disappearance."

Separately, on Wednesday, more than 45 House Democrats led by Reps. Luz Rivas and Veronica Escobar urged ICE to restore the names to the locator, calling the practice of concealing them “contrary to foundational principles of the American legal system.”

ICE's parent agency denied Wednesday that its practices amount to disappearing people, saying all detainees “have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”

“The appropriate process due to an illegal alien with final deportation orders is removal, plain and simple,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “That said, DHS has a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process under the U.S. Constitution.”

Detainees can typically call relatives if they have money in their commissary accounts, while calls to their legal representatives are supposed to be free.

Approximately 1.4 million people living in the U.S. are subject to final orders of removal. That typically means an immigration judge has ruled they should be deported and the decision has been upheld on appeal or not appealed. They still have several legal options to challenge their detention and deportation. Federal judges have ruled thousands of times that detainees should be released or granted bond hearings.

The petition to the U.N. said the policy has already “obstructed legal counsel from accessing their clients in detention, preventing interventions to seek immigration relief, challenge unconstitutional detention, and block unlawful deportations.”

It cited examples of several detainees, including a mother and 7-year-old daughter who were challenging their detention at a Texas facility but lost access to their lawyers as they faced deportation to Venezuela. Only after a judge ordered ICE to disclose their whereabouts did the agency do so, about 18 hours later, and release them from custody, the petition said.

One man reported intense stress and that the “darkest thoughts imaginable went through" his mind after the whereabouts of his elderly disabled mother were abruptly removed from the system, according to the petition.

The petition said ICE's online locator, launched in 2010, has become “an even more crucial tool” as President Donald Trump's administration has carried out a sweeping campaign to arrest and deport people who are in the country illegally. It noted that the U.N. working group had lobbied for the locator’s creation and its 2024 expansion to include people detained by the Border Patrol.

The petition asked the U.N. group to urge ICE to publicly list all detainees’ locations within an hour of their arrest and give detainees’ lawyers 24 hours’ notice before a transfer. The U.N. group, which was formed in 1980, helps families locate loved ones who have reportedly been subjected to enforced disappearance by government agents. It has five members and is currently chaired by Grazyna Baranowska of Poland.

The tournament, which featured eight teams in its inaugural edition, will include Inter Miami CF, Ajax, Inter Milan, Atlético de Madrid, Benfica, FC Barcelona, Palmeiras, Arsenal, Newell’s Old Boys, Flamengo, UE Cornellà, Manchester City, Boca Juniors, River Plate, Independiente del Valle and Chelsea.

Inter Miami CF will once again host the competition, with Inter Miami CF Stadium serving as the main venue.

“The Messi Cup was created so that the boys can enjoy a unique experience, both on and off the pitch, at a very important stage in their development, while also beginning to understand what it means to compete at the highest international level,” Lionel Messi said.

“We’re very happy to see the tournament continue to grow and to be able to bring together players from so many great clubs around the world so they can compete, share the experience and, above all, enjoy football,” he added.

“Growing from eight to sixteen clubs in our second year is an important milestone for the Messi Cup,” said Tim Pastore, CEO of 525 Rosario.

“Our goal is to earn a lasting place on the global youth football calendar and build a tournament that clubs value, young players aspire to compete in and fans around the world want to follow. That means continuing to raise the standard each year, both in the quality of the football and in how we deliver the tournament,” he added.

The tournament will be broadcast and streamed internationally across Disney+, ESPN+ and ESPN television channels, varying by territory.

The second edition is supported by Adidas, Novakid, Gatorade, Panini, Messi Fragrances, 433 and El Club de la Milanesa.

The competition schedule and further details will be announced at a later date.

In 2016, the island had only a pair of inbred wolves not having babies. So, between 2018 and 2019, Isle Royale National Park officials, with the help of researchers, brought 19 wolves onto the island in hopes of reestablishing the population.

A team of international researchers, including park officials, studied the transported wolves the first five years after their relocation to estimate their likelihood of survival and recently published the results in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.

They found the wolf population has a greater than 80% chance of lasting 20 years but will face complications from inbreeding and an island increasingly cut off from the mainland because of global warming.

Since the study period ended in 2023, the wolf population on the island has increased. A separate study on the island’s wolf and moose population led by Michigan Technological University researchers estimated that, as of last winter, 37 wolves lived there.

“The number of wolves that are currently on the island suggest that the population is doing OK,” said Sarah Hoy, one of the researchers who worked on the Michigan Tech study. “But I would say that issues with inbreeding and inbreeding depression are still an important concern for the population.”

To transport wolves in 2018 and 2019, researchers captured them in Minnesota, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and two Ontario locations — on the mainland and on Michipicoten Island, another island in Lake Superior.

They went out of their way to select nice-looking wolves — not too skinny, with both eyes, no lice or mange.

But a problem started early on that they didn’t expect: Two siblings became a couple. They were brought over from Michipicoten Island with their parents and four other siblings. That left 11 nonrelative wolves for them to potentially mate with.

“Given the availability of unrelated wolves, it is notable and unanticipated that these animals bonded shortly after translocation,” the study published in Conservation Science and Practice reads.

But perhaps it was the presence of the wolves they weren’t related to that brought the siblings closer together, researchers said: “For social animals, establishing new social bonds is stressful and familiarity likely reduces stress when acclimating to a new environment.”

The brother and sister couple went on to found one of three packs on the island and had at least 12 babies. At the conclusion of the study, researchers estimated the island had 27 wolves and believed all pups born during the experiment were related to the brother and sister couple, their siblings or their parents.

“We found that releasing socially bonded wolves facilitated pack formation; however, the numerical and social dominance of a family group may complicate the long-term genetic health of the population.”

Inbreeding is troubling, researchers said, because it likely contributed to the decline of the wolves on the island before new ones were introduced.

Wolves were thought to have arrived on Isle Royale in the 1940s by crossing an ice bridge from Canada. For decades, Isle Royale’s wolf population was relatively stable. Between 1960 and 2000, the island averaged 22 wolves at any given time.

Scientists think the ice bridge that would sometimes form in the colder months might have helped maintain some gene pool diversity on the 205-square-mile island — about 1.5 times the size of Detroit — as wolves could occasionally come over from the mainland and vice versa.

But throughout the 1900s, as the climate warmed, the likelihood that an ice bridge would form each year decreased. Eventually, so did the number of wolves on the island, down to the last pair in 2016.

It’s not entirely clear what happened to the wolf population prior to 2016. Disease was a known factor and the researchers think malnutrition and the adverse effects of long-term inbreeding, known as “inbreeding depression,” were also at play. Inbreeding — especially over time — can lead to smaller body size, weaker immune function, physical abnormalities and reduced fertility.

Since the reintroduction of the wolves on the island, the moose population has sharply declined, from around 2,000 in 2019 down to 524 this past winter, a reduction of about 75%, according to the Michigan Tech study. Plus, no moose calves were counted in the winter of 2026.

“While it’s great to see the wolf population doing well, it’s hard — although not unexpected — to see both the moose population and the forest struggling,” said Hoy, the Michigan Tech researcher, on the university’s website.

Hoy said the moose population is down as a result of the reintroduction of the wolves but also because moose were starving. When moose numbers were higher, between 2018 and 2021, they ate a lot of balsam fir tree saplings, a key food source for them in the winter. The balsam fir population has yet to bounce back.

While the moose population, a key food source for wolves, is going down, “visitor behavior has emerged as another important management concern,” said a statement from Mark Romanski, an Isle Royale National Park biologist who also worked on the wolf relocation study.

A press release sent from Isle Royale National Park in July said “a wolf has been spotted in the campground, sniffing and pawing at tents, dragging backpacks away from tents, and entering a tent.”

As a result, some campsites were temporarily closed on the island so that park staff could attempt to discourage the wolf from entering the area by “loudly shouting, stomping, clapping, sounding airhorns, and discharging paintball guns.”

In the summer of 2025, the park killed a wolf after it was causing similar issues.

Romanski told Bridge “park managers have strengthened food storage and waste-management requirements, installed 68 food storage lockers, closed campsites or areas when necessary, and used deterrents to reduce these interactions to protect both visitors and wildlife.”

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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

The crowds, led by the March by March group, had set a Sept. 30 deadline for those living illegally in South Africa to leave the country. The deadline wasn't recognized by the government and authorities.

With some brandishing traditional Zulu weapons and singing cultural songs, they marched through Durban’s streets. Police didn’t report any incidents of violence against foreigners during the protest.

A similar deadline set for June 30 sparked a mass repatriation of foreigners to their various African countries after attacks on immigrants. The governments of those nations arranged for the evacuation of their citizens.

Wednesday's demonstration was the latest protest in South Africa over the last few months. There have been reported attacks against some foreign nationals that have led to diplomatic tensions between the South African government and some African nations.

South African authorities also have reported the deportations of thousands of foreigners who were in the country illegally in recent months.

Earlier this month, Nigeria’s parliament indefinitely suspended official visits and engagements with South Africa over the immigration tensions.

For years, South Africa has attracted foreign nationals seeking economic opportunities from across the continent, including from nearby countries Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique and Malawi, and as far away as Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia.

Many blame migrants for the country’s high levels of unemployment, crime and pressure on public services.

“We were raising another concern about our porous borders and the fact that we have overstretched resources that are not enough to take care of us,” said Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the leader of March and March.

The protests were meant to put more pressure on the government and called for more deportations of those who are in the country illegally, she said.

“The message we are sending today is that people are getting really, really fed up," she said. "We also hope that our government will take the cries of the people seriously, instead of trying to look good to the international world."

Protesters said that the demonstration was also meant to express outrage over the issue of femicide and gender-based violence in the country, which has recently been highlighted by the killing of at least 11 women in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg.

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Mogomotsi Magome reported from Johannesburg.

Aura Jean Rosello, la detective principal de escena del crimen en la investigación, guió al jurado a través de las fotografías y pruebas recolectadas después de que Gladys Machado, de 29 años, y sus hijas, Julia Padrino, de 6, y Daniella Padrino, de 3, fueran encontradas muertas en el clóset de la habitación principal el 13 de noviembre de 2012.

Rosello describió cómo documentó las lesiones en el cuerpo de Machado, entre ellas heridas en un pie y un brazo.

Los fiscales también mostraron al jurado fotografías del estado en que quedaron los cuerpos tras permanecer en el clóset.

Cuando le preguntaron si reconocía a un personaje que aparecía en una de las pruebas, una sábana, Rosello respondió: “Sí, Dora la Exploradora”.

Luego, el testimonio se centró en el rostro de Machado.

“¿Está preparada para decirle al jurado qué parece haber en su cara?”, preguntó un fiscal.

“Hormigas”, respondió Rosello.

La Fiscalía sostiene que Alberto Sierra le hizo cortes en el rostro a Machado con un cuchillo para que nunca volviera a ser bella para otro hombre.

Rosello también declaró sobre las lesiones de Machado y las ataduras que se usaron con ella.

“Las lesiones en la mano derecha de la víctima y también el trapo que tenía enrollado” figuraban entre las pruebas que describió, mientras el jurado examinaba fotografías que mostraban que Machado tenía los brazos atados a la espalda.

“¿Qué es eso que tiene?”, preguntó un fiscal.

“‘Alberto Sierra’ tatuado en su omóplato izquierdo”, respondió Rosello.

Sierra, de 42 años, se declaró culpable en agosto de tres cargos de asesinato y tres de secuestro por la muerte de Machado y sus hijas en 2012.

La Fiscalía sostiene que Sierra asfixió a las tres víctimas con bolsas plásticas amarillas de supermercado Sedano’s. También alega que agredió sexualmente a Machado y a Julia después de muertas.

El jurado decide ahora si Sierra debe recibir cadena perpetua o la pena de muerte.

Durante los alegatos iniciales del martes, la Fiscalía describió los asesinatos como “especialmente abominables, atroces y crueles”.

La defensa reconoció el carácter “horrendo” de las pruebas, pero pidió al jurado que tome en cuenta el historial de Sierra y los efectos de una lesión cerebral traumática que sufrió de niño sobre su personalidad y sus funciones ejecutivas.

Los abogados defensores han dicho que Sierra sufrió una grave lesión en la cabeza en un accidente automovilístico cuando era niño, lo que afectó sus capacidades cognitivas y su personalidad.

Se espera que la fase de sentencia continúe con más testimonios y pruebas antes de que el jurado emita su recomendación sobre la condena.

Batting leadoff as a designated hitter in his playoffs debut Tuesday, Anthony struck out in both of his at-bats against Cam Schlittler, then was removed for a pinch hitter with the Red Sox trailing by two runs in the sixth inning of a 9-0 loss.

Boston sent Anthony to Boston after the game and for new MRIs on Wednesday morning.

“Additional damage to some muscles in his wrist that weren’t there before,” manager Chad Tracy said before Game 2.

Anthony was due to be back in New York to rejoin teammates for the second game of the best-of-three series.

“He’s upset," Tracy said. "Mentally going through it, he wants to be out there."

Asked whether surgery will be needed, Tracy responded: “As far as what treatment plans are in the future, haven’t gotten there.”

Tracy said Anthony felt discomfort in his right hand after a couple of checked swings. The 22-year-old Anthony missed 101 games from May 5 to Aug. 29 with an injury to the same hand.

“There’s been periods of time since he’s come back where he’ll get a zinger and feel something. And then it dissipates and we’re good to go,” Tracy said. “That’s not been an uncommon occurrence since he’s come back. But yesterday, as you went through those two at-bats, it got worse.”

Boston was working to replace Anthony on the active roster.

Jahmai Jones was set to hit leadoff as the DH with the Red Sox one loss from elimination, followed in the batting order by catcher Adley Rutschman, first baseman Willson Contreras, right fielder Wilyer Abreu, center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, third baseman Caleb Durbin, second baseman Nick Sogard, shortstop Trevor Story and left fielder Nate Eaton.

Sonny Gray was set to start on the mound for Boston against one of his former teams.

One of baseball’s premier prospects when he debuted last year, Anthony batted .245 with five home runs, 15 RBIs and a .735 OPS in 55 games this season.

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Denys Sienik, the chargé d’affaires at Ukraine’s embassy in Washington, said the top priority should be several Russian companies that are producing components for Russia’s version of Starlink, a satellite internet system that Moscow hopes to complete by the end of the year. The main firm setting up the network is already under U.S. sanctions but those producing the components for it are not.

Sienik said if Russia is able to complete the “constellation” of satellites for its project, it will be able to attack Ukraine at will with real-time information, which could prove devastating in the short term, particularly during the looming winter. Ukraine would also like to have access to Starlink services inside of Russia so that it can go after targets there, he said.

Ukraine also would like to see tougher measures against ships believed to be part of Russia’s ghost fleet, which are used to circumvent restrictions on selling oil, Sienik said.

The administration faces an Oct. 18 deadline to decide which Russian entities, if any, it will sanction under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which Trump signed into law on Sept. 18.

In addition to those asks, Ukraine is also seeking administration and American industry condemnation of Russian attacks on American companies’ operations on Ukrainian soil, Sienik said.

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The school is located at 16700 SW 48th Court.

Miramar Fire Rescue officials said crews were called to the school at approximately 11:15 a.m. after receiving a report of a “sick individual.”

According to a Broward County Public Schools spokesperson, a student dispersed pepper spray in a classroom Wednesday morning. The school immediately cleared the affected area, and fire rescue crews responded as a precaution to evaluate students and staff.

When firefighters arrived, they encountered a group of children who had been affected by the release of pepper spray in a classroom. The incident was upgraded to a mass-casualty incident, according to MFR.

Authorities said 26 students were triaged, with one student treated at the scene. No children were transported to the hospital.

Miramar police said several students experienced minor coughing and were evaluated by fire rescue crews as a precaution.

Police said there was no ongoing threat to the school community.

Miramar police said they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident.

The students and staff were then relocated to another classroom for the remainder of the day, according to the school district.

The BCPS spokesperson said the student responsible for dispersing the pepper spray is receiving “appropriate disciplinary consequences.”

No other details about the incident were immediately released

The AI giants and other tech companies in recent months have disclosed examples of their AI agents going beyond human instructions, finding their way onto the internet and hacking external websites.

An FTC spokesperson confirmed the investigation but declined further comment. The investigation was first reported by the New York Post, which said it has been underway for months.

Representatives for Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to messages for comment on Wednesday.

Concerns around the dangers powerful AI models may pose to humanity have led some of the top AI developers to call for a slowdown. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, said this month that the industry should slow its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up. Without such a slowdown, Amodei warned that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.

OpenAI, meanwhile, recently delayed the launch of its newest model this week over safety concerns.

The Pentagon also will launch an effort to study the future of warfare that will be led in part by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Hegseth said. The Defense Department will create an Office of Religious Affairs and plans to build a new base for the first time in 40 years, he added.

Hegseth made the announcements to junior officers and enlisted leaders at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia — the second year in a row that he has given such an address. But this time, the U.S. military is seven months into a war with Iran with no clear end in sight, has captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and killed more than 200 people in strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in Latin America, among other actions worldwide.

The speech is not a usual fixture among Pentagon leaders. While Hegseth’s predecessors have regularly addressed troops and top officers, they have traditionally done so in small or private settings.

The Pentagon chief, however, again led with how he has drastically retooled the U.S. military by targeting what he calls “woke” culture — through a rollback of diversity programs, a review of ground combat units with female troops and a new screening program for “testosterone deficiency” among male personnel.

Hegseth announces a new drone-focused warfare command

The Pentagon chief announced the creation of a new four-star command to oversee the rollout of autonomous and robotic capabilities in what he called “the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.”

He acknowledged that “the pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it.” Iran commonly uses cheap drones, including those that have killed U.S. troops during the seven-month war. Hegseth pointed to Ukraine's pioneering use of drones to combat Russian forces — something American forces have learned from firsthand.

“Ukraine’s lesson is not that one type of drone wins wars, but rather the need for a purpose-built system that maximizes the ability to adapt,” Hegseth said.

However, a U.S. Army unit based in Europe that specialized in drone warfare was ordered recently to end its efforts and return to being a traditional infantry battalion.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers subsequently asked the Army to explain the order, given that the world’s battlefields are rapidly evolving and military tactics increasingly rely on uncrewed systems to fight.

The new drone command comes as the U.S. is in a stalemate with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy shipping corridor. The war has forced American forces in the region to expend hundreds of expensive missile interceptors to defend against Iran’s missile and drone attacks, which have still managed to kill and wound U.S. troops.

Hegseth repeated claims that the U.S. military has destroyed Iran's navy, air force and defense systems as well as many of its leaders and its industrial base. But Tehran has continued intermittently to launch drone and missile attacks against at U.S. or allied bases, while maintaining its ability to strike commercial and military ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

During his speech, Hegseth touted the Trump administration’s major investments in the defense industry and push for contractors to speed up their work to expand the nation’s weapons arsenals. But experts say U.S. military contractors will need at least three years to replenish stockpiles of key weapons systems used heavily in the Iran war.

Hegseth faces questions from lawmakers over cuts to general ranks

Hegseth said he directed the military services to double the 10% reduction he ordered last spring for roughly 800 flag and general officer positions, to a 20% decrease to be completed by Jan. 1, 2027.

“I call it accountability and long overdue,” he said.

Some members of Congress have criticized the war and the drawdown of munitions stockpiles, while calling the latest cuts to the general ranks a “purge” that will take years to rebuild.

“He’s got some kind of like deep-seated grievance about leadership in the military,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former Navy combat pilot who has been critical of Hegseth. “He’s purging a generation of great leaders of the military, and it’s going to take a generation to recover from it.”

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wanted to understand Hegseth’s reasoning.

“If it’s simply a matter of eliminating a very heavy top, there may be some validity to it, but I want to see it first,” Rounds said.

Musk and Gingrich to lead a study of future warfare

In innovating the next wave of weapons systems, Hegseth announced an effort to study the future of warfare led by Musk, Gingrich and Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril Industries.

Hegseth said the work “will be focused on discovering, developing and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes.” He pointed to the need to dominate "any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the moon.”

This month, the U.S. confirmed for the first time that it had deployed weapons in space, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes.

Among the other announcements was the unveiling of a plan to build a new military base, with Hegseth inviting all 50 states to compete for the chance to play host to 15,000 to 20,000 service members. He also announced a plan to make every military base self-powered.

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Finley reported from Washington, and Kinnard from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

An ambitious club with a fabulously wealthy new owner was in a hurry to reshape the landscape of global soccer's richest and most popular league, according to the bombshell findings of an independent investigatory panel that were released Tuesday. The only problem was that the sport's governing bodies have rules to restrict teams from spending far beyond what they earn, no matter how wealthy their owners might be.

According to the Premier League, City set up complex schemes to disguise that it was unfairly being bankrolled by its owner, the Abu Dhabi United Group, or ADUG, from 2009-18 — nine years in which it established itself as a powerhouse.

Leaked emails published in 2018 led to a lengthy investigation and hearing into alleged financial misconduct, which resulted in the new findings in what many view as the biggest scandal in the league's history.

City, which has dominated English soccer for more than a decade by spending exorbitantly on superstar players and hiring top coaches, was found “guilty” of almost all of the more than 100 “charges” against it and now faces punishment that could be as severe as expulsion from the league. The club has always denied wrongdoing and has said it will appeal.

A money trail reveals the ‘sham’

In its lengthy list of allegations against City, which accompanied the investigation findings, the Premier League recounted how the storied club, which had seen better days on the pitch and was losing money, was sold in 2008 to ADUG. The private investment company is “ultimately owned by” Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the United Arab Emirates' ruling family, according to the report.

By the 2009-10 season, City realized it was in line to suffer financial losses for years, including what would have been the biggest loss ever by a Premier League club. The only way to fund its planned expenditure "would be by ADUG continuing to provide very significant sums," the league alleged.

City set up “sham” commercial deals — the report uses the term eight times — with Abu Dhabi-based companies that were priced “well above” fair market value and structured in a way that meant the bulk of the payments were covered by the club's owner, the panel found.

The panel described this as City's “Disguised Funding Scheme” and said it was broken down into two parts. Team sponsors paid a “base sum” that amounted to “only a fraction” of the recorded sponsorship fee. The remaining amount, which was far bigger and was dubbed the “tagged sum," would be "payable by (and was in fact paid) by ADUG.”

City occasionally “tweaked” its scheme to “reduce the likelihood of difficult questions being asked," according to the panel.

Figures show the alleged tagged sums grew over the period in question, rising to 134.73 million pounds ($179 million at current exchange rates) in 2017-18.

City's defense

The club said the Premier League misunderstood how its Abu Dhabi-based sponsorship was funded.

It said sponsors had from “time to time” applied for and been granted financial assistance from the Abu Dhabi government to help pay sponsorship fees.

The panel rejected that explanation as untrue and concluded it had been “concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the Disguised Funding Scheme.”

Over the nine years, it found Abu Dhabi sponsors only paid 119.25 million pounds ($158.4 million) of the 949.94 million pounds ($1.26 billion) stated in club accounts. ADUG paid the remaining 830.69 million pounds ($1.1 billion).

As an example of the alleged machinations, the report pointed to May of 2013, when it said City needed to plug a shortfall of 9.9 million pounds ($13.15 million) or it would have been in breach of financial rules.

“In a matter of days, without AD Sponsors even being approached, a number of modified AD Sponsor Agreements were generated," the report alleges, referring to Abu Dhabi sponsors and noting that the "shortfall was thus ‘plugged.'”

During the nine years in question, City signed top players such as Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and Kevin De Bruyne, as well as the renowned managers Roberto Mancini and Pep Guardiola. It won three Premier League titles, including the first of Guardiola’s six, and a slew of other trophies. And by finishing at or near the top of the table, City qualified for the Champions League — a financial windfall for any team — in eight of the nine seasons.

‘Little more than a front’

The report also detailed the so-called Fordham Agreement, which investigators said was a vehicle set up to buy the image rights of City players from the club at artificially inflated prices, but was “in reality little more than a front.”

The arrangement was actually just a way for owner funds to be paid into the club “in a manner that concealed their true origin” and “pretend” it was operating income, according to the report. It also allowed City to “remove operating expenses from its financial statements” and use owner funds to “meet what were in reality Club liabilities."

The result was wrongly recorded operating income of 24.5 million pounds ($32.5 million) and wrongly excluded operating expenses of 49.414 million pounds ($65.58 million), the panel found.

There were separate deals that allege some salaries were supplemented by the owner and occasionally described as consultancy agreements.

The names of the people involved are redacted, but three instances were valued in total at 16.76 million pounds ($22.25 million).

A damning verdict

The hearing over 42 days in 2024 was “extremely hard fought on both sides,” and “No stone was left unturned,” the panel wrote.

It included 27 witnesses, more than 700 pages of witness statements and about 7,000 pages of transcripts. Key documents ran into “many tens of thousands of pages.”

According to the panel, evidence given on behalf of City by a number of important factual witnesses was “false in a number of key respects,” and certain witnesses gave evidence “that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest.”

The Premier League said City's conduct amounted to “extremely serious, significant, sustained and intentional or reckless breaches” of its rules “critical to the proper and fair operation” of the league.

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

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

European soccer body UEFA has led calls to remove its long-time former employee Infantino either before or at the FIFA election in March, because of his failed proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors.

The Swiss federation also cited concern Wednesday for the integrity of competitions after pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump not to impose a mandatory one-game ban on the World Cup co-host nation's forward Folarin Balogun from a round of 16 game against Belgium earlier this year.

Citing the need for credibility, transparency, accountability and effective statutory bodies, the Swiss federation said they were “essential to have trust in the governance of international football and in the integrity of FIFA.”

These conditions were no longer fulfilled since June when it first pledged support for Infantino, the Swiss federation said.

Infantino had seemed set to win a fourth and final term in office through 2031 unopposed until his secretive plan to create a commercial subsidiary company was revealed by media reports on July 28. The plan was dropped within days amid a global backlash.

UEFA is set to meet with its 55 member federations next week in Berlin to work toward finding a candidate to challenge Infantino by a Nov. 18 deadline to enter the contest. The vote by 211 FIFA member federations is on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage her

Her case began with vocabulary: the same animals are “sea life” when people marvel at them and “seafood” when they order.

“Who makes that decision?” she said backstage.

Of the industry that stocks the menu, she was blunter: “It’s war. We’re at war with the oceans.”

For one piece of fish on a plate, she said, the nets bring up dolphins and octopuses, and most of the catch goes back over the side dead.

Through the greenery, models walked to PJ Harvey’s “Down by the Water,” a murder ballad that keeps its promise.

Juliette Binoche sat near Lopez. On the runway, Karlie Kloss and Miranda Kerr came dressed in waves.

Suits that swim

The clothes made the case more gently.

The palette ran seafoam, sage, coral, blush and chocolate, and the tailoring — schooled under Savile Row’s Edward Sexton — loosened until it moved like water.

Drawstrings threaded through oversized blazers, a rain-jacket trick smuggled into office clothes.

The back-on-trend peplums were everywhere — and rounded softly at the hip.

Sheer layers left bandeaus and brief-cut shorts in the open, on the season’s underwear-as-outerwear tide.

Sport, her other signature, answered back: second-skin leggings under boxy technical jackets and airbrushed dolphins mid-leap across T-shirts.

Kloss’ minidress had small waves curling over one shoulder; Kerr’s seafoam gown was cinched in a knot at the waist.

For evening, gowns wound around the torso and dropped in unbroken columns, after Madame Grès, with ruffles breaking like surf at the hems.

“It’s really, really important to want to wear the clothes,” McCartney said. “For me, that’s the main thing.”

Message in a bottle

The house called the ready-to-wear 100% responsible: recycled cotton denim, organic cotton and silk, and a black pigment grown from algae rather than refined from oil.

Older fronts are better supplied: the certified wool she uses is traced back to the farm, and since 2026 she has knitted with Brewed Protein, a wool alternative fermented by Japanese biotech firm Spiber.

A week before the show, McCartney co-founded The Climate Pledge Fashion Coalition with Amazon and the forest nonprofit Canopy, pooling the orders of more than 60 companies so such materials can reach factory scale.

She bought back LVMH’s minority stake in her label last year, but still advises its chief, Bernard Arnault.

“I’m advising him on so many things in sustainability,” she said.

McCartney took her bow in jeans, a white T-shirt and a roomy blazer, thumbs up, and was gone.

Backstage, when the questions finally drifted from oceans to hemlines, she asked one of her own: “You mean you want to talk about the clothes?”

After 25 years, they are still her best argument.

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The report outlined showed dirty and overflowing restrooms, along with detainees who whistleblowers claimed are forced to sleep on the concrete floor or in chains.

Wasserman Schultz said conditions at the facility, located at 2805 SW 145th Ave., remain disgusting, but in some ways have improved.

She said the overcrowding has dramatically decreased from 70 to a room to about 20 people and toilets are also working.

She said she also didn’t see an overflowing of sewage, as documented in previously-released photos.

However, the congresswoman said many of the rooms remain filthy and healthcare is nonexistent in the facility.

Despite over 100 people being held at the facility, there isn’t a single nurse or a doctor, Wasserman Schultz said, and any sick inmates have to be sent to a nearby hospital.

Showers for men are also rare, she said.

And despite a court order that says the facility cannot hold people longer than 12 hours, Wasserman Schultz said detainees told her personally several have been there for nearly a week.

She said constant pressure from people and organizations to resolve the conditions led to several issues being resolved due to the continuous pressure.

“This treatment is unconstitutional torture. I mean, that is what this treatment is: unconstitutional torture. They are making a mockery of our laws,” Wasserman Schultz said. “A court order, right now, prohibits them from holding people for more than 12 hours. They acknowledged essentially they are holding people for more than 12 hours. They ― I asked detainees ― and there were detainees that said that they had been there for days."

Wasserman Schultz said detainees are being sent to other ICE facilities around the country to further be processed, further taking them away from their families locally.

She said she and other officials plan to continue putting pressure on the facility until conditions improve further.

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Records show Dylan Hugh Long, a 21-year-old senior originally from Lloyd Harbor, New York, was taken into custody on the UM campus on two felony charges on Tuesday morning.

According to an arrest report from the South Miami Police Department, Long’s roommate “discovered a hidden camera device emitting a blue light inside the middle compartment of his nightstand” on the morning of Sept. 12 and confronted Long, “who denied any involvement with the device.”

But police said the victim later “further examined the device and connected it to a power source, allowing him to access the files stored on it” and saw “multiple video files depicting Long operating and testing the same recording device prior to or during its use.”

Authorities said Long later texted the victim and convened a meeting between all of the roommates.

“During the meeting, Long was questioned about the device and initially denied any involvement,” the SMPD report states. “After several minutes of questioning, Long admitted that the concealed camera belonged to him and that he had placed it inside (his roommate’s) private bedroom. Long stated that he placed the device inside the bedroom because (the victim) had not responded to his text messages.”

Authorities said Long’s roommates kicked him out and the victim later found 49 video files on the device, some of which were corrupted, but after reviewing the usable files, the victim found “multiple recordings of himself inside his private bedroom, including recordings depicting him traveling to and from the shower without his knowledge or consent.”

Police said they went to the UM campus on Tuesday to take Long in for questioning. They said Long admitted to placing the camera “because he wanted to confirm that (his roommate) was reading his text messages.”

Detectives arrested Long on charges of video voyeurism and burglary. He appeared in bond court on Wednesday morning.

“This is an argument that happened between roommates and then turned a little different,” his attorney said over Zoom.

Long was ordered to stay away from the victim and the home, near Southwest 63rd Avenue and 62nd Terrace, save for a one-time visit with a police officer to retrieve his belongings.

Records show he was given a $3,500 bond and was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Tuesday morning.

The bill, proponents argue, would cut down the arduous timeline for getting big energy projects off the ground at a time when demand is rising because of mushrooming data centers for artificial intelligence. The bill would ensure AI data centers are forced to pay for the increased electricity they use and would mark a significant change to a landmark environmental law that critics say slows the process of building energy projects.

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the bill “a major step toward making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects” of all types while maintaining important environmental protections.

Vote on the bill won't happen until after the midterms

“The American people sent us here to do big things. This is a big thing. It’s monumental and it’s legacy-setting,” Capito said at a news conference at the Capitol where she was joined by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The four senators lead the chamber's energy and environment panels.

Heinrich said the bill “will mean more energy on the grid, more good-paying jobs, and lower electricity costs for families and businesses. And as data centers drive demand for more power, it will ensure they pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require — not leave that bill to American families.”

A vote on the bill won’t happen until after the midterm elections — reflecting the fraught political reality as elections loom that could change partisan control of both chambers. But the bill represents a rare instance of bipartisanship over the country’s energy policy as lawmakers from both parties agree on the need to build new energy projects of all types.

Lee, who chairs the energy committee, said he is confident the bill will be approved in a lame-duck session in November, noting its bipartisan support and encouragement from business and environmental groups.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the environment panel, also was hopeful but said Democrats were still seeking clarity on how the bill will prevent President Donald Trump's administration from blocking wind and solar projects.

He and Heinrich, the top energy Democrat, have decried what they call Trump's “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” that includes repeated actions to block large-scale wind projects under construction off the East Coast. The administration suspended five offshore wind projects in December, citing unspecified national security concerns.

The projects later moved forward after federal judges intervened. A federal judge also struck down Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects early in his second term.

Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, panned the deal, saying it “appears to adopt a fossil fuel industry wish-list.” He said the bill could roll back protections for clean water and endangered species, limit judicial review and curtail the power of the Environmental Protection Agency and states to consider impacts of energy projects.

Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents for-profit utilities, said he was encouraged by provisions to streamline environmental permitting and “create project certainty.” The group is reviewing the transmission provisions to see how they affect efforts to deliver electricity to its 250 million customers, he said.

In a statement, the White House said the bill would “deliver transformative policies to lower Americans’ energy and housing costs, drive new construction and investment in American infrastructure, and create American jobs.”

Trump's wind opposition played a role in delaying a deal

Trump's opposition to wind power has been a consistent stumbling block to a deal on permitting reform, which Democrats say can only go forward if the administration agrees to allow previously approved projects to move forward.

Trump recently offered to ease his administration’s holdup on renewable energy projects, in part to entice Democrats to agree to a permitting deal. But it was unclear how long the offer would last and whether it would change after the election results are known.

Whitehouse called the administration's proposal reasonable but said the overall issue remains “unresolved.”

Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said his group was studying the bill’s details, but said: “Ensuring the agreement puts an end to the Trump administration’s war on clean energy — the cheapest and fastest sources of energy — will be a necessary element to any deal.”

Capito was confident such obstacles can be overcome.

Both parties recognize that for far too long, “America has had a permitting system filled with delays, expenses, red tape, uncertainty,'' she said. “Too long, too expensive. And we’ve seen projects that should be finished more quickly (take) decades” to complete.

The Senate bill would limit legal challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved. The law has increasingly been blamed for stalling projects of all types.

Challenges under the National Historic Preservation Act also would be restricted. The law protects Native American cultural treasures and other important artifacts.

The bill would ease siting of interstate transmission lines and strengthen the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to review major projects at the same time as state reviews, helping needed projects move through the overall permitting process more quickly.

The bill also would require data centers to pay for all associated transmission costs, preventing costs from being passed on to families or businesses.

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Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed from Providence, R.I.

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The month did manage to scrounge up four named storms – Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, and Hanna. The only noteworthy of these tropical storms was Fay, which lasted longer than any other storm so far this season and flirted with becoming the season’s first hurricane late on Sept. 21.

Though officially Fay’s winds topped out at 70 mph – 4 mph shy of the threshold for a hurricane – an instrument profiler from the very high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar or SAR aboard a Canadian Space Agency satellite estimated winds on its northwest side of around 84 mph around 4:30 p.m. ET on Sept. 20.

SAR is known to have a high bias in its wind estimates (roughly 75% of SAR wind estimates are higher than what’s estimated by NHC from aircraft reconnaissance), but this is the kind of data NHC will comb through in the off season to, if necessary, revise its real-time estimates.

The best traditional satellite wind estimate algorithms at the time suggested maximum winds of around 70 mph but the SAR reading came during a noticeable gap in those AI-driven estimates. If we’re able to make it through the rest of the season with no hurricanes (still a big if), it’ll be interesting to see whether NHC nudges Fay’s winds up to hurricane strength in its post-season assessment.

Hanna on its last leg but is pesky Fay trying to stage a third comeback?

Hanna had a heavy haircut overnight and has been reduced to a naked, low-level swirl of clouds over the open North Atlantic. Its leftover spin is expected to move harmlessly over the open seas without redeveloping this week.

Meanwhile, Fay was declared dead by NHC Tuesday afternoon but is doing its best to mount a third comeback, with repeated rounds of thunderstorms firing near its remnant circulation. Whether zombie Fay returns or not, it’s no threat to anyone outside of passerby ships in the area.

Keeping an eye on the southern Gulf for late next week

As we previewed in Tuesday’s newsletter, a strong fall cold front will dig through the southern U.S. early next week before stalling over Florida and the Gulf later in the week.

Long range models continue to suggest a low chance (around 20%) of tropical or subtropical mischief headed into next weekend (the weekend of Oct. 9) from the tail of this front. Both the AI models and traditional physics-based models are hinting at this.

We’ll have to wait and see what the trends look like in the coming days, but the subtropical jet stream will be kicking over the northern Gulf late next week, which means anything that does try to develop would have some impediments if it moved northward toward the U.S.

For now, it’s nothing to worry about but something we’ll follow.

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Police identified the driver as 48-year-old Reynoso Osias, who was arrested Tuesday in the 700 block of Washington Avenue.

According to the Miami Beach Police Department, the investigation began after a strong-arm robbery near 11th Street and Washington Avenue on June 14.

The victim told detectives that after leaving a nightclub, a woman, later identified by investigators as 29-year-old Dasheona Ford, approached him, stole his iPhone and ran to a waiting yellow cab.

City surveillance video captured Ford entering the taxi, police said. Police said minutes later, cameras showed Ford getting out of the vehicle, approaching another person who appeared visibly intoxicated and removing a cellphone from the man’s pocket.

Detectives reviewed city surveillance footage, body-worn camera video and cellphone records and ultimately identified Osias as the taxi driver, according to police.

Investigators said they also obtained evidence connecting Osias to the stolen phones and fraudulent financial transactions.

Investigation expands after second incident

Police said their investigation expanded following another incident on June 28 involving another intoxicated victim. Police said the victim’s cellphone was stolen and money was also withdrawn from his bank accounts.

Surveillance footage showed the victim entering the same cab as the initial victim, according to police.

The victim later told detectives that he had no memory of entering the vehicle and had not hailed or requested a taxi. Investigators said they also connected Osias to that incident.

Miami Beach robbery detectives located Osias on Tuesday in the 700 block of Washington Avenue and took him into custody.

During a search of the taxi, detectives found eight Apple iPhones inside a plastic bag beneath the driver’s seat, police said.

“This arrest reflects outstanding, methodical police work by our detectives,” Miami Beach Police Chief Wayne A. Jones said in a statement. “The allegations are particularly concerning because they involve individuals in vulnerable conditions. We will continue to pursue those who target our residents and visitors and hold them accountable.”

Osias faces multiple felony charges, including kidnapping, conspiracy to commit strong-arm robbery, organized scheme to defraud, offenses against computer users and unlawful use of a communications device, according to police.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Osias was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Online jail records listed his total bond as “to be set.”

The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with additional information is urged to contact the Miami Beach Police Department at 305-673-7900. Anonymous tips can be made by calling Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

La policía identificó al conductor como Reynoso Osias, de 48 años, quien fue arrestado el martes en la cuadra 700 de Washington Avenue.

Según el Departamento de Policía de Miami Beach, la investigación comenzó tras un robo a la fuerza ocurrido el 14 de junio cerca de la 11th Street y Washington Avenue.

La víctima contó a los detectives que, al salir de una discoteca, una mujer, identificada después por los investigadores como Dasheona Ford, de 29 años, se le acercó, le robó su iPhone y corrió hacia un taxi amarillo que la esperaba.

Las cámaras de vigilancia de la ciudad captaron a Ford subiéndose al taxi, según la policía. Minutos después, las cámaras la mostraron bajándose del vehículo, acercándose a otra persona que parecía visiblemente ebria y sacándole un celular del bolsillo, indicó la policía.

Según la policía, los detectives revisaron videos de vigilancia de la ciudad, imágenes de cámaras corporales y registros telefónicos, y finalmente identificaron a Osias como el taxista.

Los investigadores dijeron que también obtuvieron pruebas que vinculan a Osias con los teléfonos robados y con transacciones financieras fraudulentas.

La investigación se amplía tras un segundo incidente

La policía indicó que la investigación se amplió tras otro incidente ocurrido el 28 de junio, en el que otra víctima en estado de ebriedad perdió su celular y, además, le retiraron dinero de sus cuentas bancarias.

Según la policía, videos de vigilancia mostraron a esa víctima subiéndose al mismo taxi que la primera.

La víctima dijo después a los detectives que no recordaba haberse subido al vehículo y que no había llamado ni pedido un taxi. Los investigadores dijeron que también vincularon a Osias con ese incidente.

Detectives de la unidad de robos de Miami Beach localizaron a Osias el martes en la cuadra 700 de Washington Avenue y lo arrestaron.

Al registrar el taxi, los detectives encontraron ocho iPhones dentro de una bolsa plástica debajo del asiento del conductor, según la policía.

“Este arresto refleja un trabajo policial excelente y metódico de nuestros detectives”, dijo en un comunicado el jefe de la policía de Miami Beach, Wayne A. Jones. “Las acusaciones son especialmente preocupantes porque involucran a personas en condiciones vulnerables. Seguiremos persiguiendo a quienes se aprovechan de nuestros residentes y visitantes, y haremos que rindan cuentas”.

Según la policía, Osias enfrenta varios cargos graves, entre ellos secuestro, conspiración para cometer robo a la fuerza, esquema organizado para defraudar, delitos contra usuarios de computadoras y uso ilegal de un dispositivo de comunicación.

Hasta el miércoles por la tarde, Osias permanecía detenido en el centro correccional Turner Guilford Knight. Según los registros de la cárcel en internet, su fianza total aún no había sido fijada.

La investigación continúa. Se pide a cualquier persona con información que se comunique con el Departamento de Policía de Miami Beach al 305-673-7900. Para dejar información de forma anónima, se puede llamar a Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers al 305-471-8477.

The punches will come later, on Dec. 11 in Cardiff when the two former two-time world champions square off for the first time, and on UK soil to boot.

“Ten years in the making,” Joshua said at a press conference in London, the first time the two fighters squared off since the fight was announced last week. “We’re here now … it had to happen at some stage and there’s no better time than now.”

It is being billed as the biggest fight in British boxing history. The only question is whether it comes too late to settle the dispute over who is the better fighter.

Fury is 38 and has come out of retirement a handful of times already. Joshua turns 37 in two weeks and his only fights since losing his IBF world title clash with Daniel Dubois in 2024 were against YouTuber Jake Paul and Kristian Prenga.

“People say is it too late? (Expletive) too late,” Fury said. ”It’s the icing on the cake.”

Both men praised Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority and president of the Saudi Boxing Federation, for finally making the fight happen.

Alalshikh said he wanted to stage it at Wembley Stadium in London but settled for Cardiff because he couldn’t get permission to have the iconic venue stay open until 2 a.m.

“In the end, Wales delivered,” Alalshikh said. “And still it is UK.”

The prize money for the fight has not been announced, but British media reports have put the collective purse at close to $200 million.

"They’re getting extremely well paid.” said Frank Warren, the promoter in Fury's camp.

Tickets go on sale Oct. 9.

And the fighters are saving their heavy punches for the big event. The press conference was mostly full of smiles and laughter as the two exchanged a few verbal barbs about a famous sparring session more than 10 years ago, when Joshua was still an amateur.

A few hundred fans had been granted tickets and a vast majority were loudly in Joshua’s camp.

But it was Fury who did most of the talking, although he mainly had good things to say about his opponent.

“He’s been a role model and a poster boy for British boxing for years. I find myself defending my archrival to fans I meet in the street,” Fury said. “That aside, obviously we’re here to fight, and fight we will.”

That’s all boxing fans — especially in Britain — have wanted to see for so long.

“I know in pubs, people have had proper fights about who’s going to win between me and Tyson,” Joshua said. “I know family members have fell out with each other about who’s going to win … I’m just happy to be here, fighting, and fulfilling my destiny before I depart this world.”

Fury also pointed out the vastly contrasting physiques and styles of the two fighters.

“I stand here today as the most awkwardly built world heavyweight champion in the history of sport,” Fury said. “I’m a bald, fat, bearded, ugly, slow and ponderous, all of the above.”

At which point Joshua cut in: “It’s true.”

Fury then continued: “And we’ve got this guy here. He’s carved in stone like an Olympian, from marble. But every time he gets cracked on the jaw he falls over.”

Fury had less nice things to say about Eddie Hearn, the promoter in Joshua's camp, and briefly tried to stoke a bit of animosity by making fun of his ring opponent having referred to himself as “the landlord” in the buildup.

“Now it’s come time to collect the rent, and I’m not (expletive) paying,” Fury said. “Because I’m No. 1.”

The two fighters also bickered over why Fury's name is first in the “Fury vs. Joshua” promotional material for the bout — which will be shown on Netflix — and whether the fight should be staged in Britain.

But they never seemed close to getting physical as they squared up on stage, and Fury is already preparing to take his opponent out for a beer after the bout.

“I don't know if you're a a drinking man, but I hope that after this fight we can have a pint of Guinness together. Win, lose or draw," Fury said. "Have a fight first, then have a beer. How does that sound?"

Replied Joshua: “I don't know if I can trust you.”

___

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

Shili Chen and Shouyong Zhang, both 77, were due in court Wednesday for an arraignment on the charges. The Associated Press was not able to reach an attorney for the couple prior to the court appearance. Their daughter, Candice Jang, could not be reached, though she appeared briefly virtually in the courtroom where her parents were set to be arraigned Wednesday.

Jonathan McKinsey, a 40-year-old gaming engineer for The New York Times, was shot to death in the parking lot of a sports complex in Dublin, east of San Francisco. A police sergeant was driving nearby and saw him on the ground as witnesses began calling 911 and pointing out the couple in their vehicle, who were still near the scene, Dublin Police Services said in a news release.

Police detained the couple as they were driving away in the parking lot and found a gun in Chen's possession. Prosecutors said Zhang admitted to shooting McKinsey during a later interview, and another firearm was found in the car that he admitted to using during the crime.

Prosecutors also said surveillance video was recovered showing both Chen and Zhang shooting the victim.

Chen and Zhang's murder charges included additional allegations of lying in wait and using a firearm.

Court records show McKinsey's killing came during a contentious divorce with Jang and a custody battle over the couple's three young children. In petitions for restraining orders filed last year, the couple accused each other of physical, emotional and psychological abuse going back more than a decade. McKinsey, who is transgender, alleged that both Jang and her parents were verbally and physically abusive regarding a gender transition he underwent years ago.

In his petition for a protection order, McKinsey alleged that Chen had directed anti-LGBTQ slurs at him and his oldest child.

He also accused Jang of being physically and emotionally abusive during medical procedures related to his transition. He alleged Zhang punched him in the chest while he was recovering from double mastectomy surgery.

Victim had been charged with misdemeanor child abuse

McKinsey was arrested last October and charged with misdemeanor child abuse for allegedly hitting their oldest son. Police said he acknowledged having slapped the child. Prosecutors also charged him with endangering their youngest child after deputies responded to the family’s home to talk with him and found their 2-year-old had been left home alone, according to court documents.

McKinsey pleaded not guilty to the charges and alleged in court records that he had been set up by his wife, who had left the house without telling him the child was sleeping in a crib upstairs. He was released from jail on the condition that he complete 12 parenting classes. At the time of his killing, McKinsey was out on bail and had been trying to enter a mental health diversion program.

It was also in October that Jang obtained a domestic violence protection order against McKinsey.

Jang said in her filing that in 2010 McKinsey had grabbed her by the forearms during one argument and caused her to hit the corner of a coffee table, fracturing a vertebra in her upper back. She also said that in 2023 she called the police to their home after McKinsey pushed their oldest son hard on the head. Jang also accused McKinsey of emotionally abusing her mother.

Victim filed a competing protective order request

McKinsey in December filed his own request for domestic violence protection against Jang, alleging years of abuse that included her hitting him in the head with a frying pan. He later filed for divorce and sought more time with the three children, noting that he had been limited to two hours of supervised visits per week since last fall, Alameda County court documents show.

In late August, McKinsey was granted unsupervised visits in public twice a week.

The killing occurred a week before a hearing was scheduled in McKinsey and Jang’s divorce case. The couple had been married since July 2011.

McKinsey joined The New York Times in January 2023. He was director of engineering for New York Times Games and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the paper said. A spokesperson declined to comment further.

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According to a Homestead Police Department arrest report, detectives responded to a home in the 1000 block of Northwest Ninth Street around 2:20 a.m. Tuesday.

Police identified the suspects as brothers, Yonelfy Elionai Diaz, 21, and Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez, 30.

According to the report, a Miami-Dade fire investigator determined the fire was arson in nature and that a possible accelerant had been used. Samples were collected and submitted to a laboratory for additional testing.

Investigators said four vehicles, a side-by-side and a portion of the home sustained extensive damage.

The owner of two of the damaged vehicles told detectives that two days before the fire, he had been involved in an incident with his ex-wife’s two brothers after dropping off their four children at her home.

According to the report, the victim told police that during the Sunday evening confrontation, Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez threw a wrench at the side-by-side he was driving.

That incident was documented by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office as an aggravated assault, according to the arrest report.

The victim told investigators that because of the circumstances, he suspected his ex-wife’s two brothers were involved in the fire.

Surveillance video captures explosions, 2 men running

Investigators said a surveillance camera on Northwest Ninth Street captured the fire.

According to the report, the video showed multiple explosions followed by two men running away. One of the men appeared to have his back on fire as he ran before getting into a silver sedan.

Police said both men then fled westbound on Northwest Ninth Street.

Additional surveillance cameras captured the vehicle traveling north on Northwest 12th Avenue with its headlights off before heading west on Northwest Ninth Court toward Northwest 14th Avenue, the report states.

Investigators said license plate readers identified the vehicle as a silver Toyota Corolla registered to the sister of Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez and Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez.

Later that afternoon, detectives located a white dually truck and conducted a traffic stop near Southwest 244th Street and Southwest 187th Avenue.

According to the report, Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez was driving the truck and was arrested in connection with an unrelated incident.

Online jail records show he faces a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and was also out on felony bond for domestic violence at the time of his arrest.

While Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez’s arrest report also lists Roibyn as a suspect in the arson investigation, it’s unclear why he isn’t facing charges in that case at this time.

According to the arrest report, the brothers’ sister arrived at the scene of the traffic stop, followed shortly afterward by Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez, who police said came to pick up the truck, which belonged to him.

Detectives immediately noticed what appeared to be injuries on Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez, according to the report.

Police said he had blisters on his hands, the hair on both of his eyelashes appeared burned, and he had redness above his right eyelash and on his nose.

Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez agreed to go to the police station to speak with investigators, the report states.

During the interview, detectives asked him to remove his hoodie and observed what they described as a large burn injury on his left arm.

According to police, Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez was given multiple opportunities to explain how he suffered the injury but he declined to provide an explanation or disclose any involvement in the fire.

Meanwhile, police said they located the Corolla abandoned near Northeast Second Street and North Krome Avenue.

Investigators said the front passenger seat appeared to have burn stains. The vehicle was secured, sealed and towed.

Based on what investigators described as the totality of the circumstances, including Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez’s injuries and their consistency with burns sustained from fire, police arrested him on a first-degree arson charge.

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

Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez was also being held at TGK and his bond was also listed as “to be set.”

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The incident occurred on Monday afternoon along the 18000 block of South Dixie Highway in Palmetto Bay.

According to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, the victim, who is a 15-year-old girl, and her mother were involved in an argument over the teen having run away the previous weekend.

Deputies said the victim advised the argument intensified once her mother’s live-in boyfriend, identified as Ulisses Gutierrez, got involved.

According to an arrest report, Gutierrez “grabbed the victim by her neck with both hands and squeezed hard, impeding her breathing for a few seconds” before he “pushed her into the laundry room closet door and pushed her to the ground twice.”

Deputies said the victim was left with red marks on her neck and an abrasion on her face.

Investigators at the scene spoke to Gutierrez. They said he denied all the allegations made by the victim, but he could not provide an explanation as to where her injuries came from.

Gutierrez was charged with one felony count of child abuse with no great bodily harm. As of Wednesday morning, he was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with bond listed as “to be set.”

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According to the Davie Police Department, officers responded to a single-vehicle crash near the intersection of Hiatus Road and Orange Drive on Friday.

Police said officers found a blue Ford F-150 that had crashed into a guardrail, knocking over a power line, and Jordan Nelson behind the wheel.

A responding officer noted in Nelson’s arrest report that the officer “was immediately met with the strong smell associated with an alcoholic beverage which emanated from his facial area, especially as he spoke,” while adding that Nelson’s “eyes were red and glossy, and he was slurring his speech.”

Officers said Nelson, 36, agreed to perform field sobriety tests, which he did not pass, and his blood alcohol level was measured at 0.173% and 0.163%, both of which are more than twice the legal limit of 0.08%.

Nelson has since been charged with DUI, DUI with injury or property damage and DUI with blood alcohol level above 0.15%.

He is listed as one of four candidates running for Davie’s District 3 town council seat.

The cigarette is not an invention of the United States. And while Marlboro is a top-selling international brand, more than 100 countries make cigarettes. The largest manufacturer is in China.

But U.S. ingenuity drastically altered the global tobacco industry. And American culture embraced it in the 20th century, making it — for a time — a symbol of stylish adulthood in U.S. movies and media, and omnipresent in bars, restaurants, airplanes and even hospitals.

Smoking became “a right of passage for many young people,” and by the 1950s nearly half of U.S. adults smoked, says K. Michael Cummings, a tobacco history scholar at the Medical University of South Carolina.

“I remember making ashtrays for my parents for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts,” says Cummings, 73. “I remember giving cartons of cigarettes as Christmas gifts. I mean, smoking was so common. It was just part of Americana.”

Early versions of cigarettes can be traced back thousands of years to the Mayans. But hand-rolling each cigarette was time-consuming and labor intensive.

That changed in the 1880s, when a Virginia inventor named John Bansack invented an automated cigarette-rolling machine that could make smokes 50 times faster. Early tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke invested in the technology, and used it — along with the development of more palatable tobacco blends — to build the cigarette business into a major American industry.

Cigarettes were clearly addictive, and the idea that smoking could kill was long suspected. Automaker Henry Ford warned against cigarettes in the 1910s, putting out a brochure in 1914 that called them “little white slavers” and argued they were habit-forming bad for health, and were associated with bad morals.

A watershed moment came in 1964 with an authoritative U.S. surgeon general report that said smoking causes illness and death, helping to lead the way to warning labels on cigarette packs, bans on cigarette commercials, and restrictions on where people could light up.

The dangers of smoking began to sink in to the public consciousness, though it took decades for smoking rates to plummet to the historically low levels they're at now. The chain-smoking writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who favored Pall Malls, in 1968 penned that “the public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.”

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

El incidente ocurrió el lunes por la tarde en la cuadra 18000 de South Dixie Highway, en Palmetto Bay.

Según la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade, la víctima, una adolescente de 15 años, y su madre discutían porque la joven se había escapado de casa el fin de semana anterior.

Los agentes indicaron que, según la víctima, la discusión se intensificó cuando intervino el novio de su madre, con quien vive, identificado como Ulisses Gutierrez.

De acuerdo con un informe de arresto, Gutierrez “agarró a la víctima por el cuello con ambas manos y apretó con fuerza, impidiéndole respirar por unos segundos”, antes de “empujarla contra la puerta del armario del cuarto de lavado y tirarla al suelo dos veces”.

Los agentes dijeron que la víctima quedó con marcas rojas en el cuello y un raspón en la cara.

Los investigadores hablaron con Gutierrez en el lugar. Según ellos, negó todas las acusaciones de la víctima, pero no pudo explicar cómo se produjeron sus lesiones.

Gutierrez fue acusado de un cargo grave de abuso infantil sin daño corporal grave. Hasta el miércoles por la mañana, permanecía detenido en el centro correccional Turner Guilford Knight, con la fianza aún por fijar.

Según los registros, Dylan Hugh Long, de 21 años, estudiante de último año y originario de Lloyd Harbor, Nueva York, fue arrestado el martes por la mañana en el campus de UM por dos cargos graves.

De acuerdo con un informe de arresto del Departamento de Policía de South Miami, el compañero de Long “descubrió un dispositivo con una cámara oculta que emitía una luz azul dentro del compartimento central de su mesa de noche” la mañana del 12 de septiembre y confrontó a Long, “quien negó tener algo que ver con el dispositivo”.

Pero, según la policía, la víctima luego “examinó más a fondo el dispositivo y lo conectó a una fuente de energía, lo que le permitió acceder a los archivos guardados”, y vio “varios archivos de video en los que aparecía Long manipulando y probando ese mismo aparato de grabación antes o durante su uso”.

Las autoridades dijeron que Long le escribió después a la víctima y convocó una reunión con todos los compañeros de vivienda.

“Durante la reunión, se le preguntó a Long por el dispositivo y al principio negó cualquier participación”, señala el informe de la policía de South Miami. “Tras varios minutos de preguntas, Long admitió que la cámara oculta era suya y que la había colocado dentro de la habitación privada de su compañero. Long dijo que colocó el dispositivo en la habitación porque la víctima no había respondido a sus mensajes de texto”.

Según las autoridades, los compañeros de Long lo echaron de la casa, y la víctima encontró después 49 archivos de video en el dispositivo. Algunos estaban dañados, pero al revisar los que se podían ver, la víctima encontró “varias grabaciones de sí mismo dentro de su habitación privada, incluidas grabaciones en las que se le ve yendo y viniendo de la ducha sin su conocimiento ni consentimiento”.

La policía dijo que acudió el martes al campus de UM para llevar a Long a interrogatorio. Según los agentes, Long admitió haber colocado la cámara “porque quería confirmar que su compañero estaba leyendo sus mensajes de texto”.

Los detectives arrestaron a Long por cargos de voyerismo por video y allanamiento. Compareció el miércoles por la mañana ante el tribunal de fianzas.

“Esta es una discusión que ocurrió entre compañeros de cuarto y que luego tomó un giro un poco distinto”, dijo su abogado por Zoom.

A Long se le ordenó mantenerse alejado de la víctima y de la casa, ubicada cerca de la Southwest 63rd Avenue y la 62nd Terrace, salvo por una única visita acompañado de un agente de policía para recoger sus pertenencias.

Según los registros, Long fue ingresado el martes en el centro correccional Turner Guilford Knight, y el miércoles se le fijó una fianza de $3,500.

The new hurricane, Rachel, is expected to develop rapidly and could become a major one with sustained winds topping 111 mph (178 kph). The storm was hundreds of miles offshore, however, and posed no threat to land.

Parts of New Mexico, meanwhile, looked less and less like the months of drought that dried up reservoirs and caused hungry bears to roam into neighborhoods in search of food.

“There’s a lot of standing water in the fields and near some homes,” National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Lundeen said of one area where water overtopped a minor dam.

Floodwaters threatened the state's famous chile crop at harvest time. And the Rio Grande that ran dry through a long stretch of the state was overflowing.

The damp and stormy pattern is consistent with an El Niño year of above average Pacific storm activity.

Soggy weather slogs off to the east

From Colorado and across the Great Plains to Iowa, as much as 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain fell Tuesday and into Wednesday, with some areas seeing even more.

More storms were expected in Texas and Oklahoma after one in Amarillo, Texas, flooded streets and spawned a tornado Tuesday night. Storm totals in the Amarillo area topped 3.5 inches (9 centimeters).

The weather was the remnant of tropical systems including Hurricane Polo, a Category 3 hurricane that made landfall overnight Monday on the Baja California peninsula and then farther inshore.

In southern New Mexico, ongoing rain threatened to rot red chiles as the harvest wraps up. Mold and disease will put stress on the plants in the field, said Preston Mitchell, a Hatch Chile Association board member.

“There will be nobody picking chile for at least five or six days,” Mitchell said. “All these growers whose fields were flooded, everything’s toast. Everything that’s out there is done.”

But most of about 100 people who sought refuge from potential flooding in chile-growing Dona Ana County were headed home from shelters Wednesday, county officials said.

As the weather cleared, water stopped spilling over an earthen flood-control structure in the area that held without failing.

Acting Gov. Howie Morales declared a state of emergency that made $3.75 million available through local governments to help affected people get temporary housing, healthcare, food and transportation.

Rachel is the latest in a busy Pacific hurricane season

Mexican authorities remain on alert in the states of Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco due to Hurricane Rachel.

In the state of Jalisco, schools were closed Wednesday in 30 municipalities as a precautionary measure.

Rachel was located about 185 miles (300 kilometers) southwest of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, or about 310 miles (495 kilometers) south-southeast of Cabo San Luas. Its maximum sustained winds were around 85 mph (140 kph), according to an advisory from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

The cyclone was moving northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) and was forecast to turn toward the west-northwest and west later this week, moving away from mainland Mexico and passing south of the Baja California peninsula.

The hurricane center said the Mexican government had discontinued all coastal watches and warnings. But it warned of possible isolated rainfall totals of up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) and heavy surf along the coasts of Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco states.

In Jalisco, the bodies of three people -- two children ages 3 and 15, and their mother -- were found Sunday after the family went missing due to a river flooding in the city of Talpa de Allende, before Polo made landfall. The father is still missing, according to the Jalisco State Civil Protection agency. A tourist also is missing due to strong waves in Puerto Vallarta, but the agency says that case is not linked to Polo either.

In the central Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Nolo threatened dangerous conditions for parts of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a marine conservation area. Formerly a hurricane, the storm drenched parts of Hawaii’s Big Island over the weekend. Its maximum sustained winds were near 50 mph (85 kph).

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Mikella Schuettler and Wufei Yu in Phoenix, Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City and Julie Walker in New York City contributed reporting.

The complaint alleges the seven judges — nominated by Democrats and Republican presidents — violated judicial ethics by speaking to The New York Times about their experience dealing with a flood of cases during last winter’s Operation Metro Surge crackdown that led to thousands of arrests in the Twin Cities.

The complaint escalates the department's battle with the federal judiciary, which has halted administration priorities, dismissed high-profile prosecutions and accused government lawyers in some cases of failing to comply with court orders.

The department is demanding that the judges recuse themselves from all criminal or civil cases involving the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters, because of what he described as “obvious bias they have shown" in their remarks to the newspaper.

“When we have a situation like we have now, where you have a judge, a couple of judges, just not only violating the canons in our view, but also showing bias in what they’re saying, we have no choice but to act to defend not only our prosecutors, but also DHS,” Blanche said.

The judge at the center of the story, Patrick Schiltz, accused the government in January of failing to comply with nearly 100 court orders. He said in a ruling that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a part of DHS, "is not a law unto itself.”

Schiltz, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush and served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told the newspaper that what happened in Minnesota's federal court last winter “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Minnesota court said legal experts have confirmed that the judges were acting “well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges” in speaking to the newspaper. Schiltz also said in a statement that his comments did not violate any ethical rules.

“Indeed, in February of this year, the Committee on Codes of Conduct issued an advisory opinion to emphasize that federal judges" may speak or write "on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence,'" Schiltz said in a statement. “That is exactly what I did."

The complaint was filed with the chief judge of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees federal judges in Minnesota.

The Republican administration has railed against what it describes as “activist judges” who officials say are intent on thwarting Trump’s agenda. Yet some of the most critical and unfavorable court rulings have come from judges nominated by Trump and other Republican presidents.

El informe mostraba baños sucios y desbordados, además de detenidos que, según los denunciantes, se ven obligados a dormir en el piso de concreto o encadenados.

Wasserman Schultz dijo que las condiciones en el centro, ubicado en el 2805 SW 145th Ave., siguen siendo repugnantes, aunque en algunos aspectos han mejorado.

Según explicó, el hacinamiento se redujo de forma drástica, de 70 personas por sala a unas 20, y los inodoros ya funcionan.

Añadió que tampoco vio aguas residuales desbordadas, como se documentó en fotos publicadas anteriormente.

Sin embargo, la congresista afirmó que muchas de las salas siguen estando sucias y que en el centro no existe atención médica.

Aunque en el lugar hay más de 100 personas detenidas, no hay ni una sola enfermera ni un médico, dijo Wasserman Schultz, y cualquier detenido enfermo tiene que ser enviado a un hospital cercano.

También dijo que los hombres rara vez pueden ducharse.

Y aunque una orden judicial establece que el centro no puede retener a nadie por más de 12 horas, Wasserman Schultz aseguró que varios detenidos le dijeron personalmente que llevaban allí casi una semana.

Según la congresista, la presión constante de ciudadanos y organizaciones para mejorar las condiciones permitió resolver varios de los problemas.

“Este trato es tortura inconstitucional. Eso es lo que es este trato: tortura inconstitucional. Se están burlando de nuestras leyes”, dijo Wasserman Schultz. “En este momento, una orden judicial les prohíbe retener a personas por más de 12 horas. En esencia, reconocieron que las están reteniendo por más de 12 horas. Les pregunté a los detenidos, y hubo detenidos que dijeron que llevaban allí varios días”.

Wasserman Schultz dijo que los detenidos están siendo enviados a otros centros de ICE en todo el país para continuar con su procesamiento, lo que los aleja aún más de sus familias en la zona.

Afirmó que ella y otros funcionarios seguirán presionando al centro hasta que las condiciones mejoren aún más.

Passengers, many of them Israelis, feared for their lives as the FlyDubai aircraft lost half its altitude in about a minute.

As Israel scrambled fighter jets out of concern for a possible hijacking, a passenger and crew member burst into the cockpit to subdue the attacker, enabling other crew members to gain control of the aircraft, which landed safely in Saudi Arabia.

It was not clear what motivated Wednesday's attack.

The terrifying flight occurred just days before the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that launched the war in Gaza. It has rekindled anxieties about airline security and focused attention on an unsettling question: Are pilots a significant threat to the flying public's safety?

Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about what happened on FlyDubai flight FZ1073:

A fight, an alert and a rapid descent

The distress call came at 8:44 a.m. local time, about two and a half hours after the flight with about 170 passengers left Dubai and headed to Tel Aviv.

The captain and first officer had been fighting in the cockpit after one stabbed the other and tried to crash the aircraft, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The aircraft swiftly lost altitude — dropping from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in the span of about a minute. It then circled close to the Jordanian border before landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, about an hour later.

A person who heard the flight’s communications with air traffic control described the plane being turned away by Saudi Arabia and Jordan before eventually landing in Tabuk, while passengers screamed in the background. The person who heard the communications spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Aviation experts said they were surprised that the plane did not crash after a descent so extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail.

Both pilots suffered injuries that required hospital treatment, according to a statement from Tabuk's Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport. Netanyahu said Saudi Arabia had arrested one of the pilots.

A plane carrying passengers from the flight landed Wednesday evening in Israel.

Passengers and crew wrest control

A passenger and a crew member managed to enter the cockpit, enabling other crew members to fly the plane to a safe landing, according to Netanyahu, who cited a passenger he had spoken to.

The cockpit door on all aircraft is locked during flight for security reasons — a measure that became the industry standard after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, in which hijackers broke into the cockpits of four domestic flights in the United States.

Netanyahu said on X that the pilot who had been stabbed opened the cockpit door, which "enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster.”

What security checks do pilots undergo?

One question surrounding this incident is how anyone on the aircraft — especially a pilot — was able to get a knife onboard. It's unclear how big the knife was that was used in the attack.

Pilots undergo rigorous screening, including passing through metal detectors, at checkpoints at all airports. It's also standard for airlines to vet their pilots' background for criminal and employment history, their physical and mental health, as well as having them undergo intelligence and security screening.

Israel has some of the most stringent airline security measures worldwide. Passengers on Israel-bound flights regularly are taken aside for questioning and baggage searches after passing through normal airport security. It's unclear whether the pilots of the FlyDubai flight had been screened as vigorously.

There have been extremely rare occasions when airline security protocols fail. In 2015, the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately set the plane on a collision course with a mountainside, killing all 150 people aboard.

Según un informe de arresto del Departamento de Policía de Homestead, los detectives acudieron alrededor de las 2:20 a.m. del martes a una casa en la cuadra 1000 del Northwest Ninth Street.

La policía identificó a los sospechosos como los hermanos Yonelfy Elionai Diaz, de 21 años, y Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez, de 30.

De acuerdo con el informe, un investigador de incendios de Miami-Dade determinó que el fuego fue intencional y que posiblemente se usó un acelerante. Se tomaron muestras que fueron enviadas a un laboratorio para más análisis.

Los investigadores indicaron que cuatro vehículos, un side-by-side y parte de la casa sufrieron daños considerables.

El dueño de dos de los vehículos dañados les dijo a los detectives que, dos días antes del incendio, había tenido un altercado con los dos hermanos de su exesposa después de dejar a sus cuatro hijos en la casa de ella.

Según el informe, la víctima contó a la policía que, durante el enfrentamiento del domingo por la noche, Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez le lanzó una llave inglesa al side-by-side que él manejaba.

Ese incidente fue documentado por la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade como una agresión agravada, según el informe de arresto.

La víctima dijo a los investigadores que, por las circunstancias, sospechaba que los dos hermanos de su exesposa estaban involucrados en el incendio.

Video de vigilancia capta explosiones y a dos hombres huyendo

Los investigadores dijeron que una cámara de vigilancia en el Northwest Ninth Street captó el incendio.

Según el informe, el video muestra varias explosiones seguidas de dos hombres que huyen corriendo. Uno de ellos parecía tener la espalda en llamas mientras corría, antes de subirse a un sedán plateado.

La policía indicó que ambos hombres huyeron luego hacia el oeste por el Northwest Ninth Street.

Otras cámaras de vigilancia captaron el vehículo circulando hacia el norte por la Northwest 12th Avenue con las luces apagadas, antes de girar hacia el oeste por el Northwest Ninth Court en dirección a la Northwest 14th Avenue, según el informe.

Los investigadores dijeron que los lectores de placas identificaron el vehículo como un Toyota Corolla plateado registrado a nombre de la hermana de Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez y Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez.

Esa misma tarde, los detectives localizaron una camioneta blanca de doble rueda trasera (tipo dually) y la detuvieron cerca de la Southwest 244th Street y la Southwest 187th Avenue.

Según el informe, Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez iba al volante y fue arrestado en relación con un incidente distinto.

Según los registros de la cárcel en internet, enfrenta un cargo de agresión agravada con arma mortal y, al momento de su arresto, estaba en libertad bajo fianza por un delito grave de violencia doméstica.

Aunque el informe de arresto de Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez también menciona a Roibyn como sospechoso en la investigación del incendio, no está claro por qué por ahora no enfrenta cargos en ese caso.

De acuerdo con el informe de arresto, la hermana de ambos llegó al lugar donde se detuvo la camioneta, y poco después llegó Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez, quien, según la policía, fue a recoger la camioneta porque era suya.

Los detectives notaron de inmediato lo que parecían ser lesiones en Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez, según el informe.

La policía indicó que tenía ampollas en las manos, las pestañas de ambos ojos parecían chamuscadas y tenía enrojecimiento sobre el ojo derecho y en la nariz.

Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez aceptó ir a la estación de policía para hablar con los investigadores, según el informe.

Durante la entrevista, los detectives le pidieron que se quitara la sudadera con capucha y observaron lo que describieron como una quemadura grande en el brazo izquierdo.

Según la policía, Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez tuvo varias oportunidades para explicar cómo se había herido, pero se negó a dar una explicación o a admitir cualquier participación en el incendio.

Mientras tanto, la policía encontró el Corolla abandonado cerca del Northeast Second Street y la North Krome Avenue.

Los investigadores dijeron que el asiento del pasajero delantero parecía tener manchas de quemaduras. El vehículo fue asegurado, sellado y remolcado.

Con base en lo que los investigadores describieron como el conjunto de las circunstancias, incluidas las lesiones de Yonelfy Diaz Gonzalez y su coincidencia con quemaduras causadas por fuego, la policía lo arrestó por un cargo de incendio intencional en primer grado.

Hasta el miércoles por la tarde, permanecía detenido en el centro correccional Turner Guilford Knight. Según los registros de la cárcel en internet, su fianza aún no había sido fijada.

Roibyn Diaz Gonzalez también estaba detenido en el mismo centro correccional, y su fianza tampoco había sido fijada.

La escuela está ubicada en el 16700 SW 48th Court.

Según Miramar Fire Rescue, los equipos fueron llamados a la escuela alrededor de las 11:15 a.m. tras recibir el reporte de una “persona enferma”.

Al llegar, los bomberos encontraron a un grupo de estudiantes afectados por el gas pimienta liberado en un aula. El incidente pasó a considerarse un incidente con múltiples víctimas, según Miramar Fire Rescue.

Las autoridades informaron que 26 estudiantes fueron evaluados y que uno recibió atención en el lugar. Ningún niño tuvo que ser trasladado al hospital.

La policía de Miramar indicó que varios estudiantes tuvieron tos leve y fueron revisados por los equipos de bomberos como medida de precaución.

La policía aseguró que no existe ninguna amenaza para la comunidad escolar.

La policía de Miramar informó que investiga las circunstancias del incidente.

Las autoridades no dieron de inmediato más detalles sobre cómo se liberó el gas pimienta ni sobre si alguien enfrentará medidas disciplinarias o cargos penales.

He says his old team did not do much to try to keep him when he left in free agency for Baltimore.

“They shipped me out,” he said Wednesday, before walking that back a little. “No, I don't want to say it like that. It's always love. But no, they didn't offer nothing at all. ... It was bittersweet. I knew the writing was on the wall throughout that season, and they were ready to move on. Good things don't last forever, so it was time for me to find a new home.”

Tennessee was 6-11 in 2023, Henry's final season there. He turned 30 in January 2024. It's hard to know what it would have taken for him to stay, but joining a contending team in Baltimore has been great for him.

Henry rushed for 1,167 yards in his final season with the Titans, but he averaged a career-low 4.17 yards per carry. His first two full seasons with the Ravens: 1,921 yards in 2024 and 1,595 in 2025 — with a career-high 5.91 yards per carry in '24 and 5.2 last season.

Baltimore hosts Tennessee on Sunday. It's the first time the teams have met since Henry's move.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

A variety of missteps by the Fed's Board of Governors and staff inflated the cost of the $2.4 billion renovation, the Fed’s inspector general said. The board did not secure a comprehensive cost estimate at the beginning of the project, nor did it nail down a maximum overall cost, a step that could have forced the building contractor to absorb the impact of inflation, the IG said in a 120-page report. Prices spiked after construction began in 2022.

“Our review found that the Board has not effectively managed and executed its ... contract and repeatedly deviated from its cost-management provisions,” the report said.

The building project became a high-profile flashpoint in the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure the Fed into cutting its key interest rate. President Donald Trump even visited the construction site last July, when then-Chairman Jerome Powell corrected Trump’s estimate of the project’s expected costs as the two stood in hard hats before TV cameras.

Criticism of the project also mounted in Congress, leading Powell to request in July 2025 that the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, investigate the renovation.

The building project then became the focus of a criminal investigation by Trump’s Justice Department, specifically into whether Powell had committed perjury during brief testimony about the renovation before a Senate committee. That investigation was dropped in April after a judge quashed subpoenas issued by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro said then she would await the outcome of the inspector general’s investigation before deciding whether to take any further action.

“At no point during our evaluation did we find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred requiring a referral to the U.S. Attorney General,” the IG’s report said.

Tim Lauer, a spokesperson for Pirro's office, said the report is under review.

Powell's term as chair ended in May, but he took the highly unusual step of remaining on the board as one of seven governors. His term as a governor lasts until January 2028. Powell said earlier this year he would remain on the board at least until he is convinced that Pirro's investigation is done. By keeping his seat, Powell has also prevented the Trump administration from filling another spot on the board.

Trump on Wednesday afternoon seized on the report to renew his call for Powell to resign from the Fed.

“He can’t manage a Building, and he certainly shouldn’t be allowed to manage his High Interest Rate Policy,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “And no, I do not want this Building named after President Donald J. Trump, ME!”

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and a frequent critic of Powell's, said the report “confirmed that Trump lapdogs U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Attorney General Todd Blanche have no basis to restart the President’s witch hunt against former Fed Chair Jerome Powell.”

Current Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, who took office last May, welcomed the IG’s findings in a letter and said the General Services Administration, a federal agency that oversees most government buildings, would take on a consulting role with the Fed to help oversee the project.

He also said the Fed would engage an independent auditor to evaluate the building project and all its costs. The Fed, with the GSA, will review all the project's contracts and “pursue appropriate remedies,” including seeking reimbursement for any work paid for but not performed, the letter said.

The report said that the construction costs to renovate two Fed buildings more than doubled from an original estimate of $921 million in February 2020 to $2.018 billion by December 2024. Construction is expected to last until December 2027, long past its originally slated completion date of mid-2024.

Some aspects of the project that were criticized by the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress for being luxurious — water fountains, private elevators and marble facades — were not significant drivers of the excessive costs of the project, the report said.

Instead, the IG said that a design change by the Fed in 2023 from a mostly open workspace to one with mostly closed office space caused a significant delay in the project's design. It also delayed the Fed from seeking a maximum cost ceiling for the project at that time.

The Fed has long blamed a range of factors for the cost overruns, including a spike in inflation that occurred as the economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, unexpected expenses such as asbestos remediation, and additional demands from review agencies. For example, Trump appointees to a planning commission from his first term pushed the Fed to add more marble to the exterior of the renovated buildings, in keeping with Trump's preference for classical architecture.

The report said those factors all played a role, but added that they “do not account for the effect of key project management and contract execution decisions” that effectively transformed the contract to "a cost-plus reimbursement contract with a pay-as-you-go approach.”

“Inflation does not change the Fed’s responsibility to manage its resources prudently and be accountable to Congress,” Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a South Carolina Republican, said.

Tinkler Mendez rescheduled the hearing at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building to Oct. 28, saying the request had just come across her desk, and she is in the middle of a capital sentencing case and has not had sufficient time to review the agreement.

“The only litigation I’ve had on this case to date has been request to travel, as well as regular status (hearings),” she said. “But I am just not up to speed enough to move forward with a change of plea.”

The plea agreement was offered by prosecutors after more than 10 1/2 months of litigation, according to Brown’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh.

“They made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Eiglarsh said in a statement to Local 10 News.

Under the agreement, Brown would plead no contest to aggravated assault with a firearm and would receive three years of probation with the potential of early termination.

“It’s a setback because it’s another moment my client has an ankle monitor on and doesn’t have closure,” Eiglarsh said after Tinkler Mendez declined to make a decision on the plea deal Wednesday. “The decision to accept the plea is thoroughly in the hands of the judge and I presume she will accept it. That said, this was carefully negotiated with the state.”

While the former NFL star had no words for Local 10 after the hearing, his appearance was bizarre as he placed a mask on his head moments after stepping out of court.

Brown currently faces a charge that carries a potential 30-year prison sentence, including a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence, according to his attorney.

The case stems from a May 2025 incident at a boxing event in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.

Brown is accused of grabbing a gun from a staff member and firing two shots at a man, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, who he had been involved in a brawl with. A bullet was said to have grazed the man’s neck.

City of Miami police officers handcuffed and escorted Brown away following the incident, but he was not charged until months later.

After the shooting, Brown took to social media and alleged that the man was trying to steal his jewelry and harm him.

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office ultimately charged Brown with attempted second-degree murder with a firearm.

Eiglarsh has previously argued that the case was overcharged and said Brown had a strong self-defense case.

“This case is clearly overcharged as an attempted second-degree murder,” Eiglarsh said in November 2025. “Even the judge said at worst we’re talking about aggravated assault. Secondly, we have a strong self-defense case.”

Brown previously pleaded not guilty after being extradited to the United States from the Middle East.

At the time, his legal team disputed the suggestion that Brown had fled to Dubai.

“He didn’t flee to Dubai, he has ongoing business in Dubai,” his attorney said during a previous bond court appearance.

Earlier this month, Nantambu’s attorney told reporters that his client no longer wished to “participate” in Brown’s prosecution.

“We want the best for Antonio,” Nantambu said after Wednesday’s hearing. “We want him to get the healing that he needs and he can speak that into the free world.”

According to Eiglarsh, Brown has now decided that resolving the case is in the best interest of himself and his family.

“Antonio is ready to put this behind him, continue to focus on his children, rebuild his professional opportunities, and move forward with his life,” Eiglarsh said. “He has fought this case for more than ten and a half months. Now, he has an opportunity for something that has become increasingly important to him and his family: closure.”

He was with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles in June at a signing ceremony for a business summit.

Al Mubarak, 50, also is a UAE special envoy to China, and welcomed Xi Jinping to the club when the Chinese leader visited England in 2015.

Why the head of an English soccer club — albeit one of the wealthiest, most successful and now highly controversial — should be a key player at such political events is easily explained.

Al Mubarak, the public face of the 2023 Champions League winner now embroiled in one of soccer's biggest scandals, is a member of the ruling elite in Abu Dhabi — part of the United Arab Emirates — and the head of a $385 billion sovereign wealth fund.

His family has a long tradition of public service that he has continued with a long list of roles serving his nation's interests, including as a strategy advisor to its president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known as MBZ, and a board member of both Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Before entering European soccer, Al Mubarak was a key liaison with F1 when the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix joined the circuit.

When Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, now a deputy prime minister of the UAE, bought the long-time underachieving soccer club in 2008, Al Mubarak was installed as chairman to oversee what became a turnaround that was barely believable to an older generation of fans.

The story of sporting and financial success was, according to the verdict by an investigatory panel, too good to be true.

While under Al Mubarak's leadership, Man Ci

ty was found to have broken financial rules

The Premier League announced Tuesday that its most successful club over the past 15 seasons, and current standings leader, systematically broke financial monitoring rules for years.

An independent panel of judges appointed by the league said City orchestrated “sham” contracts with commercial partners to disguise secret funding of more than 830 million pounds ($1.1 billion) by the Abu Dhabi ownership between 2009-18. Club witnesses also gave evidence “they knew to be untrue."

That money helped pay high-value transfer fees and wages for players, some signed from City’s biggest rivals, that fueled the club’s trophy-laden rise to become a European power.

For City it was a virtuous circle: winning titles led to earning more prize money and building a global brand that led to attracting more of the world’s best players, like today’s superstar goal scorer Erling Haaland.

Al Mubarak held firm when the story of the judgment leaked

The devastating judgment, which City can appeal, said the club broke Premier League rules designed to keep clubs financially stable and secure, and which rivals like Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United complied with.

Reports of the pending verdict leaked Friday to The Athletic, and the club responded a day later with a statement from Al Mubarak.

“Here’s what I said to my family,” he said. “The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the Club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began.”

Al Mubarak says the club represents Abu Dhabi's values

In a rare interview in 2009, with British daily The Guardian, he spoke of City as representing Abu Dhabi's values. "These are loyalty, commitment, discipline, long-term thinking, respect, appreciation of history.”

“This is showing the world the true essence of who Abu Dhabi is and what Abu Dhabi is about,” he said.

Al Mubarak was an elegant, articulate embodiment of a project many saw as an extension of Abu Dhabi soft power as much as a sheikh’s personal investment. He also is chairman of City Football Group, the global network of 12 clubs anchored by Man City that includes New York City FC.

A graduate in economics from Tufts University near Boston, he oversees the Mubadala wealth fund among a slew of key government positions.

His family suffered personal tragedy in public service

Al Mubarak's father, Khalifa Al Mubarak, was a diplomat who served as the UAE’s ambassador to France.

He was assassinated in Paris in February 1984, shot on a street outside his residence close to the Eiffel Tower. Khaldoon Al Mubarak was 8. The killing was linked to the Abu Nidal Organization, a violent group calling for Israel's destruction.

Gulf media has reported that the young Khaldoon was mentored by the royal family in the wake of his father's death. In 2018 a street in Abu Dhabi was renamed for the slain diplomat.

Hacked emails revealed the malfeasance

As Man City's finances and compliance with soccer's rules came under more scrutiny, including by UEFA investigations judged in 2014 and 2020, Al Mubarak's public comments were limited to end-of-season interviews filmed and conducted by the club's own staff.

A landmark UEFA case in 2020 — won by City on an appeal that overturned a two-year ban from the Champions League — and the Premier League case were sparked by internal club emails and documents obtained by a hacker-whistleblower.

They were published in a series of articles by German magazine Der Spiegel in November 2018, that gave insight into the City chairman's resolve for a legal battle.

In 2014, when UEFA's then-general secretary, now FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, was in talks with Man City about settling a rules breach with a fine, the club's lawyer Simon Cliff sent an email with a line yet to be forgotten.

“Khaldoon said," Cliff wrote, "he would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years.”

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

The indictment against 36-year-old Ivanna Lisette Ortiz of Orlando was unsealed Wednesday by a Los Angeles County judge.

Ortiz, appearing in court wearing yellow jail clothes, spoke only to her attorney, who entered a not guilty plea for her. The judge then ordered her held on $2.6 million bail.

The move came a day after another judge ruled that Ortiz is mentally competent to stand trial. The secret grand jury proceedings were held as Ortiz was undergoing months of psychiatric evaluation. The jurors returned their indictment June 18, but it was kept under wraps for three months until the judge ruled on her competency. Now, a case that appeared stalled — possibly permanently — is on a fast track to trial.

No one was injured in the March 8 shooting. Authorities allege Ortiz drove a Tesla up to the gates of the Beverly Hills-area property of the singing superstar and her rap star partner A$AP Rocky, pointed an AR-15 style rifle out the window and fired at least 20 rounds toward the property and the neighboring house.

“This is a person who wanted to kill Rihanna,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott said outside court. “Everyone else was collateral damage.”

Bullets tore through the Airstream trailer, according to a police report. Shots also struck the wall of their home's nursery where their three small children were with their nanny. Rihanna’s mother and several staffers also were in the home, and authorities say she also fired shots toward a neighbor's house.

Deputy Public Defender Derek Dillman, Ortiz's attorney, did not speak to reporters outside the courtroom, and a message seeking comment from the public defender's office on the indictment was not immediately answered. Other than her not guilty pleas, her lawyers have not publicly addressed the charges, saying only that they would work to defend her rights.

Investigators said that on the day of her arrest, Ortiz told them: “I wasn’t attempting murder.”

Ortiz was previously charged in March with Rihanna’s attempted murder and more than a dozen other felony charges. The new indictment supersedes those charges, which a judge dismissed Wednesday. The secret grand jury proceedings allow prosecutors to skip California’s preliminary hearing process, where evidence must be presented publicly to see if a trial is merited.

The indictment also charges Ortiz with 10 counts of assault with an assault weapon — one for each of the people on the two properties — and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling or camper. It names the couple's three children Rza, Riot and Rocki, all under age 5, as victims. The assault weapon counts carry a stiffer sentence than the original charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.

She could get life in prison if convicted of all counts.

Reports have been sealed on the psychiatric evaluations that paused the case shortly after it began, and there was no public discussion of the details of her mental state. Prosecutors have not said anything about a motive or cited any connection between Rihanna and Ortiz, a longtime licensed speech pathologist with no prior criminal record.

A nine-time Grammy Award winner, Rihanna has had 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “We Found Love,” “Work,” “Umbrella” and “Disturbia.”

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Firefighters responded to the area of Northwest Ninth Street and 10th Avenue just after 2 a.m., where they encountered massive flames.

The fire has since been extinguished, but a side-by-side, four other vehicles and a portion of the home were damaged.

Firefighters said the blaze started with the ATV, though it remains unclear what caused it to catch fire.

Police officers later confirmed to Local 10 News that an arson investigation was underway.

Security footage shows one of the vehicles bursting into flames.

“I thought it was going to explode because there was, like, at least three cars over there that caught on fire at the same time, so we were just, you know, worried that it might be a bigger thing,” neighbor Hilda Palma said. “But I was also worried because since the house was already on fire as well, I didn’t know if there were people in there, because the front of the door was getting on fire.”

No injuries were reported.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue officials took canisters of evidence from the vehicles to see if this could have been a case of arson.

The official cause of the fire, however, remains under investigation.

They are automated license plate readers that snap pictures of passing cars and keep a database that police officers can search through.

Advocates say the cameras can help solve crimes, find stolen cars and track missing people, but there are those who feel there are privacy concerns.

Earlier this month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered all flock cameras and other license plate readers to be removed from state highways.

The next day, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz not only did that, but went further and suspended its entire program.

The day after, so did Pembroke Pines.

Right as you enter the city of Hollywood, just as you pass the Welcome to Hollywood sign, you’re greeted by a flock camera.

It’s right near the intersection of Pembroke Road and South Park Road.

Several South Florida mayors, including Miami Beach, Sunny Isles Beach and Aventura, asked the governor to reconsider his order, signing a letter and noting the cameras have solved crimes while worrying that no transition plan could put public safety at risk.

Miramar has dozens of cameras, including one near the intersection of Miramar Parkway and Southwest 64th Avenue.

So does Fort Lauderdale, where last month police said someone damaged two cameras.

The city of Miami’s newly passed budget gives police nearly $150,000 in what’s being called “investigative tech” upgrades.

Watchdogs fear that’s going toward flock cameras.

DeFlock, an open-source project tracking cameras around the country, lists thousands in South Florida, most of them flock cameras.

Federal lawmakers are looking into concerns they can make mistakes.

Lindsey Isaacs was wrongfully arrested and jailed for 13 days in Central Florida after a camera mistakenly identified her as a driver involved in a fatal hit-and-run.

She testified during a U.S. Senate hearing last week.

“I was placed in solitary confinement for approximately three and a half days,” she said.

The gunfire erupted at approximately 9:53 p.m. in the area of the 600 block of Northwest Fifth Avenue.

According to the Miami Police Department, officers responded to the scene in reference to a Shot Spotter alert.

Upon arrival, police said they found two men who had been shot.

Miami Fire Rescue officials said the men’s ages ranged between 20 and 30, and both were listed in serious and critical condition.

Both men were rushed by MFR crews to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Dispatch audio obtained by Local 10 News indicates that one of the men was shot in the knee and the other man was struck multiple times, including in the head and body.

Local 10 News cameras captured police appearing to focus part of their investigation on a white Mercedes-Benz sedan that appeared to have a bullet hole in the windshield.

It wasn’t until around 4 a.m. that the Mercedes and a black Lexis IS sedan were towed away from the scene.

Investigators said they are working to determine the circumstances that led up to the shooting.

Police did not say whether they were seeking any suspects or persons of interest.

Mediante un decreto firmado por el conservador presidente Rodrigo Paz se establecieron “las condiciones de importación y comercialización de la gasolina de aviación grado 100, con la finalidad de garantizar el abastecimiento de combustibles en el mercado interno”.

Con esta medida, el combustible de aviación pasará a venderse a precio de mercado. Antes del decreto, el precio fijado para ese carburante era de aproximadamente 90 centavos de dólar el litro.

La disposición se enmarca en las reformas económicas que emprende la administración de Paz para enfrentar la peor crisis económica en 40 años, entre las cuales destaca la eliminación total de los subsidios a los combustibles, considerada una de las principales causas del déficit.

Hace dos semanas se retiró el 100% de la subvención al diésel, cuyo precio ahora fluctuará según el mercado internacional. Por su parte, la gasolina mantendrá el subsidio hasta fin de año y se definirán nuevas medidas en enero del próximo año.

Los ajustes —sobre todo en el costo del diésel— han generado gran descontento, principalmente en el transporte de carga. Según cifras del gobierno, el 20% del transporte utiliza diésel y este incremento ya ha provocado un alza en los precios de los alimentos.

Actualmente Bolivia importa el 80% del diésel y el 50% de la gasolina que consume.

El gobierno argumentó que busca ordenar la economía y reorientar los recursos de la subvención hacia nuevas obras públicas. Entre tanto, diversos sectores, como los transportistas, comerciantes y maestros, han manifestado su firme rechazo.

Paz enviará ley de electricidad al Congreso

Poco después el mandatario informó en un evento público que en el transcurso del día enviará un proyecto de ley de electricidad a la Asamblea Legislativa con el que se busca dejar la dependencia del gas para generar electricidad mediante el reemplazo gradual a las energías renovables no convencionales.

Este es el segundo proyecto de ley que envía al Congreso. El proyecto de ley de inversiones fue el primero que presentó en agosto, enmarcado dentro de un paquete de medidas legislativas con el que el gobierno aspira enfrentar la crisis económica. El Legislativo aún no lo ha aprobado.

“Aquí hay energía, hay gas, tenemos electricidad, tenemos capacidad de poner la energía para que sus empresas se puedan instalar y con eso generar empleo, generar desarrollo de las diferentes instancias”, señaló el gobernante.

In a statement, the Home Office said the so-called “one in, one out” deal is “no longer processing new cases."

Under the plan, people who arrived in the U.K. after making the dangerous crossing across the Channel could be detained and returned to France in exchange for an equivalent number of asylum seekers who applied through a safe and legal route.

As part of the deal, some 1,500 individuals have returned to France while a tad fewer have been transferred to the U.K. The deal was intended to last three years though there was a clause allowing the parties to end it earlier.

“We continue to work with France to relentlessly tackle small boat crossings, and we’ve made real progress," the Home Office said in a statement.

Though the scheme is no longer active, the Home Office said deportation flights will continue in the coming weeks for those who have already been detained.

The backdrop currently is very different to last year. The number of people making the crossing has fallen sharply this year to a five-year low for a variety of reasons, including increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France. So far this year, around 19,000 people have made the crossing, down about 40% on the same time last year.

The danger of crossings was illustrated Monday when a 10-year-old child and two women died, apparently trampled to death on a boat packed with more than 100 people.

Cooperation on stopping the boats stalled after the U.K.’s acrimonious split from the European Union in 2020, but in the past few years the U.K. and France have struck several agreements to get a handle on the issue.

Small boat crossings have become a potent political issue in the U.K. in recent years. Anger at the seeming inability of successive governments to get a handle on the issue has been behind a series of demonstrations and riots and has fueled the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party.

A total of 31 migrants, most of whom were Iraqi Kurds, died in November 2021 when their boat sank.

Fourteen people, including two who remain at large, had been on trial since Sept. 8. One of them was acquitted. They were accused of organizing the crossing of a small boat that was unfit for navigation on the open sea, was overloaded and lacked appropriate life jackets.

Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for victims’ families, said that “when it costs the lives of 31 people and the sea becomes a cemetery, there is a price, and the court said that the price they had to pay was justice and prison time.”

Meanwhile, an investigation into seven military personnel who have been indicted for failing to assist the shipwreck survivors is still underway.

Following an alert from a fishing vessel about bodies in the water off the coast of Calais, French authorities recovered 27 bodies, including two teenagers and a child. Four others weren't recovered.

The court said that the trial highlighted the dramatic consequences of the methods used by smugglers driven by greed “profiting from the vulnerability of exile candidates.”

Court documents said that one of the survivors told investigators that he had taken part in an earlier failed attempt to cross the Channel with 53 other migrants. They were brought back to French shores by rescue teams.

He said that his family in Iraq funded his passage, having paid $3,200, according to the documents.

He said that the same smugglers’ network organized the second attempt on Nov. 24 when the small boat sank. After it was prepared in a wooded area, the gray boat equipped with a 40 CV outboard motor was launched. The migrants, wearing life jackets provided by the smugglers, set out to sea at around 10 p.m. local time.

Four hours later, the boat began to deflate, and with the motor having stopped, it drifted at the mercy of the currents. Some passengers then wanted to return to France, while others wanted to reach England and several people who spoke English tried to contact emergency services.

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Nicolas Vaux-Montagny reported from Saint-Etienne, France.

Burnham said U.K. and U.S. officials are carrying out a “complex and serious” investigation into how and why five men and three vans were near the perimeter of RAF Fairford, a base that has been used by American bombers striking Iran during this year's war.

Five British men in their 20s were arrested Sunday on suspicion of explosives offenses and planning an act of terror, before being released on bail a day later. Police say they found a quantity of an accelerant – gasoline – in the vans, but no explosives.

Burnham did not provide details about what the suspects were planning or why the U.K. thinks Iran was involved. He said he would “update people more in due course.”

“There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford, but of course it remains an ongoing, complex, and serious police investigation,” Burnham told the BBC in one of a series of interviews with British broadcasters. “And of course, we are working closely with our colleagues in the United States of America.”

Iran has denied involvement in the incident. It has previously said that it considers any base used to attack its territory a legitimate target.

The base 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of London has been used by American bombers during decades of conflicts in the Middle East, including this year’s war with Iran.

Top U.S. officials have criticized the decision to grant the suspects bail, with President Donald Trump saying “I wouldn’t have done that" and Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying a lot of people were “disturbed” by the move.

Burnham said authorities have the investigation under “the strongest grip and the closest control,” and British officials had been “talking to counterparts in the United States all week to explain what is happening here, how things are being done.”

“I have complete confidence in the way British security services are handling this,” he told the BBC.

Laurence Taylor, the head of British counterterror policing, said Tuesday that the suspects remain under investigation and the decision to grant bail was grounded in “experience and strategy.”

He said a line of inquiry is whether the suspected offenses were committed by “proxies or individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state.”

The arrests came at a time of heightened tensions around the threat from hostile states, with British security services saying Russia and Iran have both used proxies to commit crimes on U.K. soil. British officials have said the number of national security cases involving activity by hostile states, including Iran, increased by 50% in the six months to December 2025.

U.K. officials also say proxies linked to Iran have been behind a string of arsons and other attacks in the U.K. and other countries, many of them targeting the Jewish community and intended to sow fear. They have previously warned that Tehran could expand its targets in the U.K. if conflicts in the Middle East continue.

Noem, who was tasked with leading President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown from January 2025 to March 2026 and previously served as South Dakota's governor, is seeking a divorce from Bryon Noem in their home state. The two married in May 1992 and have three children.

The filing, made in April but posted online on Monday, comes after questions arose earlier this year about the nature of Kristi Noem's relationship with a top adviser. The complaint, filed in Hamlin County, notes “irreconcilable differences” as grounds for the divorce.

In a statement, Kristi Noem's attorney confirmed she has filed for divorce and said she will reserve further comments for the legal process. Lawyers for Bryon Noem did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A day before Noem was ousted from her post in Trump's cabinet, members of Congress questioned her about an alleged extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, a special government employee and one of the secretary’s lead advisers. He was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and appeared to play an outsized role in Noem's department, even though his position was supposed to have a limit on days worked.

Noem denied the allegations that they were having an affair, dismissing them as “tabloid garbage.”

Once a close ally to Trump, Noem became a liability for the Republican president as questions arose over her conduct following the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration officers. Noem characterized both Renee Good and Alex Pretti as aggressors, contradicting videos from the scene and descriptions of their deaths from bystanders. She also faced criticism from fellow Republicans for her spending at her department.

Trump nominated Markwayne Mullin, then a U.S. senator from Oklahoma, in Noem's place and made her a special envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere.

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Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Teams averaged 29,589 for 2,425 dates, a 0.4% increase from the average of 29,471 last year, when attendance totaled 71.4 million. MLB attendance has risen in four straight seasons for the first time since 2004-07.

Thirteen teams had increases and 17 dropped.

Tampa Bay had the biggest increase, up 628,255 to 1,414,975 as the Rays won the AL East for the first time since 2021. The Rays spent 2025 at Steinbrenner Field, the New York Yankees’ spring training ballpark, while damage to their stadium from Hurricane Milton was repaired. Steinbrenner Field's capacity for the Rays was 10,046, and they drew up to 28,055 this year at the Trop.

Five clubs topped 3 million, down from six last year and matching 2024. There were eight in 2023.

The two-time World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers led the sport with a team-record 4,034,219, an average of 49,805.

The Chicago White Sox, who earned an AL wild card this year by finishing with an 84-78 record following three straight 100-loss seasons, rose 540,687 to 1,986,425.

Toronto, coming off an AL pennant in 2025, increased 488,943 to 3,338,878, and Seattle, which came within one win of reaching its first World Series in 2025, rose 345,745 to 2,883,798.

The New York Mets, who entered the season with the sport's highest payroll, had the biggest decline, a 472,450 drop to 2,712,120. The Mets had a 12-game losing streak in April and finished last in the NL East for the first time since 2003.

Houston fell 255,759 to 2,472,118 despite winning the AL West title — with an 81-81 record that was the poorest for a first-place team. Kansas City dropped 221,703 to 1,527,098 and Arizona, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Colorado and Philadelphia all experienced decreases of 100,000 to 200,000.

The Athletics, based for a second season at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, California, before a planned move to a new Las Vegas ballpark in 2028, drew a major league-low attendance of 799,240 and average of 9,867. They played six games at Las Vegas Ballpark, another minor league stadium, and averaged 9,983 in West Sacramento and 8,451 in Las Vegas.

Miami dropped from 28th to 29th in attendance at 1,231,018.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

A sometimes-overlooked element of the bill designed to regulate name-image-likeness payments and myriad other problems in college sports is the protections it offers the smaller, non-revenue-generating “Olympic” sports. Hundreds of thousands of athletes across the country play these sports in college, and their talent leads to hundreds of medals for the U.S.

Exhibit A: Of the 257 U.S. athletes who won medals at the Paris Olympics two years ago, 184 had roots in an NCAA program.

That's why, at the urging of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the bill includes language requiring most college programs, which devote the lion's share of their resources to football and basketball, to maintain the same number of scholarships and roster spots for Olympic sports as they had in the 2024-25 school year.

Another element of the bill adds a $27 million “retention pool” to the revenue-sharing cap schools are allowed to pay to athletes; $5 million of that has to be spent on women’s and Olympic sports.

While not a foolproof solution — some schools could ask for waivers and others could shift numbers around among different sports to dilute their investments — Olympic insiders believe the bill offers a sustainable remedy for what they consider a likely move away from non-revenue sports if schools are left to their own devices.

“The sky is not falling, but we're not going back to what used to be” whether the bill becomes law or not, Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of the USOPC, said last week at the annual USOPC Assembly. “We're not in a state of panic about Team USA not being able to compete in Los Angeles. But there are some things that really need to be fixed.”

With House passage uncertain, Olympic leaders study other solutions

Against that backdrop, leaders at the USOPC know that even if the bill passes the House, where it faces a steep climb, they need to plan for a future in which college programs cut Olympic sports to make ends meet.

A report released within the last month by the bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said that since 2023, which is when the so-called “arms race” to obtain football and basketball talent shifted into high gear, colleges have eliminated more than 100 women’s and Olympic sports programs.

“I feel for the athletic directors because many of them are trying to run a business but they don't know what tomorrow is, and that makes it really difficult for long-term planning," said Rocky Harris, the USOPC's chief of sport and athlete services. “If you can't do long-term planning, you can't run a good business. And if they can't run a good business, then that impacts Olympics sports directly.”

Cantwell has cited the peril Olympic and women's sports face as the key reason she got involved in crafting the legislation.

The connection between, say, a starting quarterback's NIL haul and the U.S. gold medal count in LA two years from now exists because the U.S. government, unlike most governments around the globe, doesn't bankroll the Olympics or its pipeline. That leaves the task to the nation's grassroots sports organizations and, eventually, the U.S. college system, where football underwrites everything.

“I don't think people understand the connection between the money that's made by football and the success of our Olympic system,” said Cody Campbell, the billionaire from Texas Tech who has aired ads during Saturday college football games supporting the legislation.

LA Games should give participation a boost, but will colleges play along?

Harris, who led USA Triathlon before coming to the USOPC, said the push to make women's triathlon an “emerging sport” at the NCAA level was intended to give young girls a chance “to dream about doing triathlon.”

“Maybe they couldn't see themselves as Olympians, but many of them could see themselves as a college athlete and I knew that would drive our plan," Harris said.

Without college programs, Harris says, the potential elite athletes in a sport move on to other things. If those programs do exist that's how a pipeline begins.

In many ways, the doubts about the future of the Olympic movement come at a time when the United States should be preparing for an upswing in participation with the LA Olympics less than two years away. Hirshland cited numbers that showed participation in some Olympic sports grew between 25% and 35% after the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, the last time the Summer Games were held on U.S. soil.

“I'm still bullish that LA will actually accelerate that,” Hirshland said. “We're not going to see flat. We're going to see growth in the desire to do sports some people might have never contemplated.”

But where will the kids who discover fencing or wrestling or track during the LA Games play in college?

The thinking around the USOPC offices is that there will always be programs.

Oregon, for example, has always been a bastion for distance runners and probably won't do anything to detract from its iconic track program. Iowa's wrestling program has produced 24 national titles over the years.

What grabs more attention was the move Stanford made in 2020, when, citing financial pressures from the pandemic, it announced it was axing 11 varsity sports. Less than a year later, and under pressure from alumni and boosters, it reversed those decisions.

Still, if a deep-pocketed school like Stanford that had won 25 straight Directors' Cups — awarded for the overall strongest results across all collegiate sports — could cut programs because of financial pressure, then what school couldn't? Stanford's new athletic director, John Donahoe, was recently appointed to the USOPC's Collegiate Advisory Council, replacing his predecessor on The Farm, Bernard Muir.

Even if the bill passes and schools are required to maintain their numbers, the provision lapses in nine years at the biggest schools and four years at mid-sized universities, which is why the USOPC is doing work now.

Hirshland said she thinks there will be “more customization and differentiation, sport to sport,” based on what makes sense at each university.

“I'd like to believe our education system will remained anchored in sports," she said. “But if it doesn't, I'm confident there will be systems that emerge to pick up that demand and provide the experiences for people who want them. Our job is is to drive interest and ensure the infrastructure, and we're focused on both.”

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In a notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register, the State Department said it was amending its International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, so that Syria no longer was among the nations subject to a policy of denial for licenses and other approvals needed for the sale of U.S. weapons and munitions.

The change effective Thursday means that arms sales requests from Syria will now be considered on a case-by-case basis.

President Donald Trump acted last year to ease economic sanctions on Syria that had been in place for decades during now-ousted President Bashar Assad’s rule. In August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio rescinded Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, helping paving the way for the latest step in drawing closer to the current government.

The State Department has also announced plans to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. It has been closed for 14 years.

With Syria’s removal from the ITAR blacklist, only seven countries remain subject to the policy of denial for licenses for U.S. arms exports: Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea and Venezuela.

Syria’s interim president, former rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, overthrew the Assad government nearly two years ago and has embarked on a policy of change that has impressed the Trump administration. His moves have led to hopes of eventual stability in a country that was wracked by civil war and the Islamic State insurgency that engulfed northeast and western Iraq for years.

Wednesday’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq may mean that the Syrian government plays a greater role in preventing an IS resurgence.

Nelson succeeds Michael Baiamonte, who retired after 35 years as the voice of the Heat. Nelson becomes the third public address announcer in franchise history.

His first appearance behind the microphone is scheduled for Oct. 6 during the Heat’s annual Red, White and Pink Game, the team’s preseason scrimmage.

Nelson currently serves as president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami and the Florida Keys, a position he has held since 2006. During his tenure, he has overseen the organization’s mentoring and fundraising efforts and helped guide the agency to Agency of the Year honors in 2021.

The organization also received four consecutive National Pinnacle Awards from 2019 through 2022. Nelson has more than three decades of experience in nonprofit leadership.

Michael McCullough, the Heat’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said Nelson’s distinctive voice and style stood out during the selection process.

“Gale brings a unique style and his very distinctive voice to the PA announcer position,” McCullough said. “We were intrigued right from the start when we heard Gale, and we knew he could be exactly what we were looking for.”

Nelson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Toledo, Ohio.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus on corporate finance from the University of Toledo and a master’s degree in management and administration of educational programs from Nova Southeastern University.

Nelson said he hopes to honor Baiamonte’s legacy while bringing his own personality to the role.

“I look forward to continuing the legacy that Michael Biamonte left at the Heat and creating my own journey with the organization,” Nelson said. “I am humbled and excited for Heat Nation to see who Gale is and showcase my personality and style that I will bring to the microphone this season.”

The Miami Heat begin their preseason at 7 p.m. Saturday when they face the Toronto Raptors at the Scotiabank Arena. Fans can watch that game on WPLG Local 10.

And don’t forget, you can also watch the majority of the Miami Heat’s regular season games, at least 68, on Local 10 next season as WPLG Local 10 and the Heat announced a newly expanded media rights agreement, making Local 10 the home of HEAT basketball across South Florida! CLICK HERE for more information on how to watch!

Heat fans can also call 786-777-4375 for more information on how to purchase tickets for the 2026-2027 season.

Introducing our new PA voice... Gale Nelson 🗣️

Meet Gale - https://t.co/4hYWTyyESe pic.twitter.com/LGs2AoRGC6

— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) September 30, 2026

Según el Departamento de Policía de Davie, los agentes acudieron el viernes a un accidente de un solo vehículo cerca de la intersección de Hiatus Road y Orange Drive.

La policía indicó que los agentes encontraron una camioneta Ford F-150 azul que se había estrellado contra una baranda de protección y derribado un tendido eléctrico, con Jordan Nelson al volante.

En el informe de arresto, uno de los agentes que respondió al llamado escribió que de inmediato percibió “un fuerte olor asociado a bebidas alcohólicas que salía de su cara, especialmente cuando hablaba”, y agregó que Nelson tenía “los ojos rojos y vidriosos, y arrastraba las palabras”.

Según los agentes, Nelson, de 36 años, aceptó hacer las pruebas de sobriedad en el lugar, pero no las pasó. Su nivel de alcohol en la sangre fue de 0.173% y 0.163%, ambos más del doble del límite legal de 0.08%.

Nelson fue acusado de manejar bajo la influencia (DUI), DUI con lesiones o daños a la propiedad, y DUI con un nivel de alcohol en la sangre superior a 0.15%.

Figura como uno de los cuatro candidatos que aspiran al escaño del Distrito 3 del concejo municipal de Davie.

Aun así, el mes logró reunir cuatro tormentas con nombre: Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo y Hanna. La única destacable fue Fay, que ha durado más que cualquier otra tormenta en lo que va de temporada y estuvo muy cerca de convertirse en el primer huracán del año a última hora del 21 de septiembre.

Oficialmente, los vientos de Fay alcanzaron un máximo de 70 mph, 4 mph por debajo del umbral de huracán. Sin embargo, el radar de apertura sintética (SAR), un instrumento de altísima resolución a bordo de un satélite de la Agencia Espacial Canadiense, estimó vientos de alrededor de 84 mph en su lado noroeste cerca de las 4:30 p.m., hora del Este, del 20 de septiembre.

Se sabe que el SAR tiende a sobreestimar los vientos: aproximadamente el 75% de sus estimaciones son más altas que las que calcula el Centro Nacional de Huracanes (NHC) a partir de los vuelos de reconocimiento. Pero este es precisamente el tipo de datos que el NHC revisa a fondo fuera de temporada para corregir, si hace falta, sus estimaciones en tiempo real.

Los mejores algoritmos tradicionales de estimación de vientos por satélite disponibles en ese momento indicaban vientos máximos de unas 70 mph, pero la lectura del SAR se produjo justo en un vacío notable de esas estimaciones basadas en inteligencia artificial. Si logramos terminar la temporada sin huracanes, algo que todavía está por verse, será interesante ver si el NHC eleva los vientos de Fay a fuerza de huracán en su evaluación final.

Hanna se despide, pero ¿intenta Fay un tercer regreso?

Hanna perdió buena parte de su estructura durante la noche y quedó reducida a un remolino de nubes bajas, sin tormentas, sobre el Atlántico Norte abierto. Se espera que su giro remanente se desplace sobre mar abierto sin volver a desarrollarse esta semana.

Mientras tanto, el NHC dio por muerta a Fay el martes por la tarde, pero la tormenta está haciendo todo lo posible por resurgir por tercera vez, con repetidas rondas de tormentas eléctricas cerca de su circulación remanente. Regrese o no esta Fay “zombi”, no representa una amenaza para nadie, salvo para los barcos que pasen por la zona.

Atentos al sur del Golfo a fines de la próxima semana

Como adelantamos en el boletín del martes, un fuerte frente frío de otoño avanzará por el sur de Estados Unidos a principios de la próxima semana, antes de estancarse sobre Florida y el Golfo más adelante.

Los modelos de largo plazo siguen apuntando a una baja probabilidad, de alrededor del 20%, de que se forme algún sistema tropical o subtropical en el extremo de este frente de cara al próximo fin de semana, el del 9 de octubre. Tanto los modelos de inteligencia artificial como los modelos tradicionales basados en la física muestran indicios de ello.

Habrá que esperar a ver cómo evolucionan las tendencias en los próximos días, pero la corriente en chorro subtropical estará activa sobre el norte del Golfo a fines de la próxima semana. Eso significa que cualquier sistema que intente formarse encontraría obstáculos si se desplazara hacia el norte, en dirección a Estados Unidos.

Por ahora no hay nada de qué preocuparse, pero es algo a lo que le daremos seguimiento.

Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, was advanced out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on a 12 to 11 vote to serve as surgeon general after she was grilled at her confirmation hearing earlier this month about her stance on childhood vaccines.

She expressed support for vaccines and told lawmakers she didn’t believe they cause autism. The Trump administration has sought to revisit claims about a link between vaccines and autism, although widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is none.

Timothy Westlake, who was nominated to serve as assistant secretary for mental health and substance use at the Department of Health and Human Services was also advanced out of committee on the same en bloc vote.

It was not immediately clear when the officials would face a full Senate vote for their confirmation but they are expected to be approved.

During her confirmation hearing, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy pressed Saphier to declare whether she believed there was a link between vaccines and autism. Saphier responded that she does “not believe childhood vaccines cause autism,” adding that “the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles,” in response to a question by Cassidy over whether parents should give children that shot.

MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella, and the president recently called for the shots to be spaced out, against the guidance of medical groups.

The surgeon general position carries limited policymaking power but serves as a loud megaphone as the nation’s top communicator to Americans on public health issues.

Cassidy, who led the inquiry into Saphier's views on vaccines, ultimately voted in support of her nomination.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate HELP committee, said ahead of Saphier's vote that he would vote down her nomination because in part Saphier “has questioned the need for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, when the data science has been clear.”

“We need a surgeon general who will tell the truth about vaccines, not someone who misleads the public,” Sanders said. At her confirmation hearing, Saphier said the universal birth dose of hepatitis B was safe and effective.

Chris Klomp, who was nominated to serve as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee last week on a 15 to 12 vote. He was questioned during the same hearing as Saphier about his duties associated with the role as the current chief counselor of the Department of Health and Human Services under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as well as about his vaccine stance.

In protesting Klomp's nomination at the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden said Klomp “tried to create the impression that he will be the adult in the room on vaccines. Yet, as we sit here today, the vaccine chaos that we’ve come to expect from Robert Kennedy’s HHS continues.”

The announcement on plans for the national park, made in two court filings late Tuesday, gave no details on what the government may do. In August, the Republican administration initiated a pause on construction-related activity in the park as it engaged in outreach efforts to opponents of the project. The pause ends Wednesday.

Customs and Border Protection is “actively considering adjustments" to the work "that would reduce its scope and avoid or minimize potential impacts, based on input received from the National Park Service and other stakeholders,” the government said in the court filing.

The agency said it will make a final decision the first week in October and will take “several weeks” after that announcement before any “ground-disturbing work” starts.

After intense opposition from environmentalists and local residents and business owners, CBP backed off plans this year to build a 30-foot-tall bollard wall through the park. But its intention to move forward with other measures such as a new road, lights, vehicle barriers and technology did not quell local resistance.

After bulldozers were spotted in August clearing land in Big Bend, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott announced a pause on all activity there and it was later expanded to the area upstream of the park. The agency has said it was only carrying out design and planning work, not full-scale construction activities.

Opponents of the border project called on the administration Wednesday to continue the pause while coming up with a new plan.

Bob Krumenaker, head of Keep Big Bend Wild and a former NPS superintendent at the park, said in a statement that the Border Patrol already works with the park service and local sheriffs to operate an “effective surveillance system” in Big Bend that includes ground sensors and patrols. The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks said building in the park would be “mutilating an extraordinary landscape.”

The project is part of a $46 billion plan by the administration to line the U.S.-Mexico border with steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology to deter migrants and smugglers.

The government has also paused work on a 61-mile piece of land stretching north of the national park along the Rio Grande River, most of which is owned by private landowners. In that area, the government plans to build a 30-foot-tall steel bollard wall designed to prevent people on foot from crossing, roads and various types of surveillance technology where appropriate, according to the court filing.

CBP has started building the wall in a West Texas part of the broader Big Bend region, but has run into intense opposition there, including from landowners challenging the project in court.

Also in the court filing Tuesday, the government suggested it was facing resistance in getting permission from landowners to survey and build on their property and would be referring some cases to the Department of Justice to pursue condemnation.

The government also detailed efforts it had made to meet with people potentially affected by Big Bend projects and shared with them incidents of cartel-related violence that concerned the Border Patrol.

The administration has been pushing forward with the border wall projects that have long been a key part of President Donald Trump's vision for border security. The agency said it is building 12 miles (19 kilometers) of wall per week.

But lining up against the work are private landowners, Native American tribes, environmental groups and others who question the necessity and cost of the project at a time when illegal immigration has fallen dramatically. Opponents also have accused the government of damaging Native American sites and sensitive ecology locations in its rush to finish construction.

Júnior, 59, is running for Congress for the first time. But until Oct. 4, he is Plínio Trump, channeling U.S. President Donald Trump with his hairstyle, long orange tie, firm handshake and even his stride.

“(Trump) is likeable, iconic," Plínio Trump told The Associated Press late Monday after campaigning in Juiz de Fora, a city of 570,000 residents 180 kilometers (111 miles) west of Rio de Janeiro. "Few people sneered at me. Most people smile and hug me."

Candidates like Plínio Trump are part of a Brazilian tradition that spans nearly eight decades. Whether called protest candidates or joke candidates, they bring a surreal element to congressional elections. To run, they must belong to one of Brazil's 30 political parties and meet the same eligibility requirements as other candidates, including the country's clean-record rules.

This year, a few hundred of those are among more than 7,800 candidates running for a seat in Congress, with even more running for state legislatures.

Paradoxically, while these entertaining figures can attract voters disillusioned with traditional politics, the ballots cast for them also add to their parties' total under Brazil's electoral system. More votes for joke candidates can translate into more seats in Congress — and more public funds for the very apparatus that protest voters are trying to reject.

‘Barack Obama’ and ’Mick Jagger' enter the race

Trump is not the only U.S. politician with admirers in Brazil’s congressional race.

Henrique Barack Obama, born Cláudio Henrique dos Anjos, has even loftier ambitions. After previous runs for office in Rio de Janeiro, he is seeking one of the two Senate seats at stake in the Federal District, home to Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. But even those who have seen him up close acknowledge that the 57-year-old bears little resemblance to the former U.S. president.

“It is more about his posture,” said Claudio Santos, 33, who knows the Brazilian Obama from his time in Rio. “He also likes the attention that the name brings, obviously. When he wasn't running for office, he would pose as Obama during Flamengo soccer games.”

Another novelty candidate, Mick Jagger, whose real name is Walcy Calixto Vieira, is again running for a seat in the legislature of the central state of Goias. He is no rock'n'roll frontman, but a 66-year-old carpenter with shaggy hair and brow-skimming bangs.

Other candidates skip celebrity impersonations and opt instead for catchy aliases. “Tsunami Grandmother,” whose real name is Scheile Aparecida Soares Brandão, is seeking a seat in the Minas Gerais state legislature. “Who Who," born Francisco das Chagas Costa Oliveira, is running for the legislature in the northeastern state of Piaui.

“Lonely Boy,” or Marcelo da Rosa, is a truck driver from Parana state seeking a seat in Congress, and then there is Severino Cardoso Sobrinho, better known as Samurai Taxi Driver, a nunchaku master featured in Instagram videos who is running for the state legislature in Pernambuco, the home state of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

A tradition dating back to the 1950s

Brazil's tradition of novelty candidates dates back to 1959, when roughly 100,000 voters in São Paulo wrote the name of Cacareco, a female rhinoceros from the city zoo, on their paper ballots in a city council election. Electoral authorities later invalidated the votes.

Such political stunts disappeared during Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. But the country's return to national elections in 1989 featured one of its most memorable presidential candidates: Dr. Enéas Carneiro, a respected cardiologist who delivered rapid-fire, complex speeches in 15-second radio and television spots. Many Brazilians found his breathless delivery hilarious.

“My name is Enéas!” he shouted into the camera at the end of every ad. Carneiro pulled in 360,000 votes in Brazil’s first direct presidential election since 1960.

Five years later, with voters still angered with the corruption scandal that led to President Fernando Collor’s impeachment, Carneiro finished third, drawing 4.6 million votes behind Lula and eventual winner Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The movement reached a new high in 2010, when Tiririca, a circus clown and comedian, won a congressional seat for São Paulo with more than 1.3 million votes. His campaign slogans included, “It can’t get any worse” and, “What does a federal congressman do? I really don’t know. Vote for me and I will find out for you!”

Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, nicknamed Tiririca by his mother for looking perpetually angry as a child, served four consecutive terms. He is seeking a fifth, representing his native Ceara state in Brazil’s northeast. In 2022, he secured 70,000 votes to retain his job.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper university in São Paulo, said candidates like Tiririca punch above their weight because of Brazil’s proportional representation system. Votes for candidates go to their party and are then distributed proportionally.

“Some of these candidates have enough votes to win their own seats, but others just add 1,000 or 2,000 votes to their parties. They don’t get seats, but they help their parties secure a bigger slice of Congress and public funds,” Melo said. “Nowadays, we see many more of these bizarre candidates because traditional political leadership is decomposing. People who would normally fill these roles are opting out of institutional politics.”

As Plínio Trump wrapped up campaigning in Juiz de Fora and prepared to return to Varginha — a city 400 kilometers (248 miles) west of Rio de Janeiro nationally famous for its alleged UFO landing site — he acknowledged that his decision to campaign as the U.S. president goes beyond physical resemblance.

“We have few options on the right in Brazil,” he said. “For me, Trump is a right-wing reference.”

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Savarese reported from São Paulo.

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

Could he actually start against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium? Maybe.

Washington coach Dan Quinn said Wednesday it’s “too early to call” if Daniels, who was injured in Week 2 against the Dallas Cowboys, would return after missing last week's game against the Seattle Seahawks.

“But as we’re working through the week, he’ll get more reps,” Quinn said at a news conference after the team arrived in the U.K. “As we get into Thursday and Friday, we’ll see what that load looks like.

“By Friday we’ll have a definite determination of where we’re at,” Quinn continued. “Until then, we’ll work and start the process, but it would be too early to call.”

Marcus Mariota started last week and threw three touchdown passes in the 33-31 win over defending champion Seattle.

The Commanders' session Wednesday was described by Quinn as a light “jog-through” not in pads. Were it a regular practice, Daniels would have officially been “limited,” the coach explained.

Daniels did some light footwork and passing drills, as well as taking snaps under center and simulating a handoff with the ball in his left, non-throwing hand — all with a big, restrictive brace holding his elbow at an angle.

It's the second elbow dislocation for Daniels, who missed most of the second half of last season with the same injury.

“Any athlete would probably tell you when you are going through something a second time, there’s a known of what the road looks like," Quinn said. "We just don’t know yet.

“We’re not going to put him out there before he’s ready,” he continued. “Him being back on the field is like, man that’s a good step for us, and then we’ll take it from there.”

Mariota on Daniels: ‘This is his team’

Mariota, who also filled in for Daniels in Washington's game last season in Madrid, is preparing to start again Sunday. He grew up playing soccer so competing at the home of a Premier League club will be “kind of a cool moment, so I’m looking forward to it.”

But the veteran, in his 12th NFL season, made it clear who QB1 is.

“They’re going make a collective decision that is best for Jayden, and we are going to support that,” Mariota said. “At the end of the day, I think if he’s healthy and he can play — he should play. This is his team.”

He described Daniels, who didn't speak to the media, as being in “good spirits” and “comfortable with where he's at.”

The Commanders lost to the Miami Dolphins 16-13 in overtime last season at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, home of Real Madrid.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Sunday’s game offers another contrast in the sports science debate about when to arrive in a country for an international game.

The Commanders are in town two days before the Colts — a significant but not huge difference.

A year ago, the Los Angeles Rams landed in London just 30 hours before kickoff against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who had arrived Tuesday of that week. The Rams then routed the Jags 35-7 at Wembley Stadium.

The Rams took a similar approach for their season opener in Melbourne, Australia, against the San Francisco 49ers, who choose to go Down Under a week in advance. The Niners prevailed 27-7.

The Colts beat the Houston Texans 19-17 last Sunday, ending a nine-game losing streak.

Nice digs

NFL teams typically stay in fancy hotels located far from central London. The Commanders are at The Grove, a luxury hotel 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of the city, and it includes a practice field.

If Quinn or his players get bored with football, they can book horse riding lessons, pumpkin picking or an afternoon tea. Tiger Woods won an event at the hotel's golf course in 2006. They could also do a tour at the nearby Warner Bros. Studio.

“I hope I can go see Big Ben or something,” defensive tackle Daron Payne said.

Injury updates

Running back Rachaad White was still dealing with a shoulder injury and did not practice Wednesday. “He needs more treatment and time and rehab on it,” Quinn said. The Commanders signed veteran RB Austin Ekeler on Monday.

G Sam Cosmi (concussion protocol) and S Nick Cross (internal injury) did not travel to London.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Bednar, who has coached the Avalanche to a 445–262–75 record during his tenure, led the team to a Stanley Cup title in 2022 behind a nucleus that included Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and captain Gabriel Landeskog.

“We love Bedsy. We've said that for a long time — he’s a great coach, great human, the right coach for this group,” Landeskog said Wednesday morning before the team opened the season against the Los Angeles Kings. “We know he’s as hungry as we are, and that’s a big part of it. Happy for him.”

The team gave Bednar a vote of confidence in the offseason after being swept in the Western Conference Final. Bednar said leading into training camp they were in discussions to get an extension completed. It's the second big deal the Avalanche completed over the summer as the team also locked up Makar, a two-time Norris Trophy winner, to the richest deal in league history.

“We obviously have full trust in him,” said Makar, who signed a signed a $163.2 million, eight-year extension that kicks in next season. “For us to have stability like that as a team and to know the direction that we feel comfortable in and confident that we can find success in is great.”

Bednar was hired in August 2016 following the resignation of coach Patrick Roy. The 54-year-old Bednar is currently the second-longest tenured coach in the NHL, trailing only Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Jared has done an outstanding job over the last decade, and there’s no doubt in my mind he’s the best coach for this group," Joe Sakic, the Avalanche's president of hockey operations/general manager, said in a statement. "He commands the room and has complete confidence of the players. We’re excited to continue to have him in charge, and we believe that his presence maximizes the team’s potential while this core group is intact.”

Bednar brings a sense of calm to the bench, which his players appreciate. The team has been to the playoffs in every season but one under Bednar — his first, in 2016-17, when the team went 22-56-4. He's the 13th head coach (14th occasion) in league history to take the same organization to the postseason in at least nine straight seasons.

“I'm ecstatic," Bednar said. “Nice to be sticking around.”

He had his concerns after his rookie NHL head coaching season.

“The most worried I’ve been is after year one, because it was so bad,” Bednar said. “I put a lot of thought into what I do, how I coach, the way we operate, and I do the best job I possibly can. I’m at peace with that. I don’t really think about the term I have on my contract or don’t have on my contract, it's just going out and doing the best you can to help this team win.”

His team was the Presidents' Trophy winner last year with a franchise-best 121 points and is expected to be another strong Cup contender this season.

“At the end of the day, we have to go out and perform and do the job,” Landeskog said. "I think Bedsy is the right man for us behind the bench. He's always done a good job for us.”

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See AP’s full NHL coverage here

Según la policía, su madre, Nathalie Belizaire, había zarpado el viernes a bordo del Carnival Conquest en un viaje de tres días de Miami a las Bahamas.

El jefe de la policía de North Miami Beach, Juan Pinillos, dijo que los niños estuvieron solos durante al menos 48 horas.

“Cualquiera que tenga hijos sabe que una bebé de dos meses necesita muchísima atención”, dijo Pinillos.

Los agentes informaron que tuvieron que entrar a la fuerza al apartamento, en la zona del Northeast 15th Avenue y la 170th Street, donde encontraron a los cuatro niños “escondidos” en el baño.

“Solo agradecemos que no les haya pasado nada peor a esos niños”, dijo el martes por la mañana en la corte la jueza de circuito del condado Miami-Dade Mindy Glazer.

Agentes de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de EE.UU., de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade y de la policía de North Miami Beach esperaban a Belizaire, de 29 años, cuando regresó el lunes a PortMiami.

“La arrestaron cuando bajaba del crucero”, dijo Glazer.

Según los registros de reclusos, Belizaire fue procesada a la 1:25 p.m. del lunes en el centro correccional Turner Guilford Knight.

“Sean responsables. Dejar a un bebé solo, desatendido y sin supervisión es un delito grave”, advirtió Pinillos.

El martes, la Fiscalía presentó un caso por delito grave contra Belizaire, quien enfrenta cuatro cargos de negligencia infantil sin daño corporal grave. Glazer emitió cuatro órdenes de alejamiento y le fijó una fianza de $10,000.

Al salir de la cárcel el martes por la noche, Belizaire negó los cargos y aseguró que los niños debían estar bajo la supervisión de su padre.

La jueza de circuito del condado Miami-Dade Marisa Tinkler Mendez presidirá el caso.

Según la policía, su madre, Nathalie Belizaire, había zarpado el viernes a bordo del Carnival Conquest en un viaje de tres días de Miami a las Bahamas.

El jefe de la policía de North Miami Beach, Juan Pinillos, dijo que los niños estuvieron solos durante al menos 48 horas.

“Cualquiera que tenga hijos sabe que una bebé de dos meses necesita muchísima atención”, dijo Pinillos.

Los agentes informaron que tuvieron que entrar a la fuerza al apartamento, en la zona del Northeast 15th Avenue y la 170th Street, donde encontraron a los cuatro niños “escondidos” en el baño.

“Solo agradecemos que no les haya pasado nada peor a esos niños”, dijo el martes por la mañana en la corte la jueza de circuito del condado Miami-Dade Mindy Glazer.

Agentes de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de EE.UU., de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade y de la policía de North Miami Beach esperaban a Belizaire, de 29 años, cuando regresó el lunes a PortMiami.

“La arrestaron cuando bajaba del crucero”, dijo Glazer.

Según los registros de reclusos, Belizaire fue procesada a la 1:25 p.m. del lunes en el centro correccional Turner Guilford Knight.

“Sean responsables. Dejar a un bebé solo, desatendido y sin supervisión es un delito grave”, advirtió Pinillos.

El martes, la Fiscalía presentó un caso por delito grave contra Belizaire, quien enfrenta cuatro cargos de negligencia infantil sin daño corporal grave. Glazer emitió cuatro órdenes de alejamiento y le fijó una fianza de $10,000.

La jueza de circuito del condado Miami-Dade Marisa Tinkler Mendez presidirá el caso.

Llegó la temporada de sustos, y Local 10 News quiere ver cómo te estás contagiando del espíritu de Halloween.

Si tu casa está decorada con telarañas escalofriantes, calabazas iluminadas, esqueletos gigantes, cementerios embrujados u otros adornos que dan miedo y diversión al mismo tiempo, envíanos una foto para tener la oportunidad de aparecer al aire y en Local10.com.

Todas las fotos que recibamos se publicarán en una galería especial aquí abajo, para que nuestros lectores puedan recorrer las decoraciones más creativas, tenebrosas y exageradas de nuestra comunidad.

Pero la diversión de Halloween no termina ahí.

Cada noche, Local 10 también elegirá una foto de una casa “Spooktacular” para mostrarla al aire.

Ya sea que tu decoración dé miedo, dé risa, sea para toda la familia o completamente exagerada, queremos verla.

¡Feliz temporada de sustos, sur de Florida!

Para enviar tus fotos, haz clic aquí

The episodes have highlighted the vulnerabilities in AI security and raised questions over how the fast-growing technology can be developed safely as its usage becomes more widespread globally.

Industry critics have argued that many concerning events, including AI agents' hacks of external websites, are the result of security lapses on the part of the companies building the technology. But the AI agents' capabilities have raised widespread concerns about the possibility bots could break away and work toward their own agenda.

Below are some notable events:

Sept. 28: OpenAI halts rollout of a new model

The San Francisco-based company said it was delaying the release of a new model, called GPT-6.1 Astra, out of safety concerns voiced by its researchers. The company said the model had demonstrated leaps in completing tasks, but OpenAI needed to balance that capability against unauthorized behavior. “We have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment,” said Saachi Jain, OpenAI’s head of safety systems.

Sept. 25: OpenAI says its agents interacted with US government websites

As part of a review of unanticipated behavior by its AI models, OpenAI said it discovered agents had interacted with several U.S. government websites in unexpected ways. The company's models accessed publicly available information on websites operated by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as U.S. Census Bureau data. OpenAI said it did not find evidence of a compromise or vulnerability. On the same day, AI evaluator and research lab Transluce said it found that agents appearing to originate from OpenAI attempted a hack on the website of the Education Department's civil rights office, which did not succeed.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on social media that there is an “extensive and ongoing review related to our agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation.” The day after the disclosure, the company announced it was pausing the training of its most advanced models.

Sept. 24: Australia’s prime minister raises concern on breach

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent infiltrated the public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal on June 18. The portal hosted aggregate data about health spending and drug subsidies. No personal information had been accessed, the government said.

Albanese said the artificial intelligence company took too long to reveal the incident. The prime minister made the breach public following a telephone conversation with Altman. OpenAI said in a statement “our models took actions we did not intend.”

Sept. 18: Google says its Gemini AI hacked 3 companies

Google confirmed its Gemini AI model hacked three companies in May as part of a test of its cybersecurity capabilities. The company, which disclosed the hacks after an inquiry by The Wall Street Journal, said the model guessed passwords in one case and found passwords and credentials in a public repository in the other two cases. As in earlier such cases, the tests were being run by Irregular, a startup that describes itself as the “first frontier security lab."

Aug. 5: Meta's Muse goes rogue

Meta disclosed one of its AI models accessed the internet on its own and hacked another company. The company said that a “misconfiguration” during cybersecurity testing by Irregular inadvertently allowed one of its models to access the internet. A spokesperson for Irregular said the Meta episode involved a test-environment issue that was disclosed a week earlier by Anthropic.

July 30: Anthropic says its systems hacked 3 organizations

Anthropic said its artificial intelligence models hacked into three other organizations during testing. Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI company behind Claude, posted on its website that it discovered the three incidents after reviewing more than 141,000 evaluation runs. In all three incidents, the AI models were tasked with a “capture the flag” cybersecurity challenge, which Anthropic said has been one of the ways it assesses a model’s cyber capabilities.

The models were given a fictional scenario and told a piece of secret information, or the “flag,” had been hidden on a different machine on the network with the objective of breaking in and retrieving it, it said. Anthropic said it reached out to the organizations, but it did not name them publicly.

July 21:

The Hugging Face incident

The ChatGPT maker OpenAI announced that its artificial intelligence system hacked into another AI company on its own in what the company called an “unprecedented cyber incident.”

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

OpenAI said its AI used stolen credentials and discovered a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face servers. It was working with reduced guardrails because it was supposed to be in an isolated testing environment known as a sandbox.

Tropical moisture will continue to funnel across Florida from the Caribbean. This will keep rain chances high through the rest of the work week. Perhaps by the weekend we will see fewer storms, but we will still be far from dry.

Los disparos se produjeron alrededor de las 9:53 p.m. en la zona de la cuadra 600 del Northwest Fifth Avenue.

Según el Departamento de Policía de Miami, los agentes acudieron al lugar tras recibir una alerta del sistema Shot Spotter.

Al llegar, la policía encontró a dos hombres heridos de bala.

Funcionarios de Miami Fire Rescue indicaron que los hombres tienen entre 20 y 30 años y que su estado era de grave a crítico.

Ambos fueron trasladados de urgencia por equipos de Miami Fire Rescue al Ryder Trauma Center del Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Las cámaras de Local 10 News captaron a la policía aparentemente centrando parte de su investigación en un sedán Mercedes-Benz blanco que parecía tener un impacto de bala en el parabrisas.

Los investigadores dijeron que trabajan para determinar las circunstancias que llevaron al tiroteo.

La policía no dijo si busca a algún sospechoso o persona de interés.

Before leaving Washington to campaign, Senate Republicans reserved one of the chamber's final votes for a bill they hoped would underscore efforts to address the impact data centers have on voters' monthly energy bills. The bill needed 60 votes to advance, but fell short, 57—43.

The bill is a modest one. It requires utility regulators to consider adopting a federal standard that charges large power customers a rate that covers the cost of the system upgrades needed to serve them. Democrats say it amounts to a suggestion and that more is needed. Republicans say the bill sends a message to regulators to act.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, is in a tough reelection battle and has been labeled in campaign ads as the “face of data centers” by his Democratic challenger, former Sen. Sherrod Brown.

“You all know this is the only game in town,” Husted told reporters in advocating for his bill. “This bill passing is the only way to get a chance to prove to the American people before the midterm elections whose side you're on.”

Senate Democrats say the bill isn't tough enough

The measure passed the House by a vote of 417-3. It needed support from at least seven Democratic senators to proceed to a final vote, but that didn't happen given the criticism from within their ranks that it doesn't go far enough and knowing that passage could give Husted's reelection prospects a lift.

“The bill is a fraud, plain and simple,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Democrats have offered competing proposals. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. sponsored legislation that would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue rules for large electricity customers that requires them to pay for necessary grid upgrades.

“They want it optional, which means zero. We want it mandatory,” Schumer said.

Republicans are looking to position Democrats as obstructionists who are blocking progress on key voter concerns. Husted's bill is one example. Another would be the bill from Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., that would bar members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks. The issue is a popular one with candidates running for office this election cycle, but also includes voter identification requirements that Democrats have called a poison pill.

Thune teed up both bills for procedural votes and both failed to meet the 60-vote threshold for advancing.

“Both pieces of legislation strike at the very heart of issues that the American people care deeply about, passionately about, and we'll see if the Democrats are willing to take yes for an answer," Thune said.

Data centers have become a top campaign issue

The House and Senate are both expected to be out of session for all of October. The House left in mid-September, canceling nearly two weeks of votes as Republicans were anxious to get on the campaign trail in a bid to keep their majority in the next Congress.

President Donald Trump has embraced the building of more data centers, but there is growing wariness from voters. About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, including most Democrats and Republicans.

And a majority of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.

In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a recent memo that Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers. Husted helped promote Ohio as a destination for data centers while serving as lieutenant governor.

The Ohio race is seen as vital to determining control of the Senate, helping explain why the data center bill has generated so much scrutiny and is so hotly contested despite the overwhelming vote it received in the House.

Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Husted said that the bill requires states to at least confront the issue of data centers paying their own way for their power and the grid improvements needed to serve them. He said the bill could hardly get broader support than it did in the House, but by blocking the bill in the Senate, Democrats would be showing they don’t care about the issue of affordability.

“Let’s hold data centers accountable and let’s stop blocking a path to affordability,” Husted said.

Brown tiene previsto comparecer a las 8:45 a.m. ante la jueza de circuito de Miami-Dade Marisa Tinkler Mendez, en el edificio de justicia Richard E. Gerstein.

Según su abogado, Mark Eiglarsh, la Fiscalía ofreció el acuerdo después de más de diez meses y medio de litigio.

“Le hicieron una oferta que no podía rechazar”, dijo Eiglarsh en un comunicado enviado a Local 10 News.

Los detalles específicos del acuerdo no se conocieron de inmediato.

Actualmente, Brown enfrenta un cargo que conlleva una posible pena de 30 años de prisión, con un mínimo obligatorio de 20 años, según su abogado.

El caso se remonta a un incidente ocurrido en mayo de 2025 durante un evento de boxeo en el vecindario de La Pequeña Haití, en Miami.

Brown está acusado de quitarle un arma a un empleado del evento y disparar dos veces contra un hombre, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, con quien se había enfrentado a golpes. Según los reportes, una bala le rozó el cuello.

Agentes de la policía de Miami esposaron a Brown y se lo llevaron del lugar tras el incidente, pero no fue acusado sino hasta meses después.

Después del tiroteo, Brown publicó en redes sociales que el hombre intentaba robarle sus joyas y hacerle daño.

La Fiscalía Estatal de Miami-Dade finalmente acusó a Brown de intento de homicidio en segundo grado con arma de fuego.

Eiglarsh ha argumentado anteriormente que se le imputó un cargo desproporcionado y que Brown tenía argumentos sólidos de defensa propia.

“Es evidente que acusarlo de intento de homicidio en segundo grado es excesivo”, dijo Eiglarsh en noviembre de 2025. “Hasta el juez dijo que, en el peor de los casos, estamos hablando de asalto agravado. Además, tenemos argumentos sólidos de defensa propia”.

Brown se declaró no culpable después de ser extraditado a Estados Unidos desde el Medio Oriente.

En ese momento, su equipo legal rechazó la idea de que Brown hubiera huido a Dubái.

“No huyó a Dubái, tiene negocios en marcha en Dubái”, dijo su abogado durante una audiencia de fianza anterior.

A principios de este mes, el abogado de Nantambu dijo a los periodistas que su cliente ya no quería “participar” en el proceso contra Brown.

Según Eiglarsh, Brown decidió ahora que resolver el caso es lo mejor para él y su familia.

“Antonio está listo para dejar esto atrás, seguir enfocado en sus hijos, reconstruir sus oportunidades profesionales y seguir adelante con su vida”, dijo Eiglarsh. “Ha luchado este caso por más de diez meses y medio. Ahora tiene la oportunidad de lograr algo que se ha vuelto cada vez más importante para él y su familia: cerrar este capítulo”.

Según la universidad, $2,000 millones de la donación de Griffin se destinarán a poner en marcha Carnegie Mellon University Miami, un nuevo campus que ocupará más de 35 acres en Wynwood.

Está previsto que la construcción comience en 2027 y que los primeros estudiantes se inscriban en 2028, siempre que se obtengan las aprobaciones regulatorias correspondientes.

Griffin le compró el terreno a Moishe Mana por $1,100 millones.

Mana describe la venta como un relevo que mantiene la misma misión, y asegura que se trata de la mayor operación de consolidación de terrenos en la historia de Florida.

Una vez terminado, el campus de Miami tendrá capacidad para más de 3,500 estudiantes de licenciatura, maestría y doctorado, cerca de 300 profesores y más de 600 empleados, según CMU.

Los $1,000 millones restantes de la donación irán al campus de Carnegie Mellon en Pittsburgh. La mitad se destinará de forma flexible a las principales prioridades de la universidad, mientras que $500 millones se invertirán en su Escuela de Ciencias de la Computación, que pasará a llamarse Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science.

De acuerdo con CMU, el aporte de $3,000 millones es la mayor donación hecha por una sola persona en la historia de la educación superior, y también la mayor que Griffin ha hecho en su vida.

Un nuevo campus en Wynwood

CMU explicó que su campus de Miami tendrá un diseño distinto al de una universidad tradicional: la enseñanza y la investigación se organizarán en torno a grandes desafíos sociales y no por carreras académicas.

Al abrir, la universidad planea enfocarse en áreas como la salud humana y los descubrimientos biológicos, la seguridad nacional y las capacidades estratégicas, la energía y la resiliencia climática, y la manufactura avanzada y la transformación industrial.

Según la universidad, equipos interdisciplinarios de estudiantes, investigadores, líderes de la industria y socios del gobierno trabajarán juntos en esos desafíos. Las humanidades, las artes y el diseño también formarán parte del enfoque del campus.

CMU aseguró que la sede de Miami será un campus universitario completo, con la enseñanza y la investigación en el centro de su misión, y no una simple extensión de programas o proyectos de su campus de Pittsburgh.

Los planes para el campus de Wynwood incluyen espacios para laboratorios de investigación de la industria y estudios de creación de empresas, donde estudiantes, profesores, empresas y socios comunitarios puedan trabajar lado a lado.

“Estamos profundamente agradecidos con Ken Griffin por su extraordinaria visión, su colaboración y su confianza en lo que Carnegie Mellon puede lograr”, dijo el presidente de CMU, Farnam Jahanian.

Jahanian señaló que los cambios tecnológicos, incluidos los avances en inteligencia artificial, obligan a las universidades a replantear cómo se forma a los estudiantes, cómo se hace investigación y cómo se construyen alianzas.

“Juntos tenemos la oportunidad de llevar más allá las cualidades que siempre han distinguido a Carnegie Mellon, como nuestra agilidad, creatividad, cultura interdisciplinaria y enfoque incansable en el impacto, para construir un nuevo modelo de educación superior a la altura de la urgencia de este momento”, dijo Jahanian.

Griffin: el campus de Miami es una “oportunidad generacional”

Griffin afirmó que traer Carnegie Mellon a Miami pondrá a la ciudad “en el centro del avance humanístico y científico” y ampliará el alcance internacional de la universidad.

“CMU Miami representa una oportunidad generacional para construir un nuevo centro de investigación y vida intelectual, que atraerá a estudiantes, académicos e investigadores excepcionales de todo el mundo y estará entre las instituciones académicas más importantes del planeta”, dijo Griffin.

Añadió que el campus también ayudará a formar talento y generar conocimiento capaz de dar vida a nuevas empresas, aportar a la economía y la comunidad de Miami e impulsar la prosperidad del país.

Griffin también se unirá a la Junta de Síndicos de Carnegie Mellon.

Jahanian dijo que la universidad tiene la intención de trabajar de la mano con la comunidad de Miami a medida que avance el proyecto.

“Toda gran historia de Carnegie Mellon comienza con una alianza”, dijo Jahanian. “Nuestra relación con Pittsburgh ha definido a CMU por más de un siglo, y creemos que los vínculos que construyamos en Miami enriquecerán a ambas ciudades. Queremos escuchar, aprender y trabajar junto a nuestros vecinos para crear nuevas oportunidades de colaboración, innovación y prosperidad compartida”.

It marks the second time in three days that the president has sought to highlight the promise of foreign investment made possible by his administration's trade policy in states where Republican Senate candidates are in tight election campaigns.

Trump made a similar announcement on Monday in the Oval Office for a massive steel plant in Iowa.

“He’s got my ear, and he’s had my ear for a long time on Alaska," Trump said during an Oval Office event with Sullivan. The president added that "all these energy projects are all mine, and I got ’em done working with Dan Sullivan.”

It was not clear how quickly South Korea's government would approve the project and how much it planned to spend.

The investment comes from pledges made as part of a 2025 trade deal with South Korea, which included promises of $350 billion in U.S. investments in exchange for lower U.S. tariffs on South Korean cars, auto parts and other products.

Without providing those details, Trump credited his tariffs for making the announcement possible, saying “our trade agreement with South Korea, they have to invest hundreds of billions of dollars.”

“For doing that, I reduced their tariffs to 15%. But they paid to get them reduced,” Trump said. "And, part of that money is going into this project.”

Trump hitting the road to promote his administration's actions

Sullivan said “the sky is the limit when we get this project done.”

“Mr. President, this one is huge for Alaska,” Sullivan said, adding that he'd been working on it “relentlessly.”

The project consists of an 807-mile (1,300-kilometer) natural gas pipeline connecting Alaska’s North Slope to a liquified natural gas export terminal in southern Alaska and eventually will reduce energy costs for the state’s residents by providing a reliable and secure supply, the White House said.

Officials said during the Oval Office event that building the pipeline will take three years and that exports of liquified natural gas would begin two years after that — but that was dependent on financing coming through fully.

The push to deliver big projects in areas where GOP candidates could use a boost comes as Trump's approval ratings have sunk to nearly historic lows ahead of midterm elections.

Even Trump himself has begun acknowledging that Republicans could face an uphill climb in their push to retain control of both chambers of Congress after November, but suggests it is because his administration hasn't done enough to promote its accomplishments.

“I’ve done a very bad job of explaining," the president said during an event in the White House's East Room, which came before the subsequent announcement on the Alaska investment.

He's promised to help rectify that by spending much of the next 30 days on the road, campaigning ahead of the midterms — though he is beginning that swing with trips to Texas, Alabama, Ohio and Nebraska, which are all normally solidly red states.

“I hope you can believe that I’m running. They like to say, ‘Oh, nobody wants him.’ Well, everybody that has me wins," Trump told the crowd at the Hispanic Heritage Month event. "We lose 40% when I don't run. When I run, we have tremendous success."

Sullivan, who has been a persistent advocate for the Alaska natural gas project and has encouraged South Korean investment, is a two-term senator facing a competitive challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman.

Democrats are targeting Alaska and Iowa

Wednesday's Alaska event came two days after Trump announced plans for a $15 billion steel plant to be built in Iowa by a Minnesota company owned by an Indian industrial conglomerate.

In Iowa, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is in a close U.S. Senate contest with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek for the seat being vacated by retiring two-term Republican Joni Ernst. Hinson spoke in the Oval Office during the announcement.

Alaska and Iowa, where Trump won comfortably each time he has run for president, are among the states where Democrats are targeting Republican-held Senate seats in the 2026 midterm elections, less than five weeks away.

Democrats need to gain a net of four seats in the 100-member Senate to overtake Republicans in the majority.

Voters are worried about fuel costs

Trump's announcements come as voters express concern about near-record fuel prices related to the unresolved war with Iran and as majority Republicans in Congress are facing voters dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

In a late-July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only about one-third of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and about 7 in 10 described the economy as poor.

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

Salah Sarsour was detained in Milwaukee in March by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. A federal judge ordered Sarsour’s release in June, saying he raised a “substantial” claim that the Trump administration was targeting him for speaking out against Israel and advocating for Palestinian rights.

Sarsour called the ruling “deeply disappointing,” but said he intends to appeal.

“I will continue fighting to defend the right to free speech and to stay in the country I have called home for more than three decades,” Sarsour said in a statement.

Government attorneys say Sarsour’s decades-old convictions in Israel make him a threat to national security and accuse him of lying on his green card application and falsely claiming citizenship to vote. Judge Jayme Salinardi, with the Chicago Immigration Court, found him removable on foreign policy grounds but tossed out the government's claim that Sarsour lied to immigration authorities.

The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to an emailed request for comment on the decision.

Sarsour says his life will be at risk if he is deported to the West Bank

Sarsour, who was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was imprisoned in Israel in 1988 after being convicted of throwing stones at Israeli military personnel. DHS has said he was also convicted of throwing a Molotov cocktail. His defense team says he was accused of that but not convicted. In 1995, he was convicted of attempting to possess weapons. Sarsour denies committing those crimes and his attorneys say he was tortured and coerced into confessing in both instances.

Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, does not have a criminal record in the U.S., where he has lived since 1993. His attorneys say the U.S. government has known about Sarsour’s convictions in Israel since he arrived.

Deportation to the West Bank “means the end of my life,” Sarsour told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

One of his attorneys, Patrick Taurel, said Sarsour’s treatment by Israeli authorities is “probably a good indicator of what awaits him” if he is deported.

At a status hearing Wednesday, Taurel pressed the judge to specify that Sarsour can only be deported to Israel or the Palestinian territories. Jordan, a country to which Sarsour has no connection, is listed as a possible destination on the order of removal.

Sarsour was instructed by immigration officers to list Jordan as his home country on an immigration form because his preferred entry — “Palestine” — is not a fully independent, unified state. But he “has no right to reside in Jordan,” Taurel said.

Salinardi declined, saying that can be addressed on appeal.

If sent to Jordan, Sarsour “would just be immediately handed off to Israel,” Taurel said during a news conference Wednesday.

Attorney says Sarsour will fight deportation

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo in June 2025 invoking a rarely used immigration provision saying Sarsour could be deported on the same grounds as Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both advocates for Palestinian rights whom the Trump administration has tried to expel, according to court documents.

Salinardi found Rubio's letter singling out Sarsour as a foreign policy risk was “presumptive and sufficient evidence” that the government can remove him, Taurel said Wednesday, reading from the judge’s decision. The judge gave “extreme deference” to Rubio and to Israel, which has “collaborated” with DHS in the effort to deport Sarsour, the attorney said.

Taurel has said Sarsour will need to demonstrate that he could be tortured again if he were deported, calling it a “very high bar” that he believes his team “can meet in this case.”

A notice of appeal is due within 30 days, and Sarsour has 60 days to file an application for relief. The government cannot deport Sarsour until he has exhausted all available legal avenues. Salinardi, who did not schedule a new hearing, announced he is retiring and that Judge Craig Defoe will oversee the case going forward.

Sarsour says he was tortured and coerced into confessions

Jawad Boulos, who represented Sarsour when he was convicted in Israel, testified in August that Sarsour was coerced into confessing and that he wasn’t convicted of any charge tying him to a terrorist organization. He said Sarsour was tortured by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.

The Department of Homeland Security challenged Boulos about the torture allegations, questioning how he could know it was true.

Sarsour’s defense team has repeatedly asked why the government waited until this year to detain him, saying it has known of his imprisonment in Israel for decades.

Experts on forced confessions and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons also testified in Sarsour’s defense. Israeli military courts have faced repeated scrutiny over allegations of limited due process and the high conviction rate of Palestinians. Israel rejects the claims.

In June, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered Sarsour released from ICE custody saying he could have a case arguing the U.S. government detained him in retaliation for protected speech. Further, Hanlon said, government attorneys had not explained why Sarsour was suddenly considered a threat after decades as a lawful permanent resident.

The Trump administration has appealed Hanlon’s ruling.

Sarsour, who has Type 2 diabetes, lost more than 30 pounds (14 kilograms) while detained by ICE, and his blood sugar levels were checked only once a month, putting him at risk of organ failure or death, his attorneys said.

An investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press found that hundreds of detainees in at least 33 states have filed federal lawsuits with similar allegations of medical neglect.

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

While he was in charge from 2016-26, Guardiola's expensively assembled team won six Premier Leagues, the 2023 Champions League and three FA Cups among other trophies.

In his first public comment since an independent panel published its bombshell report on Tuesday, Guardiola wrote on social media Wednesday that he backs the club.

“I want every single Man City fan to know I am here; more than ever. I am, always have been, always will, be behind my club, my owner, my chairman, Ferran, the players, staff, Enzo and you, our unique supporters. Let me be clear: we will get through this together,” Guardiola wrote on X. “I love you all.”

The post was accompanied by pictures of him in a Man City shirt celebrating with club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, lifting the Champions League trophy, applauding the fans and celebrating the Premier League title in 2023.

City’s alleged financial wrongdoing — made possible in part through what the league said were “sham” commercial deals — was worth more than 900 million pounds ($1.19 billion).

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

More than 1.7 million people in South Florida, including 500,000 children and seniors, don’t know where their next meal will come from.

Cameron Gwynn spoke with Local 10 News as he shopped for groceries at the food pantry at the Feeding South Florida Pembroke Park warehouse.

“The prices are just creeping up so high that it feels like it’s almost impossible to catch up,” he said. “So having this safety net is really important.”

Feeding South Florida CEO Paco Velez addressed the rising cost of food and its impact on the community.

“One of the biggest challenges really across the entire country is the cost of diesel,” he said. “And the cost of diesel impacts everything that we do in this country.”

Velez gave a whole presentation Tuesday about how fuel costs impact every step of food supply, from farmers planting seeds to processing and distribution.

“We’re also seeing SNAP benefits from not only the feds, but from the state, where some of those are going to start dropping because the amount of SNAP benefits going to our seniors is lower,” he said.

Velez says one factor that drove about 158,000 South Floridians to turn to Feeding South Florida for the first time was the loss of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.

Without TPS, they can’t legally work, and without a job, they don’t qualify for some food assistance programs, leaving them without an income and with no food on the table.

“The families who are coming to our pantry and going to the pantries for 300 different organizations, they’re all desperate,” said Velez.

Paul Rolli says his background in finance makes him a perfect person for the job.

He’s currently a city commissioner in his second term.

Possible property tax cuts on the horizon are on everyone’s mind, and if the referendum gets the green light, Rolli says it will mean some hard decisions on dollars.

“Before we cut anything, we’d look at the efficiency of each operation because some would be more efficient,” he said.

Rolli added that bringing in new development is key for the city, but in the same breath he said it must be the right kind to protect the character of the city.

“I think we need more development but we need responsible development,” he said, adding that he means not big building development.

Rolli is facing Julie Carson and Jerry Fisichelli in the election.

Fisichelli declined to be interviewed for this story.

Carson has served as city commissioner and says she has deep roots in Wilton Manors.

“Leadership without any sense of hostility, and I think that is really important in a mayor,” she said.

If the city loses much needed revenue with property taxes being slashed, Carson said there are tough choices to make, and some possible unpopular moves.

“Increasing parking meter fees in the city, or having limited hours for certain parks, or having service fees for certain parks,” she said.

Rolli said with people working more from home, new vibrant areas for people to meet makes sense in Wilton Manors.

“Areas for socialization that are outside bars and restaurants and that kind of thing, where it’s out in the open, like plazas, covered plazas because of the heat,” he said.

Carson said she would like to improve how code enforcement gets handled.

“I think residents need a little ushering throughout the system so they can reach compliance, which is always the goal,” she said.

Ronaldo said that “in time” he would “tell the Portuguese people the truth about the reasons” behind his departure.

“Following the national team coach’s news conference, and after a conversation with the president of the Portuguese football federation, I decided to leave the national team’s training camp,” he said on Instagram, adding that he has always “dedicated” himself to the side.

“Now is the time to wish good luck to Portugal and to all my teammates, without exception.”

The Portuguese federation said only that Ronaldo left the training camp and that the team's preparations would continue with the remaining 24 squad members.

“The entire delegation remains fully focused on the national team’s upcoming fixtures and on achieving our goals,” the federation said.

Jesus had said in the pre-game news conference he was not planning to start Ronaldo, but dismissed the notion there was a feud between the pair.

Jesus said every player knows the coach makes the decisions, and that Ronaldo told him he would abide by whatever choices he makes.

The coach added the “rules are the same for everyone” and that Gonçalo Ramos would start up front against Denmark if everything went to plan.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the game,” Jesus said. “If we need him (Ronaldo) to play (at some point), he’ll play. If not, he won’t.”

Ronaldo, the all-time leading scorer in men’s international soccer with 146 goals and pursuing the milestone of 1,000 career goals, didn’t play on Sunday in Portugal’s 2-1 win over Norway. He has not trained with the rest of the group since, sparking widespread rumors about a possible feud with Jesus.

Jesus had said Al-Nassr forward Ronaldo would practice normally with the rest of the squad on Wednesday, but the player ended by leaving the training camp after the coach's words during the news conference.

The 41-year-old Ronaldo, who has 979 career goals, had said recently that this Saudi Pro League season is likely to be the last of his professional career.

Jesus, who worked with Ronaldo for about a year in Saudi Arabia, said the player did not refuse to practice after having been left on the bench.

“It seems like there was an issue between us, but there was no issue,” Jesus said. “I’m the one who makes the decisions and everybody knows that.”

Jesus acknowledged he had told Ronaldo he would likely play against Norway, but changed his mind because of the circumstances of the match.

He said it was a mistake to send Ronaldo to warm up for as long as he did and then not use him. Jesus added “any player” would be upset about that.

But Jesus did not apologize for telling Ronaldo that he was likely to play.

“I can promise whatever I want, I’m the coach,” Jesus said. “No player will ever make a decision for me.”

Jesus said, though, that someone with the stature of Ronaldo deserved a different type of attention from coaches “because of his career and history in soccer.”

Jesus, who took over the squad from Roberto Martínez after the World Cup, said he ended up being “obligated” to have a meeting with Ronaldo because of the noise created in Portugal over the situation.

But he maintained there was no “Ronaldo case” to talk about and there was nothing to solve between him and the player because nothing was wrong.

Jesus said it was normal that the federation president, Pedro Proença, also met with the pair.

“We had to talk the three of us, but I had already talked with Chris and the president didn’t have to solve anything because there was nothing to solve,” Jesus said.

Ronaldo started Portugal’s 1-0 win over Wales last Thursday but was substituted in the 67th minute. On Tuesday, he posted on Instagram a photo of him wearing the kit accompanied by the country’s flag and a heart emoji.

Portugal leads Group A4 of the Nations League with six points from two matches, three points more than Denmark and Norway. Wales is last with no points.

Portugal also hosts Norway on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear whether Ronaldo’s departure would extend beyond the current international break.

Wednesday's news comes just as Ronaldo's long-time rival, Lionel Messi, is set for his farewell match with Argentina next week.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Glazer read a North Miami Beach police officer’s report on the arrest of Nathalie Belizaire, a mother of four, and said, “You cannot make this up!”

While Belizaire was on the Carnival Conquest, a cruise ship voyage from Miami to the Bahamas, her 2-month-old daughter was home with her three minor siblings, according to police.

“The poor kids were home alone,” Glazer said.

Belizaire left on Friday and returned on Monday, according to police. The children’s father called 911 on Saturday, according to the arrest report.

North Miami Beach police officers reported forcing their way into their apartment in the area of Northeast 15th Avenue and 170th Street and finding the four kids, including a two-year-old child, “hiding” in the bathroom.

“We are just grateful nothing worse happened to those kids,” Glazer said.

On Monday, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies waited for Belizaire to return to PortMiami, according to the arrest report. Belizaire’s public defender told Glazer she denied the allegation.

“They arrested her disembarking from the cruise ship,” Glazer said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection held Belizaire until NMBPD officers detained her. Police officers questioned her and arrested her, according to the arrest report.

Glazer asked, “Who leaves the kids, four little kids, alone to go on a cruise?”

Miami-Dade corrections booked Belizaire at 1:25 p.m. on Monday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, according to inmate records.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a felony case against Belizaire, according to court records. She faced four counts of child neglect without great bodily harm. Glazer issued four stay-away orders and set her bond at $10,000.

Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez was set to preside over the case.

Related story: Mother accused of leaving 4 young children, including infant, home alone to go on Carnival cruise

Consumer prices rose 3.4% in August compared with a year earlier, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, below the 3.7% economist expectations. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.3%, up from 0.1% in July, a sign prices that are still running hot.

Excluding the volatile energy and food categories, inflation also came in lower than expected, rising 3% in August from a year ago. And from July to August, core prices rose just 0.2%, up from 0.1% the previous month. Many economists feared core prices would rise more quickly month-to-month.

U.S. markets bounced higher immediately on the new inflation reading, with investors betting that an expected interest-rate hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve might be delayed.

Even so, inflation remains above the Federal Reserve's 2% target and the monthly increase in August suggests it isn't moving back toward the target anytime soon. The Fed lifted its key short-term interest rate two weeks ago for the first time in three years to combat inflation and most economists expect it will do so at least once more this year, possibly as soon as late next month.

“Inflation’s trend is lower but still not close to their target and not improving, either,” Bill Adams, chief U.S. economist at Fifth Third Commercial Bank, said in an email.

Wednesday's report covered a key inflation gauge closely watched by the Fed, known as the personal consumption expenditures price index. It is similar to the higher-profile consumer price index, which was released earlier this month.

High prices have cast a pall on the U.S. economy, even as growth is mostly solid and the unemployment rate is low. On Tuesday, the Conference Board's consumer confidence survey fell to its lowest level since 2014, a period that includes both the Great Recession and a global pandemic.

Americans' paychecks are growing but not as quickly as prices.

Inflation for July was previously reported at 3.7% but was revised lower to 3.4% by the government as part of an update in how it measures price changes in several categories, including investment management, computer software and accessories, and legal services.

For example, the government previously put a heavy weight on some computer accessories that have jumped in price because of outsized demand from the AI buildout. The revisions lowered that weight and as a result, the higher prices for some computer equipment are not driving up this measure of inflation as much.

Spending picks up

Despite elevated prices, Americans accelerated their spending last month, the government said, with spending jumping 0.9% from July to August, up from just 0.1% the previous month.

Some of that increase was likely fueled by wealthier Americans cashing in their gains from higher stock prices, a recent report from JPMorgan suggests. Other consumers may be taking on more debt to support their spending.

After-tax incomes, adjusted for inflation, were unchanged on a monthly basis in August, after rising 0.3% in July, the report said.

Healthy consumer spending could fuel a pickup in growth. In a separate report Wednesday, the government said the economy expanded at a 2.2% annual pace in the July-September quarter. Analysts expect that to pick up to a 3% rate in the current quarter.

Growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of a goods and services — decelerated from a 2.5% pace from January through March, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The second-quarter growth was an improvement on the department’s previous estimate of 1.5% — a surprise to economists who had expected little or no change in the GDP number.

Consumer spending — which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity — increased at a healthy 3.8% annual pace, up from 0.7% in the January-March period. Spending has been helped by a strong stock market, which reflects enthusiasm over the prospects for artificial intelligence and which enriches wealthy investors and gives them more money to buy things with.

The overall growth number was dragged down by imports. They are subtracted from growth because GDP is only supposed to count domestic production. Imports rose at a 12.6% annual pace from April through June, partly due to a surge in shipments of computer chips and other products that support artificial intelligence investment, and slashed nearly 1.7 percentage points off second-quarter growth.

The U.S. economy has proven surprisingly resilient in the face of fighting with Iran and the energy price spike it caused.

Business investment, excluding housing, rose at a 9% clip in the second quarter, reflecting the AI investment boom. And a measure of the economy’s underlying strength — which strips out volatile government spending and trade numbers — grew at a strong 4.6% rate, up from 1.8% in the first quarter.

“The economy is increasingly reliant on AI gains and the corresponding wealth effects boosting higher-income households’ spending power to fuel recent growth,” said Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. "The economy remains sensitive to a sudden reversal of optimism on AI.''

Investment in housing rose 2.8% ticking up for the first time since the end of 2024. The housing market has been depressed by high mortgage rates.

Wednesday’s report was the last of three Commerce Department estimates of second-quarter GDP growth. The first look at third-quarter growth is due Oct. 29.

The new sanctions announced Tuesday directly have an impact on the small and mid-size private enterprises that are allowed by the Cuban government new economic reforms introduced a few months ago. Under the new sanctions, these businesses will not be allowed to have bank accounts in the U.S.

In addition, the new sanctions will prohibit educational exchanges and “people to people” contact that have been used for tourism purposes.

The Cuban government was quick to react by saying that these new U.S. sanctions further hurt the Cuban people. Cuba continues to deny that their own system is mostly responsible for the current poor socio-economic conditions on the island nation.

Sept. 29: Secretary Rubio sends a clear message to Cuba

On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a stern and clear message to the Cuban government. “Do not think that you can wait out the end of this administration. Change your government or you will face the consequences.”

I do not believe, given the problems in the Middle East, that the U.S. will open another military front. Although even if they do, it will not take long for the U.S. to take out Cuba’s military.

The problem is what do we do after with the island? I do not believe Cuba is ready for a democratic government.

Sept. 25: Cuba denies negotiations with U.S.

President Trump announced two days ago that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has started negotiations once again with members of the Cuban government.

Cuba’s Vice Minister Fernández de Cosio was quickly to react and make it clear that such negotiations are not true.

In the meantime the support amongst the Cuban-American and Venezuelan community for Trump is eroding fast ahead of the midterm elections.

Sept. 24: The Trump administration needs a lesson in simple mathematics

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.

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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.

In her opening statement at the murder trial, lawyer Charlotte Draycott, representing the prosecution, alleged that Choi's ex-husband Alex Kwong, his father Kwong Kau and his brother Anthony Kwong killed Choi together in February 2023.

The lawyer said Choi’s parents were well-off, and the family of her partner Chris Tam following her divorce was extremely wealthy. The Kwong family were not wealthy, she said.

“I mentioned the money because it was, as we understand it, the root of what happened,” Draycott said.

Choi was a 28-year-old socialite and mother of four who shared her glamorous life of photo shoots and fashion shows on social media. Days before her death, she posted about attending a Christian Dior show at Paris Fashion Week.

Authorities found parts of her dismembered body at a house in a northern village in Hong Kong, where violent crime is rare.

Her ex-husband and the two other defendants were accused of killing Choi, and they face life imprisonment if convicted of murder. They were also charged with preventing the lawful burial of a body.

A nine-person jury panel will determine whether the defendants are guilty. Judge Brian Keith told them that the trio of defendants pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. Kwong Kau also pleaded not guilty to the other charge, but his sons admitted to it.

Choi and Alex Kwong had two children and remained on good terms after their divorce, Draycott said. Choi bought a luxury apartment for her two older children to live in. She had it registered under Kwong Kau’s name to avoid the higher tax she would have incurred had it been registered under her own name, Draycott said.

Kwong Kau and his wife also moved into the apartment, and received funds from their former daughter-in-law. Anthony Kwong later became a driver hired by Choi, she said.

But she said the relationship between Choi and Kwong Kau deteriorated in 2022 when he allegedly blocked Choi's wish to sell the house and buy a new one.

Kwong Kau allegedly tried to hit Choi in July 2022 when Choi and Tam, her partner, spoke to him.

Kwong Kau eventually agreed to sign a document to let Choi proceed, but the prosecution alleged that he could move back in if Choi died. In plotting to kill Choi, Draycott said, Kwong rented an apartment in a village house, and he made a plan with his two sons.

“We say the three of them decided they would do it together,” she said.

The prosecution is expected to continue its opening statement Friday. The trial is expected to last 40 days.

The girl and the suspect, who police identified as Javan Curry Battle, did not know each other, the report states.

Police said the incident was reported after a Dollar Tree manager reviewed surveillance footage and contacted authorities.

Officers with the Miami Police Department’s Little Havana Problem Solving Team responded to the store, located at 1043 W. Flagler St., and detained Battle, the report states.

According to the report, surveillance video showed Battle walking through an aisle with a shopping cart as the girl entered the same aisle alone.

“The offender turns toward her and closes the distance between them. He (Battle) briefly scans the surrounding area and hesitates before positioning his face near the victim’s buttocks. His upper body then rises (inhaling), after which he turns away from the victim,” the report states.

The report also states that the girl then grabbed a poster and began walking away. Police said Battle again moved closer and leaned his pelvic area toward her but appeared unable to make contact as she quickly walked away.

The girl later told investigators that her mother had brought her to the Dollar Tree to buy materials for a school project. Her mother instructed her to get cardboard from another aisle, according to the report.

The girl told police she saw only one person in the aisle, the report states. As she was leaving, she recalled Battle touching her arm and then “nudging her shoulder area,” police said.

They said she also told investigators that she felt Battle smelling her, describing the sensation as “air on her lower back.” She said she knew he had smelled her and ran to her mother for safety, according to the report.

Police said the girl’s description of Battle matched the man seen in the surveillance video.

Investigators later interviewed Battle after reading him his Miranda rights, according to the report. Battle told police he had taken his bicycle to a repair shop in Hialeah before stopping at the Dollar Tree, the report states.

Battle, who lives in the county’s Gladeview area, said he acknowledged seeing the girl walk toward the aisle where he was shopping and gave investigators a description of her that was consistent with her appearance, according to the report.

Investigators said when Battle was asked about his behavior, he told them he “did not intend to cause any harm.” They said Battle claimed that he placed his face toward the girl’s buttocks because he was under the influence of marijuana and his brain “told him to do it.”

Jail records show Battle is facing one count of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child younger than 16.

Battle appeared in Miami-Dade bond court Tuesday, where Judge Mindy Glazer set his bond at $2,500, ordered him to stay away from the victim and the Dollar Tree, placed him on house arrest, and imposed an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

The tennis gold medalist at the Asian Games gets an automatic berth into the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. A two-for-one deal.

The Philippines' Eala reached the semifinals on Wednesday after defeating Joanna Garland of Taiwan 7-5, 6-0. Eala will next face Wang Xiyu of China on Thursday. The winner advances to Friday’s final.

“The Olympics is a dream for me to be able to compete there, to represent my country," Eala said. "So, yeah, let’s see how it goes.”

She took bronze medals in singles and mixed doubles with Francis Alcantara at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, and is a favorite for gold this time.

In order to compete in the Asian Games, Eala had to withdraw from the China Open in Beijing — a mandatory WTA 1000 event. She could be fined $10,000.

She said she's not aware of any official notice from the WTA.

“I want to say that it’s easy for people to relate to wanting to represent their country and wanting to play these types of Olympic Games,” Eala said. She indicated other players have recognized the conflict and supported her.

One seems to be Zhang Shuai of China, No. 57 on the WTA rankings. Eala is No. 18.

“It is incredible that the two competitions are in the same weeks," Zhang said. “Some of the previous competitions have been like this. Last week, the Billie Jean King Cup was in the same week as the Singapore and Seoul competitions.

“That’s life," Zhang added. "If two things are very important to you, or if they’re both very important tournaments, you can choose one of them."

Eala has made her choice.

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SNTV video journalist Nicky Zhu contributed to this report.

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See full AP coverage of Asian sports here

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Sotheby’s auction house said Wednesday that works by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne are expected to smash records for the artists in the Nov. 18 sale in New York. If so, it would be the latest sign that, in uncertain times, ultrawealthy art collectors are seeking security in masterpieces.

The paintings come from a collection amassed by the late Argentine art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her sugar magnate husband, Carlos Pedro Blaquier, and are being sold by their children.

They include van Gogh’s landscape “Châtaigniers en fleurs,” (Chestnut Trees in Flower) estimated at $180 million, and Cézanne’s portrait “Arlequin,” which carries an estimate of $120 million. Neither has been seen in public for half a century.

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s head of Impressionist and modern art, said the collection was like a “mini- Musée D'Orsay,” the Paris museum that holds one of the world’s greatest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist artworks.

“In my 30-plus years at Sotheby’s, I’ve never had the privilege of handling a collection of quite this content and caliber,” she said.

Newman said van Gogh’s painting of flowering chestnut trees captures the “explosion of energy and vitality” the artist felt after his release from a psychiatric asylum in May 1890. He took his own life two months later.

The Cézanne portrait is one of four paintings of the artist’s son dressed as the Harlequin figure from clowning. The other three are in major museums.

Also in the collection are Parisian cityscapes by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, a horse-racing image by Edgar Degas and a boating scene by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, all valued in the tens of millions of dollars.

Art expert Philip Hook, a former Sotheby’s auctioneer, said the collection “really is the stuff of legend,” because the collectors did not loan out the works for exhibitions.

“No one knew really what was in it. So now, for this to be revealed, is tremendously exciting,” Hook said.

“They came out with a collection that, rather cleverly, is focused on getting one representative work by each of the major names (of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art), and that is incredibly difficult to do,” he added. “They succeeded with huge, huge style and success.”

Newman said sale is likely to attract global attention, with potential buyers ranging from American tech billionaires to well-endowed Middle Eastern institutions and rich collectors from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“In times where there’s a lot of global macro geopolitical uncertainty, it’s almost like there’s a return to really established, tried and tested” works that are “unquestionably great,” Newman said.

“(This) museum-quality Impressionist collection … is pretty rare.”

Lou Ferrigno, who starred as the Marvel character during its 1977–1982 U.S. television run, met with the American pope and chatted briefly with him at the end of Leo's general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“I’m here because it’s a lifelong dream for me to meet the pope,” Ferrigno told reporters. Noting that one side of his family hails from the southern Amalfi region, Ferrigno said that he grew up hearing about the pope in a Catholic Italian family and served as an altar boy.

“I’m very, very honored to be here to see Pope Leo, because it’s my whole life, it’s a dream coming true,” he said.

He posed for photographers, mimicking the gesture that made him famous in his onscreen transformation from Bruce Banner into the superhero Hulk — flexing his arm muscles.

Ferrigno, a retired professional bodybuilder, starred as Hulk in the CBS series before going on to other television and film roles. He noted that some had been filmed in Rome, and that he appreciated the pope's message.

“Our world, our country needs someone like him: A great leader about kindness and peace, because there’s so much turmoil happening in this world,” he said.

It's unknown if the former Robert Prevost was a Hulk fan.

By 1977, when the series began, the Chicago-born pope was graduating from Villanova University and entering the Augustinian religious order as a novitiate.

Recently, Leo has acknowledged he and his family were regular watchers of a different television personality: the newly-beatified Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the popular American TV and radio preacher.

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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.

Five years later, there is considerably more canvas, and a bigger audience.

Viktor, now 18, has turned the bold colors, expressive faces and an unmistakable style into a form of expression and a path to independence.

Click here to see more of Viktor’s artwork.

“You can see that his art has evolved a lot. You can see him, verbally and socially, he’s evolved a lot,” said Viktor’s brother, Boris Bevanda.

That evolution was on display during a recent art event at Plunge Beach Resort in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, where Viktor’s work hung alongside pieces from other South Florida artists.

When Local 10 first featured Viktor in 2021, his bright oil-pastel drawings had already built him a sizable following.

Today, his reach is measured well into the millions.

But perhaps the bigger change is in Viktor himself.

“It provided him a way to send a message. To like express himself,” said Boris. “Since like, he doesn’t really use words to express himself, he chooses to let his hands do the work for him.”

Click here to view Viktor’s Instagram page.

Click here for Viktor’s Facebook page.

Viktor’s work has been featured in exhibitions and his story earned him Emmy award recognition.

What began almost accidentally — a child drawing during schoolwork— has developed into a measure of independence his family once could only hope for.

All profits from Viktor’s art go towards his education, therapy, and art supplies, as well as donations to charities that support individuals with autism.

There’s more to the story

When Local 10 arrived to catch up with Viktor, he was taking part in an event with Artists with Autism, an organization that creates opportunities for artists on the spectrum to exhibit their work, interact with guests and take part in the business side of selling their art.

Seeing Viktor alongside those artists opened another chapter of the story.

Next week on “What Connects Us,” Local 10 will introduce you to the group, its mission and some of the other artists using creativity to make themselves heard.

To submit an idea for What Connects Us, email whatconnectsus@wplg.com.