Putin, in power for more than a quarter-century, has used Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, to showcase the country’s military might and rally support for his military action in Ukraine, now in its fifth year. But this year, for the first time in nearly two decades, the parade will take place without tanks, missiles and other heavy weapons, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.

Officials said the sudden change of format was due to the “current operational situation” and pointed to the threat of Ukrainian attacks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the authorities have taken “additional security measures.”

Earlier ceasefires failed to hold

Russia declared a unilateral ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a truce which was supposed to begin on May 6, but neither of them held as the parties traded blame for continuing attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that Russia and Ukraine have bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9, followed up on Trump's statement by issuing a decree mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.” “We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Victory Day remains a rare point of consensus in Russia

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military has been making slow but steady gains along the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) front line. Ukraine has hit back with increasingly efficient long-range attacks, striking Russian energy facilities, manufacturing plants and military depots. It has developed drones capable of reaching targets over 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) deep into Russia, far beyond its capabilities before 2022.

Russian authorities warned that if Ukraine attempts to disrupt Saturday’s festivities, Russia will carry out a “massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv.” The Russian Defense Ministry warned the civilian population there and employees of foreign diplomatic missions of “the need to leave the city promptly.” The EU said its diplomats wouldn’t leave the Ukrainian capital despite Russian threats.

Putin has used Victory Day celebrations to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in 1941-45 in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche and remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule.

Victory Day parades on Red Square have involved a broad array of heavy weapons — from armored vehicles to nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles — every year since 2008. Smaller parades are held elsewhere across the country, but this time many of them have also been pared down or even canceled altogether for security reasons.

As the troops prepared to march across Red Square on Saturday, the authorities ordered restrictions on all mobile internet access and text messaging services in the Russian capital, citing the need to ensure public safety. The government has methodically tightened internet censorship and established increasingly stringent controls over online activities, causing rumblings and rare public expressions of discontent.

Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko were set to attend the festivities in the Russian capital. Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, a European Union member, was to meet with Putin and lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial just outside the Kremlin walls but planned to stay away from the Red Square parade.

Ian Happ extended his on-base streak to 29 games, Michael Busch hit a three-run double and the Cubs clinched their second 10-game winning streak this year with a 7-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Friday night.

This is the first time since 1935 that Chicago has had two 10-game winning streaks in a season. The only time the Cubs had more was in 1906 with four.

“That means you’re doing something that’s pretty rare, and I think we realize that,” manager Craig Counsell said.

The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers were the previous major league team with two 10-game winning streaks within the first 39 games of a season, according to Sportradar. They did it in their first 24 games.

“Baseball is a game of a ridiculous amount of stats and things to look up, so anytime you have to go that far back, it is obviously a good sign, especially on a positive like that,” Chicago second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “We're just going to keep it rolling.”

These Cubs have done it pretty quickly, too, with a pair of 10-game winning streaks by May 8.

“That’s a crazy sentence,” Hoerner said.

Milwaukee had two winning streaks of at least 10 games last season on the way to winning the NL Central title and finishing five games ahead of Chicago.

The Cubs (27-12) have won 20 of their last 23 games, with three consecutive losses separating those long win streaks.

“If you break it to small things, it’s just come and play a good game today, and we played a really good game today, a really well-rounded, well-pitched for sure, with some pressure a lot in a bunch of innings," Counsell said. "It's been the recipe for a lot of wins.”

When the Cubs had multiple 10-game winning streaks in 1935, their Hall of Fame catcher Gabby Hartnett was the NL MVP and Charlie Grimm the manager while winning 100 games. The only time they have done that since was their 2016 World Series championship year, when they won 103 games in the regular season.

“Two double-digit winning streaks in a season, that sounds pretty wild to me,” said Ben Brown, who threw four hitless innings in his first start this season after 12 relief appearances.

“That’s kudos to all the guys in the clubhouse, all the coaches, all the trainers, the sports staff,” he added. “That is some goosebumps to think about how talented this team is. It’s special to be a part of, it’s special to witness, it’s special to watch.”

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Wembanyama went 13 of 18 from the floor and 10 of 12 from the line, adding five blocks and a full night of paint deterrence as the Spurs won their second straight game after dropping the opener at home.

De'Aaron Fox scored 17 points, and Stephon Castle had 13 points and 12 assists with a team-high plus-17 rating.

Anthony Edwards had 32 points and 14 rebounds and Naz Reid added 18 points and nine rebounds for the Wolves, whose defense kept them alive after a woeful start but allowed the Spurs to shoot 6 for 10 from 3-point range in the pivotal third quarter.

Minnesota will host Game 4 on Sunday night. The series shifts back to San Antonio for Game 5 on Tuesday.

Jaden McDaniels drew Wembanyama's fifth foul with 6:18 left and brought the Wolves within 99-98 on pair of free throws, but the Spurs never trailed in the second half despite never leading by double digits.

Wembanyama didn't flinch despite the foul risk, finishing with 16 points in the fourth quarter. His 3-pointer that answered Reid's pushed San Antonio's lead to six with 3:06 to go. Reid tried another one near the end of the shot clock on the next possession that hit the rim and Wembanyama rebounded.

Edwards, who showed Minnesota yet again his swift healing ability by returning from a deep bone bruise in his hyperextended left knee after just one week to make the start of the series, had 22 points in the first half to help them snap back from an early 18-3 deficit.

The Wolves missed their first 12 shots and didn't get a basket to go down until Rudy Gobert's putback with 6:52 had elapsed, but unlike in the 133-95 drubbing they took in Game 2 on Wednesday they had the defensive intelligence and tenacity at the ready to make up for the long shooting lulls.

Edwards hit a buzzer-beating 31-footer at the end of the first quarter, and McDaniels swished a 3-pointer from the wing to end the first half with a 51-all tie.

McDaniels and Julius Randle were the most affected by Wembanyama's presence, unable to get their short-range and rim-attacking game going. They shot a combined 8 for 34 from the floor.

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Shea Theodore had a goal and an assist and Brayden McNabb scored a short-handed goal as the Golden Knights stormed to a 5-0 lead after two periods, silencing a sellout crowd in Orange County and erasing memories of their rough offensive outing in Game 2.

Carter Hart made 30 saves as Vegas moved halfway to the Western Conference finals while sending the upstart Ducks to the worst loss of their first postseason in eight years.

Game 4 is Sunday night in Anaheim.

Marner got his natural hat trick in the first two periods, giving him six goals in the past four games of his first playoff run with his new team. The longtime Maple Leafs forward delivered Vegas’ first four-point playoff performance since 2019 and prompted a few hats to be thrown onto the ice when he slipped his third goal under Ville Husso with 2:04 left in the second.

Marner's three goals were more than he scored in last spring's entire 13-game playoff run with Toronto, where the Ontario native frequently got criticism for not delivering in the postseason.

Rookie forward Beckett Sennecke and Chris Kreider scored in the third period for the Ducks, who got embarrassed in their team’s first home game in the second round since 2017.

Lukas Dostal gave up three goals on eight shots in a rough first period before Husso replaced him, but Anaheim lost at home for the first time in four games this spring.

Vegas captain Mark Stone didn't play in the third period after apparently incurring a lower-body injury in the first period.

Theodore put Vegas ahead 66 seconds after the opening faceoff with his 20th postseason goal off a clever assist from Jack Eichel. The Ducks drafted Theodore in 2013, but former general manager Bob Murray traded him to Vegas in 2017 in a questionable scheme to keep defenseman Josh Manson in the expansion draft.

The 35-year-old McNabb then scored the third short-handed goal of his 14-year NHL career when he crossed up Dostal with a fluttering shot.

Marner capped the Knights' stellar first period with his fourth playoff goal on a power play when Dostal couldn't control a rebound. Marner got another midway through the second period, tapping in a pass from Theodore while the Ducks stood around watching.

Brett Howden put his sixth playoff goal into an empty net with 1:56 left.

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The data were released just days ahead of a planned meeting next week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.

That beat analysts’ estimates and was a significant improvement from March’s 2.5% year-on-year expansion. Exports to the U.S. rose 11.3% from the year before, up from a 26.5% drop in March.

Imports climbed 25.3%, slower than the 27.8% growth in March but still robust.

The Trump-Xi summit comes at a time when relations are beset by multiple issues, with efforts to end the war in Iran eclipsing the usual sources of friction.

“We’re expecting that overall external demand will remain a solid driver of growth this year,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at Dutch bank ING, likely led by China’s exports of semiconductors and autos.

In March, Chinese leaders set an annual economic growth target of 4.5% to 5%, slightly lower than last year’s 5% expansion and the lowest target since 1991. Export growth is expected to continue to power its wider economy, especially as shipments increased from China to Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa over the past months.

China’s exports to the U.S. have fallen for most of the months since Trump imposed steeper tariffs and harsher controls on sharing of technology after he took office last year. But trade with the U.S. is likely improving this year, said Song, particularly because of the base effects of sharp declines caused by Trump’s tariff hikes in 2025.

Apart from efforts to broker a peace agreement to end the Iran war, trade and export controls, including rare earths and U.S. tech restrictions on China, will likely be on the agenda during the Trump-Xi summit, following a yearlong U.S.-China trade truce reached late last year when the two leaders last met in South Korea.

Major breakthroughs on export controls are unlikely, but the leaders’ upcoming meeting may bring “incremental” steps to troubleshoot trade friction, HSBC economists said in a recent research note.

“On balance, China looks to have more leverage,” wrote Leah Fahy, senior China economist of Capital Economics, in a note. “But higher tariffs haven’t stopped China’s exports from continuing to surge over the past year, and Beijing has showed that it is prepared to wait out U.S. pressure.”

For China, oil and fuel price hikes caused by the war in Iran are also feeding higher manufacturing and logistics costs across its many factories, said Wei Li, head of multi-asset investments at BNP Paribas Securities (China), while higher global inflation could dampen consumer purchasing power in China’s overseas markets.

Still, China’s overall economy has remained resilient compared with other countries, owing to its large oil reserves and more diversified energy sources.

ING’s Song said China’s trade surplus, which reached an all-time high of almost $1.2 trillion last year, could narrow for the whole of this year. Imports so far have been stronger in 2026, though China is still recovering from a prolonged property slump that has dragged on consumption and investment.

Africa imported 44,358 electric vehicles from China in 2025, according to data from China’s Commerce Ministry, up from 19,386 in 2024. The shipments, valued at over $200 million, highlight growing demand, especially in Ethiopia after it banned new imports of gas and diesel-powered vehicles in 2024.

More than 115,000 EVs are now on Ethiopia's roads, accounting for about 8% of the national fleet. In 2025, it imported a third of Africa’s imports from China, ahead of other major markets in South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria.

As the Iran war drags on, Ethiopia’s fuel shortages are rippling through transport systems and daily life, reinforcing its effort to cut costly imports of oil and gas and strengthen its energy security. However that trend is raising questions about charging infrastructure and affordability.

Ethiopia’s spends about $4.2 billion on fuel imports annually, straining its foreign currency reserves.

Its minister of Trade and Regional Integration, Kassahun Gofe, said in a statement that the country also is spending up to $128 million monthly on fuel subsidies, while shipments fell short by more than 180,000 metric tons as the imports are disrupted by Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route for about a fifth of oil from the Gulf region before the war.

The government has redoubled its campaign for quicker EV adoption, framing it as a critical buffer against external supply shocks.

“From a general perspective, it is sustainable,” said Hiten Parmar, executive director of South African- based The Electric Mission. “By replacing imported fuel with domestically generated electricity, Ethiopia is strengthening its energy security position.”

Ethiopia has an edge

Ethiopia has a special advantage in that more than 90% of its electricity comes from renewable sources, mainly hydro and solar. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest hydroelectric project, is expected to double its power generation, though the facility and has fueled a decade-long dispute over water supplies with downstream Egypt and Sudan.

“That scale of generation creates a foundation for electrified transport,” Parmar said. “It allows EVs to be powered by locally produced clean energy, rather than costly imports.”

“By gradually adopting EVs, that intensive fuel import expenditure can be reduced and redirected into other critical development needs,” Parmar said.

Globally, the International Energy Agency estimates electric vehicles displaced more than 1 million barrels of oil consumption per day in 2024.

Countries across Africa are pushing for more EVs

Egypt, South Africa and Morocco also are pursuing a transition to EV use, adopting a mix of policy incentives, investing in manufacturing capacity and in clean energy.

“That transition is beginning to ease pressure on fuel demand,” said Bob Wesonga, policy and investments lead at the Africa E-Mobility Alliance.

“That’s over 100,000 vehicle owners who are no longer directly exposed to pump price shocks,” he said. “In the medium to long term, this creates a buffer against global oil volatility.”

For those who have switched, the savings are significant.

“A private EV owner now spends roughly $4 a month on charging compared to about $27 previously spent on fuel,” Wesonga said. “For public transport operators, the difference is even more striking.”

Charging stations and other infrastructure are still lacking

The transition to EVs faces some daunting structural hurdles, Parmar notes.

“The technology is already mature, the challenge is building it out fast enough,” he said.

Ethiopia is deploying ultra-fast charging hubs in its capital Addis Ababa, but scaling them nationwide will take time and investment.

“The biggest hurdle is the last-mile power distribution,” Wesonga said. “While Ethiopia has a surplus of generation, getting that power reliably to where it’s needed, especially outside Addis Ababa, remains a challenge.”

Frequent blackouts and delays in connecting high-capacity charging stations have slowed construction of needed infrastructure, even as demand for electric vehicles rises.

“Charging infrastructure is still heavily concentrated in the capital and along a few corridors,” Wesonga said. “That limits e-mobility to specific areas and creates a bottleneck as adoption grows.”

Plans to assemble EVs raise question of affordability

Ethiopia is one of several countries in Africa looking to build their own EV industries. Official data show 17 electric vehicle assembly plants are in the pipeline in Ethiopia, with plans to raise that number to 60 by 2030. It's part of a broader strategy to localize production and reduce costs.

Affordability, however, remains a major constraint. While operating costs are lower, prices of electric vehicles remain high relative to average incomes.

“The purchase price is still out of reach for many,” Wesonga said. “At the same time, restrictions on fossil fuel vehicles have pushed up the cost of used cars, creating additional barriers.”

That dynamic could have unintended social impacts if not managed carefully.

“A national fleet transition is always gradual,” Parmar said. “Existing combustion vehicles will remain in use for some time, and the transition needs to account for livelihoods tied to that system.”

Even so, both experts say the long-term trajectory remains clear. Lower operating and maintenance costs for electric vehicles could reduce transport costs over time, easing the price of goods and improving access to economic opportunities.

Ethiopia is also looking to lessons from countries such as China and Norway, where policy support, infrastructure investment and consumer incentives have driven rapid adoption.

“This is not just about transport,” Wesonga said. “It’s about reshaping how the country uses energy, and who benefits from that shift.”

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Mike Matheson, Alexandre Carrier and Nick Suzuki, with an empty-netter, also scored for the Canadiens. Rookie goalie Jakub Dobes made 27 saves, and Montreal extended its trend of alternating wins and losses after doing so in a seven-game first-round series win over Tampa Bay.

Montreal advanced to the second round on Newhook's game-winner 11:07 into the third period of a 2-1 series-clinching win on Sunday. Meantime, the Canadiens' top offensive threats continue to struggle. Cole Caufield extended his point drought to five games, while Juraj Slafkovsky has one assist in his past eight outings.

“I think as a group we knew we needed a big effort tonight, a bounce-back, a bounce-forward game,” said Newhook, who gave the team a pregame boost with an energetic reading of the starting lineup. “When you get the lineup read you just try to supply some energy there early and just try and carry that into the game.”

Zach Benson scored for Buffalo, but Alex Lyon allowed four goals on 27 shots. He previously allowed seven goals in six-plus appearances since replacing Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who was was pulled after two periods in a 4-2 loss to Boston in Game 2 of their first-round series.

The series shifts to Montreal for Game 3 on Sunday night.

It’ll be the Canadiens' first trip home after being on the road since traveling to Tampa Bay last weekend. The team stayed in Florida for two days before flying directly to Buffalo on Tuesday.

The Sabres dropped to 2-3 at home this postseason, but they won all three games — including the Game 6 series clincher — at Boston.

After falling behind 2-0 in the first period of Game 1, Montreal flipped the script.

Peyton Krebs’ turnover in Buffalo’s zone led to Newhook scoring at 1:36 by sneaking a shot under Lyon’s blocker arm. Matheson scored 2:51 later by floating in a shot from the left point that beat Lyon over his right shoulder.

“Awful game. Not acceptable,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “They wanted to compete the first 10 (minutes), and then that’s what kind of set the tone for the whole game. It’s hard to come back, especially in the playoffs, when an opponent is up two. So, can’t happen.”

Dobes said the difference between Games 1 and 2 was the Canadiens' ability to adjust to a much faster opponent in Buffalo after a grueling, tight-checking series against the defensive-minded Lightning.

“You play Game 7, I feel like we didn’t have much chance to prepare and kind of settle everything together and reset our minds,” he said. “I feel like we adjusted today really well. And yeah, I feel we catch a breath in the series. And I feel that we are ready to play our hockey and compete against the team for the rest of the series.”

Buffalo’s power play came up empty on five chances after going 2 for 3 in Game 1. The Sabres have converted just three of 32 power-play opportunities this postseason.

Newhook’s second goal, scored 4:47 into the second period, came four seconds after the Sabres' power play failed to register a shot with Carrier off for hooking.

Carrier’s goal 3:54 into the third was emblematic of Buffalo's evening. With the Sabres buzzing the Montreal net, Tage Thompson kept the puck in at the right point only to lose his balance and spin down to the ice. Carrier picked up the loose puck and scored to put Montreal up 4-1.

Benson whiffed on a tip-in chance two minutes later. In the first period, Buffalo’s Alex Tuch had the puck roll off his stick while attempting a shot breaking up the right wing, and Jack Quinn shot over the top of the net after being set up alone in the slot.

“Trying to chase the game, try and force plays that aren’t there, and just wasn’t executing,” Thompson said. “I think everything I touched turned into disaster tonight. So, tough one. Got to be better. It’s as simple as just flush that one, move on.”

Thompson then gave a blunt response when asked if he was playing with an injury by saying: “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

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Funcionarios actuales y anteriores del archipiélago, en el punto más austral de Sudamérica, insisten en que el virus no se originó en el depósito de basura de Ushuaia, que según dijeron autoridades sanitarias nacionales esta semana es el lugar más probable en el que dos turistas holandeses lo habrían contraído mientras observaban aves.

“Personalmente creo que estamos en una campaña de desprestigio del destino”, dijo Juan Facundo Petrina, director de epidemiología de la provincia, a los periodistas en una conferencia de prensa desde Ushuaia.

Según explicó, en un principio los funcionarios federales no se comunicaron con las autoridades locales. En cambio, se enteraron del supuesto vínculo con Ushuaia a través de informes de prensa. Además, Tierra del Fuego nunca ha registrado un caso de hantavirus —y mucho menos de la variante Andes involucrada en el brote del barco—, a diferencia de provincias argentinas más al norte.

La pareja holandesa —ambos fallecidos— pasó apenas dos días en Tierra del Fuego durante su viaje de cuatro meses por Argentina y Chile, lo que reduce drásticamente la probabilidad de que la infección haya ocurrido aquí, agregó.

Al ser la principal puerta de entrada a la Antártida, la remota ciudad de Ushuaia recibió el año pasado a más de 157.000 pasajeros de cruceros, casi el doble de su población local. Los turistas con alto poder adquisitivo se han vuelto cada vez más vitales para la economía de Tierra del Fuego, mientras que su medular sector de fabricación de productos electrónicos se resiente por los recortes a barreras comerciales y subsidios implementados por el presidente Javier Milei.

“Hoy todo el mundo está asociando Ushuaia con un virus letal, con viajes en crucero, y... de esa manera las reservas para la próxima temporada la verdad que van a bajar, porque nadie va a querer exponerse”, sostuvo Rubén Rafael, exministro de Salud de Tierra del Fuego. “La reputación de Ushuaia bajo estas condiciones está sufriendo mucho como destino turístico”.

Los investigadores argentinos aún no han llegado

Al ser consultado el viernes sobre si el Ministerio de Salud de Argentina seguía respaldando la teoría de que el brote se originó en el basurero de Ushuaia, un funcionario del ministerio —que habló a condición de guardar el anonimato porque no está autorizado a referirse a la investigación— indicó que nada había cambiado y que Ushuaia era el único lugar al que el ministerio estaba enviando investigadores, aunque reconoció que seguía siendo posible que el virus se hubiera originado en otra parte del país.

El Ministerio de Salud anunció el miércoles que enviaría expertos del Instituto Malbrán —respaldado por el Estado— para atrapar ratas en el basurero de Ushuaia y en zonas cercanas, y analizarlas en busca de la cepa Andes del hantavirus.

Más de dos días después, los investigadores aún no han llegado. El funcionario restó importancia a la demora, considerándola normal en la lenta burocracia de Argentina.

En Tierra del Fuego, Petrina dijo que esperaba que los investigadores nacionales limpiaran el nombre de Ushuaia. Señaló que se estaba llevando tiempo “determinar los lugares puntuales en donde vamos a hacer los trampeos y los análisis”.

Otros en la provincia, de tendencia izquierdista, se quejaron de que la demora del gobierno y la falta de transparencia formaban parte de un patrón más amplio desde que Milei aplicó su “motosierra” al sistema de salud del país: retiró a Argentina de la Organización Mundial de la Salud semanas después de que el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump hiciera lo mismo, y recortó fondos a programas nacionales encargados de rastrear enfermedades infecciosas.

“El tema de la salud en la Argentina está pasando un grave problema", apuntó Rafael, el exministro de salud provincial. "El sistema está muy debilitado… eso da como consecuencia que estén muy lentos para reaccionar, y la verdad que nos expone a todos”.

Fuera de Argentina, expertos en salud pública enfatizaron que la investigación es un paso crucial para evitar que se repita una situación similar.

“No es una emergencia extrema, pero sigue siendo urgente en términos de recopilar los datos”, expresó Celine Gounder, epidemióloga que se desempeña como editora general de salud pública en KFF Health News y que previamente asesoró al gobierno del presidente estadounidense Joe Biden sobre la pandemia de coronavirus.

“Si hay un virus de Andes que sea más infeccioso a nivel local, uno querría saberlo para poder advertir a los residentes y tomar medidas para prevenir que se infecten. Y si todavía no han iniciado ese proceso, eso sería preocupante”, agregó.

Una búsqueda ardua de respuestas

La pareja holandesa que la OMS ha identificado como los primeros pasajeros de crucero infectados con la variante de Andes —el único hantavirus que, en casos raros, podría propagarse de persona a persona— llegó a Argentina en noviembre pasado, según el Ministerio de Salud de la nación.

La pareja, de 70 y 69 años, pasó semanas recorriendo el país en auto de norte a sur antes de realizar una serie de cruces fronterizos entre Argentina y Chile, los cuales se extendieron por meses. También viajaron entre Argentina y Uruguay en marzo, antes de embarcarse el 1 de abril en el crucero antártico que partió de Ushuaia.

Los gobiernos de Chile, que ya ha registrado brotes mortales de la variante Andes, y de Uruguay, que no los ha tenido, declararon que la pareja no pudo haberse infectado durante su visita a sus territorios, basándose en el período de incubación del virus, el cual es de hasta ocho semanas. No ofrecieron detalles.

Debido a que la pareja murió, reconstruir sus pasos por el país es sumamente difícil, dijeron funcionarios de salud argentinos, y añadieron que están trabajando para completar algunos vacíos en sus desplazamientos.

Muchos epidemiólogos argentinos independientes creen que el brote de hantavirus probablemente surgió en los bosques de la Patagonia central, otro importante destino turístico, en el que recientemente las autoridades han registrado casos de hantavirus y en el que proliferan ratas de cola larga conocidas por portar la variante Andes, a diferencia de lo que ocurre en Ushuaia.

“Entonces ahora hay mucha presión mediática. Entonces no sería raro que tampoco les interese (al gobierno), pero digan: ‘bueno, vamos a callar un poco las voces haciendo algo’”, apuntó Raúl González Ittig, profesor de genética de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.

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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.

Game 4 is Sunday in Philadelphia.

Brunson shook off a 2-of-8 start from the floor and finished 11 of 22 in 38 minutes to send the Knicks to their sixth straight postseason victory.

“I'm Linus. Jalen's my blanket,” first-year Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “He helps me relax at a lot of different times during the course of the game."

With 2016 and 2018 Villanova national championship banners hanging in the rafters, the so-called Nova Knicks all took turns taking the fight out of the Sixers in the fourth quarter, turning a four-point lead into another double-digit victory.

Josh Hart had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Mikal Bridges added 23 points, pushing the Knicks within one victory of their second straight conference finals appearance.

When Brown took the job after Tom Thibodeau was fired, the veteran coach said he wouldn't know what kind of team he really had until he got “into the trenches with them.”

Brown now sees the makings of a championship team.

“Yeah, OK, we might have a chance at this,” he said.

The Knicks have the luxury not to rush back forward OG Anunoby, who's averaging 21.4 points per game in the postseason. He sat out with a strained right hamstring and remains day to day.

Joel Embiid scored 18 points for the Sixers in his return after he missed Game 2 with a sprained right ankle and a sore right hip.

"I thought he gave us everything he could," coach Nick Nurse said.

Embiid's return from an appendectomy helped spur the Sixers' rally from a 3-1 deficit in the opening round to stun the Celtics.

Beating the Knicks four straight times — including twice in New York — seems like a much harder hill to climb for Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and the Sixers.

Kelly Oubre Jr. scored 22 points and Maxey added 17. Paul George scored 15 points in the first quarter, then went scoreless and missed all nine shots the rest of the game as the Sixers blew a 12-point lead.

George and Maxey each failed to shoot a single free throw.

The 76ers gamely tried to make it a series. Quintin Grimes hit his first two 3s of the game early in the fourth to trim the lead to 88-84.

The familiar faces in Philly — Brunson, Hart and Bridges all played for Villanova — seized control of the game.

Hart and Bridges made consecutive baskets that pushed the lead to 92-84. Brunson, the stone-cold shooter built for these moments, buried a 3 from the top of the arc that made it 95-86 during a 9-0 Knicks run, to the delight of the visiting fans.

Embiid openly pleaded with fans ahead of the series not to sell their tickets to New Yorkers.

Celebrity Row regulars at Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller all made the trip to Philadelphia, along with thousands of less famous Knicks fans — and the split crowd erupted in cheers, boos and the occasional middle finger on just about every basket.

Chalamet rose from his seat and applauded when Landry Shamet buried a late 3 in the third that stretched the lead to 85-76. Shamet had 14 points this entire postseason before he scored 15 in Game 3.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Three forensic document examiners who reviewed the notes at the request of The Associated Press concluded that they have or appear to have common authorship, with shared characteristics such as the same spacing, letter shapes, usage of capital letters and unique punctuation.

In the first note, made public this week, the writer states: “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” and talks about being able to choose the “time to say goodbye.” The other note, which has been public for years, is a list of grievances about conditions at the jail, including the showers, food and “Giant Bugs.”

While no one has definitively said Epstein wrote the notes, they point to his grim outlook before his death and echo some frustrations he conveyed to jail personnel about being confined in the crumbling Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after living in luxury for decades. They also contain phrases he had used in the past.

Both notes, written in pen on notepad paper, include the underlined phrase “NO FUN” and end with double exclamation points — the first of which is bowed slightly with similar curvature. The first few words of each note are larger than the rest and each successive line slants away from the left margin.

“These are the kinds of things that would suggest that we're dealing with the same writer,” said Thomas Vastrick, the president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.

“They are written by the same person,” said Bart Baggett, who founded the forensic analysis firm Handwriting Experts Inc. and has testified in court as an expert witness more than 130 times.

“Both of those documents have the same author,” said Grace Warmbier, who worked for a decade for the New York City Police Department performing document examinations and handwriting analysis.

None of the experts were able to say definitively that Epstein wrote the notes, in part because there are few if any confirmed examples of his handwriting in the millions of pages of records the Justice Department recently released on the late financier.

In addition to the two jail notes, Warmbier and Vastrick also reviewed writing samples from the former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, including part of a note he sent to the New York Daily News in 2019 in which he denied any involvement in Epstein's death.

Warmbier ruled out Tartaglione as the author, finding “significant dissimilarities between his handwriting and the handwriting in question.”

Vastrick said Tartaglione's writing samples had “a wide range of variation from one to another” and that there were at least some similarities that require further examination.

“At this point, I certainly would not eliminate him as a potential writer,” Vastrick said. “I don’t at the same time want to suggest that he is the writer.”

For years, only a few people known about the note that Tartaglione claimed he found. Then, last summer, he mentioned it on writer Jessica Reed Kraus’ podcast. That piqued the interest of writers at The New York Times, who convinced a judge on Wednesday to release the note, which had been sealed in an unrelated case.

Tartaglione, an ex-police officer serving a life sentence for killing four people, said he discovered the note in a book in his cell after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, on the floor with a strip of bedsheet around his neck. Epstein was placed on suicide watch and moved to a different cell. He had no cellmate when he was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019.

Epstein and Tartaglione shared a cell for about two weeks, beginning soon after Epstein’s July 6, 2019, arrest on sex trafficking charges and ending with the suspected suicide attempt. Both men were awaiting trials.

According to a chronology in the Justice Department's files on Epstein, Tartaglione told his lawyer about the note four days after the suspected July 23 attempt. There is no indication that anyone alerted jail officials or Epstein's representatives.

The note was later submitted as evidence in Tartaglione’s criminal case and placed under seal amid a dispute over his legal representation. It wasn’t mentioned in government reports examining the circumstances of Epstein’s death, nor did it surface in the Justice Department’s files. The other note, found after Epstein's death, was shown on CBS' “60 Minutes” in 2020 and is in the files.

Beyond handwriting analysis, the phrasing of the notes could give clues to their authorship. The note Tartaglione said he found contains the line: “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!”

Epstein previously referenced that line, mimicking dialogue from a 1931 “Little Rascals” film, in three emails that were included in the Justice Department's files, including one he sent to his brother four months before going to jail.

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Associated Press videojournalist David R. Martin contributed.

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

The Hurricanes and the Avalanche have put on a clinic for how to start the race.

The top two teams in the NHL during the regular season, seemingly on a collision course to meet in the Stanley Cup Final, have been performing on the ice with a force to match their natural-disaster-themed nicknames. Neither the Canes nor the Avs have lost a game in these playoffs.

With a 4-1 win at Philadelphia on Thursday to take a 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Hurricanes became the 13th team in NHL history to start a postseason with seven straight wins. Eight of the first 12 won the Stanley Cup.

The Hurricanes will send sizzling goalie Frederik Andersen out for Game 4 on Saturday to try to finish off the Flyers, seeking a sweep that would give them the league's first 8-0 start in the playoffs since 1985.

“I would anticipate we’re going to give it our best, because we’re going to need to,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’re not going to win if we don’t put our best foot forward.”

Only three teams in NHL history have overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series, but plenty of teams have managed to at least force a fifth game.

“The fourth one is the hardest one to win. No one wants to go home,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It's going to be a brand-new challenge.”

Only two teams have started the playoffs 7-0 in the last three decades. Colorado, which has already scored 14 goals on Minnesota in their Western Conference semifinal series, would make it two in the same year by winning Game 3 on Saturday night. The NHL gave the Avalanche and Wild three days between games to sync up the schedules of the four ongoing series.

“For our team, the energy and pace that we want to play with on a nightly basis that helps us have success, it doesn’t hurt,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “It doesn’t hurt to be rested and recovered and still get a little practice time in to go out and feel good about your puck touches and your systems and everything. Meetings don’t have to get crammed in. You can take your time and get feedback from the guys."

The Hurricanes, who have made the playoffs in each of eight seasons under Brind’Amour, lost to eventual champion Florida in the Eastern Conference finals last year. They would tie for the 10th-longest winning streak in a single NHL postseason by beating the Flyers on Saturday. Twenty-three teams in league history have won eight or more consecutive playoff games in the same year, and 18 of them won the Stanley Cup.

One of the five that came up short was the 1992 Chicago Blackhawks, who matched the all-time record with 11 straight playoff wins. The Pittsburgh Penguins also staked claim to the record that spring, finishing with a four-game sweep in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Avalanche are aiming to emulate the way the Canes powered through the Philadelphia crowd noise to win a feisty Game 3. Minnesota has not hosted a game this late in the postseason since 2015.

“It will be a rockin’ environment,” Avs goalie Scott Wedgewood said. “That’s what makes playoff so fun, right?”

Carolina Hurricanes at Philadelphia Flyers

When/Where to Watch: Game 4, Saturday, 6 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Series: Hurricanes lead 3-0.

The Flyers have been unable to solve Carolina's stifling defense, with just three goals in three games. Their league-worst power play during the regular season has carried over, with just one goal in 12 opportunities in this series and a 3-for-29 showing in nine playoff games.

Colorado Avalanche at Minnesota Wild

When/Where to Watch: Game 4, Saturday, 9 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Series: Avalanche lead 2-0.

The Wild have spent the extra time off trying to shore up their penalty kill, which has been dearly missing center Joel Eriksson Ek and defenseman Jonas Brodin. But after dominating Dallas at even strength in the first round they've also struggled to contain Colorado's high-octane forwards in 5-on-5 situations. Minnesota might go back to rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt after giving Filip Gustavsson the net for a 5-2 loss in Game 2.

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AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia and Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

At least 12 countries and five states in the U.S. are reporting cases.

The outbreak was first reported aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic after it departed Argentina last month.

“This is not Covid,” Infectious Disease Expert Dr. Aileen Marty said.

Marty said the Andes virus does not spread easily because it has a long incubation period that can take weeks.

But she stressed the virus is very deadly.

“These viruses go to the cells that line capillaries in the lungs and they look normal but they act weird and they are leaky and they allow fluid from your blood to seep into the airways of your lungs and makes it almost impossible for people to breathe,” Marty said.

Marty said she is concerned about how prepared the U.S. is to respond if cases do spread.

“If we’re not careful we may see secondary cases,” Marty said.

“The United States doesn’t have a healthcare system. The states have a healthcare system,” she added.

“Some states will be more strict, some may not. Some states have enough funding to do all the necessary contact tracing, some may not,” Marty said.

In the meantime, infectious disease specialist at Memorial Regional Hospital Dr. Kenneth Poon said this is a good time to practice the basics.

“Good handwashing and hygiene -- there’s no need for widespread masking or anything,” Poon said.

When asked about people rethinking their travel plans, Marty said, “If they’re going to Argentina, they certainly should be rethinking their travel plans.”

Video posted on social media by U.S. Southern Command shows a black, boat-shaped image before what appears to be an explosion, followed by a column of fire rising from the ocean.

Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivor.”

The White House announced Wednesday that President Donald Trump has signed off on a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy that sets eliminating drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere as the administration’s highest priority.

The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters, including the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, has gone on since early September and killed at least 193 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs. The strikes have ramped up again in recent weeks.

At the same time, Trump has sought to press regional leaders to work more closely with the U.S. to target cartels and take military action themselves against drug traffickers and transnational gangs that he says pose an “unacceptable threat” to the hemisphere’s national security.

Critics, meanwhile, have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes.

McIlroy said the answer will likely depend on what happens with LIV's financial situation in the coming months.

Last month, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund pulled the plug on future funding for LIV Golf, which had lured away stars including Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau with lucrative, guaranteed contracts. LIV's uncertain future raises new questions about whether some players should be allowed to return to the PGA Tour — and if so, under what set of rules or penalties.

The PGA Tour recently offered a temporary path back for some LIV players. Five-time major champion Brooks Koepka took advantage of the opportunity.

Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton are among the players who remain under contract with LIV beyond this season.

However, Rahm resolved his financial dispute with the European tour, known commercially as the DP World Tour. That move potentially gives him a place to compete in 2027 and beyond.

“If it is a scenario where they have the option to come back and play on the traditional tours, I think (PGA Tour CEO) Brian Rolapp has said anything that makes this tour stronger, anything that makes the DP World Tour stronger, I think everyone should be open to that,” McIlroy said after finishing his second round at the Truist Championship. “That’s just good business practice.”

For now, McIlroy, like most in golf, is in a wait-and-see mode — although he expressed skepticism about the rival tour raising enough money to continue in its current form.

“They’re going to go and try and find alternative investment, whatever that may look like,” McIlroy said. “But when one of the wealthiest sovereign wealth funds in the world thinks that you’re too expensive for them, that sort of says something.”

McIlroy, the No. 2 player in the world, has become the face of the game along with top-ranked Scottie Scheffler.

He has been an outspoken critic in the past of players who bolted for big paydays that came with joining the Saudi-backed tour.

“Obviously the guys over there are under contract and if they are able to keep it going and get a schedule together next year, it seems like those guys are still going to play the majority of their golf on LIV, in whatever form it takes,” McIlroy said.

DeChambeau’s contract with LIV is up after the season and he has reportedly asked for a new, $500 million deal.

McIlroy has softened his stance on those who moved on to LIV over the years, and reiterated on Friday that he was “probably too judgmental” in his opinions.

But he said LIV is “not for me.”

“I’m not going to judge anyone for not wanting to play on the PGA Tour,” McIlroy said. “I don’t know, does that mean that they go play DP World Tour, maybe; if that’s a pathway, that would make the DP World Tour stronger, and I would be delighted with that.”

But he also questioned why top players would not want to compete against the world's best every week.

“If you want to be the most competitive golfer you can be, this is the place to be,” McIlroy said of the PGA Tour. “And if you don’t want to play here, I think that says something about you.”

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

The two-time Cy Young Award winner is set to rejoin the rotation sooner than anticipated after teammate Tyler Glasnow left a start early this week because of back trouble. Glasnow was placed on the 15-day injured list Friday with low back spasms, and Los Angeles recalled right-hander Paul Gervase from Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Snell missed most of the 2025 regular season because of a lingering shoulder injury, making just 11 starts after signing a $182 million, five-year contract in November 2024. But the left-hander went 3-2 in six postseason games to help the Dodgers win their second consecutive World Series title.

Snell has been on the IL since late March with left shoulder fatigue. He had been scheduled to make one more minor league rehabilitation start for Class A Ontario on Saturday, but instead will face the Braves at Dodger Stadium.

Glasnow exited after one inning against the Houston Astros on Wednesday. He had an MRI that showed “nothing really significant,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday before the opener of a three-game series against Atlanta.

The 32-year-old Glasnow is 3-0 with a 2.72 ERA in seven outings this season.

The 6-foot-10 Gervase, 25, is 2-0 with a 3.65 ERA in nine games for Oklahoma City this year. He made one appearance for the Dodgers last season, striking out two batters in two innings. He also pitched in five games for Tampa Bay, compiling a 4.26 ERA.

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

“Creo que vamos a ver eventos meteorológicos que nunca hemos visto antes en la historia moderna”, manifestó el viernes Jeff Berardelli, meteorólogo en jefe y especialista en clima de WFLA-TV en Tampa, Florida.

Se prevé que un episodio de El Niño se desarrolle desde mediados de este año, lo que afectará los patrones globales de temperatura y lluvia, según la Organización Meteorológica Mundial. Aunque los modelos indican que podría tratarse de un evento fuerte, la OMM advirtió que a los modelos también les resulta más difícil hacer pronósticos precisos a estas alturas del año.

Qué es El Niño

El Niño es un calentamiento cíclico y natural de zonas del Pacífico ecuatorial que luego altera los patrones meteorológicos del mundo. Su contraparte, La Niña, se caracteriza por aguas más frías que el promedio.

Berardelli explicó que un episodio de El Niño, en esencia, redistribuye el calor en la Tierra. Actualmente, el calor subsuperficial en el Pacífico se desplaza hacia el este a través del océano y asciende a la superficie desde las aguas profundas, las etapas iniciales de El Niño.

La Actualización Climática Estacional Global de la OMM mostró que las temperaturas de la superficie del mar están aumentando rápidamente. Hay un alto grado de certeza en el inicio de El Niño, seguido de una mayor intensificación en los meses posteriores, según Wilfran Moufouma Okia, jefe de predicción climática de la OMM.

El Niño suele ocurrir cada dos a siete años, y dura alrededor de nueve a 12 meses, indicó la OMM.

Por qué está causando alarma

Daniel Swain, climatólogo del Instituto de California para Recursos Hídricos, señaló que parece que los modelos predictivos van por buen camino. Esto se debe a que el volumen y la intensidad de las anomalías de agua cálida subsuperficial —o pulsos de agua inusualmente cálida que son una parte clave de la física de El Niño— son aproximadamente tan grandes como los que se han observado en el registro histórico, añadió.

Los eventos más fuertes se denominan “super-Niños”.

“Uno de los componentes clave para que se materialice por completo está ocurriendo, de hecho”, comentó Swain el viernes. “Aún no sabemos exactamente qué va a pasar. No está garantizado que sea un super-Niño. Pero existe el potencial de que ocurra algo verdaderamente notable”.

Si el Pacífico libera mucho calor, eso potencia el sistema climático y causa estragos en el clima, afirmó Berardelli. Con más calor, habrá olas de calor más intensas, se agravará la sequía en algunas zonas, pero también habrá más humedad en el aire, lo que conduce a inundaciones más severas, explicó.

El Niño también atenúa la temporada de huracanes en el Atlántico porque hay tanto calor en el Pacífico que compite con el Atlántico, agregó Berardelli. Lugares como el Caribe estarán especialmente secos este verano boreal y probablemente tendrán menos sistemas tropicales, indicó.

Dónde podríamos ver los impactos

El Niño tiene efectos globales. En Estados Unidos, parece que este verano será más caluroso de lo normal, con olas de calor significativas, indicó Berardelli. Aunque los detalles son difíciles de precisar con tanta anticipación, Berardelli también espera ver tormentas eléctricas más frecuentes en el suroeste de Estados Unidos.

La degradación forestal, causada por incendios forestales, tala y sequía, afecta a cerca del 40% de la Amazonía. Esto podría agravarse en 2026 con un Niño fuerte.

Swain sostuvo que el exceso de calor que El Niño lleva a la superficie, combinado con el calentamiento del planeta debido al cambio climático, conducirá a un calor global récord. Swain prevé altas temperaturas récord en el mundo más adelante este año, el próximo año o en ambos.

“En este momento, todos los indicadores apuntan a que el próximo año va a ser un año bastante salvaje desde una perspectiva climática global”, expresó Swain.

Michael Mann, climatólogo de la Universidad de Pensilvania, dijo que, aunque El Niño eleva un poco las temperaturas globales durante uno o dos años, básicamente es un “juego de suma cero”. Por lo general, oscila de vuelta hacia La Niña, que a su vez reduce las temperaturas globales durante uno o dos años, añadió. Lo que debe preocupar es la tendencia de calentamiento constante a más largo plazo, que continuará mientras la gente siga quemando combustibles fósiles, señaló Mann el viernes.

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El periodista de The Associated Press, Peter Prengaman, contribuyó a este despacho.

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La cobertura climática y ambiental de The Associated Press recibe apoyo financiero de múltiples fundaciones privadas. La AP es la única responsable de todo el contenido. Consulte las normas de AP para trabajar con filantropías, una lista de patrocinadores y las áreas de cobertura financiadas en AP.org.

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

Leer en español

Helterbran, better known as “Marv,” is a member of the Strike Fighter Squadron 122, or VFA-122, also known as the “Flying Eagles.”

“The challenge we have out here is just the airspace,” Helterbran said. “The fact that the major airfield around here are still active, so the safety brief this morning, we got a nice talk as far as how to keep ourselves safe."

There were also military pilots flying demonstrations of the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the Thunderbirds, and the F-22 Raptor.

There were already spectators on Friday at Fort Lauderdale Beach.

“I used to come when I was a kid, and it was great. I wanted to bring them, so they could see,” Michael Dorry said, while holding his son. “The Thunderbirds, that was when it was six of them ... Those were pretty cool.”

Helterbran, who will be calling the shots over the radio during the show, said there will be a lot of speed.

“Things come up, nothing ever really goes as planned, as we all kind of know in life, so the biggest challenge is going to be dealing with the punches,” Helterbran said.

The show’s performances, which also include the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Para-Commandos and the RedBull helicopter, are from 11:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The viewing area is on the beach at State Road A1A and Sunrise Boulevard. Admission starts at $35.

Useful links

• Page for tickets
• Parking options
• Performers’ lineup

During his speech, DeSantis said time has proven that the Brigade 2506 fighters were on the right side of history.

“If Cuba was free, it would be an amazingly successful country,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis was there to sign the Foreign Interference Restriction and Enforcement bill into law, aiming to restrict influence from “foreign countries of concern.”

Related document: Foreign Interference Restriction and Enforcement (FIRE) Act

The law’s key provisions include bans on surrogacy or adoption contracts, penalties for officials accepting foreign benefits, and restrictions on lobbying and government contracting.

DeSantis said Cuba needs regime change.

“You can’t do business with criminals,” DeSantis said.

The law also applies to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Syria.

Also on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the sanctions against GAESA, or Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., a Cuban military business conglomerate, and Moa Nickel, a partnership between the Cuban state and Canadian company Sherritt International.

Rubio said GAESA “is taking anything that makes money in Cuba and illegally putting it into the pockets of a few regime insiders.”

Related story: Feds seek to strip U.S. citizenship of ex-ambassador who spied for Cuba

Watch DeSantis’s speech

"I grabbed three of them,” Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said before a 4-3 loss to the Athletics.

Shakur was raised in New York and Baltimore before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s. He lived in Oakland, California, in the early 1990s, which made Friday's matchup between the Orioles and Athletics an appropriate time to honor the rap icon, who was killed in 1996. The familiar riff from “California Love” was played while the starting lineup for the A's — who left Oakland before last season — was being announced.

Albernaz mentioned “Pain” when asked his favorite Tupac song.

“This is back on — I'm dating myself — Napster or LimeWire, trying to download that,” Albernaz said.

He also said “All Eyez On Me” best encapsulates the current Baltimore team.

Everyone on the Orioles' active roster was born in 1989 or later, so it wasn't immedately clear if the players were familiar with Shakur's music.

“I hope so,” Albernaz said. “I probably should ask around about that.”

Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, Tupac's sister, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

The game drew 39,311 fans, the most for a Baltimore home game since opening day.

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

Current and former officials in the archipelago at the southernmost point of South America insist that the virus did not originate from the trash heap in Ushuaia that national health authorities named earlier this week as the most likely place two Dutch tourists contracted it while bird-watching.

“I believe we are facing a smear campaign against this destination,” Juan Facundo Petrina, the province’s director of epidemiology, told reporters Friday in a press conference from Ushuaia.

Federal officials didn’t contact local authorities initially — instead, they discovered the purported Ushuaia connection via media reports, he said. Additionally, Tierra del Fuego has never recorded a case of the hantavirus — let alone the Andes variant involved in the ship outbreak — unlike Argentine provinces further north.

The Dutch couple — both of whom died — spent just two days in Tierra del Fuego during their four-monthlong trip through Argentina and Chile, he added, which “dramatically reduces the likelihood that the infection happened here.”

As the main gateway to Antarctica, the remote town of Ushuaia drew over 157,000 cruise passengers last year — almost double its local population. Deep-pocketed cruisers have increasingly grown vital to Tierra del Fuego's economy as its core electronic manufacturing sector reels from libertarian President Javier Milei's slashing of trade barriers and subsidies.

“Now the whole world is associating Ushuaia, and cruise travel, with a lethal virus, and if this continues, reservations for next season are honestly going to plummet because nobody will want to be exposed,” said Rubén Rafael, the former health minister of Tierra del Fuego. “Ushuaia’s reputation as a tourist destination is suffering badly."

Argentine investigators have yet to arrive

When asked Friday whether the Argentine Health Ministry still favored the outbreak origin theory of the Ushuaia landfill, a ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk about the investigation, said that nothing had changed and that Ushuaia was the only place where the ministry was sending investigators, adding that it remained possible the virus originated elsewhere in Argentina.

The Health Ministry announced on Wednesday that it would dispatch experts from the state-backed Malbran Institute to trap rats at the Ushuaia trash heap and nearby areas and test them for the Andes strain of the hantavirus.

Over two days later, the investigators have yet to arrive. The official dismissed the delay as normal for Argentina’s slow-moving bureaucracy.

In Tierra del Fuego, Petrina said he hoped national investigators would clear Ushuaia's name. He said it was taking a while “to determine all the exact locations where trapping and analysis will take place."

Others in the left-leaning province complained that the government's delay and lack of transparency came as part of a wider pattern ever since Milei took his chain saw to the country's health system, withdrawing his country from the World Health Organization weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump did the same and defunding national programs responsible for tracking infectious diseases.

“The health system in Argentina is going through a serious crisis,” said Rafael, the former provincial health minister. “The system is weakened, and as a result, the response to this outbreak has been very slow. That exposes all of us.”

Outside Argentina, public health experts said that the investigation is a critical step so that a similar situation can be avoided.

“It's not an extreme emergency, but it's still of urgency in terms of collecting the data,” said Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist who serves as editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News and previously advised the Biden administration on the coronavirus pandemic.

“If there is an Andes virus that is more infectious locally you’d want to know that so that you can warn local residents and take measures to prevent their infection. And if they haven’t started that process yet, that would be concerning.”

A daunting hunt for answers

The Dutch couple that the WHO has identified as the first cruise passengers infected with the Andes variant — the only hantavirus that may be able to spread from person-to-person in rare cases — arrived in Argentina last November, according to the Argentine Health Ministry.

The couple, 70 and 69 years old, spent weeks driving up and down the country before making a series of border crossings between Argentina and Chile over months. They also traveled between Argentina and Uruguay in March before embarking on the Antarctic cruise from Ushuaia on April 1.

The governments of Chile, which has seen deadly outbreaks of the Andes variant before, and Uruguay, which hasn't, declared the couple couldn't have become infected while visiting based on the virus' up-to-eight-week incubation period. They didn't offer details.

Because the couple died, retracing their steps through the country is exceedingly difficult, said Argentine health officials, adding that they're working to fill in some gaps in the couple's travels.

Many independent Argentine epidemiologists believe that the hantavirus outbreak most likely emerged from the woodlands of central Patagonia, another major tourist destination where authorities have recently recorded hantavirus cases and long-tailed rats known to carry the Andes variant run rampant — unlike in Ushuaia.

“With the media pressure now, it wouldn’t surprise me if the government's response has been more about quieting criticism by appearing to act,” said Raul González Ittig, genetics professor at the National University of Cordoba.

The No. 2 player in the world heated up on the back nine Friday at Quail Hollow and finished with a 4-under 67 to climb into contention at the Truist Championship, four shots behind 36-hole leader Sungjae Im, who was at 9-under 133.

Playing his first tournament since winning the green jacket for a second time on April 12 at Augusta National, McIlroy was 1 under and buried on the leaderboard eight shots back when he made the turn.

But birdies at No. 10 and 11 got him rolling and he seemed to feed off the energy from the crowd, just as he’s done in his previous four wins in Charlotte, where he has a large following.

McIlroy’s approach shots got closer and closer, and he added birdies on Nos. 13, 15 and 16. He shot 32 on the back nine despite lipping out his par putt on the par-4 18th hole after finding a greenside bunker.

“It was a good day to get myself back in the hunt, and feel like I have a real chance going into the weekend,” McIlroy said.

At one point, McIlroy hit 14 straight greens in regulation — a personal course record.

“I started to make some good swings, especially with the irons,” McIlroy said. “I played one tournament in seven weeks, so I think just getting the reps under my belt a little bit and getting a scorecard in my hand. I feel like your patterns on the golf course are always a little bit different than your patterns on the range, or it is for me anyway.”

McIlroy isn’t the only big name in contention.

Tommy Fleetwood shot 67 for the second straight day and trailed Im by one shot. Justin Thomas was two back along with PGA Tour newcomer Alex Fitzpatrick, the brother of Matt Fitzpatrick.

Rickie Fowler vaulted into the mix with the day’s low round of 8-under 63, which included nine birdies.

Cameron Young, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this year, shot 70 and was five shots back.

Fleetwood said he scored well despite not having his best stuff.

“It’s just nice to even get a couple of days where you have something to show for your work, I guess,” said Fleetwood, who will play in the final pairing with Im on Saturday. “Just a nice reminder that it will come good at some point if you keep doing the right things. So that’s been great. I just hope it continues.”

For Im, the season hasn’t gone as well he’s hoped. He’s battled through a wrist injury and has only one top-40 finish.

Now healthy, that may be about to change.

The South Korean followed an opening round 7-under 64 with a 69 as he looks for his first tour win since 2021 in Las Vegas.

“I know this course very well, so I’m taking advantage of that,” Im said. “And then the scrambling, because of the play with the Presidents Cup, I know where to miss the greens, I’m very familiar with this golf course. But I didn’t putt very well today, but I’m happy with where I’m at.”

Thomas won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in 2017 and said this is the best he’s felt physically since having surgery to treat a herniated disk in his lower back in November.

He would have posted back-to-back 67s had he not missed a birdie putt on his final hole Friday.

“I felt like I’m close,” Thomas said. “I’ve really been pleased the last couple weeks.”

Chandler Blanchet had the shot of the day, a hole-in-one on the par-3 17th hole. It was the fourth ace on No. 17 in tournament history and the first since Mark Hubbard in 2023.

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

We have explored the mysteries of Machu Picchu and were awestruck in The Outback by the magical monoliths rising into the sky.

“What an incredible privilege it has been to have Local 10 document these trips. I have these video scrapbooks of the greatest times of my life,” Magill said.

From an adventure into wild Florida to a journey to the bottom of the world in Antarctica, our Local 10 News Eco Hero Contest winners have learned countless conservation lessons, and we have documented every step.

All these great times were made possible thanks to Magill’s foundation. The Eco Hero Contest, an annual competition for South Florida high school students dedicated to environmental conservation, is his lasting legacy.

“What if I could take one kid and make that kid an ambassador for the other kids? We know kids aren’t always as open to listening to us as adults as they are to listening to their peers,” Magill said. “Let’s plant a seed that grows, take them to the Galapagos or Antartica or Australia, and they become ambassadors.”

Over the years, our Eco Hero team has tracked the elusive platypus in the Australian rainforest and encountered the deadly bushmaster snake in Peru.

We have gone swimming with Florida’s lumbering manatees, and cozied up with Canada’s majestic wolf dogs.

“The most impactful for me was Antarctica; it’s the end of the Earth,” Magill said. “I remember looking at it with no sign of humans. There is something so special about being in that sort of peace and tranquility.”

Since Magill announced his retirement as Zoo Miami’s communications director, life has been anything but peaceful. The accolades just keep rolling in.

“I never thought I would have Ron Magill Day on Miami Beach,” he said.

In his office, Magill kept a wall of TV history: Rows and rows of photos of reporters.

“These are the people who enabled me to do the job I do. These are storytellers,” Magill said.

Yes, he is retiring, but he is moving from one office to another, just 30 yards north, next door, really, to the Zoo Miami Foundation, where he will take on a new role as Goodwill Ambassador.

“That’s working on conservation, working on the conservation endowment, leading travel programs,” Magill said. “God knows, I love travel and being able to speak at schools.”

The Eco Hero winners had encouraging messages.

Bela Perdomo, who traveled with us to Antarctica, is pursuing a doctorate in biomedical engineering at Florida State University. Her goal is to make space travel safe for humans.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of you and the rest of the crew, so thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy your future adventures,” Perdomo said in a message to Magill.

Justine Padron, who traveled with us to Canada, said the lessons she learned stuck.

“Thank you so much for everything you did to make my trip to Canada so amazing is something I will remember for the rest of my life,” Padron said in a message to Magill.

Sienna Robertson, who participated in the Wild Florida trip, also had a message for Magill: “All the memories and all the experiences from that trip have stuck with me and have encouraged me to pursue environmental conservation.”

Last year’s Eco Hero, Brielle Martinez, who is studying at the University of Central Florida, said conservation continues to be her passion.

“Becoming the Eco-Hero Down Under was one of the best experiences of my life, and I know that you will continue to make a lasting impact in our community and around the world,” Martinez said. “You are amazing.”

Magill is eager to continue to work with students. His next journey: The Pantanal in South America, the world’s largest tropical wetland and home to the highest density of jaguars globally.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account, what kind of car or size of the house you live in, it’s that you make a difference in the life of a child,” Magill said.

WATCH THE SPECIAL

Eco-Hero Antarctica: Expedition To The Bottom of The Earth

Raymond Epps, a former Marine, was falsely accused by Fox of being a government agent causing trouble near the Capitol that day so that it would be blamed on Trump fans. He said he and his wife sold an Arizona ranch where they lived and moved into a recreational vehicle because of the harassment they faced after Fox's reports.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Hall in Delaware granted Fox's motion to dismiss the case, finding Epps failed to show enough evidence to prove that Fox knew its statements were false.

The judge previously dismissed the case in 2024 but gave Epps a second chance to file his case. Her Friday ruling said he still fell short.

Epps had named Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox in April 2023, as being the most active promoter of the conspiracy theory. At the time, Carlson hosted Fox’s most popular show. Epps was featured in more than two dozen segments on Carlson’s prime-time show, the lawsuit said.

“In the aftermath of the events of January 6th, Fox News searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican Party," lawyers for Epps wrote in their lawsuit. "Eventually, they turned on one of their own.”

In a statement Friday night, Fox News said it was "pleased with the federal court’s ruling, further preserving the press freedoms of the First Amendment.”

Epps pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to the Jan. 6 riot and was sentenced to a year of probation. He was later pardoned by Trump alongside 1,500 others who received clemency for their roles in the insurrection.

Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the U.S. Marines from 1979 to 1983.

Miami-Dade and Broward counties can expect mainly clear skies Friday night with temperatures forecast to drop to the mid and upper 70s overnight.

Saturday will feature plenty of sun and southerly winds. Temperatures will make a run for the low 90s -- factor in humidity and it could feel like the upper 90s.

Mother’s Day will bring partly cloudy skies and a gentle, southeast breeze. Plan for morning low temperatures in the upper 70s and afternoon highs in the low 90s with heat indices in the upper 90s. A stray, afternoon shower or thunderstorm is not completely out of the question.

Embiid struggled through a short night in the Knicks’ 137-98 romp in Game 1, scoring 14 points on 3-for-11 shooting before the starters were benched with the game out of reach.

Embiid had been listed as probable to play in that game and the Knicks repeatedly took advantage of his lack of mobility to create open shots.

He had been expected to play Game 2 but was ruled out hours beforehand.

Embiid had an appendectomy late in the regular season. He returned during Game 4 of Philadelphia’s first-round series against Boston and helped the 76ers overcome a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Celtics.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

El Departamento de Estado estadounidense comunicó el jueves que de acuerdo con una orden ejecutiva presidencial del 1 mayo se disponía castigar a socios que colaboren con GAESA y reiteró la calificación a Cuba como una amenaza a la seguridad de Estados Unidos.

El secretario de Estado, Marco Rubio, defendió la medida en la jornada.

En la lista también incorporó a MoaNickel —la inversión conjunta de explotación de níquel de la isla con la canadiense Sherritt— quien inmediatamente se retiró del negocio.

“Es muy preocupante. La economía (isleña) ya estaba prácticamente paralizada”, dijo a The Associated Press el economista Pavel Vidal, de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Cali. “Creo que muy pocos (socios comerciales foráneos) se arriesguen a no obedecer estas sanciones”.

Se trata de un “aislamiento total, por el miedo que va a generar entre los bancos, las aseguradoras, es decir todas las empresas internacionales, de tener cualquier vínculo con Cuba” y sobre todo por el peso que tiene GAESA en esos nexos, agregó Vidal.

En base a informes que el propio Vidal analizó, GAESA controla alrededor del 40% del Producto Interno de la isla. En 2024 tenía una reserva de 14.000 millones de dólares y sus ingresos anuales superaban en tres veces los del presupuesto del Estado cubano.

“No solo se les puede congelar sus activos (a las empresas extranjeras), sino que también se pueden bloquear o restringir sus cuentas en Estados Unidos así como los viajes a Estados Unidos de sus accionistas, inversores, empleados y filiales”, advirtió, por su parte, Lee Schlenker, investigador asociado del Instituto Quincy en Washington. “Ya no podrán operar a través del sistema financiero estadounidense”.

GAESA, una corporación polémica

Creada en la década los años 90 bajo control de las Fuerzas Armadas de la isla, GAESA fue inicialmente la respuesta empresarial para enfrentar la crisis económica producida por la caída de la Unión Soviética y las ya entonces fuertes sanciones de Estados Unidos.

La idea tras su génesis, según los expertos, fue lograr una compañía eficiente bajo la vertical égida de los militares cubanos, con fama de disciplinados. Hasta su muerte en 2022 se desempeñó como su gerente el general de división, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, quien además fue yerno del expresidente Raúl Castro y padre de Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, quien ha sido señalado como un contacto en conversaciones con Estados Unidos. La sanciones del jueves incorporaron a la lista negra a la también general, Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, quien sucedió a López-Calleja.

Según la poca información disponible, GAESA tiene bajo su control decenas de tiendas minoristas, desde alimentos y electrodomésticos hasta ropa, rentadoras de autos, financieras, agencias de viaje, importadoras y maneja la administración de hoteles.

Rubio dijo que castigar a las firmas o personas que se acerquen a GAESA busca atacar “al régimen militar cubano y a las élites” en un contexto de peligro para la seguridad nacional de su país.

Trump impuso el cerco energético a la isla en enero que agudizó una crisis economica que llevaba un lustro. Cuba ha recibido solo un barco de crudo ruso en cinco meses y su producción nacional de petróleo vital para su economía es de apenas del 40%.

Las consecuencias para la población fueron devastadoras: apagones, cortes de bombeo de agua, el transporte semiparalizado, vuelos cancelados, industrias inoperantes, jornadas laborales recortadas, recogida de basura limitada, actividades culturales cerradas y el amplio servicio de salud pública o seguridad social afectado.

Líderes religiosos o de países, expertos y hasta funcionarios de Naciones Unidas han advertido de una crisis humanitaria.

Practice No. 1 of rookie minicamp also served as the first under head coach Jeff Hafley, with general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan joining him on the field to get a close look at the team’s newest players.

Among them was the team’s first round pick from the 2026 NFL Draft, offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor, the massive Alabama product wearing No. 74, who said he was fired up to take the field for the first time in a Dolphins uniform.

“I loved it. I’m not gonna lie. Like I’m overly happy, you know. I had a good day. I had some good preparation, you know, it’s, it’s hot out here, but I hydrated pretty well, so I feel really good,” he said. “Heart wasn’t beating too fast, so that’s definitely a good sign of getting acclimated to it. I feel so good, honestly, especially in my number, man. Got my number too.”

Fans are already buzzing about rookie linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, a second-round pick out of Texas Tech, who says he’s leaned on Dolphins legend Zach Thomas — also a Texas Tech alum — as a mentor.

“It’s real easy to see the blueprint of what he did, and he reached out right after I got drafted, and he’s the best,” Rodriguez said of Thomas. “He’s a great person, a great human being, along with being a great football player.”

Dolphins rookie tight end Will Kacmarek, a third round pick out of Ohio State, said he’s focused on being a professional so his team can count on him.

“It’s all about being a pro — showing up on time with a notebook and being ahead of the playbook," he said. “When your number is called, you can perform to the best of your ability.”

Dolphins fifth-round rookie safety Michael Taaffe said coaches are emphasizing fundamentals early in camp as players adjust to the NFL level.

“Coach (Hafley) reminded us that it’s gonna be nothing like a real practice. This is just getting us into the fundamentals and techniques, trying to get us to adapt to how they really practice,” he said. “I’m just trying to learn as much as I can, put my head down and grind.”

The Dolphins on Friday also announced that they have signed 11 undrafted college free agents: center Jim Bonifas, tackle Kevin Cline, quarterback Mark Gronowski, running back Anthony Hankerson, defensive lineman Rene Konga, wide receiver Donaven McCulley, edge Rodney McGraw, safety Louis Moore, running back Le’Veon Moss, edge Mason Reiger and defensive lineman Kahlil Saunders.

Dolphins 2026 draft recap

• Round 1, No. 12: Kadyn Proctor, OT, Alabama (trade with Dallas)

• Round 1, No. 27: Chris Johnson, CB. San Diego State (trade with San Francisco)

• Round 2, No. 43: Jacob Rodriguez, LB, Texas Tech

• Round 3, No. 75 Caleb Douglas, WR, Texas Tech

• Round 3, No. 87: Will Kacmarek, TE, Ohio State

• Round 3, No. 94: Chris Bell, WR, Louisville

• Round 4, No. 130 Trey Moore, EDGE, Texas

• Round 4, No. 138 Kyle Louis, LB, Pittsburgh

• Round 5, No. 158, Michael Taaffe, S, Texas

• Round 5, No. 177 Kevin Coleman Jr., WR, Missouri

• Round 5, No. 180 Seydou Traore, TE, Mississippi State

• Round 6, No. 200 DJ Campbell, G, Texas

• Round 7, No 238 Max Llewellyn, EDGE, Iowa

Sullivan used words like “toughness” and “conviction” when discussing his selections with the media. He now hopes his first draft class as general manager will help move Miami a step closer to returning to the playoffs sooner rather than later.

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Mayor Eileen Higgins and City Manager James Reyes announced the appointment of current Doral Police Department Chief Edwin Lopez to replace retiring Chief Manny Morales.

In a news release on Friday, Higgins described Lopez as “a homegrown leader, dedicated public servant and 28-year veteran who has spent his career serving our community with professionalism and integrity.”

In the same release, Reyes said Lopez “brings an exceptional record of leadership, a deep commitment to transparency, and a proven approach to community policing that has earned the trust of the communities where he has served.”

Lopez was appointed as chief of DPD in 2023 after serving as the chief of the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department, where he rose through the ranks over more than two decades.

In a separate statement, Doral Mayor Christi Fraga called Lopez an “exceptional leader” and said “we will truly miss him here in Doral.”

“During his time in the city, he strengthened our department, supported our officers and helped build a strong foundation that positions us well for the future,” she said. “His impact will be felt long after his departure.”

She later told Local 10 News in an interview, “We’re sad to see him go but we know he’ll do great things.”

“We definitely talked to him about how we could retain him, but we understand that this is a big opportunity and something I’m sure has been a goal for his career,” Fraga said.

Lopez, meanwhile, said in part in a statement that he was “humbled by the opportunity to continue building on that legacy while working to keep the community safe and strengthen relationships” in Miami.

Miami officials said Lopez “will assume the role later this year” as Morales retires.

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The trial started on March 8 inside the Wilkie D. Ferguson Federal Courthouse — and after more than two months of testimony, jurors found all four defendants guilty on most counts.

Prosecutors say the men helped plan and support the operation that led to Moïse’s assassination inside his home near Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021.

Antonio Intriago, the owner of a South Florida security company, was found guilty on nearly all counts against him, including conspiracy charges connected to the plot.

But jurors found him not guilty on count seven of the indictment, a charge of conspiracy to kill or kidnap a person outside the United States.

The other defendants — including Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages — were also found guilty on multiple counts.

“We thought the government case was insufficient, but we have to respect the system and the verdict,” David Howard, Pretel’s attorney, said.

Several members of South Florida’s Haitian American community also packed the courthouse throughout the trial and many said they’re thrilled the jury reached a verdict after years of waiting for answers.

“Justice is served,” trial observer Marie Jose Sejour said. “Nobody deserved to die.”

Anunoby was injured late in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, in which he scored 24 points.

The Knicks hold a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Anunoby was having another strong game Wednesday before appearing to suffer a leg injury and motioning to come out of the game. He went to the locker room area and did not return to the bench before the end of the Knicks’ 108-102 victory.

Anunoby is averaging 21.4 points per game in the postseason while shooting 61.9% from the field and 53.8% from 3-point range.

The 6-foot-7 Anunoby, who is considered the Knicks’ top defender, injured his hamstring two years ago in the second round as the Knicks were taking a 2-0 lead over Indiana. He missed the next four games and played just a few minutes in Game 7 as the Pacers rallied to win the series.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

El sheriff del condado Monroe, Rick Ramsay, dijo que el incendio de la madrugada del jueves obligó a la pareja a saltar por una ventana mientras su casa en Big Pine Key era consumida por las llamas, dejándolos sin nada.

“Te despiertas en medio de la madrugada y tu casa está completamente envuelta en llamas. Saltaron por la ventana teniendo que dejar todo lo que poseían. Sus animales murieron en el incendio”, dijo Ramsay. “Sin duda es una situación triste”.

La pareja, la agente de la MCSO Tiffany Rodda y su prometido, el oficial del Departamento de Policía de Key West Mike Pettee, miembro de la unidad motorizada del departamento, resultaron heridos en el incendio.

Ramsay dijo que envolvió a Rodda en una manta y le dio una camisa y pantalones de su automóvil mientras era subida al helicóptero Trauma Star, un gesto que, según dijo, subraya cómo la pareja “literalmente no tiene nada” después del incendio.

El jefe de la KWPD, Sean Brandenburg, describió a Pettee como un oficial dedicado que rutinariamente supera las expectativas.

“El oficial Pettee va más allá cada vez que lo llamas, cada vez que necesitas ayuda”, dijo Brandenburg. “No habrá nada utilizable dentro de esa residencia y la residencia probablemente tendrá que ser completamente demolida y reconstruida”.

Ramsay dijo que se reunió con la pareja en la zona de carga del helicóptero Trauma Star de la MCSO mientras eran trasladados por aire al Hospital Jackson Memorial en Miami para recibir tratamiento.

“Los vi a ambos. Le di un gran abrazo y le dije que este es uno de los momentos más difíciles de su vida, pero estamos aquí para ustedes”, dijo Ramsay. “Van a superar esto”.

Brandenburg dijo que se espera que ambos oficiales enfrenten una larga recuperación.

Ramsay agregó que la pareja, que tiene cinco hijos de relaciones anteriores, perdió todas sus pertenencias personales en el incendio, incluidos recuerdos familiares, fotos, reconocimientos y dibujos de los niños.

“Ambos son oficiales muy trabajadores, dedicaron sus vidas a proteger a otros, y en un instante todo lo que tienes desaparece”, dijo. “Tienen un largo camino hacia la recuperación, así que solo estamos tratando de unirnos como comunidad de las fuerzas del orden y como comunidad en general”.

Los funcionarios dijeron que no había niños en la casa al momento del incendio.

Ramsay también agradeció a la tripulación de Trauma Star y a los socorristas locales por el transporte de emergencia.

Miembros de la comunidad y otros oficiales ya comenzaron a organizar esfuerzos de recaudación de fondos para ayudar con costos médicos, vivienda temporal, alimentos y otras necesidades básicas durante la recuperación.

“Han pasado sus vidas apoyando a todos los demás”, decía una recaudación de fondos organizada por colegas. “Cada donación irá directamente para ayudar a Mike, Tiffany y sus hijos a recuperarse, sanar y comenzar de nuevo”.

Actualmente se aceptan donaciones para ayudar a Pettee y Rodda mientras se recuperan del incendio y reconstruyen sus vidas.

Los cheques pueden enviarse al 100 Club, ubicado en 455-122 St. Ocean, Marathon, Fla. 33050. Venmo: @LoveKWPD.

Los funcionarios dijeron que todos los fondos irán directamente a la pareja y son totalmente deducibles de impuestos.

In addition to GAESA and its leader, the sanctions announced Thursday include Moa Nickel, a Cuban joint venture with Canada's Sherritt International, which immediately announced it would withdraw from the business, ending a 32-year presence on the island.

The May 1 executive order and the new designations announced May 7 significantly expand the legal authority through which the U.S. government can levy sanctions on third-country nationals and firms, explained Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute’s Global South program, a Washington think tank.

“Not only are they subject to having their assets frozen but their U.S. accounts as well as their travel to the U.S., that of their shareholders, investors or employees,” said Schlenker. “This is bound to have an extremely significant impact of the presence of foreign companies” in Cuba.

Economist Pavel Vidal, a Cuba expert at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, told The Associated Press that the measures are “very concerning” for an economy already “practically paralyzed.” The U.S. has blocked fuel shipments to Cuba since January, further escalating the island's yearslong economic crisis. Vidal noted that the new sanctions would likely deter GAESA’s remaining partners, saying that “very few will risk defying them.”

The new measures amount to “total isolation,” said Vidal, driven by the fear they instill in international banks, insurers and corporations.

As an expert who has analyzed GAESA’s internal documents, Vidal noted that the conglomerate’s deep reach into nearly every sector of the Cuban economy makes any connection to the island a potential liability under the new U.S. rules.

According to Vidal, GAESA commands nearly 40% of Cuba’s gross domestic product. As of early 2024, the conglomerate held $14.5 billion in liquid reserves, with annual revenues triple the size of the entire Cuban state budget.

Family ties with the Castros

Established in the 1990s under military control, GAESA was the Cuban Armed Forces’ strategic response to the economic collapse that followed the Soviet Union’s fall and the tightening of U.S. sanctions in place at the time.

Despite being state-owned, GAESA’s accounts are exempt from audits by the Office of the Comptroller General. Gladys Bejerano, the entity’s director, admitted to this lack of oversight in a 2024 interview; shortly thereafter, she retired.

For years, until his death in July 2022, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja served as GAESA's general manager. As the son-in-law of former President Raúl Castro, he was a pillar of the family — a legacy continued by his son, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. While the younger Castro officially serves as his grandfather’s chief bodyguard, he has recently emerged as a pivotal intermediary in sensitive discussions with the U.S.

This week's sanctions also added Ania Guillermina Lastres to the U.S. blacklist. As the successor to López-Calleja, she currently serves as GAESA’s executive president, overseeing the conglomerate’s vast international financial interests.

Based on the limited information available, GAESA oversees dozens of retail outlets — selling everything from food and clothing to home appliances — as well as a sprawling service network that includes car rentals and travel agencies. Notably, it also manages Cuba’s financial institutions, currency exchange bureaus, and the administration of the country’s major hotels.

In remarks to the press Friday, Rubio said the sanctions were not on the Cuban people and he referred to GAESA as a company that “is taking anything that makes money in Cuba and illegally putting it into the pockets of a few regime insiders.”

Cuban authorities maintain that the sanctions constitute “collective punishment” designed to strangle the island’s economy, arguing the Trump administration’s policies show a disregard for the welfare of the Cuban people in favor of political leverage.

The new sanctions on Havana come under the weight of a U.S. energy blockade that has caused sweeping water and power outages along with severe gas and water shortages.

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Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay said Thursday’s early morning blaze forced the couple to jump from a window as their Big Pine Key home became engulfed in flames, leaving them with nothing.

“You wake up in the middle of the morning, your house is fully engulfed. (They) dove out the window having to leave everything they owned. Their animals perished in the fire,” Ramsay said. “This is a sad situation for sure.”

The couple — MCSO Deputy Tiffany Rodda and her fiancé, Key West Police Department Officer Mike Pettee, a member of the department’s motor unit — were injured in the fire.

Ramsay said he wrapped Rodda in a blanket and gave her a shirt and slacks from his car as she was being loaded onto the Trauma Star helicopter — a gesture he said underscored how the couple “quite literally have nothing” left after the fire.

KWPD Chief Sean Brandenburg described Pettee as a dedicated officer who routinely goes beyond expectations.

“Officer Pettee goes above and beyond any time you call on him, anytime you need help,” Brandenburg said. “There is not going to be anything usable inside that residence and the residence itself is probably going to be completely torn down and rebuilt.”

Ramsay said he met the couple at the loading zone of MCSO’s Trauma Star helicopter as they were being airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami for treatment.

“I saw them both. I gave her a big hug and told her that is one of the most difficult times of your life but we are here for you,” Ramsay said. “You are going to get through this.”

Brandenburg said both officers are expected to face a long recovery.

Ramsay added that the couple, who have five children from prior relationships, lost all personal belongings in the fire, including family mementos, photos, awards and children’s drawings.

“Both are really hard-working officers, dedicated their life to protect others, and in a moment everything you have is gone,” he said. “They have got a long road to recovery, so we are just trying to come together as a law enforcement community as a community overall.”

Officials said no children were home at the time of the fire.

Ramsay also thanked the Trauma Star crew and local responders for the emergency transport.

Community members and fellow officers have begun organizing fundraising efforts to assist with medical costs, temporary housing, food and other basic needs during recovery.

“They have spent their lives supporting everyone else,” a fundraiser organized by colleagues said. “Every donation will go directly toward helping Mike, Tiffany, and their children recover, heal, and begin again.”

KWPD Officer Jesse Young, Pettee’s riding partner and vice president of the agency’s Love Fund, said the situation is especially difficult because it involves one of their own.

“We deal with emergencies on a daily basis. It really kind of hits home when it is one of your own, one of your close friends,” Young said.

The Love Fund assists department members facing personal crisis situations, operating on the idea that “even heroes need help.”

Young said the goal is to provide support with no expectation of repayment so officers can focus on recovery.

“As a gift and not have any obligation to repay, with the intent that the officer does not have to worry about financial constraints so they can get healthy, get well, and be able to come back to serve our community,” he said.

Donations are now being accepted to assist Pettee and Rodda as they recover from the fire and rebuild their lives.

Checks can be mailed to the 100 Club, located at 455-122 St. Ocean, Marathon, Fla. 33050. Venmo: @LoveKWPD.

Officials say all proceeds go directly to the couple and are fully tax deductible.

Es un centro digital basado en la nube y ahora es víctima de un ciberataque.

Más de 8,000 instituciones son clientes de Canvas, incluidas universidades de la Ivy League como Georgetown, Harvard y Columbia.

Muchas de las escuelas y universidades afectadas reportaron una nota de rescate en la página principal de sus sitios de Canvas.

El grupo de hackers Shinyhunters se atribuyó la responsabilidad y amenaza con filtrar más datos a menos que sean contactados antes del próximo martes.

Instructure, la empresa matriz de Canvas, indicó actualmente que la plataforma está en “modo de mantenimiento” y que está investigando el problema.

Hasta ahora, las Escuelas Públicas del Condado Broward confirmaron que el acceso a Canvas está siendo bloqueado temporalmente en todo el distrito para ayudar a proteger sus sistemas y datos, advirtiendo a estudiantes y personal que no inicien sesión desde dispositivos personales ni hagan clic en enlaces o mensajes sospechosos de Canvas.

“¿Qué va a pasar con mis calificaciones? ¿Qué va a pasar con mis maestros? ¿Qué vamos a hacer con las cosas que íbamos a hacer hoy en clase?”, se preguntó Jose Bonilla, estudiante de South Broward High School. “Tenía algunos proyectos pendientes. Y como hackearon Canvas, no estoy seguro de qué vamos a hacer hoy”.

La FIU también bloqueó el acceso a Canvas y dijo que está coordinando activamente con Instructure para evaluar la situación y determinar los próximos pasos.

El equipo de ciberseguridad de la universidad también advirtió sobre posibles intentos de phishing que ofrecen recuperar el acceso a los datos de Canvas.

Shinyhunters también se atribuyó la responsabilidad de otra filtración de datos reportada en escuelas y universidades a principios de este mes.

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“My child was sitting there screaming, ‘mommy,’ because he was watching me get attacked, scratched, clawed and bruised,” the woman told Local 10 News in an exclusive interview on Friday. “The fact that my son had watched that and that he witnessed the whole thing.”

Davie police said officers arrested Terry Williams, 66, and his wife, Mary Thalia Williams, 63, in connection with the Wednesday confrontation in the 5400 block of University Drive. Both have since bonded out of jail.

According to an arrest report, the incident began after the mother said her son misbehaved and spit in her face. She told police she smacked the child once in the mouth and once on his torso.

Police said Terry Williams approached the woman and told her she could not discipline her child that way, falsely claiming he worked for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

After he walked away, investigators said Mary Williams confronted the mother “aggressively,” escalating the encounter.

The situation turned physical when the mother attempted to leave with her child, according to police. Investigators said Mary Williams blocked her from getting to her car, and a struggle ensued.

Police said Mary Williams allegedly scratched and choked the woman, while both Mary and Terry Williams grabbed her shirt and hair. The arrest report states the couple ripped her shirt off completely, leaving her in her bra, and Mary Williams also entered the victim’s car and took her keys.

A witness told investigators she saw both suspects pulling the woman by her shirt and hair as the victim tried to escape.

“They were on both sides and they were just grabbing her and they were ripping the scrub shirt off of her,” the witness told Local 10 News.

Police said the victim had visible injuries consistent with being choked and scratched.

The mother, who asked not to be identified, said she is now focused on her child’s emotional recovery.

“In the process, my shirt ripped from my neck all the way to my belly button and the only way I can get out of the grass was to get free from my shirt,” she said. “The next day we got home, he (the victim’s son) asked me a couple of times, why did she hit me? Why did they attack me? Why did this happen?”

Attorneys for the woman say they are now pursuing legal action and expect surveillance video of the incident to be released.

Davie police confirmed video exists but have not released it publicly.

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It’s a cloud-based digital hub, and now, the victim of a cyber attack.

More than 8,000 institutions are Canvas customers, including ivy leagues like Georgetown, Harvard and Columbia universities.

Many of the affected schools and universities reported a ransom note on the homepage of their Canvas sites.

The hacking group Shinyhunters has claimed responsibility and is threatening to leak more data unless contacted by next Tuesday.

Instructure, which is the parent company of Canvas, initially said the platform was in “maintenance mode” and that it was investigating the issue.

The company later confirmed that Canvas is back online for its 30 million active users.

Broward County Public Schools confirmed Canvas access was being temporarily blocked districtwide to help protect its systems and data, warning students and staff not to log in from personal devices or click suspicious Canvas links or messages.

“What’s gonna happen to my grades? What’s gonna happen to my teachers? What are we gonna do about the stuff we’re going to do in class today?” South Broward High School student Jose Bonilla wondered Friday morning. “Like I had some projects coming up to do. And since Canvas got hacked, I’m not sure what we’re gonna do today.”

FIU also blocked Canvas access, saying they want to “verify the integrity and security of the platform” first.

Mike Asencio, cyber policy director at FIU, said disruptions like this are increasingly common in large-scale digital systems.

“It’s a bit of a nuisance when you’re used to having everything easy access,” Asencio said, “but it’s not something we can’t get over. The bigger concern is making sure users don’t fall for secondary scams or phishing attempts that often follow incidents like this.”

The university’s cybersecurity team also warned of potential phishing attempts offering to recover access to Canvas data.

Canvas is used for communication between teachers and students, posting and submitting assignments and even major tests are done through the online platform.

A spokesperson for Miami-Dade County Public Schools said in a statement that “While a limited number of virtual students use the platform for specific coursework, access to the site has been proactively blocked.”

Howard Hepburn, superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, said the district is working to minimize disruption as schools near the end of the academic year.

“Cybersecurity today is a big issue, just be careful what you click on. We continue to remind our students and our staff to do the same as well,” he said. “we have found no evidence that there has been any breach of student information.”

Shinyhunters has also claimed responsibility for another data breach reported in schools and universities earlier this month.

The expansion of March Madness and the $300 million in extra revenue that comes with it through opening sponsorships to beer, wine and liquor companies offered a brief reprieve from the steady drip of headlines that underscore big-picture problems confronting college sports in an era of tightening budgets and revenue sharing with athletes.

Among them:

— A title-contending tennis program at Arkansas is disbanded, while golf teams at Wichita State also get the ax as part of the purge of multiple sports programs nationwide.

— The Big 12 taps into private equity for loans, while Duke cuts a streaming deal with Amazon expected to bring millions more to the Blue Devils.

— The College Sports Commission, which is in charge of making sure everyone follows the rules regarding the hundreds of millions of dollars now being paid to players, gets challenged in court and in arbitration while waiting for schools to sign off on a long-awaited agreement that cements its authority.

All of those issues have one thing in common: money. The NCAA's move to expand its tournament brackets to 76 teams is about that, too. Of the $300 million in extra revenue projected over the next six seasons, about $131 million will be distributed to the conferences whose schools make the tournaments.

“The NCAA and conferences and schools generating revenue in responsible ways is important in the current environment with revenue sharing,” said Dan Gavitt, who oversees Division I basketball at the NCAA. “That wasn't the sole reason, I can assure you that. But it was an important consideration.”

Is a tennis program more valuable than a wide receiver?

One of the most trenchant questions sports attorney Gabe Feldman asked North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham during a recent podcast was if Arkansas, after cutting its tennis programs, “can't find a way to make it work, how can Arkansas State and everybody else?”

Cunningham's basic answer was that the ultimate solution will involve a system in which the money flows in both directions.

“One is you will be paid to play your game and other is you’ll have to pay if you’re going to play your game,” he said.

If recent headlines are any indication, tennis and golf players will be among those who will be paying to play.

The tennis programs at Arkansas joined those at North Dakota, Saint Louis and Illinois State (men's only) that were discontinued this season. The cuts at Arkansas stood out because this involves a team in the Southeastern Conference, the second-richest conference in college sports behind the Big Ten.

The Razorbacks' tennis programs cost about $2.5 million — around the cost to sign a high-profile wide receiver — men's coach Jay Udwadia told Front Office Sports.

“My initial reaction was, ‘That’s funny. April fools, right?'" Udwadia said of his reaction upon hearing the news.

Turns out, his was one of about 20 programs eliminated this year across all college sports — a cutback that figures to hit Olympic sports, and the U.S. Olympic pipeline, the hardest.

“You want to see Olympic sports survive and thrive,” said Paia LaPalombara, a former college administrator who is now partner at the Church, Church, Hittle and Antrim law firm specializing on college sports deals. “But those are going to be the ones generally on the chopping block.”

Schools are tapping into different ways to expand revenue

Schools and conferences are showing an endless willingness to discover new ways to make ends meet.

Last week, Duke signed a landmark deal to stream three of its basketball games on Amazon — a deal believed to be worth millions and one that could be a sign of things to come.

When Georgia and Florida State abruptly canceled their home-and-home football series set for 2027 and ‘28, they said they were seeking to reschedule a neutral-site game. Reporting emerged that the schools were looking to cut a deal with a streamer, as Duke had done. It’s the sort of arrangement a smaller school could never make, and one that further separates the haves from the have-nots in college sports.

“Ultimately, it’s about revenue generation,” said James Strode, a professor of sport management at Ohio University who focuses on changes in college sports. “We're now in a situation where the separation and divide between big programs, Power Four programs, and Group of Six programs is even getting wider."

In another move that felt novel a mere three years ago but now seems like business-as-usual, the Big 12 inked a deal with private equity firms that availed its 16 schools of up to $30 million each in a line of credit.

Texas Tech was among the Big 12 schools not interested. The school's regent chair, Cody Campbell, is a billionaire who last year said equity deals were not a permanent solution and basically amounted to a “payday loan.”

NIL regulator off to a bumpy start with more questions looming

Who's keeping track of it all?

That's supposed to be the College Sports Commission — the entity formed out of the House settlement that is tasked with vetting most of the payments going from schools and their affiliates to the players.

The CSC has introduced an approach that LaPalombara said “has growing pains at the moment.” The difficulty comes in two places:

— Schools' reluctance to sign a “participation agreement” that was intended to cement the CSC's status as the main regulator when it comes to NIL compensation.

— Arbitration cases stemming from deals the CSC has rejected. The most important one involves 18 football players at Nebraska over whether the CSC can exercise oversight over third-party NIL deals cut through schools' multimedia-rights holders, the likes of which are an increasingly popular way to execute the deals. A ruling in favor of the CSC could trigger litigation.

“That's the true test of the efficacy of the CSC as an actual governing body,” LaPalombara said. “If an institution or a student-athlete doesn't receive the outcome they desire, it's whether they sue and what the outcome of the lawsuits will be. That will be the true test of whether the CSC can continue in its current form.”

___

AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

“Mi hijo estaba allí gritando ‘mami’ porque me estaba viendo ser atacada, arañada, rasguñada y golpeada”, le dijo la mujer a Local 10 News en una entrevista exclusiva el viernes. “El hecho de que mi hijo vio eso y que presenció todo”.

La policía de Davie dijo que los agentes arrestaron a Terry Williams, de 66 años, y a su esposa, Mary Thalia Williams, de 63, en relación con el enfrentamiento del miércoles en la cuadra 5400 de University Drive. Ambos desde entonces salieron de la cárcel tras pagar fianza.

Según un informe de arresto, el incidente comenzó después de que la madre dijo que su hijo se portó mal y le escupió en la cara. Le dijo a la policía que golpeó al niño una vez en la boca y otra en el torso.

La policía dijo que Terry Williams se acercó a la mujer y le dijo que no podía disciplinar a su hijo de esa manera, afirmando falsamente que trabajaba para el Departamento de Niños y Familias de Florida.

Después de que él se alejó, los investigadores dijeron que Mary Williams confrontó a la madre “agresivamente”, escalando el enfrentamiento.

La situación se volvió física cuando la madre intentó irse con su hijo, según la policía. Los investigadores dijeron que Mary Williams le bloqueó el paso hacia su automóvil y se produjo un forcejeo.

La policía dijo que Mary Williams presuntamente arañó y estranguló a la mujer, mientras que tanto Mary como Terry Williams le agarraron la camisa y el cabello. El informe de arresto indica que la pareja le arrancó completamente la camisa, dejándola en sostén, y que Mary Williams también entró al automóvil de la víctima y tomó sus llaves.

Una testigo les dijo a los investigadores que vio a ambos sospechosos jalando a la mujer por la camisa y el cabello mientras la víctima intentaba escapar.

“Estaban en ambos lados y simplemente la estaban agarrando y arrancándole la blusa médica”, le dijo la testigo a Local 10 News.

La policía dijo que la víctima tenía lesiones visibles consistentes con haber sido estrangulada y arañada.

La madre, quien pidió no ser identificada, dijo que ahora está enfocada en la recuperación emocional de su hijo.

“En el proceso, mi camisa se rompió desde el cuello hasta el ombligo y la única manera en que pude salir del césped fue liberándome de mi camisa”, dijo. “Al día siguiente cuando llegamos a casa, él me preguntó varias veces, ¿por qué ella me golpeó? ¿Por qué me atacaron? ¿Por qué pasó esto?”

Los abogados de la mujer dijeron que ahora están emprendiendo acciones legales y esperan que el video de vigilancia del incidente sea divulgado.

La policía de Davie confirmó que existe un video, pero no lo ha divulgado públicamente.

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The Colombian-American New Yorker, who served in both the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense, lived in Key Biscayne when FBI agents arrested him in 2023.

“I have created the legend of a right-wing person,” Rocha told an undercover agent pretending to work for Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate during a meeting on Nov. 16, 2022, in Brickell, records show.

Rocha, 75, who moved to the U.S. when he was 10 and became a U.S. citizen at 28, is serving 15 years in prison in central Florida. On Thursday, federal prosecutors moved to revoke his U.S. citizenship.

“The complaint alleges that Rocha obtained American citizenship through lies, concealment, and betrayal,” Reding Quiñones said in a statement about the new civil denaturalization complaint. “A person who secretly serves communist Cuba should not keep the privilege of United States citizenship, even while in prison.”

Federal Bureau of Prisons records on Friday showed Rocha was at a low-security correctional institution in Sumter County, and his release date wasn’t until March 29, 2036.

FBI Miami special agents profiled Rocha and zeroed in on him in 2022. He was born in Bogotá during the Liberal-Conservative warfare displacement in Colombia.

After his father died, Rocha moved to New York City when he was 10 years old and grew up in Harlem with Rosalba Leon, his single mother, who worked as a seamstress in sweatshops.

Rocha’s fate changed after the 1964 race riots in Harlem. He won a scholarship to the Taft School, a private boarding school in Connecticut, graduated cum laude in 1969, and earned his bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from Yale in 1973.

“Rocha was attending a student program in Chile in 1973 when he was first approached by and started conspiring to spy for the Republic of Cuba,” prosecutors wrote in a 232-page civil denaturalization complaint filed on Thursday.

It was a year of change in Chile. Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America, was overthrown by a military coup, and Gen. Augusto Pinochet took power.

“During my formative years in college, I was heavily influenced by the radical politics of the day,” Rocha told a federal judge in court on April 12, 2024, records show.

Rocha earned a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University in 1976 and a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University in 1978 — “to advance his service as a secret agent of Cuba,” according to the complaint.

Rocha was a student at Georgetown when he applied for citizenship, and he was 28 when he took the oath of allegiance in Virginia to receive his certification of naturalization on Sept. 17, 1978, records show.

“Had Rocha been truthful during his naturalization proceedings regarding his affiliation with the Communist Party and actions as its secret agent, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service would not have recommended approval,” prosecutors wrote in the complaint.

Rocha joined the U.S. foreign service in 1981 after an internship at the Inter-American Foundation, a federal agency that funds projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.

After diplomatic assignments in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina, President Bill Clinton appointed him as U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia on June 14, 2000.

“My deep commitment at that time to radical social change in the region led me to the eventual betrayal of my oath of loyalty to the United States during my two decades in the State Department,” Rocha told a federal judge in court on April 12, 2024, records show.

Rocha left the State Department in 2002 and went on to become an advisor to the Commander of the United States Southern Command in Doral.

“Rocha would and did provide false and misleading information to the United States to obtain and maintain employment, and to acquire and maintain access to sensitive and classified information,” prosecutors wrote in the complaint.

An undercover agent contacted Rocha on Nov. 15, 2022, claiming to represent his “friends in Havana,” and there were three recorded meetings before questioning him on Dec. 1, 2023, records show.

During the recorded meetings, Rocha referred to the U.S. as the “enemy,” praised Fidel Castro as the “Comandante,” and his fellow communists as his “comrades,” according to court records.

“Unfortunately, she was betrayed ... a huge betrayal ... sadly she would have done much more had she not been betrayed,” Rocha told the undercover agent on Feb. 17, 2023, about Ana Belén Montes, a former senior analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, who was arrested for spying for Cuba in 2001, records show.

Rocha talked to the undercover agent about the 1996 killings of the Brothers to the Rescue volunteers Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, records show.

“I lived through it because I was in charge. It was the knockdown of the small planes. That was a time of a lot of tension. Brothers to the Rescue and other similar people who were pushing politics towards unnecessary provocations,” Rocha told an undercover agent on Nov. 16, 2022, records show.

Rocha also said that during his espionage, he had used a Dominican Republic passport to travel to Panama and then to Havana, records show.

“This is a huge sacrifice. Huge, with a lot of tension that you have to manage internally with self-discipline, all the time ... When you have the conviction, you have self-discipline,” Rocha told the undercover agent about his “almost” four-decades of work as a spy, which included some with “Top Secret” access, records show.

Rocha also described his work for Cuba as “enormous” and “more than a grand slam,” records show.

Rocha pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and defrauding the U.S. In the new case, federal prosecutors accused him of seven independent counts seeking the revocation of his U.S. citizenship.

“Any individual who lied during the naturalization process to gain a foothold in this country will be met with the full weight of the Department of Justice,” Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said in a statement released on Friday.

Rocha’s career with the State Department

• International Relations officer (November 1981 to December 1982)
• Political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (December 1982 to January 1985)
• Political-Military Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (February 1987 to February 1989)
• First Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico (February 1989 to November 1991)
• Deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo (November 1991 to July 1994)
• Director of Inter-American Affairs on the U.S. National Security Council (July 1994 to July 1995)

• Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba (July 1995 to July 1997)
• Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina (July 1997 to November 1999)
• U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia (July 2000 to August 2002)

Helterbran, mejor conocido como “Marv”, es miembro del Escuadrón de Ataque de Cazas 122, o VFA-122, también conocido como los “Flying Eagles”.

“El desafío que tenemos aquí es simplemente el espacio aéreo”, dijo Helterbran. “El hecho de que los principales aeropuertos alrededor de aquí siguen activos, así que en la charla de seguridad de esta mañana tuvimos una buena conversación sobre cómo mantenernos seguros”.

También hubo pilotos militares realizando demostraciones del Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, los Thunderbirds y el F-22 Raptor. Helterbran dijo que la seguridad es la prioridad.

“Las cosas surgen, nada realmente sale como se planea, como todos sabemos en la vida, así que el mayor desafío será lidiar con los golpes”, dijo Helterbran.

Las presentaciones del Air Dot Show 2026 en Fort Lauderdale serán de 11:45 a.m. a 3 p.m. el sábado y domingo.

Enlaces útiles

• Página para boletos
• Opciones de estacionamiento
• Lista de presentaciones

Los medios reportan que Anthony Pollio, de 33 años y residente de Fort Lauderdale, había sido reportado como desaparecido el lunes después de no regresar de una caminata. La última vez que se supo de él fue el domingo.

Su cuerpo fue encontrado el miércoles con heridas “consistentes con las sufridas en un encuentro con un oso”, informaron funcionarios del parque.

Los reportes indican que su cuerpo fue encontrado a unos 50 pies del sendero Mt. Brown del parque, en un área densamente arbolada.

Montana Free Press y la estación de televisión KPAX, con sede en Missoula, reportan que el último ataque fatal de oso en el parque ocurrió hace casi 30 años.

Pero para Tasha Joseph, una madre soltera de 28 años, se necesitó una ciudad.

Joseph recordó entre lágrimas la época en 2022 cuando no tenía hogar.

“Fue difícil. Tuve que pedir ayuda, y si pasaba lo peor, al menos lo intenté”, le dijo entre lágrimas a Mayte Padron de Local 10.

Sin apoyo familiar, Joseph y su hija Willow, que entonces tenía 2 años, vivían en su automóvil.

Pronto ocurrió un milagro.

Un agente de policía de Delray Beach las encontró y las conectó con un lugar llamado CityHouse.

“CityHouse brinda esperanza y renovación a madres solteras que están experimentando falta de vivienda en nuestra comunidad y a sus hijos”, dijo Laura Barr, directora de desarrollo de CityHouse.

Desde 2014, CityHouse ha ayudado a cientos de madres como Joseph a superar la adversidad en sus campus de Delray Beach y Boca Ratón.

En julio pasado, Local 10 fue invitado al cuarto campus de la organización sin fines de lucro en Fort Lauderdale.

Recientemente, Local 10 regresó para ver el progreso de lo que ahora se llama el campus Peacock.

Lisa Wanamaker es la directora ejecutiva de CityHouse.

“Estar a menos de un año de haber comenzado, pero estar completamente ocupados y sirviendo a las familias que están bajo nuestro cuidado se siente absolutamente increíble”, dijo Wanamaker.

Con siete apartamentos, una sala de terapia y personal en el lugar, el campus Peacock atiende a siete madres y sus hijos.

Y para Joseph, su vida ahora es completamente diferente, por una razón positiva.

Se mudó a su propio apartamento y ahora trabaja como directora asistente de desarrollo de CityHouse.

Es una prueba de que a veces todo lo que se necesita es el “sí” de un extraño para emprender un camino lleno de promesas.

En su función como directora asistente de desarrollo, Joseph ya ha recaudado miles de dólares para CityHouse.

Esos fondos no solo ayudan a las madres con gastos de vivienda, sino también con facturas médicas, reparaciones de automóviles y educación.

CityHouse también planea abrir un campus en el condado Miami-Dade.

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Good News South Florida se transmite los viernes en las noticias matutinas de Local 10 a las 10 a.m. Tendrá retransmisiones los viernes a las 3:30 p.m. y los domingos por la mañana, comenzando a las 6 a.m.

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Hall claimed Hill broke her leg during a backyard training session at his home in June 2023.

“I feel a pain beneath my knee and I lose my breath and collapse,” Hall testified in court.

Hall took the stand for a second day in the civil trial against the former Miami Dolphins wide receiver. She testified that she broke her leg after Hill rushed at her while the two were running drills in his backyard.

“I felt like his torso hit my torso,” Hall said.

Hall testified she went to Hill’s home after he showed interest in her and contacted her through social media. After watching Hill run drills with a trainer, she said she wanted to participate.

Hall said she first rushed Hill, causing him to be pushed backward and embarrassed in front of friends and family -- something Hill’s attorneys argued never happened.

“I guess he didn’t realize my strength and everyone started laughing at him,” Hall testified.

“There was no incident that involved embarrassing Mr. Hill. There was no incident where people were laughing at him,” Hill’s defense attorney Rob Horwitz said.

Hall said that after the incident, Hill’s demeanor changed.

“Immediately his whole demeanor changed and he went switch, switch,” Hall testified.

Hill’s attorneys argued Hall tripped over his dog during a play, causing the fracture.

On the second day of the civil trial, both sides agreed to a settlement.

The judge said Hall agreed to dismiss the assault and battery claims and settle the negligence claim.

After court, Hill said, “I am going to Disney World.”

Hall declined to answer questions after the hearing.

Attorneys for both sides also declined to comment on details of the settlement.

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The outlets report that Anthony Pollio, 33, of Fort Lauderdale, had been reported missing on Monday after he didn’t return from a hike. He had last been heard from on Sunday.

He now leaves behind a mourning family.

“Anthony was a fearless man,” his father, Arthur Pollio, told Local 10 News on Friday. “He was an experienced hunter. Tons of experience. Educated. Very smart.”

His body was found on Wednesday with injuries “consistent with those sustained by a bear encounter,” park officials said.

Reports state his body was found about about 50 feet off the park’s Mt. Brown Trail, in a heavily wooded area.

“He saw a trail. It was only a few miles. It was daytime. His intention was to go up and see the sunset from the fire watch tower,” Nicholas Pollio, his brother said.

Arthur Pollio added, “We think on the way down he encountered a grizzly bear.”

“I believe he was probably accosted by the bear. Used the bear spray. He might have ran from there,” Arthur Pollio said. “I think the bear may have chased him down, grabbed him by the shoulder.”

Arthur Pollio said he believes investigators found his son, a graduate of the University of Central Florida, after finding the bear spray can.

Now the Pollio family is left in disbelief.

“He’s an educated man and the bear just attacked him and killed him,” Arthur Pollio said.

The Montana Free Press and Missoula-based television station KPAX report that the last fatal bear attack in the park happened nearly 30 years ago.

Hall afirmó que Hill le rompió la pierna durante una sesión de entrenamiento en el patio trasero de su casa en junio de 2023.

“Sentí un dolor debajo de mi rodilla y perdí el aliento y colapsé”, testificó Hall en la corte.

Hall subió al estrado por segundo día en el juicio civil contra el ex receptor abierto de los Miami Dolphins. Testificó que se rompió la pierna después de que Hill se lanzó hacia ella mientras ambos realizaban ejercicios en el patio trasero.

“Sentí que su torso golpeó mi torso”, dijo Hall.

Hall testificó que fue a la casa de Hill después de que él mostró interés en ella y la contactó a través de redes sociales. Después de ver a Hill hacer ejercicios con un entrenador, dijo que quería participar.

Hall dijo que primero se lanzó contra Hill, provocando que él fuera empujado hacia atrás y avergonzado frente a amigos y familiares, algo que los abogados de Hill argumentaron que nunca ocurrió.

“Supongo que él no se dio cuenta de mi fuerza y todos comenzaron a reírse de él”, testificó Hall.

“No hubo ningún incidente que involucrara avergonzar al señor Hill. No hubo ningún incidente en el que la gente se estuviera riendo de él”, dijo el abogado defensor de Hill, Rob Horwitz.

Hall dijo que después del incidente, el comportamiento de Hill cambió.

“Inmediatamente todo su comportamiento cambió y cambió por completo”, testificó Hall.

Los abogados de Hill argumentaron que Hall tropezó con su perro durante una jugada, causando la fractura.

En el segundo día del juicio civil, ambas partes acordaron un acuerdo.

El juez dijo que Hall aceptó retirar los reclamos de agresión y agresión física y llegar a un acuerdo sobre el reclamo de negligencia.

Después de la corte, Hill dijo: “Me voy a Disney World”.

Hall se negó a responder preguntas después de la audiencia.

Los abogados de ambas partes también se negaron a comentar sobre los detalles del acuerdo.

The announcement gives Schmitz the title Nico Harrison held until he was fired in November, nine months after trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in a move that backfired badly on the franchise.

The Mavericks said Schmitz would oversee day-to-day management and strategic alignment in the club's basketball operations department.

The move comes with Dallas still not having provided any clarity on the future roles of Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi. They were named co-interim GMs when Harrison was fired and engineered the trade of Anthony Davis, the centerpiece acquired by Dallas in the Doncic deal, to Washington.

Schmitz and the Nigerian-raised Ujiri have strong ties to Africa. Schmitz has spent time working on youth basketball development in Ujiri's homeland and has served as an assistant coach with the Ugandan national team.

Schmitz joined the Trail Blazers in 2022 after spending five years as a draft analyst at ESPN.

“I have tremendous respect for Masai, this ownership group and the vision they have for the future of the franchise,” Schmitz said. “I'm excited to get to work alongside the talented people already in place and help build a championship-caliber organization.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Friday that authorities boarded eight cruise ships in late April and determined that 27 people, mostly from the Philippines, were involved in “the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or viewing” of child sexual abuse images.

The agency canceled the visas of those involved and returned them to their home countries, the statement said.

The agency did not say if any passengers aboard the ships were believed to be victims. It also did not say which ships agents boarded, why those ships were targeted or where the operations took place. The statement said no additional information was available.

At least some of the ships had docked in San Diego.

Disney Cruise Line in a statement said the company has a “zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior and fully cooperated with law enforcement. While the majority of these individuals were not from our cruise line, those who were are no longer with the company.”

Immigrant and workers' rights groups said they had been trying, without success, to obtain information about the status of the workers and the reason behind the enforcement action. Benjamin Prado, with one of the groups, Unión del Barrio, said they held a news conference Tuesday in San Diego after previously receiving a generic statement from Customs and Border Protection.

The statement the agency subsequently released to news organizations this week did not appear to be on the agency's website, he said. That information should be readily accessible, he said.

Prado said his group wants to better understand what kind of monitoring or surveillance might have been occurring ahead of the workers being detained and whether due process rights were followed. He acknowledged skepticism around information released by agencies like Customs and Border Protection.

“At this point, we doubt, we question their claims and so we do want to follow up with some of these workers to find out exactly what took place,” Prado said.

Customs and Border Protection has said that a criminal charge is not required for someone's visa to be revoked.

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But for 28-year-old single mother Tasha Joseph, it took a city.

Joseph tearfully recounted the time, back in 2022, when she was homeless.

“It was hard. I had to ask for help, and if the worst happened, at least I tried,” she told Local 10’s Mayte Padron through tears.

With no family support, Joseph and her then-2-year-old daughter, Willow, were living in their car.

A miracle soon followed.

A Delray Beach police officer found them and connected them with a place called CityHouse.

“CityHouse provides hope and renewal to single mothers who are experiencing homelessness in our community and their children,” said Laura Barr, development director at CityHouse.

Since 2014, CityHouse has helped hundreds of mothers like Joseph overcome adversity at its campuses in Delray Beach and Boca Raton.

Last July, Local 10 was invited to the nonprofit’s fourth campus in Fort Lauderdale.

Local 10 recently returned to see the progress of what is now called the Peacock Campus.

Lisa Wanamaker is CityHouse’s executive director.

“To be less than a year in, but to be fully occupied and serving the families that are in our care feels absolutely amazing,” Wanamaker said.

With seven apartments, a therapy room, and on-site staff, the Peacock Campus serves seven mothers and their children.

And for Joseph, her life is now completely different - for a positive reason.

She has moved into her own apartment and is now employed as CityHouse’s assistant development director.

It’s a testament that sometimes all it takes is one stranger’s “yes” to embark on a path filled with promise.

In her role as assistant development director, Joseph has already raised thousands of dollars for CityHouse.

Those funds not only help mothers with living expenses, but also with medical bills, car repairs and education.

CityHouse also plans to open a campus in Miami-Dade County.

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The point of contention: The popular show “The View," and whether it's subject to equal time rules.

ABC’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission, made public Friday, came in a dispute involving one ABC station in Houston, KTRK-TV. But the wording indicated the network was embarking on a broader battle with the administration.

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” said the filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.

The commission replied, in a statement emailed to The Associated Press, that equal time law “encourages more speech and empowers voters to decide the outcome of elections. The FCC will review Disney’s assertion that ‘The View’ is a ‘bona fide news program’ and thus exempt from the political equal time rules.”

The ABC filing appeared to be the latest volley inside and outside the legal arena between the U.S. media and the Trump White House over what journalists perceive as the president’s attack on free speech and the media’s ability to do its job. Trump has been critical of media outlets whose journalism runs counter to his agenda and sensibilities.

Among legal battles in the courts: a dispute between the Pentagon and The New York Times over access; a battle between the White House and The Associated Press over how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico; and Trump’s anger at The Wall Street Journal over reporting about Jeffrey Epstein.

The dispute concerns content on “The View,” ABC’s long-running morning talk show, which combines entertainment and political interviews and often features commentary critical of Trump. The filing referenced the FCC’s revisiting, with legal action, the question of whether “The View” should fall under equal time rules. The rules require granting equal airtime to competing candidates for office.

At issue: Whether ‘The View’ is subject to equal time rules

News programs are exempt from the rules. Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has indicated he intends to argue that “The View” is not a so-called “bona fide news program.” The issue could affect other shows that similarly combine entertainment and politics.

In its filing, ABC argued that “‘The View’ has been broadcasting under a bona fide news exemption granted to it more than twenty years ago, consistent with longstanding Commission interpretations designed to minimize the serious First Amendment problems inherent in the equal time regime.”

The network also argued that the decades-old equal time doctrine was not attuned to the realities of the present day, when “the broadcast airwaves account for a slice of the numerous media options through which Americans get their political information. Indeed, the marketplace of ideas has never been more robust, and people can hear virtually any brand of political commentary by listening to a podcast, watching cable, scrolling social media, or streaming on a phone, computer or connected TV. The free flow of ideas flourishes on these non-broadcast platforms even though the equal opportunities rule does not apply there.”

ABC argues that free political discourse is needed now more than ever

Narrowing the FCC’s longtime approach to so-called “bona fide news exemptions,” it said, “would risk restricting political discourse exactly when it is needed most.”

The administration’s criticism of “The View” echoes its displeasure with late-night news hosts who criticize Trump – especially ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel.

Donald and Melania Trump recently both called for ABC to fire Kimmel for a joke in which the comic described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”

The joke came two nights before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to enter the Washington ballroom where the Trumps were gathered along with much of the nation’s leadership and Washington media. Kimmel said the joke was a light roast about the couple’s age difference — and certainly not a reference to assassination.

In a footnote, ABC noted that “The View” has long featured a panel including women of different backgrounds to discuss issues of the day.

“Although the lineup of the co-hosts has changed over the years, ‘The View’ has consistently prioritized having a panel of women from different backgrounds in order to facilitate interesting discourse and the exchange of divergent perspectives,” it said.

Según la Oficina del Sheriff del condado Monroe, el incidente ocurrió en las aguas frente a Little Palm Island, justo al sur de Ramrod Key.

Los agentes dijeron que la mujer, de 27 años, tenía una bandera de buceo desplegada cuando el navegante pasó a toda velocidad y la atropelló.

Las autoridades aún no han identificado a la víctima ni han dicho si el navegante enfrentará cargos.

Según la MCSO, la Comisión de Conservación de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de Florida está a cargo de la investigación.

Local 10 News se comunicó con un portavoz de la FWC en busca de información adicional.

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According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the incident happened in the waters off Little Palm Island, which is just south of Ramrod Key.

Deputies said the 27-year-old woman had a dive flag up as the boater sped by and hit her.

Authorities have not yet identified the victim or said whether the boater will face charges.

According to MCSO, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is handling the investigation.

Local 10 News has contacted a FWC spokesperson seeking additional information.

Owen Gleiberman, writing for Variety, called it “a cutting, audacious, and at times astonishing movie.”

Perhaps it makes more sense to understand that “Our Hero, Balthazar,” which is currently in theaters, comes from a filmmaker known for his collaborations with the Safdie brothers. Filmmaker and producer Oscar Boyson has been on the ground making independent films for nearly 20 years, from “Frances Ha” to “Uncut Gems.”

The idea for “Balthazar,” which he co-wrote with Ricky Camilleri, just felt electric, like the movies that made them want to make movies when they were younger. It’s also the kind of that seems to be disappearing from American cinemas and has the makings of a cult classic.

“There’s a trend towards sameness and safety and familiarity that is making the movie industry a really uninteresting world to play and create and collaborate in,” Boyson said. “I felt like because the industry was saying no to it, it was exactly what I should be doing. And that really fired me up.”

Boyson has come up against a lot of obstacles in the industry with “Balthazar,” from festivals to distributors, who told him they loved it but couldn’t market it. That resistance just made him even more emboldened to do it his own way. Besides, he learned long ago not to look for permission from the establishment.

Bringing back the slow burn release

“We don’t have the marketing budget, but we do have tremendous energy,” Boyson said.

And, through their grassroots campaign, involving a fake social media account for Martell's character Balthazar that has over 84,000 followers (more than most film accounts), and old-fashioned word-of-mouth, audiences are finding the film, which will be in New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego, Encino, Santa Cruz and Westbrook, Maine, this weekend. At the Village East in New York, where it’s entering its seventh weekend, there are people who’ve seen it six times. And it’s not just the hard core cinephiles either: It’s younger audiences too.

Boyson wishes the industry could get away from the “big opening weekend” mentality and give movies time to find their place and audience.

"So much of it’s about word-of-mouth, and you need time in order for that to work,” he said. “When it does, it’s actually not that expensive. You just gotta make something good.”

Don’t get hung up on the budget

“Frances Ha” was the first New York City-based feature Boyson got to work on. Their primary location was the apartment he shared with Greta Gerwig and the production designer, and their crew was small enough to fit in a van.

“The thing that really stuck with me was that nobody talked about how small the production model was,” he said.

“Movies are about the emotional response that they get from the audience and that has nothing to do with how expensive or how cheaply they were made. When you feel what it’s like to work on something that felt like you were just making something that felt so intimate and small and you feel it resonate with a big audience of people who could go see a Marvel movie or could go see a hundred million dollar David Fincher movie, that’s so empowering. That really informs everything I do, that belief that that can happen.”

On “Our Hero, Balthazar,” he wanted to surround himself with 20-somethings, like he was on “Frances Ha,” because, he said, “they keep me honest.”

Actors love to work

“Our Hero, Balthazar” is full of up and coming and veteran character actors. Jennifer Ehle is Balthazar’s distracted socialite mother; Noah Centineo is his life coach. In Texas, “Sex Education’s” Asa Butterfield plays Solomon, the struggling kid Balthazar tries to befriend, Becky Ann Baker is his loving grandmother and Chris Bauer (“The Wire”) is his estranged dad.

“Actors love to work, you know? And actors love to be surprised, and actors love to challenge themselves,” Boyson said. “Especially if you’re in New York, ‘Our Hero, Balthazar’ is a testament to the fact that a low budget movie, if you get lucky on the timing, you can have some of the greatest actors in the world popping up in your movie.”

A sense of place is important

Shooting in New York City wasn’t just convenient for its talent pool; It’s also a vital part of the texture of the film, which also shot its Texas portions in Texas.

“All too often the first thing that you’re asked to do when you write a story that takes place in America is shoot it somewhere else,” Boyson said. “It’s what I value as a viewer when I watch movies, but it’s also it comes from the experience of shooting movies in America and feeling what you lose when you pretend that when you play one place for another. I think a sense of place is something that is really missing or fading from American movie culture.”

The audience and the gatekeepers have nothing to do with each other

Perhaps the most important lesson Boyson has learned over the years, and that seems to be playing out with “Balthazar,” is that the gatekeepers aren’t the ones who make your movie into thing: The audience and the fans do.

“The people who are showing up for the movie are young people and people who are who are like ‘this isn’t fringe, this is the reality I’m living,’” he said. “I don’t know that that makes the movie commercial, but we worked really hard to make it fun, entertaining and accessible.”

The Jets and Hall agreed Friday on a three-year extension worth $45.75 million, according to a person familiar with the deal. The team had used the franchise tag on Hall, whose contract — which will pay him $15.25 million per year — makes him the third-highest paid running back in the NFL.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Jets didn't announce the deal.

“Cried for the first time since I tore my ACL,” Hall posted on X, referring to his season-ending injury as a rookie in 2022. “This day really hit different for me man.”

Based on annual salary, Hall’s $15.25 million per year is behind Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley ($20.6 million) and San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey ($19 million). It’s slightly higher than the $15 million Baltimore’s Derrick Henry is scheduled to make.

Hall rushed for a career-high 1,065 yards last season despite missing the final game with a knee ailment, becoming the first Jets player to top 1,000 yards rushing in a season since Chris Ivory in 2015. Hall has 1,000 yards from scrimmage in three straight seasons, just the sixth player — and fifth running back — in franchise history to accomplish that feat.

Hall, who turns 25 on May 31, was a second-round pick in the 2022 draft out of Iowa State. He didn’t receive a contract extension from the Jets last offseason when first-rounders Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson did, causing some uncertainty about Hall’s future with the franchise. He was also mentioned in trade rumors leading up to last year’s deadline.

But coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey both insisted they wanted to keep Hall.

“He’s a playmaker and we want to keep playmakers around on both sides of the ball,” Mougey said at the NFL combine in February. “He’s a proven playmaker and a good player, a good person, so want to find a way to keep Breece around.”

New York planned to use a three-running back approach with Hall, Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis sharing carries last season, but Allen hurt a knee and landed on injured reserve and Davis served as a clear No. 2 to Hall.

With a new offensive coordinator in Frank Reich and quarterback in Geno Smith, the Jets decided to use the franchise tag on Hall to give them an opportunity to retain him and negotiate during the offseason.

Hall and the Jets had until July 15 to reach an agreement or the star running back would've had to play this season under a one-year contract for the franchise tag amount of $14.3 million.

After the draft two weeks ago, Mougey indicated that contract talks would pick up — and the Jets got the deal done a few weeks before voluntary organized team activities begin and more than a month ahead of their mandatory minicamp.

The Jets' revamped offense is expecting to be more productive this year after a dismal season with Smith under center, Wilson healthy from a knee injury that limited him to seven games and the addition of a pair of first-rounders in tight end Kenyon Sadiq and wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr.

But Hall's dual-threat ability to run the ball out of the backfield or catch it anywhere on the field made keeping him this season and beyond a priority for the Jets.

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

Un video obtenido el viernes por Local 10 muestra a un hombre que la policía identificó como Larry Michael Baum, de 52 años, presuntamente deteniéndose afuera de la casa mientras paseaba un perro e intentando incendiar arbustos en múltiples ocasiones, según la policía.

Los investigadores dijeron que el primer incidente ocurrió el 12 de noviembre de 2025 en una casa ubicada en la cuadra 19200 de Northeast 22nd Avenue. Un video de vigilancia presuntamente mostró a Baum provocando brevemente un pequeño incendio antes de abandonar el área a pie, dijo la policía.

Las autoridades dijeron que un segundo incidente ocurrió el 3 de marzo, cuando un video de vigilancia nuevamente mostró a un hombre que parecía ser Baum deteniéndose frente a la misma casa e incendiando hojas en los arbustos usando lo que parecía ser un cigarrillo o cigarro encendido. La propietaria lo confrontó y luego extinguió las hojas humeantes, según los investigadores.

La policía de North Miami Beach dijo que Baum fue arrestado el 13 de abril en relación con ambos incidentes.

El abogado de Baum le dijo a Local 10 News en un correo electrónico el viernes que la Fiscalía Estatal de Miami-Dade retiró todos los cargos “ya que estuvieron de acuerdo en que esto fue un error”.

Memorandos de cierre del caso obtenidos por Local 10 de la Fiscalía Estatal muestran que los cargos efectivamente fueron retirados en ambos casos el lunes.

Nota del editor: Una versión anterior de esta historia indicaba que Baum enfrentaba cargos de incendio provocado en segundo grado y daños criminales. Documentos judiciales presentados el lunes por la Fiscalía Estatal de Miami-Dade y obtenidos por Local 10 News muestran que los fiscales desde entonces retiraron todos los cargos.

“Primero, no tengo ninguna información y segundo, no tendría por qué ser porque somos muy respetuosos de la política de los Estados Unidos”, afirmó durante su conferencia matutina diaria.

Estados Unidos no ha explicado las razones de la revisión, que fue reportada primero por CBS News. Un funcionario del Departamento de Estado, que habló bajo condición de anonimato por no estar autorizado a hacer declaraciones públicas, la confirmó luego a The Associated Press.

Tampoco se conocen sus implicaciones, pero es probable que la medida avive aún más las tensiones entre los dos países, marcadas por las constantes presiones y amenazas de Donald Trump para que México haga más en la lucha contra los cárteles y complicadas en las últimas semanas tras la muerte de dos agentes de la CIA en México y las acusaciones de fiscales estadounidenses por narcotráfico contra políticos mexicanos.

Sheinbaum dijo que “es completamente falso” que los consulados mexicanos estén haciendo política tal y como afirman algunos en Estados Unidos, pero garantizó que su gobierno siempre protejerá a sus connacionales y defenderá que se respeten sus derechos humanos.

Desde que comenzaron las redadas y detenciones de migrantes en Estados Unidos, los consulados mexicanos han brindado apoyo legal mediante la puesta en marcha de líneas telefónicas de atención ante emergencias y la contratación de más abogados.

La muerte 15 migrantes, la mayoría bajo custodia del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés), hizo que México diera un paso más e iniciara acciones legales tanto en Estados Unidos como ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.

Además, Sheinbaum ordenó a los cónsules mexicanos visitar los centros de detención de forma constante. Al ser preguntada el viernes sobre cómo iban esas visitas, no quiso hacer comentarios.

Trump se ha involucrado en América Latina de manera más agresiva que cualquiera de sus predecesores en las últimas décadas, como se vio con la captura del venezolano Nicolás Maduro, el bloqueo petrolero a Cuba, las acciones militares en Ecuador y la constante amenaza de acciones militares contra los cárteles mexicanos. “Si México no actúa, nosotros lo haremos”, dijo esta semana el gobernante estadounidense.

Sheinbaum ha medido sus declaraciones para evitar confrontaciones directas. Insiste en que, aunque haya discrepancias, la colaboración y el diálogo se mantienen y México aumentó las detenciones de narcotraficantes y los decomisos de droga.

El ex embajador mexicano en Washington, Arturo Sarukhan, dijo en sus redes sociales que la amenaza de cierre de consulados “es típicamente una herramienta de represalia diplomática indicando que una relación bilateral no va bien”.

En abril, Sheinbaum dijo que habrá un relevo al frente de la embajada mexicana en Washington aunque el embajador propuesto, de perfil muy económico, todavía debe ser aceptado por la administración estadounidense.

En años recientes Estados Unidos ha ordenado el cierre de un consulado chino en Houston y tres instalaciones rusas, incluido un consulado en San Francisco y dependencias cerca de Washington y Nueva York.

“El Departamento de Estado revisa constantemente todos los aspectos de las relaciones exteriores estadounidenses para garantizar que estén alineados con la agenda de política exterior... del presidente y que promuevan los intereses estadounidenses”, manifestó el jueves Dylan Johnson, subsecretario de Estado para Asuntos Públicos.

————

Lee reportó desde Washington.

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Video obtained Friday by Local 10 show a man who police said was 52-year-old Larry Michael Baum allegedly stopping outside the home while walking a dog and attempting to ignite bushes on multiple occasions, according to police.

Investigators said the first incident occurred Nov. 12, 2025, at a home in the 19200 block of Northeast 22nd Avenue. Surveillance video allegedly showed Baum briefly causing a small fire before leaving the area on foot, police said.

Authorities said a second incident happened March 3, when surveillance video again showed a man who appeared to be Baum stopping in front of the same home and igniting leaves in the bushes using what appeared to be a lit cigarette or cigar. The homeowner confronted him and later extinguished smoldering leaves, according to investigators.

North Miami Beach police said Baum was arrested on April 13 in connection with both incidents.

Baum’s attorney told Local 10 News in an email Friday that the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office dropped all charges “as they agreed this was a mistake.”

Closeout memos obtained by Local 10 from the State Attorney’s Office indeed show that charges were dropped in both cases on Monday.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story stated that Baum was facing charges of second-degree arson and criminal mischief. Court documents filed Monday by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and obtained by Local 10 News show prosecutors have since dropped all charges.

Whether it works will depend on how fast three-time defending race winner Alex Palou and the other starters adapt — and, naturally, how much risk they're willing to take on the first lap of the race.

The move comes in the wake of last month's software failure at Long Beach, where a dozen drivers illegally used extra turbo boost during a midrace restart. That led series officials to make the modification that allows drivers to use their push-to-pass on all restarts once the race has started and they've reached the alternate start-finish line in Turn 11 on the first lap. An early push will result in a penalty, even if there is another malfunction.

And that's caused confusion in Gasoline Alley.

“If I push it and it works because someone else does a mistake, it’s my fault? Yes?” Palou asked, jump-starting a minutes-long debate among the top five drivers in the standings. “I didn’t read the rule, sorry.”

Drivers will still get 200 total seconds of green-flag racing to give their cars a boost of about 60 horsepower throughout the race, though the button is not supposed to be operable until they pass the alternate start-finish line, potentially making the race into Turn 11 as harrowing as the first turn of the race. Then drivers can allocate their turbo boost however they choose around Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course.

The change essentially eliminates a possible repeat of the 2024 controversy that cost two-time series champ Josef Newgarden a season-opening victory at St. Petersburg when officials determined he used push-to-pass on a restart.

At Long Beach, nearly half the field took advantage of the software error. Others insisted they weren't even aware the push-to-pass button was working on the restart.

During last week's test session on Indy's 2.5-mile oval, Santino Ferrucci told reporters he realized the button worked only when he tried to fend off Marcus Armstrong's pass on a Lap 61 restart. Ferrucci said he tried it and continued using it. Neither Armstrong nor Ferrucci was penalized and Palou wasn't either, even though he said he used it three times on the restart. Palou wound up winning his third race of the season.

“Let’s set the record straight,” Kyle Kirkwood said. “Everybody would have used it if they’d known it was active. Every driver would have. I wish I’d have known it was on. I would have used it.”

On Saturday, everyone has — or should have — a strategy for how to deal with the new rule.

Palou, the four-time series champ from Spain, begins race weekend as the favorite. He has a 17-point lead over Kirkwood, an American, after winning the last two races, has six straight top-five finishes at Indy including last year's sweep of the grand prix and Indianapolis 500, and is trying to become the second driver in Brickyard history to win the same race four straight times.

The only other driver with four straight wins is seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher. He won the U.S. Grand Prix every year from 2003-06 and his son, Mick, is scheduled to make his Indy debut Saturday albeit on a differently configured road course.

Palou had the fastest lap in both of Friday’s practice sessions, posting a top speed of 124.953 mph in the morning and a best lap of 124.632 in the afternoon before rain arrived, forcing qualifying to be moved to Saturday. Kirkwood had the second-fastest lap in the afternoon, 124.443, as he tries to change his road-course reputation.

“So why do I suck on road courses?” Kirkwood joked Thursday. “That’s a good question. Appreciate that. Quite honestly, we just haven’t been that good on road courses. That’s been across all of our cars in recent years. But Barber was much better. I can’t say there’s been any other ones, but I feel like we’re constantly improving.”

And getting a little power boost on Saturday's restarts certainly won't hurt.

“You might want to save it a little bit more and maybe not use it as much on in-and-out laps, trying to overtake people knowing if a restart comes at any point, you need to have it, or else you’re going to get passed,” Kirkwood said. “So people might be hoarding it a little bit more.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

The crash was shortly before 2 p.m. at West Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest Ninth Avenue.

Fire rescue personnel reported taking the three injured to the Broward Health Medical Center. One of the adults suffered life-threatening injuries.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Sofia Mendez contributed to this report.

El neoyorquino colombo-estadounidense, que trabajó tanto en el Departamento de Estado como en el Departamento de Defensa de Estados Unidos, vivía en Key Biscayne cuando agentes del FBI lo arrestaron en 2023.

Rocha, de 75 años, quien se mudó a Estados Unidos cuando tenía 10 años y se convirtió en ciudadano estadounidense a los 28, cumple una condena de 15 años de prisión en el centro de Florida. El jueves, fiscales federales solicitaron revocar su ciudadanía estadounidense.

“La demanda alega que Rocha obtuvo la ciudadanía estadounidense mediante mentiras, encubrimiento y traición”, dijo Reding Quiñones en un comunicado sobre la nueva demanda civil de desnaturalización. “Una persona que secretamente sirve a la Cuba comunista no debería conservar el privilegio de la ciudadanía de Estados Unidos, incluso mientras está en prisión”.

Los registros de la Oficina Federal de Prisiones mostraban el viernes que Rocha estaba en una institución correccional de baja seguridad en el condado Sumter, y su fecha de liberación no está prevista hasta el 29 de marzo de 2036.

Agentes especiales del FBI en Miami elaboraron un perfil de Rocha y centraron su atención en él en 2022. Rocha era un niño migrante estudioso que tomó un camino poco probable fuera del centro urbano para acceder a una educación de élite.

Rocha nació en Bogotá durante la guerra liberal-conservadora en Colombia. Después de la muerte de su padre, se mudó a la ciudad de Nueva York cuando tenía 10 años y creció en Harlem con su madre soltera, quien trabajaba como costurera.

El destino de Rocha cambió después de los disturbios raciales de 1964 en Harlem. Ganó una beca para la escuela Taft, un internado privado en Connecticut, se graduó cum laude en 1969 y obtuvo su licenciatura en estudios latinoamericanos de Yale en 1973.

“Rocha asistía a un programa estudiantil en Chile en 1973 cuando fue contactado por primera vez y comenzó a conspirar para espiar para la República de Cuba”, escribieron los fiscales en una demanda civil de desnaturalización de 232 páginas presentada el jueves.

Fue un año de cambios en Chile. Salvador Allende, el primer líder marxista elegido democráticamente en América Latina, fue derrocado por un golpe militar y el general Augusto Pinochet tomó el poder.

“Rocha completó una maestría en administración pública en la Universidad de Harvard en 1976 y una maestría en relaciones internacionales en la Universidad de Georgetown en 1978 para avanzar en su servicio como agente secreto de Cuba”, escribieron los fiscales en la demanda.

Rocha solicitó la ciudadanía en 1977. Tenía 28 años cuando recibió su certificado de naturalización el 17 de septiembre de 1978 en Virginia, según los fiscales federales que lo acusan de mentir durante su solicitud.

“Si Rocha hubiera dicho la verdad durante su proceso de naturalización sobre su afiliación con el Partido Comunista y sus acciones como agente secreto, el antiguo Servicio de Inmigración y Naturalización no habría recomendado la aprobación”, escribieron los fiscales en la demanda.

Rocha se unió al servicio exterior de Estados Unidos después de una pasantía en la Fundación Interamericana, una agencia federal que financia proyectos en América Latina y el Caribe.

Después de asignaciones diplomáticas en Cuba, Honduras, México, República Dominicana y Argentina, el presidente Bill Clinton lo nombró embajador de Estados Unidos en Bolivia el 14 de junio de 2000.

Rocha luego se convirtió en asesor del comandante del Comando Sur de Estados Unidos en Doral.

Un agente encubierto contactó a Rocha el 15 de noviembre de 2022, alegando representar a sus “amigos en La Habana”, y hubo tres reuniones grabadas antes de interrogarlo el 1 de diciembre de 2023, muestran los registros.

Durante las reuniones grabadas, Rocha se refirió a Estados Unidos como el “enemigo”, elogió a Fidel Castro como el “Comandante” y llamó a sus compañeros comunistas “camaradas”, según registros judiciales.

Rocha admitió su participación en los asesinatos de 1996 de los voluntarios de Hermanos al Rescate Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña y Pablo Morales como el “derribo de las avionetas” en La Habana, muestran los registros.

Rocha también dijo que durante su espionaje utilizó un pasaporte de República Dominicana para viajar a Panamá y La Habana, muestran los registros.

Rocha se declaró culpable de conspiración para actuar como agente de un gobierno extranjero y fraude contra Estados Unidos. En el nuevo caso, fiscales federales lo acusaron de siete cargos independientes buscando la revocación de su ciudadanía estadounidense.

“Cualquier individuo que haya mentido durante el proceso de naturalización para obtener una posición en este país enfrentará todo el peso del Departamento de Justicia”, dijo el fiscal general adjunto Brett Shumate en un comunicado divulgado el viernes.

The recall includes model year 2024-2026 Cybertrucks with 18-inch steel wheels. In its report, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that rough roads and cornering may strain the stud hole in the wheel rotor causing cracks to form and with continued driving the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.

Wheel stud separation may affect vehicle controllability, increasing the risk of a collision.

On affected vehicles, Tesla will replace the front and rear brake rotors, hubs, and lug nuts with more durable ones at no cost to vehicle owners.

The manufacturer's recall number is SB-26-33-003. Owners may contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752.

Tesla is also recalling more than 200,000 Model Y, Model S Model X and Model 3 electric vehicles because of a software issue that renders the rearview camera inoperable for a short period of time.

Loss of the rearview camera image may affect the driver’s view, increasing the risk of a crash.

Tesla’s number for this recall is SB-26-00-016.

Tesla is not aware of any accidents, fatalities or injuries related to either of the problems in the above recalls.

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo's jaw dropped almost to the dugout floor.

“Twenty years old and driving the ball off the center field wall,” Lovullo said. “Let's go back to being 20 years old. I was just getting hair under my armpits, and this guy's in a big-league baseball game. It's impressive.”

Griffin — who just turned 20 a few weeks ago — is part of an MLB rookie class that's made an instant impact as the calendar turns to May. He's batting .256 with two homers, 16 RBIs and is 8 for 8 on stolen bases, all while playing shortstop at a high level for a Pirates team that has a 21-17 record.

No wonder the Pirates were comfortable handing him a $140 million, nine-year deal in April.

Lovullo has been the manager of the D-backs for 10 seasons and said he's noticed a huge difference in the readiness of young players when they get to the big leagues.

The data backs that up, too. As measured by Wins Above Replacement, three of the five most productive classes of rookie hitters since 1950 graduated in the past four years, in 2023 (67.5 WAR), 2022 (53.7) and 2024 (49). Through Thursday's games, this year's class is on pace for 47, which would rank fifth.

Even the 2025 class, which wasn't as deep, featured examples of players ready to make an unusually fast impact. Nick Kurtz got just 210 at-bats in the minor leagues before joining the Athletics, then batted .290 with 36 homers and 86 RBIs over 117 games to win American League Rookie of the Year in 2025.

“Everything is fast-forwarded now, everything's on speed dial, everything happens really quick,” Lovullo said. “These kids are developing. It's the same message I send to our group about player development. We aren't going to be the L.A. Dodgers or the Padres. Spots won't be filled by Player ‘X’ coming off of free agency. Spots will be filled by someone in this clubhouse."

Here's a look at some of the other top rookies in the big leagues through the season's first 1 1/2 months:

Kevin McGonigle, SS, Detroit Tigers

The 21-year-old made the big-league club with a strong spring performance and continues to impress, batting .299 with two homers, 16 RBIs and an .845 OPS while splitting time between shortstop and third baseman. He's been arguably the best player on a Tigers' team that's otherwise underachieved so far this year. That's exactly why the franchise was comfortable signing him to a $150 million, eight-year deal in April.

JJ Wetherholt, 2B, St. Louis Cardinals

Another highly-regarded prospect who was the No. 7 overall pick in 2024 out of West Virginia, Wetherholt has popped seven homers for a Cardinals team that's been a pleasant surprise in the NL Central. He looks like a mainstay in St. Louis for years to come.

Chase DeLauter, OF, Cleveland Guardians

DeLauter actually made his MLB debut last season when he became one of the few players in big league history to get his first call-up in the playoffs. So far this spring, he's showed why the Guardians had enough confidence to bring him up for those pressure-packed games, batting .306 with six homers and 23 RBIs.

Munetaka Murikami, 1B, Chicago White Sox

The veteran Japanese slugger has made an instant impact in the big leagues, crushing 14 homers in just 37 games. He needs to cut down on the strikeouts and may never consistently hit for high average, but there's no doubt the power is legit and he's still just 26 years old.

Kazuma Okamoto, 3B, Toronto Blue Jays

The 29-year-old is older than all of the other players on this list and had a slow start while making the transition from Japan. But he's picked up the pace over the past few weeks and is batting .246 with 10 homers and 23 RBIs.

Sal Stewart, 1B, Cincinnati Reds

The 22-year-old made a good impression during a short stint last season and has continued to hit in the big leagues so far this spring. Playing mostly first base, he's batting .245 with 10 homers and 30 RBIs.

Nolan McLean, RHP, New York Mets

The Mets have been one of the biggest disappointments in the big leagues, but McLean has been one of few bright spots. He dazzled in an eight-start cameo last season and has pitched well so far in 2026. The 24-year-old has a 2.97 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings through seven starts.

Parker Messick, LHP, Cleveland Guardians

The Florida State product has been one of the best pitchers in the American League this season with a 3-1 record and a 2.40 ERA through seven starts. The left hander is a big reason the Guardians are currently at the top of the AL Central.

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

April Curley, a former Google employee, had sued the tech giant for racial discrimination, saying it engages in a “pattern and practice” of unfair treatment for its Black workers. The suit claimed the company steered them into lower-level and lower-paid jobs and subjected them to a hostile work environment if they speak out. Other former Google workers also joined the suit, which later received class action status.

“This case is about accountability, plain and simple,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the plaintiffs, in a statement. “For far too long, Black employees in the tech industry have faced barriers that limit opportunity. This settlement is a significant step toward holding one of the world’s most powerful companies accountable and making clear that discriminatory practices cannot and will not be tolerated.”

The settlement was announced in May 2025 and granted final approval this week. Google said when the settlement was reached that it strongly disagrees with the allegations that it treated anyone improperly and remains "committed to paying, hiring, and leveling all employees consistently.”

The lawsuit, echoed years of complaints from Black employees at the company. That includes prominent artificial intelligence scholar Timnit Gebru, who said she was pushed out in 2020 after a dispute over a research paper examining the societal dangers of an emerging branch of artificial intelligence.

The 2022 lawsuit claimed that Mountain View, California-based Google viewed Black job candidates “through harmful racial stereotypes” and claimed that hiring managers deemed Black candidates “not ‘Googly’ enough, a plain dog whistle for race discrimination.”

In addition, according to the suit, interviewers “hazed” and undermined Black candidates and hired Black candidates into lower-paying and lower-level roles with less advancement potential based on their race and racial stereotypes.

The settlement, which does not constitute admission of liability by Google, also includes a commitment to pay equity analyses, pay transparency measures, and limits on mandatory arbitration for employment-related disputes through at least August 2026, according to Crump.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, both confirmed the agreement.

“I asked and, President Putin agreed. President Zelenskyy agreed -- both readily," Trump said as he departed the White House to attend a dinner at his Virginia golf club. " And we have a little period of time where they’re not going to be killing people. That’s very good ”

Trump earlier Friday had announced on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, a holiday that commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II.”

The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Russia had announced a ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, but it quickly unraveled, with both sides blaming the other for the continued fighting, just as they had when Ukraine’s own unilateral ceasefire had swiftly collapsed earlier in the week.

Trump said he made his request for the ceasefire “directly” to the two presidents. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War," he said.

Trump added that talks continue over ending the war that began in February 2022 “and we are getting closer and closer every day.” Trump has gone back and forth over whether the war will end, at times expressing optimism and at other times saying Russia and Ukraine should be left to fight it out to the bitter end.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s decision on how to engage with those discussions was shaped in part by the prospect of freeing its prisoners. Ukraine has made the return of prisoners of war a central demand throughout the conflict.

“Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Red Square is where Russia holds its traditional military parade to celebrate Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

After releasing his statement, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree “authorizing” Russia to hold the parade, declaring Red Square off-limits for Ukrainian strikes for the duration of the event. The framing of the decree appeared designed to underscore Kyiv’s claim that it holds effective targeting reach over the Russian capital, while publicly tying Ukrainian restraint to the ceasefire terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.”

“We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Zelenskyy said the deal for a ceasefire was reached through a U.S.-mediated process and thanked Trump and the American team for what he called effective diplomatic engagement. He said Ukraine expected Washington to hold Russia to the terms of the agreement.

“We are counting on the United States to ensure that Russia fulfills its commitments,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said he had instructed his team to prepare everything necessary for the exchange without delay.

Trump's announcement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a much more somber tone about negotiations to halt Russia’s 4-year-old war in Ukraine, saying U.S. mediation efforts have not led to a “fruitful outcome” so far.

“While we’re prepared to play whatever role we can to bring it to a peaceful diplomatic resolution, unfortunately right now, those efforts have stagnated,” Rubio told reporters at the end of a visit to Rome and the Vatican. “But we always stand ready if those circumstances change.”

—-

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

The 20-year-old Dino Prižmić defeated the record 24-time Grand Slam champion 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 with an ace on his first match point.

The 38-year-old Djokovic hadn’t played since March when he lost to Jack Draper in the fourth round in Indian Wells, California.

Djokovic had taping on his right shoulder that was revealed when he changed shirts between sets.

He declined to talk about any ailments, not wanting to take any focus from Prižmić. But Djokovic admitted he wanted more than one match at his only warmup for the French Open.

Djokovic didn't surprise himself in his only competitive clay-court match before the French, though he thought the second set was forgettable.

“I see what I'm missing,” he said. "Late half a step. I'm not definitely where I want to be for the highest level and to compete at the highest level and to be able to get far.

“Eventually you have to play. You have to start somewhere. I wanted to start earlier but I couldn't. The situation is as it is. You make the most out of it. I train hard. I train as much as the body allows me to. Then how it turns out on the court, that's really unpredictable.”

Asked if he was confident he'll be in good shape for the French Open which starts in 16 days, Djokovic said, “I don't know.” With a smile he added, “I hope so.”

In Djokovic’s only other tournament this year, he reached the Australian Open final and lost to Carlos Alcaraz.

The 79th-ranked Prižmić lost a four-setter to Djokovic in their only previous match at the 2024 Australian Open. Djokovic told him on Friday his forehand had improved and he'll go far if he can stay healthy. Prižmić beat No. 6 Ben Shelton at the Madrid Open last month.

“He’s my idol,” Prižmić said of Djokovic. “I just played unbelievably today.”

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

The Marlins sure hope that will become a new norm for their No. 2 pitching prospect, who made his MLB debut Friday against the Washington Nationals after being called up from Triple-A Jacksonville.

“It's pretty surreal,” Snelling said in Miami's clubhouse Thursday before walking over to the dugout where fans yelled for his signature. “Still trying to just kind of soak it in and get acclimated with all the guys again that I was around in spring and really take it all in and not let the moment get too big.”

Snelling gave up three runs and six hits over five innings in a 3-2 loss Friday night. He also walked four and struck out two.

“I don’t think there’s any way that you can really prepare yourself for something you haven’t even experienced," Snelling said. “A lot of adrenaline, a lot of emotions out on the mound. I did my best to not let that show externally.”

Washington scored three against Snelling in the first on CJ Abrams' RBI single and Jacob Young's two-run homer to left.

“Obviously, having runners on base as much as I did tonight, it’s not what starting pitchers want," Snelling said. "But being able to continue to attack the zone every hitter that stepped to the box, I’m proud of myself about that.”

The 23-year-old was acquired by Miami from San Diego for reliever Tanner Scott in July 2024. Snelling ascended through the Marlins farm system and became the organization’s second-rated pitching prospect before the club promoted him from Triple-A Jacksonville.

Snelling did not make the Marlins' opening-day roster despite impressing coaches during spring training. He called that both frustrating and motivating.

“I was upset and not necessarily at anybody in general,” Snelling said. "Just being told that you’re not going to get to do what you really had wanted to do as early as you wanted to do is a tough pill to swallow.

“But then you kind of come back down to earth and realize, ‘Alright, what do I need to do to get to that point where I want to be?’”

So he worked on lowering his walks, in part by improving his first-pitch strike rate. In six starts with Triple-A Jacksonville this season, Snelling went 3-1 with the second-best ERA (1.86) among qualified pitchers. He walked more than three batters only twice in those six starts.

“For him to really navigate himself through five – not maybe the cleanest innings – he really grinded," said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. "He showed a lot of moxie today.”

A spot opened up in the Marlins' rotation after struggling pitcher Chris Paddack was designated for assignment on Tuesday.

There were other experienced options Miami could have inserted there but Snelling's recent performance showed the team he was ready for the opportunity.

“Coming into it we were certainly very high on Robby," McCullough said. “He performed incredibly well last year. This spring, he came into it in competition potentially for a spot in our rotation. Robby’s done well down there and continued to perform.”

The Jumbo Shrimp were coming off a walk-off win on Wednesday when Snelling got the news he was called up. He was summoned to manager David Carpenter's office afterward, where he was praised for his focus throughout the week with the uncertainty on whether his major league shot would come.

“I was like, 'Man, it’s really hard to keep my sanity knowing that potentially it was an option for me to go up,’” Snelling recalled telling Carpenter, who responded with a rather nonchalant question.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re still good to go on Friday right?'” Carpenter said, referring to Snelling's scheduled Triple-A start. "I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, 'Well, you’re going to be throwing in Miami.'"

Snelling described the past couple of days as a sort of reunion with players he became close with during the spring, including catcher Joe Mack, another highly-rated prospect who was called up this week. Mack scored the winning run on a throwing error in the ninth inning of the Marlins' win over Baltimore on Thursday.

It has also made Snelling grateful for the journey that brought him here.

“It was always fun competing with those guys (in the minors)," he said. “It didn’t really matter where I was in my mind. Obviously this is the goal — being up here and staying up here is the goal.”

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AP freelance writer Santos Perez contributed to this report.

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

F1 started the year with big changes including a 50-50 split in power between a traditional engine and the onboard battery pack, but driver criticism was immediate.

Governing body the FIA said it met with teams and F1 officials in an online session Friday and that the changes were agreed in principle.

“The measures agreed in principle today for 2027 would see a nominal increase in internal combustion engine (ICE) power by (tilde)50kW alongside a fuel-flow increase and a nominal reduction of the energy recovery system (ERS) deployment power by (tilde)50kW,” the FIA statement said.

The changes, it added, will be “intuitive for drivers and teams.”

After just three grands prix this season, tweaks were made that slightly curbed the influence of the electrical power. They answered driver criticism by promoting pure driving skill over electrical recharging, especially in qualifying.

Last weekend's Miami Grand Prix was the first under those changes. Sunday’s race was one of the most wide open in recent F1 history with drivers from four different teams leading before Kimi Antonelli took his third win of 2026 for Mercedes.

F1 has used V6 engines with electrical hybrid power since 2014 and an increase in the amount of electrical power has forced drivers to adjust. Timing the electrical boost and recharging is the key to tactical racing. Four-time world champion Max Verstappen loathes it so much he’s questioned his future in F1.

The FIA said Friday's session began with a review of the changes put in place before Miami.

“The conclusion from the deployment of modifications in Miami, designed to improve safety and reduce excessive harvesting, was that they resulted in improved competition and were a step in the right direction,” it said.

“Evaluation of the Miami package is ongoing with a view to the introduction of further adjustments at future events.”

Next on the calendar is the Canadian Grand Prix on May 24.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

The deal runs through the 2032 NFL season.

The league began the onboarding process for replacement officials last month because negotiations weren’t progressing. But they won’t be necessary.

The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees Association had been set to expire on May 31, and the two sides began negotiating in the summer of 2024.

Terms of the deal weren’t immediately known but the NFL increased its offer to a 6.45% annual growth rate in compensation over a six-year labor deal, two people with knowledge of the offer told The Associated Press in March.

A stalemate in 2012 resulted in a 110-day lockout and replacement referees were used.

That led to several high-profile mistakes, including the Fail Mary when Russell Wilson completed a desperation pass to Golden Tate in the closing seconds to lift Seattle over Green Bay in a Monday night game. Tate pushed off so he should’ve been penalized for offensive pass interference. He appeared to wrestle the ball away from a Packers defender and was given credit for a catch even though two officials had called it differently.

There weren’t as many glaring errors when the NFL also used replacement officials for one week of exhibition games and the opening week in 2001 before the labor dispute was resolved shortly after 9/11, and the regular officials returned in time when the season resumed following a one-week break.

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

“I couldn’t really bend my arm. I couldn’t button a shirt,” the New York Yankees left-hander said. ”I couldn't scratch my face. I couldn't take a drink of water. ... I could definitely never comb my hair."

Seven months after elbow surgery, the 33-year-old is set to return to a major league mound Sunday at the Milwaukee Brewers. While he feels a lot better, it's not like when he reached the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox a decade ago.

“That’s almost a virgin arm then,” he quipped.

Rodón is 93-72 with a 3.73 ERA in 11 major league seasons, including 37-26 since signing a $162 million, six-year contract with the Yankees in December 2023.

He was 18-9 with a 3.09 ERA last season despite an ailing arm. His four-seam fastball velocity, which averaged 95.3 mph in his first season with the Yankees, was 94.4 mph in the first half last year and dropped to 93.8 mph in the second half.

“He was great last year. So, just had to do it a different way. He didn’t have the range of motion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “But I think if you talk to major league pitchers, especially ones that have done it for a while, you’re kind of always dealing with different stuff. So credit to him for being able to navigate it last year and with excellence.”

Rodón's fastball velocity dropped to 93.4 mph in his Division Series start against Toronto, when he allowed six runs and lasted just 2 1/3 innings.

“They were mending to him every day to get him to post,” pitching coach Matt Blake said.

Rodón said his elbow deterioration occurred over three-to-four years. He was willing to tolerate the pain to get through last season.

“Did it hurt? Sometimes sure, pitching, but I’d rather go out there and compete," he said. “I was throwing well, so I couldn't just say, 'Oh, I can't pitch,' but it was manageable.”

Rodón had surgery Oct. 15 to remove loose bodies in his left elbow and shave a bone spur, then had a setback in late March when he felt tightness in his right hamstring while throwing at the Yankees’ Florida complex.

As part of his rehabilitation, he had a pair of platelet-rich plasma injections.

“The first one was early. I really remember it because it was vivid because my arm felt like it got ran over by a bus,” he said.

He reported to spring training in the mid-to-upper 250-pound range, about 10 pounds above his target, but figured the weight would come off as he readied for his return.

“I guess a happy offseason," he said with a laugh. "I enjoy food.”

Rodón made three starts during a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment that started April 24 and had a 3.38 ERA and 16 strikeouts while allowing three walks and three homers in 16 innings.

He threw 83 pitches in his last outing and will have a limit of about the same against the Brewers.

“Not as daunting as Tommy John’s surgery,” said Rodón, who had his UCL repaired in 2019. “You never want to go under the knife, for sure, but it’s good to be at the end of the road.”

Blake notices the difference in Rodón's mechanics.

“You can see there’s just a little more freedom of motion in the arm action,” he said. “It looks a little easier. It’s not as much body creating the power.”

But with that added motion, Rodón has to work to regain command.

“I’m happy with the recovery,” he said. “So just keep going.”

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

The agreement, which was approved by the union's board of directors and ratified by a vote of the membership, runs through the 2032 NFL season.

“We see this new CBA as a partnership with the league that benefits our membership but also seeks to make our game better. It is good to get these negotiations behind us so we can focus on preparing for the 2026 season,” union President Carl Cheffers said.

The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the referees association had been set to expire on May 31, and the two sides began negotiating in the summer of 2024.

The league began the onboarding process for replacement officials last month because negotiations weren’t progressing. But they won’t be necessary.

The league and the union said in a joint statement that the deal covers a wide range of issues including economics, performance and accountability.

“This agreement is a testament to the joint commitment of the league and union to invest in and improve officiating,” said Troy Vincent, NFL executive vice president of football operations. “It also speaks to the game officials’ relentless pursuit of improvement and officiating excellence. We look forward to working together for the betterment of the game.”

Detailed terms weren't released.

The NFL had sought increased access to officials in the offseason, a practice squad or bench of officials, a new formal training program and control of playoff assignments based on performance. A person with knowledge of the new deal told The Associated Press those priorities were met in the agreement. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because contract details weren't publicized.

A stalemate in 2012 resulted in a 110-day lockout and replacement referees were used.

That led to several high-profile mistakes, including the Fail Mary when Russell Wilson completed a desperation pass to Golden Tate in the closing seconds to lift Seattle over Green Bay in a Monday night game. Tate pushed off so he should’ve been penalized for offensive pass interference. He appeared to wrestle the ball away from a Packers defender and was given credit for a catch even though two officials had called it differently.

There weren’t as many glaring errors when the NFL also used replacement officials for one week of exhibition games and the opening week in 2001 before the labor dispute was resolved shortly after 9/11, and the regular officials returned in time when the season resumed following a one-week break.

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

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro were attending the April 25 event at the Washington Hilton when Cole Tomas Allen allegedly ran through a security checkpoint and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer.

In a court filing late Thursday, Allen's attorneys argued that it creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest for Blanche and Pirro to be making any prosecutorial decisions in the case.

“As this case proceeds closer to trial, the country and the world will continue to wonder — how can the American justice system permit a victim to prosecute a criminal defendant in a case involving them?” defense attorneys Eugene Ohm and Tezira Abe wrote.

Ohm and Abe, who are assistant federal public defenders, suggested that the appointment of a special prosecutor might be warranted. They urged U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee assigned to Allen's case, to disqualify Pirro, Blanche and possibly other Justice Department officials from direct involvement in the investigation and prosecution.

“Both heard gunshots, which presumably forced them to duck below the tables with the rest of the occupants. They were quickly evacuated. Shortly thereafter, they learned that law enforcement believed the target was certain administration officials,” Ohm and Abe wrote.

Pirro said her office will respond to the defense lawyers' arguments in its own court filing.

“We will not tolerate people who come to the District of Columbia to engage in antidemocratic acts of political violence; and we will prosecute all such acts to the fullest extent of the law,” Pirro said in a statement.

Allen is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on charges in an indictment handed up Tuesday by a grand jury in Washington.

The charges include attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, who is a longtime friend of Pirro. Blanche served as a personal attorney for Trump before joining the Justice Department last year.

Blanche, through a spokesperson, referred a request for comment to Pirro's office.

Allen also is charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and two additional firearms counts. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

The Secret Service officer who was shot once in a bullet-resistant vest fired his own weapon five times without hitting anybody. Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, was injured but was not shot.

South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing, U.S. prosecutors alleged.

Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages were found guilty of conspiring to kill or kidnap Haiti’s elected leader and providing material support for the plot. They were also convicted of violating the U.S. Neutrality Act and could face possible life sentences.

“These defendants pursued power, influence, and profit through violence," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones said in a statement. "They supported a conspiracy that crossed borders, destabilized a friendly nation, and ended with the murder of a sitting president. The jury has spoken, and the rule of law has answered.”

Prosecutors argued that the men had their own leader in mind and had hoped to enrich themselves with a new government.

Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince. Moïse’s wife, Martine, was wounded during the attack and flown to the U.S. for treatment. In Haiti, meanwhile, gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered.

Martine Moïse was the first witness at trial, which began in March in Miami's federal court, describing through a Creole interpreter how she awoke to the sounds of gunfire after midnight. She told jurors that she turned to her husband in bed next to her to ask what was going on.

“Honey, we are dead,” Jovenel Moïse replied, according to his wife's testimony.

Ortiz and Intriago were principals of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, and Veintemilla was a principal of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.

Christian Sanon is a dual Haitian-American citizen whom investigators say was initially favored by the conspirators to replace Moïse. Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti who coordinated with Sanon and others, officials said. Sanon will face trial at a later date.

Defense attorneys argued at trial that the investigation into the assassination was a mess and that the four were manipulated into taking blame for an internal coup. They said the men believed they had a legitimate warrant signed by a Haitian judge and that they were liberating Haiti from Moïse, who had overstayed his term as president.

At least five others have pleaded guilty in the conspiracy and are serving life sentences.

Separately, 20 people, including 17 Colombian soldiers, face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation.

Un equipo de Local 10 News estuvo la mañana del viernes en la cuadra 7900 de Southwest Seventh Court mientras los investigadores permanecían en la escena, colocando marcadores de evidencia en el suelo antes de que un Ford Mustang fuera remolcado.

La ventana del lado del conductor quedó destrozada por los disparos.

Residentes que viven en el vecindario dijeron a Local 10 News que escucharon disparos alrededor de la 1 a.m.

“Venía llegando a casa después de una larga noche”, dijo un hombre. “Llegué, me dormí y me desperté por los disparos, como si estuvieran vaciando cargadores o algo así que me despertó”.

Vendajes ensangrentados y suministros médicos fueron vistos en la escena después del incidente.

Local 10 News se comunicó con la BSO para obtener más detalles.

Vea Local 10 News o actualice esta página para conocer novedades.

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According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the shooting was reported at about 1 a.m. Friday near the 7900 block of Southwest Seventh Court.

A BSO spokeswoman said deputies arrived at the scene and found two people suffering from gunshot wounds.

North Lauderdale Fire Rescue personnel transported both victims to a local hospital, where one of them died.

A Local 10 News crew was at the scene later in the morning as investigators remained at the scene, placing evidence markers on the ground before a Ford Mustang was towed away.

The driver’s side window was blown out by bullets.

Residents who live in the neighborhood told Local 10 News that they heard the sound of gunshots around 1 a.m.

“I was coming home from a long night,” one man said. “I got home, I fell asleep and I woke up to gunshots, like they were pumping magazines or something that it woke me up.”

Bloody bandages and medical supplies were spotted at the scene after the incident.

A BSO spokeswoman said deputies later found the suspect vehicle near the 1300 block of Avocado Isle in Fort Lauderdale, where the driver was taken into custody.

The driver’s identity has not yet been released.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation.

Health officials plan careful evacuations of the more than 140 passengers and crew when the MV Hondius arrives in Tenerife this weekend.

At least three passengers have died, and several others are sick. None of the remaining passengers or crew is currently symptomatic.

The U.S. and the U.K. are arranging flights to repatriate their citizens. The World Health Organization says the risk to the wider public is low. Health authorities are tracking passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was detected.

Here's the latest:

A lot of unknowns about the illness and treatment

There is no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention can increase the chance of survival.

Despite years of research, many questions have yet to be answered, including why hantavirus infection can be mild for some people and severe for others and how antibodies are developed. Some researchers have been following patients over long periods of time in hopes of finding a treatment.

“In the Americas, hantavirus infection is very serious, but it’s also quite rare,” said Steven Bradfute, an associate professor and associate director of the Center for Global Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, which specializes in hantavirus research.

“And so for a time that probably led to less research into it because of funding priorities, but I know there’s been a lot of interest in funding hantavirus work of late,” he said.

What researchers do know is that rodent exposure is key.

The best way to avoid the germ is to minimize contact with rodents and their droppings. Use protective gloves and a bleach solution for cleaning up rodent droppings. Public health experts caution against sweeping or vacuuming, which can cause virus particles to get into the air.

Dutch woman's remains have been repatriated

South African health department spokesperson Foster Mogale told The Associated Press that the body left Johannesburg on a KLM flight on Thursday.

Posthumous tests on the woman's body came back positive for hantavirus.

Her 70-year-old husband was the first passenger to die on board the MV Hondius on April 11. His body was taken off the cruise ship in the South Atlantic Island of St. Helena on April 24, when she also disembarked to accompany it.

She traveled from St. Helena to Johannesburg on a commercial flight and was trying to take another flight home when she fell seriously ill at O.R. Tambo International Airport. She died at a nearby hospital on April 26.

She was one of dozens of cruise ship passengers who disembarked at St. Helena.

It’s unclear if her husband’s body, which remained on St. Helena, has been repatriated.

US will offer repatriation flight for Americans on board the cruise ship

The State Department says it is in direct contact with a number of American citizens on board the cruise ship and will offer them a special flight home from Tenerife when the vessel arrives there this weekend.

The department said Friday that U.S. diplomats will be available to provide consular services in Tenerife to the Americans on board and has arranged the special repatriation flight in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Spanish government.

Suspected hantavirus case on Tristan da Cunha was a ship passenger

The person suspected of having hantavirus on the island of Tristan da Cunha was a passenger on the cruise ship that had an outbreak of the disease, the British Foreign Office said.

A British government official indicated the patient was an island resident and was hospitalized but did not say how they may have come in contact with the virus.

Stephen Doughty, the U.K. minister of overseas territories, said in a message sent to the remote British overseas territory that his thoughts were with “the islander currently in hospital and their spouse who is isolating.”

The Foreign Office would not provide additional details, and emails from the AP seeking additional information from Tristan da Cunha officials were not returned.

Infections have been fairly uncommon

Hantavirus infections are relatively uncommon globally. The WHO reported that in 2025, eight countries within the Americas had documented 229 cases and 59 deaths.

Argentina’s health ministry said hantavirus led to 28 deaths nationwide last year. The ministry on Tuesday reported 101 hantavirus infections since June 2025, roughly double the caseload recorded over the same period the previous year.

In the U.S., federal health officials began tracking the virus after a 1993 outbreak in the Four Corners region — the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet. It was an astute physician with the Indian Health Service who first noticed a pattern of deaths among young patients.

Most U.S. cases are in Western states. New Mexico and Arizona are hot spots, likely because the odds are greater for mouse-human encounters in rural areas.

This outbreak may have come from Argentina

Detailed investigations of the cruise ship outbreak are ongoing, notably to determine its source.

Investigators in Argentina suspect that the cases were initially contracted during a birdwatching trip in Ushuaia, at the country’s southern tip, two officials told AP.

Argentina has seen a surge of hantavirus cases that many local public health researchers attribute to climate change.

Officials have found evidence of Andes virus, a version of hantavirus found in South America.

What to know about hantavirus

The virus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. Hantaviruses have been around for centuries and are thought to exist around the world.

But global health officials say the risk to the general public remains low because the germ does not easily spread between people.

“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”

The disease gained renewed attention last year after the late actor Gene Hackman ’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico.

International effort to trace passengers spans four continents

Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They are also trying to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, the ship’s operator and Dutch officials said Thursday.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the World Health Organization said.

The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill. She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.

The cruise passenger briefly aboard the flight — a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship — was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe. She was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.

US and Britain to repatriate citizens when ship reaches Spanish island

The MV Hondius is expected to reach Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, on Saturday or Sunday.

Passengers “will arrive at a completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” said Virginia Barcones, Spain’s head of emergency services, on Thursday.

The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged vessel and Dutch officials said Friday they were also in close contact with the ship’s owner and authorities of countries whose citizens are on board.

The United States has agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to repatriate its 17 citizens from the cruise ship, Barcones said. The British government also said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British citizens on board.

La alcaldesa Eileen Higgins y el administrador de la ciudad James Reyes anunciaron el nombramiento del actual jefe del Departamento de Policía de Doral, Edwin Lopez, para reemplazar al jefe Manny Morales, quien se jubila.

En un comunicado de prensa emitido el viernes, Higgins describió a Lopez como “un líder surgido en casa, servidor público dedicado y veterano de 28 años que ha pasado su carrera sirviendo a nuestra comunidad con profesionalismo e integridad”.

En el mismo comunicado, Reyes dijo que Lopez “aporta un historial excepcional de liderazgo, un profundo compromiso con la transparencia y un enfoque comprobado de policía comunitaria que ha ganado la confianza de las comunidades donde ha servido”.

Lopez fue nombrado jefe del DPD en 2023 después de desempeñarse como jefe del Departamento de Policía Escolar de Miami-Dade, donde ascendió de rango durante más de dos décadas.

En una declaración por separado, la alcaldesa de Doral, Christi Fraga, calificó a Lopez como un “líder excepcional” y dijo que “realmente lo extrañaremos aquí en Doral”.

“Durante su tiempo en la ciudad, fortaleció nuestro departamento, apoyó a nuestros oficiales y ayudó a construir una base sólida que nos posiciona bien para el futuro”, dijo. “Su impacto se sentirá mucho después de su partida”.

Funcionarios de Miami dijeron que Lopez “asumirá el cargo más adelante este año” mientras Morales se jubila.

El juicio comenzó el 8 de marzo dentro del Tribunal Federal Wilkie D. Ferguson y, después de más de dos meses de testimonios, los jurados declararon culpables a los cuatro acusados de la mayoría de los cargos.

Los fiscales dicen que los hombres ayudaron a planificar y apoyar la operación que llevó al asesinato de Moïse dentro de su casa cerca de Puerto Príncipe el 7 de julio de 2021.

Antonio Intriago, propietario de una empresa de seguridad del sur de Florida, fue declarado culpable de casi todos los cargos en su contra, incluidos cargos de conspiración relacionados con el complot.

Pero los jurados lo declararon no culpable del séptimo cargo de la acusación, un cargo de conspiración para matar o secuestrar a una persona fuera de Estados Unidos.

Los otros acusados, incluidos Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Walter Veintemilla y James Solages, también fueron declarados culpables de múltiples cargos.

Varios miembros de la comunidad haitiano-estadounidense del sur de Florida también llenaron la corte durante todo el juicio y muchos dijeron estar encantados de que el jurado alcanzara un veredicto después de años esperando respuestas.

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Police in Alice Town said the incident happened Thursday afternoon, about 17 miles off Bimini aboard a 61-foot sport fishing vessel named Great Lakes.

Police said they were notified shortly after 3 p.m. and contacted the U.S. Coast Guard.

They said officers with the Royal Bahamas Police Force and members of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force responded to the area and located the boat northwest of North Bimini around 4:30 p.m.

Authorities said six men were aboard the gold-colored boat when officers discovered one man had suffered severe injuries to his right leg.

Investigators said the group had been diving when the victim reportedly became entangled in the boat’s propeller.

After discussions between Bahamian police, the boat captain and the U.S. Coast Guard, officials determined the boat should head to Miami — about 38 miles away — so the injured man could receive emergency medical treatment.

Police later learned the man, who has not yet been identified, died from his injuries while the boat was en route to the United States.

UCCG officials told Local 10 News that a Fort Lauderdale rescue crew assisted in the incident and that the diver was brought back ashore, where he was pronounced dead by the local medical examiner’s office.

No other details about the investigation were immediately released.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami filed a civil denaturalization complaint Thursday that would complete the Colombian-born Rocha's fall from grace, stripping him of the citizenship he attained after moving to New York City at age 10 with his widowed mother and two siblings.

Rocha, 75, was arrested in late 2023 and later sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after admitting he worked for decades as a secret agent for communist Cuba. He was secretly recorded by an undercover FBI agent praising Fidel Castro as “El Comandante” and bragging about his work for Cuba’s communist government, calling it “more than a grand slam” against the U.S. “enemy.”

The plea to 15 federal counts averted a trial that would have shed new light on what, exactly, Rocha did to help Cuba even as he held prestigious State Department postings such as ambassador to Bolivia and top posts in Argentina, Mexico, the White House and the U.S. It’s not even clear when federal prosecutors first suspected Rocha was spying for Cuba.

As part of his plea agreement, Rocha acknowledged that he first connected with Cuban intelligence agents in 1973 — five years before applying for U.S. citizenship — while attending a student program in Chile at the end of socialist President Salvador Allende's rule. Shortly after, at the direction of Havana, he enrolled in master's programs at Harvard and Georgetown Universities on his way to getting hired by the U.S. State Department.

The government generally faces a high burden of proof in revoking citizenship, as federal law requires prosecutors to show convincing evidence that an individual attained citizenship illegally or procured naturalization by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”

Prosecutors alleged in court filings that Rocha lied under oath that he “believed in the U.S. Constitution” and had no affiliation with the Communist Party of Cuba while applying for citizenship in 1978.

“The Southern District of Florida helped take down one of the most prolific Cuban spies ever uncovered in the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida. “This civil denaturalization case is about finishing the job.”

The Justice Department has significantly increased its focus on denaturalization cases in recent years, and last year issued an internal memo to prosecutors directing them to prioritize cases against people who “pose a potential danger to national security,” including those involving terrorism and espionage.

The Trump administration moved this week to denaturalize 11 other people accused of crimes, including child sexual abuse and providing material support to terrorists. The denaturalization process was used in only about a dozen cases per year between 1990 and 2017.

An Associated Press investigation into Rocha found several red flags overlooked along the way, including a warning that one longtime CIA operative received nearly two decades ago that Rocha was working as a double agent. Separate intelligence revealed the CIA had been aware as early as 1987 that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had a “super mole” burrowed deep inside the U.S. government, and some officials suspected it could have been Rocha.

Over the past two years, the FBI, U.S. State Department and CIA have been working to decipher the case’s biggest missing piece: exactly what the longtime diplomat may have given up to Cuba. Rocha spent the first several months of his imprisonment being debriefed by federal officials, but it's not clear what new information was gleaned from those sessions.

The massive fines came a day after the midfielders tussled when the team trained. Valverde said in a post on social media on Thursday that no punches were thrown. But Valverde knocked his head on a table and he suffered a small cut that required a brief hospital visit.

On social media, Valverde initially called it a “meaningless fight” with a teammate and said “everything has been blown out of proportion."

His employers, however, considered it a significant enough breach of team discipline to nail both Valverde and Tchouaméni with fines that bite even the bank account of a top soccer player. The half-a-million euro penalties reflect the reputational damage the club was enduring in a chaotic end to a disappointing season.

In a statement, the 15-time European champion said its disciplinary action was concluded after both players expressed to the club “their complete remorse for what happened and apologized to one another.”

Madrid added they also apologized to their teammates, the coaching staff and club supporters, as well as showing their willingness to accept whatever disciplinary action the club deemed “opportune.”

Tchouaméni was back training with Madrid on Friday, two days before they play at Barcelona in a clasico. Madrid has to win otherwise Barcelona will be crowned La Liga champion.

After being notified of the fine, he posted a public apology to the club and its fans on social media.

“What happened this week in training is unacceptable,” Tchouaméni wrote. "I say this while thinking about the example we are expected to set for young people, whether in football or at school.

“Above all, I am sorry for the image we projected of the club.”

Valverde was not at practice due to the head knock.

Both players are set to play in the World Cup next month, with Tchouaméni playing for France and Valverde for Uruguay.

Chaotic end to a poor season

The run-in between the players, who for seasons have played side by side in Madrid's midfield, came after they argued this week in previous training sessions. But tempers boiled over on Thursday. Spanish media was rife with reports that the players previously disagreed over the club's decision to let coach Xabi Alonso go after just months on the job.

It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training this week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.

Álvaro Arbeloa, the coach who was promoted from Madrid's reserve team when Alonso was fired in January, will face tough questions on what went wrong inside the changing room when he gives a press conference on Saturday ahead of the clasico at Camp Nou.

Madrid is facing a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy amid rumors in the Spanish media that club president Florentino Pérez is considering bringing back Jose Mourinho to straighten out his underperforming team.

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

The Social Security Administration annually tracks the names given to girls and boys in each state, with lists dating back to 1880. And just in time for Mother’s Day, the agency on Friday released the most popular names from applications for Social Security cards.

Based on cultural and demographic trends, the list shows how names can rise and fall in popularity.

Charlotte climbed to second place among girls, ending Emma’s six-year run in the runner-up slot. Ava slipped out of the Top 10 and was replaced by Eliana.

On the boys’ side, the top four names — Liam, Noah, Oliver and Theodore — held their places.

Top 10 boy names of 2025

1. Liam

2. Noah

3. Oliver

4. Theodore

5. Henry

6. James

7. Elijah

8. Mateo

9. William

10. Lucas

Top 10 girl names of 2025

1. Olivia

2. Charlotte

3. Emma

4. Amelia

5. Sophia

6. Mia

7. Isabella

8. Evelyn

9. Sofia

10. Eliana

The fastest-rising baby names — the names growing in popularity — include the boys’ name Kasai, meaning “fire” in Japanese and Swahili, which surged 1,108 spots to enter the top 1,000 for the first time. For girls, the name Klarity, a misspelling of the word “clarity," led all risers, up 1,396 spots into the top 1,000.

The top male names that have decreased in popularity are Karim, Khaza, Khai and Landen. Girl names Aubrie, Cattleya, Jaycee and Zendaya declined the most in popularity over the last year.

The Social Security Administration’s latest data show that 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2025. That’s a slight decrease from 3.61 million babies the year before.

The complete, searchable list of baby names is on the Social Security website.

La portavoz de la policía de Hollywood, Deanna Bettineschi, identificó al conductor como Tyrell Anton Thomas, de 30 años, quien era buscado en relación con una balacera.

Bettineschi dijo que Thomas estuvo involucrado en una discusión con un par de víctimas en la playa en Douglas Street alrededor de las 7 p.m. del jueves.

Dijo que luego tomó un arma de fuego de su vehículo, regresó a la playa y disparó contra dos personas.

Luego regresó a su automóvil y amenazó a una tercera víctima, dijo Bettineschi.

Las víctimas no resultaron heridas en la balacera.

Bettineschi dijo que Thomas huyó de los agentes que detectaron su vehículo, pero se negó a detenerse.

“De repente, vi las patrullas en el horizonte, persiguiéndolo. Luego vi a quién perseguían, este automóvil negro”, dijo el testigo Chris Coletti.

Los testigos dijeron que el conductor luego intentó girar hacia Hallandale Beach Boulevard mientras iba en dirección contraria.

“Hizo el giro probablemente a más de 50 millas por hora, y el automóvil no giró”, dijo Coletti. “Saltó el separador y chocó contra esos vehículos”.

Bettineschi confirmó que Thomas chocó su automóvil en South Ocean Drive y Hallandale Beach Boulevard y fue detenido después de una breve persecución a pie.

Enfrenta múltiples cargos, incluidos intento de asesinato, agresión agravada con arma de fuego, posesión de arma de fuego por un delincuente convicto, uso de máscara o cubierta facial durante la comisión de un delito grave, huir y evadir a la policía, abandonar la escena de un accidente y resistirse al arresto.

Hasta la mañana del viernes, permanecía detenido en la cárcel principal del condado Broward sin derecho a fianza.

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Hollywood police spokeswoman Deanna Bettineschi identified the driver as 30-year-old Tyrell Anton Thomas, who was wanted in connection with a shooting.

Bettineschi said Thomas was involved in an argument with a couple of victims on the beach at Douglas Street at about 7 p.m. Thursday.

She said he then grabbed a gun from his vehicle, returned to the beach and fired at two people.

He then returned to his car and threatened a third victim, Bettineschi said.

The victims were not injured in the shooting.

Bettineschi said Thomas fled from officers who spotted his vehicle, but he refused to stop.

“All of a sudden, I saw the cop cars on the horizon, chasing (him). Then I saw who they were chasing, this black car,” witness Chris Coletti said.

Witnesses said the driver then tried turning onto Hallandale Beach Boulevard while going the wrong direction.

“He made the turn going probably over 50 miles an hour, and the car didn’t turn,” Coletti said. “It jumped over the median and hit those cars.”

Bettineschi confirmed that Thomas crashed his car at South Ocean Drive and Hallandale Beach Boulevard and was taken into custody after a short foot pursuit.

He faces multiple charges, including attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, wearing a mask or face covering in the commission of a felony, fleeing and eluding, leaving the scene of a crash and resisting arrest.

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

The image released this week depicts the Messier 77 galaxy 45 million light-years away in the Cetus, or whale, constellation. A light year is about 6 trillion miles.

The galaxy’s active nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole that’s 8 million times more massive than the sun. Surrounding gas is sucked into a tight orbit around the black hole, becoming so hot that it radiates in the extreme. Webb’s mid-infrared instrument captured the stunning details.

The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope has been photographing the cosmos since launching in 2021.

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

A National Theatre production has landed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music starring Hiran Abeysekera. There’s a movie version set in London’s South Asian community starring Riz Ahmed. Anthony Hopkins, at 88, is delighting fans on TikTok with some of Prince Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy. The movie “Hamnet” — the fictionalized story of loss that inspired the creation of “Hamlet” — earned Jessie Buckley an Oscar. Taylor Swift's “The Fate of Ophelia” — that's Hamlet's ex — went to No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. Eddie Izzard is taking her one-person production of the play on a worldwide tour.

Four hundred years on, “Hamlet” — whose seemingly quite modern antihero is endlessly mulling over what to do after his uncle murdered his father and married his mother — is still giving.

Want even more? There’s even a “Hamnet” play, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s original novel, and the Royal Shakespeare Company is taking it on a U.K. tour. Shakespeare & Company will stage a “Hamlet” this August in the Berkshires. There’s a Canadian production of “Hamlet, Sweet Prince,” using a queer, contemporary lens. The Acting Company in New York will have a modern-verse version led by a woman, and the Peruvian theater company Teatro La Plaza recently presented a version off-Broadway starring eight Spanish-speaking actors with Down syndrome.

Harvard's Jeffrey R. Wilson, a Shakespeare scholar, says “Hamlet” is perfect for our era, when the crush of bad news has triggered constant, existential check-ins, like: “Hey, how’s everyone hanging in there?”

“People are exhausted from the onslaught of awfulness in the world,” he says, “and ‘Hamlet’ gives audiences both permission to ‘go there’ to explore those emotions and a tool kit of ideas to help us process angst.”

A neurodiverse ‘Hamlet’

The plethora of works are markedly vibrant and fresh, from the Hamlet in Brooklyn who wears a beanie to the one who enjoys Bollywood-style dances in London.

“Great plays survive not because they remain untouched, but because they can continue to be transformed,” says director and playwright Chela De Ferrari, from Teatro La Plaza, whose neurodiverse “Hamlet” is a visceral and urgent call from those often excluded from cultural narratives.

“Working with actors with Down syndrome and cognitive disabilities brought me back to something essential in ‘Hamlet’: that beneath its philosophical brilliance there is an exposed human being asking, in one way or another, how to exist in a world that keeps misreading him,” she said.

In one of the show’s most potent moments, an actor attempts to imitate Laurence Olivier’s delivery of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy with an image of the famous actor projected on a screen. It takes on a new urgency when spoken by someone whose very right to be in public or artistic spaces is often questioned.

“I like to imagine a kind of continuity between our actors and all the great actors who have carried the play before. I believe Shakespeare lives in all of them,” says De Ferrari.

Shakespeare in a BMW

On school trips to see Shakespeare plays, filmmaker Aneil Karia always felt like they were an arm's length away.

“I felt like I was primarily watching an intellectual experience unfold and I had to use my brain to keep up with the plot and the language and everything like that,” he says.

He teamed up with Ahmed and screenwriter Michael Lesslie for a stripped-down, modern-day retelling of “Hamlet” that leans into the title character's unease at being complicit in a corrupt business system.

“That feels so pertinent to the moment we’re in politically and everything. It feels like the question a lot of people are asking,” says Karia. “It feels like these stories are actually a conversation through time itself.”

Hamlet here parties at a neon-drenched nightclub and delivers his soliloquy while hurtling down rain-slicked London streets in a BMW, taking his hands off the wheel as a truck approaches head-on. To be, or not to be, indeed.

“The best best-case scenario here is that it’s opening up Shakespeare to audiences who didn’t think it was for them, or who struggled with it previously,” says Karia, whose film starts streaming Tuesday. “This is a big call, but I feel like Shakespeare would approve. I feel his whole thing was like, ‘Take this stuff and do your thing.’”

A more clownish prince

The “Hamlet” in Brooklyn leans into the humor of the play for one good reason: The guy playing Hamlet is naturally funny.

Abeysekera is manic and mischievous as he pulls out the play's physical humor, addressing the audience directly in his soliloquies, sometimes sitting at the edge of the stage and making eye contact.

“It’s a very self-aware play. It sort of really knows that it’s a play, if that makes any kind of sense,” says director Robert Hastie. “Hamlet knows he’s in a play called ‘Hamlet,’ like Deadpool knows he is in a film called ‘Deadpool.’”

Abeysekera tackles his “To be, or not to be” speech as an errant thought, a wisp of an idea, instead of the traditional foot-planted, actor-y, big-thing-coming approach.

“Rather than thinking, ‘Oh, here’s the big speech coming up and that's freaking me out,’ I started thinking, ‘It’s such a thought that most of us kind of have,’” he says. “Sometimes, in front of the mirror, we just see ourselves and go, ‘Oof. Today’s a tough day.’”

Hastie believes “Hamlet” is one of those works that reveals something new all the time. Grounded in the human condition, it speaks fresh things to each audience and we discover new things that have always been there.

“One of the reasons I think why we’re still talking about Shakespeare, and this play in particular, is that whenever those words fuse with a new actor or a new group of actors, it becomes a different play,” he says. “Maybe that’s a good working definition of a classic.”

An extremely online bard

Caitlin Cardile is doing her best to keep the 400-year-old playwright alive in the TikTok era. She and her three-person troupe Mad Spirits Theatre Company are on virtually every social media platform spreading the word.

“We wanted to bring Shakespeare to a modern audience and make it understandable,” Cardile says. “We want people to feel more comfortable with Shakespeare and not think that it’s old English and such a hard thing to understand.”

They post live readings and commentary of the plays on YouTube but it's on Instagram and TikTok where the true coolness starts. They find trending audio snippets — of everything from dialogue on “The Office” to a Lady Gaga song — and assign a Shakespeare character to say them.

So Kitty Forman's popular line “I may have been a little irrational today” from “That '70s Show” is lipsynced by an actor playing Ophelia. A section of dialogue between Scar and Simba from “The Lion King” is put in the mouths of actors playing Claudius and Hamlet.

“We’re like, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we took these silly trending sounds that everybody’s doing and what if we put them to Shakespeare characters?'” says Cardile. “This has ended up being so much fun.”

The 33-year-old Heinicke posted a goodbye message on social media Thursday in which he thanked supporters from his seven NFL seasons. He also spent time with Minnesota, New England, Houston, Carolina, Atlanta and the Los Angeles Chargers.

He was best known for his Washington tenure, which included a 7-8 record over 15 starts in 2021. His time with the team started when he was signed to the practice squad in December 2020 as an emergency quarterback. He was separated from the other three QBs in case any of them tested positive for COVID-19 and couldn’t play.

Heinicke had been sleeping on his sister’s couch in Atlanta and taking online classes to complete a degree at Old Dominion when Washington called. His previous stop had been as a backup in the XFL in 2019.

He ended up starting for Washington a month after his arrival, throwing for 306 yards and a touchdown and running for a score in a 31-23 playoff loss to Tom Brady and Tampa Bay. It was enough to earn him a full-time job the following year.

“Many ups and downs throughout the years, but the ups outweigh the downs tenfold,” Heinicke wrote. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would’ve been able to live this life. … Excited for this next chapter of my life.”

Heinicke played one season for Atlanta after leaving Washington and one in Los Angeles in 2024. The Chargers released him last August, and he went unsigned. He played four games with the Chargers in 2024 and attempted five passes.

Heinicke started 30 NFL games, including that playoff loss, and threw for 6,969 yards with 40 TDs and 29 interceptions during his career. He also ran for three scores.

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Funcionarios del South Florida Wildlife Center confirmaron esta semana en redes sociales que equipos ya comenzaron “reparaciones críticas y mantenimiento preventivo” tras el incidente.

La directora ejecutiva del South Florida Wildlife Center, Stacey Price, escribió en una publicación de Facebook el martes que el equipo de la instalación respondió rápidamente después de descubrir los daños causados por termitas.

“Gracias a la rápida respuesta de nuestro equipo, nuestros animales, empleados y voluntarios están seguros y actualmente operamos bajo protocolos de contingencia”, escribió.

A pesar de la interrupción, la organización dijo que sus más de 500 pacientes animales actuales continúan recibiendo atención sin interrupciones.

Funcionarios añadieron que empleados y voluntarios se han “adaptado rápidamente a los cambios temporales” mientras partes de la clínica permanecen cerradas para evaluación y reparación.

Durante los últimos dos días, la organización indicó que se ha enfocado en la seguridad, evaluar el alcance de los daños y reorganizar las operaciones para minimizar el impacto en el cuidado continuo de la vida silvestre. Dijeron que la recepción de nuevos animales fue desviada temporalmente a instalaciones asociadas.

Price señaló que el centro opera en su ubicación actual desde 1969 y dijo que el incidente resalta los desafíos de mantener una instalación envejecida mientras continúan realizando labores de rehabilitación de vida silvestre que salvan vidas. Indicó que los planes para una nueva instalación están en desarrollo, pero aún faltan varios años para concretarse.

“Incluso en tiempos de interrupción, nuestra misión no se detiene”, escribió Price, agradeciendo el apoyo de empleados, voluntarios y organizaciones asociadas.

Se espera que los equipos continúen las reparaciones en los próximos días mientras el centro mantiene operaciones modificadas.

Se lanzó una página de donaciones a través de la página de Facebook de SFWC para ayudar a restaurar espacios críticos de la clínica y apoyar el cuidado continuo de animales silvestres heridos y huérfanos.

Aquí hay una lista de otros lugares donde llevar animales heridos:

• Pelican Harbor
• Sawgrass Nature Center
• Crow Clinic

Enlace relacionado: Comisión de Conservación de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de Florida sobre vida silvestre herida y huérfana

La periodista digital de Local 10 Andrea Torres contribuyó a esta historia.

Mediante tres resoluciones emitidas la noche del jueves, la Comunidad Andina dio respuesta a las demandas que habían interpuesto ambos países.

Acerca de la tasa vigente del 75% impuesta por Ecuador a las importaciones colombianas, dijo que “vulnera el Programa de Liberación de la Comunidad Andina” y calificó como una “restricción al comercio subregional” la habilitación exclusiva del puente fronterizo de Rumichaca como único ingreso para las mercancías colombianas.

También los aranceles recíprocos aplicados por Colombia a Ecuador fueron considerados “un gravamen” por lo que recaen en la misma falta, indicó el organismo.

El Programa de Liberación de Bienes en la subregión andina contempla un área de libre comercio para que los bienes originarios de los países miembros circulen libremente sin pagar aranceles.

El presidente colombiano Gustavo Petro reaccionó a la medida la noche viernes. “No tengo ningún problema en retirar los aranceles a productos de Ecuador”, señaló en la red social X. La cancillería ecuatoriana respondió en un chat de periodistas que la “resolución está siendo analizada”.

La guerra comercial entre ambos países se desató a inicios de año luego de que Ecuador fijó aranceles del 30% —que luego pasaron al 50% y finalmente al 75%— a las importaciones procedentes de Colombia, a la que acusa de no custodiar la zona limítrofe.

En respuesta, Colombia impuso tasas recíprocas a los bienes ecuatorianos, aunque no en la misma proporción.

La tensión llegó al plano político tras un cruce de acusaciones entre los mandatarios ecuatoriano Daniel Noboa y su par colombiano que derivó en el llamado a consultas de los embajadores en Quito y Bogotá.

En uno de los últimos episodios de la discordia, Noboa acusó a Petro, sin exponer pruebas, de tener supuestos nexos con grupos políticos relacionados con el líder narcotraficante alias “Fito”, extraditado a Estados Unidos, lo cual fue negado por el gobernante colombiano.

Previamente Petro llamó “preso político” al exvicepresidente ecuatoriano Jorge Glas, quien cumple prisión por casos de corrupción y al que concedió la nacionalidad colombiana. Noboa rechazó las declaraciones que, dijo, atentan contra la soberanía de su país.

Elizabeth Polo was in a creative writing class at the University of Maryland late Thursday afternoon when a classmate shouted, “Canvas got hacked.” A message from a hacking collective flashed on her computer screen.

“Our whole class just like was like freaking out about it,” said Polo, a junior. “Our poor professor was trying to get everyone to calm down but it was just kind of chaos.”

Across academia, the outage set off panic and confusion as students and faculty members found themselves locked out of a platform they rely on to manage grades and access course notes and assignments. Colleges scrambled to reschedule final exams as students lost any way to access materials they needed to study.

Instructure, the company behind Canvas, said in an update late Thursday that the system was available for most users.

“Instructure discovered the unauthorized actor involved in our ongoing security incident made changes to the pages that appeared when some students and teachers were logged in,” Instructure said Friday in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we immediately took Canvas offline to contain access and further investigate.”

Instructure also said it confirmed that the unauthorized actor exploited an issue related to its Free-For-Teacher accounts. The company has temporarily shut down those accounts.

Instructure did not say whether it paid a ransom nor has it said what happened with the compromised data.

Rich in digitized data, the nation’s schools are prime targets for far-flung criminal hackers, who are assiduously locating and scooping up sensitive files that not long ago were committed to paper in locked cabinets. Past attacks have hit Minneapolis Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Hackers breached data days before the outage

A hacking group called ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. The hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed, Connolly said.

The message that flashed on Polo's computer screen urged individual schools to reach out directly to the hacking group to negotiate a settlement and threatened to leak data if they didn’t. She said that Canvas later took that message down, replacing it with a message saying the site was undergoing scheduled maintenance.

Just before 1 a.m. Friday, Polo was able to submit an assignment on Canvas, but she now worries personal data has been compromised.

Canvas went down just as deadlines were hitting

The outage happened just as a deadline arrived for semester-long projects in one of Gwyneth Doland’s journalism classes at the University of New Mexico.

“They were a little hyperventilating,” recalled Doland, who extended the deadlines. “None of these platforms are fail-proof. I’m glad that they got that lesson.”

That the attack came with finals looming came as no surprise to Huseyin Can Yuceel, the security research lead at Picus Labs.

“Timing is everything, because they want to inflict pain as much as possible,” he said, “so they can extort money out of it.”

Teachers said they had to find workarounds to help students study for exams and submit final assignments. Some schools, such as the University of Texas at San Antonio, announced they were pushing back finals scheduled for Friday in response to the outage.

Rod Uzat, a professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Texas Permian Basin, pushed back the posting of grades by a day.

“The concern is for those of us who were doing the grading if there’s anything left,” Uzat said.

Rhongho Jang, a computer science professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, was finalizing grades for a class of 94 students when the system went down. He keeps paper copies of the student exams, but all of the semester assignments, which make up half of the final grade, are done online.

If those assignments and grades could not be recovered, Jang would have given his students full credit.

“I didn’t want to penalize them,” he said. “We cannot judge based on the data we don’t have. The final responsibility is still on the server.”

A reliance on tech makes schools vulnerable

The breach underscored how much schools depend on outside companies' digital platforms to keep their operations running.

“What it boils down to is concentration risk,” said Joseph Blankenship, a vice president and research director at Forrester. He said any space, including education, is particularly vulnerable when there’s only one or maybe two key providers hosting essential technology.

Allan Liska, of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said the outage did appear deliberate, not a glitch, and that Instructure was trying to figure out how widespread the problem was and make sure the hackers were no longer inside its system.

“There’s no indication at this point that any ransom has been paid,” Liska said. “And it likely is still a little too early for a ransom to have been paid. You know, normally these negotiations kind of drag on for a while.”

Connolly described ShinyHunters as a loose affiliation of teenagers and young adults based in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The group also has been tied to other attacks, including Live Nation’s Ticketmaster subsidiary. ShinyHunters posted online that it was not commenting on the Canvas incident.

ShinyHunters, or an offshoot, also was behind a previous smaller breach of Instructure, Liska said. Sometimes small breaches reveal weaknesses that threat actors later exploit in future leaks, said Yuceel, who likened it to a leak in a boat.

“You fixed it, but you already have the water in the boat,” he said.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the cybersecurity company to Emsisoft, not Emisoft. ___

Associated Press writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips contributed to this report.

___

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

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Carlos Delamo said someone dragged his 320-pound pig, Harold, out of its pen and beat it to death overnight Friday.

“We found Harold laid out in the pen,” Delamo said while showing the area behind his property where the pig lived.

Delamo said two people went to care for the three pigs he owns Friday morning when they discovered Harold dead.

“It was just cruel and a terrible way to find him,” he said.

According to Delamo, it appears someone jumped the fence, forced Harold out of the pen and attacked the animal.

“What we assume happened is somebody jumped the fence and pushed Harold out of his pen and we can see by the hematomas on his side and on the top side, they basically kicked him to death,” he said.

Delamo said he initially did not want to involve law enforcement because he did not want to waste police resources over a pig. But neighbors urged him to report it because of concerns about whoever may have been responsible.

“They really do need psychological help because the reality is to do something so brutal and heinous is unbelievable,” Delamo said.

The killing has also raised concerns about safety in the neighborhood.

Delamo said he is now taking additional security measures, including keeping the pig pen locked at all times and installing 10 security cameras around the property.

“As a community, we don’t want anyone here that is capable of doing it,” he said. “And we’re going to do everything as a community to prevent it from happening in the future.”

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said the case is under investigation and is asking anyone with information to come forward.

Carlos Delamo dijo que alguien sacó a rastras a su cerdo de 320 libras, Harold, de su corral y lo golpeó hasta matarlo durante la noche del viernes.

“Encontramos a Harold tendido en el corral”, dijo Delamo mientras mostraba el área detrás de su propiedad donde vivía el cerdo.

Delamo dijo que dos personas fueron la mañana del viernes a cuidar a los tres cerdos que posee cuando descubrieron a Harold muerto.

“Fue simplemente cruel y una forma terrible de encontrarlo”, dijo.

Según Delamo, parece que alguien saltó la cerca, sacó a Harold del corral y atacó al animal.

“Lo que asumimos que ocurrió es que alguien saltó la cerca y sacó a Harold de su corral y podemos ver por los hematomas en su costado y en la parte superior que básicamente lo patearon hasta matarlo”, dijo.

Delamo dijo que inicialmente no quería involucrar a las autoridades porque no quería desperdiciar recursos policiales por un cerdo. Pero los vecinos lo instaron a reportarlo debido a preocupaciones sobre quien pudiera ser responsable.

“Realmente necesitan ayuda psicológica porque la realidad es que hacer algo tan brutal y atroz es increíble”, dijo Delamo.

La muerte también ha generado preocupaciones sobre la seguridad en el vecindario.

Delamo dijo que ahora está tomando medidas de seguridad adicionales, incluyendo mantener el corral cerrado con llave en todo momento e instalar 10 cámaras de seguridad alrededor de la propiedad.

“Como comunidad, no queremos a nadie aquí que sea capaz de hacer esto”, dijo. “Y vamos a hacer todo como comunidad para evitar que vuelva a ocurrir en el futuro”.

La Oficina del Sheriff del Condado Palm Beach indicó que el caso está bajo investigación y pide a cualquier persona con información que se presente.

Ben Stiller attracted a crowd at halftime, and Tracy Morgan cheered for another Knicks win, too.

No this wasn't Celebrity Row at Madison Square Garden.

The Hollywood A-listers — and yes, just your average Knicks fans — crashed Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Friday night to watch New York beat the 76ers 108-94.

Oh, it wasn't all orange and blue and well-heeled celebrities in Philadelphia.

The Sixers still boasted the bulk of the fans — though there was a sizable contingent of Knicks supporters — and the spirited crowd included fans who received tickets donated by the franchise to community groups in the Sixers' latest attempt to keep more of their own fans in the building and avoid a New York takeover.

Lee gleefully reminisced about the time he saw the Knicks win their first NBA championship on May 8, 1970 — exactly 56 years earlier.

Most of the Knicks fans were just happy to get a chance to travel roughly 90 miles south of MSG to Xfinity Mobile Arena — no matter how hard the Sixers tried to shoo them away.

The Sixers had already tried to ward off Knicks fans in this playoff series through Ticketmaster by geographically restricting sales to fans in the greater Philadelphia area.

Knicks fan Lenny Rakhmanov of Brooklyn had a workaround to the geo-fencing barrier.

He phoned a friend.

“I bought my tickets off Ticketmaster,” he said. “I did have trouble. I have a friend in Philly and he got the tickets for me and sent them to me through Ticketmaster. They told me while I was trying to make the purchase from my office in New York, you had to be a Philly resident to purchase the tickets.”

Rakhmanov said he spent $800 per ticket for three seats in Section 123, and brought his 11- and 8-year-old sons.

“I can't even believe that they're trying to keep fans out,” he said. “It's part of sports. If their team was on the road, and they were up in the series, and they wanted their fans in the building, why would they want to stop that?”

The Sixers said 250 medical workers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine and 250 local educators selected by Learn Fresh, Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, the Philadelphia school district and Camden, New Jersey, school district would attend Game 3 on Friday night.

The 76ers plan to host 500 mothers and children selected by Uplift Center for Grieving Children, Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia, La Liga del Barrio and Apologues for Sunday's Game 4.

The Knicks lead the series 3-0 and can advance to the conference finals by winning Game 4 on Sunday.

Mikal Bridges, a Philadelphia native who starred at Villanova, scored 23 points for the Knicks in front of a loud cheering section.

“I spent a lot of money,” Bridges said. “I think my friends and family are pretty grateful.”

When the teams met two years ago in the first round, Knicks fans swarmed Philadelphia, and Sixers All-Star center Joel Embiid pleaded with fans ahead of this series not to let it happen again.

“Last time we played the Knicks it felt like this was Madison Square Garden East. So we’re going to need the support,” Embiid said. “Don’t sell your tickets. This is bigger than you. We need you guys. The atmosphere we’ve had the last couple games in Philly, especially the last one pushing it to Game 7, I mean, we need all of it.”

Embiid was booed when he went to the free-throw line in the first half, and Knicks fans roared when he missed the shot.

Moments later, Jalen Brunson went to the free-throw line and “MVP!” chants were quickly muffled by Sixers fans who booed the former Villanova standout.

It was that kind of night.

On the resale market, SeatGeek said buyers from New York and Pennsylvania were nearly even, with 27% of tickets sold to New York billing addresses and 26% to Pennsylvania buyers. Another 21% were from New Jersey, suggesting that Knicks fans were slightly more motivated to get to the game.

For Sunday’s Game 4, the New York share ticks up a bit further: 33% for New York vs. 17% for Pennsylvania.

Former Sixers standout Marc Jackson visited Camden’s Pride Elementary School ahead of the game and surprised teachers with Game 3 tickets.

That seemed like a big win, no matter which team fans rooted for in Philly.

___

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La Policía en Alice Town indicó que el incidente ocurrió la tarde del jueves, a unas 17 millas de Bimini, a bordo de una embarcación de pesca deportiva de 61 pies llamada Great Lakes.

La Policía informó que fue notificada poco después de las 3 p.m. y se comunicó con la Guardia Costera de Estados Unidos.

Indicaron que agentes de la Real Fuerza Policial de Bahamas y miembros de la Fuerza de Defensa Real de Bahamas respondieron al área y localizaron la embarcación al noroeste de North Bimini alrededor de las 4:30 p.m.

Las autoridades dijeron que seis hombres estaban a bordo de la embarcación color dorado cuando los agentes descubrieron que uno de ellos había sufrido heridas graves en la pierna derecha.

Los investigadores señalaron que el grupo estaba buceando cuando la víctima presuntamente quedó atrapada en la hélice de la embarcación.

Tras conversaciones entre la Policía de Bahamas, el capitán de la embarcación y la Guardia Costera de Estados Unidos, las autoridades determinaron que la embarcación debía dirigirse a Miami, a unas 38 millas de distancia, para que el hombre herido pudiera recibir tratamiento médico de emergencia.

La Policía informó posteriormente que el hombre, cuya identidad aún no ha sido divulgada, murió a causa de las heridas mientras la embarcación se dirigía a Estados Unidos.

No se divulgaron de inmediato más detalles sobre la investigación.

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It’s called “On & On,” and it’s a new rooftop series that blends hip-hop, R&B and live instrumentals.

On & On is fusing artists of today with artists of the past.

“It’s all a nod, of course, to the song, to Erykah Badu, to that era for sure, but it also is really the meaning of the words themselves. We don’t want the party to end,” international recording artist Maya Azucena said.

Inside Wynwood’s Shiso, a new rooftop experience is taking shape, honoring the golden age of hip-hop and R&B, but giving it a live, soulful twist.

“DJ music is great, but live music experience -- you really feel it in your soul,” Michael Rutter, of Forward Hospitality Group, said.

The live music reimagines songs you already know.

“When you do mashups -- a fusion of hip-hop you’ve heard today, Cardi B with Roy Ayers backing music. Or like a jazz song meets a Fresh Prince song. It’s going to be like putting the worlds together,” Azucena said.

The live music features jazz, R&B and improvisation.

“It’s a very dynamic show,” Azucena said. “It has such a nostalgic, incredible, throwback vibe meets today. We’re going to be fusing hip-hop with live R&B classics, mixed with solos and jazz -- it’s going to be the full-on live experience.”

Azucena is leading the way, bringing that 90s feeling back to life for those who grew up with it and for those experiencing it for the first time.

“It’s not an era where we did everything for the camera,” Azucena said. “It was an era where we tried to work out what we were going through, through these songs. We talked about our pain, but at the other side of that song was a celebration.”

The space itself is just as curated, from graffiti details that keep that Wynwood edge, to a rooftop setup built for the experience. The food and drinks are part of the experience too, with craft cocktails and Shiso’s signature Asian smokehouse bites.

“We’ve added a quarter million dollars’ worth of sound and lights on top on our existing sound system and light system, which was pretty extravagant,” Rutter said. “The facility sets up more of a corner view, which I think is very unique. We set up a 40-seat bar.”

The space has room for hundreds, inside and out and a front-row feel from just about anywhere.

“Music is limitless, and music shows us how limitless we are,” Azucena said.

On & On has live performances every Friday night.

For ticket information and more details, click here.

The court ruled 4-3 that the state's Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment on April 21, but the court's ruling renders the vote’s result meaningless.

Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia's redrawn map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. Later Friday, Virginia Democrats said in a filing that they intended to file an emergency appeal of the state high court's decision with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Friday's ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged Republicans' congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year's midterm elections.

“Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia,” Trump said about the decision on his social media account.

Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the ruling was another sign of GOP momentum heading into the midterms.

“We’re on offense, and we’re going to win,” he said in a statement.

Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court’s opinion but lamented that it overturned the will of the voters: “They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”

Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, criticized the court majority for what she said was a decision that “cast aside the will of the voters,” but she said the people will have the final say.

“In November, they will, and they’ll power Democrats to the House majority,” she said in a statement.

A longshot Democratic appeal

Democrats are taking a legal longshot in asking the nation’s highest court to reverse the Virginia ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court tries to avoid second-guessing state courts’ interpretations of their own constitutions. In 2023, it turned down a request by North Carolina Republicans to overrule a state Supreme Court decision that blocked the GOP’s congressional map.

Still, even an unsuccessful appeal would let Democrats try to blame their failure on the conservative majority that dominates the nation's highest court, which has already infuriated the party and civil rights groups by neutering the Voting Rights Act.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump sparked an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year by encouraging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party's narrow majority in the midterm elections.

California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats' advantage, and Utah's top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year’s elections.

Virginia is currently represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans, all elected from districts imposed by a court following a bipartisan redistricting commission’s failure to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state's 11 congressional seats.

The state Supreme Court's majority was critical of the state’s redrawing of the congressional maps to benefit one political party. Those justices noted that 47% of the state’s voters supported GOP congressional candidates in 2024, but the new map could result in Democrats making up 91% of the state’s House delegation.

What was in the Democrats' map

Under the Democratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.

The state Supreme Court’s seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn’t have a set ideological profile.

The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature’s initial approval of the amendment occurred last October, during early voting for the general election, before it concluded. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.

Arguments over the definition of ‘election’

Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature’s initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

But in its ruling, the Supreme Court said, “this view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued an “election” should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which voters can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, he told justices, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.

The Supreme Court agreed with that argument, writing: “The General Assembly passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the first time well after voters had begun casting ballots during the 2025 general election.”

By the time lawmakers initially endorsed the amendment, voters already had cast more than 1.3 million ballots in the general election, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast, the court said.

The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms a decision by a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia. The court had placed a hold on that ruling and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

In the dissent to Friday's ruling, Chief Justice Cleo Powell said the election for the purpose of considering the amendment does not include the early voting period.

“The majority’s definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning,” she wrote, “only a definitive end: Election Day.”

Se llama “On & On” y es una nueva serie en azotea que combina hip-hop, R&B e instrumentales en vivo.

On & On fusiona artistas de hoy con artistas del pasado.

“Es un homenaje, por supuesto, a la canción, a Erykah Badu, a esa era sin duda, pero también refleja realmente el significado de las propias palabras. No queremos que la fiesta termine”, dijo la artista internacional Maya Azucena.

Dentro de Shiso en Wynwood, una nueva experiencia en azotea está tomando forma, honrando la época dorada del hip-hop y el R&B, pero dándole un giro en vivo y lleno de alma.

“La música de DJ es excelente, pero la experiencia de música en vivo realmente la sientes en el alma”, dijo Michael Rutter, de Forward Hospitality Group.

La música en vivo reinventa canciones que ya conoces.

“Cuando haces mashups, una fusión de hip-hop que escuchas hoy, Cardi B con música de fondo de Roy Ayers. O una canción de jazz mezclada con una canción de Fresh Prince. Va a ser como unir mundos”, dijo Azucena.

La música en vivo incluye jazz, R&B e improvisación.

“Es un espectáculo muy dinámico”, dijo Azucena. “Tiene una vibra nostálgica, increíble, retro, mezclada con la actualidad. Vamos a fusionar hip-hop con clásicos de R&B en vivo, mezclados con solos y jazz. Será una experiencia completamente en vivo”.

Azucena lidera el proyecto, trayendo de vuelta la sensación de los años 90 para quienes crecieron con ella y para quienes la experimentan por primera vez.

“No era una era en la que hacíamos todo para la cámara”, dijo Azucena. “Era una época en la que intentábamos resolver lo que estábamos viviendo a través de estas canciones. Hablábamos de nuestro dolor, pero al otro lado de esa canción había una celebración”.

El espacio en sí también está cuidadosamente diseñado, desde detalles de grafiti que mantienen el estilo de Wynwood hasta una configuración en la azotea creada para la experiencia. La comida y las bebidas también forman parte de la experiencia, con cocteles artesanales y los bocados asiáticos ahumados característicos de Shiso.

“Hemos agregado $250,000 USD en sonido e iluminación sobre nuestro sistema existente, que ya era bastante extravagante”, dijo Rutter. “El lugar ofrece una vista más de esquina, lo que creo que es muy único. Instalamos un bar con capacidad para 40 personas”.

El espacio tiene capacidad para cientos de personas, tanto en interiores como exteriores, y ofrece una experiencia de primera fila desde casi cualquier lugar.

“La música no tiene límites y la música nos muestra cuán ilimitados somos”, dijo Azucena.

On & On tiene presentaciones en vivo todos los viernes por la noche.

Para información sobre boletos y más detalles, haga clic aquí.

Sin embargo, pese a los avances para mantener el bosque en pie, muchas otras amenazas, que van desde el cambio climático hasta una posible legislación, lo ponen en riesgo. La degradación forestal, impulsada por incendios forestales, tala y sequía, afecta a cerca del 40% de la Amazonía y en los últimos años ha superado a la tala rasa. Todo esto podría agravarse en 2026 con un fuerte fenómeno climático de El Niño, que es un calentamiento cíclico del Pacífico ecuatorial que provoca temperaturas más altas y un clima más seco en la selva tropical, condiciones que empeoran los incendios.

“La degradación es más lenta y más silenciosa. Es como una enfermedad crónica”, afirmó Taciana Stec, especialista en políticas climáticas de Talanoa, un centro de estudios climáticos de Brasil.

Aunque la Amazonía sigue siendo un sumidero de carbono —es decir, absorbe una enorme cantidad de dióxido de carbono que calienta el planeta—, podría llegar a un punto de inflexión a partir del cual no pueda recuperarse. En esa etapa, el bosque podría emitir más CO2 del que absorbe.

Los científicos señalan que el estrés recurrente podría desencadenar un colapso regional o de todo el bioma. En un estudio de 2024 publicado en la revista Nature se estimó que, para 2050, entre el 10% y el 47% de la Amazonía podría verse empujada a condiciones capaces de detonar un cambio crítico de ese tipo.

La degradación debilita crónicamente la selva tropical

La Amazonía se extiende por nueve países de Sudamérica. Brasil tiene, por mucho, la porción más grande —más del 60%—, lo que significa que lo que ocurra en esta sección puede afectar al resto del bosque.

En Brasil, la tasa oficial anual de deforestación abarca el periodo de agosto del año anterior a julio del año en curso. Datos preliminares basados en DETER, el sistema oficial brasileño que utiliza satélites para ofrecer alertas en tiempo real, muestran que la deforestación y la degradación forestal han disminuido de forma importante desde el año pasado.

Sin embargo, la degradación sigue superando a la deforestación. De agosto de 2025 a abril de 2026, las alertas de deforestación abarcaron casi 1.700 kilómetros cuadrados (656 millas cuadradas), mientras que la degradación afectó alrededor de 4.420 kilómetros cuadrados (1.706 millas cuadradas).

El sistema DETER proporciona a las autoridades ambientales alertas diarias de deforestación en curso —tala rasa completa— y de degradación, que son áreas afectadas por actividad humana donde el suelo queda expuesto, pero el bosque aún no se ha perdido por completo.

Durante El Niño de 2023 y 2024, las temperaturas subieron de 2 a 4 grados Celsius (de 3,5 a 7 grados Fahrenheit) por encima del promedio histórico del bosque. Asociado a una sequía severa, el calor alimentó los peores incendios de la Amazonía en dos décadas, y la degradación forestal aumentó a un ritmo aproximadamente tres veces mayor que la reducción de la deforestación.

El efecto combinado fue una pérdida neta de selva tropical que socavó el avance contra la deforestación, según un estudio realizado por Guilherme Mataveli, investigador del Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales de Brasil, o INPE.

Una selva tropical degradada puede seguir en pie, pero ya no puede sostener plenamente el ecosistema. Esa debilidad podría agravarse por factores externos como El Niño. Por ejemplo, si la Amazonía fuera un paciente humano con una enfermedad crónica, El Niño sería el equivalente a una gripe, desencadenando una fiebre que deja al cuerpo más débil y vulnerable. Dos años después, la gripe regresa. Pero esta vez, el paciente no se ha recuperado por completo. La fiebre arde con más intensidad y la enfermedad golpea con más fuerza.

Evaluar un bosque en este estado es algo relativamente nuevo para los científicos, ya que identificar la degradación mediante imágenes satelitales es más complejo que detectar la tala de árboles. Pero han advertido cada vez más sobre su efecto prolongado y peligroso.

Este nuevo escenario exige que el gobierno priorice la restauración forestal, dicen los expertos. Brasil planea restaurar 12 millones de hectáreas (29,7 millones de acres) de bosque amazónico nativo para 2030, como parte del compromiso que asumió en el Acuerdo de París de 2015. Según el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Cambio Climático, 3,4 millones de hectáreas (8,4 millones de acres) ya están en proceso de recuperación.

Por encima de todo, el país debe continuar sus esfuerzos para frenar la deforestación, sostienen los expertos. Pero un proyecto de ley acelerado en el Congreso amenaza la principal herramienta que permitió a Brasil frenar la deforestación.

La propuesta provocaría un cambio clave en el monitoreo del bosque

Si se aprueba, la legislación, propuesta por el legislador Lucio Mosquini, prohibiría que IBAMA, la agencia brasileña de fiscalización ambiental, imponga sanciones a propietarios de tierras por deforestación ilegal basándose únicamente en el monitoreo satelital, un pilar de la aplicación de la normativa ambiental del país.

Mosquini señala que las sanciones basadas en satélites perjudican a los agricultores porque no se les da la oportunidad de presentar una defensa. Las autoridades, sin embargo, señalan que los agricultores pueden impugnar la sanción en un plazo de 20 días y lograr que se anule si pueden demostrar que la deforestación estaba autorizada.

IBAMA empezó a utilizar datos satelitales por primera vez en 2016 para complementar las inspecciones in situ y respaldar el control de la deforestación en zonas remotas. El gobierno del expresidente Jair Bolsonaro detuvo la política en 2019 como parte de sus esfuerzos de desregulación ambiental, lo que hizo que, en 2021, las tasas de deforestación en la Amazonía alcanzaran su nivel más alto en 15 años. Con Lula, quien volvió al cargo en 2023 tras haber sido presidente entre 2003 y 2010, la agencia ambiental reanudó el monitoreo remoto.

La propuesta quedó lista desde marzo para una eventual votación en la cámara baja del Congreso. Si se aprueba, pasaría al Senado. Dado que el agronegocio es el sector económico más poderoso del país y el más influyente en el Congreso, expertos políticos esperan que sea aprobada.

Si se aprueba, el proyecto sería “un gran retroceso ambiental”, declaró a The Associated Press Jair Schmitt, presidente de IBAMA. “En la práctica, terminas alentando a los infractores ambientales y la competencia desleal”.

La tecnología satelital respalda la fiscalización ambiental de manera similar a como las cámaras de control de velocidad ayudan a las autoridades de tránsito, explicó Schmitt. Sería imposible que una ciudad desplegara un guardia en cada esquina. Del mismo modo, el gobierno federal no puede apostarse con agentes en cada kilómetro cuadrado de la selva tropical.

Autoridades en máxima alerta ante la perspectiva de una grave temporada de incendios

El gobierno anunció en marzo la contratación de 4.600 bomberos y puso en marcha el monitoreo en tiempo real de posibles brotes de incendios. Schmitt, el presidente de IBAMA, indicó que las autoridades han identificado propiedades rurales con alto riesgo de incendio combinando datos históricos de puntos de calor con registros de deforestación y meteorológicos. Algunos propietarios ahora están siendo notificados y se les ordena adoptar medidas preventivas.

“La situación este año es preocupante. Todavía estamos en la temporada de lluvias y ya registramos dos incendios en abril”, señaló Tainan Kumaruara, integrante de la brigada de incendios Guardioes Kumaruara, formada por voluntarios indígenas, en la tierra indígena kumaruara en el estado de Pará.

“El bosque es diferente de lo que era hace 10 años. Está mucho más seco. Los árboles ya no se comportan como antes”.

En 2024, una grave temporada de incendios alimentada por una severa sequía afectó a más de 17 millones de hectáreas (42 millones de acres) de selva tropical, según MapBiomas, una organización sin fines de lucro que monitorea el uso del suelo. La mayoría de los incendios en la Amazonía no son naturales, sino provocados por humanos.

En medio de las advertencias, un estudio publicado en abril por Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences aportó más pruebas sobre cómo se recupera la Amazonía tras el fuego.

Para estudiar los efectos a largo plazo, Leandro Maracahipes, investigador de la Universidad de Yale con apoyo de la organización brasileña sin fines de lucro Instituto Serrapilheira, realizó durante 20 años incendios controlados en una granja de investigación en la Amazonía que también estuvo expuesta a la sequía.

En el estudio se halló que, tras incendios frecuentes, el bosque no desapareció por completo ni se transformó en sabana, o pastizal extendido, contrario a lo que habían predicho los modelos científicos. Siguió siendo selva tropical, pero degradada, con más claros y vulnerabilidad, y sin especies amazónicas de nicho que dependen de una cobertura densa y de condiciones específicas —y de tiempo— para germinar y crecer.

“El bosque es resiliente, pero nuestro mensaje es que necesitamos preservarlo aún más, y con urgencia. Y tiene que ser ahora”, sostuvo Maracahipes.

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La cobertura climática y ambiental de The Associated Press recibe apoyo financiero de múltiples fundaciones privadas. La AP es la única responsable de todo el contenido. Encuentra los estándares de la AP para trabajar con organizaciones filantrópicas, una lista de las fundaciones y las áreas de cobertura que financian en AP.org.

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

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Justice Department officials touted the deal in the case, initially brought by the Biden administration, as a victory in their effort to reclaim competitive prices in the meat industry and lower food costs for Americans. Combating the drivers of high food costs, however, is challenging and the solutions aren't simple.

“A stable and affordable food supply is critical to our country’s well-being,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “This Department of Justice is laser-focused on making everyday life affordable for all Americans.”

The case targeted Agri Stats, an Indiana-based company that collects nonpublic information from meat processors and shares the data in detailed reports with the industry. The federal government alleged its practices allowed chicken, pork and turkey processors to inflate prices they charged restaurants, grocery stores and other buyers who were not allowed access to Agri Stats' data.

Under the proposed settlement, Agri Stats would be required to share with U.S. buyers most of the information it collects from processors, the Justice Department said.

Agri Stats' president said it was “pleased to put this case with the Department of Justice and six states behind us.”

“Agri Stats has been instrumental in the efficiency improvements in the chicken industry that have made such wonderful results possible, and we look forward to continue helping our subscribers improve their businesses, which will make chicken more affordable for all Americans,” Eric Scholer said in a statement.

The Justice Department is separately investigating potential antitrust violations in the beef processing industry. That followed a request from President Donald Trump to open an investigation into whether foreign-owned meat packers were driving up the price of beef in the U.S.

U.S. beef prices have been climbing steadily since 2020 and are near record highs. In March, a pound of ground beef averaged $6.70, or 16% higher than a year ago, according to government figures.

But there are many reasons for that, including drought and a shrinking herd size.

A three-year drought that began in 2020 left less grass for grazing across the U.S. and made feed costs soar. Dry weather has persisted; this spring, around 63% of the U.S. cattle herd is in drought areas, according to the USDA.

The U.S. cattle herd, which has been shrinking for decades, is now at its smallest size since 1951, according to the USDA. Thanks to changes in cattle genetics and feeding techniques, ranchers now get more meat from each animal than they used to. But they’re reluctant to increase herd sizes because of the high costs of feed and labor and the dry weather.

Another driver of high prices is the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to livestock imports to slow the spread of a flesh-eating parasite called the New World screwworm. The closures that began in late 2024 have stopped about 1 million cattle from being hauled from Mexico into the U.S.

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Associated Press reporter Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.

Los negocios van en auge para Stephen Ross, propietario de los Miami Dolphins, por lo que sorprendió a algunos enterarse de que la NFL sacó a Miami de la rotación del Super Bowl en el futuro previsible.

Sin embargo, Rodney Barreto no se sorprendió.

Barreto, también conocido como el Sr. Super Bowl en el sur de Florida, presidió el comité anfitrión del Super Bowl para tres de los 11 grandes juegos celebrados en el sur de Florida.

Entonces, ¿por qué el comisionado de la NFL, Roger Goodell, está sacando a Miami de la rotación?

La NFL exige que las sedes anfitrionas den a la liga suficiente espacio en o alrededor del estadio para organizar sus propios eventos.

Ross construyó nuevas estructuras permanentes para acomodar completamente el Gran Premio de Miami de Fórmula 1 y el Miami Open, lo que dejó al Hard Rock Stadium por debajo de la cantidad de espacio que la NFL dice necesitar.

Y Ross no está dispuesto a renunciar a eso. De hecho, agregarán una expansión al Paddock Club Hospitality, lo que ocupará aún más espacio.

Entonces, ¿eso significa que el Hard Rock está retirado como sede del Super Bowl? Barreto no lo cree y considera que la liga debería trabajar con la administración de los Dolphins.