El Departamento de Correcciones de Florida liberó a Castilla, de 52 años, de prisión el 18 de noviembre de 2025. Continuó con su negocio turbio incluso mientras estaba en libertad condicional hasta 2045, según el informe de arresto de los detectives.

“El sujeto se hizo pasar falsamente por un corredor de materias primas y aceptó fondos … con fines de inversión”, pero “en lugar de invertir el dinero, desvió los fondos para su uso personal”, escribió un detective, según el informe.

No era la primera vez que ocultaba sus problemas legales para manipular a sus víctimas, según detectives de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade.

En 2020, un detective arrestó a Castilla el 18 de marzo, tras acusarlo de operar un esquema fraudulento tipo Ponzi. Fue liberado bajo fianza el 19 de marzo.

“Mientras esperaba el juicio, continuó engañando a otra víctima utilizando representaciones falsas similares de inversiones inexistentes”, escribió un detective, según el informe de arresto.

Los detectives arrestaron a Castilla el miércoles con su abogado defensor presente en la estación del Distrito Noroeste de la M-DSO en Miami Lakes.

Correcciones lo ingresó en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight, enfrentando cargos de hurto mayor en segundo grado y fraude organizado. Su fianza fue de $5,000 USD.

La jueza del Tribunal de Circuito del condado Miami-Dade, Andrea Wolfson, está asignada para presidir el caso.

La editora de asignaciones de Local 10 News, Mercedes Cevallos, contribuyó a este informe.

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The Florida Department of Corrections released Castilla, 52, from prison on Nov. 18, 2025. He engaged in his shady business even while on probation until 2045, according to the detectives’ arrest report.

“The subject falsely represented himself as a commodities broker and accepted funds ... for investment purposes,” but “instead of investing the money, he diverted the funds for his personal use,” a detective wrote, according to the report.

It wasn’t the first time he kept his legal struggles secret to manipulate his victims, according to Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office detectives.

In 2020, a detective arrested Castilla on March 18, after accusing him of operating a fraudulent Ponzi-style scheme. He was released on bond on March 19.

“While awaiting trial, he continued to deceive another victim using similar false representations of non-existent investments,” a detective wrote, according to the arrest report.

Detectives arrested Castilla on Wednesday with his defense attorney present at the M-DSO Northwest District station in Miami Lakes.

Corrections booked him at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, facing charges of second-degree grand theft and organized fraud. His bond was $5,000.

Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Andrea Wolfson is set to preside over the case.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Mercedes Cevallos contributed to this report.

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Miami Gardens police took Harold St. Vil, 38, into custody on Wednesday.

According to official documents, the victim and St. Vil were at the same party on March 16 when the two got into an argument which led to a fight.

Later in the evening, several of the partygoers went to St. Vil’s home near the intersection of Northwest 190th Street and First Avenue, police said.

According to police, a witness said that when the victim arrived, he was yelling in the street, prompting St. Vil to go inside the home and grab a knife before coming back outside where he “stabbed the victim in front of witnesses.”

Authorities said the the stabbing caused injuries to the victim that required surgery and several days of hospitalization.

After St. Vil was taken into custody on Wednesday, police said he admitted to stabbing the victim, telling investigators that the victim was drunk and that “he pushed him, making his blood boil.”

As of Thursday morning, the Haitian national was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with a bond listed as “to be set.”

La policía de Miami Gardens puso bajo custodia a Harold St. Vil, de 38 años, el miércoles.

Según documentos oficiales, la víctima y St. Vil estaban en la misma fiesta el 16 de marzo cuando ambos tuvieron una discusión que derivó en una pelea.

Más tarde en la noche, varios asistentes de la fiesta fueron a la casa de St. Vil, cerca de la intersección de Northwest 190th Street y First Avenue, dijo la policía.

Según las autoridades, un testigo indicó que cuando la víctima llegó, estaba gritando en la calle, lo que llevó a St. Vil a entrar a la vivienda y tomar un cuchillo antes de salir nuevamente, donde “apuñaló a la víctima frente a testigos”.

Las autoridades dijeron que el apuñalamiento causó heridas a la víctima que requirieron cirugía y varios días de hospitalización.

Después de que St. Vil fue puesto bajo custodia el miércoles, la policía dijo que admitió haber apuñalado a la víctima, diciendo a los investigadores que la víctima estaba ebria y que “lo empujó, haciendo que le hirviera la sangre”.

Hasta la mañana del jueves, el ciudadano haitiano permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza listada como “por determinar”.

In a three-page letter, prosecutors said they would allow the appeals court judges to consult the material. But they didn’t deposit the documentation for the defense to see in the chancery as ordered, saying it was “irrelevant” to the trial and could harm the Vatican’s interests.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the appeals court would respond. The next hearing is scheduled for June 22.

A vast inquiry

Prosecutors had acquired the material during their sprawling investigation into a 350-million-euro (around $410 million) investment by the Vatican Secretariat of State into a London property. In December 2023, after a two-year trial, a cardinal and eight other people were convicted of several financial charges. But the prosecutors’ overarching theory of a grand scheme to defraud the Holy See was thrown out.

Defense lawyers had argued from the start of the trial that their clients couldn't get a fair trial with key evidence either redacted or withheld entirely by the prosecution. They cited in particular the full interrogations of a key prosecution witness and contents of his sequestered laptops and cellphones.

Prosecutors had argued that the redactions were necessary to preserve the integrity of other, ongoing investigations and refused an initial Oct. 6, 2021 court order to turn over the documentation.

An order to turn over the evidence

Attorney Luigi Panella, defending money manager Enrico Crasso, had argued from the very start of the trial, in July 2021, that the indictment was null because prosecutors had withheld evidence from the defense.

Five years later, the appeals court on March 17 agreed with him and other defense lawyers. The court ordered the prosecutors to deposit in the chancery “all the acts and documents of the investigation in their integral version” by April 30.

In response Thursday, the prosecutors repeated their objection to the court ruling and reasoned that the material was “irrelevant” to the case. They said it “could pose a grave danger” to the public interest, if given over to the defense lawyers. Prosecutors told the judges the material remained in their offices and was available for “consultation” to the judges via USB drive.

Court calls for retrial

The appeals court had determined that the refusal of prosecutors to provide all the evidence to the defense in the first round of the trial had nullified the original indictment. The appeals court declared a partial mistrial and ordered a retrial.

Defense lawyers said the prosecutors’ response to the appeals court order amounted to contempt.

“In what country in the world can it be that the acts (of an investigation) are shown to the judge but not to the defense?” Panella said in a telephone interview. “What concept of ‘fair trial’ can this type of statement represent?”

A request to end the trial

Attorneys Cataldo Intrieri and Massimo Bassi, defending former Vatican official Fabrizio Tirabassi, said that the prosecutors’ response was unprecedented.

“We wonder how a fair judgment can be reached under these conditions,” they said in a statement that urged the court to throw out the trial entirely.

Attorneys Fabio Viglione and Maria Concetta Marzo, representing Cardinal Angelo Becciu, said that the prosecutors’ response constituted a failure to comply with the court order.

“This is precisely the selective discretion that the court has ruled out: the prosecution cannot unilaterally decide which documents the defense has the right to access,” they said. “The right to defense, the equality of the parties, and the adversarial process require full access to the documents.”

A separate blow to the Vatican

Swiss federal prosecutors shelved an investigation initiated in 2020 after the Vatican Secretariat of State accused Crasso, its former money manager, of embezzlement, fraud and disloyal administration in a complaint filed with Swiss prosecutors. The accusations paralleled those against Crasso in the Vatican tribunal.

Crasso had managed the Secretariat of State’s assets while employed at Credit Suisse Italia and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, before he launched his own company and fund that took over the Vatican accounts.

In a decision dated April 23, Swiss federal prosecutor Annina Scherrer noted that the Vatican tribunal itself had acquitted Crasso and his company and fund of the same charges definitively and shelved the Swiss case.

But in her 31-page ruling, Scherrer noted “with a certain surprise” that her requests to Vatican prosecutors to question some of the key witnesses had been refused after clearly being sent to the Vatican Secretary of State to evaluate. She said that demonstrated the Secretariat of State’s “influence” over the entire Vatican judicial system, which is supposed to be independent.

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In a humorous video posted Thursday on his Instagram account, Banksy showed snippets of how the sculpture was put up in the dead of night. The sculpture appeared to have been erected in the early hours of Wednesday on a plinth on a traffic island in Waterloo Place, near Buckingham Palace.

Before the artist's post, locals and tourists gathered to inspect the statue on the assumption it was Banksy's work because his signature was scrawled at the base of the plinth.

The statue is situated close to those of King Edward VII, who reigned between 1901 and 1910, and legendary nurse Florence Nightingale, as well as the Crimean War Memorial.

Statues are not what Banksy is primarily known for. He is far more famous for his spray-painting on buildings, with his first creations appearing in the early 1990s in his hometown of Bristol in southwest England. He has since gone global and his paintings and installations have sold for millions of dollars at auction. His street art is often targeted by thieves and vandals.

Banksy, who has never publicly revealed his identity, is part of a tradition of street artists who viewed the undercover act of posting their art in public as a subversive form of expression.

Según un informe de arresto, el robo por la fuerza ocurrió poco después de las 9:30 p.m. del 22 de abril afuera del Publix ubicado en 6876 Collins Ave.

La policía de Miami Beach dijo que la víctima informó a los agentes que acababa de salir del supermercado con el bolso de diseñador colgado del hombro cuando fue abordado por el sospechoso, posteriormente identificado como David Bush, quien preguntó por comprarlo.

Bush, quien actualmente se encuentra sin hogar, comenzó a golpear a la víctima en el rostro, provocando que cayera al suelo, dijeron las autoridades.

Según el informe, mientras la víctima estaba en el suelo, Bush le arrebató el bolso de la mano y huyó del lugar en un scooter motorizado.

La víctima dijo a los agentes que el bolso contenía dos cinturones Louis Vuitton y alrededor de $500 USD en efectivo.

De acuerdo con el informe, los detectives obtuvieron video de vigilancia de Publix, el cual captó el robo.

Eventualmente lograron identificar a Bush como el sospechoso debido a varios encuentros previos con él en el área de North Beach, dijeron las autoridades.

La víctima también lo identificó como el autor del robo en una rueda de reconocimiento fotográfica.

Bush fue localizado por la policía el miércoles en la cuadra 1900 de West Bay Drive y fue puesto bajo custodia.

Enfrenta cargos de robo por la fuerza y posesión de arma de fuego por un delincuente convicto.

Hasta la mañana del jueves, Bush permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight. Los registros en línea indicaban que su fianza estaba “por determinar”.

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According to an arrest report, the strongarm robbery occurred shortly after 9:30 p.m. on April 22 outside the Publix at 6876 Collins Ave.

Miami Beach police said the victim told officers that he had just exited the supermarket while carrying the designer bag around his shoulder when he was approached by the suspect, later identified as David Bush, who inquired about purchasing it.

Bush, who is currently homeless, then began to punch the victim in the face, causing the victim to fall to the ground, authorities said.

According to the report, as the victim was on the ground, Bush snatched the bag from his hand and fled the scene on a motorized scooter.

The victim told officers that the bag contained two Louis Vuitton belts and about $500 in cash.

According to the report, detectives obtained surveillance video from Publix, which captured the robbery.

They were eventually able to identify Bush as the suspect due to several past encounters with him in the North Beach area, authorities said.

The victim also identified him as the robber in a photo-lineup.

Bush was found by police Wednesday in the 1900 block of West Bay Drive and was taken into custody.

He faces charges of strongarm robbery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

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

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It happened at around 8:15 p.m. at the supermarket chain’s location at 6921 W. Broward Blvd., within the Plantation Towne Square shopping center.

Investigators said “one suspect pulled out a handgun, struck one of the victims in the back of the head with it and stole the victim’s cellphone,” while a “second victim reported being bitten, scratched and punched by another suspect.”

Police said after pulling over the suspects’ vehicle, they arrested Khamal J. Powell, 28, on charges of armed robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, as well as an identity theft warrant out of Brevard County.

They also arrested Khalil Sean Powell, 29, on two battery charges.

Police didn’t immediately say whether or how the two men were related.

Khalil Powell had been booked into the Broward Main Jail on Wednesday. Khamal Powell did not appear in Broward jail records.

En su conferencia matutina indicó que si la Fiscalía General recibe “pruebas contundentes e irrefutables” o si en su investigación encuentra elementos constitutivos de un delito “deberá proceder”, pero advirtió que “si no existen pruebas claras es evidente que el objetivo de estas imputaciones por parte del Departamento de Justicia es político”.

El gobernador de Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, y otros nueve funcionarios mexicanos activos y retirados fueron señalados de tráfico de drogas y tenencia ilícita de armas en una acusación formal que se hizo pública la víspera en Nueva York y en la cual se afirma que colaboraron en el envío masivo de estupefacientes ilícitos a Estados Unidos.

Además de Rocha Moya, que gobierna Sinaloa desde 2021, también fue acusado el alcalde de la capital de ese estado y un senador del partido gobernante Morena. Otros funcionarios ocupaban cargos no vinculados con ningún partido.

Según la fiscalía estadounidense los acusados ayudaron al Cártel de Sinaloa a introducir fentanilo, heroína, cocaína y metanfetamina a Estados Unidos. Dicho cártel es uno de los ocho grupos delictivos latinoamericanos a los que Estados Unidos designó como organización terrorista.

El gobernador rechazó de forma categórica las imputaciones en su contra y dijo el miércoles en su cuenta en la red social X que “carecen de veracidad y fundamento alguno”.

Rocha Moya, que fue un firme aliado del expresidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) y de su política de no confrontación directa con los cárteles, sostuvo que no es sólo un ataque contra su persona sino contra el movimiento político oficialista Morena y sus líderes y se inscribe en “una perversa estrategia para violentar el orden constitucional” y la soberanía de México.

Tras el anuncio del proceso, la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México indicó en un comunicado que el martes en la tarde había recibido solicitudes de extradición de diversas personas de parte de Estados Unidos, pero no ofreció detalles.

Agregó que la documentación recibida “no cuenta con elementos de prueba para poder determinar la responsabilidad de las personas de las cuales se solicita la detención provisional con fines de extradición”.

Por su parte, el vicefiscal general Ulises Lara dijo en un video que se difundió el martes que la cancillería notificó a la Fiscalía General de las solicitudes y agregó que se revisará e investigará la información para establecer “si existen los elementos probatorios necesarios para tal fin”.

Lara recordó que sólo se puede aprobar la extradición “si se determina que las pruebas son suficientes conforme a las leyes de la parte requerida”, pero admitió que la solicitud de Washington “no se acompaña de elementos probatorios suficientes que aporten evidencias contundentes respecto de los hechos narrados”.

Dijo también que para enjuiciar a un funcionario elegido por el voto popular se requiere un juicio político para retirarle la inmunidad.

La relación entre el gobierno de Sheinbaum y la administración de Donald Trump se ha tensado en los últimos meses por las presiones contra los cárteles mexicanos y la política arancelaria y más recientemente por la muerte de dos agentes de la CIA en un accidente en el estado de Chihuahua.

The appeal filed Wednesday was a delayed response to a March 16 court order that blocked the decision by President Donald Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV, a respiratory virus.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's order also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee.

The stay continues while the appeal is considered.

The government's one-sentence filing did not say why the block should be lifted. U.S. health officials did not immediately comment on the filing, or respond to a question about why they waited six weeks to file an appeal.

The appeal is the latest development in a lawsuit filed in July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other medical groups. The lawsuit in federal court in Boston originally focused on Kennedy’s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women.

The lawsuit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too.

For example, the plaintiffs amended the lawsuit to stop the scaling back of the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule. They also asked the court to look at Kennedy’s actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients.

Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel last year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden, said Kennedy’s reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law. The judge ordered the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformulated committee — put on hold.

Earlier this month, the Republican administration updated the committee's charter to broadens qualifications for panel members in ways that would allow the inclusion of Kennedy allies. That move did not resolve the legal challenge, according to Richard Hughes IV, a lawyer representing the pediatrics group.

Hughes this week said he was disappointed that the government decided to appeal but said he expected to prevail. He pledged to bring an end to Kennedy's “steady destruction of vaccine policy and public health.”

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Ocurrió alrededor de las 8:15 p.m. en la ubicación de la cadena de supermercados en 6921 W. Broward Blvd., dentro del centro comercial Plantation Towne Square.

Los investigadores dijeron que “un sospechoso sacó un arma de fuego, golpeó a una de las víctimas en la parte posterior de la cabeza con ella y robó el teléfono celular de la víctima”, mientras que una “segunda víctima reportó haber sido mordida, arañada y golpeada por otro sospechoso”.

La policía dijo que tras detener el vehículo de los sospechosos, arrestaron a Khamal J. Powell, de 28 años, por cargos de robo a mano armada y agresión agravada con un arma mortal, así como por una orden por robo de identidad del condado Brevard.

También arrestaron a Khalil Sean Powell, de 29 años, por dos cargos de agresión.

La policía no indicó de inmediato si o cómo los dos hombres estaban relacionados.

Khalil Powell fue ingresado en la cárcel principal de Broward el miércoles. Khamal Powell no aparecía en los registros carcelarios de Broward.

Teachers are using it to create lesson plans and grade papers. Marketing professionals are harnessing it to work a room and learn about the needs of potential clients. Product managers are asking AI to serve as an interpreter when technical conversations went over their heads in meetings.

Some people who employ AI tools are concerned that widespread use of the technology could erode critical thinking skills, especially among children. They also caution that AI-assisted work needs to be checked carefully because the tools have been known to hallucinate and make mistakes.

Here are some ways that people with a range of jobs use artificial intelligence to save time and generate ideas.

Unpacking jargon

One creative way Kristin Moore, a technical product manager at PERQ, a digital marketing platform for property management companies, uses AI is to help ensure she understands her colleagues’ technically advanced conversations. If she’s in a meeting and engineers talk through a topic in a way that she doesn't grasp, she can upload the recorded conversation through Claude, AI assistant built by Anthropic, and ask it to summarize what she needs to do to follow up.

“It picks up on all of that terminology that I don’t understand, and it can simplify it into something that I can consume,” Moore said.

She also asks the AI tool to read through emails, support tickets, recorded meetings and conversations to determine what her clients would like her company to build.

“It’s definitely freed up hours and hours of my week,” Moore said.

Grading papers

Kyle Weimar, an elementary school teacher for Charter Schools USA, serves as coordinator of a Florida school’s multi-tiered support system, a position that involves creating plans to help children performing at the bottom 20% of the student population.

In that role, he uploads test scores, report cards and health information into his school district's AI tool. Then he asks it before meetings to help brainstorm what the district can do to help each child.

Weimar has also used AI to grade papers. He says he can upload 100 to an AI agent, give it a scoring guide, and let it grade and give students instant feedback. “I can do that in 30 minutes, whereas it would have taken me a week before,” he said.

Teachers are really overwhelmed with work, “so any tools that we can use to make that a little bit more viable, we’re really excited about using,” Weimar said.

Working a room

Ashley Smith, head of marketing at HireQuest, a staffing and recruiting company with about 400 franchises, used Claude to build a dashboard that analyzes website traffic data and social media trends. It reports what the HireQuest’s followers are reacting to or ignoring, and Smith uses the information to inform franchisees about how to win more business, she said.

When members of her sales team attended a huge manufacturing trade show recently, she asked them to take screenshots of the companies they wanted to pursue. She uploaded the images to an AI platform and prompted it to build a list including company names and, based on press releases and stock reports, insights on what their staffing needs might be over the next 18 to 24 months.

The hours Smith said she saved by handing off that research task to AI let her spend more one-on-one time with her franchisees.

“AI has not replaced anything. It’s only expanded what we’re able to offer to our franchisees,” Smith said. “It allows us to do things that, candidly, we just weren’t able to deliver even as short as two years ago.”

Rebr

anding the Brawny paper towel man

A design leader at Georgia Pacific, the pulp and paper company that makes Dixie cups, Quilted Northern toilet paper and other consumer products, says he uses AI to create quick visuals. When brainstorming how to modernize the Brawny paper towel brand, for example, Andrew Markle said his team asked AI to depict what the man shown on their packaging would look like with a longer or shorter beard.

Using AI helped people on the team review ideas more quickly, and the tool also offered predictions for how target consumers might respond, Markle said.

“It’s not replacing the creative eye of what’s good and what’s appropriate for our business,” Markle said. “Ultimately, we knew we were going to partner with our ad agency. We have an illustrator that’s going to do the final vision.”

Creating quizzes to help learn material

Kenneth Lynch, a special education coach in Tulsa, Oklahoma, teaches developmentally disabled students life skills to help them live independently. He uses AI to develop quizzes as learning materials. For example, when he was working with a student who wanted to pursue automotive work, Lynch uploaded a book of mechanical instructions to an AI tool that generated quizzes for each chapter.

He is more reluctant to trust AI when it comes to soliciting guidance on psychological conditions. “When I look up different types of diagnosis and try to connect comorbid diagnoses together, it really struggles with understanding how those fit together,” Lynch said.

Preparing for meetings and drafting emails

Ravi Pendse, the University of Michigan's chief information officer, has used AI to prepare for meetings by asking the tool to predict what questions he might get asked.

“It has made me a lot more efficient,” Pendse said. “It gives me more time to focus on my own mental health and wellness.”

The University of Michigan also created an AI tutor that professors can tailor to help students with coursework material around-the-clock, he said. But Pendse is mindful to use AI responsibly.

“We all should be thinking about how we ensure that AI does not erode our critical thinking skills, especially those of our children,” Pendse said. “As we grew up, we learned from our mistakes. We wrote bad papers, and we got better.”

One way that Bob Jones, the university's assistant vice president of emerging technology and support services, uses AI is making sure his emails are succinct enough for the intended audience.

“If I'm communicating about a particularly sticky topic, I want to make sure that I’m neutral and thoughtful,” Jones said. “So the idea of really assessing how I’m presenting myself, AI is really good at that.”

Understanding customer needs

The marketing director at SumnerOne, a company that delivers printers, copiers, and IT services, asks her AI tool to help create email campaigns, social media posts and slide decks. Natalie Blythe said she also uses it to help understand her ideal customers.

For example, when aiming to sell printing services to universities, she asked chatGPT, an AI tool created by OpenAI, to create a probable demographic profile of an admissions director at a university. Then she asked it to predict what the director's top five problems might be and to identify ways her company's products could help solve them.

“When it first started up, I was in the camp of, ‘Oh my God, this is the end for us,'” Blythe said about the early days of AI. But rather than just fear it, she dug in and started learning.

“The efficiencies gained out of it have been tremendous," she said.

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Authorities identified the suspect as Colson Kelvin Virgil, of Homestead.

Homestead police said officers responded around 12:15 p.m. to the 500 block of College Terrace to assist a detective investigating a report of an individual possibly selling narcotics near the campus.

Investigators said the responding detective located marijuana on Virgil.

As the detective picked up Virgil’s backpack, police said Virgil spontaneously stated there was a gun inside.

Officers then read Virgil his Miranda rights and he agreed to speak with investigators, according to the report. Police said Virgil acknowledged he was on school grounds at the time.

A school security official told police he called 911 after witnessing Virgil in possession of marijuana and said Virgil attends the college, the report states.

Police said Virgil was arrested and transported to the Homestead Police Department. Authorities said the gun will be swabbed for DNA and submitted to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office crime lab. They also confirmed that the marijuana was impounded.

Jail records show Virgil faces one count each of possession of a firearm on school property and possession of cannabis under 20 grams.

As of Wednesday, he was being held at the Metrowest Detention Center, where his bond was listed as “to be set.”

The Rev. Adam Hamilton enters the race as a potentially formidable candidate, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many of the eight other, lesser-known Democrats who’ve announced for the Aug. 4 primary would drop out. The winner will face incumbent Republican Roger Marshall, who aligned himself closely with President Donald Trump in his first run for the Senate in 2020.

Hamilton, 61, has a national following among mainline Protestants, and he’s built his Church of the Resurrection over the past 35 years in the Kansas City-area with about 22,000 members — giving him a base from which to tap volunteers and donors.

Hamilton weighed an independent run first

He had considered running as an independent candidate, telling his congregation that he could bridge partisan divides in a highly polarized political climate, but many Democrats believed an independent candidacy would simply split the anti-Marshall vote, making it easier for Marshall to win a second term.

“Every week, it seemed there was another news story in the last year where I would find myself shaking my head and thinking, we have to do better,” the self-described fifth-generation Kansan said.

While Democrats and Republicans have traded off the Kansas governor’s office for the past 60 years, Republicans haven’t lost a U.S. Senate race in the state since 1932. Democrats gave Marshall a vigorous challenge in 2020, but he still prevailed by more than 11 percentage points, even as Democrat Joe Biden ousted Trump and his party won control of both houses of Congress.

In some ways, Hamilton’s candidacy would be similar to that of the Democratic nominee in Texas, state Rep. James Talarico, a Presbyterian minister in training who speaks often of his faith and how it guides his positions, though Hamilton, is a generation older.

The Kansas Republican Party quickly signaled that it plans to portray Hamilton as liberal and out of step with the state, however he identifies himself.

“His so-called ‘independent’ exploration was little more than a political marketing strategy to mask a radical left agenda,” its executive director, Rob Fillion, said in a statement.

Hamilton started massive church from nothing

Hamilton, who lives in the town of Stillwell on the edge of the Kansas City metro, has never had trouble attracting followers. After graduating from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa and then Southern Methodist University in Dallas, his denomination tapped him at age 25 to start a church in suburban Kansas City for nonchurchgoers.

Worshippers initially met in the small chapel of a local funeral home and now gather at nine campuses. The main one, on 76 acres in an affluent suburb, resembles a small college. The Christmas Eve offering — devoted to mission work — sometimes tops $2 million.

“I’ve raised a lot money over the years and I’m not afraid to do that,” Hamilton said on the eve of his announcement.

He’s written and published dozens of books and his video-based lessons are popular for Sunday school classes in churches across the country. In 2013, he preached at the National Prayer Service.

His entry comes during what promises to be a challenging midterm election year for Republicans. Polling shows most Americans believe the U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far and voters are more and more worried about Trump’s failure to address affordability issues.

Hamilton’s home of Johnson County is the state’s most populous, with 643,000 people, more than one in every five Kansas residents. Once overwhelming Republican, it has grown increasingly blue, voting against Trump in the last two presidential elections.

The county is a key reason why a state with an overwhelmingly GOP Legislature has a Democratic governor.

Hamilton's views shaped through decades as a pastor

How voters view Hamilton’s politics is a key question, because he’ll need to win over disaffected Republicans as well as unaffiliated voters — the formula for Democrat Laura Kelly’s successful bid for governor in 2018 and narrow reelection win in 2022.

Hamilton’s congregation is a nearly equal mix of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, and he describes himself as “a liberal conservative and a conservative liberal.”

Although Hamilton hasn’t run for public office before, he isn’t a blank slate, with decades of sermons, and more recently podcasts and Facebook videos.

Following a surge of federal law enforcement in Minneapolis, for instance, Hamilton cited an Old Testament verse that commands Israelites to treat foreigners with love and fairness.

On abortion, the father of two married to his high school sweetheart said during the final stop of a listening tour earlier this month that he voted against a state constitutional amendment that would have cleared the way for tougher abortion restrictions or a ban in Kansas.

“I didn’t think that our state legislators should be the ethicists and the spiritual guides for all of the women of the state of Kansas,” he said while tearfully describing that while he has counseled rape victims, his mother considered an abortion when she got pregnant with him as a teenager. “I feel both of these things at the same time.”

His church also applied financial pressure before the United Methodist Church conference struck down longstanding anti-LGBTQ policies. “We’ve lost a thousand people over the years because this was our commitment, and so I want to say that I will take that commitment with me to Washington D.C.," he said during his listening tour.

Hamilton said that if he wins, he would remain pastor but would scale back his preaching to around 12 to 18 times a year.

“Can you imagine a future,” he asked, “where Republicans and Democrats and Independents work together to actually solve problems?”

___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

Las autoridades identificaron al sospechoso como Colson Kelvin Virgil, de Homestead.

La policía de Homestead dijo que los agentes respondieron alrededor de las 12:15 p.m. a la cuadra 500 de College Terrace para asistir a un detective que investigaba un reporte de un individuo que posiblemente vendía narcóticos cerca del campus.

Los investigadores dijeron que el detective que respondió encontró marihuana en poder de Virgil.

Cuando el detective recogió la mochila de Virgil, la policía dijo que Virgil declaró espontáneamente que había un arma dentro.

Luego, los agentes le leyeron sus derechos Miranda a Virgil y él aceptó hablar con los investigadores, según el informe. La policía dijo que Virgil reconoció que se encontraba en terrenos escolares en ese momento.

Un oficial de seguridad escolar dijo a la policía que llamó al 911 después de ver a Virgil en posesión de marihuana y señaló que Virgil asiste a la universidad, según el informe.

La policía dijo que Virgil fue arrestado y trasladado al Departamento de Policía de Homestead. Las autoridades dijeron que el arma será sometida a pruebas de ADN y enviada al laboratorio criminalístico de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade. También confirmaron que la marihuana fue incautada.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Virgil enfrenta un cargo por posesión de arma de fuego en propiedad escolar y un cargo por posesión de cannabis de menos de 20 gramos.

Hasta el miércoles, permanecía detenido en el Centro de Detención Metrowest, donde su fianza figuraba como “por determinar”.

But beneath these panels is lush pasture instead of gravel, enjoyed by a small herd of cattle that spends its days munching grass and resting in the shade.

Silicon Ranch, which owns the 40-acre farm in Christiana, outside of Nashville, believes cattle-grazing is the next frontier in so-called agrivoltaics, which mostly has involved growing crops or grazing sheep beneath the panels.

The solar company debuted the project this week and will spend the next year working to demonstrate to farmers that much larger cattle also can thrive at solar sites. If successful, advocates say, that could jump-start new projects to meet the soaring electricity demand driven by rapidly expanding data centers — without contributing climate-warming carbon emissions — and help cattle producers hold onto their land and livelihoods.

“Solar is one of the most powerful tools we have for cutting emissions and ... is cost-competitive with fossil fuels,” said Taylor Bacon, a doctoral student at Colorado State University who has studied ecological outcomes at solar grazing sites. “I think we’re starting to see enough research that, when you do it well, the land use can be more of an opportunity than a downside."

Making room for cattle

Though there are far more cattle than sheep in the U.S., their size poses challenges at solar sites, where both expensive equipment and the animals, which can weigh more than half a ton, must be protected.

Solar panels often pivot to near-vertical angles to capture the sun’s rays, leaving little room underneath for cattle; simply raising the panels is cost-prohibitive because of the amount of steel required. So Silicon Ranch raised the panels a little but also developed software that workers activate to turn the panels close to horizontal when cattle are grazing, giving them room to wander, said Nick de Vries, the company's chief technology officer.

Workers rotate the cattle — currently 10 cows and their calves — between paddocks every few days so panels on the ungrazed portion of the site operate normally, generating a supply of roughly 5 megawatts of electricity for Middle Tennessee Electric, a rural electric co-op.

The hope is that the technology eventually will be adopted more broadly, company officials said.

“We know it works," said de Vries. "But you need to prove it to other people."

What are the benefits for farmers?

For solar companies, agricultural land is generally easier to develop than other types of sites. But many farmers — and communities — will need to be convinced that solar grazing will benefit them because of past practices that destroyed topsoil and took land out of production permanently.

"For many agricultural stakeholders, it is offensive to see high-quality farmland getting graded and piled when that’s a farm family’s legacy,” said Ethan Winter, national smart solar director at American Farmland Trust.

But he sees potential for solar grazing partnerships to help farmers keep their land in production and earn extra income.

“Agriculture is in a really tough spot right now, so maybe this is our moment where we can be helping states meet their energy needs and do that in a way that’s providing new opportunities for farmers,” Winter said.

Silicon Ranch this year will have almost 15,000 acres of pasture being grazed — mostly by sheep — since launching five years ago, and is working with ranchers, farmers, university researchers and others to adopt best-practices for keeping soils and animals healthy.

What they're finding is that pasture beneath solar panels retains more moisture, making it more drought tolerant, said Anna Clare Monlezun, a rancher and rangeland ecosystem scientist who's working on the Tennessee project. Grazing in the shade leaves animals less prone to heat stress, enabling them to gain more weight and drink less water.

“There are more win-wins than trade-offs,” she said.

Farmers often earn about $1,000 an acre by leasing their land for solar, easily 10 times more than what they historically earned through traditional agriculture, Winter said. That can help them to diversify operations, pay down debt and buy more land.

“I think you’ll start to hear more interest from farmers who are up against a serious financial wall right now and looking for income diversification opportunities that keep land in production,” Winter said. “We need and want to grow America’s energy capacity but not at the expense of our best farmland or at the expense of agricultural livelihoods.”

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental 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.

It's the third time Jessica Mann has had to answer his lawyers' questions in a New York court. But different attorneys are now defending the ex-studio boss whose downfall powered the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. It remains to be seen whether their inquiries will hit the emotional boiling points of Mann's prior cross-examinations.

Weinstein lawyer Teny Geragos began questioning Mann on Wednesday by seizing on her complicated feelings about Weinstein during a knotty relationship that involved some consensual sexual encounters.

Under prosecutors' questioning earlier, Mann said that despite the alleged rape, she loved “a part of him” because he could be kind and encouraging about her personal struggles and professional dreams, and that the two had “some pretty human moments” together.

“What did he do for you that made parts of you really love him?” Geragos asked.

“It was the validation,” Mann said.

When Geragos went on to ask about the “human moments," Mann said she once slapped Weinstein, thinking he was inviting it as sex play, but that he later told her, “Jess, that's not you.”

“So when you were talking about the validation that you received … and the human moments that you shared with Harvey, it was that you slapped him?” Geragos asked.

Mann said she instead was referring to his remark that “that's not you.”

Court ended for the day soon afterward.

Weinstein, 73, is on trial for the third time on a charge accusing him of raping Mann in a New York hotel in 2013. He was initially convicted in 2020, but an appeals court overturned that verdict. During his first retrial, the jury couldn't reach a decision on the rape charge.

Mann also alleges that Weinstein raped her again in Beverly Hills, California, in late 2013 or early 2014. He has never been charged with any crime related to that allegation.

“He just treated me like he owned me,” she told jurors this week.

Mann, 40, acknowledges that she accepted his sexual advances at times but said the two rapes happened as she protested and pleaded with him to stop.

Weinstein's lawyers maintain that everything that happened between the two was consensual and part of a supportive, caring relationship. They say Mann, who was a hairstylist and actor aspiring to make it big in show business when she met Weinstein, reaped benefits from associating with an Oscar-winning producer, only later accusing him amid the #MeToo outcry of 2017 and 2018.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

Former Florida walk-on Olivier Rioux, a 7-foot-9 center from Canada and one of the most recognizable student-athletes in North America, announced Thursday he has signed with UC Irvine. The school in Southern California announced his arrival hours earlier.

“Olivier is a high-character young man whose presence will elevate our team, our university, and our community," UC Irvine coach Russell Turner said in a statement. "He embodies the values that have defined our success at UC Irvine.

"We’ve built a strong relationship with Olivier and his family over the years, dating back to his high school recruitment, and that familiarity gives us tremendous belief in who he is both on and off the court. Olivier’s unique skill set and physical presence align perfectly with the tradition of dominant front court players in our program. We believe he will have an immediate impact and continue to grow within our system, and we are thrilled to have him join the Anteater family.”

Rioux played sparingly in two years with the Gators, redshirting as a true freshman during the team’s national championship season and then getting on the court in mop-up duty this past season. He played 15 total minutes, finishing with seven points, six rebounds and an assist.

He set a Guinness World Record as the world’s tallest teen before he stepped foot on campus. Now 20, he’s looking for a chance to play more as a third-year sophomore.

Rioux became the tallest person to ever play college basketball when he made his debut in a 104-64 victory over North Florida last November. He scored three games later, making a free throw after getting fouled. He also recorded his first rebound.

Rioux is 2 inches (5 centimeters) taller than former NBA giants Gheorghe Muresan and Manute Bol, and 3 inches taller than popular big men Yao Ming, Tacko Fall and Shawn Bradley.

Florida coach Todd Golden gave Rioux the option of playing sparingly as a true freshman or taking a redshirt season and working on his game. Rioux chose the latter. Nonetheless, he was a walking viral video, from riding his custom-made bike on campus, to ducking under every doorway, to cutting down nets while standing flat-footed during Florida’s NCAA Tournament run.

Golden made it clear before last season that Rioux would only play late in blowouts, the result of having all four frontcourt players returning. But Rioux doubled down on wanting to be at Florida and welcomed the challenge of playing against Alex Condon, Thomas Haugh, Rueben Chinyelu and Micah Handlogten in practice and behind them in games.

Now he will try to get on the court more often in Southern California.

UC Irvine won the Big West regular-season title last season but lost in the conference tournament and ended up in the NIT.

___

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Cole Thomas Allen did not enter a plea during his brief appearance before U.S. Magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya.

Prosecutors allege Allen planned his attack for weeks and tracked Trump’s movements online before he ran through a magnetometer at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night while holding a long gun and disrupted one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital.

Allen was injured during the attack but was not shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials say. Prosecutors have said they believe Allen fired his shotgun at least once and that a Secret Service agent fired five shots. They have not publicly confirmed that it was Allen’s bullet that struck the agent’s vest.

In a letter to prosecutors on Wednesday, Allen's lawyers alleged that some of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's statements “indicate that the recovered ballistics evidence is inconsistent with aspects of the government’s theory, evidence collected by the government and/or statements made by witnesses.”

The Justice Department, in response, said the evidence shows Allen fired his shotgun at least once in the Secret Service agent's direction. Investigators recovered at least one fragment at the crime scene that is consistent with a buckshot pellet, prosecutors wrote.

"The government is aware of no physical evidence, digital video evidence, or witness statements that are inconsistent with the theory that your client fired his shotgun in the direction" of the officer or that the officer "was indeed shot once in the chest while wearing a ballistic vest," prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors said in court papers that Allen took a picture of himself in his hotel room just minutes before the incident, and that he was outfitted with an ammunition bag, a shoulder gun holster and a sheathed knife. In a message that authorities say sheds light on his motive, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” and alluded obliquely to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions, according to writings sent to family members shortly before shots were fired Saturday night. The Associated Press reviewed the writings.

Allen's lawyers are pressing for his release, arguing in court papers that the government's case is “based upon inferences drawn about Mr. Allen’s intent that raise more questions than answers.” They defense noted that Allen's writings never mentioned Trump by name.

"The government’s evidence of the charged offense –- the attempted assassination of the president –- is thus built entirely upon speculation, even under the most generous reading of its theory," defense lawyers wrote.

Allen was charged on Monday with that crime, as well as two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

Allen, 31, is from Torrance, California. He is a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer.

Sanford, 65, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was shuttering his campaign just a month after he launched it, a decision inspired by his desire to focus on combating the national debt and deficit.

“What I hope to do is to indeed build a grassroots organization — start small, but I have a fair size circle of friends and folks with whom I have some degree of influence and contacts,” Sanford told the AP, also noting that, with his first grandchild on the way, he realized as he mounted this campaign that he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family.

The pivot comes after Sanford mounted a bid to reclaim his former seat in South Carolina's 1st District. He entered a primary on the last day of candidate filing, when the race already was chock full of other Republican candidates, many of whom had spent months laying the groundwork for their campaigns.

That territory was familiar to Sanford. An outsider with almost no name recognition when he launched his first congressional campaign for the 1994 contest, the real estate investor finished second in the GOP primary before winning the runoff. He served for six years before his outside run at governor, again pushing his way through a crowded primary, then knocking off the last Democrat to hold the office.

Sanford’s eight years as governor were overshadowed by the Appalachian Trail, which became shorthand for his disappearance to go to Argentina to see his lover. Sanford’s wife, family and staff didn’t know where he was.

Beating back both an impeachment inquiry and calls to resign, Sanford held fast, leaving office on his own terms. His wife at the time, Jenny Sanford, moved out of the governor’s mansion in Columbia, relocated with their four sons into the family’s beachfront home near Charleston and later sued him for divorce.

In a 2013 special election, Sanford won back his old congressional seat, beating 15 other candidates in a primary and runoff. He won two more full terms before falling in 2018 to a GOP challenger who had President Donald Trump’s backing.

A year after his primary loss, Sanford reemerged again, launching a long-shot primary challenge to Trump and offering his determination to bring fiscal restraint into the national conversation as a counterpoint to what he described as Trump’s incendiary rhetoric. Just ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Sanford dropped out of the contest.

Sanford, who had appeared at county GOP meetings and candidate forums, said he had been getting "a warm reception” on his recent campaign. But with the experience of knowing that in Congress he wouldn't be able to singularly focus on debt-related issues, he said he felt he would have more impact from the outside.

“There are no guarantees with life, but I think that this has a better chance of elevating that issue, if I worked earnestly on it, than I was going to with the course that I was on with the campaign," Sanford said.

In setting up the new organization, which he said would be centered in South Carolina, Sanford will be able to utilize the more than $1.3 million that had remained in his federal account since he left Congress in 2019. Depleting those resources, Sanford said, is a signal he’s moving away from running for office himself.

But is he done with politics forever? Maybe — and maybe not.

“Look, if there’s ever a guy who would say, ‘Never say never,’ it’s me,” Sanford said. “But I think, realistically, yeah, and it’s recognition of that being the case."

Sanford's decision was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

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A group of retired firefighters says the image is concerning and is now speaking out about the hiring process.

“We knew firsthand what the department can and cannot do” said William D.C. Clark, a former Miami-Dade Fire Rescue firefighter. “We spoke directly to the fire chief and voiced our concerns. The mayor agreed. There was a lot more work to be done.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava acknowledged the concerns.

“We’re fully committed, and it’s a very productive conversation that we’re having,” Levine Cava said.

The department says Recruit Class 159 was selected from an expiring eligibility list, which significantly limited who could be hired.

Officials add that national recruiting challenges, a smaller applicant pool and urgent staffing needs made this class an outlier -- not a reflection of the department’s overall commitment to diversity.

“What came away from this meeting was just an ultra-positive experience -- a more strong and shared vision and partnership in the recruiting process so we can accomplish the goals that both sides wanted to get,” said Charles Francois, a captain with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

MDFR tells Local 10 News that a new class is underway and provided a breakdown of the 34 recruits.

Nine are Black, 20 are Hispanic and five are white. There is no date set for graduation yet.

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Daytona Beach police said they pulled over a car that was involved in a shooting on Saturday, but it quickly turned into a chaotic chase.

Officers started to question the driver, identified as Cory Acree, when they noticed a small baggie between the door and the driver’s seat, authorities said.

Police said the officer picked up the bag and asked Acree to get out of the car, and that’s when he took off.

Officers were able to find Arcee’s young daughter a short distance away from where they took him into custody after they said he ditched her in the woods to try and run away faster.

Officers said they immediately got his daughter out of the woods.

They placed her away from where they were arresting her father and did everything to comfort her, handing her stickers and toys, authorities said.

Acree faces multiple charges, including fleeing from officers, drug trafficking and child abuse.

As of Wednesday, he was being held behind bars without bond.

Captain Tyler Baruch said the sandbar is shifting and is a hazard to boaters.

Baruch said he has been a boat captain for 15 years and that one particular sandbar in the Jupiter Inlet could cause serious damage to boats and potentially even cost someone their life.

Baruch’s video has racked up more than 400,000 views, calling on elected officials to act.

He says that dredging currently happening in the inlet is actually making the problem worse, explaining that when they take the sand and put it on the beach, the second a decent swell comes, that sand is swept out and clogging up the inlet.

Baruch said he’s experienced some pretty scary situations himself while on the water.

“Don’t hit the cut perfectly and you hit the sandbar and there’s a wave, the wave can flip your boat and you can either get crushed by the boat or potentially get knocked out and drown,” he said. “We almost flipped. We were pretty much vertical. The boat was almost about to flip and I was so scared. All I think they need to do is keep a consistent dredge pumping just like we have in West Palm and other inlets, and then the inlet will stay deep and everything will be fine.”

In Baruch’s video, he also called on elected officials to help.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it’s working to get permits to help the situation, but since the inlet is not federally mandated, they have to wait for approval, adding that turtle nesting season also brings complications.

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Officers with the Miami Police Department arrested 34-year-old Nathan Tyler Guy on Wednesday following an investigation that they say spanned from September 2025 through February 2026.

Investigators said Guy, who lives in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, “engaged in a systematic scheme to defraud multiple victims” by posting fake rental listings on Facebook Marketplace, communicating with victims through text messages and FaceTime, and providing what appeared to be legitimate lease agreements.

According to his arrest report, Guy would request deposits and other payments under false pretenses and, after receiving the money, “cease communication and block the victims without returning any funds.”

Police said the scheme involved “consistent methods,” including the use of third-party payment platforms such as Zelle, Venmo and Cash App, as well as false representations of property ownership.

The report states that in one case, a victim told investigators he paid a $1,000 cash deposit after being shown a property via FaceTime, but was denied a refund after asking to see the apartment in person.

In another incident, a victim reported paying about $19,000 in rental-related payments and was later locked out of the residence and denied access to personal belongings, according to investigators.

That same victim also alleged she provided an additional $35,000 for a “purported investment opportunity” that was never fulfilled, with no funds returned, the report states.

Other victims also reported sending deposits ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars before being told the listings were no longer available or discovering they were fraudulent, after which they were blocked by the suspect, according to police.

Authorities said Guy was taken into custody Wednesday outside of his apartment complex. During a search of his apartment, officers seized two iPhones, an iPad and a MacBook, police said.

According to his arrest report, Guy declined to provide a statement without an attorney but “spontaneously state(d) that he was aware he was being arrested in connection with the renting of his apartment.”

Jail records show he is facing one count each of organized fraud of $50,000 or more, second-degree grand theft between $20,000 and $100,000, and six counts of third-degree grand theft.

As of Thursday, Guy was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where his bond was listed as “to be set.”

Anyone who believes they may be a victim of this scheme is urged to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

Agentes del Departamento de Policía de Miami arrestaron el miércoles a Nathan Tyler Guy, de 34 años, tras una investigación que, según dijeron, se extendió desde septiembre de 2025 hasta febrero de 2026.

Los investigadores dijeron que Guy, quien vive en el vecindario Edgewater de Miami, “participó en un esquema sistemático para defraudar a múltiples víctimas” al publicar anuncios falsos de alquiler en Facebook Marketplace, comunicarse con las víctimas mediante mensajes de texto y FaceTime, y proporcionar lo que parecían ser contratos de arrendamiento legítimos.

Según su informe de arresto, Guy solicitaba depósitos y otros pagos bajo falsos pretextos y, tras recibir el dinero, “cesaba la comunicación y bloqueaba a las víctimas sin devolver ningún fondo”.

La policía dijo que el esquema involucraba “métodos consistentes”, incluido el uso de plataformas de pago de terceros como Zelle, Venmo y Cash App, así como representaciones falsas de propiedad.

El informe indica que en un caso, una víctima dijo a los investigadores que pagó un depósito en efectivo de $1,000 USD después de que le mostraran una propiedad por FaceTime, pero se le negó un reembolso tras solicitar ver el apartamento en persona.

En otro incidente, una víctima reportó haber pagado alrededor de $19,000 USD en pagos relacionados con el alquiler y posteriormente fue excluida de la residencia y se le negó acceso a sus pertenencias personales, según los investigadores.

Esa misma víctima también alegó que proporcionó $35,000 USD adicionales para una “supuesta oportunidad de inversión” que nunca se concretó, sin que se le devolvieran los fondos, señala el informe.

Otras víctimas también reportaron haber enviado depósitos que van desde cientos hasta miles de dólares antes de que se les informara que los anuncios ya no estaban disponibles o descubrieran que eran fraudulentos, tras lo cual fueron bloqueadas por el sospechoso, según la policía.

Las autoridades dijeron que Guy fue detenido el miércoles fuera de su complejo de apartamentos. Durante un registro de su apartamento, los agentes incautaron dos iPhones, un iPad y una MacBook, informó la policía.

Según su informe de arresto, Guy se negó a proporcionar una declaración sin un abogado, pero “declaró espontáneamente que sabía que estaba siendo arrestado en relación con el alquiler de su apartamento”.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que enfrenta un cargo de fraude organizado de $50,000 USD o más, un cargo de hurto mayor en segundo grado entre $20,000 USD y $100,000 USD, y seis cargos de hurto mayor en tercer grado.

Hasta el jueves, Guy permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight, donde su fianza figuraba como “por determinar”.

Cualquier persona que crea haber sido víctima de este esquema debe llamar a Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers al 305-471-8477.

Según el informe de arresto del sospechoso, el incidente ocurrió alrededor de las 12:40 p.m. en el área de 25200 S. Dixie Highway.

Las autoridades dijeron que un agente respondió a la escena tras recibir un reporte de una “agresión en curso” y encontró a David Allen Snyder Jr., de Miami, apuntando un arma a un vehículo.

El agente le ordenó a Snyder que soltara el arma y levantara las manos, y luego lo puso bajo custodia, dijeron las autoridades.

Según el informe, Snyder le dijo espontáneamente al agente: “Esto es un acto de guerra”.

Las víctimas en el otro vehículo le dijeron al agente que respondió que estaban detenidos en una luz roja cuando sintieron que su vehículo se movía y al principio pensaron que habían tenido un accidente menor.

Pero dijeron que luego miraron por el espejo retrovisor y vieron al sospechoso intentando quitar una bandera estadounidense que estaba colocada en su auto.

Según el informe, el conductor huyó del área en un intento de alejarse de Snyder, pero él los siguió hasta un centro comercial en Southwest 264th Street y South Dixie Highway.

Las víctimas dijeron al agente que Snyder apuntó repetidamente un arma al parabrisas de su vehículo.

Dijeron que mientras giraban en el estacionamiento, escucharon un solo disparo.

El agente que respondió llegó a la escena cuando las víctimas salían del centro comercial, dijeron las autoridades.

Según el informe, el agente que realizó el arresto encontró un arma negra y un casquillo percutido dentro del vehículo de Snyder.

Después de ser puesto bajo custodia, Snyder invocó su derecho a permanecer en silencio, dijeron las autoridades.

Fue arrestado por cargos de agresión agravada con un arma mortal, intento de asesinato, disparar un arma de fuego desde un vehículo y exhibición indebida de un arma de fuego.

Hasta la mañana de este jueves, Snyder permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza de $18,000 USD.

Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that Wednesday’s high court ruling effectively prohibits the state from carrying out the primaries under the current districts. Early voting had been scheduled to begin Saturday in advance of the May 16 primary.

“The State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map," Landry and Murrill said in the statement posted to social media. “We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.”

The election suspension was denounced by some Democrats.

“This is going to cause mass confusion among voters -- Democrats, Republicans, white, Black, everybody,” said Louisiana state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat who represents the New Orleans area. “What they’re effectively doing is changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. It’s rigging the system.”

Louisiana currently is represented in the U.S. House by four Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map could give Republicans a chance to pick up at least one more seat in the November midterm elections — adding to Republican gains elsewhere in an unusual national redistricting battle.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But President Donald Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

On Wednesday, Florida became the latest state to redraw its U.S. House districts, adopting a new map backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that could give the GOP a chance at winning several additional seats.

The Florida vote occurred just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority issued a ruling that significantly weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. The court said Louisiana officials had relied too heavily on race when drawing a congressional district that is represented by Democrat Cleo Fields.

After the 2020 census, Louisiana officials had drawn House voting district boundaries that maintained one Black majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.

A federal judge later struck down the map for violating the Voting Rights Act. And the following year the Supreme Court found that Alabama had to create its own second majority Black congressional district.

In response, Louisiana’s legislature and governor adopted a new House map in 2024 that created a second Black majority district. But that map also was subsequently challenged in court, leading to the most recent Supreme Court ruling.

After the ruling, Landry called U.S. House candidates on Wednesday and told them that primaries would most likely be stalled, according to Misti Cordell, a Republican running in a crowded race to fill U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow’s vacated seat.

“It’s an inconvenience for a candidate for sure, but you know they want to do it right versus having to go through all this again,” Cordell said. She added that she appreciated the heads up before she and other candidates began “spending their war chest” during the final weeks leading up to Election Day.

Delaying an election is unusual but not unprecedented.

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, several states pushed back elections because of health concerns. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who led Louisiana at the time, twice postponed Louisiana's presidential primary — ultimately resetting it from April 4 to July 11.

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Brook reported from New Orleans and Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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According to the suspect’s arrest report, the incident occurred at about 12:40 p.m. in the area of 25200 S. Dixie Highway.

Authorities said a deputy responded to the scene after receiving a report about an “assault in progress” and found David Allen Snyder Jr., of Miami, pointing a gun at a vehicle.

The deputy ordered Snyder to put the gun down and his hands up, and then took Snyder into custody, authorities said.

According to the report, Snyder spontaneously told the deputy, “This is an act of war.”

The victims in the other vehicle told the responding deputy that they were stopped at a red light when they felt their vehicle move and initially thought they had been in a minor accident.

But they said they then looked in the rearview mirror and spotted the suspect trying to remove an American flag that was attached to their car.

According to the report, the driver fled the area in an attempt to get away from Snyder, but he followed them into a shopping plaza at Southwest 264^th Street and South Dixie Highway.

The victims told the deputy that Snyder repeatedly pointed a gun at the windshield of their vehicle.

They said as they were making turns in the parking lot, they heard a single gunshot.

The responding deputy arrived at the scene as the victims were exiting the shopping plaza, authorities said.

According to the report, the arresting deputy found a black gun and one spent casing inside Snyder’s vehicle.

After being taken into custody, Snyder invoked his right to remain silent, authorities said.

He was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, discharging a firearm from a vehicle and improper exhibition of a firearm.

As of Thursday morning, Snyder was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on an $18,000 bond.

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A few months ago, a brand-new facility was unveiled, promising to bring recycling into the future and make the process more effective and affordable. Now, South Floridians are being urged to step up and get it right.

“Recycling really works, and recycling really is real. If you put good, clean material at your curb, it comes here,” said Dawn McCormick, communications director for Waste Management Florida.

The facility is South Florida’s latest high-tech effort to tackle a growing solid waste crisis.

“We run it through a $90 million facility. We have bales at the end that we have markets for, mostly in the United States, and those become new products,” McCormick said.

Waste Management unveiled the new, high-tech, 127,000-square-foot recycling facility in West Pembroke Pines in February. It can process 275,000 tons of material each year at a rate of 60 tons per hour.

“What we can do is recycle some additional items, which we’re excited about -- some additional types of plastics and other things that our optical sorters are able to allow us to do,” McCormick said.

The effort is critical as both Broward and Miami-Dade counties each produce more than 5 million tons of waste every year -- double the national average.

“Right now in South Florida, we have limited landfill space, and the clock is ticking,” McCormick said. “I think all of our elected officials and our counties are aware of that and trying to preserve the space that does remain.”

In Miami-Dade alone, about 36% -- or 1.8 million tons -- of materials are recycled each year. However, 39% of what enters the recycling stream is contaminated, meaning it doesn’t belong there and drives up costs.

“It just doesn’t work well in our equipment, and it ends up getting into the other bales of cardboard and other things where it doesn’t belong,” McCormick said.

Instead, plastic bags should be returned to retailers that have designated recycling bins. Recyclables should be placed loosely in the bin.

Officials also warn against putting items like garden hoses, plastic tubing, cords, electronics and batteries -- especially lithium-ion batteries -- into recycling bins.

“This is not what we want. We don’t want the tanglers and the hoses and the cords,” McCormick said. “We don’t want electronics, and we don’t want any types of batteries, especially your lithium-ion batteries, which are sparking fires in our collection trucks and facilities.”

Those items should be taken to county household hazardous waste sites.

So what can be recycled?

“We’re looking just for bottles, cups, jugs and tops,” McCormick said.

Plastic dairy tubs, like yogurt and cheese containers, can now be recycled, as long as they are rinsed out. Plastic cups are also now accepted, though plastic cutlery still belongs in the trash.

Paper and cardboard remain highly recyclable, including pizza boxes as long as there’s no food inside. Residents are reminded to break down and fold boxes and discard packaging materials.

The most valuable recyclable item remains aluminum cans.

“Recycling an aluminum can has the most environmental benefit. It also has the most economic benefit,” McCormick said. “An aluminum can can be back on your store shelf in 60 days, and it continuously can be recycled. There’s no end to it.”

To help residents recycle correctly, Miami-Dade has partnered with the Scrapp recycling app, which allows users to scan a barcode to see if an item belongs in the bin.

“Recycling works when you do it right,” McCormick said. “It’s a small effort, both at home and even on the go. Bring those materials back, recycle them curbside. You’re doing a tremendous benefit to our environment, and at the same time, you’re saving landfill space and doing the right thing.”

Waste Management is also recycling glass, but it must be shipped to another site in Central Florida, adding extra cost. Because of that, not all cities offer glass recycling.

Officials also warn against “wishcycling” -- throwing items in the bin in hopes they can be recycled. When in doubt, throw it out.

Hace unos meses, se inauguró una instalación completamente nueva que promete llevar el reciclaje al futuro y hacer el proceso más efectivo y asequible. Ahora, se insta a los residentes del sur de Florida a dar un paso al frente y hacerlo correctamente.

“El reciclaje realmente funciona y el reciclaje realmente es real. Si colocas material limpio y adecuado en la acera, llega aquí”, dijo Dawn McCormick, directora de comunicaciones de Waste Management Florida.

La instalación es el más reciente esfuerzo de alta tecnología del sur de Florida para enfrentar una creciente crisis de desechos sólidos.

“Lo procesamos en una instalación de $90,000,000 USD. Al final tenemos pacas para las que tenemos mercados, principalmente en Estados Unidos, y esas se convierten en nuevos productos”, dijo McCormick.

Waste Management inauguró la nueva instalación de reciclaje de alta tecnología, de 127,000 pies cuadrados, en West Pembroke Pines en febrero. Puede procesar 275,000 toneladas de material cada año a una tasa de 60 toneladas por hora.

“Lo que podemos hacer es reciclar algunos artículos adicionales, lo cual nos entusiasma, algunos tipos adicionales de plásticos y otras cosas que nuestros clasificadores ópticos nos permiten procesar”, dijo McCormick.

El esfuerzo es crítico ya que tanto el condado Broward como Miami-Dade producen cada uno más de 5 millones de toneladas de desechos cada año, el doble del promedio nacional.

“En este momento en el sur de Florida, tenemos espacio limitado en los vertederos y el tiempo se está agotando”, dijo McCormick. “Creo que todos nuestros funcionarios electos y nuestros condados están conscientes de eso y tratando de preservar el espacio que queda”.

Solo en Miami-Dade, alrededor del 36%, o 1.8 millones de toneladas, de materiales se reciclan cada año. Sin embargo, el 39% de lo que entra en el flujo de reciclaje está contaminado, lo que significa que no pertenece allí y eleva los costos.

“Simplemente no funciona bien en nuestros equipos y termina mezclándose con otras pacas de cartón y otros materiales donde no corresponde”, dijo McCormick.

En cambio, las bolsas plásticas deben devolverse a minoristas que tengan contenedores designados para reciclaje. Los reciclables deben colocarse sueltos en el contenedor.

Los funcionarios también advierten no colocar artículos como mangueras de jardín, tubos plásticos, cables, electrónicos y baterías, especialmente baterías de iones de litio, en los contenedores de reciclaje.

“Esto no es lo que queremos. No queremos los enredos ni las mangueras ni los cables”, dijo McCormick. “No queremos electrónicos y no queremos ningún tipo de baterías, especialmente las de iones de litio, que están provocando incendios en nuestros camiones de recolección e instalaciones”.

Esos artículos deben llevarse a sitios de desechos domésticos peligrosos del condado.

Entonces, ¿qué se puede reciclar?

“Buscamos solo botellas, vasos, envases y tapas”, dijo McCormick.

Los envases plásticos de lácteos, como los de yogur y queso, ahora pueden reciclarse, siempre que estén enjuagados. Los vasos plásticos también son aceptados ahora, aunque los cubiertos plásticos aún deben ir a la basura.

El papel y el cartón siguen siendo altamente reciclables, incluidas las cajas de pizza siempre que no tengan comida dentro. Se recuerda a los residentes desarmar y doblar las cajas y desechar los materiales de empaque.

El artículo reciclable más valioso sigue siendo la lata de aluminio.

“Reciclar una lata de aluminio tiene el mayor beneficio ambiental. También tiene el mayor beneficio económico”, dijo McCormick. “Una lata de aluminio puede volver al estante de la tienda en 60 días y puede reciclarse continuamente. No tiene fin”.

Para ayudar a los residentes a reciclar correctamente, Miami-Dade se ha asociado con la aplicación de reciclaje Scrapp, que permite a los usuarios escanear un código de barras para ver si un artículo pertenece al contenedor.

“El reciclaje funciona cuando se hace bien”, dijo McCormick. “Es un pequeño esfuerzo, tanto en casa como incluso fuera de ella. Lleva esos materiales de regreso, recíclalos en la acera. Estás generando un gran beneficio para nuestro medio ambiente y, al mismo tiempo, estás ahorrando espacio en los vertederos y haciendo lo correcto”.

Waste Management también está reciclando vidrio, pero debe enviarse a otro sitio en el centro de Florida, lo que añade costo adicional. Debido a eso, no todas las ciudades ofrecen reciclaje de vidrio.

Los funcionarios también advierten contra el “wishcycling”, es decir, tirar artículos en el contenedor con la esperanza de que puedan reciclarse. En caso de duda, tíralo a la basura.

“Every time I get a paycheck, it’s all already spoken for,” said Jones, a 21-year-old who works at a deli and a nonprofit in Springfield, Massachusetts. Being a homeowner is one of Jones’ dreams, and his inability to save for it frustrates him.

Currently, 65% of working-age renters can’t cover their monthly expenses after paying for housing, according to an analysis from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Nearly half of all renters were cost-burdened by rent in 2024, that means they spent more than a third of their income on housing and utilities, which is based on data from the most recent census.

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EDITORS’ NOTE: The Money Happens series explores challenges and anxieties around money and offers helpful tips for dealing with them. Each episode features a case of an individual experiencing a challenging financial problem, whether it’s student loan or credit card debt, and an expert who can help provide strategies for working through these issues. You can listen to all of the episodes here.

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Anxiety about the possibility of never being able to own a house can make some people give up on organizing their finances altogether, said John Hankins, a certified financial therapist.

Sometimes "anxiety becomes kind of a self-perpetuating cycle,” he said.

If you hope to buy a house in the future but don’t know where to start, here are some expert tips for you:

1. Feel comfortable facing your finances

Getting a handle on your finances is the first step towards planning and achieving a financial goal. If you’re looking to buy a home in the future but that goal feels unattainable, start by figuring out how much money you’re bringing in, how much you’re spending, and where you can cut back to start saving.

For Jones, the anxiety of possibly being evicted from his current apartment because he lives paycheck to paycheck has been a barrier to making future plans for homeownership.

“I’d want to come back to this anxiety, this sadness that stopping him from getting his arms around his finances,” Hankins said.

Don’t let your anxieties stop you from facing your finances. The longer you avoid solving a financial worry, the longer it will take to solve it down the road.

2. Avoid debt if you can, but build a credit history

After watching his parents get into large amounts of debt and have to deal with the consequences, Jones has avoided any type of debt, including student loans and credit cards. But he needs to build a credit history to buy a home in the future.

Learning to find a middle ground between building credit and falling into credit card debt is key, Hankins said.

“Once you have a credit card, it’s a dangerous thing," he said. "So let’s be really understanding how you’re going to manage this so that it doesn’t get out of control."

3. Don’t compare yourself to others

Jones often compares his journey to his parents'. They became homeowners in their mid-twenties while working in the restaurant industry. But that type of comparison isn't helpful, Hankins said.

“It’s not a reflection on you that you haven’t been able to achieve what your parents achieved," Hankins said. “They were operating under a whole different set of rules."

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

Un grupo de bomberos retirados dice que la imagen es preocupante y ahora está expresando inquietudes sobre el proceso de contratación.

“Sabemos de primera mano lo que el departamento puede y no puede hacer”, dijo William D.C. Carter, un ex bombero de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. “Hablamos directamente con el jefe de bomberos y expresamos nuestras preocupaciones. La alcaldesa estuvo de acuerdo. Había mucho más trabajo por hacer”.

La alcaldesa de Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, reconoció las preocupaciones.

“Estamos totalmente comprometidos y es una conversación muy productiva la que estamos teniendo”, dijo Levine Cava.

El departamento dice que la Clase de Reclutas 159 fue seleccionada de una lista de elegibilidad por vencer, lo que limitó significativamente a quiénes se podía contratar.

Los funcionarios agregan que los desafíos de reclutamiento a nivel nacional, un grupo más pequeño de solicitantes y necesidades urgentes de personal hicieron de esta clase un caso atípico, no un reflejo del compromiso general del departamento con la diversidad.

“Lo que resultó de esta reunión fue una experiencia sumamente positiva, una visión más sólida y compartida y una asociación en el proceso de reclutamiento para que podamos lograr los objetivos que ambas partes querían alcanzar”, dijo Charles Francois, capitán de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

MDFR dijo a Local 10 News que una nueva clase ya está en marcha y proporcionó un desglose de los 34 reclutas.

Nueve son negros, 20 son hispanos y cinco son blancos. Aún no hay una fecha establecida para la graduación.

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“I live right there -- that could be me,” one neighbor said.

Sky 10 was over the scene shortly after the collapse on a block near East 63rd Street and Fourth Avenue. The boom on the heavy-duty mobile crane was fully extended when it toppled over, barely missing a home where a man’s wife and children were inside.

“It sounded very strong and I expected that something happened,” said Mayra Jimenez, who lives two doors down from where the boom came to rest.

Jimenez rushed outside after hearing the crash.

“I think everything was okay. I feel lucky, but nothing happened -- not even my car and not even my neighbors,” she said.

Police responded to the scene, roping off traffic and keeping neighbors at a distance from the situation.

Florida Power & Light crews were also spotted nearby, as the crane appeared to have taken down part of a tree and a concrete pole.

“This is crazy what we’re seeing here,” said Richard Alberto, whose home sits directly across the street.

The all-terrain crane, capable of lifting up to 800 tons, had its outriggers -- or stability plates -- extended at the time of the collapse.

Sims Crane & Equipment dispatched additional mobile cranes to help lift the overturned equipment, a delicate and dangerous operation unfolding in the middle of the residential neighborhood.

“It could be something worse, so we are grateful nothing happened,” Jimenez said.

“Vivo justo ahí, eso podría haber sido yo”, dijo un vecino.

Sky 10 estaba sobre la escena poco después del colapso en una cuadra cerca de East 63rd Street y Fourth Avenue. El brazo de la grúa móvil de alta capacidad estaba completamente extendido cuando se volcó, por poco impactando una vivienda donde la esposa y los hijos de un hombre estaban dentro.

“Sonó muy fuerte y supe que algo había pasado”, dijo Mayra Jimenez, quien vive a dos casas de donde el brazo terminó.

Jimenez salió corriendo afuera tras escuchar el estruendo.

“Creo que todo está bien. Me siento afortunada, no pasó nada, ni siquiera a mi carro ni a mis vecinos”, dijo.

La policía respondió a la escena, cerrando el tráfico y manteniendo a los vecinos a distancia de la situación.

Equipos de Florida Power & Light también fueron vistos cerca, ya que la grúa aparentemente derribó parte de un árbol y un poste de concreto.

“Es una locura lo que estamos viendo aquí”, dijo Richard Alberto, cuya casa está justo al otro lado de la calle.

La grúa todoterreno, capaz de levantar hasta 800 toneladas, tenía sus estabilizadores, o placas de estabilidad, extendidos al momento del colapso.

Sims Crane & Equipment envió grúas móviles adicionales para ayudar a levantar el equipo volcado, una operación delicada y peligrosa que se desarrolla en medio del vecindario residencial.

“Pudo haber sido algo peor, así que estamos agradecidos de que no pasó nada”, dijo Jimenez.

Según el FBI, Alejandro Jacomino González, de 41 años y originario de Cuba, fue visto por última vez el 17 de abril en el área de descanso del condado Brevard en la Interestatal 95 en dirección sur en Grant-Valkaria. Llegó al área de descanso alrededor de la 1:21 a.m. y permaneció allí durante varias horas, dijeron las autoridades.

Los agentes indicaron que González transportaba vehículos desde el Puerto de Brunswick en Georgia hacia Miami cuando desapareció.

“El camión y algunos de los vehículos han sido recuperados, pero González sigue desaparecido”, publicó el FBI en redes sociales.

Según el FBI, el GPS del camión muestra que alguien condujo el camión hacia el sur una salida antes de girar hacia el norte en dirección a Jacksonville a las 7:49 a.m., después de salir del área de descanso.

“Poco después, González se volvió inlocalizable y el camión fue reportado como desaparecido”, dijo el FBI en un comunicado de prensa.

Según los agentes, el camión fue localizado más tarde ese mismo día en Port Wentworth, Georgia; sin embargo, González no fue encontrado con él y varios vehículos faltaban del transporte.

“Desde el hallazgo del camión, tres vehículos han sido localizados en Florida. Otros aún están desaparecidos, junto con González”, indicó el FBI.

Los agentes ahora buscan fotos y videos de cualquier persona que haya estado en o cerca del área de descanso del condado Brevard entre la 1 a.m. y las 8 a.m. del 17 de abril, “enfocándose específicamente en la parte sur del área de descanso cerca de la rampa que conecta nuevamente con la I-95 Sur”.

Cualquier persona que tenga información sobre lo que los agentes llaman el “secuestro de transporte de vehículos del condado Brevard”, o que desee enviar fotos o videos, debe llamar al FBI al 1-800-225-5324 o hacer clic aquí.

La mujer estaba sangrando poco después de la 1:35 p.m. cerca de Northwest 22 Avenue y 90 Street, según la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade.

Personal de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue trasladó a la mujer al Ryder Trauma Center del Hospital Jackson Memorial. Su condición era crítica, según los agentes.

Los agentes detuvieron a un hombre y a una mujer mientras la investigación continuaba. También cerraron Northwest 90 Street desde la avenida 22 hasta la 21.

Los detectives pidieron a cualquier persona con información sobre este u otros casos que llame a Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers al 305-471-8477 para permanecer en el anonimato.

El editor de asignaciones de Local 10 News Carson Merlo y la editora senior de asignaciones Frine Gomez contribuyeron a este informe.

Área de la escena del crimen

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The case, now in its fifth week in federal court in downtown Miami, stems from alleged conduct dating back to 2017.

Prosecutors are expected to complete their arguments by the end of the day, after which the case could be turned over to the jury.

Rivera and co-defendant Esther Nuhfer are accused of failing to register under federal foreign agent laws.

Prosecutors allege the pair conspired to profit by using political connections to advance efforts tied to Venezuela’s government, including attempts to normalize relations between Caracas and Washington.

According to prosecutors, Rivera and Nuhfer engaged in undisclosed lobbying activities that benefited Maduro’s administration while avoiding required disclosure under U.S. law.

During rebuttal arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz told jurors they could use the superseding indictment as an outline to guide their deliberations and referenced the charging document multiple times.

“Of course Rubio trusted them,” Cruz said, arguing to the jury that Rubio was “used by these two to make money.”

He also urged the 12-person jury to review an interview between Rivera and former Local 10 reporter Michael Putney that was submitted into evidence, which prosecutors have described as a key part of their case.

Defense attorneys counter that the work at issue was commercial in nature and did not require registration.

They argue the arrangement involved a U.S.-based company connected to Venezuela’s oil sector and was focused on business opportunities rather than political advocacy.

The prosecutor pushed back, telling jurors, “They wanted it for Exxon” — adding, “we agree — what we argue is the client was Nicolas Maduro.”

Exxon and Venezuela had a major legal battle after Maduro’s predecessor, former President Hugo Chávez, seized the company’s assets, according to the Miami Herald.

Attorneys for Nuhfer told jurors there is no evidence she acted in bad faith, asking during closing arguments, “Why did they charge her in the first place?” They argued that if jurors cannot answer that question, they should return a not guilty verdict.

The jury of 12 also heard testimony from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said he had no knowledge Rivera was lobbying on behalf of the Venezuelan government when they met in 2017.

“The facts in this case speaks volumes that these two defendants are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Cruz said.

Jurors additionally heard from Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, who testified he was unaware Rivera’s consulting work was tied to any foreign government contract.

Cruz reiterated jurors could rely on the charging document, saying, “You can use the charging document” as a reference.

He closed by telling jurors: “Take your time, talk it over, but it is crystal clear” that the evidence stacks up against them.

Earlier Wednesday, the judge told both sides that a juror had indicated during selection that they would be unavailable from Thursday through Tuesday, requiring the first alternate to step in.

As a result, the 12-person jury chose to stop deliberations for the day, noting a new juror would join the panel Thursday.

Court is set to resume at 11 a.m., with the alternate replacing the now-unavailable juror.

Read Rivera’s indictment in the document below.

Indictment

Race officials announced the change Thursday, and trainer Brad Cox told The Associated Press that Fulleffort will undergo surgery and is expected to recover and return to racing. Cox said an X-ray revealed fluid in the ankle and called it an easy decision because Fulleffort showed some lameness.

“That’s part of the game,” Cox said. “It was a problem that needed to be addressed."

Fullefort’s exit means jockey Tyler Gaffalione will have to wait for another chance to win the race for the first time. Cox went into the week with three Derby horses and is now down to two: Commandment and Further Ado.

"I love 'em," Cox said. “Both had a great morning. I’m excited about Saturday.”

With Fulleffort out, Ocelli draws in off the also-entered list. Trainer Whit Beckman found out after the colt galloped at Churchill Downs around 7:15 a.m.

“I kind of had the expectation all along that if you’re within a couple spots that you have a chance,” Beckman said. “Especially in this day and age, it just seems there’s always a lot of changes from the time we draw to the time we run. We were kind of quietly confident that things would go our way.”

Beckman has been training Ocelli all along as though the colt would be participating in the Derby. Ocelli is coming off a third-place finish in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct Race Track on April 4.

“He’s been training great since we got back here from New York after the Wood,” Beckman said. “Around the barn, he’s a very mature, easy-going horse. Sometimes he could be a little quirky on the track, but it seems like we’re getting a little bit close to perfection every time.”

Ocelli follows Great White into the field, who got in Wednesday when Silent Tactic was scratched because of a foot injury. Like Great White's John Ennis, Beckman was unsure if he'd have a horse in the Derby but was unbothered by the situation.

“The certainty of it to me was more stressful because things can only go wrong,” Beckman said. “In this case, when things can only go right and if something did go wrong, well, it didn’t matter: We weren’t in the race anyway. ... Coming in knowing you could — maybe, maybe not — go, you just kind of let the cards fall and let the universe do its thing.”

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

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Officials said they were called to the Dames Point Bridge on April 12 after a man was spotted getting ready to jump and take his own life.

Video shows a number of officers surrounding the man, who was standing on the ledge of the bridge.

As the man was preparing to jump, Officer Antonio Richardson stepped in.

Richardson is seen in the video speaking to the man for a while and eventually extending out his hand, even offering to pray for him.

Other officers also kept encouraging the man, who eventually took Richardson’s hand, leading to a very emotional embrace between the two.

Jacksonville police say in that moment, their officers weren’t the police, but rather people showing how much they cared for another person, adding that they do what they do every day because they care.

If you or someone you know is struggling mentally, there is help available. Call or text 988 to reach the suicide hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

She has undergone eight surgeries after suffering a complex left leg fracture — one that nearly led to a leg amputation — in the women’s downhill skiing race on Feb. 8. She needs at least one more to repair a torn ACL in that same knee.

So if the 41-year-old races again — and she’s not ready to make that decision — a return is at least a year and a half away, Vonn told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.

“I just don’t want to jump to any conclusions or even speculate on what I might do,” Vonn said. “I may retire. I may never race again and that would be completely fine, but I’m not in a position emotionally to make that decision at this point.”

A return to retirement was an option after a comeback season

Vonn thinks she would have returned to retirement had she been able to complete a comeback season that rivaled one of the best of her career. She ended a six-year absence from the sport largely to race at Cortina, Italy, one of her favorite courses, and the venue for the Milan Cortina Games.

The winner of three Olympic medals, including a downhill gold in 2010, crashed just 13 seconds into the race and suffered a complex tibia fracture, shocking a star-studded crowd and ending a season in which she led the World Cup downhill standings and hadn’t finished worse than fourth in any race.

She’s returned from an assortment of injuries before — she has a titanium implant in her right knee — but this one was different. The pain was different. The eight surgeries are just one shy of the total she had for all the others combined.

“It’s a much different injury in that way, again, like the severity of the injury and understanding that I could have lost my leg and how bad things were,” Vonn said. “I can deal with a lot of pain, but this was so extreme. It’s not even been in the universe of pain with this injury as what I’ve had before.”

Vonn is making progress in and out of the gym, though not as quickly as she would like. She has moved beyond a wheelchair and now is on crutches — she is weary of both — and next week will be able to begin walking short distances.

‘Tell me I can’t and I'll prove you wrong'

She is able to travel again, making a trip to New York this week to discuss her support for the biopharmaceutical company Invivyd's “Antibodies for Any Body” campaign, and she has an upcoming vacation planned.

Beyond that, the future is hard to see.

Vonn said she hasn't spoken to her doctor about what a return to skiing would look like, saying they both prefer to focus on this phase of her recovery.

“Regardless, nothing would really happen until '27-28 because I still have one more surgery left to take out the metal and to replace my ACL. That still needs to happen,” Vonn said. “Once I get my ACL fixed, then that’s another six months, so I have at least I would say a year and a half ahead of me before I could really be back to 100%, even just training in the gym.”

Vonn knows there could be risks in a return, and family members don't want her to take them. It was only a day after her crash, when she was still in the hospital, that her father said her career would be over if it were up to him. Said Vonn: “He means the best. He forgot the cardinal rule with me is that if you don’t want me to do something, you shouldn’t tell me I can’t. Tell me I can’t and I’ll prove you wrong.”

A risk Vonn has ‘always taken happily,’ but she doesn't ‘want a do-over’

Vonn has never shied from taking chances — she raced in the Olympics a little more than a week after tearing her ACL — no matter how they turned out.

“Downhill skiing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world, and that’s a risk that I’ve always taken happily, and this is the result, and I don’t regret it,” said Vonn, who noted she had done all she could to be fully prepped for the race. “I don’t want a do-over.”

But she will at some point decide if she wants to race again.

For now, Vonn said she's focused simply on getting her leg healthy. Only after that's done can she start thinking about a career that may or may not be over.

“I’m still, like I said, in survival mode that I just want to get through this phase and be able to assess where I am in my life,” said Vonn, whose 84 World Cup wins are second-most among women, trailing only teammate Mikaela Shiffrin (110). "And take count of what I’ve done and take count of what could be and make decisions in a much better place than where I am now.

“I don’t want to make a decision now because I think that would be rash and probably too emotional and I don’t want to make a mistake, you know?”

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AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

He just didn’t yet know her name.

“He goes, ‘you know the young girl from ‘House of the Dragon’? The young queen or princess? That’s how I picture it, like a young punk rock girl who is just totally badass and tough,’” Safran told The Associated Press. “I was like, yeah, that sounds fantastic, and we haven’t seen that before.”

Milly Alcock, now 26, had just started to break out playing Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (later portrayed by Emma D’Arcy) in the “Game of Thrones” prequel, when she got a request for a self-tape for the secretive Supergirl project. Alcock had been working in her native Australia since she was a teenager, but her world was suddenly getting bigger very quickly.

A few weeks later, she was summoned for a screen test (her first ever). She boarded a 24-hour flight from Sydney to Atlanta and gave it her best shot.

“I kind of had a feeling, I remember I like got back to my hotel room and I like sat down and I was like, ‘Oh, this is gonna, something’s gonna happen,’” Alcock said. “I just had like an intuition that like, this is going to be a very exciting challenge if it goes in my favor.”

‘This is crazy, what have I done?’

Ten days later, Gunn texted her an article in the trade publication Deadline: “‘Supergirl’: New Woman Of Steel Is ‘House Of The Dragon’s’ Milly Alcock.” No phone call. No context. And all she could think was, “This is crazy, what have I done?” A few days later, she was back on that 24-hour flight to film her cameo in “Superman.”

And things have not slowed down. If shooting the film was a marathon of stunts and action and emotion, the promotion of new DC’s second major film is going to be its own non-stop ride.

When Alcock spoke to the AP earlier this month, she had just arrived in Las Vegas from Kyoto, where she was filming another movie, and on just two hours of sleep had to muster the energy to get up on stage in front of thousands of movie theater owners to hype “Supergirl,” which is out June 26.

“It’s a really original and unique take on a superhero movie,” Safran said. “I think it’s just a great movie for audiences. It’s not just for superhero fans.”

‘She’s just that girl’

The character might be less widely known than her famous cousin, but the response to her appearance in “Superman” was encouraging.

“She’s in the ‘Superman’ movie for, you know, 12 seconds, yet one of the things audiences wanted to see ... more of was her,” Safran said. “And Millie in real life, she’s just that girl … she is authentically a badass.”

Perhaps part of the intrigue is that she’s not straightlaced Superman, who got to be raised by loving and gentle parents on earth. Supergirl saw her planet destroyed and everyone she knew killed and had to fend for herself.

Directed by Craig Gillespie, best known for two other films about complicated young women, “I, Tonya” and “Cruella,” this film finds the jaded Kara on an intergalactic odyssey with Krypto the Superdog and a young woman seeking revenge against the murderous Krem of the Yellow Hills.

“Kara surprisingly reminded me a lot of myself, which I never thought I would get from playing like a superhero, from playing someone who isn’t human. There’s a lot humility in her and that kind of made me fall in love with her immediately,” Alcock said. “Sometimes you can get swept up in what other people expect, and then you kind of lose your intrinsic you-ness. And that’s why people hire you in the first place, because of what you bring to something just innately being who you are.”

‘Why would someone have a toy of my face?’

Alcock didn’t grow up a big film fan, but in acting found a lifeline and an outlet to communicate feelings that she struggled to in real life. It helps her exist as a person, she said.

Recently, Alcock has been living in London, where she said she has a great group of friends, none of whom are actors. And she’s adjusting to the reality that her face is going to be everywhere for a bit.

“It’s been kind of disorientating,” she said. “I do this job because it gives me the ability to disappear. So then to like suddenly be so visible and so exposed is a very vulnerable experience. I’m just trying to learn how to deal with that relationship. But I mean, it’s exciting. Of course it’s exciting. But like anything exciting, it’s also terrifying.”

When she was on the “Superman” set, she remembered talking to David Corenswet briefly and realizing that they had very perspectives about the experience.

“I remember him being like, ‘We’re gonna have action figures, isn’t that cool?’” she said. “And I was like, ‘That’s so weird. Why would someone have a toy of my face?’”

The move now thrusts political newcomer Graham Platner, an oyster farmer almost no one knew a year ago, as the expected Democratic front-runner against longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, whose seat Democrats are targeting in their effort to win control of the closely divided Senate.

“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight – to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources," Mills said in a statement. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”

Mills, a two-term governor and longtime Maine politician, was seen as one of Democrats' top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race last year. She had the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and prominent left-leaning advocacy groups hoping to unseat Collins in the chamber, which has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats.

But Mills struggled to outshine first-time candidate Platner, her opponent in the June 9 Democratic primary. Platner has maintained strong popularity despite facing controversy over past comments he made online and a tattoo he had that is widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.

Mills did not endorse Platner in her campaign suspension announcement but instead promised to keep defending the Constitution and democracy while she's governor for the remainder of her term.

Meanwhile, Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, both of New York, said they would work with Platner to defeat Collins.

“Our North Star is winning a Democratic Senate majority, and over the past year, Senate Democrats have carved out multiple paths to do that,” their statement said.

Democrats debate how to win back some power

The contest between Platner and Mills was part of a broader debate within the Democratic Party over how best to defeat Republicans and win back some power in President Donald Trump's Washington, where the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.

While Schumer backed Mills, his caucus did not fall in line.

Platner is backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. He said during a Thursday news conference that he hopes to work with Mills to “turn the seat blue again” in November.

“We both got into this race because we knew how critical it is to defeat Susan Collins, and her decision today reflects a commitment to that project,” Platner said.

Mills had tried to convince voters that she was the best candidate to stand up to Trump, repeatedly noting she told the president she would see him in court, a reference to Maine officials' lawsuit against the Trump administration over federal funding and a dispute over transgender athletes in sports.

Yet the message appeared at times drowned out by the popularity Platner attracted on the campaign trail. His events have attracted thousands of supporters as he pitched his populist message and flooded airwaves with his ads. He consistently outraised Mills every step of the way, raising $4 million while Mills raised $2.6 million in the latest fundraising quarter. Collins raised $3.1 million but has $10 million in the bank.

Age also became an issue in the race, as some Democrats want younger candidates to lead the party going forward. Mills is 78, while Plater is 41. Collins is 73.

“I’m sure this was a difficult decision for Governor Mills, and I thank her for her decades of service to the people of Maine,” Collins said in a statement.

So far this year, Democrats have largely avoided messy internal fights in their bid to retake the Senate. The Maine race was an exception, and with Mills’ decision, the Michigan Democratic primary could be the most heated campaign this year. Abdul El-Sayed, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow are locked in a competitive race there ahead of the August primary.

Many political observers initially anticipated that it would be Platner, not Mills, who would be forced to bow out of the race.

Questions about Platner

Platner has been dogged by questions about the skull-and-crossbones tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol that he said he got on his chest during a night of drinking while on military leave in Croatia. He has said the tattoo has been covered to no longer reflect that image. Additionally, there have been lingering questions about inflammatory comments he made in old online postings, which he has since disavowed.

Yet, Platner's willingness to talk about his past mistakes has helped propel his favorability.

Republicans had already begun attacking Platner ahead of Mills' campaign suspension announcement, pointing to his old social media posts that were dismissive of sexual assault. Among the posts, Platner once wrote on Reddit that people shouldn’t get so drunk “they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

“Now with Chuck Schumer‘s reluctant support, Platner’s attempt at the Senate will be yet another fantasy that will end when Susan Collins grinds this fraudster into dust,” said Alex Latcham, executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund, in a statement.

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Kruesi reported from Providence. R.I. Associated Press writer Steven Sloan contributed from Washington.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Hitchcock was initially sentenced to death in 1977 after being convicted of first-degree murder in the July 31, 1976, killing of Cynthia Driggers. Following a series of appeals, he was resentenced to death in 1988, 1993 and 1996.

This would be Florida’s sixth execution so far this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.

According to court records, Hitchcock was unemployed and had moved into his brother’s Orlando home several weeks before the July 31, 1976, killing of Cynthia Driggers, the stepdaughter of Hitchcock’s brother. After several hours of drinking beer and smoking marijuana with friends, Hitchcock returned to the family’s home, he told police after his arrest. Hitchcock, who was 20 at the time, went to the 13-year-old girl’s room and raped her, investigators said.

When the girl told Hitchcock that she had been injured and planned to tell her mother, Hitchcock tried to stop her from leaving the room and then began choking her, officials said. Hitchcock took the girl outside, where he beat and choked her until she stopped moving and then left her in some nearby bushes. Hitchcock then took a shower and went to bed.

Hitchcock later recanted during trial, testifying that his brother walked into the girl’s room shortly after she and Hitchcock finished having consensual sex. Hitchcock said his brother took the girl outside and began beating and choking the girl in a fit of rage, and she was already dead by the time Hitchcock pulled his brother off the girl.

Hitchcock said he had initially taken the blame to protect his brother.

The Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal last week to halt Hitchcock’s execution. His attorneys had argued that he was innocent and that the state had illegally refused to grant him access to public records related to the death penalty.

A final appeal was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.

Also Thursday evening, a man who claims he was not the shooter in a fatal robbery that killed two people nearly 18 years ago and who says prosecutors misused rap lyrics he wrote to secure his death sentence faced execution in Texas.

Another execution is planned in Florida on May 21. Richard Knight, 47, is scheduled to received a lethal injection for his conviction in the fatal stabbing of his cousin’s girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection if a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

U.S. jobless aid applications for the week ending April 25 fell by 26,000 to 189,000, down from the previous week’s 215,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s well below the 214,000 new applications analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting.

Filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

According to High Frequency Economics, this week’s number for new jobless aid applications was the fewest since September of 1969.

“There is nothing to worry about in this report. YET!,” HFE’s Chief Economist Carl Weinberg wrote in a note to clients. “At some point, elevated energy costs and prices for materials will cause firms to lay off marginal workers to protect profit margins.”

Despite dwindling layoffs shown in government data, the Iran war, now in its ninth week, has injected a large degree of uncertainty about how it will affect the U.S. and global economies even as Iran and the U.S. remain under a ceasefire agreement.

U.S. financial markets have rebounded near record levels and prices for a barrel of U.S. crude oil remain elevated around $104 per barrel. That’s better than the $112 earlier this month, but still 50% higher than before the war began. Gas prices also much higher since the war began — AAA says the national average Thursday was at $4.30 a gallon —- saddling businesses and consumers with higher costs.

Also Thursday, the government reported that a key inflation measure jumped in March as gas prices soared, the latest sign that the Iran war is driving the cost of living sharply higher.

An inflation gauge monitored by the Federal Reserve rose 0.7% in March from February, up sharply from the previous month, the Commerce Department said. Compared with a year ago, prices rose 3.5%, the biggest increase in almost three years.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation also rose.

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation was already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. On Wednesday, the Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate where it was, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and persistently high inflation.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to fuel inflation. Fed officials voted to cut rates three times to close 2025 out of concern for a weakening job market.

More government data released Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded at a modest 2% pace from January through March. That’s up from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last three months of 2025, hampered by the 43-day government shutdown.

The Labor Department reported earlier this month that U.S. employers added an unexpectedly strong 178,000 new jobs in March, nudging the unemployment rate back down to 4.3%. That followed a surprisingly large loss of 92,000 jobs in February. Revisions also have trimmed 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls, a sign that the labor market remains under strain.

A number of high-profile companies have cut jobs recently, including Morgan Stanley,Block, UPS, Amazon and several other tech companies.

Weekly jobless aid applications have stabilized in a range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. economy emerged from the pandemic recession. However, hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025 due to President Donald Trump’s erratic tariff rollouts, his purge of the federal workforce and the lingering effects of high interest rates meant to control inflation.

Employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs last year, compared with about 1.5 million in 2024, according to the data firm FactSet.

The American labor market appears stuck in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low, but has left those out of work struggling to find a new job. The recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it is also making companies reluctant to hire.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, came in at 207,500, about 3,500 lower than the previous week.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending April 18 fell to 1.79 million, a decrease of 23,000.

Nicky Jackson Colaco, Roblox’s vice president and global head of public policy, announced the changes in a press conference in Jakarta, describing them among the strictest that the company has implemented anywhere in the world.

She said the company has introduced tailored, age-based accounts in Indonesia: Roblox Kids for ages 5 to 12 with no chat features and Roblox Select for ages 13 to 15, with chat features limited to parents or approved family and friends.

The rollout involves automatically transitioning the 23 million accounts that identified as belonging to users under 16 by implementing age verification through facial scanning.

“Any user in Indonesia who has not used that tool, who has no facial age estimated, will be automatically placed in a Roblox Kids account and will not have access to chat," the Roblox executive said.

The age verification tool requires players to take a video selfie that will be used to estimate their age. Jackson Colaco said the date would be immediately deleted. “We don't keep anything,” she said.

The number of Roblox users in Indonesia has reached approximately 45 million, with about 23 million of them being children, said Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid.

Roblox was the only gaming platform classified as high-risk by the Indonesian government, and its access restrictions for children differ from those of other social media platforms.

In addition to account categories and interactions based on age, the interactive gaming platform will also categorize the types of games played by age. The government regulations have prompted Roblox to limit usage time in the hope of reducing children’s addiction to the platform.

“To address concerns about addiction, screen time limits are now in place. Parents can set specific times or hours for their children to play games,” Hafid said.

Indonesia began implementing a new government regulation at the end of March banning children younger than 16 from accessing digital platforms that could expose them to addiction, pornography, online scams and cyberbullying.

Seven of the eight platforms classified as high-risk, including YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live, have committed to restricting children’s access to their services.

In addition to restricting access based on age, Indonesia is urging social media companies and digital platforms to report the number of accounts that have been suspended as part of the implementation of government regulations restricting access for children.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last three months of 2025. The federal government’s spending and investment grew at a 9.3% annual rate in the first quarter, adding more than half a percentage point to growth after lopping off 1.16 percentage points in fourth-quarter 2025.

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of U.S. economic activity, slowed to 1.6% in the first quarter from 1.9% at the end of 2025. Spending on goods, including food and clothing fell slightly. Spending on services slowed.

But business investment, likely driven by spending in artificial intelligence, rose at an 8.7% pace. A weak housing market continues to weigh on the economy. Residential investment fell at an 8% annual pace — the fifth straight quarterly drop and the biggest since the end of 2022. Excluding housing, nonresidential investment surged 10.4%, biggest jump in nearly three years.

An uptick in imports, which rose at an annual rate of 21.4% from January-March, slashed more than 2.6 percentage points off first-quarter growth.

“This is a split-screen economy,” Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote. “Companies and investors involved in AI are on fire. Meanwhile, middle and moderate income households are struggling with high gas prices ... Consumption is slowing as people are struggling to manage all their bills and growing more concerned about the future.’’

Still, a category within the GDP data that measures the economy’s underlying strength grew at a solid 2.5% clip, accelerating from 1.8% in fourth-quarter 2025. This category includes consumer spending and private investment, but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.

The first quarter included about a month of the clash in Iran. Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes. That has driven energy prices higher, fueling inflation and hurting consumers. The Federal Reserve, announcing Wednesday that it was keeping its benchmark interest unchanged, cited “a high level of uncertainty″ arising from the conflict.

Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, did not even bother to forecast first-quarter GDP growth. “The truth is that we do not have any defensible basis for trying to project how these indicators will print,” Weinberg wrote in a commentary Monday. President Donald “Trump’s war with Iran has led to a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. We do not know how to model the impact of that event, as we have never seen anything quite like it.″

Thursday’s report was the first of three Commerce Department estimates.

An inflation gauge monitored by the Fed rose 0.7% in March from February, up sharply from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Compared with a year ago, prices rose 3.5%, the biggest increase in almost three years.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose 0.3% in March from February, and it was 3.2% higher than a year earlier. The annual figure is above February’s reading of 3%.

The jump in gas prices has pushed inflation further away from the Fed’s 2% target. Outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled at a news conference Wednesday that the central bank would likely be on hold for months as it evaluates the impact of the Iran war. The Fed has kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged after cutting it three times last year. The central bank typically keeps rates elevated — or even raises them — to combat higher inflation.

At the same time, Thursday's report showed that Americans' incomes — wages, business income, and government benefits — increased 0.6%, a solid increase but slower than the rate of inflation, for the second straight month.

The decline illustrates the other risk created by higher gas prices: The extra costs will likely siphon away spending that would have gone to other products and services, potentially slowing the economy. For now, consumers have been bolstered by healthy tax refunds, which were lifted by last year's tax cut legislation, but much of that benefit is being eaten up by higher prices at the pump.

“A year that was set to benefit from tail winds associated with a large tax cut and boom in artificial intelligence-led investment has been partially derailed by the impact of what as of today is an adverse and growing supply shock caused by the war in Iran,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax and advisory firm. “Unfortunately, war and the supply shock that ensued has altered the probable growth path this year.”

Brusuelas now expects the economy to expand just 1.7% this year, down from an earlier estimate of 2.4%.

Gas prices jumped nearly 21% in March from the previous month, the report said, while grocery prices actually slipped 0.1%. Clothing costs climbed 1% just in March.

The average price of gas nationwide rose to $4.30 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA, up from $2.98 before the war began. U.S. oil prices cooled a bit Thursday morning but still topped $105 a barrel, up from about $67 before the war.

Still, the Fed typically pays more attention to core prices, and how much higher energy costs feed through to core inflation in the coming months will be a major factor in how the central bank decides on its next moves.

“We’re very well aware that people are experiencing higher gas prices all over the country now,” Powell said Wednesday. “And that hurts.”

Thursday’s report also showed that consumer spending soared 0.9% last month, with most of the increase reflecting the sharp jump in prices. But it also indicates Americans lifted their spending a bit even after adjusting for inflation, a sign of consumer resilience.

The economy expanded at a modest 2% annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department also said Thursday, up from an expansion of just 0.5% in last year’s final quarter, when growth was held back by the six-week government shutdown. Still, consumer spending growth slowed compared with the final three months of last year.

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board rejected Union Pacific's initial application because regulators wanted more details about how the deal would affect the competitive balance between the five remaining major freight railroads and the impact on customers.

Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said the new application makes an even stronger case for the benefits of the merger that he believes would shave a day or two off the delivery time for many shipments because they would no longer have to be handed off between two railroads in the middle of the country.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad projects that the merger could lead to shifting 2.1 million truckloads off the highway onto trains, and doing that could save shippers $3.5 billion because over long distances, rail is cheaper than trucking. But some current rail shippers worry that the rates they already pay could go up.

Vena said CSX and BNSF are already improving their operations to ensure they can compete ,and shippers will benefit from that if the deal is approved. Plus, he pointed out that since BNSF is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway it has the financial resources to do whatever is needed because Berkshire is sitting on nearly $400 billion cash.

“The first few years after this, it’s gonna be like one of those old 15-round boxing fights. Prices are gonna be used, the service is going to be used, everything. And I think the customer’s going to be the winner in all this while we knock down, drag it out, to see who can win and grow their market share,” Vena said.

But the STB established a high bar for major railroad mergers like this one around the turn of the century after past rail mergers snarled freight and led to prolonged disruptions while two railroads worked to integrate their networks. Now Union Pacific has to demonstrate that this deal will enhance competition.

Vena said he's confident the railroads can avoid the integration problems of past mergers because they will take it slow while listening to a new board of customers about the impact. Plus this would be a combination of two successful railroads instead of many deals of the past where one thriving railroad took over another nearly bankrupt one in disrepair.

The deal includes a provision that if the STB requires more than $750 million in concessions Union Pacific can consider walking away, but it won't automatically doom the deal, the railroads disclosed Thursday as they submitted a copy of their merger agreement. Norfolk Southern would be entitled to a $2.5 billion breakup fee if the deal falls apart.

Currently, Norfolk Southern and CSX serve the eastern U.S. while Union Pacific and BNSF serve the west, and the two major Canadian rails compete where they can with their tracks crossing Canada and extending into the United States and Mexico.

A merged Union Pacific would likely control nearly 40% of the nation’s freight, but the railroad said that currently BNSF delivers that much of the nation's freight. So the railroads said the deal would shift which railroad dominates the market but wouldn't dramatically change the competitive balance.

But competitors BNSF and CPKC railroads joined a new coalition Wednesday to highlight concerns that the deal could hurt shippers and eventually consumers if it leads to higher rates for companies that have few options besides rail to get their raw materials and deliver their products. The coalition also includes trade groups for chemical and agricultural shippers and the unions that represent engineers and track maintenance workers.

“This did not begin with a customer asking for a UP-NS merger to happen,” BNSF CEO Katie Farmer said. “It’s driven by Wall Street on the promise of a big shareholder payout. It will eliminate competition, raise costs for consumers, and destabilize the supply chain that powers the American economy.”

But the biggest rail union and hundreds of shippers have backed the deal that would cut the number of major freight railroads across America down to five.

Union Pacific has promised that every union employee who has a job with either railroad at the time of the merger will have a job for life although the workforce could still shrink through attrition if the number of shipments slows down. But UP sounded an optimistic note Thursday and predicted that more than 1,200 new jobs will be created by the third year after the deal to handle the increased freight.

Previously, the railroads predicted 900 new jobs. But the new traffic data the railroads analyzed from all the major freight railroads convinced executives that more job growth is likely.

If the STB accepts this new application, regulators will likely spend more than a year analyzing every aspect of the deal.

.

Trump's threats came after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week that the U.S. was being “ humiliated ” by Tehran in negotiations to end the U.S.-Israel war against Iran.

The mercurial U.S. leader has mused for years about reducing America's military presence in Germany, and has railed against NATO for its refusal to assist the U.S. in its two-month-old war.

Trump wrote Wednesday on social media that the U.S. was reviewing possible troop reductions in Germany, with a “determination” to be made soon. On Thursday, he was still thinking about Merz, posting that the German leader should “spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine” and “fixing his broken Country” than concerning himself with Iran.

US military presence in Europe

U.S. allies in NATO have braced for a U.S. troop withdrawal since just after the Trump administration took office, with Washington warning Europe would have to look after its own security, and that of Ukraine, in the future.

Depending on operations, exercises and troop rotations, around 80,000-100,000 U.S. personnel are usually stationed in Europe. NATO allies have expected for more than a year that U.S. troops deployed after Russia launched its war on Ukraine in 2022 would be first to leave.

Germany hosts several U.S. military facilities, including the headquarters of its European and Africa commands, Ramstein Air Base and a medical center in Landstuhl, where casualties from U.S. wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq were treated. U.S. nuclear missiles are also stationed in the country.

Ed Arnold, an expert in European security at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the U.S. gets a lot out of its presence in Germany — like logistics and support for Middle East combat operations — and was unlikely to withdraw.

Nico Lange from the Center of European Policy Analysis agreed and said there are approximately 36,000 U.S. soldiers in Germany who primarily serve U.S. interests, including “the projection of American power globally,” rather than helping with defense of Germany.

The U.S. has invested “substantial funds” in high-quality infrastructure in Germany which cannot be moved overnight and a different deployment would cost the U.S. a huge amount of money, which would require Trump to get approval from Congress, Lange said.

As early as 2020, Trump announced plan s to withdraw 11,900 U.S. troops from Germany but that didn't happen partly because Congress didn't provide the necessary funds and a withdrawal would have required enormous investments elsewhere.

That's why Trump’s post is most likely “bluster,” Arnold said.

“There is a difference between the military view and the political view,” Arnold said. “The issue with some of these threats is that they are not quite as galling as they were a couple of years ago.”

Merz, visiting troops Thursday at a military training area in Munster, northern Germany, did not directly address Trump’s comments, but alluded to working “shoulder to shoulder for mutual benefit and in deep trans-Atlantic solidarity,” and said his government has “made great efforts to strengthen Germany’s security.”

RUSI’s Arnold said Europe is more concerned about issues like a U.S. redeployment of Patriot missile systems and ammunition from Germany to the Middle East, and notifications to NATO countries such as Estonia and Belgium that orders for American weapons will be delayed as the U.S. government is prioritized.

A senior Western official told The Associated Press they were not aware of any discussions between the U.S. and Germany or other allies regarding the possibility of troop reductions in Germany.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, noted that Europe and Germany, which recently announced its new military strategy, is taking more responsibility for security on the continent.

Last October the U.S. confirmed that it would reduce its troop presence on NATO’s borders with Ukraine. The move to cut 1,500-3,000 troops came on short notice and unsettled ally Romania where the military organization runs an air base.

As Russia looks on, Iran war has had an impact

The U.S. administration informed the allies early last year that it has been reviewing its military “posture” in Europe and elsewhere. The findings of that review had been due to be made public in late 2025 but still have not surfaced.

However, the U.S. did commit to inform its allies in advance about any changes to ensure that no security gap is created at a time when Russia is increasingly confrontational.

The U.S.-Israel war on Iran only made the prospect of a withdrawal more likely, and a flurry of meetings has been held between administration officials, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European leaders since the conflict started on Feb. 28.

Over the last year, European allies and Canada have understood that they will have to provide Europe’s conventional defenses. The main U.S. contribution to NATO deterrence going forward will be the presence of American nuclear weapons and some troops.

Trump's Greenland fixation

Beyond the uncertainty over U.S. personnel, the allies have gotten used to Trump’s outbursts, having weathered insults as “cowards” or hearing NATO branded as a “paper tiger” by their most powerful ally in recent weeks.

Repeated threats to leave altogether, or over things like defense spending, have inured them to social media posts that Trump might be considering some action or another.

The real damage to NATO unity was done by Trump’s fixation on Greenland, and his intent to annex the island, which is a semiautonomous part of ally Denmark, including sending family members and administration officials there.

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Burrows reported from London and Cook from Brussels. Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

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According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the hit-and-run crash was reported shortly before 10 p.m. near the 4900 block of West Hallandale Beach Boulevard.

The moments before the crash were captured on video by the nearby Koinonia Worship Center.

Kyra Budgett told Local 10 News it was her uncle, Derrick Sheffield, who was killed in the hit-and-run crash.

“You hit someone,” she said. “A father, uncle, a cousin that was loved.”

She created a memorial along West Hallandale Beach Boulevard on Wednesday afternoon for the 60-year-old.

“Hurt right now because the person that hit him, they hit him and kept going,” she said. “Like he was a piece of trash.”

A Local 10 News crew was in the area Monday evening as a tarp covered the victim’s body. Detectives were seen speaking with witnesses at the laundromat on the corner of where the crash occurred.

Debris and gloves from investigators were also spotted on the ground, along with the victim’s bicycle.

“He rode these streets for years and nothing ever happened to him,” said Budgett. “It just so happened that night, somebody took his life.”

Deputies said Pembroke Park police initially responded to the crash and the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

The police department then requested that BSO’s Traffic Homicide Unit investigate the circumstances surrounding the fatal crash, BSO said.

“You could have stopped, it could have been an accident. It was dark, it was night,” said Budgett. “You could have stopped and (you) didn’t.”

Anyone with information about the hit-and-run is asked to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.

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According to FBI agents, the body of Alejandro Jacomino Gonzalez, 41, who is originally from Cuba, was discovered in coastal Georgia.

A cause of death has not been released.

According to the FBI, prior to his body being found, Gonzalez had last been seen on April 17 at the Brevard County Rest Area on Interstate 95 southbound in Grant-Valkaria. He arrived at the rest stop at about 1:21 a.m. and rested there for several hours, authorities said.

Agents said Gonzalez was transporting vehicles from the Port of Brunswick in Georgia, which he picked up the day prior, to Miami when he vanished.

According to the FBI, GPS from the truck shows that someone drove the truck south one exit before turning north toward Jacksonville at 7:49 a.m. after leaving the rest stop.

“Soon after, Gonzalez became unreachable and the truck was reported missing,” the FBI said in a news release.

According to agents, the truck was located later that day in Port Wentworth, Georgia, however Gonzalez was not found with it and several vehicles were missing from the hauler.

“Since the discovery of the truck, three vehicles have been located in Florida. Others are still missing,” the FBI said.

Agents are now seeking photos and video footage from anyone who was in or around the Brevard County rest stop between the hours of 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. on April 17, “specifically focusing on the southern portion of the rest area near the ramp that enters back onto I-95 South.”

Anyone who has information about what agents are calling the “Brevard County Car Hauler Hijacking,” or would like to submit photos or video, is asked to call the FBI at 1-800-225-5324 or click here.

A national study by the Media Insight Project finds 36% of U.S. adults say they get news from social media at least once a day. But for people ages 13 to 17, that number rises to 57%.

Similarly, 43% of adults say they get information on national issues and events from influencers or independent content creators at least “sometimes," compared with 57% of teenagers. The project is a collaboration among The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute and journalism schools at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland.

The new poll points to the pervasiveness of social media in teenagers’ lives and shows how more teens are consuming their news from these platforms or independent content creators, rather than directly from national or local news sources.

While Americans haven't abandoned traditional journalism, they are reevaluating what sources they trust, said Robyn Tomlin, executive director of the American Press Institute.

“Traditional national and local outlets continue to stand out as a trusted source, but people, especially younger audiences, are also building relationships with younger creators they believe are transparent and authentic,” Tomlin said. “That reality has enormous implications for the future of news.”

More teens turn to social media and search for news

Besides social media, teenagers are also more likely to turn to search engines and artificial intelligence chatbots as they hunt for news.

The survey found that about 4 in 10 teens get news daily from search, while about 2 in 10 say that about AI chatbots.

There's little difference among age groups in people who said they get news from digital sites or apps, and television and streaming, the survey found. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults and a similar share of teenagers are getting news from TV at least once a day, with a similar share tuning into digital news sites.

“The idea that television is going away is a misapprehension,” said Tom Rosenstiel, journalism professor at the University of Maryland who worked on the survey. “Watching news through video is not going away. It's changing. The way you see it on YouTube is different than on the ‘CBS Evening News.’”

Many teens approach AI and influencers with some doubts

Despite the fact that many teenagers are getting news from influencers and AI, many have a healthy dose of skepticism.

Though teens are more likely than adults to say they have “a great deal of confidence” in the information they are getting from AI chatbots, relatively few have high confidence in AI’s output. Just 11% of teenagers have a high level of certainty in the information coming from AI, compared with 4% of adults.

Teens are also more confident in their ability to determine whether something was made by a human or AI. About one-third of teens expressed a high level of confidence in their ability to distinguish AI-generated content from human-generated content, compared with about 2 in 10 adults.

When it comes to influencers, there are similar doubts. Only 12% of teenagers also have “a great deal of confidence” in the information they get from independent creators or influencers, whether that’s coming from TV, social media or other sources. That’s higher than the 6% of U.S. adults who say the same, but still very low.

Teens are more engaged with celebrity and gaming news

Not surprisingly, the survey also found that teenagers are more interested in news about celebrities, music, movies, sports and other entertainment. Adults have more interest in political news, business issues or the economy.

For teenagers and adults alike, there’s a significant news fatigue, particularly around political news, Rosenstiel said. Most U.S. adults and teenagers say they “often” or “sometimes” try to avoid news stories about national government and politics, and about 6 in 10 say they try to sidestep news related to President Donald Trump.

“People are tired of the feeling that things are spinning out of control that they’re very judicious in what they’re spending their time on,” Rosenstiel said.

Rosenstiel said many teens also hunt for news and information in different ways. They are much less likely than adults to say they avoid celebrity news or news that is delivered via social media. It’s possible, Rosenstiel added, that the most important journalism for some people is what helps them live their lives, even if it falls outside conventional news sources.

“Part of the problem for traditional journalism," Rosenstiel said, “is the traditional journalism definition of what is real news.”

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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

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The Media Insight Project survey is an initiative of the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll of 2,101 Americans included 1,092 U.S. adults ages 18 or older and 1,009 teenagers ages 13 to 17. The poll of adults was conducted Feb. 5-8 and the poll of teens was conducted Feb. 2-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points, and the margin of sampling error for teenagers overall is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

To honor that, he took the unusual step of leaving the Oval Office and going to Capitol Hill for the signing ceremony. It was Aug. 6, 1965, five months after the “Bloody Sunday” attack on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, gave momentum to the bill that became known as the Voting Rights Act.

In the six decades since, it became one of the most consequential laws in the nation's history, preventing discrimination against minorities at the ballot box and helping to elect thousands of Black and Hispanic representatives at all levels of government.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out a major pillar of the law that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation. It was a decision that came more than a decade after the court undermined another key tenet of the law and led to restrictive voting laws in a number of states. Voting and civil rights advocates were left fearful of what lies ahead for minority communities.

“It means that you have entire communities that can go without having representation,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter. "It is literally throwing us back to the Jim Crow era unapologetically, and that’s not exaggeration.”

Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington office, said the court’s steady work to erode the Voting Rights Act, culminating in Wednesday’s decision, amounted to “burying it without the funeral.”

Hollowing out America's ‘greatest legislative landmark’

The Supreme Court’s ruling came in a congressional redistricting case out of Louisiana after the state created a district that gave the state its second Black representative to Congress.

It found that map to be an unconstitutional gerrymander because it took race into account to draw the lines. In an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court's conservative majority said the provision of the Voting Rights Act in question, called Section 2, was designed to protect voters from intentional discrimination.

Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent said the bar to show intentional discrimination is “an almost insurmountable barrier for challenges to any voting rights issues to prove discrimination.”

Voting rights experts said the ruling leaves the Voting Rights Act only a shell of what it had been and will provide an open door for political mapmakers at every level — from local school districts to state legislatures to Congress — to undermine minority representation.

“We’re witnessing the evisceration of America’s greatest legislative landmark at the hands of a far right Supreme Court,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York said.

Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, said the decision will allow more aggressive “cracking and packing” of populations to dilute their votes, “not just in congressional districts but also in state legislatures, county commissions, school boards and city councils.”

VRA was the key tool to fight dilution of voting strength

Voting rights experts said there is no doubting the law's impact over the decades.

Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor at Howard University and the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said there were about 1,500 Black elected officials throughout the country in 1970. Today, that stands at more than 10,000.

"And it isn’t because of the goodness of people’s hearts,” she said.

She said that success was a direct result of Black communities, civil rights activists and lawyers having the tools, through the Voting Rights Act, to file challenges to efforts to diminish the voting strength of Black and Hispanic voters. Most of the Section 2 cases have been over representation in local governments.

It’s not just the numbers.

A loss of representation, especially in state legislatures and Congress, will translate into minority communities losing a voice on issues that matter to them, such as healthcare, education and needed public works upgrades, said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project.

“States can now point to partisan objectives to justify maps that strip voters of color of representation, and federal courts will have little basis to intervene,” she said.

A steady erosion by the court, a future in doubt

The landmark law signed by Johnson 61 years ago had been amended over the years, but the biggest change was in 2013, when the Supreme Court released its ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. That decision essentially ended a provision of the Voting Rights Act mandating the way states and local jurisdictions were included on a list of those needing to get advance approval, or preclearance, for voting-related changes.

That decision paved the way for mostly Republican states to pass a wave of restrictive election legislation, especially after President Donald Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed widespread fraud cost him reelection in 2020 against Democrat Joe Biden.

In a surprise ruling in 2023, the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 in a redistricting case out of Alabama, a ruling that it essentially reversed on Wednesday.

The question now is what comes next, for minority representatives and the communities they represent.

In Louisiana, the decision puts Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields on the endangered list. This isn’t the first time redistricting has complicated Fields’ political plans. He served for two terms in the 1990s before the state redrew his congressional district.

“I’ve been down this road before, you know, 33 years ago,” he said.

Shomari Figures, who won the seat created in Alabama after the court’s 2023 decision, said the decision doesn’t make changes to that state’s current congressional districts, but it has made proving future racial discrimination in redistricting cases significantly tougher.

“It will lead to states, primarily in the South, launching immediate efforts to redraw districts in ways that will dilute the impact of Black voters and drastically reduce the number of realistic opportunities to elect Black members to Congress,” he said.

Shalela Dowdy, an Alabama resident who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that resulted in the creation of a new district now represented by Figures, said she is worried the decision will lead to the rollback of the district created in 2023, which she said gave Black voters a greater voice.

“Putting it in the hands of the states on this level is dangerous,” Dowdy said. “There’s just been a history of the states not doing the right thing based off their state population.”

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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Joey Cappelletti, Matt Brown and Haya Panjwani in Washington; and Graham Lee Brewer in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

In a statement read by a state television anchor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said the only place Americans belonged in the Persian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters" and that a “new chapter” was being written in the region's history. Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking over as supreme leader following the killing of his father in the war’s opening airstrikes.

His remarks come as Iran's economy is reeling and its oil industry is being squeezed by a U.S. Navy blockade halting its tankers from getting out to sea. The world economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil is transported. On Thursday, the global benchmark for oil, Brent crude, traded as high as $126 a barrel.

That shock to oil supplies and prices is putting pressure on Trump, who is floating a new plan to reopen the critical passageway used by the U.S.'s Gulf allies to export their oil and gas.

Under the plan, the U.S. would continue its blockade on Iranian ports, while coordinating with allies to impose higher costs on Iran’s attempts to subvert the free flow of energy, according to a senior administration official.

Trump is weighing multiple diplomatic and policy options to push Iran to end its chokehold, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

The new proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is Trump's latest effort to persuade other nations to help reopen the strait.

Ceasefire shaken as strait remains shut

The U.S blockade is designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil, depriving it of crucial revenue while also potentially creating a situation where Tehran has to shut off production because it has nowhere to store oil.

A recent Iranian proposal would push negotiations on the country’s nuclear program to a later date. Trump said one of the major reasons he went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Iran long has maintained its program is peaceful, though it enriched uranium at near-weapons-grade levels of 60%.

Pakistan on Thursday said it was still facilitating indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran aimed at easing tensions, but Islamabad would also welcome direct communication between the two sides, even by phone.

“If the two parties can engage in real-time conversations, that could ease the sticking points,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tahir Andrabi at a weekly news briefing. He declined to share details of any Iranian or U.S. proposals.

Speaking to mark Persian Gulf Day in Iran, Khamenei's remarks signaled that nuclear issues and Iran's ballistic missile program wouldn't be traded away.

“Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei referred to America as the “Great Satan,” a long hurled insult by Iranian leaders toward the U.S. since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He said Americans should have no business in the Persian Gulf.

“Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it — except at the bottom of its waters," said Khamenei, who was reportedly was wounded in the Feb. 28 attack that killed his father, the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei signals strait will remain shut

In his remarks, Khamenei seemed to signal Iran would maintain its control over the waterway, which sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. Iran had been charging some ships reportedly $2 million apiece to travel through the strait.

He said that Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz will make the Gulf more secure, and that Tehran's “legal rules and new management” of the strait will benefit all the region’s nations.

However, the world considered the strait an international waterway, open to all without paying tolls. Gulf Arab nations, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, have decried Iran's control of the strait as akin to piracy.

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Madhani reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

The analysis by the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator obtained exclusively by The Associated Press details how insurers are paying out less on claims after an accident, natural disaster or other misfortune than they did decades ago. For every $1 collected in premiums, insurers reimbursed 62 cents for claims in 2024, down from an average loss ratio of 80 cents in the 1980s and 1990s.

The analysis wades into a thorny set of economic and political questions as insurance companies are managing the potential risks of climate change when the cost of groceries, gasoline and housing are a frustration for many voters. Insurance companies say they have hiked premiums because of rising prices for homes and autos and the expenses of fixing them.

“The fact that the loss ratios are so low means that the insurance industry is charging too much,” said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt University think tank and a former senior adviser at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The insurance industry said its current loss ratio reflects the costs for insurers in recent years and the steps deemed necessary for ensuring that insurance funding is stable and solvent.

“Current loss ratios reflect the impact of enormous financial losses over the last several years and the steps insurers have taken (to) maintain and restore financial strength so funds are available to pay future claims," Don Griffin, vice president for policy and research at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said in an emailed statement. “Loss ratios in the 1990s were driven to nearly unsustainable levels by Hurricane Andrew in particular.”

While President Donald Trump won a second term on the promise to contain inflation, he has also gutted institutions such as the CFPB that sought to find potential savings. Housing costs have been particularly acute. Average mortgage rates remain above 6%, and an executive order by Trump to increase construction of new homes would still take years to bend the curve on housing prices.

When Trump, a Republican, signed the order on housing regulations in March, he emphasized that he was eliminating the heightened standards to protect homes against damage from natural disasters and improving energy efficiency because he said they were increasing construction costs.

“We will slash many of these pointless regulations that do nothing for safety and add lots of costs,” he said at the signing.

Research by the economists Benjamin Keys and Philip Mulder found that average premiums for home insurance climbed an inflation-adjusted 28% between 2017 and 2024 to an annual cost of $2,750. Their research found reasons for the increases: Roughly a third came from higher construction costs, and another 20% came from greater disaster risks. But it also noted the higher costs for financial instruments such as reinsurance, which insurers purchase to protect them from catastrophic financial losses.

The Vanderbilt analysis by contrast looks at the gap between what insurers charge and what they pay out to customers. By returning to the loss ratio of 80 cents paid out for each $1 collected, it estimates that households and businesses could have saved roughly $150 billion from the $1 trillion-plus paid in premiums in 2024.

The analysis includes proposed legislative language for the federal government to set a higher loss ratio for insurers. Currently, state governments primarily regulate insurance, but a federal mandate would be harder for companies to challenge.

The analysis further argues that insurers are using the premiums “to pay for corporate perks, corporate jets, stock-buy backs, excessive executive compensation, excessive dividends, excessive advertising, and excessive agent commissions.”

“Companies are competing against each other, not based on price but just based on brand awareness,” said Shearer, the author of the analysis, arguing that too much money is spent on marketing.

Nipper, a 28-foot (9-meter) tall white dog with black ears has sat conspicuously atop a warehouse for almost seven decades — recreating the famous image of a terrier listening attentively to a phonograph that was long used by electronics and communications company RCA.

Over time, the statue has grown into a source of local pride around this city on the Hudson River. Parents point it out to their kids from the highway. Nipper's image, with his head cocked to one side, appears on items like key chains, ball caps and hoodies.

“When I think of Nipper, I think of Albany. When I think of Albany, I think of Nipper,” said Cody Hitt, who was out with friends recently at a bar right by the statue.

Now that pride is tempered with concern for Nipper's future. After years of litigation, the unused four-story warehouse on which Nipper sits was recently marked by a red placard with white slash — a warning to firefighters and other first responders to use caution when entering.

“It’s definitely not a good thing for Nipper. He is attached to that building, so if something happens to it, it’s going to be kind of hard to take him off,” said Cara Macri, director of preservation services for the Historic Albany Foundation.

The history of Nipper

The flesh-and-blood Nipper lived in late 19th century England and earned his name after trying to bite people's ankles. His owner's brother, Francis Barraud, immortalized the dog posthumously in the painting “His Master’s Voice,” which shows Nipper intrigued by the recorded sound coming from a phonograph horn.

The Gramophone Company in London purchased a version of the image in 1899 and it was registered soon after for use in the United States. The “His Master’s Voice” trademark was acquired in 1929 by the company that became RCA.

Albany's Nipper, with a composite body over a steel frame, was placed by a crane atop the building in the late 1950s to advertise the location of an RCA appliance distributor.

There were many Nipper statues made during his heyday, including a 1958 Nipper statue now at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore that's 14 feet (4 meters) high and paired with a larger-than-life phonograph.

But Albany’s is bigger. It stands out in a skyline otherwise notable for a modernist state government complex adjacent to the state Capitol, which features a 44-story office tower and theater shaped like a giant egg.

The beloved dog appears on socks, caps, stickers and shot glasses for sale downtown at the Fort Orange General Store, where store owner Erica Cubello said the items are bestsellers.

“He is kind of like our unofficial mascot here at Fort Orange, as well as the city of Albany,” said Cubello, who was wearing a Nipper hoodie.

The dog statue in Albany

Nipper still looks fresh after all these years. But the building below him has sat unused for at least a decade, with paint chipped off the front exterior.

Nothing ever became of plans announced a decade ago to develop apartments and retail space in the newly purchased building. Foreclosure litigation has been going on for years and city tax documents show an attorney acting as a receiver.

Lawyers involved in the litigation didn't immediately respond to calls for comment.

By 2024, the Historic Albany Foundation put the building on its list of places in peril. In March, the city put the red-and-white caution placard up on the building's entrance. Times-Union columnist Chris Churchill soon after sounded the alarm in a piece headlined: “Nipper has our love, but needs more protection.”

Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs' office said she is working to add Nipper to the city’s list of historic landmarks, which could help protect the dog and the building from damaging changes. Separately, a state board last month nominated the warehouse district that includes Nipper's building for state and national historic registers. That would make the building eligible for state and federal historic preservation tax credits.

There is no serious talk of moving Nipper from his forever home, which would be logistically challenging and expensive.

Besides, where would the roughly four ton (3,600 kilogram) statue go?

“There’s a whole redevelopment downtown. You could put him there. You could put him on the riverfront,” Macri said. “But he’s a big dog.”

Annual inflation in the eurozone — the 21 countries that use the shared euro currency — rose to 3% from 2.6% in March, fueled by a 10.9% increase in energy prices, the European Union statistical agency Eurostat reported Thursday. Crude oil is trading above $120 per barrel, up from around $73 before the outbreak of the war on Feb. 28.

Meanwhile, eurozone growth for the first three months of the year disappointed with a marginal increase in economic output of 0.1% over the quarter before.

The war is dealing a huge shock to the global economy because Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which around 20% of the world’s oil formerly passed on its way to customers from producers in the Persian Gulf. The surge in oil prices has been quickly reflected at gas stations and in the price of jet fuel.

Rising inflation has raised concerns it may become built into the economy along with slow or nonexistent growth, a policy conundrum dubbed “stagflation” that leaves central banks like the ECB with few attractive choices. The usual antidote to inflation is for the central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate, but that can slow growth by raising credit costs for buying things.

ECB policymakers left their benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday even though the annual rate of inflation is now clearly above the bank’s target of 2%. The bank’s benchmark rate has been unchanged at 2% since June 2025.

ECB President Christine Lagarde said at a post-decision news conference at the bank's headquarters in Frankfurt that the bank's governing council had debated a rate rise Thursday. She said the council would revisit the bank's stance with new information at the next meeting June 11 without committing to any particular path for rates.

Although some economists have used the term recently, she said the eurozone was not facing stagflation like that afflicting Western economies after the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Lagarde said the situation today was not comparable, with inflation less ingrained and a stronger labor market supporting an economy that is not in recession. She said the term was “something that I park in the '70s... this is not something we're seeing for the moment.”

"We don't apply that flashy term, ‘stagflation,’ to the circumstances that we have.”

Western economies suffered high inflation after twin oil shocks from the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the US and the 1979 Iranian revolution - bad memories revived by the Hormuz closure.

Other central banks are also on pause. The Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve both left rates unchanged at meetings this week, and the Bank of England also held steady Thursday.

El vuelo AA3599 operado por Envoy Air, una subsidiaria de American Airlines, tiene previsto despegar de Miami a las 10.16 hora local (0616 GMT) y llegar tres horas después a la capital venezolana, regresando a Florida en la tarde.

La aerolínea había anunciado su intención de restablecer el servicio a Venezuela en enero el mismo día en que el presidente Donald Trump ordenó al Departamento de Transporte que abriera el espacio aéreo comercial sobre el país sudamericano.

Estados Unidos y Venezuela acordaron en marzo reanudar las relaciones diplomáticas luego de la operación militar estadounidense en Caracas el 3 de enero en la que fue capturado el entonces presidente Nicolás Maduro, luego trasladado junto a su esposa a Nueva York para enfrentar cargos por tráfico de drogas.

Dos días después Delcy Rodríguez, vicepresidenta y cercana colaboradora de Maduro, prestó juramento como mandataria encargada y se restableció el contacto con Washington.

American Airlines fue la última aerolínea en volar en directo desde Estados Unidos a Venezuela en 2019.

Caracas y Washington rompieron relaciones en febrero de ese año por decisión de Maduro luego de que Trump, en su primer mandato, apoyó al líder opositor Juan Guaidó, quien se había declarado presidente interino de Venezuela.

Guaidó fue reconocido como el gobernante legítimo de Venezuela por Estados Unidos y varias decenas de países que consideraron fraudulentas las elecciones en las que Maduro había sido reelecto para un segundo mandato.

En mayo de 2019 Estados Unidos ordenó la suspensión de todos los vuelos comerciales y de carga hacia Venezuela por considerar que la agitación social y la tensión política en el país sudamericano representaban un riesgo. Sin embargo, sólo resultó afectado un pequeño número de vuelos entre ambas naciones debido a que las aerolíneas estadounidenses, incluida American Airlines, ya no viajaban a Venezuela.

“Being on the ground is essential. It allows journalists to question official accounts on all sides, to speak directly with civilians and report back what they witness firsthand,” said the statement from the executives, released Thursday. “That is why news organizations send their reporters into the field, often at great personal risk.”

From the AP and the BBC to CNN to MS NOW, from Reuters to German news agency dpa to The Washington Post, the top editors of more than two dozen organizations said the Israeli government has so far not responded to their efforts to discuss the situation. They questioned the country's rationales for why the restrictions are still in place.

The letter was released at 5 a.m. ET by the local foreign press association.

Israel had said ban was necessary

Initially, Israel said the ban was necessary because foreign journalists allowed into Gaza could give away the positions of Israeli soldiers and endanger them. Other rationales have included that as an active battle zone, it was too dangerous. The army has occasionally brought foreign reporters in on highly controlled trips, but media outlets want independent access.

Currently, “the heaviest fighting is over and there is a ceasefire in place," the editors' statement said. "The hostages have come home. Journalists do not pose a threat to Israeli troops. There is a mechanism in place—however restrictive—that allows aid workers to enter and exit the territory. Why not journalists?”

There have been attempts at legal action to force the issue. The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, has been waiting on a decision from the Israeli Supreme Court on a petition for independent access to Gaza. That action was filed in 2024, but a ruling has been repeatedly delayed, most recently in January.

With foreign journalists kept out of Gaza, coverage of the conditions on the ground there has been possible only for local Palestinian journalists. While covering war would be fraught for any reporter, the Palestinian correspondents have also had to experience it on a personal level — their homes destroyed, their loved ones killed.

Gaza-based reporters face big risks

When access to food became severely restricted last year they also had to deal with hunger, to the point that the Agence France-Presse news agency in July raised an alarm about their Palestinian colleagues' continued survival. That concern was echoed by the AP and Reuters for the reporters in Gaza they work with.

The editors raised that point in the statement Thursday, saying “this has pushed the responsibility for covering this devastating war and its aftermath almost entirely on our Palestinian colleagues ... They should not have to shoulder this burden alone, and they should be protected.”

Their lives have also been put at risk from military actions. Well over 200 journalists and media workers have been killed according to a tally from the Committee to Protect Journalists organization, far more than in conflicts elsewhere like the Russia-Ukraine war.

Among them was Mariam Dagga, a 33-year-old visual journalist who worked as a freelancer for the AP and other news organizations. She and four other journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri and Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist who worked with Reuters, were among those killed last August in an Israeli strike on a medical facility.

The AP's reporting on the strike raised questions about the rationale used by the Israeli government to carry out the action against the hospital, which was known as a place where journalists gathered. AP and Reuters later issued a statement calling on Israel to explain what took place and what steps would be taken to protect reporters. The Israeli military says it is still investigating.

The statement from the editors on Thursday came during Press Freedom Week, which they noted. “Freedom of the press is a basic value in any open society. It is time for the delays to end. Let us into Gaza.”

The resumption of a nonstop commercial flight between the two countries comes months after the U.S. capture of then President Nicolás Maduro in a stunning nighttime raid on his residence in Caracas in early January.

It also comes a month after the U.S. formally reopened its embassy in Caracas following the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

“I'm very excited to go and see the family and I'm looking forward to see the country,” said passenger Lennart Ochoa of Miami shortly before boarding. He said that he was “ready to go" and got his ticket as soon as they were available. “Just to go and see the family on a direct flight from Miami to Caracas is priceless.”

American Airlines staff handed passengers small Venezuelan flags. Balloons with its colors — yellow, blue and red — adorned the gate door leading to the plane.

Flight AA3599 operated by Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines, departed Miami at 10:11 a.m. EDT (1411 GMT), five minutes ahead of its scheduled time, according to Miami International Airport flight departure information. The flight is due to arrive around three hours later in the Venezuelan capital, returning to Florida later in the afternoon.

Earlier, the airline said that a second daily flight between Miami and Caracas will start on May 21.

In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he informed Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez that he would open up all commercial airspace over the country, allowing Americans to visit.

“American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there,” Trump said at the time.

The flights mark the resumption of nonstop travel between the U.S. and Venezuela for the first time since diplomatic ties were severed in 2019. For the past seven years, passengers have relied on international airlines and indirect routes through neighboring Latin American countries.

In January, when the airline announced the resumption of flights, it said it would give customers the opportunity to reunite with families and pursue new business opportunities.

American Airlines was the last U.S. airline flying to Venezuela. It suspended flights in 2019 between Miami and Caracas, as well as flights to the oil hub city of Maracaibo. Delta and United Airlines pulled out in 2017 amid a political crisis that forced millions to flee the country.

“Parents will be able to connect with children, grandparents with grandchildren, and entire families with a home that shaped and raised them,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference before boarding started. “Miami-Dade is home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States.”

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

The amnesty is the second in two weeks, following an earlier one on April 17 when more than 4,500 prisoners were granted amnesty. It was not immediately clear how many people imprisoned for opposing military rule in Myanmar were included in Thursday’s amnesty.

Two legal officials, who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities, said Thursday’s measure would further reduce Suu Kyi’s sentence by one-sixth, but did not specify the exact remaining term. Based on previous reductions, the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is expected to have more than 13 years left to serve.

State media said Thursday that in addition to the amnesty granted to 1,519 prisoners, including 11 foreigners, the sentences of remaining convicted prisoners were cut by one-sixth to mark the Full Moon day of “Kason,” known as Buddha’s Birthday and Demise.

The amnesties come after Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was sworn into office as president on April 10 following an election that critics say was neither free nor fair and was orchestrated to maintain the military’s tight grip on power.

In his inauguration speech, he said his government would grant amnesties aimed at promoting social reconciliation, justice and peace.

Suu Kyi was arrested on Feb. 1, 2021 when the army seized power from her elected government.

She was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison in late 2022 for several offenses that her supporters and rights groups described as attempts to discredit her and legitimize the army takeover that removed her from office, as well as to prevent her return to politics.

Her term was reduced to 27 years in August 2023 and then further cut by more than four years on April 17, when prison terms of less than 40 years were cut by one-sixth.

Suu Kyi is serving the prison term at an undisclosed location in the capital Naypyitaw.

There were reports last week that she might be transferred to house arrest as part of the clemency, but there was no confirmation from the government.

Information about her condition remains tightly controlled. Reports in 2024 and 2025 indicated declining health, including low blood pressure, dizziness and heart problems, but these claims could not be independently verified. Her legal team has not been allowed to meet her in person since December 2022.

The 2021 army takeover triggered massive public resistance that was brutally suppressed, triggering a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of people.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, 22,047 people have been in detention in Myanmar since the army takeover.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s martyred independence hero Gen. Aung San, spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.

Her tough stand against military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy, and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "an attack on our Jewish community is an attack on all of us" after two Jewish men, aged 34 and 76, were stabbed and seriously injured in Golders Green, an area in north London that is an epicenter of Britain's Jewish community. Both men are in a stable condition.

But some in the community turned their anger on a government they say is failing to tackle antisemitism. Starmer was heckled by about 100 protesters holdings signs saying “Keir Starmer, Jew harmer” when he visited Golders Green on Thursday.

Police have arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder and labeled the stabbing attack as an act of terrorism. Detectives are working to determine a motive and whether there is any link to Iranian proxies.

The suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, had “a history of serious violence and mental health issues” and may have been involved in an “altercation” in another area of London hours before the Golders Green attack, the force said.

In 2020 he was referred to the government’s Prevent program, which tries to steer individuals away from extremism. The police force said his file was closed later the same year, and did not disclose the reason for the referral.

Stabbing follows arson attacks

Britain’s Jewish community, which numbers about 300,000 people, has faced growing attacks online and in the streets.

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust charity.

Last October, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and fatally stabbed one person. Another person died during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police.

Since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, there have been a string of arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in London as well as on opponents of the Iranian government.

Police say 28 people have been arrested over those attacks, which did not cause any injuries. A handful have been charged and one teenager has been convicted after pleading guilty.

Police probe potential link to Iran proxies

Several arson attacks have been claimed online in the name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. Israel’s government has described the group, whose name means the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, as a recently founded group with suspected links to “an Iranian proxy” that has also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

An online post under the same name also claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s stabbing. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said authorities were investigating whether that claim is credible or “opportunistic.”

Security experts have warned that the name may be a flag of convenience rather than a coherent group, and its claims should be treated with caution.

The U.K. has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting Iranian opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says that more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year ending in October.

Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley said Wednesday: “Whilst I can’t comment on live investigations, we know that some individuals are being encouraged, persuaded or paid to commit acts of violence on behalf of foreign organizations and hostile states.”

Government under pressure to tackle antisemitism

Starmer pledged Thursday that the attacks would bring a “swift and visible” criminal justice response. Mahmood said she is treating antisemitism as “an emergency,” describing it as the top security issue she faced.

The government announced 25 million pounds ($34 million) for more police patrols and protection around synagogues, schools and community centers.

But some Jews and others say the government has allowed an atmosphere of antisemitism to grow. They say pro-Palestinian protests, held regularly since October 2023, have gone beyond criticism of Israel's actions to foster an atmosphere of intimidation and hatred against Jews.

The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but some say chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” incite anti-Jewish hatred. Some protesters have been arrested for displaying support for Hamas, a banned organization in the U.K.

Jonathan Hall, the government’s former reviewer of terrorism legislation, called for pro-Palestinian marches to be temporarily banned, saying they had helped “incubate” antisemitism.

Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch backed calls for a ban, saying the marches “are used as a cover for violence and intimidation against Jews.”

The government has not backed a ban but said it would bring in legislation to prosecute “individuals and groups acting on behalf of state-sponsored organizations.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla set sail earlier this month from Barcelona. Organizers have said more than 70 boats and 1,000 people from around the world would be participating, with more vessels joining the original boats as the flotilla sailed east across the Mediterranean.

According to the ships’ tracker published on the activist group’s website, 22 vessels were intercepted in international waters west of the southern Greek island of Crete, while a further 36 were still sailing midday on Thursday.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X that it was taking about 175 activists from more than 20 boats participating in the flotilla to Israel.

“Israel’s actions … mark a dangerous and unprecedented escalation, the abduction of civilians in the middle of the Mediterranean, over 600 miles from Gaza, in full view of the world,” the group said in a press release. The distance is more than 1,000 kilometers from Gaza.

On Thursday, Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned the seizure as “an act of piracy.”

“By targeting the Global Sumud Flotilla, whose mission is to draw attention to the humanitarian catastrophe faced by the innocent people of Gaza, Israel has also violated humanitarian principles and international law,” the ministry said in a statement.

Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli wrote on X that Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had discussed the raid over the phone with his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Albares Bueno.

Spain’s ministry of foreign affairs summoned the Israeli charge d’affaires in Madrid “to convey its strongest condemnation of the detention of the flotilla,” which included Spanish citizens, the ministry said in a statement.

In a joint statement, Italy and Germany said they were following developments with “great concern” and called for international law to be respected and for “restraint from irresponsible actions."

In a post on Telegram, Hamas also condemned the interception, accusing Israel of committing a crime without accountability and calling for the release of those detained.

Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

Israel had thwarted previous efforts to break its blockade

The activists' attempt comes less than a year after Israeli authorities foiled a previous effort by the group to reach Gaza. That attempt involved about 50 vessels and around 500 activists, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, and several European lawmakers.

Israel arrested, detained and later deported the participants, who claimed Israeli authorities abused them while in detention. Israeli authorities denied the accusations.

The Israeli action had raised questions about what any nation can legally do to enforce a blockade in international waters. Several world leaders and human rights groups had condemned Israel, saying it violated international law.

Previous efforts to breach the blockade have also failed. In 2010, Israeli commandos raided the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, which had been participating in an aid flotilla attempting to reach Gaza. Nine Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American on board were killed. The last time an activist boat succeeded in reaching the strip was in 2008.

Activists say Israeli forces boarded and disabled the boats

The Sumud Flotilla described the interception as a “violent raid in international waters.” In a social media post, the group said that “after smashing engines and destroying navigation arrays, the military retreated— intentionally leaving hundreds of civilians stranded on powerless, broken vessels directly in the path of a massive approaching storm.”

It also said the vessels' communications had been jammed, hindering them from signaling for help. Asked about the accusations, the Israeli military declined to comment.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oren Marmorstein said that “early action was required in accordance with international law” due to the large number of vessels in the flotilla. “The operation was carried out in international waters peacefully and without any casualties,” he said.

Marmostein accused the Hamas militant group in Gaza of being the “driving force” behind the flotilla, “with the aim of sabotaging (U.S.) President (Donald) Trump’s peace plan transition to its second phase and intended to divert attention from Hamas’ refusal to disarm.”

Activists in Greece said they planned a protest rally Thursday afternoon outside the Greek foreign ministry in Athens, saying Israel's interception of the boats occurred within the maritime zone that falls under Greece's responsibility for search and rescue operations and that the country's coast guard had not reacted.

Flotilla aims to draw attention to the situation in Gaza

A fragile six month-old ceasefire in Gaza has halted the most intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas-led militants in the Palestinian enclave. But despite the ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed more than 790 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Overall, the health ministry says 72,300 Palestinians had been killed since the war in Gaza began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023.

Around 2 million Gaza residents are still living in ruins with shortages of food and medicine, and only limited aid entering through a single, Israeli-controlled border post.

Flotilla organizers have said they hope their latest attempt to reach Gaza will help highlight the living conditions endured by Palestinians in the territory, particularly as global attention has shifted its focus to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.

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Natalie Melzer in Mitzpe Hila, Israel, Cinar Kiper in Istanbul and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.

Funcionarios, activistas climáticos y expertos financieros de 56 países se reunieron en la ciudad caribeña de Santa Marta durante varios días de conversaciones destinadas a abordar uno de los asuntos políticamente más sensibles de la política climática: la transición para dejar atrás la producción de combustibles fósiles, el principal motor del calentamiento global.

La reunión no produjo compromisos vinculantes, pero los participantes apuntaron que se obtuvieron una serie de resultados iniciales, entre ellos planes para mantener la cooperación entre países, la creación de grupos de trabajo sobre temas como el financiamiento y las transiciones laborales, y un impulso hacia futuras negociaciones orientadas a coordinar una eliminación gradual global de los combustibles fósiles.

La expresidenta de Irlanda Mary Robinson, que destaca como defensora de la justicia climática, afirmó que las conversaciones en Santa Marta se sentían muy distintas a las tradicionales conferencias climáticas de Naciones Unidas, con un tono más abierto y colaborativo entre los participantes.

“Las COP son más formales, los negociadores tienen sus líneas rojas y no las cruzan, y aquí es muy diferente”, dijo, agregando que los participantes “se han sentido más humanos juntos”.

Para Robinson, uno de los principales desafíos que se abordaron fueron las limitaciones financieras que enfrentan los países en desarrollo, muchos de los cuales carecen de recursos para abandonar los combustibles fósiles.

“Muchos de ellos necesitan con urgencia un alivio de deuda para comenzar siquiera una transición”, manifestó al tiempo que advirtió que estas naciones están “atrapadas en la deuda” y dependen en exceso de los combustibles fósiles, con pocas alternativas viables.

De las promesas a las cuestiones prácticas

En las conversaciones climáticas de la ONU, los países se han centrado tradicionalmente en recortar emisiones —cuánta contaminación produce cada nación— en lugar de abordar directamente la producción de combustibles fósiles.

Los participantes dijeron que la reunión de Santa Marta marcó un giro hacia el abordaje de los factores subyacentes del cambio climático, incluyendo cómo reducir la oferta de combustibles fósiles mientras se gestionan las consecuencias económicas y sociales.

“Esta conferencia es, en realidad, la primera vez en 30 años de negociaciones climáticas en que los países se reúnen para hablar de cómo garantizar una eliminación gradual de los combustibles fósiles”, dijo Tzeporah Berman, fundadora y presidenta de la Iniciativa del Tratado de No Proliferación de Combustibles Fósiles.

Las discusiones incluyeron la coordinación entre productores y consumidores, las transiciones laborales y las consecuencias económicas más amplias de dejar los combustibles fósiles.

El financiamiento, el principal obstáculo

El financiamiento se reveló sistemáticamente como la barrera más inmediata y difícil para abandonar los combustibles fósiles.

Los países del Sur Global enfrentan altos costos de endeudamiento y un acceso limitado al capital, incluso cuando las energías renovables se vuelven más asequibles que la alternativa.

“El financiamiento es clave; se trata de una cuestión de inversión”, afirmó Nick Robins, director sénior de finanzas y sector privado del World Resources Institute.

“Lo que estamos escuchando es que les gustaría dejar de ampliar la producción de combustibles fósiles, pero se ven obligados a entrar en nuevos proyectos de petróleo, gas y carbón solo para hacer frente a su deuda”, explicó Berman.

Los participantes también apuntaron al papel de las restricciones fiscales internas y de los sistemas financieros globales en la desaceleración de la transición.

Para Ana Toni, directora ejecutiva de la COP30 en Brasil, uno de los puntos clave que se discutieron fueron los retos del debate fiscal.

“Necesitamos que los ministros de finanzas nos ayuden a encontrar soluciones sobre cómo enfrentar los desafíos fiscales de la transición”, indicó.

Robins añadió que las respuestas macroeconómicas a las crisis podrían ralentizar involuntariamente el progreso.

“Una respuesta tradicional a la inflación podría, en realidad, estar obstaculizando la revolución de la energía limpia”, sostuvo.

Una nueva coalición y una participación más amplia

Los participantes describieron la cumbre como el inicio de un nuevo tipo de alianza, que reúne a grandes economías y a algunas de las naciones más vulnerables al clima del mundo.

“Por primera vez, se está reuniendo a estos grupos como una comunidad compartida con un objetivo compartido”, expresó Robins.

La conferencia también atrajo a una amplia gama de participantes más allá de los gobiernos, incluyendo grupos indígenas, la sociedad civil, los jóvenes y autoridades locales y regionales.

Como ocurrió con muchos otros países, Estados Unidos no estaba invitado al encuentro, que los organizadores describieron como un espacio para naciones alineadas en torno al abandono de los combustibles fósiles. Pero una funcionaria de California asistió por su cuenta.

“Ha sido realmente maravilloso ver cuántas partes interesadas diferentes han participado aquí”, aseveró Sarah Izant, subsecretaria de política climática de la Agencia de Protección Ambiental de California.

Afirmó que las señales políticas claras serán fundamentales para atraer inversión.

“La importancia de contar con certidumbre normativa y regulatoria puede ayudar a desbloquear capital privado”, señaló Izant.

Vance Culbert, asesor sénior de políticas del Instituto Internacional para el Desarrollo Sostenible, indicó en un comunicado al final de la conferencia que la cita puso el foco sobre un creciente impulso en los esfuerzos para ir más allá de los compromisos climáticos generales.

“Santa Marta ha aportado algo valioso: una demostración genuina de que la acción climática sigue siendo una prioridad, y un interés real por soluciones específicas”, afirmó. El proceso podría ayudar a “dar a la transición para dejar atrás los combustibles fósiles una base más coherente y poderosa”, añadió.

La transición debe reconocer el papel de las comunidades indígenas

Patricia Suárez, asesora de la Organización Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonía Colombiana, apuntó que era demasiado pronto para evaluar los resultados de la conferencia, y que todavía había dudas sobre si las propuestas indígenas se reflejarán en los documentos finales.

Además, expresó preocupaciones sobre la participación en iniciativas recién anunciadas, incluyendo un panel científico asesor, y sobre si los sistemas de conocimiento indígena se incluirán de manera significativa.

“¿Cómo van a participar los pueblos indígenas en ese espacio?”, preguntó.

Suárez afirmó también que cualquier transición debe reconocer el rol de las comunidades indígenas en la protección de los ecosistemas y en la lucha contra el cambio climático.

Mirando a la próxima conferencia

En un momento que arrancó los aplausos de los delegados, se anunció que la próxima conferencia se celebrará en Tuvalu, con Irlanda como coanfitrión, lo que subraya el creciente respaldo internacional a la iniciativa.

Tuvalu, una nación insular del Pacífico de baja altitud, está entre las más vulnerables al aumento del nivel del mar y se ha convertido en un símbolo global de los riesgos que plantea el cambio climático. Irlanda, por el contrario, es un país europeo desarrollado que se ha posicionado a favor de la acción climática internacional. Según los asistentes, esta combinación refleja la intención de tender puentes entre las perspectivas de las naciones vulnerables al clima y las economías más ricas a medida que el proceso avanza.

Maina Vakafua Talia, ministro de Interior, Cambio Climático y Medio Ambiente de Tuvalu, dijo a The Associated Press el miércoles que organizar el evento llamaría la atención sobre el impacto real del cambio climático.

“Si vamos a abordar el tema del cambio climático, tenemos que abordar la causa raíz, y la causa raíz es la industria de los combustibles fósiles”, afirmó.

Las futuras cumbres tratarán de arrojar resultados más concretos.

“No queremos solo un resultado libre y flexible. Queremos algo concreto. Queremos pasos, soluciones sobre la mesa”, manifestó.

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La cobertura climática y ambiental de The Associated Press recibe apoyo financiero de múltiples fundaciones privadas. 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.

These drones — used widely in the war in Ukraine — are small, hard to track and lethal. Drones injured at least a dozen soldiers in northern Israel on Thursday, two seriously, and the Israeli military said it had attempted to intercept multiple drones. In the past week, Hezbollah drones killed an Israeli soldier and defense contractor operating in southern Lebanon.

Many drones are susceptible to electronic jamming by air defenses. Jamming can cause a drone to crash or return to its point of origin.

Fiber-optic drones are not piloted via, for example, GPS signals or radio control. They have a thin cable that connects an operator directly to the drone, making it impossible to electronically jam.

The drones are not infallible because the wind — or other drones — can cause the cables to tangle.

But, “if you know what you’re doing, it’s absolutely deadly,” said Robert Tollast, a drone expert and researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, explaining how the drone can fly low and creep up on a target.

Experts say militaries must either intercept the drones, which is difficult due to their small size and short flight path, or find a way to snip the nearly invisible cable.

Hezbollah — the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon — has mostly been using the fiber optic drones on Israeli soldiers operating in southern Lebanon or towns on the border.

Here’s a closer look at these weapons.

A new weapon with a long trail

An Israeli military official told AP the fiber optic drones are a relatively new threat during the latest round of fighting with Hezbollah. Hezbollah seems to have turned to them because Israeli air defenses have been successful against larger and more powerful rockets, missiles and other drones, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military guidelines.

Israel believes the drones are made locally and are easy to produce – requiring little more than an off-the-shelf drone, a small amount of explosives, and transparent wire that is readily available on the consumer market, he said.

He called the drones the biggest threat to troops inside Lebanon but said the Israeli military is working on technological solutions. In the meantime, Israel is taking measures on the ground to defend troops, such as adding nets and cages to military vehicles.

The fiber-optic drones are the latest part of a cat-and-mouse race as Israel’s high-tech defenses race to intercept new threats, especially ones that are less sophisticated.

Ran Kochav, a former head of the Israeli military’s air defense command, said Israel is failing in its attempts to defend against the fiber-optic drones.

“They fly very low and very fast, and they are very small, it’s very difficult to detect them, and even after they’re detected, they are really hard to track,” he said.

Kochav said Israel spent years focusing on strengthening its air defense systems to improve protection against rockets and missiles. But drones were not seen as a top priority.

He said Israel should have been following the advances in fiber-optic drones in the war in Ukraine and assumed that like Russia, other Iranian allies would eventually use them.

A technology race in the war in Ukraine

Throughout the war in Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv have been engaged in a race to develop new technology.

Russia pummels Ukraine almost nightly with Shahed long-range attack drones — originally from Iran. Although Moscow has made many improvements to the drones, some can still be taken down by electronic jamming.

Fiber-optic drones were developed to get around that problem — although they do not have the same range as a drone that uses a radio link or artificial intelligence to navigate.

In some cases, fiber-optic drones have been recorded with cables extending as far as 31 miles (50 kilometers) said Tollast, the expert in London.

Russia and Ukraine are using many different types of drones “at a phenomenal scale,” he said.

In Ukraine, some fields are coated with drone cables

The fiber-optic drones are in such wide use that footage shows front-line Ukrainian towns coated with shiny, fishing line-like strings, resembling massive spiderwebs shimmering in the sunlight.

Israel has sufficient firepower to intercept drones, but the key is early detection, Kochav said.

He explained that Israel already has suitable technology that tracks changes in light, identifies signals and communications, and can recognize the sound of drone propellers.

But he said these monitoring systems haven’t been widely deployed along the northern border.

Hezbollah has posted videos of the new drone attacks

Over the past weeks, Hezbollah has aired videos through social media platforms and its Al-Manar TV station of attacks with these new drones, especially against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

These attacks have captured public attention. One attack killed one Israeli soldier and wounded six others, some of them seriously, last weekend. Another attack, on Tuesday, killed an Israeli civilian contractor in southern Lebanon.

In the attack that killed the soldier, Hezbollah issued a video taken by the drone until it exploded in the middle of troops gathering near a vehicle. Another drone was fired at the same location as a military helicopter landed to evacuate the wounded but narrowly missed.

Ali Jezzini, a journalist specializing in security and military affairs who closely follows Hezbollah’s capabilities, estimated that the drones used by the group cost between $300 and $400 each. He added that they appear to be manufactured locally using 3D printing technology, in addition to readily available electronic components typically used for civilian purposes but capable of dual-use applications.

Hezbollah announced that it began using fiber-optic guided drones for the first time during the round of fighting that began March 2, after using other types of drones for years.

Israel also has a fleet of drones that carry out surveillance and attacks, though not necessarily with the fiber-optic cables, to target Hezbollah militants.

At a northern Israel home, a drone left coils of cable in the backyard

Zevik Glidai, a 78-year-old math teacher and volunteer ambulance driver, discovered coils of the translucent fiber-optic cables surrounding a drone that crashed into his backyard in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on April 13.

His house is 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the Lebanon border. He was sitting at home when he heard a high-pitched shriek and a small crash. His neighbor yelled that the yard was on fire.

The two of them put out the fire with a garden hose but noticed something new: The destroyed drone was surrounded by loops and curls of a white thread.

“We are very worried about these drones because there's no way to shoot it down, because we can’t detect it,” Glidai said.

He said there was no warning siren before the drone crashed, and the bomb squad that responded called it a miracle that nearly 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of explosives failed to detonate.

“They told me, ‘You have a lot of luck,’” said Glidai, who noted that he's lived through several iterations of Hezbollah weapons in his 48 years in Kiryat Shmona. “They picked up all of the pieces that they could pick up, and they left me a few optical fibers as a keepsake.”

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Mroue reported from Beirut; Burrows from London.

York launched his stick and watched it soar like the Schwarbombs routinely hit across the street, only no one was really sure in the moment where it landed.

“I hope everyone's OK,” York said with a laugh. “Definitely don't want a lawsuit. Just honestly blacked out. I didn't know what to do. I was so excited.”

How does one celebrate a Flyers' playoff series victory?

York roared back like he was going to fling a boomerang. Flyers fans blew horns and whistles around the concourse and belted out on repeat the opening “oh oh oh” of the White Stripes' “Seven Nation Army.” Flyers forward Christian Dvorak's celebration hit a little too hard — a cut busted open above his right eye during the victorious on-ice party and blood streamed down his cheek.

Like he went a few rounds in a fight.

More like six grueling games with Sidney Crosby and a Penguins team that has hoisted Stanley Cups and kicked their cross-state rival to the curb so many times over the last 15-plus years that the matchups often felt less like a heated rivalry and the Flyers treated more like a pesky speed bump in a long regular season.

Not this season. Not in Philadelphia.

Not even when the resurgent Penguins threatened to make a run at playoff history and storm back from a 3-0 series deficit and crush the spirit of a Flyers' team that became the NHL’s first to make the playoffs after being 10 points out of contention with 22 or fewer games remaining.

York and goalie Dan Vladar and his 42 saves had other plans.

The Flyers' 1-0 Game 6 overtime victory over the Penguins on Wednesday night served as early validation that general manager Danny Briere was astute in orchestrating an overdue rebuild and the payoff was a first playoff series win in a full NHL season since 2012. The Flyers accelerated their postseason timeline — in large part due to the late-season arrival of teen sensation Porter Martone — and are essentially playing with house money as they gear up for a second-round series with the top-seeded Carolina Hurricanes.

“We played a great series,” Flyers forward Travis Konecny said. “Now we get a chance to play again.”

Flyers coach Rick Tocchet and the rest of the players said to a man when they held a 3-0 series lead that Crosby and the veteran Penguins were too good, too playoff-tested to go down without a fight. Crosby was everywhere in Pittsburgh’s 3-2 victory in Game 5 and had the Penguins believing that, yes, they could become just the fifth team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-0.

Vladar, a journeyman turned Olympian voted the team's MVP this season, turned away everything the Penguins threw at him in much of the series. He had his first shutout of the season (with 27 saves) in Game 2, shook off an unspecified arm injury in Game 3 and put the Flyers on his back in Game 6 — getting the better of a fantastic Arturs Silovs — to steady a position long an albatross for the franchise since the Stanley Cup championship days of Bernie Parent.

All Vladar did was shut out the NHL’s third-highest scoring team during the regular season.

“There was never a doubt,” Vladar said. “Good things happen to good people, and we are good people here.”

Vladar also gave a nod to the odds the Flyers faced just to reach this point of the season and pointed out teammates wearing their good-luck gear.

The Flyers celebrated wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Parent's 1970s mask with sleeves that had “3.8 percent” printed on them as a nod to their slim postseason chances a couple months ago.

Vladar — the fifth goalie in franchise history with a series-clinching shutout — also made the fourth-most saves in a series-clinching shutout win over the past 70 years. The only goaltenders with more are Patrick Roy (63 in Game 4 of 1996 Stanley Cup Final), Andrei Vasilevskiy and Carey Price.

“danvladar you are a BAADDDDD man!!” former Phillies World Series champion Jimmy Rollins wrote on social media.

The Flyers were still feeling sky high well after the final horn.

As for York's stick? Well, it did stick the landing and was gleefully grabbed by a man wearing a white Flyers sweatshirt.

He high-fived fans around him and boasted one heck of a postseason souvenir.

The Flyers can only hope there's so much more fun to come in May.

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

Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, was charged April 24 and hasn’t entered a plea, the city-state’s largest English-language newspaper, The Straits Times, said. He allegedly committed the offense at a shopping mall on March 12, and his video spread rapidly when it surfaced, the report said.

The teen was granted court permission Wednesday to travel to Manila from May 2-25 for a school trip required for his graduation, the Straits Times said. He is due back in court on May 29.

Mischief carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or a fine, or both, while public nuisance is less severe with up to three months in prison or a fine, or both.

IJooz, the company operating the juice vending machine, filed a police report, and sanitized the dispenser while replacing all 500 straws in the machine. It said it would upgrade its machines to include measures such as individually packaged straws and straw compartments that unlock only after the transaction is completed.

Lawyers for the teen, who is studying in a French business school in Singapore, declined to comment on the case when contacted.

Singapore, a small, densely populated city-state, tightly regulates public behavior and cleanliness. This includes restrictions like limits on chewing gum and strong penalties for littering and vandalism.

The soldiers are members of the 10th Infantry Battalion Guard Security Corps National Reserve on a weekend exercise to hone their skills as the Netherlands bolsters its military with new recruits and volunteers. The Dutch government and top brass have committed to raising military personnel from 80,000 to 120,000 by 2035 — plans that have broad political support.

The recent enlistment by the country's queen and her eldest daughter as reservists look to be helping, with authorities now scrambling to arm and train new recruits.

The recruitment drive in the Netherlands reflects moves across Europe to expand and modernize militaries as leaders warily eye the grinding war launched by Russia against Ukraine and the disenchantment expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump with the NATO alliance that has been the cornerstone of the defense and security architecture of the continent since World War II laid ruin to much of it.

Trump on Wednesday suggested that he could soon reduce the U.S. military presence in Germany as he continues to feud with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war.

A corporal in the Dutch reserve battalion, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of her service, said that she's seen a shift in priorities as the global security outlook has become more volatile and less predictable.

“When I first joined, there was almost no risk or almost no threat ... and now it’s changing so we are more aware of it," she said. That has meant a mindset shift toward “more what we call ‘green things,’ infantry things.”

She added: “We are here to defend our country and to make sure to keep the threat down.”

The threat is very real, according to European Union and NATO officials, who believe Russian President Vladimir Putin could be ready to launch an attack elsewhere in Europe in three to five years, especially if he wins the war in Ukraine.

New NATO plans aimed at countering that threat require allies to prepare their armies for big battles, focused on more mobile forces that can be quickly deployed.

Getting the House of Orange into military green

Dutch recruitment got a significant boost when Queen Maxima and her eldest daughter and heir to the throne Amalia, Princess of Orange, enlisted as volunteer reservists. Photos of Maxima in training and aiming a pistol on a shooting range were published around the world.

That royal seal of approval, together with recruiting campaigns running everywhere from newspapers and billboards to social media, has proved so successful that the military is now working overtime to arm, train and accommodate all the newcomers.

At the Defense Ministry, it's known as “the Amalia effect.”

“It's really a thing, yes,” State Secretary for Defense Derk Boswijk told The Associated Press. “It’s very inspiring to see how members of our royal family inspired people to join our armed forces.”

Boswijk said that there are about 9,000 reservists in the Netherlands, and recruiters aim to have at least 20,000 in 2030.

“We have more applications than we can handle,” Boswijk said. Now the military has to battle “a lack of training capacity, a lack of housing. You have to give them all uniforms, you have to give them weapons.”

But, he said: “It’s a luxury problem.”

Other nations boost recruitment

German lawmakers are considering a government plan to offers better pay and conditions for people who join up on a short-term basis, along with better training and more flexibility on how long recruits must serve.

The aim is to draw sufficient recruits without reviving conscription, which was suspended for men in 2011. The plan leaves the door open for limited compulsory recruitment, if not enough people volunteer.

Like the Netherlands, France is leaning into voluntary service to boost the military. A program starting in September seeks to recruit 3,000 volunteers from ages 18-25. They will serve in uniform for 10 months in France’s mainland and overseas territories only. The plan seeks to attract up to 50,000 volunteers per year by 2035.

In northern and eastern Europe, where the threat from Russia is felt most keenly, some nations still have some conscription.

Finland has a draft for all males and a voluntary system for women. Sweden reinstated a gender-neutral partial military service in 2017. If not enough people volunteer, a lottery is held to select people for the remain slots. Neighboring Denmark has a similar system, as does Latvia since it revived its draft in 2023 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Netherlands never fully abolished its draft, but call-ups have been suspended since 1997 and there are no immediate plans to reintroduce them. Instead, the Defense Ministry is seeking to make the military more attractive to a broad cross section of society.

Threats have expanded from traditional battlefields into cyberspace and the digital world, he said, “so we need all kind of skills, to keep our society, our country, our allies safe. So, yes, we need also people wearing hoodies, having blue hair, who can game perfectly.”

Motivated by Dutch history and modern instability

For some among the new generation of answering their country's call to arms, a bitter lesson from Dutch history is motivating them.

"When I was in primary school, we were taught that in the Second World War it took (German forces) five days to take over Holland," Lisette den Heijer said at a recent information evening run by the Dutch military for reservist volunteers, adding that she doesn't want history to repeat itself.

At the exercise in the eastern Netherlands, a private first class in the reserve battalion who also spoke on condition of anonymity, because he works for a defense-related company, said he too has seen a shift in recent years.

“So where we were just focused on peaceful operations in 2018, we’re now more focusing on protecting vital infrastructure,” he said. That included duty in the massive security operation to guard last year’s NATO summit in The Hague.

A weekend mission accomplished

Reservists in the Netherlands commit to 300 hours of service each year, including regular weekend exercises. Traditionally, they are deployed to secure and guard domestic sites and aren't sent to combat missions overseas. They also can be used in national emergencies, such as piling up sandbags in cases of severe flooding.

Back in the forests of the eastern Netherlands, the reservists suddenly stop and point their weapons at an innocent looking mound of earth covered in dry leaves and wood.

A soldier — a member of their unit — crawls out of the foxhole where he was hiding and surrenders. The volunteers exchange high-fives before preparing to break down their camp and return to their day jobs.

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Associated Press reporters across Europe contributed to this report.

Danylo Tsvok said AI is already helping Ukraine hold territory, while reducing risks to its soldiers as it faces a larger, better-resourced adversary.

“We need to be faster than the enemy in decision-making,” he told The Associated Press, adding that AI is “not only a competitive advantage. It’s about our survival.”

Tsvok, 35, leads the Defense Artificial Intelligence Center, which was established last month by the Defense Ministry. He previously served in the government’s top civilian AI role.

Ukraine and Russia are locked in an intensifying race to deploy increasingly automated systems — from aerial drones to ground and maritime platforms. At the center of that race is the ability to maintain operations under heavy electronic warfare.

Many newer systems are designed to shift toward autonomous functionality, maintaining target focus even under hostile jamming.

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding domestic arms sector now includes more than 2,000 manufacturers and military technology firms. Developers are testing tools that enable coordinated drone swarms, aiming to boost efficiency while easing the burden on human operators.

“We need to understand that the future belongs to autonomous systems,” Tsvok said. “AI makes it possible to automate parts of the kill chain.”

In its more mature form, he said, AI could underpin a networked battlefield in which smart weapons operate in coordination under a unified assessment platform.

“That could happen within three to five years,” he said. “Within that time frame, front lines could be secured by tightly integrated hardware and software systems.”

In the nearer term, he pointed to wider deployment of autonomous interceptors, expanded use of ground-based robotic systems, and an escalation in electronic warfare capabilities.

Some elements are already in place. Unmanned ground platforms are increasingly used in logistics, evacuation and combat roles.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently said land drones supported more than 20,000 battlefield missions — including medical evacuations, supply runs and direct combat — over a three-month period this year. Among them, he said, was a successful attack carried out without any human soldiers.

Tsvok insisted the objective is not fully autonomous ‘killer robots,’ but a more coordinated system that accelerates decision-making and integrates more closely with Western partners.

“It’s not about reaching 100% autonomy, it’s about being efficient on the battlefield,” he said.

Ukraine is deepening partnerships with Western allies and Gulf states to secure funding, scale production and embed itself in security alliances, while also opening access to its extensive battlefield data.

Tsvok’s department receives financial support from the U.K. Ministry of Defence — the type of relationship he described as both militarily and politically significant.

“Democracies must develop strong defensive capabilities,” he said. “Without AI, they cannot effectively protect peace. This is not only about Ukraine. It’s about global security.”

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Volodymyr Yurchuk and Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed.

Coe's wife, Kimberly Hastings Coe, confirmed his death to Rolling Stone on Wednesday.

She described him as one of the best singers and songwriters of our time.

“My husband, my friend, my confidant and my life for many years. I’ll never forget him and I don’t want anyone else to ever forget him either,” she wrote to the publication.

A statement from a Coe representative to People said he died around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The cause of death wasn't disclosed.

Whether he was labeled outlaw or underground, Coe was clearly an outsider in Nashville's music establishment, even throughout his successes as an in-demand songwriter and singer, eventually developing a core following around his raw, often obscene lyrics and a checkered and somewhat mysterious past.

His wife posted on Facebook in September 2021 that he had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and he made few appearances since then.

He did concert tours with Willie Nelson, Kid Rock, Neil Young and others. He wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” a hit by Johnny Paycheck in 1977, and “Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone),” a hit by Tanya Tucker in 1974. He was also the first country singer to record “Tennessee Whiskey,” penned by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, that has since become a genre standard and hits for George Jones and Chris Stapleton.

His own country hit recordings included “You Never Even Call Me by My Name,” written by Steve Goodman and an uncredited John Prine; “The Ride,” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.” Coe also appeared in a handful of movies, including “Stagecoach” and “Take this Job and Shove It,” which was named after his song.

Coe, born in Akron, Ohio, spent time in reformatories as a youngster, and served time in an Ohio prison from 1963 to 1967 for possession of burglary tools. He also has said he spent time with the Outlaws motorcycle club, but some of the tales about his prison time and his personal life have been wildly exaggerated over the years.

“I’d have never made it through prison without my music,” he said in an AP interview in 1983. “No one could take it (music) away from me. They could put me in the hole with nothing to do but I could still make up a song in my head.”

He recorded his first album, a blues album called “Penitentiary Blues,” using songs that he wrote in prison. He later told reporters that he tried not to lean too heavily on prison as a topic for songs because of the similarities to the backstory of Merle Haggard, but that his criminal history was all people seemed interested in focusing on.

Coe recorded next for Columbia Records and did the album “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy,” which became his nickname after performing in a rhinestone suit and wearing a mask.

During the heyday of the outlaw movement, Coe placed himself at the center of the scene, with songs like “Longhaired Redneck,” which featured lyrics about performing in dive bars, “Where bikers stare at cowboys who are laughing at the hippies who are praying they’ll get out of here alive.”

He was featured in the acclaimed documentary about the outlaw country movement called “Heartworn Highways,” in which he performs a concert at a Tennessee prison.

Coe, himself heavily tattooed and sporting long hair, claimed a diverse fan base that included bikers, doctors, lawyers and bankers. His last record, released in 2006, was a collaboration with Dimebag Darrell and other former members of the heavy metal group Pantera.

He released two R-rated albums, 1978′s “Nothing Sacred” and 1982′s “Underground Album,” that he sold via biker magazines. The songs on these albums have been criticized for being racist, homophobic and sexually explicit. He told “Billboard” magazine in 2001 that author and songwriter Shel Silverstein convinced him to record the songs he had written, something he had come to regret.

“Those were meant to be sung around the campfire for bikers, and I still don’t sing those songs in concert,” he said.

In 2016, Coe was ordered to pay the IRS more than $980,000 in restitution for obstructing the tax agency and was sentenced to three years’ probation. Court documents say Coe earned income from at least 100 concerts yearly from 2008 through 2013 and either didn’t file individual income tax returns or pay taxes when he did file.

However, the Cavaliers would have been in dire straits Wednesday night without Dennis Schroder.

Schroder scored 11 points in the fourth quarter as the Cavaliers came back to beat the Toronto Raptors 125-120 in Game 5 of their first-round series.

“This guy’s played in huge games in the NBA and then on the international scene, so this type of game fits him,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “I think it started with him getting to the rim and then that loosened up the jumper for him. And then I thought his defense on (RJ) Barrett really got under him, harassed him. He really was Dennis the Menace tonight.”

Schroder — acquired from the Sacramento Kings on Feb. 1 along with Keon Ellis — finished with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including three 3-pointers, in 21 minutes. This is the 17th time Schroder has scored at least 19 points in a playoff game. He had 20 for Detroit in Game 2 of its first-round series against New York last year.

It was the third-most points Schroder has scored since joining the Cavaliers.

“I love big games, I love the playoffs. You’ve just got to embrace it,” Schroder said. “I’ve been through a lot of big games of my career, and I’ve seen it. I think experience matters, but at the end of the day, the urgency and the energy, you’ve got to have it.”

Schroder’s biggest contribution came before the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers trailed 74-67 at halftime. The 13-year veteran gave a detailed 2-3 minute breakdown in the locker room on what was needed to come back.

“I just wanted to see Cavs basketball, how we played when we first got here. We did a great job even throughout this season when we first got here, but I think we got a little bit away from that,” Schroder said. “We need the big guys. Jarrett (Allen) and Evan Mobley are the key to our team. We’ve got two superstars with Don (Donovan Mitchell) and with Uno (James Harden), but those two big guys, we’ve got to use them.”

Mobley had six of his 23 points in the fourth quarter, both on 3-pointers. His 3 with 10:21 remaining off an assist by Schroder gave Cleveland a 106-103 lead that it would not relinquish.

Schroder added a layup to extend the Cavs’ lead to five points.

“I was just trying to be aggressive. I just wanted to come out and bring the energy, try to help as much as I can to get the W,” Schroder said.

Schroder played the final 16 minutes. Atkinson tried to get Mitchell and Mobley back in during the fourth quarter, but Mitchell said the group on the floor was playing well.

“Sometimes the best offense is just going to stand over there. There’s a trust level that I have, and we all have with this group,” said Mitchell, who had 19 points. “And like I said, it’s the playoffs, man. It doesn’t matter if it’s me, whoever it is, as long as we’re getting quality looks and figuring it out. And that’s what we saw throughout tonight.”

Schroder said he did not realize Mitchell chose to stay on the bench until someone mentioned it after the game.

“ I’m the same way, though. When somebody is balling and even when the coach tells me to get in, I’m letting the guy cook. Whoever cooks, and I appreciate that from Don,” Schroder said. “That means a lot. He is a superstar. Not a lot of superstars do that who I’ve been around.”

Schroder and the Cavaliers will try to close out the series Friday night in Toronto

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

The Golden Knights take a 3-2 lead into their best-of-seven NHL playoffs series on Friday night in Salt Lake City.

Vegas' Pavel Dorofeyev's six-on-five goal with 52.7 seconds left in regulation forced overtime and gave him the sixth playoff hat trick in franchise history. Dorofeyev had two goals in 13 career playoff games before this one.

“That was a huge game by him,” Golden Knights center Jack Eichel said. “He's a huge part of our team, and it was awesome to see him find the back of the net a few times. It seems like he's been playing pretty well these last few nights and it's great to see him get rewarded.”

Neither team scored in the first overtime, the first time this series either side failed in a period to hit the back of the net.

“I think that was a hell of a game,” Mammoth coach André Tourigny said. “I think both teams played really hard. We were really close. Unfortunately, we gave that six-on-five goal and could not get it done in overtime, but I'm really proud of the way the guys played.”

Also for the Golden Knights, Shea Theodore has a goal and assist and Eichel had two assists. Carter Hart stopped 34 shots.

John Marino, Lawson Crouse and Dylan Guenther scored for the Mammoth and Clayton Keller had two assists. Karel Vejmelka made 31 saves.

Utah rallied in the third period when Guenther tied it at 5:54 on a rush play and Michael Carcone on a two-on-one with 7:18 left.

Both teams have continued to struggle on the power play, combining to go 1 for 10. Vegas ended a scoring drought of 13 power plays when Dorofeyev scored from the right circle to make it 1-1 with 40.2 seconds left in the first period. But the Golden Knights are just 3 for 18 for the series, which is better than Utah's 1-for-14 showing.

Vegas also has two short-handed goals this series, both from Howden that included his shot from the slot to win Game 5. The Golden Knights forced the action that resulted in a faceoff in Utah's zone. Vegas won the faceoff, Mitch Marner dug the puck from the boards and fed Howden for the winner.

“(Marner) did a good job of getting the stick in there and interrupting play,” Howden said. “It just kind of popped out and I just tried to get a shot. After that, just kind of blacked out.”

The Golden Knights twice rallied in the first two periods, and goals 1:38 apart by Dorofeyev and Theodore late in the second put them ahead 3-2. It's the first time Vegas took the lead into the third period in this series, but the Golden Knights were the NHL's best third-period team in the regular season with a plus-47 goal differential.

But both teams have been resilient — and physical.

They combined for 86 hits, each side determined to assert itself. But those also sometimes resulted in unnecessary penalties, with the Mammoth taking three in the first period on an open-ice interference by Nick Schmaltz, a clothesline takedown of Ivan Barbashev by Logan Cooley officially called holding and a boarding minor on Mikhail Sergachev.

The Golden Knights were hardly blameless. Cole Smith picked up a double-minor high-sticking penalty just 11 seconds into third period, but Vegas killed off the four minutes.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Minutes from the Bank of England meeting showed that eight of the nine rate-setters voted to keep rates on hold while one member opted for a quarter-point hike. But there was a clear signal that interest rates could rise in coming months.

“We think this is a reasonable place given the situation of the economy and the unpredictability of events in the Middle East,” said Bank Gov. Andrew Bailey. "Whatever happens, our job is to make sure that inflation gets back to the 2% target after the initial impact of the war on energy prices has passed.”

In an unusual development, the bank published a range of forecasts given the geopolitical uncertainties. It said that in a worst-case scenario where oil and gas prices stay higher for longer, U.K. inflation could rise to as much as 6.2% by early 2027 from 3.3% currently. It also considered several ways that events could unfold with a worst-case scenario leading to multiple rate rises and an increased risk of recession. Before the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, there had been an expectation in financial markets that the Bank of England would cut rates given that inflation was predicted to fall back toward its 2% target during the spring. The war has since upended the bank’s predictions and wider global economic forecasts as the price of oil and other costs have spiked sharply higher. Energy prices have raced up again over the past few days as traders price in a growing expectation that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed for a long time to come. Brent crude, the international standard, briefly jumped to over $126 a barrel at one point Thursday, its highest level since the aftermath of Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

Bank of England policymakers will be keeping an eye on whether the inflation spike starts to spread through the economy, by way of higher wages, for example. They will also monitor how the oil price shock hits the economy and whether it leads to a recession, which would keep a lid on price rises.

Luke Bartholomew, deputy chief economist at asset management firm Aberdeen, said he thinks the recessionary risks will limit any second-round inflation effects.

“But if oil prices continue to move higher, it is hard to see how the Bank avoids having to hike later this year,” he said.

Policymakers will also be alert to any upcoming action from Britain's Labour government to limit the inflation impact on households and businesses. Treasury chief Rachel Reeves, whose hopes over the cost-of-living have been blown off course by the crisis in the Middle East, has said she is ready to provide support when and if needed.

“The war in the Middle East is not our war, but it is one we have to respond to,” said Reeves.

Alperen Sengun had 14 points, nine rebounds and eight assists for the fifth-seeded Rockets, who sent the series back to Houston for Game 6 on Friday night with a gritty performance to overcome Austin Reaves' return to the Lakers.

Houston has won two straight even without top scorer Kevin Durant, who has missed four of the series' five games with injuries.

“We put ourselves in a bad position, but we can still make history and come back one game at a time,” Sengun said. “Play at home, come back here, just do the same thing we're doing.”

No team has ever recovered from an 0-3 deficit to win an NBA playoff series, but the Rockets are halfway. Only four of the 159 teams to start a series down 0-3 have ever even forced a Game 7.

LeBron James scored 17 of his 25 points in the second half and added seven assists, but Los Angeles lost its second straight after stealing Game 3 with an improbable rally in the final seconds of regulation.

James’ teams have never blown a 2-0 series lead in his entire 23-year NBA career.

“Listen, it’s one game,” James said. “You give credit where credit is due. They played well the last two games, exceptionally well, and we’ve got to answer the call.”

Reaves had 22 points and six assists in his return from a nine-game injury absence for the Lakers, but they committed 15 mostly atrocious turnovers in their worst performance of the series and only their second loss in 16 home games since February.

Los Angeles awoke for a late 11-1 run and trimmed Houston’s lead to 88-85 on a driving layup by James, but Reed Sheppard hit a jumper before ripping the ball away from James for a dunk with 2:20 to play. The moment looked like redemption for Sheppard, who committed a turnover forced by James that led to the Lakers' last-minute comeback to tie Game 3.

"After what happened in Game 3, we could have very easily shut it down and pouted and quit," said Sheppard, who was ill with congestion and a headache during the day. “That's not what we did. We watched it and we learned from it. We keep fighting and keep giving ourselves a chance to win.”

Deandre Ayton had 18 points and 17 rebounds for Los Angeles, which is still without Luka Doncic. The NBA scoring champion doesn't appear to be close to a return from a strained hamstring.

Strained oblique muscles had sidelined Reaves since April 2, but he had 11 points and six assists in the first half of Game 5. Yet the Rockets coolly carried an advantage into the second half and led 87-74 with 5:55 to play.

Ayton's putback dunk made it 96-93 after James and Reaves both missed open 3-pointers. But Thompson hit one of two free throws, and James badly missed another 3-point attempt that allowed Houston to ice it.

The Rockets shot particularly poorly while losing the series' first two games in Los Angeles, but they've rediscovered their collective touch while running a balanced offense in Durant's absence. Houston has played with the confidence exemplified Tuesday by Smith, who claimed the Rockets were “obviously the better team” despite their 3-1 series deficit.

The Rockets' resilience is also good news for the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, who are resting and awaiting the series winner after sweeping Phoenix.

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

The government established the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion after father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram allegedly opened fire with legally-owned guns at the celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14., 2025. Authorities say their attack was inspired by the Islamic State group.

Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell made 14 recommendations on Thursday in her first interim report, five of which were not made public because they were classified as confidential for national security reasons.

The report also noted there had been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, 2023.

The United States and Israel’s attack on Iran in February was “likely to have increased the risk of attacks directed at the Australian Jewish community,” it said.

Report proposes new limits on gun ownership and follow-up on gun licenses

The recommendations included that the federal and state governments prioritize implementing nationally consistent gun laws and a gun buyback.

Sajid Naveed was shot dead by police at the crime scene. He was a licensed shooter who legally owned the guns used.

Under new restrictions proposed by the federal government, the Indian-born Australian permanent resident would have been banned from holding a gun license because he was not an Australian citizen.

His son was wounded but survived. Naveed Akram has been charged with committing a terrorist act, 15 counts of murder and 40 counts of attempted murder. He has entered no pleas.

The government has also proposed limiting the number of guns someone can own to as few as four and implementing periodic reviews of existing gun licenses.

The new restrictions would be accompanied with a gun buyback scheme to compensate gun owners who must hand in weapons. The government has proposed sharing the cost of the buyback with the six states and two territories. But some states have said they won’t pay.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government had agreed to implement all the recommendations that were relevant to federal authorities.

Albanese said he hoped the recommended gun reforms were implemented.

“I certainly hope that that occurs and would continue to engage constructively with state and territory governments to say that this is reform which is necessary,” Albanese told reporters.

Albanese noted that Australia commemorated on Tuesday the 30th anniversary of Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in modern times.

A landmark national firearms agreement virtually banned rapid-fire rifles after a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state on April 28, 1996.

“The nation is safer because of that,” Albanese said.

Government moves to increase protection of Jewish sites

Albanese noted that despite concluding that risks to Australian Jews were rising, the report found that no urgent changes were required to keep Australians safe.

“There has been a rise in antisemitism. That is a global phenomenon,” Albanese said.

“That is something that has happened right around the world. Governments need to respond to it. We are responding to it,” he added.

The report noted that the government had allocated 102 million Australian dollars ($73 million) to increase security at Jewish sites including synagogues and schools.

The money is administered by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the community’s peak organization.

The council’s co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the report was an important part in the process of making Jewish Australians feel safe again.

“We need to get to a point where Jewish Australians at Hanukkah this year … feel safe, that we can gather again, that we won’t be targeted,” Ryvchin told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“It’s going to be a long process to get us to that point. There’s a deep sense of trauma in the community and … a lot of unanswered questions, bit this is an important step in the process,” he added.

Public hearings in the inquiry begin on Monday next week.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% and is just below its all-time high set earlier this week, as companies keep delivering fatter profits for the start of 2026 than analysts expected, even with very high oil prices and uncertainty about the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 632 points, or 1.3%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Alphabet led the way and climbed 7.3% after the owner of Google and YouTube reported profit for the latest quarter that almost doubled analysts’ expectations. Investments in artificial intelligence “are lighting up every part of the business,” CEO Sundar Pichai said.

The steadiness on Wall Street followed manic swings in the oil market, where prices surged overnight on worries that the Iran war will affect the flow of crude for a long time. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, keeping them pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide, while a U.S. Navy blockade is preventing Iran from selling its own oil.

Traders are always buying and selling contracts for different kinds of oil, going out for many months. In the most actively traded part of the market for Brent crude, for delivery in July, the price got as high as $114.70 per barrel overnight. It then fell back toward $107 before sitting at $109.82, down 0.6%.

So far during the war, the peak price for the most actively traded Brent contract is $119.50, which was set last month.

In a less actively traded corner of the Brent market, the price for a barrel to be delivered in June briefly went above $126 overnight before pulling back toward $114.

Brent's price is still much more expensive than the roughly $70 level it was at before the war. But the morning's easing, along with the continuing flood of better-than-expected profit reports from U.S. companies, helped keep Wall Street stable near its records.

Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, and Royal Caribbean all rallied more than 8% after delivering profits for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. That’s big because stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term.

Still, a better-than-expected result isn’t always enough to boost a stock’s price if it’s already shot much higher.

Meta Platforms tumbled 9.4% even though the company behind Facebook and Instagram made more profit last quarter than expected. Investors focused more on Meta’s increased forecast for how much it will spend on data centers and other investments this year as it builds out its AI capabilities, up to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion.

Doubts are still high among some investors about whether all the AI spending by Meta and other companies will produce enough profit and productivity to make it worth it.

Microsoft fell 4.9% after likewise raising its forecast for investments and other capital spending. But analysts also said accelerating trends at its Azure business were encouraging.

Amazon slid 1.6% despite blowing past analysts’ expectations for earnings in the latest quarter.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after oil prices gave up their big overnight gains. Reports also suggested the U.S. economy's growth accelerated by less in the first three months of the year than economists expected, while a measure of inflation worsened in March by about as much as expected.

A separate report said that fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in an indication of fewer layoffs even though companies are announcing large cuts to workforces.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.38% from 4.42% late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.

London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.6% after the Bank of England kept its main interest rate on hold. That followed similar decisions by the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday and the Bank of Japan on Tuesday to keep their rates unchanged.

Germany's DAX returned 1.3%, and France's CAC 40 rose 0.5% after the European Central Bank also held its own interest rates steady.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.3%, while stocks added 0.1% in Shanghai after a report said China’s factory activity slowed slightly in April but remained in expansion territory for the second month.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

It was a period of painful rejection that is familiar to exonerees. Some see their own struggles reflected in Calvin Duncan, who won elected office in New Orleans after clearing his name but likely won't serve. Louisiana lawmakers sent a bill to the governor's desk Wednesday abolishing his job.

“We’re still kind of like looked at as an inmate that did a particular crime. It further deteriorates our ability to believe that the system can heal itself,” said Miles, who eventually found a job through a minister at his church. “When cases like in Louisiana occur, it just shows us that the system is not healing itself.”

The fight in Louisiana has touched a nerve among exonerees in the U.S. who see Duncan's plight as reflective of the biases and stigmas they have to confront as they try to rebuild their lives.

Duncan served nearly 30 years in prison before his murder conviction was vacated in 2021 after evidence emerged that police officers had lied in court. He was elected to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court in November, vowing to fix the system that failed him. He had been set to take office May 4.

Louisiana Republicans who want to dissolve the office say it isn't about Duncan's past but a necessary step toward government efficiency.

“Even if they are seen as somebody who is exonerated, there is still a stigma as somebody who has been in prison,” said Jon Eldan, the founder and executive director of After Innocence, a California-based nonprofit.

Nonprofits and others offer help to exonerees

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, more than 3,800 people have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1989.

But unlike those released on parole or probation, exonerees don’t have access to government-provided services such as employment or housing assistance and mental health services.

“I was turned down by many prisoner reentry organizations because they said, ‘Look, you’re not on parole, you’re not on probation,'” said Jeffrey Deskovic, who was wrongly convicted of rape and murder in Peekskill, New York, and spent 16 years in prison before being freed in 2006.

Thirty-eight states have laws that compensate wrongfully convicted people. But it can be years before they receive that money.

After Innocence works to connect exonerees with organizations that help with job training, housing, medical and dental care. It also tries to clean up their records to accurately represent what happened in their criminal cases, Eldan said.

Miles, who spent more than 14 years in prison, now runs Miles of Freedom, a nonprofit in Dallas that helps formerly incarcerated individuals, including exonerees, rebuild their lives.

The challenges Miles faced as an exoneree looking for employment — including a lack of work history, viable skills and training — are not unusual, but it also appears some employers simply don't want someone who has been behind bars on their workforce.

There are no government statistics that track the employment rate of exonerees. Multiple studies have shown the unemployment rate for people who were in prison is much higher than the national rate. A 2018 study from the Prison Policy Initiative found that formerly incarcerated people are unemployed at a rate of over 27%. A 2021 Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that 33% of federal prisoners released in 2010 did not find employment for four years. Nationally, the unemployment rate in March was 4.3%.

Finding employment remains a challenge

Deskovic used the compensation he received five years after his 2006 release from prison to start the Deskovic Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that helps free wrongfully convicted people. He later got a law degree so he could represent them in court.

Exonerees tell Deskovic little has changed since the years following his release when he applied for jobs, including as a doughnut shop worker and a weekly newspaper reporter, but could never find consistent work.

Supporters of exonerees point to Duncan as someone who has rebuilt his life and won elected office but still faces pushback about his innocence and post-incarceration accomplishments.

“If he wasn’t an exoneree, would they be doing this to him? I’m sure that they would not,” Deskovic said.

Groups push for legislative help for exonerees

Eldan's organization worked with a state senator to help write and pass a law in Delaware that provides compensation for wrongful imprisonment, as well as a stipend and help with housing, food benefits, and health and dental insurance. It also provides exonerees with a certificate from the state saying they were wrongly incarcerated and found innocent.

Eldan said his group is working with several other states, including California and New Mexico, to get laws passed to provide similar innocence certificates and update exonerees' criminal records.

More states should fund programs to help exonerees after their release, Eldan and Miles said.

“But it’s hard to write into a statute, something that actually translates into real benefit for these people,” Eldan said. “It's not because the state is bad, but because the state just is not particularly good at delivering those services.”

Ben Spencer spent 34 years in prison for a murder in Dallas he didn’t commit before being exonerated and released in 2021. He applied for jobs at an Amazon warehouse and as an airport baggage loader but failed to secure a position.

Eventually, someone who had taken an interest in his case helped get him a job as a facilities engineer, doing repairs for a company. He’s worked there five years.

“I think I’m kind of settling in a little more now. I’m still trying to figure out the cellphone and computers,” Spencer said. “When I walked out of the jail, it was like waking up out of a coma or a bad dream. And of course, I still had to try to get some financial stability. I guess I won’t say I’m there now, but I’m closer to where I wanna be now than I was.”

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

Both Paul and her former partner, Dakota Mortensen, have asked a Utah court to turn short-term protective orders into long-term arrangements as the two have accused each other of domestic violence.

Third District Court Commissioner Russell Minas said at an April 7 hearing that he had “concerns going both ways” about the competing allegations. For now, Paul cannot spend unsupervised time with her son because of a history of volatile behavior directed at Mortensen while kids were present, Minas ruled.

Paul and Mortensen, whose tumultuous relationship was featured heavily on the show, have been ordered to stay at least 100 feet (30 meters) away from each other until the hearing Thursday afternoon. Both were expected in person after attending the previous hearing virtually, a court spokesperson said.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.

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Eleven fights between the exes were under examination in their protective order requests. A recently leaked video of one fight from 2023 prompted ABC to make the unprecedented move last month of shelving an already-filmed season of “The Bachelorette” starring Paul. Hulu also paused production of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and resumed filming last week.

In the video, Paul appeared to punch, kick and throw chairs at Mortensen while her daughter watched and cried. Paul was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. The police body camera footage of her arrest was featured in the first season of the Hulu series.

Paul pleaded guilty to an assault charge, which will be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor if she stays out of legal trouble for a three-year probationary period that ends in August. The other counts were dismissed.

Earlier this month, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office declined to file new charges against Paul in recent fights with Mortensen. Any new charges would have violated Paul's probation from the 2023 assault.

The lack of prosecution could help Paul and her attorneys make her case to the court commissioner as she fights to regain custody of her son.

A protective order in Utah can restrict or eliminate a parent’s ability to see their child. When one parent receives a protective order against the other, a court commissioner may also decide it is in the child's best interest give that parent custody. If both parents have protective orders against each other, the court relies heavily on the recommendations of an attorney appointed to investigate the child's best interests.

Paul and Mortensen's son, Ever, will have a court-appointed attorney present at Thursday’s hearing to help the commissioner determine the safest arrangement for the boy.

The lawyer, Michael McDonald, said during the April 7 hearing that he had concerns about Paul’s tendency to fight with Mortensen in front of their son.

Eric Swinyard, a lawyer for Paul, has argued that Mortensen is the aggressor in the relationship. He showed photos in court of Paul's bruises after a fight in a truck in which Paul alleges Mortensen slammed her head into the dashboard.

Daniela Diaz, a lawyer for Mortensen, described other altercations between the pair and argued that Paul uses their son “as a pawn to start fights.”

James Broadnax was sentenced to death for the 2008 shooting deaths of two men outside a suburban Dallas music studio. Prosecutors say Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, fatally shot and robbed Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in the parking lot of Butler’s recording studio in Garland. Cummings was sentenced to life without parole.

Prosecutors say Broadnax, 37, confessed to the shooting, telling reporters during jailhouse interviews that “I pulled the trigger” and that he had no remorse.

Broadnax was scheduled to receive a lethal injection after 6 p.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Houston.

His attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, filing multiple final appeals after lower courts declined to stop the lethal injection.

His lawyers have focused his final appeals on two issues: Cummings has recently confessed to being the shooter; and Broadnax’s constitutional rights were violated because prosecutors eliminated potential jurors during his trial on the basis of race.

“I’m really gonna tell it like it’s supposed to be told, that it was me, that I was the killer. I shot Matthew Bullard, Steve Swann,” Cummings said recently from prison in a video created as part of the efforts to stop Broadnax’s execution.

Broadnax’s attorneys say in filings with the high court that Cummings’ confession is “corroborated by the fact that his DNA, and not Mr. Broadnax’s, was found on the murder weapon and in the pocket of one of the victims.”

In the video, Broadnax said his confession was false as at the time he didn’t care about his life. Broadnax’s lawyers say he was under the influence of drugs during the television interviews.

He also apologized to the families of Butler and Swan for taking part in the robbery.

“I wish I could show them my soul, so they could see just how sorry I am. I am very much remorseful for everything that happened,” Broadnax said.

His attorneys also allege prosecutors dismissed all seven potential Black jurors on the basis of their race, “utilizing a spreadsheet during jury selection that bolded only the names of every Black juror,” according to court documents. One Black juror was later reinstated to the jury. Broadnax is Black.

In a 1986 ruling known as Batson v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that excluding jurors because of their race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Broadnax’s attorneys had argued in an earlier appeal that prosecutors had violated his constitutional rights by using some of the rap lyrics he wrote to portray him as a violent and dangerous person in order to secure a death sentence. A number of A-list rappers, including Travis Scott,T.I. and Killer Mike, had filed briefs at the Supreme Court in support of Broadnax’s appeal.

But the high court rejected that appeal as well as another that focused on how forensic evidence was presented at his trial.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied Broadnax’s request for a 180-day reprieve or to commute his death sentence.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has described Cummings’ confession as the shooter as “questionable new evidence.” It also said in court documents that Broadnax’s claims that potential Black jurors were targeted for removal are “entirely meritless” as these jurors were stricken not because of race but because of their answers during questioning, including that some opposed the death penalty.

Theresa Butler, Matthew Butler’s mother, has asked that the execution proceed.

“This so called confession from cummings is just a stall tactic by broadnax’s desperate defense team. Its all a lie,” Butler wrote in a post on social media.

If the execution is carried out, Broadnax would be the third person put to death this year in Texas, which has historically held more executions than any other state.

About an hour before Broadnax's scheduled execution on Thursday, Florida is set to put to death James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, for beating and choking his 13-year-old step-niece to death.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, kicked off the hearing by noting that the U.S. is in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. He also praised President Donald Trump's use of the military.

Through the war against Iran, Trump “has worked to remove the regime’s conventional military capabilities and force it back to the table for a permanent solution,” Wicker said.

He also praised Trump's budget proposal for 2027.

“This $1.5 trillion request is chock full of important programs and initiatives that are absolutely necessary to secure American interest in the 21st century,” he said.

A day earlier, Hegseth battled with Democrats during a nearly six-hour House Armed Services Committee hearing, where he faced sharp questioning over the war's costs in dollars, lives and diminishing stockpiles of critical weapons.

The Senate committee will hear a similar presentation on the Trump administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion. Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, will again stress the need for more drones, missile defense systems and warships.

They are now also likely to face tough questions about American troop levels in Europe after Trump on Wednesday leveled a new threat against NATO ally Germany, suggesting he could soon reduce the U.S. military presence in the country as he feuds with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war.

If Wednesday's hearing offered any indication, Republican senators may focus on the details of military budgeting and voice support for the operation in Iran. Democrats are expected to press for answers about strategy in the conflict, now in a tenuous ceasefire, and Hegseth's firing of top military leaders.

Democrats call it a costly war of choice that lacks congressional approval or oversight. But they have failed to pass multiple war powers resolutions that would have required Trump to halt the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.

Under the War Powers Act of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize use of force within 60 days — a deadline that arrives Friday. The law provides for a potential 30-day extension, but the Republican administration has not indicated publicly whether Trump will seek it.

The administration is in “active conversations” with lawmakers on addressing the 60-day timeline, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Meanwhile, questions that lawmakers have wanted to ask since the war began on Feb. 28 were answered — or evaded — at Wednesday's hearing.

For example, the war has cost $25 billion, mostly in munitions, Pentagon officials said. But Hegseth refused to answer questions about how much longer the war would last or how much more it could cost.

Hegseth also said a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people, including children, remains under investigation. The Associated Press has reported that growing evidence pointed to U.S. culpability for the strike, which hit a school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base.

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York questioned Hegseth over whether the deaths of six American soldiers by a drone strike in Kuwait could have been prevented. Hegseth did not answer the question directly but said the military took proactive measures to protect American forces.

In another tense exchange, Hegseth told Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated in U.S. strikes last June. That led Smith to question the Trump administration’s reasoning for starting the war in Iran less than a year later.

“We had to start this war, you just said 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat,” said Smith, the ranking Democrat on the committee. “Now you’re saying that it was completely obliterated?”

Hegseth responded by saying that the Iranians “had not given up their nuclear ambitions” and still had thousands of missiles.

Smith said the war “left us at exactly the same place we were before.”

The defense secretary also faced questions about his decision to oust the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, one of several top military officers to be dismissed since Trump returned to office.

Hegseth said “new leadership” was needed, a claim that failed to satisfy Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Pennsylvania Democrat.

“You have no way of explaining why you fired one of the most decorated and remarkable men,” Houlahan began before Hegseth interrupted her.

“We needed new leadership,” he repeated.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Wednesday's decision clears the way for Republican-led states to redraw U.S. House districts without regard to race, potentially creating many more GOP-friendly seats.

Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters that its members and Democrats would fight the effects of the ruling.

“The Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on Black voters across the country,” Clarke said. “This is an outright power grab.”

Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, voters could challenge electoral maps that appeared to dilute the ability of minority communities to elect representatives of their choosing. The expected wave of congressional redistricting by Republican-controlled states after Wednesday's ruling, especially for the 2028 election and beyond, is likely to result in a much smaller Black Caucus.

Changes are coming, but how quickly is unknown

Clarke was joined by over a dozen of the 60 Black Caucus members, including Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Their responses to the court's decision ranged from outrage to defiance to mourning.

It's not clear how many seats will ultimately be affected by the ruling, but redistricting experts predict that more than a dozen now held by minorities could be swept away.

Rep. Troy Carter, one of two Black Democrats from Louisiana, the state at the center of the case, called the ruling “a devastating blow to our democracy, plain and simple.”

Republican leaders in several Southern states already have been discussing how to apply the ruling and create new GOP-friendly congressional maps. In Florida, Republicans wasted no time approving a new U.S. House map, part of which redrew one district created to elect a Black representative.

“I would be surprised if we do not see former slave-holding states moving at lightning speed to target districts that provide Black voters and other voters of color an equal opportunity to elect candidates,” said Kristen Clarke, general counsel for the NAACP and the first Black woman to be assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division.

It's not clear whether state-level voting laws or constitutional prohibitions against racial discrimination will provide any protection, she added.

Republican officials and Black conservatives praised the decision as a victory against race-based mandates. Linda Lee Tarver, of the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, said in a statement civil rights laws were not intended “to institutionalize racial line-drawing as a default feature of our political system.”

Voting Rights Act expanded Black representation

The Congressional Black Caucus was formed in 1971 as court-ordered redistricting under the Voting Rights Act, passed just six years earlier, sent more minorities to Congress.

The number of Black representatives in Congress jumped from nine to 13. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, decided to expand the Democracy Select Committee created in the 1960s by Democratic Rep. Charles Diggs into the more formal Congressional Black Caucus.

The CBC raised its profile in its first year when it boycotted President Richard Nixon's State of the Union address after he refused to meet with the group. Nixon eventually acquiesced. The group created a list of over 60 recommendations to help the Black community, including counteracting racism and building adequate housing. It earned the nickname the “conscience of the Congress.”

“That caucus has had such an important voice in American politics — the things that we’ve been able to achieve together, the creation of equity and access," Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said during a separate news conference Wednesday. “And I’m afraid that with this ruling, we could see that caucus shrink in a hugely significant way.”

What can Black constituents do

The ruling upset Thomas Johnson when he heard about it while visiting Louisiana's Capitol in Baton Rouge. Johnson, who is Black, is from New Orleans and represented by Carter. He fears Republicans could redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that dismantles predominately Black districts.

“I feel like this is an embarrassing attack upon the minorities, particularly the Black community,” Johnson said. “We have very little (voice) in Congress.”

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who advises the Black Caucus, said he expects the group will be involved in multiple legal fights for members whose districts will be targeted after the Supreme Court ruling. He also said the ruling makes voter turnout efforts even more important "if we want to change course on some of the things that are likely to happen because of this decision.”

Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, whose state was at the center of a major Voting Rights Act case decided in favor of Black representation nearly three years ago, agreed that the party now needs to focus on getting voters motivated ahead of this year's midterm elections.

“Now more than ever, we need communities across this nation to mobilize — in state legislatures, in the courts and at the ballot box,” Sewell said. "We need to vote like we’ve never voted before." ___ Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam, Matt Brown and Ali Swenson in Washington and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.

The rookie left fielder's latest saved the game for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Church ended a 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates by robbing Nick Gonzales of what would have been a walk-off, two-run homer by making a leaping catch at the left-field wall Wednesday night.

Just four days earlier, Church took a potential tying homer away from Seattle's Mitch Garver in the sixth inning. The 25-year-old also had his first career two-homer game in that 11-9 loss to the Mariners.

On opening day, Church made a dazzling catch at the top of the wall against Tampa Bay's Ryan Vilade. A homer then also would have tied the game.

Gonzales’ drive above the top of the 6-foot wall — 373 feet from home plate — would have been a home run in 27 of the 30 big league ballparks, according to MLB Statcast, all but PNC Park, Baltimore's Camden Yards and Texas' Globe Life Field.

Reliever Riley O'Brien, who got his eighth save thanks to the grab, held his arms over his head with a stunned look toward left as Church casually jogged away from the wall with the ball in his glove.

Church earned a reputation as an elite defender in the minor leagues as an 11th-round draft pick by the Cardinals in 2022. He's on his best stretch at the plate, hitting .281 with four homers in the past eight games.

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

Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed a fluke goal on the day he was nominated for the Vezina Trophy, the Lightning struggled to win faceoffs, lucky bounces went the other way and they lost to the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 on Wednesday night to fall behind 3-2 in the series.

Game 6 is Friday night in Montreal. The Lightning are trying to avoid a fourth straight first-round elimination since falling two wins short of a Stanley Cup three-peat in 2022.

“We got to drag them back here,” forward Corey Perry said. “You know it’s going to be a hostile environment. It’s loud but block it out and just go play. We found a way last game there. We got to do it again.”

The Lightning won Game 4 in Montreal but have lost 10 of their last 12 home games in the playoffs.

Alexandre Texier scored the winning goal 1:06 into the third period on a slap shot from the left circle that bounced off Vasilevskiy’s glove and trickled behind one of the NHL’s best goaltenders.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper blamed the goal on the defense.

“It stems way before that. It doesn’t stem from when Texier gets down the ice. It stems from the change and how we went about it and the mistakes we made on the way there,” Cooper said. “Forever, all Vasy does is bail us out of those. The rare time sometimes he doesn’t. He should’ve never got that deep into our zone and he got a lot on it. It wasn’t like Vasy got beat. He had it and it took a Montreal bounce, unfortunately for us.

The Canadiens dominated the faceoff circle, winning 66%. In another tight game - all five have been decided by one goal and the first three went to overtime - every puck possession matters.

“Possession is huge,” forward Brayden Point said. “There’s not a lot of room out there. Starting with the puck is massive.”

The Lightning had 40 shots on rookie goaltender Jakub Dobes but only Dominic James and Jake Guentzel could get the puck past him.

They had shots hit the post, crossbar and Nikita Kucherov had the puck bounce over his stick with an open net.

“We need other guys to score and haven’t been able to do it,” Point said. “It is frustrating. Just got to keep doing the right things and keep working hard.”

The Lightning have lost their last two elimination games. If they can win again in Montreal, they’ll host Game 7 on Sunday.

“I understand the next game is a potential elimination game but the last game we played there, we lose that one and we’re down 3-1 (and) you’re really chasing the series,” Cooper said. “They’ve been in that building twice now and have a pretty good feeling of what to expect. How it’s going to go? I can’t say for sure but I’ll bet we play better than we did tonight.” ___

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

Cunningham had a franchise playoff-record 45 points and the top-seeded Pistons held off the eighth-seeded Magic for a 116-109 win on Wednesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series, avoiding elimination for at least a couple of days.

“We dug ourselves a hole and now it’s time to climb our way out,” Cunningham said. “It’s possible.”

Orlando leads the series 3-2 and will get a second chance to advance at home on Friday night. If the Pistons win their first road game of the series, they will host a decisive Game 7 on Sunday.

Banchero also scored 45 points for a playoff career high — but missed 7 of 12 free throws — and fell one point short of equaling the franchise postseason record shared by Tracy McGrady and Dwight Howard.

The Magic were out-rebounded by 16 and made just 16 of 30 free throws.

“We got to be better on the glass and obviously, better on the free-throw line,” said Banchero, drafted No. 1 overall by Orlando in 2022. “If we make our free throws, we got a real chance of winning the game. We lost by seven, and missed 14 free throws. That’s the game.”

Cunningham set a single-game playoff scoring record for Detroit that had stood since Dave Bing had 44 points in 1968. Isiah Thomas approached that mark with a 43-point performance in 1988.

In NBA history there was only one other playoff game with two players scoring 45 or more.

Donovan Mitchell scored 51 points for Utah in a win over Denver in 2020, while the Nuggets' Jamal Murray had 50 points.

When Detroit drafted Cunningham first overall in 2021, it was hoping he would have games like this one.

He was 13 of 23 from the field, made a playoff career-high five 3-pointers and was 14 of 14 at the line.

“We’re going to see this a long time,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “He’s going to do a lot of special things.”

The 24-year-old Cunningham came up short in late-game situations with the ball earlier in the series and in last year's first-round series against the New York Knicks, but he was clutch in key moments to extend the matchup with the Magic.

The Pistons never trailed, going ahead by 17 points in the first half and by 15 early in the fourth quarter.

The Magic pulled within three points on Banchero’s sixth 3-pointer with 1:09 left.

On the ensuing possession after Ausar Thompson hustled for an offensive rebound, Cunningham made a step-back, 16-foot jumper to help seal it.

“Not everybody is blessed with those opportunities to have pressure and have things on the line like that,” Cunningham said. “I’m just thankful for it and trying to make the most out of it.

“We’ve had a great season so far and none of us want it to end.”

The Pistons are hoping to bounce back from the brink of elimination as they did against the Magic two-plus decades ago.

Detroit’s comeback in 2003 as a No. 1 seed against eighth-seeded Orlando was the first of seven times NBA teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit this century. The Nuggets were the last team to pull off the feat six years ago — in the same series that featured Mitchell and Murray each scoring 50-plus point — and they became the first team in the league to do it twice in one postseason.

“You don't want to put yourself in this situation, but this is what we expected,” Bickerstaff said. “When our backs are against the wall, we come out swinging. We come out kicking. We come out scratching, biting, clawing.”

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

Forget the quiet galleries -- this week, Wynwood is trading paintbrushes for Pirelli tires. The Williams Racing Fan Zone has taken over, bringing what many call the pinnacle of motorsport straight to the streets of Miami.

The main attraction is one of the team’s biggest stars, Carlos Sainz, drawing fans eager to get a closer look.

Over at Kiki Wynwood, Visa Cash App Racing Bulls unveiled this year’s car with help from DJ Khaled. Drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad were also on hand, locked in and ready to get on track.

The fan zone is open through Sunday, offering a free alternative for those looking to experience the Formula One energy -- with plenty of heat, both on the track and in the South Florida humidity.

Federal investigators took over the case after Alejandro Gonzalez went missing on April 17.

Investigators say the day before his disappearance, he picked up several cars in Georgia and was headed toward Miami.

The 41-year-old was last seen at the Brevard County rest area on I-95 southbound in Grant-Valkaria, where he stayed overnight.

The FBI says GPS data from the truck shows someone drove it south one exit before turning back north. That’s when Gonzalez became unreachable.

His truck was later found in Georgia without him and without several of the vehicles he had been transporting to Miami.

The FBI says Gonzalez is originally from Cuba.

No one was at his Port St. Lucie home Wednesday evening, but neighbors say they are hoping the suspected car hauler hijacking is soon solved.

The FBI is asking for photos and video from anyone who may have been near the Brevard County rest stop on the morning of April 17.

Investigators have not released a cause of death, and no persons of interest have been identified.

Cleveland leads the series 3-2. Game 6 is Friday night in Toronto.

James Harden scored 23 points and Donovan Mitchell added 19 for the Cavaliers.

“This was a step for us from a mental toughness point of view. I thought we showed good poise and resiliency,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “When you could have let your guard down, our guys kept with it.”

RJ Barrett led Toronto with 25 points while Ja’Kobe Walter added 20 and Jamal Shead had 18 off the bench.

The Raptors led 74-67 at halftime and scored the first five points of the third quarter. The Cavaliers slowly rallied but trailed 103-100 going into the final 12 minutes.

Cleveland seized control by scoring the first eight points of the fourth quarter. Jaylon Tyson hit a step-back 3-pointer to tie it at 103-all, and a 3 by Mobley gave the Cavaliers a 106-103 lead.

“He’s ready for those moments. He wants those moments. He works relentlessly on the 3-ball. Those were big shots for us for sure,” Mitchell said of Mobley.

Toronto missed its first 11 shots and was 7 of 28 from the field in the fourth while Cleveland made 7 of its first 11 and was 9 of 19.

“I would not just blame the fourth quarter. We cannot allow this team to score 125 points,” coach Darko Rajakovic said.

The Raptors were hobbled in the final period. Forward Brandon Ingram left the game in the second quarter with right heel inflammation. Fellow All-Star Scottie Barnes also was not at full strength after getting kneed in the quadriceps by Thomas Bryant while driving to the basket in the first half.

Barnes scored just 3 of his 17 points in the second half.

“For the most part, I thought we had this game. We played good enough to win. Just in the fourth quarter, they played a little better,” Barrett said. “What can you do? It’s the playoffs. Now, it’s do or die. Give them credit. We’ll be ready Friday.”

The Cavaliers won despite committing 15 turnovers that resulted in 28 Toronto points. They had 10 in the first half which the Raptors converted into 23 points.

“In the second half, I think ball-handling and Dennis helped relieve some of the pressure off (Mitchell) and (Harden) so I think that was part of it. If we are going to win on the road, we've got to find a way to clean that up,” Atkinson said.

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

York snapped the tension and a scoreless tie with the goal of the former first-round pick's career, burying the winner 17:32 into overtime that ignited a wild celebration and sent the Philadelphia Flyers into the second round for the first time in six years with a 1-0 Game 6 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.

The Flyers are set for a second-round showdown against Carolina.

“Just tried to put it there,” York said. “We knew that it was going to be a greasy one. It felt really good to see that one go in.”

Dan Vladar was again sensational in the net and stopped all 42 shots and prevented the Penguins from playing for a shot at playoff history.

Sidney Crosby and the Penguins tried to become just the fifth team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-0. They won two straight to force Game 6.

It is the Flyers who are moving on in coach Rick Tocchet's first season.

“It's been a long time,” Tocchet said. “I know there's been a lot of frustration.”

Arturs Silovs made 31 saves. Crosby skated over and consoled Silovs on the ice as the Flyers' theme song — Olivia Dean's “Man I Need” — blasted throughout the arena.

“We were a shot away from going back to Pittsburgh for Game 7,” Crosby said. "It comes down to bounces sometimes. Putting yourself in that position is tough. I think we all had a lot of belief we could dig ourselves out of it. It's just unfortunate we got behind early in the series.”

The last playoff game to head to overtime scoreless was Winnipeg and Edmonton in a 2021 first-round series. The Jets won 1-0 in the first OT.

The Flyers are in the playoffs for the first time since 2020, when they last reached the second round in the bubble season. They are in the second round in a full NHL season for the first time since 2012.

“So happy for the guys in that room,” York said. “We battled all year long for this position.”

Silovs, who allowed about four goals per game over his last 10 starts of the regular season, steadied the Penguins in place of the ineffective Stuart Skinner with wins in Games 4 and 5 and about played like a Vezina Trophy winner in Game 6.

Matvei Michkov, the Flyer's leading scorer after the Olympic break, was scratched in Game 5. He returned to the lineup determined to be a postseason difference-maker. He had a great chance in the second period on a breakaway but was stopped. The Flyers kept the puck in the offensive zone and Michkov swooped in and tried to poke the puck into the corner of the net, only for Silovs to again clamp down and deny the goal.

The Flyers, the last team in the Eastern Conference to clinch a playoff spot, had 10 giveaways in the first period and made it six straight games in the series without a goal in the first period.

They can try to end that streak against a Hurricanes team that just swept the Ottawa Senators.

Kris Letang dropped Travis Konecny with a right hand as the second period ended and the long-time Penguin started the third in the penalty box. No matter. The Flyers came up empty with the man advantage — Michkov was wide on a one-timer — and they fell at that point to 2 for 17 on the power play in the series.

Vladar played like the team MVP he was in the regular season, willing the Flyers to the second round. Crosby early in the third flicked the puck from behind the net at Vladar. Perhaps auditioning for a spot in the World Cup, Vladar headed it like a soccer star over the back of the net and the game remained scoreless.

That was just one sign the night belonged to the Flyers.

“It's a lot right now,” Penguins coach Dan Muse said. “At no point am I expecting the season to end today.”

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

The panel of three judges dismissed Brenton Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions prompted him to make an involuntarily admission to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges. His bid to withdraw his guilty pleas and seek a trial was “utterly devoid of merit," they wrote.

The Australian man, who is now 35, killed 51 worshippers and injured dozens more in March 2019 when he drove to two Christchurch mosques and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons during Friday prayers. Tarrant’s guilty pleas in March 2020 brought relief to bereaved families and survivors of the attack, who feared he would use a public trial to air his hateful views.

The dismissal of his appeal appears to end the possibility of Tarrant ever facing a trial, a prospect that lawyers representing some of his victims — who included men, women and children as young as three — said in a statement Thursday had been “unimaginably traumatic.”

The court noted the gunman's bid was made 505 days after the legal deadline for it to be filed. Tarrant had “failed by a considerable margin to adequately explain the extraordinarily long delay” in seeking an appeal, the judgment said.

His claim of mental illness was rejected

At the court's five-day hearing in February, the attacker argued his admissions of guilt were provoked by “irrationality” induced by poor mental health, which led him to desert his racist views for a time. The judges concluded, however, that his claims of mental illness weren’t supported by prison staff, mental health professionals or lawyers who had earlier represented him.

The court added that Tarrant also didn't meet the legal definition of unfitness to plead guilty, a point he had admitted.

“He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty,” the judges wrote in Thursday's ruling. “He endeavoured to mislead us about his state of mind in a weak attempt to advance an appeal in circumstances where all other evidence demonstrated that he made an informed and totally rational decision to plead guilty.”

The court's decision also revealed that Tarrant sought to abandon his appeal shortly after making his case at the hearing in February. The judges rejected that bid too, writing that the case was “of significant public interest and should be finally determined.”

They suggested that Tarrant “began to form the opinion that the hearing was not proceeding in his favour, and as a result decided to file a notice of abandonment after the hearing concluded.” New Zealand law doesn’t automatically allow an appellant to quit an appeal bid once it’s underway.

Judges say his pleas weren't forced

The shooter's complaints about his prison conditions included that he was kept away from other prisoners without anything to do and was constantly surveilled. The judges, however, said his solitary confinement was necessary because Tarrant was at risk for suicide or self-harm.

“He was monitored because of concerns about his welfare and not to torment him or treat him cruelly,” they wrote.

The shooter “was not coerced or pressured in any way” to plead guilty, the judges said. In fact, they added, Tarrant rejected his lawyers' offer to attempt to negotiate away the terrorism charge because he wanted to be known as a terrorist.

He will remain in jail for life

Tarrant, who has fired the lawyers who were acting for him in February, remains in Auckland Prison, where he was sentenced in August 2020 to spend life in prison without the chance of parole. The judges allowed him to abandon his appeal of that sentence, which was scheduled to be heard later in 2026.

The killer was radicalized online and moved to New Zealand in 2017 with a plan to commit a mass shooting. He amassed a cache of weapons and made a reconnaissance trip to the sites of his planned crimes before the attack.

His previous lawyers told the appeals court in February that Tarrant, an immigrant from Australia, had wanted to argue during a trial that he had been defending New Zealand from immigrants. Such a defense is not available under New Zealand law, a fact that the judges suggested Thursday had influenced his decision to plead guilty.

They wrote that Tarrant hadn't disputed the facts of the case against him, which they described as “overwhelming” and “beyond dispute," or identified any legitimate defense he would have offered at a trial. Evidence included footage of the attack that the gunman filmed himself and livestreamed on the internet, in which he showed his own face, and a document outlining his racist views that he published online before the attacks under his real name.

Rookie Jakub Dobes stopped 38 shots to help Montreal move within a victory of advancing for the first time since losing to the Lightning in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2021.

Brendan Gallagher got his first goal in his first game this series and Kirby Dach also scored for the Canadiens.

“It's obviously exciting,” said Gallagher, who was a healthy scratch the first four games. “It's been a fun series to watch. I tried to follow their lead and find a way to contribute and I did that.”

Game 6 is Friday night in Montreal, where the teams split Games 3 and 4. All five games have been decided by one goal, including overtime in the first three.

Dominic James scored his first career playoff goal and Jake Guentzel also connected for the Lightning. They are one loss from being eliminated in the first round for the fourth straight season.

Tampa Bay has lost 10 of its last 12 home games in the postseason despite 460 consecutive sellouts.

“We got no choice now. We got to show up or we're out,” Lightning forward Brayden Point said.

Texier took a long pass from Lane Hutson, skated into the left circle and ripped a shot that bounced off Andrei Vasilevskiy’s glove and into the net for a 3-2 lead early in the third.

“I'm not a 50-goal scorer,” Texier said. “When I have a chance, I just try to put it on net and sometimes you're lucky it's in and sometimes not.”

The Canadiens jumped ahead three minutes into the game when Gallagher wristed in a rebound after Vasilevskiy kicked away Alex Newhook’s backhander. Gallagher, the 14-year veteran, spent time the first four games giving the young players advice.

“I was happy for him and happy for us,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said about Gallagher. “Really happy the way he's handled everything and not surprised the way he played.”

Seconds after James blasted a slap shot past Dobes on a 2-on-1 breakaway, the Canadiens regained the lead. Dach skated down the left side, went around a defender, lost the puck, kicked it from his skate to his stick in front of the net and put it in.

Dach deactivated his Instagram account after receiving online criticism because his defensive lapse led to the winning goal in overtime in Game 2. He had a goal and an assist in Montreal’s 3-2 overtime win the next game.

Guentzel fired a slap shot between Dobes’ legs on another 2-on-1 breakaway to tie it at 2 late in the second. Guentzel has the best playoff goal-scoring ratio among American-born players in NHL history with 43 goals in 79 games.

The Lightning killed off a four-minute disadvantage after Ryan McDonagh’s double minor for high-sticking in the first period. The Canadiens managed just one shot on net during the power play.

Montreal had better scoring chances on two of Tampa Bay’s power plays in the second period. Vasilevskiy stopped Jake Evans on a short-handed breakaway on one of them. ___

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

Orlando leads the series 3-2 and will get a second chance to advance at home on Friday night.

The Magic fell to 0-10 in franchise history on the road in a Game 5.

Detroit never trailed and went ahead by 15 early in the final quarter. The Magic made one more run, pulling within three points on Paolo Banchero's sixth 3-pointer with 1:09 left. Banchero matched Cunningham with 45 points, also a playoff career high — but he missed 7 of 12 free throws.

The Pistons are hoping to bounce back from the brink of elimination as they did against the Magic two-plus decades ago.

Detroit’s comeback in 2003 as a No. 1 seed against eighth-seeded Orlando was the first of seven times NBA teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit this century. The Denver Nuggets were the last team to pull off the feat in 2020, when they became the first franchise in the league to do it twice in one postseason.

Magic forward Franz Wagner was sidelined with a strained right calf. He had 19 points in two-plus quarters before he departed late in the third quarter on Monday night and averaged nearly 17 points and 5.5 rebounds over the first four games of the series.

Cunningham was 13 of 23 from the field, making a playoff career-high five 3-pointers, and was 14 of 14 at the line in what proved to be the difference in a duel with Banchero, also a former No. 1 overall pick.

Tobias Harris scored 23 points for the Pistons, All-Star center Jalen Duren snapped out of a slump with 12 points and nine rebounds, and Duncan Robinson also scored 12.

Anthony Black had a playoff career-high 19 points, Desmond Bane scored 18 points and Jalen Suggs added 10 for the Magic.

The Pistons played with a sense of urgency at the start after being rusty or flat early in previous games.

Detroit led by 17 in the second quarter, but the Magic cut the deficit to six points by halftime. Orlando pulled within two points early in the third and Cunningham’s fifth 3-pointer late in the quarter helped the Pistons take an 89-79 lead into the fourth.

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

Reaves had been out since April 2 with strained oblique muscles, missing the final five games of the Lakers' regular season and the first four games of the postseason. But Reaves returned to practice last week, and he warmed up for the previous two games in the series in Houston before being ruled out.

Reaves came off the bench for the Lakers in Game 5, who kept the same starting lineup that had taken them to a 3-1 series lead. Reaves immediately made an impact when he checked in midway through the first quarter, making a 3-pointer from 30 feet away on his first shot.

Reaves finished the first half with 11 points and six assists, sharing the Lakers' scoring lead with Marcus Smart. But Los Angeles trailed Houston 51-47 after committing nine turnovers.

Reaves was injured in the same game in which NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic strained his right hamstrings. Doncic doesn't yet appear to be close to a return.

The Lakers won the first three games of the series without their top two scorers, but the Rockets took Game 4 to push the series back to Los Angeles.

Reaves averaged 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds this season, but played in just 51 games thanks to the oblique injury and a strained left calf that sidelined him for 19 straight games from Christmas to February.

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

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Public Investment Fund governor who was behind the creation of LIV Golf, is no longer listed as chairman of LIV Golf.

LIV announced Gene Davis of Pirinate Consulting Group and Jon Zinman of the strategic advisory firm JZ Advisors are leading a newly created board, with Davis as chairman. The focus is on securing long-term financial partners when Saudi funding ends after this season.

LIV said it was seeking to move toward an investment model involving multiple partners and team franchises. The league has said it expects 10 of its 13 teams to be profitable this year.

“The executive leadership team, along with Jon and I, see a clear opportunity to help the league formalize its structure, attract and secure long-term capital, and position the business for growth while continuing to promote the game across the world,” Davis said in a statement. "We look forward to positioning LIV Golf for future success.”

Sports Business Journal reported Wednesday night Al-Rumayyan has resigned as LIV chairman. There has been no official announcement from PIF on Al-Rumayyan or LIV Golf funding.

Scott O'Neil, the CEO at LIV Golf, had told Britain-based TNT two weeks ago during the Mexico event: “The reality is that you’re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going.”

That raised questions whether LIV Golf could keep some of its top players once their lucrative contracts expired. With financial muscle from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, LIV was able to spend $1 billion to land the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith and eventually Jon Rahm, the last big signing at the end of 2023.

The newsletter Money in Sport reported earlier this year that LIV Golf already had spent $5.3 billion since the league launched in 2022, a figure that would be $6 billion by the end of this year.

LIV staff and players have been aware Saudi funding was only through the 2026 season. Thursday's announcement was to outline plans to seek other sources of funding for a league that currently offers $30 million prize funds at each tournament.

Al-Rumayyan is passionate about golf and long wanted a seat at the table with the sport’s leadership. He signed a framework agreement in 2023 with the PGA Tour and European tour and was set to join the PGA Tour Enterprises board if it was approved.

The deal never materialized, except for ending antitrust lawsuits. PGA Tour Enterprises instead got a minority investment from a consortium of North American sports owners.

Al-Rumayyan was at the White House in February 2025 to meet with President Donald Trump along with a PGA Tour team that included Tiger Woods, Adam Scott and Commissioner Jay Monahan. But it was clear LIV and the PGA Tour could not find common ground, mainly because the Saudi league wanted to stick with a team component.

DeChambeau and Rahm — both multiple major champions — are considered LIV's top two players.

DeChambeau said in an interview with the Flushing It social media site that “as long as LIV is here, I would figure out a way for it to make sense.”

“There’s a lot of moving parts like in any business,” DeChambeau said. “It’s a startup, right? And so there’s going to be times where we’re squeezed and punched. This is one of those moments. But I’m going to do everything in my power to make it work and I really see the value in franchise golf.”

LIV Golf earlier this week said it was postponing its June 25-28 event in Louisiana to the fall. The next event is scheduled for May 7-10 in northern Virginia, and O’Neil had said in a memo to staff two weeks ago the season would be uninterrupted and “full throttle.”

Al-Rumayyan was all about team golf when he and former CEO Greg Norman launched the league, even though the team concept was one reason it took more than three years for LIV to get recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking.

Koepka left LIV after last season and the PGA Tour granted him a path back with stipulations that included no access to equity grants for five years, a $5 million charity donation and no bonus money this year.

The tour offered it to three other LIV players who had won majors since 2022 — Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith — and gave them a Feb. 4 deadline to accept. None did.

In an interview earlier this week with The Wall Street Journal, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said: “We’re interested in having the best players who can help our tour. Not every player can do that.”

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

Profesor de carrera, ex rector de la universidad de Sinaloa y aspirante dos veces a la gobernatura de su estado, fue un aliado histórico del expresidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) y senador de la República antes de asumir como gobernador de Sinaloa a finales de 2021, el estado del Pacífico norte mexicano cuna de los principales narcotraficantes de la historia de México y bastión de una de las organizaciones criminales más poderosas del mundo, considerada terrorista por el gobierno de Trump.

Rocha fue un firme defensor de la estrategia de “Abrazos, no balazos” ideada por López Obrador con el argumento de que había que atajar las causas de la violencia, una política muy criticada por todos los analistas por no combatir a los cárteles y que les permitió expandir su control territorial en muchas zonas del país.

Sus posibles acercamientos con miembros del Cártel de Sinaloa le persiguieron siempre en parte porque Rocha es de Badiraguato, en el mismo municipio donde nació Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, y es casi de la misma generación que los dos fundadores del cártel, Guzmán e Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, ambos actualmente en prisiones estadounidenses.

El gobernador también acompañó al expresidente en polémicas visitas como cuando saludó a la madre de “El Chapo”.

Según la acusación estadounidense, los “Chapitos” — hijos de Guzmán Loera y los narcotraficantes más buscados por Washington en estos momentos—- presuntamente le ayudaron a ganar las elecciones que le llevaron al poder, algo que él ha negado.

Pero su mayor escándalo se desencadenó en julio de 2024 tras la detención de Zambada y Joaquín Guzmán López, uno de los hijos de “El Chapo”, después de llegar a Estados Unidos en un avión privado, hecho que reavivó las sospechas de los contactos de los narcos con políticos del estado.

Zambada dijo en una carta que fue engañado por Guzmán López para acudir a una reunión en la que supuestamente iba a estar un político local y el gobernador Rocha para “ayudar a resolver diferencias" entre ellos.

Rocha negó cualquier conocimiento de esa cita y, en una extraña expresión de teatro político, publicó el plan de vuelo de un avión que, según él, lo llevó fuera del estado aquel día a pasar unas vacaciones familiares en California.

La supuesta trampa contra Zambada acabó con el capo secuestrado por Guzmán López en un operativo de película, el político local (rival de Rocha) asesinado, la fiscalía federal acusando a funcionarios estatales de encubrir ese crimen y con una crisis abierta entre México y Estados Unidos por una posible intervención estadounidense en la acción, aunque Washington siempre la negó.

Además, los arrestos detonaron una sangrienta guerra en el interior del Cártel — entre los Chapitos y los seguidores de “El Mayo”— que todavía no cesa y cuya violencia, minimizada tanto por Rocha como por López Obrador, fue el regalo envenenado que recibió Sheinbaum al llegar al poder en octubre de 2024.

Desde entonces la mandataria mantuvo el apoyo a Rocha, pero fue el gobierno federal quien recomendó a los dos últimos secretarios de seguridad —ambos militares— a la vez que se incrementaba sustancialmente las detenciones y los decomisos de armas y drogas bajo la coordinación del secretario de Seguridad federal, Omar García Harfuch.

Poco después de conocerse las acusaciones estadounidenses, Rocha las negó tajantemente, diciendo que se inscribían en una estrategia contra Morena y que no había evidencias para probarlas. Más tarde, al ser preguntado por la prensa dentro del vehículo en el que viajaba y con cara seria, dijo que se encontraba tranquilo, que no saldrá de Sinaloa aunque no ha recibido ninguna notificación formal en su contra y que ya habló con la presidenta, aunque no dio más detalles de esa conversación.

Horas después, al ser preguntado por la prensa dentro del vehículo en el que viajaba, dijo que no saldrá de Sinaloa y que ya habló con la presidenta.

Qué hará Sheinbaum ahora es la principal incógnita. “¿Tomará medidas para detener al gobernador.... e intentar extraditarlo a Estados Unidos?”, se preguntaba Vanda Felbab-Brown, especialista en crimen organizado de la Brookings Institution.

“Si no lo hace, complicará enormemente las relaciones con Estados Unidos, incluso en lo que respecta a las renegociaciones del T-MEC”, el tratado de libre comercio norteamericano ahora en revisión. “Pero si lo hace —agregó — tendrá enormes consecuencias para ella políticamente" de cara a las elecciones intermedias mexicanas de 2027.

The massive retail chain is breaking out of its no-frills service model by staffing its beauty aisles with trained specialists who can suggest foundation shades to match a shopper's skin tone or knows about a moisturizer trending on TikTok.

The roles were filled at 22 stores in Arkansas and Texas in recent months, and Walmart expects to have them in more than 400 of its 4,600 namesake U.S. stores by year-end.

The addition of “beauty experts” comes as Walmart, rival Target, specialty chains like Sephora and department stores all are vying for a bigger slice of the $129 billion U.S. beauty and personal care market, including by offering customized advice and playful, interactive spaces to encourage consumers to shop in person as well as online.

A year ago, Walmart set up areas in 40 stores where customers could sample makeup and speak with beauty advisors. The pilot “beauty bar” concept is now in hundreds of stores, according to Vinima Shekhar, vice president of beauty merchandising for Walmart’s U.S. division. As part of plans to remodel 650 locations by the end of the year, the company is moving beauty departments to the front of stores and installing displays to showcase products getting attention on social media.

“We’re not trying to be an Ulta or Sephora,” Shekhar told The Associated Press. “We have the breadth of assortment that no one else has. We have convenience that no one else has. What we also then want to do is layer on a level of service for both our associates and our customers: ‘Here’s what trending. Here’s what’s new.’”

The importance of a human touch

Department stores and beauty product chains always have employed people to assist customers with testing and buying cosmetics. Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens added beauty experts to many of their locations in the last decade or so. Walmart's decision to join them highlights how retailers with physical stores rely on a human touch to distinguish themselves from online shopping platforms and AI chatbots.

Walmart has added more premium brands to its beauty assortment in the last year, including French pharmacy skin care brand La Roche Posay, Australian natural makeup brand Nude by Nature, and FHI Heat hair tools. They are not cheap. Some La Roche Posay sunscreens cost just under $40 for 1.7 oz.

The beauty refresh is part of a broader Walmart initiative to upgrade its merchandise and ambience as it attracts higher-income shoppers. Customers who buy higher-end products and not only everyday skin and hair staples are looking for inspiration when they shop, Shekhar said.

Target announced in early March that it planned to expand its assortment of upscale beauty products and to deploy staff members with enhanced product expertise this fall in 600 stores. In those stores, a new department called Target Beauty Studio will partly replace in-store Ulta shops. As part of a Target partnership ending in August, Ulta had beauty consultants in Target stores.

Experts providing enhanced customer service may become a feature in other departments of mass market retail stores. Whitney Hunt, vice president of Walmart's U.S. operations, notes there could be other departments like electronics that could benefit from experts.

Target began launching a “baby boutique” experience last month in nearly 200 stores where a concierge helps shoppers find products registries created by expectant parents.

Advice that's in demand

While artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate jobs across industries, online job postings for beauty experts and beauty advisers remained fairly stable between February 2020 and this month, according to Cory Stahle, an economist with the research arm of jobs site Indeed. Online postings for both marketing and software development jobs fell more than 20% in the same period, Indeed said.

The median wage for beauty expert roles was $19.54 per hour in March, roughly $2 more than the hourly wage for all other retail jobs, according to Indeed data. Walmart said its beauty experts can earn $14 to $35 an hour, depending on the store location. That's similar to the hourly range of $14 to $37 for all of Walmart's hourly workers, the company said.

Walmart's beauty advisers undergo a day of training at a company academy and receive ongoing instruction on products, seasonal trends and working with customers. They don't apply products on shoppers or do makeovers, unlike some of the employees at department stores and specialty beauty chains.

Walmart is providing online tools to help the advisers understand the beauty department's top-selling brands and how their store compares with the business generated in other Walmart locations, Hunt said.

Helena Bacon, 21, a University of Arkansas junior studying biology, said the training she had last fall made her feel more empowered to help customers. Before then, she helped out in the area that covers pharmacy, health and personal care items like basic shampoos and toothpaste of a store in Fayetteville and occasionally helped customers find items in the beauty area.

Bacon said she now understands product ingredients, knows how to identify lipstick shades that flatter different customers and is on top of TikTok trends.

“I was kind of everywhere before,” she said. “But now that I’m just in my section, if someone does come up to me and asks for a recommendation for something, ... I could go over with them into that section and say, 'This what I know is good for the problem you’re trying to fix.'”

“La afirmación de que los judíos controlaban el comercio alemán y el sistema bancario alemán, y que por lo tanto, empujaron a los alemanes a la Segunda Guerra Mundial, es absurda, históricamente insostenible y viola la memoria de millones de ciudadanos judíos alemanes asesinados por los nazis”, indicaron las dos embajadas en un comunicado conjunto.

“Cabe recordar —señalaron— que fueron Adolf Hitler y los nazis quienes iniciaron la Segunda Guerra Mundial al atacar Polonia en 1939. La ideología nazi, racista y antisemita, no sólo discriminó a sus conciudadanos judíos, sino que resultó en el asesinato de 6 millones de judíos en campos de concentración. El holocausto no puede ser trivializado bajo ninguna circunstancia”. Instaron también al mandatario interino a retractarse de esa declaración.

Más tarde, el despacho presidencial emitió un comunicado en el que indicó que Balcázar "lamenta" que sus declaraciones “hayan generado una percepción equivocada sobre el pueblo judío", y recordó que Perú ha sostenido que “el fanatismo nazi" fue la causa de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y del genocidio contra los judíos.

Balcázar acudió el martes a una ceremonia por el 138vo aniversario de la Cámara de Comercio de Lima. En su presentación de más de 20 minutos, mencionó la importancia del comercio en la sociedad a través del tiempo y dijo que la historia de los comerciantes no “había sido fácil”.

Además les recomendó a los asistentes leer la trilogía del fallecido filósofo español Antonio Escohotado (1941-2021), llamada “Los enemigos del comercio”, en la cual realiza un largo recuento histórico sobre las diversas ideas a favor y en contra del intercambio comercial y la propiedad privada.

Según Balcázar, Escohotado explica “cómo nacieron las letras de cambio, cómo se movió el comercio internacional, qué papel tuvieron los judíos en el comercio nacional e internacional en Alemania, cómo es que Alemania fue empujada a una guerra también por culpa, en parte de los judíos, en parte porque controlaban todos los bancos, todo el comercio, y hacían usura”.

Balcázar, un legislador y juez jubilado, asumió el poder el 18 de febrero en reemplazo de José Jerí (2024-2025), a quien el Congreso quitó de la la presidencia tras un escándalo desatado por sus reuniones con empresarios chinos, las cuales no hizo públicas, como obliga la ley peruana.

No es la primera controversia en la que se ve envuelto Balcázar. Cuando era legislador en 2023, durante un debate sobre el matrimonio infantil que fue prohibido ese año, declaró que, "mientras no haya violencia, las relaciones sexuales tempranas más bien ayudan al futuro psicológico de la mujer”.

En 2022, las embajadas de Israel y Alemania también criticaron al entonces primer ministro peruano, Aníbal Torres, jefe del gabinete del presidente Pedro Castillo (2021-2022), quien elogió el programa de construcción de carreteras de la Alemania nazi. Luego de la reacción de ambos gobiernos Torres se disculpó.

This year’s theme for the celebration of examples of effective altruism through community partnerships was “Catch the Spirit.”

Carolyn Stewart, the district’s community relations coordinator, said she was thrilled that WPLG-Local 10 News was the recipient of the Partner of the Year Award.

“We are just so appreciative that we recognize everything that they have done for our students and our schools,” Stewart said.

Mayte Padron Cordones, the WPLG-Local 10 News community relations director, accepted the award from Superintendent Howard Hepburn.

Some of the WPLG-Local 10 News projects with BCPS have focused on promoting literacy and addressing food insecurity.

About 800 guests, including 200 nominees, were invited to attend a 9 a.m. breakfast followed by the 10 a.m. award ceremony.

Microsoft Elevate and BrightStar Credit Union were the sponsors of the event.

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