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

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

Partner nations include Belarus, Cuba, Nigeria and Thailand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sept 6: Raul Castro makes public appearance

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

Sept 3: Raul Castro stable, according to sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sept. 1: Raul Castro hospitalized, sources say

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

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

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Lyle, 20, had been accused of fleeing from police after an officer said he initially clocked him driving 92 mph in a 65-mph zone on the Sawgrass Expressway on July 10.

Authorities accused Lyle of accelerating to speeds of approximately 130 mph or greater while trying to get away from police.

Lyle was initially arrested on charges of fleeing and eluding at a high speed and reckless driving.

The felony charge has now been dropped, and Lyle is facing a misdemeanor reckless driving charge.

According to an arrest warrant previously obtained by Local 10 News, the incident happened July 10 on the northbound Sawgrass Expressway, just north of Sunrise Boulevard.

An officer conducting traffic enforcement shortly after 7 p.m. said he saw a gray BMW X5 M-Series rapidly approaching from behind and clocked it traveling 92 mph in a posted 65-mph zone.

The officer activated his emergency lights and siren, but Lyle allegedly failed to stop and accelerated.

According to the warrant, the BMW reached speeds of approximately 130 mph or greater while traveling through heavy Friday evening traffic.

Police accused Lyle of following other vehicles at extremely short distances, making rapid and unsafe lane changes and weaving through occupied lanes.

As the BMW approached West Oakland Park Boulevard, Lyle allegedly drove onto the outside shoulder to pass other vehicles before swerving back into traffic.

The officer eventually stopped trying to catch the BMW because of its speed, traffic conditions and the danger posed to other drivers, according to the warrant.

Police said the officer continued watching the vehicle from a safe distance before seeing it exit the Sawgrass Expressway onto eastbound West Commercial Boulevard.

Investigators later used license plate reader information and surveillance video from near Lyle’s Sunrise home as part of their investigation.

Lyle was arrested Aug. 13 and released the same day after posting a $55,000 bond, according to information previously provided by the Broward State Attorney’s Office.

Following his arrest, a University of Miami spokesperson told Local 10 News in an email, “We are aware of an incident involving student-athlete Jordan Lyle. As due legal process runs its course, we will have no further comment at this time.”

Lyle, a Fort Lauderdale native, started at running back in Miami’s 2025 season opener against Notre Dame before suffering a leg injury that sidelined him for most of the season.

He played in six games, carrying the ball 35 times for 108 yards and scoring one touchdown against Stanford.

Lyle, de 20 años, había sido acusado de huir de la policía después de que un agente dijera que inicialmente lo detectó conduciendo a 92 mph en una zona de 65 mph en Sawgrass Expressway el 10 de julio.

Las autoridades acusaron a Lyle de acelerar hasta aproximadamente 130 mph o más mientras intentaba escapar de la policía.

Lyle fue arrestado inicialmente por cargos de huir y evadir a alta velocidad y conducción imprudente.

El cargo grave ahora ha sido retirado y Lyle enfrenta un cargo menor de conducción imprudente.

Según una orden de arresto obtenida anteriormente por Local 10 News, el incidente ocurrió el 10 de julio en Sawgrass Expressway en dirección norte, justo al norte de Sunrise Boulevard.

Un agente que realizaba labores de control de tránsito poco después de las 7 p.m. dijo que vio una BMW X5 M-Series gris acercándose rápidamente desde atrás y la detectó viajando a 92 mph en una zona con límite de velocidad de 65 mph.

El agente activó las luces de emergencia y la sirena, pero Lyle presuntamente no se detuvo y aceleró.

Según la orden, la BMW alcanzó velocidades de aproximadamente 130 mph o más mientras circulaba entre el tráfico pesado de la tarde del viernes.

La policía acusó a Lyle de seguir a otros vehículos a distancias extremadamente cortas, realizar cambios de carril rápidos e inseguros y zigzaguear entre carriles ocupados.

Cuando la BMW se acercaba a West Oakland Park Boulevard, Lyle presuntamente condujo por el arcén exterior para adelantar a otros vehículos antes de regresar bruscamente al tráfico.

El agente finalmente dejó de intentar alcanzar la BMW debido a su velocidad, las condiciones del tráfico y el peligro que representaba para otros conductores, según la orden.

La policía dijo que el agente continuó observando el vehículo desde una distancia segura antes de verlo salir de Sawgrass Expressway hacia West Commercial Boulevard en dirección este.

Los investigadores posteriormente utilizaron información de lectores de matrículas y videos de vigilancia de las inmediaciones de la vivienda de Lyle en Sunrise como parte de su investigación.

Lyle fue arrestado el 13 de agosto y liberado ese mismo día después de pagar una fianza de $55,000 USD, según información proporcionada anteriormente por la Fiscalía Estatal de Broward.

Tras su arresto, un portavoz de la Universidad de Miami dijo a Local 10 News en un correo electrónico: “Estamos al tanto de un incidente que involucra al estudiante atleta Jordan Lyle. Mientras el debido proceso legal sigue su curso, no haremos más comentarios en este momento”.

Lyle, originario de Fort Lauderdale, fue titular como corredor en el partido inaugural de la temporada 2025 de Miami contra Notre Dame antes de sufrir una lesión en la pierna que lo dejó fuera durante la mayor parte de la temporada.

Jugó en seis partidos, corrió con el balón 35 veces para 108 yardas y anotó un touchdown contra Stanford.

La policía dijo que Pierce Hoempler tuvo una pelea física con su vecino, Hector Rivera, afuera de un edificio de apartamentos en noviembre de 2023, y lo inmovilizó en el césped.

Cuando los dos hijos de Rivera acudieron en su ayuda, la policía dice que Hoempler, quien entonces tenía 33 años, les disparó a los tres y los mató.

Familiares identificaron a las víctimas como Hector, Frankie y Jeremy Rivera.

Imágenes de una cámara corporal obtenidas por Local 10 News muestran el arresto de Hoempler.

Según la policía, la mortal balacera triple ocurrió en la cuadra 12000 de Northeast Fifth Avenue, justo al sur de 123rd Street.

En el video, Hoempler intentó alegar defensa propia, sin embargo, fue detenido y se ordenó que permaneciera encarcelado sin derecho a fianza.

Se espera que sea sentenciado el próximo mes.

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Police said Pierce Hoempler got into a physical fight with his neighbor, Hector Rivera, outside an apartment building in November 2023, and pinned him down on the lawn.

When Rivera’s two sons came to his aid, police say Hoempler, then 33, shot all three of them, killing them.

Relatives identified the victims as Hector, Frankie and Jeremy Rivera.

Body camera footage obtained by Local 10 News shows Hoempler’s arrest.

According to police, the deadly triple shooting happened in the 12000 block of Northeast Fifth Avenue, just south of 123rd Street.

In the video, Hoempler attempted to make a self-defense claim, however he was taken into custody and was ordered jailed without bond.

He is expected to be sentenced next month.

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Police arrested Magdaleno Medina, 73, and Cesar Valdes, 89, at a home in the 1700 block of Northwest 19th Street on Wednesday. That home served as the drug den, they said, and was the pair’s listed address.

According to the Miami Police Department, detectives did an undercover cocaine buy at the home in August. Medina, police said, sold an undercover agent a baggie of cocaine for $60.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, a SWAT team conducted a raid at the home.

An MPD report states that investigators found more than 140 grams of cocaine and nearly 1,300 grams of marijuana.

Authorities said they also found a .38 caliber revolver and more than a dozen rounds.

Both men were taken into custody on several felony charges, including armed cocaine trafficking, felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a place for the purpose of trafficking cocaine.

The Cuban nationals also face Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds, according to jail records.

La policía arrestó a Magdaleno Medina, de 73 años, y Cesar Valdes, de 89, en una vivienda en la cuadra 1700 de Northwest 19th Street el miércoles. Esa vivienda funcionaba como guarida de drogas, dijeron las autoridades, y figuraba como la dirección de ambos.

Según el Departamento de Policía de Miami, detectives realizaron una compra encubierta de cocaína en la vivienda en agosto. Medina, dijo la policía, vendió a un agente encubierto una bolsa de cocaína por $60 USD.

Luego, la tarde del miércoles, un equipo SWAT realizó un allanamiento en la vivienda.

Un reporte de la MPD señala que los investigadores encontraron más de 140 gramos de cocaína y casi 1,300 gramos de marihuana.

Las autoridades dijeron que también encontraron un revólver calibre .38 y más de una docena de municiones.

Ambos hombres fueron detenidos por varios cargos graves, incluidos tráfico de cocaína con arma, posesión de un arma de fuego por parte de un delincuente convicto y posesión de un lugar con el propósito de traficar cocaína.

Los ciudadanos cubanos también tienen órdenes de retención del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas, según los registros de la cárcel.

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Officers with the Sweetwater Police Department took Ariel Galindo into custody on Wednesday morning at his home in Hialeah.

According to investigators, Galindo previously worked at USA Co., a courier service located at 10900 NW 21st St. Sweetwater, but they were advised by the owner of the business that he had been fired for failing to show up to work two days in a row.

On Sept. 4, the same day Galindo was fired, he returned to the business in a white Chevrolet Equinox and, after putting on a face covering, entered the warehouse and removed two boxes that contained about 30 iPads worth $12,400, police said.

Police said that was confirmed to investigators by both eyewitnesses and surveillance footage, with employees and the businesses owner positively identifying Galindo as the suspect seen taking the boxes.

Detectives later learned that Galindo sold five of the stolen iPads at the PayMore pawn shop located at 16847 NW 67th Ave. in Hialeah around two hours after the initial theft took place, according to an arrest form.

As of Thursday morning, Galindo was being held at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on burglary and grand theft charges, with his bond listed as “to be set.”

Shelter officials said Coco came from a household with about 20 dogs and may have been used for breeding. She has spent very little time outdoors and is nervous around loud noises, cars and unfamiliar surroundings.

Despite her anxiety, Coco is described as a sweet dog who enjoys affection. She will need help with house training and would likely do best in a calm home where she can be the only pet.

Shelter staff recommend consistency and a regular schedule to help Coco adjust and learn to go outside. She appears to be comfortable using wee-wee pads.

Those interested in adopting Coco can learn more about her and other animals available at the HSBC by clicking here.

Agentes del Departamento de Policía de Sweetwater detuvieron a Ariel Galindo la mañana del miércoles en su vivienda en Hialeah.

Según los investigadores, Galindo trabajaba anteriormente en USA Co., un servicio de mensajería ubicado en 10900 NW 21st St. en Sweetwater, pero el propietario del negocio les informó que había sido despedido por no presentarse a trabajar durante dos días consecutivos.

El 4 de septiembre, el mismo día en que Galindo fue despedido, regresó al negocio en una Chevrolet Equinox blanca y, después de cubrirse el rostro, entró al almacén y sacó dos cajas que contenían unos 30 iPads valorados en $12,400 USD, dijo la policía.

La policía dijo que esto fue confirmado a los investigadores tanto por testigos presenciales como por imágenes de vigilancia, y empleados y el propietario del negocio identificaron positivamente a Galindo como el sospechoso visto llevándose las cajas.

Los detectives se enteraron posteriormente de que Galindo vendió cinco de los iPads robados en la casa de empeño PayMore, ubicada en 16847 NW 67th Ave. en Hialeah, aproximadamente dos horas después de que ocurriera el robo inicial, según un formulario de arresto.

Hasta la mañana del jueves, Galindo permanecía detenido en el Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center por cargos de robo y hurto mayor, con su fianza indicada como “por determinar”.

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Isabella Jewels Castillo was arrested by the Hollywood Police Department in connection with the May 5 incident at Mint Jewelers By Boodaddy Diamonds, located at 4907 Sheridan St., according to an arrest report obtained by Local 10.

Police said the store’s owner reported that a woman, later identified as Castillo, attempted to purchase an Oyster Perpetual Rolex valued at about $8,000 using a credit card and a Georgia driver’s license bearing a different name.

When an officer asked Castillo whether the name on the driver’s license was hers, she initially said “yes” but then identified herself as Isabella Castillo, according to the report.

Police said Castillo acknowledged knowing that the credit card and driver’s license were fraudulent. She told investigators that she received the documents from a man she met at the Liv nightclub in Miami, according to the report.

The report states that Castillo claimed the man told her she could use the credit card to go shopping. She told police she communicated with him only through Snapchat under the username “Paperpapi11” and did not know his real name, according to the report.

The report states that the jewelry store owner also told police that about 30 minutes before Castillo arrived, another woman had come into the store and attempted a similar Rolex purchase. The activity raised the owner’s suspicions, and he called 911, police said.

Investigators said they called the person whose name appeared on the Georgia driver’s license. That woman told police she had never authorized anyone to use her identity or driver’s license information, according to the report.

Police said they also contacted the credit card holder, who said he had not given anyone permission to use the card and wanted to pursue charges against Castillo.

A records check showed Castillo had a history of grand theft, although the arrest report did not provide additional details about those cases, police said.

Jail records show Castillo is facing one count each of grand theft of less than $10,000, larceny of a credit card and fraudulent impersonation or possession of identification belonging to another person without consent.

As of Thursday morning, she was being held at the Broward County Main Jail on a $10,000 bond.

Isabella Jewels Castillo fue arrestada por el Departamento de Policía de Hollywood en relación con el incidente del 5 de mayo en Mint Jewelers By Boodaddy Diamonds, ubicado en 4907 Sheridan St., según un reporte de arresto obtenido por Local 10.

La policía dijo que el propietario de la tienda reportó que una mujer, posteriormente identificada como Castillo, intentó comprar un Rolex Oyster Perpetual valorado en aproximadamente $8,000 USD utilizando una tarjeta de crédito y una licencia de conducir de Georgia con un nombre diferente.

Cuando un agente le preguntó a Castillo si el nombre que aparecía en la licencia de conducir era el suyo, inicialmente respondió “sí”, pero luego se identificó como Isabella Castillo, según el reporte.

La policía dijo que Castillo reconoció saber que la tarjeta de crédito y la licencia de conducir eran fraudulentas. Ella dijo a los investigadores que recibió los documentos de un hombre que conoció en la discoteca Liv en Miami, según el reporte.

El reporte señala que Castillo afirmó que el hombre le dijo que podía usar la tarjeta de crédito para ir de compras. Ella dijo a la policía que se comunicaba con él únicamente a través de Snapchat bajo el nombre de usuario “Paperpapi11” y que no conocía su verdadero nombre, según el reporte.

El reporte señala que el propietario de la joyería también dijo a la policía que unos 30 minutos antes de que Castillo llegara, otra mujer había entrado a la tienda e intentado realizar una compra similar de un Rolex. La actividad despertó las sospechas del propietario, quien llamó al 911, dijo la policía.

Los investigadores dijeron que llamaron a la persona cuyo nombre aparecía en la licencia de conducir de Georgia. Esa mujer dijo a la policía que nunca había autorizado a nadie a usar su identidad ni la información de su licencia de conducir, según el reporte.

La policía dijo que también contactó al titular de la tarjeta de crédito, quien afirmó que no había dado permiso a nadie para usar la tarjeta y que quería presentar cargos contra Castillo.

Una revisión de registros mostró que Castillo tenía antecedentes de hurto mayor, aunque el reporte de arresto no proporcionó detalles adicionales sobre esos casos, dijo la policía.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que Castillo enfrenta un cargo de hurto mayor de menos de $10,000 USD, un cargo de robo de una tarjeta de crédito y un cargo de suplantación fraudulenta o posesión de identificación perteneciente a otra persona sin consentimiento.

Hasta la mañana del jueves, permanecía detenida en la cárcel principal del condado Broward con una fianza de $10,000 USD.

Frontman Caleb Followill was working on new music last spring and about to join his bandmates on a European tour when he broke his foot playing with his kids one night before bed.

“I thought I was in better shape than I was and so I was going to hurdle the couch to make the epic tag,” he says, laughing. Instead, he got a foot caught in the couch, stumbled and went down. “It was a gnarly, gnarly break.”

Followill was upset, feeling he was letting everyone down. After a few days of wallowing in self-pity, he picked up a guitar. What came out surprised him: It was stripped bare, like the music that he and his drummer brother Nathan had written before there was a four-time Grammy Award-winning Kings of Leon.

So out went the four or five electric-leaning songs that he and the band had been exploring. In quickly came a clutch of new stripped-down tunes, more melancholic than bombastic, about gratitude and family. The 13-track album is called “O My Beloved” and it's out Nov. 6.

“The songs just took on a different meaning, and so all the songs that we had been working on, they no longer were as attractive to me,” says Caleb Followill. “I feel like just the whole temperature changed around us. And we realized that we’re going to make something a little more significant.”

What did the rest of the band think? They had to change course, too, after all. “I’m happy with the direction,” says Nathan Followill. “I think it might be my kids' favorite record.”

The first single is a scene of domestic bliss

The first single, “My Whole World,” out Thursday, is a perfect taste of the way the band was now leaning. It poured out of Caleb Followill after the whole tag accident.

While he and bandmates — brothers Nathan and Jared and cousin Matthew Followill — called off their European tour, and Caleb's family was preparing for a cruise, he was glancing at their countdown on the wall when these words came out: “29 days 'till our ship comes in/We’ll be together again.”

“My Whole World” is a scene of domestic bliss — with references to “peanut butter pie” and a “pin oak tree” and tossing a football around while babies coo. “I’m grateful / Each day for / My whole world,” he sings. A video for the single features old home footage of the boys growing up — Christmas mornings, goofing around and swimming holes.

Caleb Followill says he was nervous to debut the acoustic-led song to the other guys, in part because he didn't normally play his guitar that way and because the lyrics made him emotional.

“I wasn’t in control of it. The words were just coming out,” he says. He thought of his mom dying and all the feelings he had put aside as a busy dad and rock and roller for the past quarter century.

“We have already surpassed anything we ever imagined we could do and we’ve built something that’s so beautiful,” he says. “So, as opposed to having a 25-year anniversary where we kind of put out the greatest hits or something, I thought, wouldn’t it be beautiful to make an album that is looking back on all of the things that we’ve done and appreciating how we got here?”

Bassist Jared Followill says the band was free to explore this new direction since the new album would be the first time they would be producing themselves.

“The songs just really started to pile up one after another and it became apparent that there could be something there and let’s just dive in,” he says. “No hesitation from us.”

‘O My Beloved’ includes song inspired by childhood

One album highlight is the joyful, laid-back “KOYSAR” for “Kick Off Your Shoes and Run,” in which Caleb Followill uses his childhood memories of romping around with his siblings to inspire his own kids.

“Kick off your shoes and run/Don’t let them turn you away/Your life is better when/You have something to say,” he sings.

“All I could picture was our childhood, running through sprinklers and my kids and those little simple moments,” he says. “You’re always trying to teach your kids something, and I feel the best way to do that is through your experience and through the mistakes that you’ve made and how you’ve gotten to where you are.”

On “Such a Pretty Thing,” he writes tenderly about a high school sweetheart, singing, “I like to lay in the light of the moon/And think about the summer that I had with you.”

“That was the kind of songs that we wanted to write, and then we started the band and kind of went a different direction. But on this album, I feel like we kind of got back to that,” says Caleb Followill. “We finally got to do it on album 10.”

The title track is unconventional, too. It's a musical interlude that has the title on it, a tiny, lo-fi slice of Caleb Followill singing and playing captured on a smartphone in the wet and cold outside the band's Nashville studio with the sound of a train rumbling by.

“It turned out really, really cool and so we kept it,” says Jared Followill.

The promise comes after Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections and as affordability has become a central issue for voters heading into November.

“The relief begins with refunding everyone who was overcharged and the rebates are going out in just a few weeks,” President Donald Trump said in a recorded address released on the White House X account Thursday. Enrollees who can expect refunds are those who do not receive premium assistance.

Critics called the move a “gimmick” that doesn’t represent a plan for addressing soaring healthcare costs.

Trump in his address accused former President Joe Biden’s administration of “gross mismanagement” of ACA funds, without providing evidence, and said that the Biden administration collected user fees from insurance companies that consumers paid through higher premiums.

In a fact sheet, the White House claimed that Biden's administration “accumulated a significant surplus of funds that were not used to benefit the Americans who paid these higher premiums.” It said the rebates would be sent out beginning next month.

It is unclear whether the $500 rebate represents what each enrollee may have overpaid, where the money for the rebates would come from and whether it requires congressional approval for disbursement.

Trump’s announcement comes as the price of ACA insurance has skyrocketed for many Americans during his own second term. The Trump administration opposed extending COVID-era subsidies that had helped offset the costs of health insurance for most enrollees during Biden’s term.

After the Republican-led Congress allowed the subsidies to expire this year, premiums doubled or tripled for many enrollees, prompting millions to downgrade their plans or exit the program entirely.

Brad Woodhouse, a Democratic strategist and executive director of advocacy group Protect Our Care, called the rebate plan “an absolute joke” in a statement.

“Since Republicans took away tax credits from working families, millions of people have seen their monthly premiums rise by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars,” Woodhouse said. "At a time when people are scraping by to keep up with the high cost of groceries, rent, and health care, this $500 gimmick won’t even begin to dig them out of the hole that Trump and Republicans created.”

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment, and a White House official referred back to the fact sheet.

Roughly 19 million people receive insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchange.

Rubio plans to meet new Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori after already seeing the Trump-aligned leaders of Colombia and Ecuador to cement cooperation on fighting drug traffickers and reducing illegal migration.

Trump and Rubio in particular have prioritized having the Western Hemisphere take an increasingly tough stance on “narcoterrorism,” with military strikes against alleged drug traffickers.

From unilateral U.S. actions against alleged drug boats in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean to joint operations mainly with Ecuador in its territorial waters, U.S. forces have three times this week stopped and taken out vessels they say are transporting narcotics.

The Trump administration has put together a coalition of like-minded countries in Latin America to carry out joint military operations against drug cartels, which Colombia recently joined after under new President Abelardo de la Espriella and could be ahead for Peru under Fujimori.

Like her counterparts in Colombia and Ecuador, Fujimori has prioritized the fight against crime in Peru, especially crimes such as extortion and murder. Reports of extortion rose from 2,421 in 2019 to 26,734 in 2025, according to official data.

At the end of August, Peru declared a 60-day state of emergency in Lima and the port of Callao due to the rise in crime and created a committee of officials to coordinate the police. It also declared a state of emergency in five prisons, seeking to control access and prevent escapes.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Carlos Espá said before the meeting with Rubio and Fujimori that they hoped to discuss how to strengthen the bilateral relationship, especially on issues of “security and defense and the fight against transnational organized crime, which is so damaging to our country.”

Peru is one of the world’s leading producers of cocaine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It is the second-largest cultivator of coca leaf — the raw material for cocaine — only after Colombia, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Trump's administration has put a focus on the Western Hemisphere even as it has launched a war against Iran. Trump has spoken numerous times of reinvoking the 19th century Monroe Doctrine asserting U.S. primacy in the Americas with a focus on drugs, migration and not least countering growing Chinese influence in the region.

The Chinese Embassy in Peru said Tuesday that the “Western Hemisphere is nobody’s ‘backyard,’” in a statement that did not name Rubio but was issued on the eve of his visit. China noted that Latin American countries have the “sovereign right to freely choose their partners” and expressed its willingness to work with Peru and other countries in the region.

Peru also has had a long history of dealing with left-wing insurgencies and still has a sizable number of people sympathetic to such causes.

As Rubio arrived in Lima late Wednesday, hundreds of people protested in Lima, chanting “Yankees out of Peru” and members of the Communist Party waved red flags and a banner with Rubio’s face.

“Marco Rubio arrived in Peru today, and what he wants is for Peru to be his colony," Carmen Espinoza told The Associated Press. “That’s why we’re here protesting, rejecting the visit of an enemy of Peru.”

The demonstration was peaceful and was monitored by police officers who sought to prevent any potential disturbances.

Soledad Lozano, one of the protesters, said Peru “is not the backyard of any country in the world” and argued that Peruvians should decide “with whom we ally ourselves and what agreements we make.”

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Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia.

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According to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the hit-and-run crash near Northwest 117th Street and Northwest Seventh Avenue at approximately 8:40 p.m.

A Local 10 News crew was at the scene later in the evening as the e-bike was on the ground with debris scattered around it.

According to investigators, an unknown driver was traveling northbound on Northwest Seventh Avenue and approaching Northwest 117th Street when the driver made a left turn onto 117th Street.

The vehicle then struck the victims who were traveling on an e-bike along Northwest 117th Street, authorities said.

Deputies arrived and found both children unresponsive, lying in the roadway, according to MDSO.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews responded and transported both victims to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition. The girl later died from her injuries.

The victims’ identities have not been publicly released.

Detectives with the MDSO Traffic Homicide Unit have taken over the investigation.

Authorities did not provide a description of the driver or vehicle involved.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with information about the crash is urged to contact Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS (8477).

Agentes de la Oficina del Sheriff de Miami-Dade respondieron al accidente con fuga cerca de Northwest 117th Street y Northwest Seventh Avenue aproximadamente a las 8:40 p.m.

Un equipo de Local 10 News estuvo en el lugar más tarde esa noche, donde lo que parecía ser una bicicleta eléctrica estaba en el suelo con escombros esparcidos a su alrededor.

Según los investigadores, un conductor desconocido viajaba hacia el norte por Northwest Seventh Avenue y se acercaba a Northwest 117th Street cuando giró a la izquierda hacia 117th Street.

El vehículo luego atropelló a las víctimas, quienes viajaban en bicicleta por Northwest 117th Street, dijeron las autoridades.

Los agentes llegaron y encontraron a ambos menores inconscientes, tendidos en la vía, según la MDSO.

Equipos de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue respondieron y trasladaron a ambas víctimas al Ryder Trauma Center del Jackson Memorial Hospital en condición crítica.

Las edades de las víctimas aún no han sido divulgadas.

Detectives de la Unidad de Homicidios de Tránsito de la MDSO asumieron la investigación.

Las autoridades no proporcionaron una descripción del conductor ni del vehículo involucrado.

La investigación continúa en curso.

Cualquier persona que tenga información sobre el accidente debe comunicarse con Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers al 305-471-TIPS (8477).

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According to BSO, Jamisha Shamari Sylvain is accused of falsely identifying herself as a caregiver to gain access to elderly victims and steal their money and financial information.

The investigation into Sylvain began in October 2025, when detectives received a report that an elderly man was being exploited by an unknown woman at the B’nai B’rith apartments in Deerfield Beach.

Detectives said the woman posed as a caregiver and convinced the man to allow her into his apartment.

Once inside, Sylvain allegedly gained access to the victim’s bank card and made multiple withdrawals totaling $1,600, according to BSO.

Investigators identified Sylvain as the suspect and subsequently learned of several similar incidents.

According to detectives, Sylvain allegedly pretended to be a professional caregiver and convinced vulnerable victims she was authorized to enter their apartments. In some cases, investigators said she claimed to be a new caregiver assigned by the victim’s health insurance company.

Once inside, Sylvain allegedly stole debit cards and told victims she needed their personal banking information.

Arrested in 2025, released in May

A coordinated investigation involving BSO and several Deerfield Beach units led authorities to obtain an arrest warrant for Sylvain.

She was located and booked into the BSO Main Jail on Dec. 19, 2025.

According to BSO, the charges against her included occupied burglary, elderly exploitation, criminal use of personal identification information, theft of a credit card and grand theft involving a victim 65 or older.

Sylvain was released from jail in May 2026.

Since her release, Deerfield Beach detectives have identified at least two new cases in which they said Sylvain used a similar ruse to gain the trust of elderly victims.

In one of the new cases, investigators said Sylvain targeted a victim at The Pointe at Deerfield Beach Senior Living.

This time, BSO said she allegedly pretended to be the building manager before stealing a debit card, credit cards and cash.

Detectives are now asking for the public’s help finding Sylvain while warning residents about the tactics she is accused of using.

BSO offers tips to protect elderly residents

BSO is urging residents to verify the identity, credentials and references of caregivers and aides before allowing them into a home or giving them access to finances.

Authorities also recommend regularly reviewing bank statements and credit reports for unfamiliar activity and involving a trusted friend or family member before providing financial information if a request or situation appears suspicious.

BSO also encourages victims to report suspicious activity as quickly as possible, saying early reporting may help prevent further losses.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone living in BSO’s jurisdiction who believes they or someone they know may have been the victim of a similar scam is asked to call BSO’s non-emergency number at 954-764-HELP (4357).

Según la BSO, Jamisha Shamari Sylvain está acusada de identificarse falsamente como cuidadora para obtener acceso a víctimas de edad avanzada y robar su dinero e información financiera.

La investigación sobre Sylvain comenzó en octubre de 2025, cuando los detectives recibieron un reporte de que un hombre de edad avanzada estaba siendo explotado por una mujer desconocida en los apartamentos B”nai B”rith en Deerfield Beach.

Los detectives dijeron que la mujer se hizo pasar por cuidadora y convenció al hombre de que le permitiera entrar a su apartamento.

Una vez dentro, Sylvain presuntamente obtuvo acceso a la tarjeta bancaria de la víctima e hizo múltiples retiros por un total de $1,600 USD, según la BSO.

Los investigadores identificaron a Sylvain como la sospechosa y posteriormente se enteraron de varios incidentes similares.

Según los detectives, Sylvain presuntamente fingió ser una cuidadora profesional y convenció a víctimas vulnerables de que estaba autorizada a entrar a sus apartamentos. En algunos casos, los investigadores dijeron que afirmó ser una nueva cuidadora asignada por la compañía de seguro médico de la víctima.

Una vez dentro, Sylvain presuntamente robó tarjetas de débito y les dijo a las víctimas que necesitaba su información bancaria personal.

Arrestada en 2025, liberada en mayo

Una investigación coordinada que involucró a la BSO y varias unidades de Deerfield Beach llevó a las autoridades a obtener una orden de arresto contra Sylvain.

Fue localizada e ingresada en la cárcel principal de la BSO el 19 de diciembre de 2025.

Según la BSO, los cargos en su contra incluyeron robo en vivienda ocupada, explotación de personas de edad avanzada, uso delictivo de información de identificación personal, robo de una tarjeta de crédito y hurto mayor que involucró a una víctima de 65 años o más.

Sylvain fue liberada de la cárcel en mayo de 2026.

Desde su liberación, detectives de Deerfield Beach han identificado al menos dos nuevos casos en los que dijeron que Sylvain utilizó un engaño similar para ganarse la confianza de víctimas de edad avanzada.

En uno de los nuevos casos, los investigadores dijeron que Sylvain atacó a una víctima en The Pointe at Deerfield Beach Senior Living.

Esta vez, la BSO dijo que presuntamente fingió ser la administradora del edificio antes de robar una tarjeta de débito, tarjetas de crédito y dinero en efectivo.

Los detectives ahora piden la ayuda del público para encontrar a Sylvain mientras advierten a los residentes sobre las tácticas que está acusada de utilizar.

BSO ofrece consejos para proteger a residentes de edad avanzada

La BSO insta a los residentes a verificar la identidad, credenciales y referencias de cuidadores y asistentes antes de permitirles entrar a una vivienda o darles acceso a las finanzas.

Las autoridades también recomiendan revisar regularmente los estados de cuenta bancarios y reportes de crédito para detectar actividades desconocidas e involucrar a un amigo o familiar de confianza antes de proporcionar información financiera si una solicitud o situación parece sospechosa.

La BSO también alienta a las víctimas a reportar actividades sospechosas lo antes posible, señalando que un reporte temprano puede ayudar a prevenir pérdidas adicionales.

La investigación continúa en curso.

Cualquier persona que viva en la jurisdicción de la BSO y crea que ella o alguien que conoce pudo haber sido víctima de una estafa similar debe llamar al número de la BSO para casos que no sean de emergencia al 954-764-HELP (4357).

FIFA has yet to officially announce which country will host the biggest match of the biggest event in soccer. And even though the 2026 edition just finished with Spain winning the title this summer, Moroccan and Spanish officials are staking their claim on the next final.

The tussle over the soccer match also comes with Spain still reeling from a massive border crossing by tens of thousands of migrants who pushed through the frontier from Morocco into the north African Spanish enclave in late July.

One big game for two proud countries

The head of Moroccan soccer boasted that his country had it locked up on Thursday.

“The city of Benslimane will host the World Cup final. Hate it or love it, and if anyone wants to talk on top of that, let them talk,” Moroccan federation president Fouzi Lakjaa told a political rally.

“The city is Benslimane, the Hassan II stadium is the stadium, and I hope that Morocco will be playing it,” he added.

This week, the head of the Spanish soccer federation, Rafael Louzán, insisted it was Spain that deserved the game, while acknowledging that it has not been guaranteed that honor.

“We all signed to accept the candidacy … it’s too bad that, regarding the final, it wasn’t made clear, totally clear, where it is to be played,” Louzán said. “Spain, as world champion both in men’s and women’s soccer, must host the final.”

European soccer officials believe that the sprawling, multi-nation 2030 event, which includes Portugal and even a handful of games in South America, should be considered a European event with the final on the continent.

In a request for comment by the Associated Press on Thursday, FIFA said its decision will be made “in due course."

Infantino has found support in Morocco

The dispute over the final comes with Infantino under intense pressure after UEFA, the umbrella organization of European soccer federations, led a successful revolt to scuttle his plan to sell stakes in the World Cup.

By contrast, six Arab nation federations, including Morocco’s, have backed him since that fiasco.

The King Hassan II Stadium near Casablanca is being built in Benslimane, on the outskirts of Casablanca. It is planned to seat 115,000 spectators. Spain can offer the home stadiums of Real Madrid or Barcelona as potential sites for the final.

Infantino has recently made two trips to Morocco, meeting with King Mohammed VI during annual celebrations of his ascent to the throne in July and then holding a FIFA crisis meeting there in August.

World Cup final spat among other tensions

When confirmed three years ago, the joint candidacy between Spain, Portugal and Morocco looked like a perfect event to bridge Europe and Africa and strengthen bonds between the western Mediterranean neighbors.

But the dispute over the final comes with diplomatic tensions between Madrid and Rabat already frayed over who was responsible when tens of thousands of mostly Moroccans driven by posts on social media pushed into the small Spanish enclave of Ceuta that borders Morocco. Spain's prime minister said 140 people died in the crossing.

Spain’s government has been under political pressure at home to get tough on Morocco, which it has said acted in good faith in the border crisis. Spanish police assessments couldn’t rule out complicity by Moroccan security forces but said that it was unlikely the Moroccan government had intentionally orchestrated it.

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Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. AP sports writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva, Switzerland, contributed.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

U.S. Magistrate Lauren Louis denied a defense motion for release, meaning the Tates will remain jailed during what could be a monthslong extradition process. The Tates failed to demonstrate that they do not present a flight risk or danger to the community or that special circumstances warrant their release, Louis said in her ruling.

“Having failed to meet these three factors, Respondents’ Motion for Release Pending Extradition Proceedings is DENIED,” she said in the ruling.

The Tates’ attorneys decry the decision

The Tates’ legal team said in a statement that the decision to keep them in custody creates a legal contradiction. The brothers are being detained in the United States because of a British extradition request while simultaneously being required to defend themselves against charges in Romania, the statement said.

“They are now facing an extraordinary situation in which they are being held thousands of miles from Romania while Romanian proceedings continue, deadlines approach, an additional indictment is said to be imminent and their own Romanian lawyer says he cannot properly prepare,” the lawyers said.

“No serious person can pretend that this can be reviewed properly through occasional conversations from a federal detention center in another country.”

The attorneys said they are considering whether to appeal the judge’s decision.

The Tates have become among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities with their promotion of wealth, male dominance and misogyny through their social media empire. Prosecutors say the brothers are a flight risk because they appear to have money and have bragged about multiple passports.

The brothers face charges in multiple countries

During a hearing last month in Miami, the brothers denied criminal accusations spanning several countries, blasted their critics and described their brash online personas as characters and not their true personalities. The Tates said they exaggerate their claims of wealth to boost their clout on social media.

The new allegations are the latest in the Tates’ long-running international legal saga spanning the U.S., Britain and Romania. They have been held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami since making a brief court appearance two days after their July 18 arrest.

Lawyers for the Tates asked the judge to allow them to be freed from custody at least until an extradition hearing can be held on their U.K. rape and trafficking charges.

They have repeatedly argued that Britain’s request is out of line because their criminal case in Romania is going first. Romanian officials have let the brothers remain free until the proceedings conclude, and they have not tried to flee and are complying with all court restrictions. Earlier this month, Romanian prosecutors indicted the brothers on additional charges.

Andrew Tate is banned from some social platforms

Andrew Tate, 39, and Tristan Tate, 38, are dual U.S.-British citizens known for their social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny.

Andrew Tate is a former professional kickboxer and self-described misogynist who has amassed more than 10 million followers, most of them boys and young men, on X. He has been banned from platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram for violating hate speech guidelines.

He also runs an online academy where he says he teaches young men how to get rich and attract women. Tristan Tate is also a former kickboxer.

The brothers are avid supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Mokha is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden through which about 12 percent of the world’s oil and other goods are typically shipped.

The Bab el-Mandeb has become even more important for global energy supplies since shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz was disrupted by Iran after it was attacked by the United States and Israel earlier this year.

The Houthis’ takeover of Mokha was confirmed to The Associated Press by Ahmed Baash, a commander with the National Resistance Forces allied with Yemen’s government, and Hazam al-Assad, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau.

Mokha represents the Houthis' biggest territorial gain since a truce signed in 2022 to end a civil war that lasted more than a decade. A return to full-scale civil war would be devastating for the Yemeni people and potentially world energy supplies.

Residents of Mokha have told AP that Houthi forces can be seen all around the city and that markets have shuttered. Mokha was long held by forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

Mokha resident Amin al-Mohammdi said the Houthis had fanned out across intersections. All roads from the west coast leading to Mokha have been closed, and shops were shut, he said. Another resident, Mohamed Salem, reported seeing vehicles belonging to Houthi forces in the streets.

Three doctors told the AP they fled a Mokha hospital after it was seized by the Houthis. The doctors spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears for their safety. They said other residents were fleeing south, toward the city of Aden, which is controlled by the Saudi-backed forces.

The AP could not independently verify those claims.

The Houthis' fight with the country's internationally recognized government began in 2014.

The Houthis recently made advances in the western province of Taiz, where Mokha is located, according to Ahmed al-Mawazi, a trooper with the Yemeni armed forces, and Abdel Kader al-Sharabi, a member of the Saudi-backed forces supporting the Yemeni government.

Both said the rebels had seized control of the al-Shaqira area, an important supply route connecting the city of Taiz, the provincial capital, and other inland areas to Yemen’s western coast.

Yemeni government forces have launched airstrikes targeting Houthi reinforcements west of Taiz, they added. Clashes also continued along Yemen’s western coast, particularly in the direction of the southern part of the key port city of Hodeida. The fighting has taken place near crucial supply routes.

Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah TV claimed that Saudi-backed forces launched 40 airstrikes in recent hours in Taiz, Jawf, Hodeida and Marib provinces. The AP couldn’t independently verify the claim. There was no immediate comment from the government forces.

Existing home sales fell 2% last month from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. This is the third straight monthly decline.

Sales also fell 1.2% compared with August last year. The latest sales tally is just shy of the 4 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

“It’s not a surprise home sales and mortgage rates move in the opposite direction and we have seen mortgage rates rising, rising, rising from February,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

Home sales have been mostly hovering close to a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2-million. The last time the annual sales pace came in below 4 million was June 2025.

Despite the latest pullback, existing U.S. home sales are running 1.6% higher through the first eight months of this year than they were in the same stretch of 2025, NAR said.

The housing market has been stymied in large part by rising borrowing costs, as mortgage rates have marched higher in the months since the war between the U.S. and Iran started in late February. Expectations of higher inflation amid surging oil prices have pushed up the long-term bond yields that lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans, pushing up mortgage rates.

The average rate on the benchmark 30-year mortgage hit 6.71% last week, its highest level in more than a year.

Yun noted that rate could soon reach 7%, given that mortgage rates tend to follow moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which continues to climb. The yield was at 4.92% on the bond market as of Thursday morning.

Even as sales slowed, home prices continued to rise nationally last month. The U.S. median sales price increased 1.6% in August from a year earlier to $429,100, an all-time high for the month of August based on data going back to 1999, NAR said. Home prices have risen on an annual basis for 38 months in a row.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low.

Years of soaring home prices, especially in the early part of this decade when rock-bottom mortgage rates fueled a buying frenzy, have left many would-be homebuyers frozen out of the market. And a chronic shortage of homes for sale nationally, due partly to years of below-average new home construction, has helped prop up home prices even in a multiyear sales slump.

Many of the homes purchased last month likely went under contract in July and June, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ranged from 6.43% to 6.66%.

The sales slowdown is leading to unsold properties sitting on the market longer, helping boost the number of available homes.

Although home inventory levels remain well below historical norms, there were 1.62 million unsold homes at the end of last month, up 3.2% from July and up 5.9% from August last year, NAR said. That’s still short of the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, August’s month-end inventory translates to a 4.9-months’ supply at the current sales pace. That’s the highest level in over 10 years. Traditionally, a 4- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.

“Although I lived here for many, many years before I became a citizen and had a green card, citizenship suddenly made me feel a sense of being part of it (the U.S.) that was deeper than before. And I think there's something similar about this (award),” said the 79-year-old Rushdie, a native of Mumbai (then Bombay) who emigrated to England in his teens and now lives in New York City with his wife and fellow author, Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

“I remember somebody told me that when Ray(mond) Carver got some major American award, he described himself as being ‘out there in literature now.’ And I thought, ‘Maybe I’m out there in American literature now,'” Rushdie added, speaking during a recent Zoom interview.

Longtime friend and fellow author (and Indian immigrant) Kiran Desai will present Rushdie his medal at this fall's National Book Awards ceremony in Manhattan on Nov. 18, when prizes in five competitive categories will be handed out. Rushdie is the 39th winner of the award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented by the nonprofit National Book Foundation. And he is just the fourth born outside of the U.S., following Canada native Saul Bellow, Isabel Allende of Chile and Swedish-born Art Spiegelman.

At the November ceremony, the foundation also will honor the pediatrician-literacy activist Perri Klass, this year's recipient of the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Previous winners include Maya Angelou, Terry Gross and Roxane Gay. One very famous promoter of books and literacy, Dolly Parton, was offered the award several times in recent years, but turned it down.

“She graciously declined each time saying that she didn’t need the recognition,” the foundation's executive director, Ruth Dickey, told The Associated Press. Parton died last month at age 80.

Remember him for his books

Rushdie, asked if he thinks often about his legacy, invoked his late friend Martin Amis and said he'd like to leave behind a shelf full of books with his own name on it. Rushdie has published more than 20, including the Booker Prize-winning “Midnight's Children,” often ranked among the greatest contemporary novels. Many will inevitably remember him for the 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” in which references to the Prophet Muhammad led to protests from Muslims worldwide and a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for the author's death.

Rushdie had appeared out of danger in recent years until he was stabbed repeatedly onstage in 2022, during a literary festival in western New York. A state jury found the assailant, Hadi Matar, guilty of attempted murder. A federal jury found him guilty of transnational terrorism and providing material support to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon. Rushdie has since published a memoir about the attack, “Knife,” and the story collection “The Eleventh Hour.”

Rushdie's one competitive National Book Award nomination came in 2024, for “Knife.” (“Midnight's Children” and other earlier books were released before Rushdie was eligible.) “Knife” is the basis for an Alex Gibney documentary of the same name about the author that is coming out Sept. 17.

“Salman Rushdie’s sweeping body of work is a celebration of literature’s power to shape narratives, build bridges, and form connections beyond borders, generations, and identities,” Dickey said in a statement Thursday. “Rushdie’s novels and short story collections are set across real and imagined landscapes, and his writing thrives in its specificity—offering readers access to unflinchingly honest stories that are culturally, politically, and geographically varied.”

His life unfolds in three chapters

The author sees himself as a city writer and his life as a three-part story: South Asia, London and New York. The fatwa forced him into hiding for years and even gave him the reputation for being “reclusive.” But he is the most public and cosmopolitan of writers, at home in urban areas and large gatherings, inspired by the conflict, diversity and unpredictability of metropolitan areas.

Much of Rushdie's work has been set outside of the U.S. — “Midnight's Children” is one of the defining novels of postcolonial India, and “The Satanic Verses” is based in London and India, among other locations. But Rushdie says that being an “American” writer doesn't mean only setting your books in this country. He places himself in a long tradition of immigrant writers, whether Bellow or such younger authors as Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li.

“I was an immigrant writer in England, and now I’m an immigrant writer in America,” he says. “American writers come from everywhere, right? ... There's a long list. There’s Vietnamese writers and African writers. And I think that’s been enormously enriching of American literature in my time.”

Yaraisi Santiso Morejón presentó la demanda tras la muerte de su esposo, Yoel Rodríguez Naranjo, de 53 años, quien murió en el accidente.

Según la demanda, el vuelo 7598 de Amazon Air aterrizó en MIA el domingo antes de salirse de la pista 30 e impactar vehículos dentro y cerca de la propiedad del aeropuerto, entre ellos la van que conducía Rodríguez Naranjo.

La demanda nombra como demandados a Amazon Inc. y Amazon Air Cargo, junto con 21 Air LLC y otras empresas relacionadas con la operación de la aeronave, los arrendadores del avión y los pilotos Joseph Carroll y Jaime Felipe Silva Molina.

La demanda alega que una serie de fallas contribuyeron al accidente, entre ellas error del piloto, entrenamiento inadecuado y el uso de una aeronave de 32 años de antigüedad.

El fundador de Morgan & Morgan, John Morgan, expresó en un comunicado el miércoles que sus condolencias están con Yaraisi y su familia, así como con todos los afectados por lo que consideran una tragedia que se pudo haber evitado. Agregó que nadie debería perder a un ser querido de esta manera y que la presentación de la demanda es apenas el comienzo de su lucha por conseguir justicia y responsabilidad por la muerte del señor Naranjo.

El abogado Mike Morgan indicó que la firma sostiene que el accidente no fue un “accidente extraño”, sino un “desastre previsible y evitable”.

Morgan dijo que lo que ya han descubierto apunta a una serie de fallas por parte de quienes piloteaban el avión, las empresas que lo pusieron a volar y los sistemas que se suponía debían evitar precisamente este tipo de tragedia, y añadió que Yaraisi merece respuestas y justicia, y que su intención es conseguirle ambas.

La demanda fue presentada en el Tribunal de Circuito del Onceavo Circuito Judicial del condado de Miami-Dade.

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Still, it’s unclear whether the state will decide to drop the second-degree attempted murder case.

Attorney Richard L. Cooper, who is representing the alleged victim, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, told Local 10 News that his client has “forgiven” Brown and “does not wish to participate” in his prosecution.

“After considerable reflection, prayer, and consultation with his family and counsel, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu has made the deeply personal decision to forgive Antonio Brown for the events that occurred in Miami in May 2025,” Cooper said in part, adding that “For Mr. Nantambu, forgiveness does not diminish the seriousness of what occurred. It means refusing to allow anger or resentment to dictate how he moves forward.”

Brown’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, told ESPN he and Brown now hope that the state will grant his motion to dismiss the case.

Eiglarsh has previously asked the judge overseeing the case to dismiss the attempted murder charge against Brown, citing Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, saying his client acted in self-defense during the violent confrontation outside an underground boxing event on May 16, 2025.

Eiglarsh also claimed that Nantambu has a documented history of violence toward Brown and intended to attack him again during last year’s incident.

Surveillance video obtained by Local 10 News shows the moments leading up to the shooting just before midnight.

In footage from a courtyard parking area around 11:55 p.m., Brown is seen punching a man, triggering a fight that draws in multiple people. The video shows the confrontation escalating into a three-on-one situation against the man before security intervenes. Brown can then be seen kicking a security guard as the scene is broken up.

Additional surveillance video from a nearby garage shows the man re-entering the camera’s view moments later. Authorities allege that at this point Brown retrieved a gun from a vehicle parked nearby. As the man is pushed away from the area, Brown is seen jogging toward the corner, allegedly holding a gun. At approximately 11:56 p.m., people in the video react as gunshots are heard.

Roughly a minute later, Brown is seen walking back into the area, followed by security guards with their weapons drawn. By 11:58 p.m., Brown is escorted out in handcuffs.

Police body camera footage from the scene shows officers telling Brown he was being detained, not arrested. In the video, Brown says he was injured after being pulled by security and insists he did nothing wrong.

Brown was not arrested the night of the incident because police said they were unable to locate a victim at the scene. An arrest warrant was issued the following month, in June, while Brown was in Dubai. U.S. Marshals later took him into custody overseas and returned him to Miami-Dade County.

According to the arrest warrant, Nantambu told investigators that bullets allegedly fired by Brown grazed his neck. Brown’s attorney maintains Nantambu has a history of attacking Brown and posed an imminent threat during the May 2025 confrontation, forming the basis of the self-defense claim.

Aun así, no está claro si el estado decidirá retirar el caso de intento de asesinato en segundo grado.

El abogado Richard L. Cooper, quien representa a la presunta víctima, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, dijo a Local 10 News que su cliente ha “perdonado” a Brown y “no desea participar” en su proceso judicial.

“Después de una considerable reflexión, oración y consultas con su familia y abogado, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu ha tomado la decisión profundamente personal de perdonar a Antonio Brown por los hechos ocurridos en Miami en mayo de 2025”, dijo Cooper en parte, y agregó que “Para el Sr. Nantambu, el perdón no disminuye la gravedad de lo ocurrido. Significa negarse a permitir que la ira o el resentimiento dicten cómo sigue adelante”.

El abogado de Brown, Mark Eiglarsh, dijo a ESPN que él y Brown ahora esperan que el estado conceda su moción para desestimar el caso.

Eiglarsh había pedido anteriormente al juez que supervisa el caso que desestime el cargo de intento de asesinato contra Brown, citando la ley Stand Your Ground de Florida y afirmando que su cliente actuó en defensa propia durante el violento enfrentamiento afuera de un evento clandestino de boxeo el 16 de mayo de 2025.

Eiglarsh también afirmó que Nantambu tiene un historial documentado de violencia contra Brown y tenía la intención de atacarlo nuevamente durante el incidente del año pasado.

Un video de vigilancia obtenido por Local 10 News muestra los momentos previos a la balacera poco antes de la medianoche.

En imágenes de un área de estacionamiento en un patio alrededor de las 11:55 p.m., se ve a Brown golpeando a un hombre, lo que desencadena una pelea en la que participan varias personas. El video muestra cómo el enfrentamiento escala a una situación de tres contra uno contra el hombre antes de que intervenga la seguridad. Luego se puede ver a Brown pateando a un guardia de seguridad mientras se disuelve el altercado.

Otro video de vigilancia de un garaje cercano muestra al hombre volviendo a aparecer ante la cámara momentos después. Las autoridades alegan que en ese momento Brown sacó un arma de un vehículo estacionado cerca. Mientras el hombre es alejado del área, se ve a Brown trotando hacia la esquina, presuntamente sosteniendo un arma. Aproximadamente a las 11:56 p.m., las personas que aparecen en el video reaccionan mientras se escuchan disparos.

Aproximadamente un minuto después, se ve a Brown caminando de regreso al área, seguido por guardias de seguridad con sus armas desenfundadas. Para las 11:58 p.m., Brown es escoltado fuera del lugar esposado.

Las imágenes de la cámara corporal de la policía en el lugar muestran a los agentes diciéndole a Brown que estaba siendo detenido, no arrestado. En el video, Brown dice que resultó herido después de ser sujetado por seguridad e insiste en que no hizo nada malo.

Brown no fue arrestado la noche del incidente porque la policía dijo que no pudo localizar a una víctima en el lugar. Una orden de arresto fue emitida el mes siguiente, en junio, mientras Brown estaba en Dubái. Los alguaciles federales de Estados Unidos posteriormente lo detuvieron en el extranjero y lo regresaron al condado Miami-Dade.

Según la orden de arresto, Nantambu dijo a los investigadores que las balas presuntamente disparadas por Brown le rozaron el cuello. El abogado de Brown sostiene que Nantambu tiene un historial de ataques contra Brown y representaba una amenaza inminente durante el enfrentamiento de mayo de 2025, lo que constituye la base del argumento de defensa propia.

Also among top nominees announced Thursday: Kacey Musgraves and Ben West with five nominations each, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Stephen Wilson Jr. with four nominations each, and Dave Clauss, Luke Combs and Lainey Wilson with three nominations each.

Joining Langley in competing for the night’s highest honor — CMA entertainer of the year — will be Johnson, Stapleton, Combs and Wilson, who is gunning for a repeat.

Langley's “Be Her” and “Choosin’ Texas” both nabbed nominations for single of the year, along with Taylor Swift's “I Knew It, I Knew You” from the movie “Toy Story 5,” Wilson's “Somewhere Over Laredo” and Johnson's “The Fall.” Producer-writer Jack Antonoff got his first nomination in the single of the year category as producer of Swift's song.

In February, Langley became the only woman to simultaneously hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, all thanks to “Choosin’ Texas,” co-written with Lambert. Langley also won all seven of her nominations at the 2026 ACM Awards.

Nominated for album of the year are Langley’s “Dandelion,” Zach Top's “Ain’t In It For My Health,” Musgraves' “Middle of Nowhere,” Parker McCollum's self-titled album and Combs' “The Way I Am.” Song of the year nominees are “Be Her,” “Beautiful Things,” “Choosin’ Texas,” “Dry Spell” and “Gary.”

Lambert, the most-winning female in CMA Awards history with 14 wins, co-produced Langley’s “Dandelion” album and co-wrote “Choosin’ Texas.” Langley will appear on Lambert's upcoming album “Crisco,” featured on the opening song “Snakeskin Boots.”

Last year, Wilson, who hosted and performed at the CMAs, took home the entertainer of the year award, as well as album of the year. Male vocalist of the year went to Johnson and Brooks & Dunn won vocal duo of the year.

The vocal group of the year category this year includes Lady A, Little Big Town, Midland, Old Dominion and The Red Clay Strays. New artist of the year candidates are Avery Anna, Carter Faith, Emily Ann Roberts, Tucker Wetmore and Wilson.

Female vocalist of the year nominations pit Lambert and Langley against Megan Moroney, Musgraves and Wilson. (Lambert has now passed Reba McEntire with the most female vocalist of the year nominations all-time with 19.) The male counterpart has Combs, Johnson, Stapleton, Top and Wilson.

The prizes are nominated and voted on by more than 7,000 members of the Country Music Association, which includes music executives, artists, publicists, songwriters and other industry professionals. The 60th annual CMA Awards will be broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Nov. 18 on ABC and Disney+, and the next day on Hulu.

The five-year commitment aims to cut the maternal mortality rate in the United States in half by 2031.

“For millions of moms in America, maternal health is bad and getting worse,” Olivia Walton told The Associated Press in an interview. “There’s just so much bipartisan consensus around wanting to fix this. I really think the political will is there and part of our job is to help surface that with an information campaign.”

According to the most recent data available, the United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy nations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 688 people died in 2024 during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. The maternal mortality rate rose to 19 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024, up from 18.6 the year before.

Improving data collection and accelerating hospitals’ reporting of deaths is an important pillar of the new Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America initiative, Walton said. The most recent state-level data on maternal mortality is still from 2022, with annual totals based on provisional data available through 2024.

“You can’t fix what you can’t measure,” she said, adding that the Waltons' nonprofit Heartland Forward partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May to collect more data on maternal and infant health outcomes from 220 hospitals around the country called the Perinatal Improvement Collaborative.

The U.S. maternal mortality issue is ‘eminently solvable’

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America President Dr. Neel Shah said that, unlike many medical issues, maternal mortality is “eminently solvable.”

“The biggest cause of suffering isn’t a lack of knowledge,” he said. “It’s a lack of execution on the knowledge… This is a matter of will.”

The initiative will focus on expanding access to maternal health in rural areas, training midwives and expanding postpartum care, and helping states use strategies that have proved successful, Shah said. He points out that California has managed to reduce its maternal rate by half by combining strategies with investments. He said New Jersey, which previously ranked 47th among states in maternal mortality, has improved its outcomes by focusing on the cities where the needs are greatest.

Walton said states are “in the driver’s seat” for making changes to maternal and infant healthcare, in part because about 40% of births are paid for by Medicaid.

“I’ve got blue-state solutions of what works, red-state solutions of what works, and purple-state solutions of what works,” she said. “It’s really possible.”

Using the $100 million initiative to generate more funding

For that reason, Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America plans to fund these care improvements by focusing on states. Walton plans to use the $100 million commitment as a way to encourage state governments to match the nonprofit’s investment. She hopes that corporations and other funders also contribute to the cause.

“Taking on risk and going first is a great use of philanthropic capital,” she said. “The goal is to prove that this works and then have state funding take it over.”

The focus on states, however, doesn’t mean the initiative won’t seek federal solutions as well.

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America is supporting bipartisan Congressional legislation, including the Rural Obstetrics Readiness Act and the NIH IMPROVE Act, which would expand access to maternal care.

“It’s unacceptable that in 2026 in the U.S., maternal mortality rates are moving in the wrong direction," Republican Sen. Katie Britt, of Alabama, said in a statement. “It’s imperative we work together across both the public and private sectors to reverse this alarming trend.”

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, said poor maternal health outcomes don’t just hurt families.

“The economic consequences are equally alarming,” Booker said in a statement, estimating a cost of $165 billion each year.

Walton said the issue is a personal one for her and her husband, Tom, grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, who live in Arkansas.

“I’m a mom myself and I just had three kids in the last eight years,” she said. "I live in a state with the worst maternal mortality in the country.”

However, she also believes the issue has broad, national implications.

“I have an overarching belief that if you take care of mom, she’ll take care of everything else,” Walton said. “Healthy moms lead to healthy families. Healthy families lead to healthy communities. Healthy communities lead to a healthy economy.”

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But six years after buying the house, she still can’t be sure that her tap water is lead-free because she doesn't know what material was used for the pipe that runs under her front yard and connects to the city water supply. Dunkirk is nearly two years behind schedule on an inventory that would give Pilgrim and other residents that information.

Dunkirk, which supplies water to about 5,000 homes and businesses, is one of more than 1,300 public water systems cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to meet an October 2024 deadline to hand in an inventory of the water lines that could be leaching the heavy metal into Americans' drinking water, an Associated Press analysis of the agency’s enforcement data shows.

Roughly 6,300 water systems serving 3.8 million Americans have still not submitted a required list of how many lead service lines remain in use.

Those inventories are critical for cities to replace all lead pipes by an upcoming 10-year deadline. Failing to document the lines also means residents won't know if their homes have a potential source of lead exposure.

Pilgrim, a special education teacher who has fostered teenagers, had been educated on the dangers of lead, especially in paint. The colon cancer survivor's concerns extended to her drinking water.

“I just thought there was some stuff in the water that might not be great,” she said.

Officials with the city of Dunkirk did not respond to requests for comment.

Lead pipes are abundant across New York and many communities around the country with older infrastructure. The city of Buffalo’s data shows 45% of its service lines — which connect homes and businesses to the water supply — are made of lead, the third-highest rate of any major city. The city of Fredonia, which neighbors Dunkirk, reported 28%.

Lead is a priority under Trump administration

Lead is a neurotoxin that can stunt children’s development, lower IQ scores and increase blood pressure in adults. Roughly 4 million homes and businesses are still connected to water utilities via lead pipes, according to the EPA’s latest estimate.

How much lead is entering the building depends on factors like the water chemistry and the pipe's condition, but lead service lines remain the most significant source of the heavy metal, according to the EPA.

The EPA has touted its work on lead lines as a key environmental win. About three-quarters of the drinking water enforcement orders issued by the EPA since President Donald Trump’s return to office were related to missing inventories.

Most water systems with missing inventories are small — 84% provide drinking water to fewer than 500 people, the AP analysis shows. Many are small housing developments, mobile home parks or schools.

The EPA said it turned to enforcement only after efforts to help water systems comply were unsuccessful. Utilities need the inventories to prepare for a 2027 deadline requiring most drinking water providers to replace their lead lines within 10 years, the agency said. The Trump administration has also defended that aggressive deadline, enacted under Biden, in court.

Rob Hayes, a senior director with Environmental Advocates of New York, said it is a rare environmental regulation the Trump administration has not sought to scrap.

“It speaks to the universal popularity of getting lead out of drinking water,” he said.

Inventories are not easy

About 3,500 water systems reported they don’t know what their service lines are made of. One in five service lines nationwide were reported as having unknown materials.

Many utilities are racing to identify unknown pipes by next year, when they must begin replacing them.

In Chicago, home to the most lead lines of any city in the country, crews are working block-by-block, digging up the pipes that branch off from the utility's main line. The city still doesn't know the material of close to one in 10 service lines. So in those cases, crews may have to excavate them to check the material, said Patrick Schwer, the city's water quality director.

“We are digging through every single piece of information that we have associated with every single service line trying to find any indications of the material,” he said. “We’re scouring millions of work orders, trying to pull at little threads of information.”

Lead pipes for public water date as far back as the late 1800s and were prevalent all the way to the 1950s. Lead was a preferred material at the time because it was resistant to corrosion, and as a result, the original lines remain in use decades later.

Chicago advises residents with unknown lines to assume they are made of lead if their building predates 1986, when it was banned under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.

Records of the installations were often lost, incomplete or illegible. Lapses in recordkeeping have made it difficult for some utilities to complete their inventories, said Joshua Klainberg, senior vice president with the New York League of Conservation Voters.

Still, Klainberg said, leaving residents in the dark about whether they should take precautions by not submitting an inventory at all is “unforgivable.” Even an incomplete inventory can alert people they may have a lead service line, allowing them to take precautions such as running the tap, using filters — the highest-quality of which can remove most lead — and cooking only with cold water, he said.

Limited funds for replacements

For utilities, not knowing what is in the ground will carry an even stiffer consequence beginning in 2027. Starting then, they are required to replace 10% of lead water pipes each year, usually with copper or plastic pipes. But lines made of unidentified materials will be included in that target, said Erica Galante-Johnson, a lead policy analyst with the Environmental Policy Innovation Center.

“The more unknowns, the more lines a system needs to replace every year,” Galante-Johnson said.

And each replacement is expensive, usually costing between $8,000 and $15,000, according to EPIC.

In Chicago's case, “the city is actively going after every single dollar that we can,” from the federal and state governments, Schwer said. The city still needs to replace about 393,000 lead service lines.

Most funding for identifying and replacing lead pipes comes from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, with states distributing it. This is the final year of dedicated federal funding for lead projects, though previously allocated money will continue flowing to communities.

Water systems without an inventory will fall even further behind as national efforts shift toward replacements, Hayes said.

“If they can’t even get an inventory together, how the heck are they going to get the resources and the manpower and the kind of coordination between governments together to actually get workers out on the street and dig these pipes out of the ground?” he said.

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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.

Scientists from the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Space Research reported Thursday that Mercury’s shrinkage may be 30% greater than previously believed — a loss in diameter of as much as 14 miles (23 kilometers). That’s significant for a planet barely 3,000 miles (4,900 kilometers) across.

Mercury’s rough surface, continually reshaped by debris hurled from impact craters, may have hidden the true extent of the loss, according to the researchers whose findings appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The news comes one week after a pair of European and Japanese spacecraft shed its cruising platform and advanced toward Mercury. Known as BepiColombo, the linked craft are expected to enter orbit around Mercury in November before splitting up for a fuller survey.

BepiColombo’s laser instrument should confirm how much Mercury is withering as a result of internal cooling, said Gaku Nishiyama, the study’s lead author who is taking part in the space mission.

The shrinkage could be even more than his team is estimating based on measurements from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft in the 2010s. Only one other spacecraft has ever visited Mercury, NASA’s Mariner 10 in the 1970s.

Our solar system’s smallest and innermost planet has been shrinking ever since its formation 4.5 billion years ago. Its hot iron core — oversized for such a small world — cools and contracts along with the mantle and crust, tightening the surface like a girdle to fit its new slimmer self.

Nishiyama and his team compared maps showing faults and other geologic signs of contraction at Mercury with newer maps highlighting surface roughness. They discovered that the roughest patches exhibited fewer shrinkage wrinkles. The missing wrinkles could be buried under impact debris, they said.

After accounting for these obscured regions, the researchers provided a fresh take on Mercury’s shrinkage that could shed light on other contracting worlds, said Nishiyama, who is affiliated with Hokkaido University in Japan.

“We are quite excited,” Nishiyama said in an email, adding that it feels like “we are approaching the reality of Mercury’s evolution.”

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The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

In sworn statements provided to Local 10 News from an ongoing Department of Labor dispute, pilot Karl Seuring and his attorney accuse 21 Air of not giving pilots enough time off between flights and creating unusually-long checklists.

“He filed the complaint with OSHA and he went to a hearing on that and lost. The next step procedurally taking it to the next level is the trial that was held in 2023,” said attorney Mike Anello. “We are awaiting the judge’s ruling.”

Official records show 21 Air was founded in 2014 in North Carolina. No one would speak to Local 10 from their office in northwest Miami-Dade County.

According to transcripts, Anello told a judge that Seuring found the “operation under that checklist made it more likely that airplane[s] using that list would suffer an accident, some type of tragic event.”

Another former pilot raised concerns as well.

In an email obtained by Local 10, retired pilot Don Helmig wrote to majority owner Jim Crane, “After three months, everywhere I looked there are issues.”

Anello said he was “sad” to hear the news of Sunday’s fatal crash at MIA.

“I was surprised to see that involved the same company that’s on the other side of our lawsuit,” he said. “And I hope everyone just lets the process play out.”

In a statement posted to its website, 21 Air said that the company is “devastated by the accident involving one of our aircraft…We are cooperating fully with the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and local authorities.”

Voters approved a $100 million bond for the project in 2019. The new three-story, 191,000-square-foot headquarters on Broward Boulevard replaces an 80-year-old building and is now home to a department of more than 700 personnel.

“This is one of the most significant investments Fort Lauderdale has ever made in public safety,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said during a Wednesday morning tour of the new facility.

The headquarters features updated technology, expanded operational space and dedicated areas for training, public meetings and community engagement. It also includes a gun range.

Getting the project to the finish line wasn’t easy. Engineers had to address design flaws that caused the original construction to crack and bend. Repairs and reinforcement eventually allowed the project to move forward.

“Getting us to this day took persistence,” Trantalis said.

Police Chief Bill Schultz said the new headquarters represents more than just a building.

“This is more than just a structure,” Schultz said. “This is a symbol of what happens when a community believes in its police department and when a department never stops believing in its mission.”

The new facility can withstand a Category 5 hurricane.

The case started as an investigation into an armed robbery.

In one clip, Anthony Gordon is seen staring down the barrel of a firearm as an armed robber, whose name remains unknown, threatens him.

“You are ready to die?” the man asks.

The armed robber then appears to leave with his arms full of items.

At the Miami Gardens home, Gordon’s girlfriend, Danette Young, is also seen. Police say Young ran to a neighbor for help. That neighbor shot and killed the gun-wielding man.

In another clip, Gordon returns to the home. A closer look at the video shows him carrying items in his hands.

Police would later execute a search warrant at the home and show during a court hearing what they say they found: millions of dollars in cash and illegal drugs.

Investigators said the amount of drugs was enough to charge Gordon and Young with drug trafficking.

Gordon’s defense team says the allegations have gone too far.

Defense attorney Jonathan Jordan told Local 10 News in a statement that his client was the victim of a home invasion robbery in which he almost lost his life.

“Our defense of our client is just beginning. Evidence is still coming out showing how Mr. Gordon was the clear victim of a home invasion robbery where he almost lost his own life. As far as narcotics and weapons that were discovered inside the home, many questions remain about who owned them, who had access to them, and what evidence exists pointing to which of the multiple occupants that lived there even knew of the presence of the contraband. We look forward to seeing all of the evidence and vigorously defending Mr. Gordon in allegations that have simply gone too far.”

Defense attorney Jonathan Jordan

During a court hearing, a question was raised about whether firearms were found near fentanyl.

Jordan also questioned who owned the narcotics and weapons found inside the home, who had access to them and what evidence exists showing which of the multiple occupants knew about the contraband.

Because multiple people lived in the home at the time, Jordan said questions remain about the evidence.

Gordon and Young are now also facing federal charges. Their defense attorney said the pair are in federal detention ahead of Friday morning’s arraignment for the federal charges.

Court records also show they have a court hearing related to the filed state charges at the Richard Gerstein Justice Building Thursday morning.

The Labor Department’s producer price index — which captures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose 5.4% in August from a year ago, up from 4.8% in July, the government said Thursday. Annual wholesale inflation peaked this year at 5.9% in May after the Iran conflict raised energy costs. On a monthly basis, wholesale prices increased 0.4% from July to August, after a 0.1% increase the previous month.

Inflation has shown some signs of easing in recent months but is still high, frustrating consumers who are struggling with more expensive gas, groceries, clothing and other essentials. U.S. oil prices topped $100 a barrel Thursday on renewed fighting in the Middle East, while President Donald Trump has intensified a trade war with Canada, a sign tariffs still could push up costs. Rising prices pose a political problem for the Trump administration and Republicans running in the midterm elections.

In a striking acknowledgment Wednesday, Trump said that oil prices likely won’t come down until after U.S. midterm elections, but added that prices will fall immediately after Nov. 3.

“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm.”

The cost for a regular gallon of gasoline has soared 44% since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February, according to data from the AAA. Diesel, which is used in manufacturing, shipping and transportation, and can have an outsized role in producer and consumer prices, has rocketed 59% higher in that same time frame.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.2% from July to August, the same as the previous month. Compared with a year ago, core prices rose 4.6%, up from 4.2% in July.

Energy prices were a big driver of last month's increase as fighting in the Middle East flared. The wholesale price of diesel soared 24.1% just from July to August. It has risen nearly 78% from a year earlier. Diesel fuel is used in large cargo trucks for shipping goods all over the country, and could make groceries, clothes and other items more expensive. Shipping prices rose 2.3% just last month.

Other items that jumped in price include airfares, hospital care, and electronic components, which have been lifted by rampant spending on AI data centers. Food prices ticked up just 0.1% last month, a potential signal that grocery costs could cool. Electric utility prices declined, too.

Thursday's figures will come under particularly close scrutiny because they could help determine whether the Federal Reserve raises its short-term interest rate at a policy meeting next week. Data from the producer price index helps calculate the Fed's preferred inflation measure, which will be released Sept. 30.

Airfares, hospital care and physician services all grew more expensive last month, with airfares jumping 4.2%. Those measures are all included in the Fed's preferred gauge and their increases could make a rate hike more likely.

With wholesale inflation “still looking relatively hot, the Fed seems likely to hike this year even if it doesn’t pull the trigger this month,” wrote Stephen Brown, chief North America economist for Capital Economics.

Even more important is Friday’s consumer price index report, the government’s highest-profile inflation release. Figures from that report are also used to compile the Fed’s preferred measure of costs. Economists believe that report could show core prices cooled in August. Some Fed officials have said that if Friday’s CPI is high, they would lean toward a rate hike at the central bank’s meeting next week. But if it comes in relatively low — as it did in June and July — they would support keeping rates on hold.

The Fed’s main goals are supporting maximum employment and combating inflation by keeping prices stable. It raises borrowing costs to cool spending and slow inflation.

Fed chair Kevin Warsh said in a high-profile speech late last month that the central bank needs to be “confident that underlying inflation is moving” to its 2% objective. “Otherwise, we have work to do,” comments that have led many economists to expect a rate hike next week.

Yet last Thursday, Fed governor Christopher Waller, echoing some other Fed officials, suggested that if Friday’s inflation report shows price increases cooling, then he would support keeping rates where they are. Waller is one of the 12 officials who vote on each Fed rate decision.

Another key concern for the Fed is whether inflation is driven mostly by one-time factors such as more expensive oil and gas, or if higher prices are spreading more broadly through the economy. Warsh noted in his remarks two weeks ago that more than half the 199 categories of goods and services the government tracks have recorded price increases of at least 3% compared with a year ago, an unusually high number.

According to the Miami Gardens Police Department, K-9 officers responded to a business alarm in the 200 block of Northwest 195th Street at approximately 9:35 p.m. Monday.

Police said a K-9 officer opened the rear door of her patrol vehicle, where K-9 Gael was located.

Once the door opened, the 2-year-old dog exited the vehicle and immediately ran eastbound across Northwest Second Avenue, according to police.

The officer attempted to recall Gael, but police said the K-9 did not respond to the commands.

All available Miami Gardens police patrol units began searching for Gael, with assistance from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Aviation Unit. Despite the extensive search, officers were initially unable to locate the dog.

Ahie Smith lives right down the street and described the police scene all around his house on Monday night.

“They were just riding, circling, putting a light on my yard,” he said. “Helicopters riding around, riding around for hours ... I stepped out to see what was going on. It looked kind of crazy.”

Police provided an update Tuesday, saying investigators had obtained surveillance video showing Gael being struck by a vehicle after running from the location.

Despite being hit, Gael continued traveling eastbound, according to police.

The extent of Gael’s injuries are unclear. Police said the dog was wearing a black collar that reads “Mama says I’m special” at the time it ran off.

Miami Gardens police officers are canvassing the surrounding area and continuing to search for the missing K-9 when they’re not responding to calls.

“We’re still going to be canvassing until we receive some type of answer,” Miami Gardens police spokeswoman Diana Delgado said.

Delgado said the department is hoping the community will step up to help locate Gael.

“All of our our canines are very, very special to our department,” she said. “They are all trained to the best of their capacity, and with the best trainers, and right now we’re all devastated that we are unable to locate Gael.”

Filings for benefits dipped to 206,000 last week from a revised 207,000 the week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, also fell modestly to 206,000.

Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and economists watch them because they can be a sign of where the job market is headed. For the past year, claims have mostly stayed within a historically low range of 200,000 to 230,000 a week.

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

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

So far this year, employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — have been adding an average 80,000 jobs a month, including a surprising 162,000 in August. That is an improvement on a dismal 2025 when monthly job creation averaged less than 10,000 as high interest rates and President Donald Trump's erratic trade policies discouraged hiring.

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

The FFF said the executive committee decision was unanimous.

The FIFA presidential election is scheduled for March.

“Whilst support had initially been given to the FIFA president, who was then the sole candidate for his own succession, the conditions for that support are no longer met,” the FFF said.

“A series of events directly involving FIFA’s governance and its president, and in direct conflict with the fundamental principles of good governance and the values of football, occurred after the FFF expressed its support on June 29.”

The French cited Infantino's plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private equity for $4.2 billion. FIFA withdrew the proposal on Aug. 1, just days after it was made public, following intense pushback.

“Today, whilst this project has been definitively abandoned thanks to a concerted response within UEFA in conjunction with several other confederations, the issue of FIFA’s governance cannot be considered resolved,” the FFF insisted. It added Infantino's recent initiatives have "seriously damaged the image and unity of football."

UEFA has led the calls for Infantino to go, saying it lost confidence in him and previously threatened to boycott FIFA tournaments, including the World Cup. Several national associations, including England, have withdrawn support for Infantino’s re-election.

FIFA said on Sunday that Infantino plans to stand again in next year’s elections for a final term in office through 2031.

The FFF called for a far-reaching reform of FIFA's governance and said it will launch consultations with leading French and international figures.

“The aim of these consultations," it said, “will be to foster collective reflection and to draw up proposals for a far-reaching transformation of FIFA’s governance, with a view to restoring confidence, enhancing transparency and ensuring the independence and exemplary conduct of world football’s governing body.”

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

The central bank for the 21 EU member countries that use the euro currency raised its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.50% at a meeting held in Berlin, away from the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters.

Bank President Christine Lagarde said at her news conference that “the conflict in the Middle East continues to generate inflation pressures, and inflation is set to remain well above target for an extended period.”

“The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth,” she said, adding that the bank would make future rate decisions meeting by meeting based on incoming data. She said the central bank would not commit to any particular path for rates before seeing the data.

The bank last raised rates at its June 11 meeting, then hit pause at its July 23 session. Remarks by ECB President Christine Lagarde later Thursday will be parsed by market analysts and investors for clues about whether more interest rate increases are coming.

Inflation concerns are also weighing on the U.S. Federal Reserve, whose rate-setters next meet Sept. 15-16. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has said the bank may have “more work to do” to contain U.S. inflation of 3.7%.

High energy prices are one reason eurozone inflation came in at 3.3% in August, above the bank’s target of 2%. Oil prices have risen above $100 per barrel due to lower tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz that are under threat of Iranian attack. Decisions being made about borrowing costs are complicated by the fact that it’s impossible to say how long the shipping restrictions and high oil prices will last.

Higher rates cool inflation by making it more expensive to borrow and buy things, from houses to new factories. That reduces demand for goods and eases pressure on prices. The ECB benchmarks affect banks first, and through them lending rates throughout the economy.

The ECB's move was “a hike to stay ahead of the curve, demonstrating the ECB’s high level of vigilance, and an attempt to prevent higher energy prices from feeding through to the broader economy,” Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING bank, wrote in an email.

Also, Trump has pledged to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

Trump also said Wednesday that oil prices that have surged because of the Iran war likely won’t come down until after U.S. midterm elections. The comments were a striking acknowledgment from Trump about the conflict as his Republican administration faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran grinds on with no conclusion in sight.

Here's the latest:

Trump promises $500 Obamacare rebate checks for 1M enrollees in 30 states

It would be for those whom the White House alleges were overcharged by the Biden administration for exchange fees.

The promise comes after Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections and as affordability has become a central issue for voters heading into November.

“The relief begins with refunding everyone who was overcharged and the rebates are going out in just a few weeks,” Trump said in a recorded address released on the White House X account Thursday.

In a fact sheet, the White House claimed former President Joe Biden’s administration “accumulated a significant surplus of funds that were not used to benefit the Americans who paid these higher premiums.”

It’s unclear where the money for the rebates would come from and whether it requires congressional approval for disbursement.

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US Supreme Court decision appears to clear the way for Missouri to use the old map

There were no noted dissents in the brief order.

It comes after a pitched court battle shortly before ballots begin going out for the November elections. The new map was drawn to help Republicans gain an additional seat.

The Supreme Court order came hours after a federal judge allowed Missouri’s top court to proceed with a contempt hearing against Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. Missouri’s battle over its congressional districts has spanned more than a year and spawned confusion over which districts will be in place for voters.

US Supreme Court again rejects push to use Trump-backed congressional map in Missouri

The U.S. Supreme Court again rejected a push to use Missouri congressional maps backed by President Trump on Thursday, a loss for Republicans trying to maintain control of the House in the fast-approaching midterm elections.

The decision appears to clear the way for use of the old maps.

It comes after a pitched court battle shortly before ballots begin going out for the pivotal November elections. The maps were drawn to help Republicans gain an additional U.S. House seat.

It’s the second time the high court has refused to intervene to keep the Trump-backed maps in place.

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‘Dividend’ is the latest in a long tradition of presidents taking branding liberties

Trump’s “dividend” payments wouldn’t be true dividends. But he’s not the first politician to use labels that stretch the realities of certain policies.

Franklin Roosevelt called Social Security an “old-age insurance system.” But insurance involves premium payments from policy holders financing claims to those same customers. In Social Security, existing workers’ taxes are immediately paid out to older beneficiaries.

Barack Obama pitched his 2009 economic “stimulus bill.” Most of it was tax cuts and direct aid to state governments after the 2008 financial crash. It was more a stabilizing effort than a stimulus.

Republicans call the estate tax, adopted under Democrat Woodrow Wilson, the “death tax” and often suggest it applies broadly. The current exemption is $15 million ($30 million per couple), meaning only inheritances above that are assessed. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that fewer than 1 out of 1,000 deaths yield any federal estate tax.

Jump in oil prices comes as hopes fade that US and Iran may reach a deal soon on Strait of Hormuz

That would fully reopen the strait and allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf. President Trump said Wednesday that oil prices likely won’t come down until after the U.S. midterm elections in November.

The jump has pushed the price of a gallon of regular gasoline to an average of nearly $4.28 across the United States, according to AAA. That’s up nearly 34% from a year earlier and is not only costing people more at the pump but also through higher prices for all kinds of products that move by truck to store shelves.

Trump’s chosen ‘dividend’ branding doesn’t fit the usual definition

Investopedia, a leading online source of information about the financial markets, defines “dividends” as “periodic payments made to shareholders from corporate profits.”

That doesn’t apply to direct payments or indirect payments (such as tax credits) from the U.S. Treasury Department to taxpayers. The government is not a for-profit enterprise. Furthermore, the treasury has run an annual deficit every year since 2002 — the first fiscal year following President George W. Bush’s first tax cuts. Since there’s no surplus to divide, that means any payouts would have to be backed by debt instruments that would add to the federal operating deficit and total debt.

The current year’s deficit stands at about $1.8 trillion. The total debt surpassed $40 trillion earlier this year.

Investopedia, meanwhile, also says this about dividend payments: “They can make a stock more attractive to investors but may also signal that a company isn’t doing enough to generate better returns.”

Republicans showcase their ‘big beautiful bill’ to voters, but the law’s impact has been mixed

Working to keep the majority in Congress, Republicans at the midterm convention in Dallas are showcasing their chief legislative accomplishment — the sweeping package of tax breaks, social service cuts and immigration enforcement President Trump signed into law.

A year on, what’s known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — or, the “Big Ugly Bill,” as Democrats call it — has produced mixed results. Millions of people have received enhanced tax breaks, while millions are also losing access to federal food aid and health care. More immigrants are being arrested, many deported, some dying during the process.

House Speaker Mike Johnson calls it the kind of “common sense” governing that Republicans plan to do more of, if voters return them to power.

“Shamefully, not one Democrat voted for it,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., said Wednesday during the convention’s opening night.

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One Republican senator seems to like Trump’s ‘dividend’ idea

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, who’s attending the GOP midterm convention as he seeks his second term, is among the Republicans embracing Trump’s proposed payout to American adults.

“Comment how you will spend your $5,000 Trump Dividend when Republicans win in November,” he posted on X, eliciting mostly positive responses from his online followers.

Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the 1932 wave election in the Great Depression. But Marshall faces a surprisingly energetic challenge for reelection from Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton, pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist congregation.

Marshall did not expound on the cost of Trump’s idea or how it should be carried out legally. The president doesn’t have appropriations power under the Constitution. That power rests with Congress.

US oil jumps above $100 and stock futures slump

The price of U.S. crude oil rose above $100 for the first time Thursday since May with no end in sight in the U.S.-Iran war.

The price for Brent crude, the international standard, rose above $105 a barrel. U.S. stock futures fell, with the S&P 500 down 0.5% and the Nasdaq off by 1.1%.

A report showed that inflation in the U.S. remains stubbornly high on the wholesale level.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank raised its key interest rate by one-quarter point to try to tame inflation in the European Union. Stock indexes in Europe fell, with Germany’s DAX down 0.7%.

Market in Asia closed lower with the exception of Japan.

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Americans’ individual share of the US debt payments equals 3/4 of Trump’s ‘dividend’ payment

The theoretical $5,000 payments Trump pitched would mean money going directly in Americans’ wallets. But Americans’ also are on the hook for an indirect outlay that’s almost as much: interest payments on the U.S. debt.

The national debt recently crossed the $40 trillion mark. Each year, the federal government pays interest to the investors who’ve financed that debt.

According to Treasury Department data, that interest expense for fiscal year 2026 will come to about $1.27 trillion. Using the Census Bureau’s 2026 population estimate of 340.3 million people, that comes to a per capita share of $3,732 or almost three-quarters of the payout Trump pitched.

‘We don’t have surpluses to give away’

Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Trump has no authority to send money to Americans without approval from Congress.

Goldwein added that dividends are something companies pay when there’s a surplus, but the U.S. is running $2 trillion annual deficits and has $40 trillion in debt.

“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” he said. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”

Federal judge allows contempt hearing in Missouri redistricting dispute

A federal judge has allowed Missouri’s top court to proceed with a contempt hearing Thursday for Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in a tense and twisting legal battle over whether new congressional districts supported by President Trump can be used in the November election.

Missouri’s top court previously ordered Hoskins not to use a Trump-backed map in the general election. But U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark on Tuesday barred Hoskins from using anything other than the new map Trump supports.

The state Supreme Court then ordered Hoskins to appear for a contempt hearing Thursday for not following its orders.

State attorneys representing Hoskins had asked Clark to halt the contempt hearing. But Clark declined to do so.

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GOP donor doesn’t like Trump’s proposed $5,000 checks

Joe Londsdale, a prominent Republican donor and activist, is among the Trump allies panning the president’s latest promise to send money directly to Americans.

“I am hugely in favor of winning the midterms, and love much about this (administration),” he wrote on X, “but am strongly against bread and circus bribes.”

Democrats say Trump’s ‘bizarre’ convention is a distraction from his faltering presidency

It’s not just Republicans descending on Dallas for the midterm convention — Democrats are there too as they try to convince voters that the reality of Donald Trump’s second presidency doesn’t match the spectacle of his made-for-TV event.

“This bizarre Republican midterm convention here can’t paper over the fact that Republicans have done nothing to earn your vote,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said Wednesday morning.

Besides Pritzker, several leading House Democrats were traveling to Dallas for events, as well. And Texas Democrats hope the spotlight on the state ends up benefiting their candidates.

James Talarico, a Texas state lawmaker who's running against state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a closely watched Senate race, held a food drive Wednesday at Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas. He compared volunteers’ work with Republicans’ festivities.

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Trump says oil prices that spiked because of Iran war likely won’t come down until after midterms

Trump said Wednesday that oil prices that have surged because of the Iran war likely won’t come down until after U.S. midterm elections.

Oil prices on Wednesday jumped more than 3%, pushing international Brent crude past the $100 threshold for the first time since July as salvos between the U.S. and Iran escalated.

“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm.”

The comments were a striking acknowledgment from Trump about the conflict as his Republican administration faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran grinds on with no conclusion in sight.

Trump, in an exchange with reporters before traveling to Dallas for the midterm Republican convention, added that he believes Iran will finally relent after the pivotal elections are held in the U.S.

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Trump, hoping to salvage midterms, makes dubious pledge to give every US adult $5,000 if GOP wins

President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.

The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

He likened the payments to a corporation’s distributions to shareholders, citing “our tremendous strength and success economically.”

Within an hour, Vice President JD Vance appeared to try to walk back Trump’s proposal — at least in part — by suggesting the dividend payments would not go to the wealthy. Vance suggested it could be paid for by U.S. tariff revenues, though the suggested payment dwarfs what the U.S. has taken in through the protectionist measures.

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The decision appears to clear the way for the state to use a map passed in 2022, as the state's highest court ordered.

It's part of a pitched legal battle that has created confusion for voters and others shortly before ballots begin going out for the November elections. The Trump administration had urged the court to keep the president’s preferred maps, which were aimed at gaining one additional GOP House seat.

No Supreme Court justices publicly dissented from the brief order. It did not detail the court’s legal reasoning, as is typical in emergency appeals.

Meanwhile, the legal fight featuring dueling orders from different courts continued to unfold in Missouri with a contempt hearing for Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins.

The state's highest court ordered him to answer for sticking with the Trump-backed map rather than following its orders to use districts passed after the last census.

But until the Supreme Court weighed in, Hoskins could point to a competing order from a federal judge requiring the use of the new map.

The Supreme Court's decision likely means Missouri will run the general election with a different congressional map than was used in the primary. Some people might not be able to vote for the same candidate they chose in the primary. It’s an unusual situation that leaves Missouri without a clear-cut example to follow.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Missouri’s battle over its congressional districts has spanned more than a year and spawned confusion over which districts will be in place for voters.

It was the second Republican-led state, after Texas, to enact new districts after Trump urged Republicans last year to redraw House districts to their advantage ahead of the midterm elections.

The revised districts target a Kansas City-based seat held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shedding parts into neighboring districts and stretching the remainder into rural Republican areas. The goal is to help Republicans win seven of the state’s eight House seats in the midterm elections.

Redistricting opponents collected hundreds of thousands of petition signatures seeking to force a statewide vote on the new districts. They submitted the signatures in December. But Hoskins waited until August — on the same day as Missouri’s primary — to reject the petition. Hoskins asserted that a referendum petition could not be used for congressional redistricting.

The delay allowed Missouri to use the new districts in its August primary. Republican state officials have argued it would violate voters' federal rights to switch districts before the general election.

But the Missouri Supreme Court last week ordered Hoskins to put the redistricting referendum on the November ballot, which he did. It also ruled that the new districts never became law and instead were suspended retroactively to the December petition submission.

The state then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state court decision. Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected their request.

The court barred Hoskins from using the new map and said the old map — passed by Republican lawmakers in 2022 after the last census — must be used in the November election.

The group People Not Politicians Missouri applauded the Supreme Court decisions that left the state court ruling in place. “The law is the law, the Missouri constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court," said Executive Director Richard von Glahn. "The courts have settled this, now it’s up to Missouri voters to finish the job and vote NO on Proposition A.”

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Whitehurst reported from Washington.

A year on, what's known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — or, the “Big Ugly Bill,” as Democrats call it — has produced mixed results. Millions of people have received enhanced tax breaks, while millions are also losing access to federal food aid and health care. More immigrants are being arrested, many deported, some dying during the process.

House Speaker Mike Johnson calls it the kind of “common sense” governing that Republicans plan to do more of, if voters return them to power.

“Shamefully, not one Democrat voted for it,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., said Wednesday during the convention's opening night.

Here's a look at what the big bill has accomplished, over the objections of Democrats.

Tax breaks for millions

Millions of taxpayers enjoyed tax benefits this year they might not even realize they received — the continuation of policies from Trump's first term, in 2017, that were set to expire at the end of 2025 if Congress had failed to act.

The legislation extended those Trump tax breaks and added new ones, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay and certain auto loan interest payments. There's a larger standard deduction, a bigger child tax credit and an extra deduction for many seniors, as well as new Trump accounts for children.

“Let me hear you if you’re benefiting from those tax cuts President Trump fought for,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said at the convention.

Cheers rippled through the audience.

All told, some 7.5 million filers claimed no tax on tipped income, 29 million people claimed no tax on overtime and 35 million took the enhanced senior deduction, the Treasury Department said. Nearly 40 million families claimed the bigger child tax credit.

But the flow of the tax breaks has been uneven, with larger gains at the upper incomes.

Garrett Watson, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, said people may not feel the tax cuts, which averaged $2,300, “because it's just continuing what was already the case.”

Actual refunds were up by about $350 on average, the foundation said, about an 11% increase.

“It was avoiding a tax hike,” he said, which is different from “here’s additional relief.”

Those gains have been largely offset by costs from Trump's tariffs and other policies, he said.

Cuts to SNAP food aid and healthcare

A centerpiece of the bill brought substantive changes to the nation's federal food assistance and healthcare programs, with stricter new work requirements for many people who receive aid.

The shifts are set to chisel more than $1 trillion from the programs as fewer people are enrolled, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

So far, 4 million fewer people are receiving food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, according to federal data compiled by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington.

SNAP participation rates have dropped in every state, and more than 800,000 children are no longer receiving the aid in at least 13 states with publicly accessible data, according to the think tank.

While SNAP has always required certain people to work as part of receiving the aid, the Republicans extended the requirement to more people, including older Americans through age 64 who are able-bodied and without young children.

The Medicaid health program has not had such a work requirement, and will soon face one as part of the big bill.

While a few states have begun imposing the Medicaid work requirement this year, most will launch in 2027. The CBO has estimated more than 7 million people will be without health insurance from the Medicaid changes. The bill adds a $50 billion fund to help rural hospitals handle the cuts.

Republicans said their goal has been to root out what they call waste, fraud and abuse in the food aid and healthcare programs and get people back to work. Recipients are required to work, do community service or enroll in education programs for 80 hours a month.

Advocates for the programs say many of those who can work already do, relying on the aid to help make ends meet.

All told, the tax breaks and program cuts add up to fewer resources for poorer people — and more for those in the upper incomes.

“Resources will decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution," the budget office said, “whereas resources will increase for households in the middle and toward the top of the income distribution.”

There's more money for the Pentagon and deportations

The package provided some $350 billion for the Defense and Homeland Security departments, supercharging agency budgets.

The Pentagon's $150 billion boost is funding a range of projects, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth returned to Capitol Hill this summer seeking additional money to help pay for the war against Iran.

Homeland Security was given some $175 billion in the big bill, largely to support Trump's immigration enforcement and deportation agenda.

Immigration arrests surged to a high of nearly 50,000 in July, as Homeland Security redoubled its efforts following a slowdown in the aftermath of the deaths of two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by law enforcement while protesting the federal enforcement actions in Minneapolis.

Then in August, Homeland Security said it set another record, nearly 51,000 immigration arrests.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been on a hiring spree, while state and local police departments are also tapping additional funds to partner with ICE.

Deficits rise and debt hits a milestone

The big bill is expected to increase the nation's deficit by $3.4 trillion over the decade, according to a CBO analysis.

Tax revenues are projected to fall by $4.5 trillion, thanks to the tax breaks, offset partly by a $1.1 trillion reduction in spending, largely to the food and healthcare programs.

The nation's annual deficits are hovering at nearly $2 trillion, and the accumulated U.S. debt now stands at $40 trillion, a milestone.

“The era of gentle diplomatic pleasantries and calculated silence, which has been misinterpreted as tacit consent, has come to an end,” protest leader Sondhi Limthongkul, a media mogul and political activist, told the crowd while reading from an open letter to Israel’s ambassador to Thailand, Alona Fisher-Kamm.

Recent incidents drawing public scrutiny in Thailand have involved tourists of several nationalities, but one of the highest profile cases was of an Israeli tourist who was convicted of threatening a zoo owner and then deported.

Fisher-Kamm met Tuesday with Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow to address concerns and discuss possible solutions.

Sondhi said the embassy and Israeli government should understand “generosity must never be mistaken for weakness, hospitality does not equate to submission to exploitation and courtesy is not an open license for anyone to act with impunity on our sovereign soil.”

In a video message posted to Facebook on Thursday following the morning protest, Israeli embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Rami Teplitskiy said they are not ignoring news and negative sentiments about Israeli tourists in Thailand.

“The embassy will continue to work hard to foster sustainable friendship and ensure everyone enjoys Thailand with mutual respect,” he said in a message delivered in Hebrew with English and Thai subtitles.

The relevant agencies in both countries are working to resolve the issues together and Israeli visitors to Thailand will receive official travel guidance asking them to respect Thai laws and culture, Teplitskiy said.

Protesters call for respect of Thai culture and laws

Sondhi, who founded a protest movement that led to the 2006 ouster of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, voiced a litany of complaints against Israelis in Thailand, including violations of domestic laws, creating public disturbances and showing disrespect for local traditions and cultures.

Thailand's economy is heavily dependent on tourism, but also has implemented new measures to ensure visitors respect the country's norms. The government also has cracked down on foreigners who overstay visas or seek to circumvent property-ownership regulations, while also shortening visa-free stays.

Israeli visitors last year generated about $1.2 billion of Thailand's $48 billion in income derived from tourism. More than 277,000 Israelis visited Thailand in the first eight months of 2026, up about 7% over the same period last year, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports.

High profile cases include Israelis, French and Italians

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul last week ordered the deportation of an Israeli man who was convicted of threatening a zoo owner on the resort island of Koh Samui. The zoo had displayed a Palestinian flag.

The case was the first use of new regulations designed to ease the deportation of foreigners who break Thai laws or show “undesirable behavior.”

The French citizen who owned the zoo also had been accused of causing several other unrelated disturbances and was ordered to be deported days later.

While there has been a focus on Israelis, a confrontation in July between a Thai woman and a group of boisterous Italian students on a Bangkok train was caught on video and went viral, sparking widespread anger against the visitors. The Italian embassy intervened and posted an apology video from the group.

Israeli ambassador proposes guidance for Thailand visitors

The Jerusalem Post reported that Fisher-Kamm, the Israeli ambassador, acknowledged the concerns during the meeting with Sihasak and proposed issuing a “do's and don'ts” document for Israeli travelers, which was a demand by protesters on Thursday.

The Thai foreign minister said after the meeting that Thailand felt it could not “stand idly by” if visitors are acting detrimentally toward the country or people.

“Thailand is a country that welcomes tourists, but at the same time, our hospitality doesn’t mean that tourists, regardless of their nationality, can do whatever they want in Thailand,” Sihasak told reporters in Bangkok.

The Israeli embassy told The Associated Press on Wednesday it takes the concerns seriously and has provided practical guidance about Thailand to Israeli communities, adding that those who violate the laws should face appropriate consequences.

Public attention, however, may be disproportionate to the scale of incidents involving Israeli citizens and should not be taken as a representation of all Israelis in Thailand, the embassy said.

Chabad of Thailand, the country’s branch of an Orthodox Jewish movement that was mentioned by name in the open letter by protesters, said it had no immediate comment on the demonstration or the letter.

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David Rising in Bangkok and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.

They spent the first night denouncing Democrats as extremists before Trump capped Wednesday with a speech saying the choice this election is “very, very simple” and making the outlandish promise of $5,000 to each American adult, if his party wins.

Such a proposal could cost more than $1 trillion at a time when the nation faces a record $40 trillion debt and even some Republicans balked at the idea of tying direct payments to election results. Joe Lonsdale, a prominent donor and activist who supports much of what Trump has done in office, said on X that he is “strongly against bread and circus bribes.”

Thursday's lineup is expected to feature many of the same themes and includes a keynote from Vice President JD Vance and closing remarks from Trump.

Republicans are trying to overcome voters' concerns about the economy and the war with Iran, and many still see solidarity with Trump as their best shot at winning in November despite the president's low approval ratings.

“The midterms are not supposed to be won by the sitting president,” Trump acknowledged during a lengthy primetime speech.

But he predicted this one will be “something very special,” and encouraged voters to cast their ballots as if they were voting for him.

“Pretend I’m on the ballot,” he said.

A roster of Republican lawmakers, some of them the most electorally endangered in the country, took their turns Wednesday echoing warnings that tax cuts and immigration enforcement are all at risk if Democrats win. Many others skipped the confab altogether, and the party is competing for attention with another American institution, the National Football League, which started its season this week.

Democrats, holding their own events around the city, portrayed the Republicans as out of touch with voters' concerns about high prices and the ethics of the Trump administration.

“We want to ensure that people can actually live their lives, be able to work, have access to healthcare,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, “and the president’s more interested in sending bizarre, deranged social media posts and having his party in Dallas.”

They're showcasing accomplishments and warning of what's to come

The second night of the convention is expected to delve deeply into what House Speaker Mike Johnson calls the “Contrast for America," as Republicans showcase what they call their “Big Beautiful Bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts, and warn of a future if Democrats take control.

The campaign slogan is a throwback to an earlier era, when another Republican leader, Newt Gingrich, offered a Contract with America. This time, rather than presenting a detailed list of priorities, Republicans are drawing a contrast with the Democrats, who they contend are too far left and would focus on investigating the Trump administration.

“This is what we're talking about when we say common sense versus crazy communists,” said Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., warning of impeachments ahead if Republicans stay home.

“Are you going to let that happen?” he asked.

Many in the crowd, filled with MAGA gear and cowboy hats, roared back, “No!”

Trump did mention a proposal to cut credit card swipe fees at the end of his speech, which neared the two-hour mark, but he offered few other details.

Republicans have been quick to portray all Democrats as in line with their most liberal candidates, particularly a new generation, some backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. Still, one Democrat, outlier Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joined by video address, saying he would always reject extremes.

Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the House GOP Whip, roused the crowd by angrily name-checking incumbent Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar from Minneapolis and Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, along with New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani, three of the nation’s most prominent Muslim politicians.

“If you're not happy here, then get the hell out,” he said.

Trump hopes the convention will help GOP buck historical trends

With the Republican majorities in the House and Senate both at risk this fall, the president’s agenda for his final two years in office is also at stake. The margins in Congress are expected to be narrow, with a few seats in a shrunken map of competitive races determining the outcome.

Presidents past have acknowledged their midterm losses — Barack Obama called his 2010 setbacks a “shellacking,” George W. Bush labeled his a “thumping.”

But Trump often refuses to accept defeat, including his false claims that he, rather than Joe Biden, won the 2020 election. One of the many people he pardoned for their actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, former Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, appeared at the convention.

Trump on Wednesday said that in this election, “all that matters is that we are united."

He predicted that “the great American majority is going to stand up and continue to Make America Great Again. And we will make our voices heard, perhaps like never before.”

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the donor and activist to Joe Lonsdale, not Joe Londsdale.

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Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Thomas Beaumont and Jamie Stengle in Dallas, Will Weissert, Steven Sloan, and Aamer Madhani in Washington, JJ Cooper in Phoenix, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, and Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.

The U.S. will play the winner of the Spain-Australia game on Saturday in the medal round. France played China and Belgium played host Germany in the other quarterfinal matchups.

The Americans have now won 34 consecutive games in the tournament dating to a loss to Russia in the 2006 World Cup semifinals. The U.S. has made every medal round since 1983 when the format changed to have medal rounds.

It was a record-breaking performance for the U.S. The 108 points was the most by any team ever in a quarterfinal. The U.S. had 31 assists, again the most in this round.

“When that ball is moving, we want to get the best possible shot,” said Kahleah Copper, who had 10 points. “We want to make sure everybody gets involved. Everyone here on this roster, we know what they’re doing on their respective (WNBA) teams. But you come here, you sacrifice a little bit of that.”

Copper said the players were always looking to turn good scoring opportunities into great ones. The Americans did just that.

The U.S. was off and running early against Hungary, jumping out to a 36-12 lead after the first quarter. The Americans were constantly pounding the ball inside and converting turnovers into easy layups. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese showed their growing chemistry on the court, finishing the quarter with a nifty pick and roll just before the buzzer. Collier had 10 points in the first 10 minutes.

The offense was sizzling early on as the Americans hit 20 of their first 26 shots (77%), including five of six 3-point attempts to race to a 50-18 lead with 6 minutes left in the first half. The Americans led 59-30 at the break — the highest scoring first half in team history in a knockout game at the event according to FIBA.

The Americans got a little scare when Sonia Citron had to leave in the third quarter when she was hit in the nose by a Hungary player's hand by accident. Citron returned to start the fourth quarter.

Clark finished with 10 points and nine assists, just missing out on her second double-double of the tournament.

The U.S. was also solid on defense. They contained Hungary's top scorer Dorka Juhasz, who plays for the Minnesota Lynx. She came into the game averaging 15.3 points and 11 rebounds in the tournament. She missed her first seven shots and didn't get her first basket until 2:26 was left in the half. She finished the game with two points on 1 of 12 shooting.

Hungary came away with its best finish ever in the World Cup by reaching the quarterfinals for the first time. Hungary was fifth in the 1957 tournament but back then it was a round robin with no medal rounds.

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See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

A new Ipsos poll finds that about half of U.S. adults name the 9/11 attacks in an open-ended question about the most important historic occurrences in their lifetimes. That's despite other momentous events that have happened since then, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the elections of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

The polling points to the enduring legacy of 9/11, even as many Americans today are too young to have experienced or comprehended the event a quarter century ago. Ipsos found that the vast majority of Americans remember where they were when they heard about the attacks, and about two-thirds of Americans say it impacted the country “a great deal.” Separate polling from Gallup finds about 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they permanently changed the way they live their lives because of the attacks.

Despite the widespread impact, the Ipsos poll finds relatively few Americans will be marking the anniversary in some way. Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults plans to do something to commemorate Friday's 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Kevin Noel, 51, remembers watching the catastrophe unfold after he got out of a subway station to head to work near the World Trade Center that morning. To this day, the smell of the deadly inferno comes back to him whenever he’s in the area. He views 9/11 as the most historic event he’s lived through and believes “we’re going to be remembering this for the rest of history.” He plans to reflect on it privately on Friday.

“Every Sept. 11, I just — it’s a traumatic day for me where I just go silent,” Noel said.

The 9/11 attacks top the list of historic events in many Americans’ lifetime

For Americans who can remember the Sept. 11 attacks, they were a defining moment.

When U.S. adults were asked to list up to five of the most important historic events in their lifetime in the open-ended question -- where respondents answered in their own words -- the Sept. 11 attacks overshadowed the much more recent COVID-19 pandemic, which 31% of U.S. adults mentioned.

Other events, including the elections of Trump and Obama, space expeditions and the fall of the Berlin Wall, were cited by many Americans as defining moments. For Americans 65 and older, the most frequently mentioned events were the Sept. 11 attacks, followed by President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, space expeditions and the Vietnam War.

Clara Kiel, 88, says World War II had more impact on her life personally, as it hung over her childhood and she knew people who served. But she recalls the shock of watching 9/11 happen on TV from her living room. She also plans to take a moment to reflect privately on the 25th anniversary.

“It always seems like there’s something in history that changes the way people think," said Kiel, a retired secretary in Onamia, Minnesota. “9/11 did it for the generation that grew up through that.”

For younger Americans under 35, COVID-19 is more prominent. About half of U.S. adults under 35 say the pandemic was among the most impactful events of their lifetime, while about one-third mention 9/11. A significant share of younger adults were not born when the attacks happened, or were too young to remember where they were at the time.

About 6 in 10 adults who were born after the attacks say they first learned about 9/11 in a class or through schoolwork, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in August.

Californian Kainoa Ilac, 18, who's heading to college in Los Angeles, learned about the attacks from his parents, who are history teachers.

“I think that I and a lot of my peers in my generation still feel the effects of that day,” from airport security to awareness of the government’s ability to monitor communications, he said.

Americans overwhelmingly say the 9/11 attacks impacted the country

About 9 in 10 Americans say the attacks on Sept. 11 impacted the United States “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” according to Ipsos. Roughly 7 in 10 say it had at least “quite a bit” of impact on the world, and about 6 in 10 say it had a significant impact on their generation. Closer to 3 in 10 say it impacted their family or them personally.

Americans ages 50 and older are especially likely to say the attacks affected them personally.

Among the roughly 1 in 10 Americans who plan to mark the day, about 7 in 10 say they will participate in a moment of silence, and most, 56%, will display an American flag.

Lakesha Crowell remembers 9/11 in detail, including where she was sitting in her sophomore world history class in Meridian, Mississippi, when the teacher disclosed that two planes had hit New York’s World Trade Center. She recalls the security changes, the economic fallout, the way some people around her began looking differently upon foreigners, and the sense of vigilance at both individual and national levels.

“It affected us a lot, because it changed our way of living, and it changed our way of thinking,” said Crowell, 40.

Confidence in government’s ability to protect Americans from terrorism is down

Americans are divided on whether the country has become safer from foreign attacks since 9/11.

The Ipsos poll found about one-third of U.S. adults say the country is “more safe,” and a similar share say it is “less safe.” The remaining one-third, roughly, say the U.S. is about as safe as it was before the attacks.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say the country has become safer.

Recent Gallup polling found most U.S. adults, 55%, have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in the U.S. government to protect its citizens from future acts of terrorism. That faith was at its highest, 88%, in polling conducted in the days after the 9/11 attack. It has ticked down over the 25-year trend, but the most recent measure is among the lowest recorded, similar to a poll conducted just after a deadly 2015 mass shooting in southern California.

Additionally, about one-third say they are “very” or “somewhat” worried that they or someone in their family will become a victim of terrorism. That’s down from about 6 in 10 who said that in the days following Sept. 11, 2001.

David Bronkhurst, a 49-year-old in Bloomingdale, New Jersey, recalls that after the attacks, his then-partner volunteered at the World Trade Center disaster site, handing out supplies to rescue and recovery workers, and some friends changed career paths to join the fire department. Other friends on the city’s police force died from cancers after they were exposed to toxins from the ash and dust at ground zero, he said.

He plans to attend an annual candlelight procession from a neighboring town to his own.

Bronkhurst doesn’t consider the country safer now than it was before the attacks — but he doesn’t worry too much that terrorism might strike him or his family. “You can’t go through life being scared," he said.

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Peltz reported from New York.

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The Ipsos poll of 1,013 adults was conducted Aug. 21-23 using a sample drawn from Ipsos's probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

El Centro Nacional de Huracanes de Estados Unidos, con sede en Miami, indicó que la tormenta se encontraba a unos 1.102 kilómetros (685 millas) al suroeste del extremo sur de la península de Baja California, en México. Tenía vientos máximos sostenidos de 64 km/h (40 mph) y se desplazaba hacia el oeste.

El centro señaló que no había alertas ni avisos costeros en vigor. Se pronosticó un fortalecimiento gradual durante los próximos días.

También en el Pacífico, la tormenta tropical Lowell continuó desplazándose hacia el oeste sobre aguas abiertas con vientos máximos sostenidos de 105 km/h (65 mph). A principios de esta semana, la tormenta llevó fuertes lluvias y vientos dañinos a las islas hawaianas cuando tenía categoría de huracán.

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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.

But travel scams have become more sophisticated, and scammers using new artificial intelligence tools have become better at creating fake websites and using stolen data to their advantage, said Florent Silve, an executive at Engine, a corporate travel management platform.

“What used to look like a fake website now becomes much harder to spot by consumers,” Silve said.

According to a Federal Trade Commission report published in June, Americans last year reported losing $3.5 billion to scams in which impostors contacted them through text, email, phone, social media and search engines, though those weren't all travel scams. Nearly 1 in 3 fraud reports were about impostor scams, making it the most reported fraud category.

Travel scams can happen before you even hop on a plane, with scammers posing as your hotel or airline to take advantage of the fact that you're expecting to receive communications from those companies.

“In the past, people were like ‘Oh if I receive a scam that is completely out of place, that's how I know it’s a scam.’ But now, the most dangerous scams don’t look suspicious; they look expected,” said Iskander Sanchez-Rola, a scam expert for Norton, a cybersecurity company.

If you’re planning a trip soon, here are some expert recommendations to stay safe from travel scams:

Beware of reservation hijacking

A new common travel scam is reservation hijacking, Sanchez-Rola said. In this scam, imposters send you an email or text, pretending to be your hotel. They pretend that something went wrong, such as a failed payment, and say you need to take immediate action.

What makes these scams particularly difficult to spot is that scammers often use real information to make you believe they are legit, Sanchez-Rola said. Scammers target hotel systems by phishing hotel staff to get login credentials and then accessing legitimate information from hotels or booking services. Using this information, scammers send you an email with your actual reservation dates or the exact cost of your hotel stay, hoping to convince you they're with the company you used to make the reservation.

“The main thing is that this isn’t a fake booking confirmation, it’s a real reservation that is weaponized against you," Sanchez-Rola said.

If you encounter this type of scam, Sanchez-Rola recommends that you don’t rush to make a payment through the provided link and instead call your hotel directly. Don’t call the number attached to the email or text you received because it might have come from the scammer. Instead, go to the official hotel website and call the number listed there.

Be wary of flight cancellation notifications

Another popular scam involves flight cancellations, Sanchez-Rola said. Scammers contact you with an urgent message saying your flight has been canceled or delayed, then pretend to help you rebook your flight for an additional cost.

“You're going to a place, and one day before that happens, they tell you that the flight was canceled," Sanchez-Rola said. “So in that moment, there is an inherent urgency.”

If you receive a text saying that your flight has been canceled, don’t panic. First, go directly to your airline’s portal and verify the information. If you need to rebook your flight, do so directly with the airline or third-party booking system you originally used. Above all, don’t click on any links sent to you through a text message, Sanchez-Rola said.

To help keep yourself safe from being scammed in the first place, don't post photos of your plane tickets and other travel documents on social media. Even if you cover your flight number with emojis, the ticket can reveal more than you think.

“The QR codes or the barcodes that are there include a lot of information," Sanchez-Rola said. “Sometimes they even include information about returning flights.”

Beware of QR codes

In recent years, QR codes have become a popular way to pay your bill at your restaurant table. This may be convenient, but it can also make you a target for scams, said Alissa Abdullah, Mastercard’s deputy chief security officer. Scammers paste a new code overlapping the restaurant’s code and direct customers to a fraudulent payment system.

“You may be sitting at a coffee shop and have a real QR code with a fake one that’s a sticker laid right on top,” Abdullah said.

If you’re suspicious of the payment page or notice a sticker laid on top of another at a restaurant, Abdullah recommends that you speak with a staff member and find a different way to pay, such as cash or a credit card.

Be careful when using public Wi-Fi

It’s very common to connect to a public Wi-Fi network to find your way around a new city or download your plane tickets at the airport. While free Wi-Fi can help during travel, it also carries some cybersecurity risks.

“Sometimes cyber criminals will create a network that looks close to the name of a legit network to dupe you into logging onto their network,” said Brian Cute, chief executive officer and director of the capacity and resilience program at Global Cyber Alliance, a nonprofit focused on reducing cyber risk.

If you access a scammer’s network, they can steal personal information, damage your system, or gain remote access to your devices. If you need to use public Wi-Fi, Cute recommends that you stick to basic searches, like how to get to your hotel, rather than accessing websites such as your bank or email.

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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.

On the island of Kauai, the storm damaged oceanfront resorts, knocked out power and ripped apart roads, while on Lanai, a cargo port where much of the island's food and supplies arrive was inoperable, the state's governor said.

Lowell brushed by the islands in the overnight hours Tuesday with damaging winds that extended well beyond the hurricane's center, which stayed offshore.

While it has been a relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season, there have been four hurricanes in the Pacific since the beginning of August. A new tropical storm formed on Thursday.

In Hawaii, first responders on Kauai's south end found the body of a 74-year-old man on Wednesday near the shoreline. Authorities believe his death was related to the storm surge, police said.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said another man was killed on Oahu when a large tree fell on his tent Monday during the storm. The man was homeless and living in a park, he said.

Hawaii's governor asks Trump to declare a disaster

The Democratic governor on Wednesday asked President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration to expedite federal help for Kauai and Maui counties.

“We cannot wait for every damaged road, utility pole, harbor and public facility to be assigned a dollar value before asking the federal government to act,” Green said in making the request.

Lowell knocked out power to much of Kauai on Tuesday but electricity was being restored, with the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative saying the following day that power was back on at three hospitals. Across the island, just under 16,000 customers were without power Thursday, according to poweroutage.us.

The governor said the overall destruction to Hawaii's infrastructure, businesses and homes may be comparable to that of Hurricane Iniki — a Category 4 storm that walloped Kauai in 1992 and caused $3 billion in damage.

Lowell has since been downgraded to a tropical storm and was moving westward over open water.

A new storm forms in the Pacific

Tropical Storm Norbert formed Thursday in the Pacific but wasn't threatening land, forecasters said.

The storm was about 685 miles (1,102 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (64 kph) and was moving west.

There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the center said. Some gradual strengthening was forecast over the coming days.

The ship was being repaired in the Beihai Shipbuilding Co. at the port of Qingdao, a major shipping hub on the northeastern Chinese coast. A photo released by Xinhua news agency identified the ship as the Ocean Melody, which sails under a Liberian flag, according to the tracking website VesselFinder.

A total of 42 people had been on the vessel, and 12 of them were safely evacuated, Xinhua reported. Five were injured and taken to the hospital, and they remained in a stable condition.

The fire started around 11 a.m. Thursday and was extinguished by 2:30 p.m. local time. Videos online showed workers on the ship attempting to put out the fire.

China’s President Xi Jinping issued “important instructions” to urgently conduct rescues of missing people on the ship, Xinhua said, adding that Premier Li Qiang called for “trapped” people to be rescued.

Xi also called for ensuring “preventive measures are thoroughly implemented” and “resolutely prevent major and catastrophic accidents.”

Beihai Shipbuilding is part of the state-controlled China State Shipbuilding Corporation, the world’s largest shipbuilder. Its main businesses include shipbuilding and ship repairing, according to Beihai Shipbuilding’s website.

Bodø/Glimt is coming off a run to the last 16 that included victories over Manchester City, Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan. The tiny Norwegian club has already come through two rounds of qualifying to reach the league phase again.

With 14 goals in 13 matches last season, Bayern striker Harry Kane finished second only to Kylian Mbappé (15) in last season's scoring chart. Bayern was eliminated by eventual champion Paris Saint-Germain in the semifinals.

Cesc Fabregas' Como finished fourth ahead of Juventus and AC Milan last season to claim Serie A’s final Champions League spot with a high-pressing brand of soccer that is uncommon in Italy.

Having played in the fourth division of Italian soccer just seven years ago, it’s the first time in Como’s 119-year history that it has qualified for a continental competition.

Also, three-time winner Manchester United marks its Champions League return after two years out by hosting Azerbaijani debutant Sabah, which came through three rounds of qualifying and a playoff to make it this far.

In the early kickoffs at 6:45 p.m. (1645 GMT) in Central Europe, Serie A leader Roma visits Fenerbahce and PSV Eindhoven hosts Shakhtar Donetsk.

Slavia Prague plays Lens in the other late match at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT).

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

State coastal officials voted Wednesday to allow a plan to build the United States' largest kelp farm 6 miles (10 kilometers) off the Southern California coast to move forward as the Trump administration seeks to ramp up aquaculture in the Pacific Ocean.

Ocean Rainforest, which is based in the Faroe Islands in Northern Europe, is planning to grow giant kelp on a roughly 3-square-mile (7.8-square-kilometer) stretch of federal waters to develop products to boost soil and plant health in California’s avocado farms and strawberry fields. Some environmentalists are concerned that the lines used to grow seaweed could tangle whales and that increased boat traffic will disrupt an expanse of ocean that has been wild.

Ocean Rainforest said it plans to gradually build up the sea farm over a decade and could harvest as much as 6,000 tons of kelp at full capacity, ramping up a U.S. seaweed industry that lags behind Asia despite the country's extensive coastlines. The plan is to harvest kelp and process it in the port city of Ventura about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.

“Let’s start in our backyard,” Douglas Bush, Ocean Rainforest's director of California operations, said in a recent interview. “Let’s grow the seaweed here, let’s process here in California, let’s use it in California farms.”

Farm part of push for aquaculture

The proposal to grow kelp off Ventura County comes as the Trump administration seeks to promote commercial aquaculture. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last year designated 13 areas totaling 33 square miles (85 square kilometers) for the development of aquaculture off California and Texas. The plan is part of a 2020 push to develop the U.S. seafood industry.

It also comes as the market for seaweed has been growing for uses ranging from restaurant dishes to pet food. Dozens of farms are cultivating different types of seaweed in New England, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. A World Bank report in 2023 estimated seaweed markets could grow another $11.8 billion by 2030.

Some environmental groups backed the California project, noting seaweed can help absorb carbon dioxide from warming ocean waters and restore habitat while feeding off ocean nutrients.

Environmentalists raise questions

But some raised questions about the impact of hundreds of boat trips a year to maintain and harvest the seaweed and the potential for whales migrating or feeding in the area to get tangled in lines stretching up from the sea floor, or tethered to buoys, to grow the kelp. Ocean Rainforest said no whales got tangled in taut lines during a two-year demo project.

“This is our blue Serengeti. This is a very wild place,” said Geoff Shester, director of fishery innovation at the ocean conservation group Oceana. “It’s like you might as well put a bunch of industrial data centers in Yosemite National Park.”

Cassidy Teufel, deputy director at the coastal commission, said during a review of the project that seaweed farms use taut, rigid lines, not the loose fishing lines that are a leading cause of whale entanglements. The farm will be located further offshore where there's a lower density of marine mammals, Teufel said.

It is possible the project will draw fish, and sportfishing will be permitted in the area, Teufel said. Some commercial fishing will be displaced, and Ocean Rainforest and fishermen said they are working on an industry support fund.

Under U.S. law, California officials have a say over projects built on federal properties that will affect the state’s coast. The California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to let the kelp farm move forward with conditions including a phased approach. Ocean Rainforest will initially build in a smaller area and face periodic reviews by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the commission's director before expanding to full capacity.

With the decision, Ocean Rainforest said it has the major approvals needed for the project. Construction could begin in 2027.

The region around Ventura is known for growing strawberries, avocados and other crops.

Ted Travers, chief operating officer of the avocado farm Simpatica, said he was eager to see kelp-based products for agriculture developed on the West Coast. He said in a letter to the commission that all the kelp currently used for agricultural purposes comes from the Atlantic Ocean, “which is financially and environmentally impractical.”

Ventura and port officials welcomed the project as a way to bring new industry and jobs to the city of 100,000 people.

They'll have only about 36 hours in Melbourne between their 15-hour flights, but coach Sean McVay remains confident this unusual itinerary provides the Rams' best chance to open the regular season with a difficult win over the San Francisco 49ers.

“We’re well-rested. We feel good,” McVay said Thursday after the Rams' brief practice at Marvel Stadium, the retractable-roof venue just 3 1/2 kilometers from the game venue, the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

McVay added that many of his players “got to sleep through the night" on their journey from Los Angeles. "Guys were comfortable, and they seemed fresh. Get a good rest tonight, and be ready to rock tomorrow.”

Before the Rams face the 49ers at the 100,000-seat MCG in a game that kicks off at 10:35 a.m. local time, they spent their sole off-day in Melbourne resting, going through a light workout and attempting to get a slight flavor of the cosmopolitan city hosting the NFL's first regular-season game in Australia.

It's only a fraction of the experience enjoyed by the Niners, who have been in Australia for over a week. But the Rams decided months ago to eschew the fun parts of an international trip to focus on continuity, keeping their body clocks on California time and minimizing the distractions of international travel.

“Obviously, we would love to have the opportunity to connect with the fans out here a little bit more, but we did what we could (today), getting out and trying some coffee and getting out on the streets,” receiver Davante Adams said. “We had a chance to meet and see some of the fans, so we did as much as we could with our travel schedule.”

The Rams' strategy hasn't been well-received in Australia, where many fans expected more face time with a team attempting to build a support base as one of the NFL clubs designated for promotion in the country. McVay and the Rams' front office have heard the criticism, but it hasn't affected their belief in a travel strategy they first used last season for a game in London — albeit a much shorter trip from the U.S. East Coast than this journey across the Pacific.

“We wouldn’t do anything if we didn’t think it was best for our players,” McVay said. “I’m not saying we have all the answers, but we wanted to keep our guys in a normal rhythm and routine as long as possible, and we feel like (the plan) is going to be something that suits us well.”

Stafford knows the Rams' wisdom will be retroactively judged by how well they play against their NFC West archrivals. San Francisco has won 11 of the clubs' 19 meetings during the parallel coaching careers of McVay and Kyle Shanahan — and even though the Rams have won four of the last five, that loss was an embarrassing home upset handed out by a Niners roster missing most of its best players.

“It’s going to boil down to, how good do we feel tomorrow? I think we’re all going to feel really good. We’re excited to start a new season with a bunch of new guys, and go out there and attack the game. ... I think guys will be tired at the right time, and be ready to rock and roll in the morning.”

And if the Rams win again with their late travel strategy, Adams won't be surprised if other teams copy McVay's innovation in the future — just as they've done with so many aspects of his offensive schemes.

“They probably should," Adams said. “If it works, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's what they say.”

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The Department of Homeland Security has been quiet about its plans, saying in a statement Wednesday it would make an announcement “at an appropriate time” and that Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador would stay in effect until then. Its silence sent attorneys and advocates scrambling to explain what might happen next.

Under immigration law, temporary status is automatically extended for six months if the government takes no action. But some attorneys cautioned that the administration could take action without making a public statement or that it could announce a decision in the near future.

Still, it gave a short reprieve to Salvadoran immigrants and raised expectations that they could be spared, unlike hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have seen TPS end since President Donald Trump again took office last year. TPS allows people already in the country to remain, with work permits, for renewable periods of up to 18 months, if the homeland security secretary determines conditions are unsafe for their return.

In May, protections were automatically extended for six months for about 11,000 Lebanese.

Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador was scheduled to expire Wednesday, which came and went without any public statements on key Homeland Security websites or social media accounts about whether it would end or be renewed. No updates were posted by early Thursday.

The administration has ended protections for more than a dozen countries

In Trump’s second term, Homeland Security has ended TPS for more than 1 million people from more than a dozen countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Syria. About 103,000 people, from Ukraine, Sudan and Lebanon, remain in the U.S. under TPS.

The Trump administration notched a major victory when the Supreme Court ruled in June that it acted within its authority by ending TPS for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” who has advocated for ending TPS, said Tuesday that the decision rests with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“If it expires, it’s up to the secretary,” Homan said. “Temporary protected status means temporary. Let’s face it, El Salvador is a much safer country than it’s ever been now with a new president up there.”

Congress created temporary protections in 1990

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.

It was granted to El Salvador following two devastating 2001 earthquakes that left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Just before leaving office, President Joe Biden extended it for El Salvador for 18 months to Sept. 9, 2026.

El Salvador has been a Trump ally

El Salvador, once one of the most violent places in the world, has become one of the safest countries in the Americas since Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele ordered mass arrests in 2022.

Bukele has been an ally of Trump’s policy of mass deportations and was one of the first countries to receive deportees, holding them in a mega prison known as CECOT. The two men have met twice in Washington since last April.

Human rights groups and advocates have denounced mass and arbitrary arrests, torture, and disappearances in the Central American nation’s prison system.

Salvadorans in the U.S. sent $9.9 billion in remittances to El Salvador last year, representing 24% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to El Salvador’s central bank.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Bukele asked Trump to extend TPS. Bukele has not said publicly if he has requested another extension.

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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

In a smash-and-grab at another French museum, three masked robbers stole 27 pieces of jewelry valued at more than 4.5 million euros (US$5.2 million), busting through two doors to break in.

Those thefts took place in July. This week, thieves sliced through a fence and climbed through the window of a museum on the French Riviera and fled with two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. They abandoned two other artworks by the Impressionist master as they made their escape.

The rash of the robberies, coming on the heels of last year's stunning jewel heist in France's most famous and most visited museum, the Louvre, show how the country is both blessed and cursed by its troves of treasure accumulated over centuries of conquest, creativity and having money to spend on art.

France's passion for paintings, sculptures, ancient artifacts and other valuables and curios is a source of national pride and identity. Thousands of museums that house collections big and small help transmit France's love of culture and history from one generation to the next. The biggest also draw millions of tourists who pump money into the French economy.

But keeping all that wealth safe is costly and difficult. Criminals see museums as soft targets. The brazen and agonizing theft of 88 million euros ($102 million) worth of crown jewels from display cases in the Louvre's Apollo gallery served as a wake-up call. But it was only the most shocking example of broader threats to museums, and not just in France.

“When the jewels of a French king disappear, to be melted down because of the price of gold, it is tragic. It breaks everyone’s heart,” said Guillaume Poitrinal, president of a foundation that funds the renovation and protection of French cultural sites, the Fondation du patrimoine.

“We need to make it more difficult to steal works of art and objects that are part of France’s cultural heritage and belong to all French people. That is absolutely essential. And to achieve that, we need to invest,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Renoir heist took just minutes

Before dawn Tuesday, two robbers made off with “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano” and “Young Woman at the Well.” They dropped ’’Portrait of Madame Pichon” and “Coco Reading” as they fled through the garden of the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer.

They cut through a fence with an electric knife or saw and entered the museum through the ground floor, said Bryan Masson, mayor of the town between Cannes and Nice on the Mediterranean coast.

The heist took under three minutes. Masson estimated the artworks' value at 9 million euros ($10.5 million). Offloading well-known, stolen art is impossible through legitimate channels, so the paintings could prove to be worth little or nothing for the thieves.

European police agency Europol says museum heists are becoming more violent, with sledgehammers, axes, crowbars and even explosives used for break-ins and to smash display cases.

Thieves also are increasingly targeting museum items with gold and other precious metals that can be melted down and with gemstones that can be removed and sold, the agency said in a report in August. Criminals believe “museum security measures are less robust than those in jewelry stores,” it said.

The ancient necklace stolen July 24 from the museum in Châtillon-sur-Seine, eastern France, was crafted from nearly half a kilo (a pound) of gold.

A record 10 burglaries targeted French and other European museums this summer, according to Jean-Christophe Castelain, director of Le Journal des Arts, a bimonthly revue of the art world.

“Eight of those 10 involved jewelry, coins or antique objects that can easily be melted down,” he said.

A distraught museum director shares her pain

The Lalique Museum in Wingen-sur-Moder, further east near France's border with Germany, has not reopened since the July 5 theft of jewelry there from six display cases busted open with sledgehammers and hammers. The public museum celebrates 19th-century jeweler and glassmaker René Lalique and his successors.

The pain is still raw for its director, Véronique Brumm Schaich. Her voice cracked with emotion during an interview. The museum is seeking 200,000 euros ($233,000) for security upgrades.

“Robbers’ tactics are evolving,” she said. “The recent examples show that we are not the only ones who need to go further in our efforts.”

Because of government budget squeezes, it's not yet clear how much funding will come from public coffers, she said. The museum is also collecting private donations, because “these are things that are extremely expensive,” she said.

“These are difficult times,” she said. “A burglary never comes at a good time, but this one came at an especially bad time.”

Some of the funding that the Fondation du patrimoine provides, including for museums, comes from a national lottery. To help boost museum revenues, the foundation is also launching a pass that will grant subscribers access to 500 museums, monuments and châteaux.

“France is a country where we love passing the buck,” said Poitrinal, the foundation president. “People say it is the state’s responsibility or the city’s responsibility. I say it's quite simple: it is everyone’s responsibility.”

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Associated Press journalists Catherine Gaschka and Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed.

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Negotiators are striving to implement reciprocal tariff reductions on $30 billion worth of goods “at an early date,” Commerce Ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said at a weekly briefing.

The $30 billion will be from each side, China's official Xinhua News Agency said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet in Washington on Sept. 24 for what will be their third face-to-face talks in the past year. Both governments characterize the meetings as a way to stabilize relations in an era of competing interests between the world's two largest economies.

“Leaders’ diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-U. S. relations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Thursday.

Trump and Xi agreed at their previous meeting in May in Beijing to launch a U.S.-China Board of Trade that would manage trade between the two countries, along with a parallel Board of Investment. The agreements came after a truce was reached in a blistering tariff war in which Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese imports to extremely high levels and China responded in kind.

The talks on reciprocal tariff reductions are a central part of the negotiations on creating the Board of Trade. The goal is to identify and reduce tariffs on equivalent amounts of “nonsensitive” goods on each side, the U.S. said.

“Trade will be front and center at the summit,” Barclays Bank said in a research note this week on the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting, noting that the truce the two countries reached on tariffs expires on Nov. 10. But it cautioned that the scope for a broad trade deal is limited, and that targeted tariff reductions are more likely.

But as the U.S. and China have already reduced mutual trade reliance, the “overall trade significance will be more limited than before, given the smaller bilateral volume,” said Gary Ng, a senior economist at French bank Natixis.

Chinese exports to the U.S., for example, fell sharply last year, after the U.S. rolled out elevated tariffs.

An agreement on reciprocal tariff reductions could likely benefit the U.S. more, as $30 billion is roughly 28% of its exports to China, while it is only around 10% the other way around, Ng said.

The International Skating Union on Thursday said Valieva was one of four Russian skaters, all 2022 Olympians, who were deemed not to “satisfy the requirements to participate as Individual Neutral Athletes.”

The others are men's skater Mark Kondratiuk and the ice dance team of Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin. No specific reasons were given in the four cases.

“The ISU will not comment further on individual cases while any applicable appeal rights remain available,” it said.

The latest obstacle to the 20-year-old Valieva's career comes more than four years after disputes about her positive doping test overshadowed the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when she was 15. She's spent much of the time since then in various legal disputes.

Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyaryov said the skaters had been “unjustly deprived of the right to take part in international competitions” and they would be given legal assistance to appeal the decisions with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Appeals at CAS can take months, raising questions over whether the skaters could return to ISU events this season even if they manage to overturn the decision.

More Russians can skate as neutrals

The ISU is allowing more Russians to compete as neutral athletes this season, after most had been barred from its events following the invasion of Ukraine. It states they are “presumed eligible unless they fall within the disqualifying criteria.”

That has meant skaters such as Valieva have been considered eligible briefly after filing the paperwork for neutral status, only to have that status revoked soon after.

The ISU barred skaters from Russia and its ally Belarus in 2022. It allowed a limited number to return for the Milan Cortina Olympics and a qualifying event last season. Two Russian figure skaters, Adeliia Petrosian and Petr Gumennik, competed at the Olympics as neutrals without national flags and symbols but neither won a medal.

The ISU rules say skaters may be refused neutral status if they are serving with military or security forces, have previously participated in military operations against Ukraine or have “actively and publicly supported that war” since 2022.

Valieva has a case at human rights court

In a separate matter, Valieva is also pursuing legal action over the process around her doping ban, which ended late last year.

A document published by the European Court of Human Rights on Monday showed Valieva filed a claim against Switzerland over a Swiss supreme court decision against her last year. At that time, she was attempting to have the suspension overturned.

Valieva’s claim to the European court alleges that the Swiss court infringed her rights by refusing to consider alleged new evidence in her favor, the ECHR document says. At the Swiss supreme court, Valieva’s lawyers presented an Associated Press news article from September 2024 to claim the World Anti-Doping Agency suppressed evidence.

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See full AP coverage of European sports here

Japón desplegó a 300 efectivos, el buque de desembarco JS Kunisaki y tres helicópteros CH-47, que llegaron a Kalimantan, en la isla de Borneo.

La misión en Indonesia era la primera operación de extinción de incendios en el extranjero de la que se tiene conocimiento realizada por las Fuerzas de Autodefensa de Japón, o JSDF.

“Con este fin, aprenderemos de la experiencia operativa del ejército indonesio y trabajaremos en coordinación y cooperación con ellos, esforzándonos por garantizar que el pueblo indonesio pueda llevar vidas estables lo antes posible”, afirmó el coronel Syunji Nakahara, comandante de las actividades de ayuda en casos de desastre, en un puerto del distrito de Mempawah.

Japón e Indonesia también han estrechado de forma progresiva sus vínculos de cooperación militar, y ambas partes han conversado sobre la venta de destructores japoneses usados.

Indonesia ha sufrido incendios forestales y de tierras durante décadas, pero el patrón climático de El Niño que se intensifica este año y una prolongada temporada seca agravaron el impacto de los incendios.

La neblina tóxica y el humo han provocado una crisis sanitaria en países vecinos.

El humo ha llegado hasta Filipinas, a más de 800 kilómetros (500 millas) de distancia, y superó el umbral de nivel de riesgo en Malasia para contaminación del aire, lo que obligó a las autoridades a declarar una emergencia la semana pasada en una localidad del estado de Sarawak, en Borneo.

La contaminación del aire también ha afectado a varias zonas de la isla de Sumatra, lo que obligó a las escuelas a suspender las actividades docentes en escuelas. La neblina tóxica ha afectado a más de 1,4 millones de estudiantes en todo el país.

Los esfuerzos de extinción de incendios de Japón respaldarán a las autoridades indonesias para llegar a zonas a las que los equipos terrestres tienen dificultades para acceder.

Las JSDF indicaron en un comunicado el jueves que los tres helicópteros CH-47 Chinook procedentes de Japón comenzarán a realizar operaciones de extinción de incendios en Borneo tan pronto como concluyan los preparativos.

“A través de estas operaciones, nos dedicaremos a apoyar a las personas afectadas de Indonesia y a prevenir daños adicionales”, indicó un comunicado escrito de las JSDF el jueves.

Las autoridades indonesias han intensificado los esfuerzos de extinción de incendios en varias provincias mientras buscan contener los incendios. Las labores han incluido aeronaves proporcionadas por países del Sudeste Asiático y de otras regiones, como Japón, Estados Unidos, Rusia, Australia, Canadá y Ucrania.

El Ministerio de Silvicultura de Indonesia registró más de 202.000 hectáreas (casi 500.000 acres) de terreno quemado entre enero y julio, casi tres veces el tamaño de Singapur.

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Mari Yamaguchi contribuyó a este despacho desde Tokio.

Japan deployed 300 crew members, landing ship JS Kunisaki and three CH-47 helicopters, which arrived in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.

The mission in Indonesia marked the first known overseas firefighting operation carried out by the Japan Self-Defense Forces, or JSDF.

“To this end, we will learn from the Indonesian military’s operational experience and work in coordination and cooperation with them, striving to ensure that the Indonesian people can lead stable lives as soon as possible,” Col. Syunji Nakahara, the commander of the disaster relief activities, said at a port in Mempawah district.

Japan and Indonesia have been also increasingly strengthening their military cooperation ties, with the two sides discussing the Japanese sale of its used destroyers.

Indonesia has been plagued by forest and land fires for decades, but an intensifying El Niño pattern this year and a prolonged dry season worsened the impact of the fires.

Toxic haze and smoke have caused a health crisis in neighboring countries.

The smoke has drifted as far as the Philippines, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) away, and breached Malaysia’s emergency-level threshold for air pollution, forcing authorities to declare an emergency last week in a town in Sarawak state on Borneo.

The air pollution has also affected several areas on the island of Sumatra, forcing schools to suspend learning activities at school. The toxic haze has affected more than 1.4 million students across the country.

Japan's firefighting efforts will support Indonesian authorities in reaching areas that are difficult for ground teams to access.

The JSDF said in a statement on Thursday that the three CH-47 Chinook helicopters from Japan will start conducting firefighting operations on Borneo as soon as preparations are complete.

“Through these operations, we will dedicate ourselves to supporting the affected people of Indonesia and preventing further damage,” a written statement from JSDF said on Thursday.

Indonesian authorities have escalated firefighting efforts in several provinces as they seek to contain the blazes. The efforts have involved aircraft provided by countries in Southeast Asia and beyond, including Japan, the United States, Russia, Australia, Canada and Ukraine.

Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry recorded more than 202,000 hectares (nearly 500,000 acres) of burned land between January and July, almost three times Singapore’s size.

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Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report from Tokyo.

Separately, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized Yemen's strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha, according to Houthi and Yemeni officials, bringing the rebels closer to controlling a critical waterway to the Red Sea.

Here’s a look at the latest news in the Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.

2 children are killed in a Gaza strike

Two children were among the dead after Israel carried out a new strike in the northern Gaza community of Beit Lahiya, according to Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were taken.

The strike killed a husband and wife, alongside their two daughters, aged 8 and 12.

“There is nothing that can justify Israel attacking this home,” said Zuheir al-Heisami, a neighbor of the family, at the hospital. He said the strike happened at around 2 a.m. “These were two children and their parents that were killed while they were asleep.”

The Israeli military in a statement said the strike in Beit Lahiya “eliminated” a militant who had taken part in attacks against its forces. It did not give details.

Israel’s military in the past has said it carries out strikes in response to threats against its forces under the fragile ceasefire that has been in place since October.

Yemen's Houthi rebels take key port city, officials say

The Iran-backed Houthi rebel group on Thursday took over Yemen’s port city of Mokha, Houthi and Yemeni officials said.

Mokha is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden through which about 12% of the world’s oil and other goods are shipped.

The Bab el-Mandeb has become even more important for global energy supplies since shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz was disrupted by Iran after it was attacked by the United States and Israel in February.

The Houthis’ takeover of Mokha was confirmed to The Associated Press by Ahmed Baash, a commander with the National Resistance Forces allied with Yemen’s government, and Hazam al-Assad, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau.

Algeria says it's ending diplomatic ties with the UAE

Algeria's government announced on Thursday that it’s severing diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates.

An Algerian Foreign Ministry statement read on state television gave no specific reason for the decision, but cited alleged “provocative and hostile actions” by the Gulf Arab state and “regrettable and unjustified behavior.”

Israel threatens strikes on Iran’s energy facilities if attacked

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iran of a “powerful response” if Israel is attacked, saying it would “inflict severe damage on Iran of a kind it has not yet suffered, including on its central energy facilities.”

Katz' video statement came after Iran launched missiles at U.S. targets in Israel’s eastern neighbor of Jordan earlier this week in response to U.S. strikes on Iranian oil tankers.

Former WSJ reporter Selina Cheng, also chairperson of the trade union Hong Kong Journalists Association, launched a private prosecution against Dow Jones Publishing Co. (Asia) Inc. after losing her job in July 2024.

The case has raised concerns about media freedom in the Chinese territory. Cheng and the journalists association are advocates of press freedom but have been operating under pressure since the government cracked down on pro-democracy media and political dissent. The government has been critical of the union.

Cheng earlier said that her supervisor told her that her participation in the union election was problematic and that the supervisor needed to discuss the issue with WSJ's management in New York and Dow Jones’ in-house lawyers. Cheng said that she was told that her union role would be incompatible with her employment.

Dow Jones said that it respectfully disagrees with the ruling and is evaluating its next step. It said the Journal has a “long and proud history” as an employer in Hong Kong.

“Throughout that time, we have remained deeply respectful of its labor laws and supportive of our employees’ rights, while publishing excellent, impartial journalism about the region,” it said.

A partial win for Cheng

In convicting the company, Principal Magistrate David Cheung pointed to the firm's requirement for its approval before Cheng ran for election for the union's leadership role. Cheung said that the election didn't take place within the journalist’s working hours.

But he said that the defense has raised sufficient reasonable doubt for the second charge over her dismissal. The defense previously tried to convince the court that Cheng was terminated because of redundancy.

Dow Jones pleaded not guilty last year to two charges under the city’s Employment Ordinance, each carrying a maximum fine of 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $12,750). The first charge alleges the company had prevented or deterred Cheng from exercising union participation rights. The second alleges the company terminated her employment for exercising those rights.

During the trial, the defense argued the prosecution hadn't sufficiently proved that the firm’s management instructed Cheng’s supervisor. It also accused Cheng of abusing the criminal process in a previous hearing.

But the magistrate didn't find that Cheng's private prosecution was motivated by any improper purpose.

Sentencing is expected to be handed down at a later date.

Cheng told reporters that the magistrate was fair to both parties. She said that the case has brought awareness of union suppression in Hong Kong and that she hoped employers will understand they have no right to have their employees consult with them before their workers join a union.

Cheng said that reporters' rights as employees are important to media freedom.

“The right for us to work without worry, without stress, without risk is the foundation of Hong Kong’s press freedom, more than anything else,” she said.

She said that she would have to discuss with her legal team whether to appeal the WSJ's acquittal on the dismissal charge.

Hong Kong's media environment has faltered

Cheng’s termination in 2024 alarmed many journalists, especially given that foreign outlets have traditionally faced less pressure than local news outlets in Hong Kong.

After Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020, two local news outlets known for critical coverage of the government, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forced to shut down following the arrest of their senior management.

Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February. His staffers received prison terms ranging from six years and nine months, to 10 years.

Hong Kong, a former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index, down from 18th out of 139 regions in 2002, the highest ranking the city had held. In 2020, the city ranked 80th.

Bucaram, de 74 años, escuchó el fallo vía telemática desde la camilla de una clínica, días después de haber notificado que fue intervenido del corazón, aunque en una foto difundida por su familia en la red social X aparecía despierto y con sus lentes sobre la frente. El tribunal le había ordenado a la policía resguardar la clínica para garantizar su comparecencia a la lectura del fallo, que había sido suspendida al menos en seis ocasiones.

El dictamen señaló que el exmandatario y su hijo Jacobo Bucaram —quien recibió igual sentencia— eran cooperadores del delito de delincuencia organizada. Bucaram deberá cumplir arresto domiciliario debido a su edad.

Otras dos personas también recibieron sentencias. Leandro Berrones, ex agente de tránsito, fue condenado a 13 años y 4 meses de prisión como autor directo del delito, y el israelí Sheinman Oren a dos años y 8 meses, con lo que se acerca a su fin un juicio que se prolongó seis años. La medida podrá ser apelada.

Un tercer extranjero involucrado, el también israelí Shy Dahan, fue asesinado seis años atrás en una peligrosa cárcel de la costa ecuatoriana.

Según el fallo, en 2020 los sentenciados integraron una red delictiva que se benefició de la venta ilegal de 21.000 pruebas de detección del virus de COVID-19 y otros insumos, tales como medicamentos o mascarillas, que escaseaban durante la emergencia sanitaria.

Durante un allanamiento en el marco de la investigación por la compra con sobreprecio de insumos médicos para hospitales públicos, dichos artículos fueron encontrados en el domicilio del expresidente. En un ejemplo del alza artificial en los precios, había fundas para cadáveres a un costo de 150 dólares, cuando en el mercado se cotizaban a 15 dólares.

En la residencia de Bucaram también se hallaron una pistola y balas sin permiso para portarla, así como bienes patrimoniales. Por lo anterior se le dictó arresto domiciliario preventivo, pero fue sobreseído.

La ley penal ecuatoriana sanciona el delito de delincuencia organizada con 10 años de prisión, y puede ser mayor en caso de que haya agravantes.

Previo a la audiencia, Bucaram escribió un extenso mensaje en X, en el que dijo estar “en peligro de muerte”, y adelantó que acudirá ante organismos internacionales para “denunciar este nuevo atropello”.

“Somos inocentes”, escribió.

Bucaram es el cuarto expresidente de Ecuador en ser condenado por corrupción, luego de Jamil Mahuad, Rafael Correa y Lenín Moreno. Este último fue sentenciado recientemente a cinco años de prisión por cohecho.

Un presidente polémico

Bucaram gobernó Ecuador entre 1996 y 1997. Su período se acortó a escasos seis meses tras ser destituido por el Congreso en medio de innumerables escándalos que salpicaban su administración. Los legisladores alegaron “incapacidad mental”, lo cual nunca fue avalado por un diagnóstico profesional.

Fue un mandatario atípico. Bailaba y cantaba en la tarima, usaba un lenguaje popular y mostraba algunas excentricidades, tales como cantar dando alaridos, comer con las manos o chuparse los dedos en público. Todo eso le generó cuestionamientos.

Tras ser destituido fue acusado de malversación de fondos y sobreprecio en programas gubernamentales, y estuvo exiliado en Panamá durante dos décadas. Los juicios en su contra prescribieron y retornó a Ecuador en 2017.

Ha sufrido varios quebrantos de salud, incluidos un infarto y problemas respiratorios.

Or save money by holding on to your current device, whether it is Apple or Android, to get the most life out of it.

As smartphone technology has matured and innovations have become more incremental, people have stopped buying into the idea that they need to upgrade to the newest phone. There is also an environmental push to keep old phones out of landfills as electronic waste becomes a larger sustainability issue. Modern smartphones are also just sturdier and better able to survive dunks and drops.

The typical smartphone replacement cycle is now four years, according to Counterpoint Research. Some device owners boast in online forums that they have had phones last more than seven years.

Here are some pointers on extending your phone's life:

Take care of your phone's battery

The biggest factor in a phone’s longevity is the battery. A rechargeable battery’s life span is related to its “chemical age,” which is based not only on the manufacturing date but also on factors including “temperature history and charging pattern," according to Apple. The company says that as lithium-ion batteries chemically age, they hold less charge, which results in “reduced peak performance.”

Samsung warns against running a lithium-ion battery down completely, because that could shorten its life.

“The battery is absolutely often the first thing to go in most people’s phones," said Elizabeth Chamberlain, director of sustainability at the device-repair website iFixit.

Lithium-ion batteries typically last about 300 to 500 charging cycles before degrading noticeably to the point that they can't last a day without needing a charge, she said. "Many people will hit 500 cycles in two years. Heavy users will get there faster."

Batteries get stressed if they are completely drained or fully charged, Chamberlain said.

So avoid letting your battery die, and also avoid charging it all the way to 100%, “unless you really need a full charge,” she said. “Aim to keep the battery between 20% and 80% charged.”

If you are in the habit of plugging in your phone when you go to bed, Apple and Samsung both have charging optimization technology that improves battery life by delaying a full charge based on your daily routine.

This feature, which is on by default in iOS, pauses charging at 80% and then charges to 100% just before you wake up.

Phone batteries shouldn't get too hot or cold

Device makers warn against exposing phones to extreme heat or cold, both of which can damage batteries.

Apple says batteries warm up as they charge, which can shorten their life span. It warns against using your phone or charging it in very hot temperatures, above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius).

Samsung says you shouldn't leave your phone in, for example, a car’s glove box when it is very hot or cold. And don’t put it in a freezer either — it's a myth that it can prolong battery life.

Google, which makes the Android operating system and Pixel phones, says hot batteries drain faster, even when they are not in use, and that can damage the battery.

Adjust your phone's power options to boost battery life

Tweak your device settings so apps or features use less power, which extends your battery’s daily life and the time between charging cycles.

You can turn down your phone’s screen brightness, turn on the dark theme and reduce the time for the screen to power off. Enable the auto-brightness feature, which adjusts screen brightness according to the level of ambient light. Also check battery usage in your settings to see if there are any power-hungry apps you can switch off or uninstall.

If the power level dips below 10%, iPhone users can turn on low power mode to stretch their battery’s life before it needs recharging. Samsung’s Android phones have a similar “power saving mode.” You can also leave it on all the time, but it might affect your phone’s performance.

Phone cases and screens are essential protection

Phones are sleek capsules with glossy surfaces, meaning they can easily slip from your hand. A sturdy protective case is essential to help cushion the blow from accidental drops.

However, beware that some phone cases can retain heat, so your phone might stay hot even if it seems cool, Chamberlain warns.

Don’t forget a screen protector. Plastic versions are cheap but can scuff easily, according to iFixit, which recommends TPU film or tempered glass because they offer better protection against scratches and drops.

Keep your device clean

Keeping your phone in your pocket or purse means ports and sockets collect debris that needs to be cleaned out.

Chamberlain said that when a phone stops charging, often the problem is simply that the charging port is jammed with lint, preventing the cable from connecting.

You can buy kits with brushes, picks, swabs and dust blowers to give your phone's ports, speaker and microphone grilles a thorough cleaning. But in a pinch, use a toothpick and a clean toothbrush.

Update the software regularly

Software is another important factor in a phone’s life span. Experts advise keeping your operating system and apps up to date so they have the latest privacy, security and battery management features.

That will be easier to do as your phone ages because some device makers have been extending the time limit for providing updates.

Google has pledged to provide Pixel 8 and newer phones with seven years of Android and security updates, compared with four to five years for older models. Samsung pledged in 2024 to extend its operating system updates to seven years.

Apple said Wednesday that iOS 27 will be available on Sept. 14 and the oldest phone with which it will be compatible is iPhone 11, released in 2019.

Some phones are designed to be easily repaired

Sometimes your phone will have a problem that can only be solved by repairing it, usually involving paying someone else to fix it.

But there are device makers that are making it easier to repair phones yourself. Netherlands-based Fairphone makes phones it says are designed for longevity, which come with a stripped-down version of Android and can be easily disassembled using a mini screwdriver. Replacement batteries, screens and other spare parts can be ordered online.

Fairphone's Chief Technical Officer Chandler Hatton said the company aims to have its devices last at least five years.

“What we’re trying to do is to support people to be able to use their device for longer,” Hatton said.

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Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.

Holding her child, she went outside. Around her, people stared up at a gash in the north tower of the World Trade Center, smoke billowing from the building just blocks from her home.

“What did you see? What did you see?” people were asking one another. Matthews, an Associated Press reporter, began asking the same question, fumbling to get out her notebook and record what people had witnessed, all with her daughter still in her arms.

Matthews had planned to drop her daughter at school before working later to cover New York’s primary election. Instead, she and other AP journalists found themselves documenting the Sept. 11 attacks as they lived through them.

Twenty-five years later, they remember what they saw.

At first, no one knew what was happening

On her way outside, Matthews passed a woman in her building’s lobby with tears streaming down her face. Some people assumed a small plane had accidentally struck the tower.

Then she saw a “big fireball” erupt from the south tower as a second hijacked jet struck.

“‘I want to go to school, I want to go to school,’” her daughter started crying.

“That’s when we all knew that we were under attack,” Matthews said.

Matthews started toward the preschool anyway, until she saw teachers grabbing children and running north, many of them crying. She took her daughter upstairs, intent on getting her to a safe place, and put on Barney.

Then she heard two more impossibly loud roars — one tower collapsing, then the other. Nearly 3,000 people died in the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and on the four jets hijacked by al-Qaida militants.

Twenty-five years later, Matthews, now retired, still divides her life into before Sept. 11 and after.

“I’m not a really fearful person,” she said. “But you lose a sense of security when something like that happens.”

“I do think it helped to be part of telling the story of what happened,” Matthews said.

The camera becomes a wall

Lower Manhattan’s streets were filled with smoke and debris when Richard Drew got off the subway at Chambers Street and saw the burning twin towers.

His assignment that day had originally been to cover the opening day of Fashion Week — a whirlwind of glamour, models and runway shows.

He began taking pictures. Gray ash and soot covered his clothes, face and cameras.

An emergency medical worker pointed up and said, “Look at that.” People were plummeting from the burning towers.

“I don’t know whether they were jumping or they got forced out by the fire,” Drew said.

Drew photographed them. One image became known as “The Falling Man.” It shows a lone man falling headfirst, his body nearly aligned with the vertical lines of the towers. The photograph appeared in some newspapers the next day, but was rejected by other publications that worried readers would find it too upsetting.

Drew still thinks about the photograph — and the unidentified man in it— at least once a week.

“When I’m in a situation like September 11th, I go into professional photographer mode and I concentrate on whatever’s happening in front of me,” said Drew, who also photographed the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

He said his wife calls his camera a wall — a filter between the photographer and the reality they’re capturing.

“I guess I’m in denial about whether those things really affected me,” he said.

The wheelchairs stayed empty

Dust from the pulverized towers was falling “like a snowstorm” when AP reporter Larry Neumeister made it to a hospital near ground zero that afternoon.

Doctors and nurses gathered outside. Lines of wheelchairs and gurneys waited at the entrance. Staff were preparing for a constant stream of injured survivors — potentially thousands, Neumeister said.

Then the hours passed.

“It became clear nobody else was being brought in,” Neumeister said.

Around midnight, Neumeister walked by the World Trade Center site. A doctor told him: “You either walked away from the site or ran away from the World Trade Center buildings when they fell, or you were gone. There was no in-between.”

Her training took over

Sept. 11 was supposed to be Amy Sancetta’s day off.

Then based in Ohio, the AP photographer had traveled to New York to cover U.S. Open tennis. But the tournament was over and she had the day to herself. Then her editor called: A small plane had hit one of the towers. She needed to go downtown.

As she gathered her gear, Sancetta realized she didn’t know where the twin towers were. She got into a cab and told the driver to get her as close as he could.

About a block and a half away, Sancetta was photographing the south tower when it began to collapse.

“The weirdest thing that went through my head at the time was, it was kind of muscle memory, like shooting a basketball game,” she said.

When the cloud of debris came toward her, Sancetta ran into a parking garage. In a stairwell, she found a woman crying who had escaped from the towers and wanted to call her son. Sancetta hugged her and reached for her flip phone. Her hand was shaking. There was no signal. Sancetta took the son’s number and promised to call him.

When she emerged onto the street, everything was white, “like covered with snow, but not snow.” The screaming and pounding footsteps had given way to crying and whimpering. Loose-leaf office paper floated through the sky “like birds.”

“I wish I’d shot that,” Sancetta said. “I didn’t, but I can see it — I see it right now.”

Twenty-five years later, Sancetta held up a newspaper from Sept. 12 showing the burning towers she had photographed.

“NIGHTMARE,” the headline read.

Outside her windows now are woods. But she can still remember the sound of the tower collapsing — “just unearthly.”

“As a journalist, I’m glad I was there,” Sancetta said. “But as a human being, I wish I’d gone home on Monday.”

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Willingham reported from Boston.

Both players are intense and animated competitors, and their fan bases' are fiercely loyal. On much of social media you're either for Reese or for Clark. It has that feel of rooting for Duke or Carolina; Yankees or Red Sox or Bird or Magic.

The pair have definitely bonded so far in the World Cup in their national team debuts. Clark said many of the stories about their relationship are “false takes,” saying she loves the fiery competitiveness that she and Reese share.

“No matter what, there’s always going to be people that create those narratives and say whatever they want to say,” Clark said. “There’s definitely no stopping that and they’re always going to be there. I think for ourselves, like I said, it’s easy for us to just come in here and compete.”

Reese has enjoyed playing with Clark as well as the other young members of the roster, including Paige Bueckers and Aliyah Boston.

“We know each other’s game like the back of each other’s hand, she knows my spots," Reese said of Clark. "We just continue to build chemistry because we know we’re going to be USA teammates for a while.”

In Thursday's quarterfinal that the U.S. won 108-56, the growing chemistry showed. The pair had a nifty pick-and-roll to end the first quarter that ended with a layup by Reese. The Atlanta Dream forward returned the favor hitting Clark on a fastbreak for an easy lay-in later in the game.

“She’s got it for me a lot of times so it’s probably finally due for me to get one to her and she easily finished it,” Reese said smiling.

Clark and Reese have played together on the 2024 WNBA All-Star team that beat the U.S. Olympic team, but they will forever be joined at hips after their clash in the 2023 NCAA title game catapulted them into the center of debates.

Reese’s LSU squad topped Clark’s Iowa team in the matchup, but the players actions and interactions (who can forget Reese pointing to her ring finger in the closing seconds), drew attention to them.

Clark said she appreciates Reese’s desire to win and her relentlessness on the court, saying “it’s been fun to to be able to play with her.”

Clark laughed recalling one incident in the tournament between she and Reese that has gotten some attention. When Clark was subbing in during the opener against China and started to step on the court before being officially told to, Reese, who was entering the game at the same time, pulled her back off the court.

“Well, the ref had gotten mad at me a couple of times prior, so she was saving me from the ref getting mad at me again,” Clark said laughing.

In another fun moment, Reese was talking to the media after the tight win over Italy and Clark ducked past her, apologizing for interrupting her interviews. Reese smiled and gave Clark a high-five as she went by.

They'll be back on opposite sides soon enough — Reese's Atlanta Dream and Clark's Indiana Fever are both headed for the WNBA playoffs and both have 26-14 records. They could meet in the first round if the current seeds hold.

But for now, they share a common goal and the fact that Reese and Clark say they are having fun on the court together is good news for U.S. women's basketball fans. The duo could be part of a core group of players expected to be teammates in the next several Olympics.

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See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least six people over a three-year span.

Conahan, who has maintained his innocence, has previously been identified by authorities as a person of interest in the other deaths, but he was never charged. He has argued the evidence against him was circumstantial.

Conahan was scheduled to die by lethal injection in the nation's busiest death chamber. Florida has carried out more than half of the 24 total executions in the U.S. so far this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January.

Multiple bodies found in popular hunting area

Conahan was arrested in July 1996 after local and state law enforcement officials spent more than two years investigating a series of homicides in which mutilated and decomposing bodies were discovered in a wooded area of Charlotte County, north of Fort Myers.

As the number of bodies increased, so did media coverage. The deaths eventually were dubbed the “Hog Trail Murders" because of the swampy, wooded locations where the bodies were found. The case has been featured many times over the past three decades on true-crime television shows, YouTube channels and podcasts.

The first body was found by hunters in February 1994, followed by at least five more bodies over the next three years. Most of the remains were severely decomposed, but investigators believed Montgomery had been dead for less than a day when he was found. Investigators eventually determined that the killer was targeting homeless men.

Investigators found similarities in cases

Detectives started looking into Conahan in 1996 after a man in prison for stealing Conahan’s car claimed that Conahan had lured him to a remote area and offered to pay him to pose for nude photos. The man said he drove off in the car after seeing a knife.

Later, detectives learned about a case with similarities in Fort Myers, in which a victim claimed a man who offered cash for nude photos had tied him to a tree and attempted to strangle him. Conahan was initially arrested and charged with attempted murder, and several months later was also charged in Montgomery’s death.

Conahan waived his right to a jury trial and was convicted by a judge of murder and kidnapping in August 1999.

Conahan was never charged with any other homicides, but a sheriff's office report about the investigation concluded that all of the victims discovered within a 10-mile (16-kilometer) radius were likely killed by the same person.

In 2007, a land survey crew discovered eight bodies in Fort Myers. The four victims identified by authorities were homeless, and officials said they all suffered similar injuries to the Charlotte County victims. Investigators at the time publicly identified Conahan, who was already on Florida's death row, as a person of interest, but he was never charged.

The Florida Supreme Court last week denied Conahan's final appeals, including one requesting additional testing on DNA collected from the victim. The court ruled that proving Montgomery had DNA on his body from someone other than Conahan wouldn't exonerate him.

A final appeal remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida leads the way in executions

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with 19 lethal injections, a state record since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

The S&P 500 fell 0.4% and is on track for a fourth straight loss, though it’s not far from its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 227 points, or 0.4%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% lower.

Stocks sank under the weight of rising oil prices. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed another 3.5% and got above $105 per barrel for the first time since May.

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 3.7% and topped the $100 level for the first time since before Memorial Day.

Oil prices have been jumping since early July, when Brent crude was going for less than $72 per barrel, as hopes fade that the United States and Iran may reach a deal soon to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that oil prices likely won’t come down until after the U.S. midterm elections in November.

The jump has pushed the price for a gallon of regular gasoline to an average of nearly $4.28 across the United States, according to AAA. That’s up nearly 34% from a year earlier and is not only costing people more at the pump but also through higher prices for all kinds of products that move by truck to store shelves.

A report on Thursday showed that inflation at the U.S. wholesale level accelerated to 5.4% last month from 4.8% in July. Retailers could eventually pass such increases in prices onto shoppers. A report is coming on Friday that will show how much inflation U.S. consumers are feeling.

The typical move to rein in high inflation is for the Federal Reserve to raise its main interest rate, the federal funds rate. Such a move then filters out through the rest of the bond market, makes it more expensive for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money, slows the overall economy and undercuts prices for investments to hopefully remove some of inflation's fuel.

A report on Thursday suggested the U.S. job market may still remain solid, as fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. That could give the Fed confidence the economy may be able to withstand higher interest rates.

Following Thursday’s reports, traders see a roughly 70% chance the Fed will raise the federal funds rate at its meeting next week. That’s up from the 61% probability seen the day before, according to data from CME Group. That’s also despite Trump’s consistent lobbying for interest rates to go lower rather than higher.

The Fed’s counterpart in Europe, the European Central Bank, raised its own interest rates on Thursday in hopes of getting inflation in check. It cited “the conflict in the Middle East” and how it “continues to generate inflation pressures.”

It all pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury up to 4.92% from 4.83% late Wednesday, which is a significant move for the bond market. It’s up from just 3.97% before the war with Iran began, and it’s back to where it was in the autumn of 2023. That was after the Fed cranked the federal funds rate higher to get super-high inflation coming out of the COVID pandemic under better control.

Higher yields mean investors can make more money from parking their money in bonds, which in turn can make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other investments that carry more risk than bonds.

Some investors are eyeing a 5% yield on the 10-year Treasury as the next potential flashpoint, a level not seen since October 2023. But strategists at Bank of America's Research Investment Committee suggest 7% may be the more important threshold, pointing to how expensive stocks peaked around that point in the past in Japan and on the Nasdaq.

On Wall Street, Macy’s fell 3% even though the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also raised its forecasts for earnings and other financial measures for its fiscal year, but it warned that “there are macroeconomic and geopolitical factors that could influence” how much its customers feel comfortable spending.

Macy’s said it received $116 million in tariff refunds from the government — $98 million during the quarter and another $18 million after the quarter ended. Macy’s CEO Tony Spring told The Associated Press Thursday that it’s using some of the proceeds to lower prices on certain items like furniture and other big-ticket purchases.

Helping to limit the market's losses was JetBlue Airways, which rose 2.2%. It said booking trends remain strong and customers continue to be willing to pay to fly. It said revenue trends for the latest quarter look to be better than it had earlier forecast, even as its fuel prices climb higher than it had expected.

In stock markets abroad, indexes slipped across much of Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.3% for one of the world’s biggest moves.

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AP Business Writers Anne D’Innocenzio and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

Then the Dark Side defense took over, Drew Lock made a few big plays and the Seahawks capped a Super Bowl banner-raising night with another win against the New England Patriots.

Lock led two late scoring drives and the Seahawks intercepted Drake Maye three times in the fourth quarter to overcome an early injury to Darnold and beat the Patriots 13-10 on Wednesday night in a Super Bowl rematch.

“I want to give our team a lot of credit because you know things weren’t really going where we wanted,” coach Mike Macdonald said. “We didn’t panic. We still liked our plan. We didn’t need to change what we were doing or anything like that. We just we wanted to stick to what we were doing, and the guys were just really excited to go back out there and play.”

The Seahawks were held to just a field goal through three quarters as Lock and the offense struggled to move the ball after Darnold injured his hip on the opening drive. Macdonald said initial tests showed Darnold didn't break a bone, calling the news “positive.”

But the costly interceptions by Maye — last season's MVP runner-up — turned the tide and made sure that the banner-raising night would end in happy fashion for the boisterous home crowd.

“We knew coming in it was going to be a four-quarter game and that’s who we are,” receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba said. “We knew it’s going to be a dogfight and we love it. Whatever it looks like in the first half, second quarter, like we’re going to make it right. We’re going to keep fighting until the clock hits triple zero. So I was just happy to see that and to see that continue going forward this year.”

Maye overcame the first two picks to drive the Patriots into position to tie or take the lead in the final minute. But Josh Jobe made a toe-tapping interception in the end zone to seal the win.

“I was trying to get rid of it, and I realized Mack was back there in the back and I didn’t put enough on it to get it out,” Maye said. “It was unacceptable.”

Seattle trailed 10-0 but got a field goal in the third quarter and tied the game when Lock connected with Smith-Njigba on a 45-yard pass on fourth-and-1 following an interception by Nehemiah Pritchett.

Julian Love intercepted Maye on the next drive and the Seahawks took a 13-10 lead on a 26-yard field goal by Jason Myers. That set the stage for the defensive stand on the final drive.

The game started following a ceremony that featured the Super Bowl banner being raised and highlights being played on the video board. This was the third Super Bowl rematch in Week 1, with it last happening in 2016 when Denver celebrated its title with a win over Carolina.

The excitement turned to worry quickly as Darnold came up limping following a third-down sack by Dre’Mont Jones on the first drive. Darnold went immediately to the sideline medical tent and then back to the locker room before the next drive.

Lock, who threw just three passes last season, entered the game. Seattle’s offense was stagnant until the fourth quarter, but Lock made enough plays late to provide a signature moment of a career that has had few highlights since he was drafted in the second round by Denver in 2019. He won just eight starts in three seasons with the Broncos before coming to Seattle in the Russell Wilson trade. He left to be a backup for the New York Giants before returning to Seattle last season.

“It was a blast,” Lock said. “So proud of everyone around me tonight on the offensive side of the ball. I can't say enough about the defense turning over the ball.”

The Patriots didn’t fare much better on offense but got the only score of the first half after Jobe interfered with offseason acquisition A.J. Brown on a deep flea-flicker pass and Maye found rookie Eli Raridon for a 2-yard score on the next play to make it 7-0.

A penalty helped set up the second Patriots score as well. Chazz Surratt was flagged for roughing the punter on the opening drive of the second half, setting up Andy Borregales’ 50-yard field goal.

Injuries

Patriots: Brown left the game with an injured right ankle in the third quarter and didn’t return.

Seahawks: S Nick Emmanwori (ankle) was ruled inactive before the game.

Up next

Patriots: Host Pittsburgh on Sept. 20.

Seahawks: Visit Arizona on Sept. 20.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The dubious promise would most likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000," Trump said during the GOP's midterm convention in Dallas. "It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

He likened the payments to a corporation's distributions to shareholders, citing “our tremendous strength and success economically."

Within an hour, Vice President JD Vance appeared to try to walk back Trump’s proposal — at least in part — by suggesting the dividend payments would not go to the wealthy. Vance suggested it could be paid for by U.S. tariff revenues, though the suggested payment dwarfs what the U.S. has taken in through the protectionist measures.

The White House did not respond to a message seeking details.

Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed U.S. tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year.

The national debt last month topped $40 trillion for the first time.

Trump has frequently lamented that, during the modern era, the president's party almost always loses seats in Congress during the midterms, and he has looked for unorthodox ways to defy the trend, including this week's convention.

“We’re going to change that,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”

Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Trump has no authority to send money to Americans without approval from Congress.

Goldwein added that dividends are something that companies pay when there’s a surplus, but the U.S. is running $2 trillion annual deficits and has $40 trillion in debt.

“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” he said. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”

The move was reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to buy votes in last year’s Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, where he handed out million-dollar checks to voters to try to boost a candidate who ultimately lost.

Trump has discussed the possibility before but has never tied it to his party's electoral fortunes. Earlier this year, he proposed a $2,000 dividend and said he didn't think he needed approval from Congress.

Last year, Trump gave members of the military a $1,776 check that he called a “warrior dividend.”

“I will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election,” Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio wrote on X late Wednesday. “Because Republicans (and America) will win!”

A $5,000 check would give each American more money than they received in direct government payments from COVID-19 relief measures during Trump’s first term.

Trump’s proposal would be legal because the payment would go to everyone regardless of how they voted, or whether they voted at all, said New Mexico-based attorney John Day.

“This is a campaign promise,” Day said. “It’s not a payment to individuals to try to get them to vote in a particular way.”

Republicans are on defense as they look to defend their narrow House majority against strong headwinds. Trump is unpopular, and Americans overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iran. Even the Senate, which Republicans once were well-positioned to keep, is up for grabs.

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and River Zhang contributed.

El bochorno de agosto también contribuyó a que el planeta tuviera el verano más caluroso en el hemisferio norte que los científicos hayan medido.

La temperatura promedio a nivel mundial el mes pasado fue de 16,96 grados Celsius (62,53 grados Fahrenheit), técnicamente una centésima de grado Celsius por encima de la marca histórica a nivel global establecida en julio de 2023, pero como ese también es el nivel de incertidumbre, se considera un empate, explicó Samantha Burgess, responsable de estrategia climática de Copernicus.

“Ya es hora de dejar de actuar sorprendidos de que nuestro planeta en calentamiento se siga calentando. Esto está ocurriendo exactamente como los científicos lo pronosticaron literalmente hace décadas", subrayó el climatólogo de la Universidad Texas A&M, Andrew Dessler. "La verdadera pregunta no es si seguiremos batiendo récords de calor (que lo haremos), sino si vamos a hacer algo al respecto o simplemente quedarnos ahí sentados mientras el tren del clima nos pasa por encima”.

A nivel mundial, agosto estuvo 1,65 grados Celsius (casi 3 grados Fahrenheit) por encima de los niveles preindustriales, superando por mucho el umbral establecido a un mayor plazo de 1,5 grados Celsius (2,7 grados Fahrenheit) en el Acuerdo Climático de París de 2015. Los ocho meses más calurosos en los registros han sido desde julio de 2023, según datos de Copernicus.

“Nuestro sistema climático realmente está funcionando muy fuera del rango que habríamos esperado hace apenas una década", explicó Burgess desde Reino Unido, un país azotado por olas de calor. "Hemos pasado de un clima muy abstracto que quizá afectara al sur global o a lugares lejanos, a un clima que impacta y altera nuestra vida cotidiana con cierres de escuelas, hospitales desbordados, carreteras que se derriten, vías de trenes que se deforman. Y la realidad es que tendremos más de estas condiciones que hemos visto este verano”.

Las temperaturas mensuales de los océanos de todo el mundo durante agosto igualaron el récord histórico para el mes más caluroso jamás registrado, establecido en marzo de 2024, mientras que el 22 de agosto se estableció un récord para el día de mayor temperatura en los mares a nivel mundial.

Un verano extra caluroso

“Este verano ha sido realmente excepcional. Hemos visto que se rompen récords que habían existido desde hace casi 100 años, en particular en Estados Unidos”.

La Oficina Nacional de Administración Oceánica y Atmosférica de Estados Unidos (NOAA, por sus siglas en inglés) anunció el miércoles que, por primera vez, el verano en los 48 estados del territorio continental fue más caluroso que durante el punto más alto del devastador Dust Bowl en 1936. Entre junio y agosto de 2026, el promedio en Estados Unidos continental fue de 23,54 grados Celsius (74,37 grados Fahrenheit), casi cuatro décimas de grado más que la marca establecida hace 90 años. A nivel mundial, este verano pasado también empató al de 2024 como el más caluroso en los registros, según Copernicus.

En Estados Unidos, agosto pulverizó los récords de calor por más de medio grado Fahrenheit, con un promedio de 24,21 grados Celsius (75,58 Fahrenheit), y el promedio de la máxima diurna fue de unos abrasadores 31,42 grados Celsius (88,56 Fahrenheit), también un récord. Julio también marcó un récord de calor en Estados Unidos, borrando otra marca del Dust Bowl.

El hecho de que los récords se estén rompiendo de forma regular, y de que agosto —y no julio, que suele ser más caliente— haya establecido una marca histórica, son señales de que el cambio climático provocado por el ser humano se está acelerando, afirmó el climatólogo de Berkeley Earth, Zeke Hausfather.

Los datos de Copernicus se remontan a 1940, los de la NOAA para Estados Unidos se remontan a 1895 y los datos globales —que por lo general coinciden con los de Copernicus pero tardan más en calcularse— datan de 1880.

Combustibles fósiles y a El Niño, los culpables

De acuerdo con varios científicos, si bien El Niño es un factor, este calentamiento natural y temporal de partes del Pacífico —que distorsiona y calienta el clima a nivel global— está muy lejos de ser una causa tan relevante como lo son los gases que atrapan el calor, producto de la quema de carbón, petróleo y gas natural.

“Aunque El Niño está empezando a aumentar el calor, el factor subyacente sigue siendo nuestra quema implacable de combustibles fósiles. El cambio climático hace que cada El Niño sea más caliente, y hasta que dejemos de quemar carbón, petróleo y gas, estos meses de temperaturas históricas simplemente seguirán llegando”, subrayó Friederike Otto, climatóloga del Imperial College London.

Burgess explicó que, por lo general, El Niño sólo añade una o dos décimas de grado Celsius (dos a cuatro décimas Fahrenheit) a la temperatura global, y que la inmensa mayoría del calor proviene de la quema de combustibles fósiles.

Sin embargo, los pronósticos indican que este El Niño romperá récords de intensidad en los próximos meses. Y a medida que las temperaturas sigan en aumento, las olas de calor, las tormentas, las inundaciones y los incendios forestales serán más frecuentes y peligrosos, advirtió Katharine Hayhoe, climatóloga en Texas Tech.

Según Hausfather, “es cada vez más probable que 2026 termine por superar a 2024 como el año más caluroso en los registros, y es casi seguro que 2027 supere a ambos, posiblemente superando por 1,8 grados Celsius (3,2 grados Fahrenheit) los niveles preindustriales, impulsado por un El Niño de una fuerza sin precedentes”.

Algunos promedios diarios podrían alcanzar un umbral climático aún más alto: 2 grados Celsius (3,6 grados Fahrenheit) por encima de mediados de la década de 1800, aseguró Bugress.

“Hasta que la humanidad deje de quemar cantidades colosales de carbón, petróleo y gas, la contaminación que esto provoca seguirá recalentando nuestro planeta, y el calor extremo seguirá pulverizando récords históricos, matando a millones y costando billones, afectando los sistemas de transporte y de salud, y elevando los precios de productos básicos del hogar como los alimentos", afirmó Simon Stiell, director de asuntos climáticos de Naciones Unidas. "Este es el costo en espiral de la adicción de la humanidad a los combustibles fósiles, y de la crisis climática global que está alimentando”.

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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.

Scientists say microplastic pollution is increasing across nearly three-quarters of the world’s marine areas by about 4.5% every year.

For four decades, the Ocean Conservancy has been fighting the scourge of plastic pollution, organizing a massive global cleanup on the same day every year.

South Florida’s is one of the largest in the world — and now is your chance to pitch in.

Saturday, Sept. 19, is the day for you to stand up, clean up and be part of a global movement.

“This is the largest volunteer opportunity for the environment in Miami-Dade County every year,” said Dave Doebler, co-founder and executive director of VolunteerCleanup.org.

The International Coastal Cleanup returns for its 41st year, mobilizing millions around the world to get trash out of beaches, waterways and the ocean.

“Thousands of cleanups take place all over the world,” said Sarah Weller, associate director of the International Coastal Cleanup at Ocean Conservancy. “And it’s all just about removing harmful debris and plastics out of the environment.”

Click here to sign up for the ICC

Launched in 1986 by the Ocean Conservancy, ICC has grown into the world’s largest single-day beach cleanup, with hundreds of thousands of volunteers across 110 countries showing love for oceans and raising awareness about the growing marine debris crisis that we see daily in our own backyard.

“So the flow is never ending. It’s constantly input from storm drains and street litter. When it rains, everything that happens at the street ends up in the bay,” Doebler said.

New FIU research reveals just how pervasive the plastic pollution problem has become. In some Biscayne Bay surface water samples, researchers found an average of 39 pieces of microplastics in just one liter of water.

“Those pose a threat called ingestion, where marine life, big and small, can consume those items, and then that’s filling their gut instead of the food that they actually need,” Weller said.

And what marine life eats ultimately ends up on our plates. Microplastics carry toxic chemicals through the food web, raising growing concerns about the impact on human health.

“It’s affecting our food supply. It’s not just unsightly. It’s not just affecting nature. It affects us,” Doebler said.

The problem is real, and the need to address it has never been more urgent. Just ask the volunteers who have come out before.

“Their takeaway is always, ‘Wow, I had no idea. It is so shocking to me to see all this trash. I can’t believe it,’” said Sophie Ringel, founder and executive director of Clean Miami Beach.

During last year’s ICC, 3,200 volunteers removed more than 26,000 pounds of debris from South Florida’s beaches, neighborhoods and Biscayne Bay in just one day, and that is here at home. The global impact is staggering.

“We know that nearly 20 million volunteers have come out over the four decades plus and removed over 400 million pounds of debris from coastlines and waterways worldwide,” Weller said.

The need is so great in South Florida that there are cleanup sites from Aventura to Homestead. Clean Miami Beach is helping VolunteerCleanup.org organize this year’s event and will host the VIP site on the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

“Real change happens within the community because nobody can do anything by themselves. So these cleanups are wonderful to bring the community together because only together we can implement long-term change,” Ringel said.

“I think we’ve surpassed a million volunteers probably before the pandemic years. So we’re hoping to get back to that level of participation, so that’s kind of a goal for us,” Weller said.

Ocean Conservancy released new numbers from last year’s cleanup: Volunteers collected more than 1.3 million plastic bottles and nearly 886,000 bottle caps worldwide.

Since the first cleanup in 1986, the movement has helped build the world’s largest database on marine debris, informing policies and strategies to fight this growing crisis.

Ricky Lauren, his lifelong muse, is present in each of the designer’s collections.

At the designer’s New York Fashion Week show, Ricky Lauren sat front row along with other members of the Lauren family as her husband took guests on a whirlwind romantic escape ahead of the official launch of New York Fashion Week.

Actors Meghann Fahy, Cynthia Erivo, Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Ella Hunt were a few of the celebrity guests in attendance at the downtown Manhattan show.

“Ralph just generally designs so beautifully for a woman’s body,” Hunt told The Associated Press after the show.

Lauren pared down the lavish setting from his fall ready-to-wear show of opulent rugs and antique chairs, keeping the setting white and minimalist with attendees sitting on ivory fabric benches and models emerging from behind white doors.

Models glided down the rows of fashionable guests in soft and sensual silhouettes with a color palette of navy and white to the tunes of love songs, including “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police.

For Lauren, the collection was an “irreverent take on romance” that “upends traditional notions of chic.”

“It’s about ways of dressing that celebrate ingenuity, character, and originality — the freedom and fun of creating a style that is truly personal,” the designer said in his show notes.

Lauren opened the show with a white corseted top and white tailored pants before an array of deep, rich blues unfurled down the runway.

The 86-year-old designer played with his signature tailored designs incorporating billowing white pinstriped pants and dramatic floor-length overcoats.

Lauren accentuated his refined looks with touches of flair from oversized flowered brooches, feathered bolero jackets draped over evening gowns with plunging necklines to fringed scarves tied at the waist. While some models strutted in heels, others walked the runway in slipper-like flats. Either way, the models looked ready to jet off on a European getaway in their elegantly laid-back white pants and straw hats or pose on a red carpet in his evening gowns.

“What Ralph Lauren is doing this year is writing through his clothes about a very kind of modern dream,” David Lauren, the label's chief branding and innovation officer, said.

In his classic take of mixing the masculine and feminine, Lauren overlaid a golden fringed gown over a pair of navy trousers, and in an homage to his first suit for women, the designer featured two pantsuits in his collection.

Lauren even brought out a youthful side to his modern romance story, pairing slim-fitting jackets with low-slung pants and distressed denim.

“What I love about coming to a Ralph Lauren show and wearing Ralph Lauren is that no matter where I am in time or space, or as I’m growing and changing in my styles and preferences and tastes change, I can grow with Ralph,” Ariana DeBose said.

The stylish crowd was eager to catch a glimpse of Lauren as the line of models returned behind the doors to close the show. As the applause rang out, Lauren arrived in his aviator glasses and varsity jacket to wave to his guests before his wife, Ricky, joined him with a kiss.

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Associated Press journalist Brooke Lefferts contributed to this report.

August's sizzle also helped push the globe and the United States to swelter through the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer scientists have measured.

Last month the world averaged 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit (16.96 degrees Celsius), which technically was one-hundredth of a degree Celsius more than the all-time global mark set in July 2023, but because that's also the uncertainty level, it's considered a tie, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead for Copernicus.

“It is now time to stop acting surprised that our warming planet keeps getting warmer. This is occurring exactly as forecast by scientists literally decades ago,” Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler said in an email. “The interesting question is not whether we will keep breaking heat records (we will), but whether we’re going to do anything about it or just stand there while the climate train runs us over.”

Globally, August was 1.65 degrees Celsius (nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, far exceeding the longer term 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The eight hottest months on record have all been from July 2023 on, according to Copernicus data.

“Our climate system is really operating well outside the range we would have expected just a decade ago,” Burgess said Wednesday from a United Kingdom that has been beset with heat waves. “We've transitioned from climate being very abstract and perhaps impacting the global South or far away places to climate impacting and disrupting our daily lives with schools closing, hospitals being overwhelmed, roads melting, train lines buckling. And the reality is we will get more of these conditions that we've seen this summer.”

Global monthly ocean temperatures in August tied a March 2024 all-time record for warmest month recorded, while Aug. 22 set a record for hottest day recorded in the world's seas, according to Copernicus.

An extra hot summer hits

“This summer has really been exceptional. We’ve seen records that existed for close to 100 years be broken, in the U.S. in particular," Burgess said.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday announced that for the first time, summer in the Lower 48 states was hotter than during the peak of the devastating Dust Bowl in 1936. June through August of 2026 in the contiguous United States averaged 74.37 degrees (23.54 degrees Celsius), nearly four tenths of a degree warmer than the mark set 90 years earlier. Globally, this past summer also tied, with 2024, for the hottest on record, according to Copernicus.

In the U.S., August smashed heat records by more than half a degree Fahrenheit, averaging 75.58 degrees (24.21 degrees Celsius) and the average daytime high was a blistering 88.56 degrees (31.42 degrees Celsius), also a record. July was similarly record hot in the U.S., erasing another long-standing Dust Bowl mark.

That records are regularly getting broken, and that August and not July which is traditionally warmer set an all-time record, are signs that human-caused climate change is accelerating, Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said.

Copernicus data goes back to 1940. NOAA data for the United States goes back to 1895 and global data, which generally matches Copernicus data but takes longer to calculate, dates back to 1880.

Fossil fuels, El Nino blamed

Several scientists said while El Nino is a factor, this natural and temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that warps and warms weather globally is nowhere as big a cause as the heat-trapping gases emitted as humans burn coal, oil and natural gas.

“While El Nino is starting to ramp up the heat, the underlying driver remains our relentless burning of fossil fuels. Climate change makes every El Nino hotter, and until we stop burning coal, oil, and gas these record-shattering months will simply keep on coming," said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

Burgess said El Nino generally adds only one or two tenths of a degree Celsius (two to four tenths Fahrenheit) to the global temperature with the overwhelming rest of the heat coming from the burning of fossil fuels.

This El Nino is forecast, however, to break records for strength in the coming months. And as temperatures continue to rise, heat waves, storms, floods and wildfires will get more frequent and more dangerous, said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

According to Hausfather, “it is increasingly likely that 2026 ends up beating 2024 as the warmest year on record, and almost certain that 2027 beats both, potentially reaching as high as 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels on the back of an unprecedentedly-strong El Nino event.”

Some days may hit an even higher climate threshold, 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid 1800s, Burgess said.

“Until humanity stops burning colossal amount of coal, oil and gas, the pollution this causes will keep baking our planet, and extreme heat will keep smashing all-time records, killing millions and costing trillions, hitting transport and health systems, and pushing up prices for household basics like food," United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said. “This is the spiraling price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fueling.”

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So far, 43 people have been rescued, coast guard spokeswoman Commodore Noemie Cayabyab said. The ferry MV June Aster was afloat but listing off the town of Coron after the fire that started on Wednesday evening. Smoke still rose from the charred vessel by midday Thursday.

Cayabyab said authorities were still trying to confirm reports that two foreigners were onboard, checking the names on the manifest and coordinating with local government officials and the shipping company on the identities of the fatalities, survivors and missing.

According to the manifest, 134 people were onboard, 117 of them passengers and 17 crew. The vessel had a capacity to carry 306 passengers and 27 crew.

The 53-meter-long ferry had sailed from the capital of Manila and was near its destination of Coron in Palawan province when the fire was reported by the shipping company around 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, the coast guard said.

Rescuers have been trying to enter the ship but have encountered difficulty because of thick smoke. “Our objective now is to enter the ship, to check the situation so we can assess the situation,” Cayabyab said.

Later on Thursday evening, search and rescue operations were suspended and will resume in the morning, she added.

Cayabyab said it was unclear what caused the fire, which one survivor said may have begun in the cargo hold, and the coast guard was coordinating with the shipping company and maritime authorities to get more details.

The survivor reported “a loud explosion, then followed by smoke and fire,” she added. “As per the testimony of the survivor, everything happened quickly; within seconds the fire spread.”

A coast guard ship and high-speed response boats were joined in the search and rescue by a military vessel and other government boats, volunteers and fishermen.

The coast guard made a radio broadcast to ships nearby to be on the lookout for passengers of the ferry. It has also coordinated with coastal villages in case some passengers drifted to the shore.

Images of the Wednesday night rescue efforts showed coast guard personnel tossing life jackets to survivors as the ferry burned in the background. Passengers were helped into smaller boats taking them to shallow water, and body bags were laid out at what looked like a port.

Bad weather and big waves challenged rescuers. The ferry was around 4 nautical miles (7.4 kilometers) off the village of Turda when it sent a distress signal but strong sea currents had dragged it to a distance of 7.68 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers) off Turda.

Coron is a popular tourist destination known for clear blue waters, limestone cliffs and rock formations.

Ferries are frequently used for transport in the Philippine archipelago. Sea accidents are not uncommon due to storms, badly maintained vessels, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.

In 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker in the central Philippines, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s deadliest peacetime maritime disaster.

According to officials, five people were killed and five others were injured when a Boeing 767-300 overtook a runway at Miami International Airport shortly before 2 p.m. on Sunday and struck a white 2012 Ford E-150 Econoline van and a Toyota Corolla Cross LE.

According to data from the cockpit voice recorder, one pilot warned they were going too fast more than a minute before the plane first touched down on the runway.

Officials said that pilot “made additional comments regarding the aircraft’s excessive speed throughout the remainder of the recording” while adding “there was not a consistent verbal response” to those warnings.

“Fifteen seconds before the end of recording, brakes were released at a ground speed of 120 knots. Throttles increased to values consistent with go-around thrust,” NTSB lead investigator Chihoon Shin said Tuesday.

The same cockpit recording confirmed that with just 15 seconds left in the recording, one pilot called for a go-around attempt, and just five seconds later, the plane ran off the runway.

Aviation expert Pablo Rojas said the data appears to show the crew changing course in those critical final seconds.

“That kind of hesitation is deadly in a runway like this,” he said. “First they were trying to land, slow the plane down, bring it to a halt, then they hesitated and maybe tried to do a go-around, meaning speed up again, then they made another change in their decision which was to try to land again.”

Both pilots have now been interviewed by the NTSB as investigators work to determine why the plane was traveling so fast and why the go-around attempt came so late.

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Yaraisi Santiso Morejon filed the lawsuit following the death of her husband, 53-year-old Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, who was killed in the crash.

According to the lawsuit, Amazon Air Flight 7598 landed at MIA on Sunday before overrunning Runway 30 and striking vehicles on and near airport property, including a van driven by Rodriguez Naranjo.

The lawsuit names Amazon Inc. and Amazon Air Cargo as defendants, along with 21 Air LLC and other related companies involved in operating the aircraft, the plane’s lessors and pilots Joseph Carroll and Jaime Felipe Silva Molina.

The complaint alleges a series of failures contributed to the crash, including pilot error, inadequate training and the use of a 32-year-old aircraft.

“Our hearts go out to Yaraisi and her family, as well as all those who were impacted by what we believe was a preventable tragedy,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said in a statement Wednesday. “No one should lose their loved one this way, and the filing of this lawsuit is just the beginning of our fight to secure justice and accountability for Mr. Naranjo’s death.”

Attorney Mike Morgan said the firm alleges the crash was not a “freak accident,” but instead a “foreseeable and preventable disaster.”

“What we’ve already uncovered points to a series of failures by the people flying the plane, the companies that put it in the air and the systems that were supposed to prevent this exact kind of tragedy,” Morgan said. “Yaraisi deserves answers and justice. We intend to get her both.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County.

El costo del combustible es un tema particularmente sensible para los votantes, que en octubre decidirán si le conceden a Lula un cuarto mandato no consecutivo o eligen al senador Flávio Bolsonaro, hijo del expresidente Jair Bolsonaro.

El crudo Brent, de referencia internacional, superó el umbral de los 100 dólares el miércoles por primera vez desde julio, después de que ataques contra instalaciones petroleras y barcos en Oriente Medio amenazaran con generar aún más tensiones en una cadena de suministro ya de por sí debilitada.

“No vamos a permitir que esta guerra irresponsable golpee su bolsillo”, manifestó Lula al firmar las medidas, que amplían las políticas para controlar los precios de los combustibles introducidas al comienzo de la guerra entre Estados Unidos e Irán.

Las medidas anunciadas el miércoles incluyen recortes de impuestos a la importación y venta de etanol, gasolina y mezclas de gasolina —excluida la gasolina de aviación—, vigentes durante 30 días, del 10 de septiembre al 9 de octubre. Una medida provisional autoriza un subsidio de un real brasileño (0,19 dólares) por litro para productores e importadores de diésel para carretera.

Los precios del petróleo crudo se dispararon poco después de que Israel y Estados Unidos atacaran a Irán a finales de febrero, en gran medida porque los combates detuvieron el paso de la mayor parte del transporte marítimo a través del estrecho de Ormuz, una vía marítima angosta por la que antes del conflicto pasaba aproximadamente una quinta parte del suministro mundial de crudo.

Brasil es un importante productor y exportador de petróleo crudo, y sus ingresos del sector se han disparado este año debido al aumento de los precios internacionales. Pero el país aún depende de las importaciones para satisfacer la demanda interna de combustibles refinados.

Estabilizar los precios del diésel también es crucial para evitar huelgas de camioneros y mantener a raya la inflación de los alimentos. En 2018, una huelga de camioneros provocó un alza repentina de los precios de los alimentos, dejó desabastecidos los estantes de los supermercados y las gasolineras, y causó miles de millones en pérdidas, lo que dejó ver el poder de los camioneros organizados.

El expresidente Jair Bolsonaro, entonces legislador y a meses de ganar las elecciones presidenciales, fue un defensor abierto de los camioneros, que más tarde se convirtieron en un grupo importante de apoyo para él.

Las medidas del miércoles “tienen un componente electoral significativo”, según Armando Castelar Pinheiro, profesor de economía de la Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro. Si no fuera por el calendario político, “habría algún subsidio, pero probablemente sería menor”.

El diésel en Brasil es un 28% más barato que los precios internacionales y la gasolina es un 21% más económica, según un análisis de mercado de Itaú BBA citado por medios locales el miércoles.

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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.

ESPN announced Melrose’s death Wednesday after his wife informed the network.

“From the flowing locks of his distinctive mullet to the flared lapels of his trademark long suit coats, Barry Melrose cut an unmistakable figure whenever you were fortunate enough to run into him at a rink or catch him on your television screen," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “You were even more fortunate if you engaged him in conversation or listened to his analysis because he never failed to boost your love of the game of hockey.”

Melrose stepped away from his analyst role in 2023 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Wayne Gretzky at the time said Melrose was “bigger than any team.”

Melrose had a relatable everyman’s broadcasting style, bringing a sense of humor to his insights, and was easily recognized by his goatee and slicked-backed hair.

“For decades, Barry Melrose was one of the most distinctive and trusted voices in hockey," ESPN said in a statement. “His knowledge of the game was deep, his candor was refreshing and his passion was unmistakable.”

From rural Kelvington, Saskatchewan, Melrose broke into pro hockey with the Cincinnati Stingers of the now-defunct World Hockey Association in 1976. He played three seasons in Cincinnati — the last teaming with a young Mark Messier — and, following the WHA’s demise, made the transition to the NHL with Winnipeg in 1979.

Melrose went on to play for Toronto and Detroit, where he closed his career following the 1985-86 season.

He finished with 10 goals and 33 points and 728 penalty minutes in 300 career NHL regular-season games, and he skated in seven more in the playoffs. His WHA totals were five goals and 32 points and 343 penalty minutes in 178 games with Cincinnati.

Melrose turned to coaching and led the Adirondack Red Wings to win the American Hockey League Calder Cup championship in 1992.

The following year, Melrose was hired by the Kings, where he brought a sense of colorful flare and instant success to Los Angeles. In his rookie season, he coached a Kings team that featured Gretzky to make a memorable playoff run. They reached the final before losing to Montreal in five games.

Melrose finished with a record of 79-101 and 29 ties over two-plus seasons in L.A. before being fired midway through the 1994-95 season.

He was hired by ESPN in 1996 and left broadcasting for what became a brief stint coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning in Steven Stamkos’ rookie season in 2008-09. Melrose was fired 16 games into the season following a 5-7-4 start and returned to broadcasting.

Melrose also was known for his long-ball hitting prowess in fast-pitch softball, joining fellow Kelvington-area NHL players Wendel Clark, Joey Kocur, Kelly Chase and Kevin Kaminski and others in the offseason in Saskatchewan to form what some call the “the toughest team there ever was.”

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AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow and AP Sports Editor John Nicholson contributed.

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See AP’s full NHL coverage here

Coach Mike Macdonald said Darnold didn't break any bones while adding that more tests were needed.

Darnold was sacked on Seattle's first series by Dre'Mont Jones, and the quarterback's right leg appeared to take the brunt of the impact as Jones drove him to the turf. Darnold limped off the field, was examined in the sideline medical tent and then limped to the locker room.

The Seahawks initially said Darnold was questionable, then announced before halftime that he would not return. Backup Drew Lock replaced him and went 16 of 22 for 187 yards and a touchdown as the Seahawks rallied for a 13-10 victory.

“At this point we were able to rule out a fracture,” Macdonald said, calling the initial diagnosis “positive.”

Darnold's injury was a deflating early moment for Seattle in the rematch of last season's Super Bowl, in which the Seahawks beat the Patriots 29-13.

“I feel like I know Sam really well. He was going to do everything he can to stay out there, but it’s just one of those things where he had to go get looked at,” Lock said.

Darnold, 29, did not miss a game last season as he led the Seahawks to the title. He threw for 4,048 yards with 25 touchdowns and 14 interceptions in the regular season as Seattle won a franchise-record 14 games.

It was his first season with the Seahawks after reviving his career with the Vikings in 2024, when he threw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns.

Drafted third overall in the 2018 draft out of Southern California by the Jets, Darnold had a 13-25 record and a 78.6 passer rating over his initial three seasons for New York. He also played for Carolina and was the backup to Brock Purdy in San Francisco.

Darnold was 1 of 2 for 13 yards against New England before he left. The Seahawks fell behind 7-0 at halftime, but Lock started to play better in the second half.

“It was great to to get in here at half, put the plays up on the board, talk about our openers coming out of the half, really get those dialed in,” Lock said. “I think it’s also a little bit of the just feeling the flow of the game, getting back into this, finding ways to in the future be able to snap into it quicker. That’s just the life of a backup.”

Down 10-3 in the fourth quarter, Lock hit Jaxon Smith-Njigba on fourth-and-1, and the star receiver dashed to the end zone for a 45-yard touchdown.

“It’s tough losing (Darnold). I mean, he’s the head of the snake, but we have each other’s backs,” Smith-Njigba said. “We fully trust in Drew Lock to come in and do his thing, done it time and time again. So we just have to have each other’s backs.”

Lock, 29, has spent two stints with the Seahawks. He was with Seattle from 2022-23, then spent a season with the New York Giants before returning.

He played only in mop-up duty last season, completing two passes for 15 yards in five games.

Lock, a second-round pick out of Missouri by the Broncos, started for Denver in 2020, throwing for 2,933 yards with 16 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.

“In the moment, I mean, you’re hurting for Sam, obviously,” receiver Cooper Kupp said. “But in the moment, you got to find ways to move forward and figure out how to go out there and win a football game.”

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Manager Dave Roberts announced the move late Wednesday, saying that, “in talking to Shohei, the doctors, the training staff, it’s the right thing to do. We tried to kick the can as much as we could.”

Ohtani isn't expected back until the Dodgers host the San Diego Padres in a three-game set beginning Sept. 22. He won't travel on the team's seven-game East Coast trip starting Friday.

“I do think that if the playoffs were tomorrow, he'd be in the lineup,” Roberts said. “I'm pretty confident that he'll be ready to go on that 15th day.”

Ohtani was out of the lineup for the sixth time in seven games on Wednesday night, when the Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds 14-1 to complete a sweep and win their seventh in a row.

Ohtani has been managing lingering soreness in his right biceps and left knee for weeks now, but he waited until after Tuesday night's game to tell the training staff he felt something in his arm after playing Monday.

"There was a swing Monday that he didn’t feel great on, hasn’t totally recovered from Monday,” Roberts said before the game.

While the Dodgers are back East, Ohtani will remain in Los Angeles and resume hitting after a two- or three-day rest to “calm his arm down,” Roberts said.

“Let’s get his body feeling well and then slowly ramp back up because now we do have time,” Roberts said.

In an unprecedented move, the Dodgers will call up Josue De Paula from Double-A Tulsa to fill Ohtani's roster spot. He'll make his major league debut Friday at Miami as the designated hitter.

The team hasn't called up a position player directly from Double-A since Andrew Friedman took over as president of baseball operations in 2015, but Roberts is confident their 21-year-old top prospect from the Dominican Republic can handle the pressure.

“I think that our player development group is very confident in his ability to conduct an at-bat. You could argue that the talent in Double-A is similar to Triple-A as far as pure arms and arm talent,” Roberts said. “We've seen him in camp for two or three years. He doesn't run from velocity. He controls the strike zone. This is just a good opportunity for him to kind of cut his teeth in the big leagues.”

When Ohtani returns, he would have six games and some live batting sessions to prepare before the postseason begins and the Dodgers open their bid for a third consecutive World Series championship.

“It's certainly not ideal,” Roberts admitted. “The most important thing is him being as healthy as possible, not compromising his swing, and kind of bet on that.”

Ohtani took swings in the batting cage on Tuesday night, when he was available to pinch-hit.

Roberts confirmed the team has stressed to Ohtani the need for him to speak up immediately about any physical issues he may have.

“The concern is that after four days (off) and then to take four at-bats and to feel something in an at-bat where we can’t keep going forward, I think that’s disappointing,” Roberts said before the game.

Roberts expressed some regret about not putting Ohtani on the IL last week.

“I would love to go back and put him on the IL,” he said. “But I did feel at that moment in time, we all felt that giving him four days was sufficient. He was agreeable.”

Also out of the lineup Wednesday was first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose right knee has been bothering him. He made a rare appearance as the designated hitter on Tuesday, going 0 for 2 with a strikeout in a 3-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because Thursday's meeting — to be held by video conference — is not open to the public and because the SEC has not released a statement on the matter since a federal court filing on Tuesday highlighted the league's intent to vote on LSU's membership.

The dispute between the conference and LSU stems largely from first-year Tigers coach Lane Kiffin's now-abandoned bid to field two players who had signed NFL contracts as undrafted rookies this past offseason.

A hearing scheduled Wednesday in a federal lawsuit the SEC filed against LSU was postponed by a judge in Birmingham, Alabama.

Meanwhile, LSU President Wade Rousse sent a one-page letter, obtained by the AP, to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey stating that the league's claims in its lawsuit against LSU are now moot because Kiffin had complied with a conference ban on rostering players who had previously signed contracts with NFL teams.

Rousse noted that he called Sankey last Friday afternoon and notified him personally that LSU would not be placing tight end Dae'Quan Wright or defensive tackle Zxavian Harris on the Tigers' roster.

Wright had spent part of the past offseason with the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns. Harris has spent part of the offseason with the New Orleans Saints. Both also had played for Mississippi when Kiffin was the Rebels' coach.

LSU on Tuesday filled remaining vacancies on its roster with eligible players.

“The roster is now locked for the season,” Rousse's letter stated. “LSU complied with SEC rules. This issue is moot.”

Rousse also noted that LSU “will not challenge, disrupt or seek to cancel or postpone" Thursday's scheduled meeting — a concern Sankey had raised Tuesday in the SEC's amended federal complaint against LSU.

LSU is a founding member of the SEC, which was formed in 1933. LSU has a host of powerhouse athletics programs and has won three of the SEC’s 25 AP national championships in football alone.

Still, the language in the federal lawsuit left little ambiguity about the extent to which the leaders of most SEC universities had become frustrated with LSU — not only because of efforts to recruit former pros to both its football and men's basketball teams.

They also were unhappy about the related court drama that ensued — including a marathon court hearing last week in which Sankey took the stand to insist the league has the right to enforce its own rules.

Sankey said there was consensus among conference leaders that “LSU’s continued membership in the conference would be inconsistent with the publicly stated values and principles of the conference and its remaining member institutions,” even if LSU doesn’t put the former NFL players on its roster.

The SEC has a long-established rule forbidding teams from bringing players with major professional experience onto their rosters. In recent weeks, the conference announced updated enforcement provisions to that rule, stating that the commissioner had the power to suspend coaches, fine universities up to half of a sport’s budget and restrict a member university’s voting privileges on conference matters.

But last Thursday, a judge in Baton Rouge barred the league from enforcing any rules regarding former pros — a decision celebrated heartily by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and the state attorney general, Liz Murrill, who’d filed a brief in the case on behalf of the athletes.

Murrill called the SEC’s lawsuit “legal garbage” shortly after it was filed last week.; The SEC has since listed Murrill as a defendant.

Sankey has stated that SEC presidents are concerned that Rousse and athletic director Verge Ausberry have no “meaningful control” over Kiffin or the football program.

Sankey also stated that “serious harm” had been caused “by the statements and conduct of LSU," and suggested that harm would not be undone simply by LSU renouncing "its intention to roster and play professional players on its football team.”

Kiffin’s hiring was one of two notable coaching changes at LSU involving the highest revenue-generating college sports: LSU also has brought back Will Wade to coach men’s basketball. Wade was fired by previous athletic director Scott Woodward in the wake of an NCAA investigation into improper inducement payments to recruits when such payments were forbidden.

Wade served a suspension from coaching in college before returning in the 2023-24 season with McNeese State. He spent two seasons with the Cowboys and one with North Carolina State before he was brought back to LSU — a move favored by Landry, as well as Rousse, a Landry ally who was McNeese’s president when Wade was there.

Wade has sought to sign RJ Luis Jr., a former Big East player of the year with St. John’s who spent parts of the 2025 NBA offseason and preseason with the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics, but never played in a regular-season NBA game.

Luis also has been fighting the NCAA in court in Baton Rouge, where a judge on Aug. 24 issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks the NCAA from punishing LSU if the Tigers play Luis — something that also would violate the SEC rules at the center of the conference’s federal lawsuit against LSU.

LSU’s football team is now ranked eighth in the Top 25 AP Poll following Saturday’s 51-10, season-opening victory over Clemson. The Tigers host Louisiana Tech on Saturday, followed by a much anticipated visit to No. 9 Ole Miss, where Kiffin will face the team he coached a year ago.

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Fetterman spoke for just over one minute in a recorded video introducing his fellow Pennsylvania senator, Republican Dave McCormick, whom Fetterman called “a great American.”

He didn't criticize anyone by name but suggested Democrats are extremists, underscoring the message that Republicans are trying to drive home during their two-day rally in Dallas. The convention is meant to fire up the conservative base ahead of midterm elections, when the president's party has historically lost seats.

“I’m always going to stand with America,” Fetterman said. “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life.”

Standing in front of a steel mill, Fetterman said he “will work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life.”

Fetterman’s decision is certain to stoke fears, already simmering among Democrats, that he will switch parties. Democrats need to pick up four GOP-held Senate seats in November to regain the majority. If Fetterman were to join the Republican Party, Democrats would need to pick up another seat to have control of the chamber.

Fetterman said in a statement later Wednesday that he will not switch parties. He said his remarks were to introduce “a great American and friend," adding, “We are in different parties, but we are both Team PA."

“I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party — and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on," Fetterman said.

Fetterman has grown increasingly isolated from his party as he maintains staunch support of Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizes left-wing candidates who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. He’s often gone his own way in the Senate, voting with Republicans to end last year's shutdown, supporting several of President Donald Trump's nominees and opposing efforts to end the war in Iran.

He has repeatedly said he wouldn’t switch parties because of his support for labor unions, LGBTQ rights and other issues held dear by the left.

Even if he remains a Democrat, he would hold outsized power in his caucus if Democrats secure a narrow 51-49 majority that requires them to stick together unanimously to exercise their power.

“How great is John Fetterman?” McCormick said when the video wrapped up. “Thank you, Senator Fetterman, for your friendship. Thank you for your courage. And thank you for all you do for Pennsylvania.”

Right after Fetterman's video finished, it was shared on a White House social media account with the caption “Based John Fetterman.”

The No. 1 seed beat Botic van de Zandschulp 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 on Wednesday night, putting him into the final four of every Grand Slam tournament this season.

The French Open champion and Wimbledon runner-up will play Friday against Karen Khachanov, while Americans Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe meet in the other semifinal.

Zverev became the first men's No. 1 seed to play five-set matches in each of the first two rounds of a major in the Open era, which began in 1968. But he won his last three matches in straight sets and is the only man to reach all four major semis this year.

After playing more than 4 1/2 hours in each of the first two rounds, Zverev hasn't been on the court more than 2 1/2 in his last three matches.

“In other tournaments I would have been out in the first round but here I can fight back and play best-of-five, play 4 1/2 hours and somehow win the match and somehow get into the tournament,” Zverev said. “And then I start playing better throughout the tournament and definitely happy to be in the semifinals here, but of course I want to go further.”

He went to the final in 2020 but blew a two-set lead against Dominic Thiem. That was the closest he would come to a major title until his victory this year at Roland Garros and the German now is 23-2 in Grand Slam matches this season.

“He’s been in top-five for so many years,” Khachanov said. “This year he did also step forward. He won his first Grand Slam, played the final in Wimbledon, as well. I mean, he’s coming up really in hot form, let’s say.”

Khachanov got at least to the third round of every major this year and this time has gone three rounds further. He was prepared to go through a tough test Wednesday but Alexander Blockx's body wasn't up for one.

Blockx stopped playing in the third set because of injuries to his leg, ribs and back, sending Khachanov to his third Grand Slam semifinal.

“I think my body just gave up,” Blockx said.

Khachanov won the first two sets 6-2 and 7-5, and the No. 28 seed from Belgium decided it was time to stop after Khachanov broke his serve to take a 3-2 lead in the third.

“I was preparing really, really well for that matchup. It’s not easy really to play because from one side I was feeling I was dominating from the beginning, then I started to feel like he was struggling more and more,” Khachanov said, adding he saw that Blockx was “suffering all over his body.”

Khachanov is seeking his first major final. The Russian got to the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 2022 and the Australian Open in 2023.

Khachanov was unseeded in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 2018 after a strange season. He reached at least the third round of all four majors for the first time but is just 10-15 in other events, with losses in the opening rounds of all three hard-court events before coming to New York.

Blockx said he nearly stopped in his last match because of his injuries. As he got treatment for multiple body parts Wednesday, he said ne was neither upset nor angry.

“To be honest, during the match, it was quite funny to me. I just had to laugh it off, because it was just something new the whole time,” he said. “I think it was just my body that started compensating as well. I was starting to do different motions than I usually do just to avoid the pain.”

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The 36-year-old Altuve reached the milestone with a hit to center field against Phillies starter Cristopher Sanchez, becoming the second player in franchise history to reach 2,500 hits. Hall of Famer Craig Biggio is Houston’s all-time leader with 3,060 hits.

“It means a lot, obviously," he said. "It’s a big number, you know, 2,500. A lot of hits, and you think about all the hits, all the years I’ve been playing here with this amazing organization and my teammates. I’m just thankful to God, my family, my teammates again.”

Every Astros player and coach in the dugout climbed to the top step to applaud Altuve. He even received congratulations from Phillies infielders Trea Turner and Luis Arraez — both former batting champions themselves.

Altuve finished the game 1 for 4, and the Astros lost to Philadelphia 11-7.

“It was a great moment," Altuve said. "I’m really sad we lost the game, but you know, we come back tomorrow and (try to) get a win.”

Altuve was hitless in Tuesday’s series opener against the Phillies. He had moved to within one of the mark with a three-hit game against Arizona on Sunday.

Altuve, whose career began in 2011, is a three-time batting champ (2014, 2016, 2017) and was the American League MVP in 2017. He has won two World Series titles with the Astros.

“It’s incredible what he’s accomplished in his career, and obviously, he’s not done," Astros manager Joe Espada said. "Twenty-five hundred hits -- it’s hard just to get one. It’s hard just to get to the big leagues. And this guy’s been doing it for a very long time.”

Altuve and Freddie Freeman of the Los Angeles Dodgers are the only active players to have 2,500 career hits. Freeman reached the mark earlier this season.

To get to 3,000 hits, Altuve would likely need to play at least three more seasons, if not longer.

“Let’s get one hit at a time," he said. "I just got this one, and I’m happy about the one that I got tonight. We’ll see what happens in the future.”

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A summary of cockpit voice recordings compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board said the fellow pilot never gave “a consistent verbal response” to the warnings. The plane touched down awkwardly, briefly attempted to take off and then smashed into a van carrying the five victims.

The Amazon plane came in fast on Sunday afternoon and then barreled roughly 1,300 feet (396 meters) past the end of the runway and smashed into a van carrying workers at a plane cleaning company before hitting a compact SUV as it slid across a public road before catching fire.

All five people who died were in the van. Five others were hurt, including two who remained in critical condition on Tuesday. The two pilots survived and were interviewed Wednesday by investigators.

At the point when the pilot first called out the plane was speeding, former FAA official Mike O’Donnell said the crew could have done a number of things to slow it down, including extending the spoilers, cutting the throttles and lowering the landing gear. Or the pilots could have just aborted the landing at that point and circled to try again.

“You have plenty of time to slow down, plenty of time to say, let’s just do a go-around at two minutes out,” said O’Donnell, who used to oversee airport safety and crash investigations.

Information from the flight data recorder that was released late Tuesday shows how unsteady the plane was as it came in to land, and then the pilots briefly disengaged the brakes and shoved the throttles up as if they were trying to take off again and retry the landing. But they abandoned that just four seconds later.

The cockpit audio recordings also captured a series of automated warnings from the plane about the speed of descent and the approaching terrain. O'Donnell said those terrain warnings reinforce that the plane was unsteady and suggest it may not have been configured correctly for landing.

The Amazon plane was well down the runway when its right and nose landing gear first touched down, reducing how much distance the plane had on the runway ahead of it to stop. Strong winds at the airport as storms moved in may have created a tailwind that helped propel the plane forward. Tracking site Flightradar24 estimated based on the NTSB data that the plane was nearly halfway down the 9,360-foot runway when it first touched down.

Several experts have said the pilots should have aborted that landing while the plane was still in the air and circled around to retry it.

The 32-year-old Boeing 767 was originally built to carry passengers and flew for several airlines in foreign countries for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

The final flight was operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina that has been flying packages for Amazon since 2024.

The jet’s ownership history, weather conditions at the airport, maintenance records and operations by 21 Air were expected to be reviewed by NTSB investigators.

It’s the second crash of a cargo jet in the U.S. in less than a year. A UPS plane crashed after losing its engine while accelerating down the runway at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport in October. The crash killed all three pilots and 12 people on the ground. Twenty-three more were injured.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators questioned Joseph Carol and Jaime Silva about the record on the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

The data appeared to indicate the pilots considered aborting the landing before the jet overtook MIA’s runway shortly after 1:50 p.m. on Sunday.

“That kind of hesitation is deadly in a runway like this,” said Attorney Pablo Rojas, an aviation expert familiar with Boeing who considered the data that NTSB investigators released on Tuesday night.

Five died, and five were injured after the jet operating as Prime Air Flight 798 for Amazon struck a white 2012 Ford E-150 Econoline van at MIA and a Toyota Corolla Cross LE SUV on Northwest 67th Avenue.

“First, they were trying to land, slow the plane down, bring it to a halt. Then, they hesitated and maybe tried to do a go around, meaning speed up again,” Rojas said. “Then, they made another change in their decision, which was to try to land again.”

Related report: Former pilots for 21 Air previously raised safety concerns, attorney says

There wasn’t an Engineered Materials Arresting System, or EMAS, a safety bed to stop the jet. It traveled for 1,300 feet “past the paved surface,” according to Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy.

The van, owned by Professional Ocean Service Corp., a cleaning company, which had seven occupants, was torn apart, according to Homendy.

Related story: First lawsuit filed following fatal Amazon cargo plane crash at Miami International Airport

Five died: Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 53; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo, 47.

Two were injured: Ridoel Averhoff Diaz, 32, whose condition was critical on Tuesday, and Roosevelt Sebastian Perdomo Torres, 36, whose condition was stable on Tuesday.

The driver of the SUV, Eugenio Corredor, 79, whose condition was critical on Tuesday, was injured.

Related story: ‘Hopefully he recovers’: Neighbors praying for man critically injured after cargo plane hit his car

The pilots suffered minor injuries, were treated at the hospital, and released, according to Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz.

Carol, 55, the captain, “received his type rating in the 76,” a mandatory certification for the Boeing 767, in May, and Silva, 37, the first officer, received his type rating in the 76 on April 2, 2025.

Silva had 2,655 flight hours as of Aug. 13, and Carol had 7,145 flight hours as of March 31, according to the NTSB.

Related report: Witness describes shaken pilot moments after fatal cargo plane crash at Miami International Airport

Homendy said air controllers were “going through a difficult time, not just from the tragedy, but also trying to get through a capacity-constrained airport.”

One of MIA’s four runways remained closed on Wednesday, according to the NTSB. Two runways were closed from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday night.

Ralph Cutié, the director and chief executive officer of MIA, said the American Airlines special aircraft recovery team has a plan to remove the jet once the NTSB allows it.

Related report: Victims killed in cargo plane crash were dedicated to their families, attorney says

Cordero-Stutz asked travelers to check with airlines for the status of their flights. She also warned drivers that 67th Avenue was closed to the public from 25th to 32nd streets.

Homendy asked witnesses to share photos and videos with the NTSB team via e-mail at witness@ntsb.gov.

Cordero-Stutz asked the victims’ relatives to contact MDSO victims’ advocates at 305-471-1900.

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That expanded replay review coverage takes effect this week and will include live audio between the game referee and replay official during reviews, alongside video of the game footage they’re viewing. There also will be a view inside the Big Ten replay center.

The Big Ten had announced last week it would offer these enhanced replay reviews during Friday night telecasts. The Big Ten adjusted that plan Wednesday by saying it will cover all conference games, as well as home nonconference matchups that have Big Ten officiating crews.

This change in plans comes amid the controversy surrounding the circumstances that enabled Michigan to try a second Hail Mary pass in its 13-12 victory over Western Michigan on Saturday. Michigan won the game on Bryce Underwood’s 47-yard pass to JJ Buchanan after one second was put back on the clock.

An NBC replay showed a clock expiring before the ball hit the ground or any player, leading to two days of questions about what clock everyone was looking at. NBC said the next day that its cameras “are not the official arbiter” of game time, that in this case it was the responsibility of the Big Ten.

The Big Ten said after the game — and reaffirmed Tuesday — that the call was correct and published a recording of the replay as it was reviewed by officials. The conference said it too used a shot of the game clock in the stadium, which showed 1 second remaining when the ball on the first Michigan pass was touched by WMU’s Micah Davis. Since Davis had just been out of bounds, the clock would stop on such contact.

Western Michigan is part of the Mid-American Conference, which initially accepted the Big Ten explanation but announced Tuesday it was appealing the outcome of the game.

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The complaint filed last week in Southern California is the first legal action since the explosive allegations surrounding Chavez were first reported by the New York Times in March. The newspaper also first reported the complaint in Kern County Superior Court on Wednesday.

Filed on behalf of a Jane Doe, it names the César Chavez Foundation and the United Farm Workers Foundation as defendants. Both organizations are accused of failing to investigate complaints over the years about Chavez. They are being sued for several violations including negligent supervision, negligent infliction of emotional distress and sexual harassment. The woman was moved to go to civil court after learning more about the scope of Chavez's alleged abuse of girls and women, including labor figure Dolores Huerta.

The Associated Press does not name victims or survivors of sexual assault and abuse unless they come forward publicly.

“This has been a long time coming for her to take this step,” V. James DeSimone, one of the attorneys representing her pro bono, told the AP. “She’s committed to the process and is grateful she can legally do something about this all these years later. She suffered a lot over the years. It continues to cause her stress and anxiety.”

DeSimone says he expects to hear from other abuse survivors.

The woman, now in her 80s, first met Chavez when she moved to California's Central Valley after graduating college, according to the suit. Inspired by a previous summer volunteering there, she wanted to join in organizing farm workers. In 1973, she and her family were among several workers who moved into the compound in Keene that was the offices of the organization now known as the United Farm Workers.

She says Chavez tried to ply her with alcohol and dance with her at a party that year. He later followed her to her home and raped her in a bedroom. A few years later, she said Chavez assaulted her again.

The woman believes the United Farm Workers Foundation and the César Chavez Foundation in previous years “made concerted efforts to hide evidence of sexual harassment and sexual assaults of girls and women by UFW members and leaders, including César Chavez.” Women in the movement were “verbally attacked” by Chavez's top lieutenants and accused of trying to ruin the movement if they spoke up about him or their safety, according to the suit.

She is asking for a jury trial and damages including for past and future earnings as well as punitive damages.

The César Chavez Foundation, in a statement, said it only recently became aware of the complaint. “We are reviewing with our legal counsel and will respond in a way that stays true to our mission and values.”

When claims about Chavez's behavior first came to light, the foundation called them shocking and painful. The organization also vowed to stand by the victims and achieve “restorative justice.”

“To the survivors: we believe you. We honor your courage, and we are very sorry for the harm you have carried in the shadows for so long,” the foundation said back in March.

The UFW Foundation did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The United Farm Workers union, which is not named in the complaint and operates separately, declined to comment.

Chavez continued to be the face of workers’ rights until his death in 1993. In the wake of the sexual abuse revelations, Chavez's storied legacy was dismantled practically overnight. César Chavez Day celebrations planned around his March 31 birthday were immediately canceled or postponed. State and local governments began to rename schools, streets and other places that honored him.

DeSimone, a workers' rights attorney who once admired Chavez, said they are not looking to stop these nonprofits from carrying out their missions. But, they said, survivors are owed accountability and a sense of closure.

No matter how noble, “no cause, no organization, should be above the law,” DeSimone said. “Sexual abuse and assault are not the price you should have to pay for it.”

He said he got into their BMW and accepted a drink before they stole his Rolex Submarine Date valued at $15,000.

“I did consume a liquid that was supposed to be an alcohol, and I believe there might have been drugs in that liquid,” he said on Wednesday.

Flenoury allegedly dropped him off at Carl’s El Padre Motel at 5950 Biscayne Boulevard, and Miami Fire Rescue personnel took him to North Shore Medical Center’s emergency room, where police officers found him, according to the report.

“The struggle must have happened inside of the car. I don’t remember the struggle at all ... I am lucky that I am alive and that nothing else happened that night,” he said.

Detectives accused Flenoury, 42, of stealing from men in Miami on April 16th, July 17th, and Aug. 23rd. Surveillance cameras recorded video of her, and detectives used facial recognition to identify her, according to police.

“I think it could happen to anybody,” said the victim of the Aug. 23rd case. “Just a reminder for everybody to be aware of their surroundings. Make sure you are not alone.”

In April, a New Jersey man, who was visiting Miami, told police officers that Flenoury had shown an interest in his watch after they met at a bar in Brickell, according to a police officer’s report.

Flenoury asked him if she could hold his Bell & Ross BR Minuteur Tourbillon, a high-end titanium mechanical wristwatch valued at about $170,000, according to the police report.

They left Blackbird Ordinary, at 729 SW First Ave., stopped at a liquor store, and he welcomed her to his room at the Fortune House Hotel, at 185 SE 14th Terrace, according to the report.

“He remembered drinking alcohol inside the hotel room ... but later blacked out and could not remember much of what occurred afterward,” a police officer wrote, according to the arrest report.

In the July case, a man reported meeting Flenoury and another woman at Casa Neos, at 40 SW North River Drive, and inviting them to his apartment, where they stole his Rolex watch valued at $15,000, according to a police report.

Police officers arrested Flenoury at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday at the Miami Police Department headquarters at 400 NW Second Ave., according to a police officer’s arrest report.

“My daughter was with me. We were going into the store,” Flenoury told Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer during her bond court hearing on Wednesday about her detention.

Flenoury, who has an arrest record going back to prostitution cases in 2005, was behind bars facing 11 new charges in the three felony cases in Miami-Dade County, records show.

In the April case, Flenoury faced eight charges: Burglary of an occupied dwelling, first-degree grand theft, four counts of fraudulent use of a credit card for more than $100,000, and two counts of fraudulent use of a credit card of less than $100. Her bond was $21,501.

In the July case, Flenoury faced two charges: Burglary of an occupied dwelling and third-degree grand theft. Her bond was $2,500.

In the August case, Flenoury faced a charge of third-degree grand theft. Her bond was $2,500.

Flenoury’s total bond in the three cases was $26,501, and Glazer asked her to show that the money used for bail was not from the proceeds of her alleged crimes. Glazer also ordered her to stay away from the victims.

Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzer was set to preside over the three cases.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Carson Merlo contributed to this report.

Abraham Altamar was working Sunday near the airport when he heard a loud noise and ran outside with co-workers to investigate. He said they found thick, black smoke rising behind their floral warehouse near Northwest 36th Street.

“(As) soon as we saw the plane, we start running to see what was happening,” Altamar said.

Altamar said he soon encountered 37-year-old Jaime Felipe Silva Molina, one of the pilots who had escaped the burning Prime Air cargo jet.

“He was shaking, he seemed stressed,” Altamar said.

Altamar said he offered to call 911, but Molina instead asked to use his phone to call his wife.

“I just asked him if he wanted me to call 911, but he’s like, ‘No, I need your phone to call my wife,”' Altamar said.

Altamar said he overheard Molina expressing concern about his career.

“He was like, ‘Oh my career, my career is over,’” Altamar said.

Altamar said Molina had cuts to his forehead and arm. He was taken to a hospital Sunday, treated and released.

The other pilot was identified as 55-year-old Joseph Carroll. He also suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from a hospital.

Altamar said the crash was difficult to comprehend.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.

The pilots were scheduled to speak with investigators about the accident and the actions they took before the aircraft overran the runway and crashed.

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A judge in Vinton County accepted the findings of an evaluation report for Gary Siders Sr. Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer did not object to the findings.

The 73-year-old Siders appeared in court in a wheelchair. His attorney, Dorian Baum, said after the hearing that Siders' mental health has been declining for years and is “not restorable.”

“It’s not really a surprise to any of us that he’s not been found competent at this point,” Baum said. “He doesn’t fully understand or appreciate what’s going on.”

Siders was charged with 16 counts of child endangerment related to the children, who were rescued June 30 from a home in Hamden about 80 miles (129 kilometers) south of Columbus.

Siders' wife, Christina Siders; son Gary Siders Jr., and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Siders, the children’s mother, have pleaded not guilty.

Investigators said the children remained mostly confined to a small room in the house under deplorable conditions. The children weren’t enrolled in school, the family moved around over the past two decades, and neighbors said they’d never spotted the kids.

At the time they were found, the children ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years, with some described as “feral” and unable to speak. Authorities said their medical conditions varied.

The eldest was born in May 2008, two months after Gary Siders Jr., then 18, and Elizabeth, then 15, crossed into West Virginia to marry at the Mason County Courthouse with her parents’ consent, according to court records. She has been pregnant most years since then, the records show.

Carlos Acosta Fajardo was working to support his family, including his parents in Cuba, relatives and an attorney said.

“Carlos Acosta Fajardo leaves behind a spouse, a gentleman who is a spouse and partner for a significant period of time,” attorney George Gutierrez said. “And his two parents live in Cuba.”

Gutierrez said Acosta Fajardo, 53, had worked for Professional Ocean Service Corp. for years.

His family described him as an incredible person who was deeply loved by the people who knew him.

Javierkys Reyes Quevedo was also inside that van.

The 47-year-old leaves behind two brothers and a young daughter in Cuba.

His family is absolutely heartbroken.

“Javierkys works for the cleaning company and was in the van at the time,” a family member said. “He leaves behind a 14-year-old daughter in Cuba that he provided and cared for and was a great father.”

Gutierrez said the men were simply doing their jobs.

They started their day early and, he said, they were traveling in the place they were supposed to be when the plane overran the runway and struck their van.

“And it should not have happened as a result of the negligence of a number of individuals that didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” Gutierrez said.

The Gutierrez Firm will now conduct its own independent investigation to determine what happened and who is responsible.

Gutierrez said his team is also waiting for the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary findings, which are expected in the coming weeks.

“It’s premature at this point to give information as to specifically what we’re going to do, but every case we handle, we’re going to investigate and uncover everything so that we can get a fair and just result for these families who have tragically lost loved ones as a result of no negligence of themselves,” Gutierrez said.

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It happened Wednesday around 3:20 p.m. in the area of the 1000 block of Northeast Sixth Street in Hallandale Beach.

According to authorities, Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue crews responded to the scene and found a white Nissan Rogue with damage described as moderate-to-heavy and smoke coming from beneath its hood, as well as an injured woman who was outside the vehicle.

Officials said crews were quickly able to extinguish a small fire under the hood.

Rescue crews rushed the woman to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital after assessing her injuries at the scene, authorities said.

The circumstances surrounding the crash are under investigation.

The cost of fuel is a particularly sensitive issue for voters, who will decide in October whether to grant Lula a fourth, nonconsecutive term, or elect Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, a son of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Brent crude, the international standard, surged above the $100 threshold on Wednesday for the first time since July, after attacks on oil facilities and ships in the Middle East threatened to further strain an already weakened supply chain.

“We’re not going to allow this irresponsible war to hit your pocket,” said Lula as he signed the measures, which extend policies to control fuel prices introduced at the beginning of the U.S.-Iran war.

The measures announced Wednesday include tax cuts on the import and sale of ethanol, gasoline and gasoline blends (excluding aviation gasoline), effective for 30 days from Sept. 10 to Oct. 9. A provisional measure authorizes a subsidy of one Brazilian real ($0.19) per liter for producers and importers of road diesel.

Crude oil prices shot up shortly after Israel and the U.S. began their war with Iran in late February, largely because the fighting halted most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway where roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed before the conflict.

Brazil is a major producer and exporter of crude oil, and its revenues from the sector have surged this year due to the hike in international prices. But the country still relies on imports to meet domestic demand for refined fuels.

Stabilizing diesel prices is also critical to prevent truck driver strikes and keep food inflation in check. In 2018, a truckers’ strike caused food prices to spike, left grocery market shelves and gas stations depleted, and caused billions in losses, underscoring the power of organized truckers.

Former President Jair Bolsonaro, then a lawmaker and months away from winning the presidential election, was an outspoken supporter of the truckers, who later became an important constituency for him.

Wednesday’s measures “have a significant electoral component,” according to Armando Castelar Pinheiro, an economics professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. If it weren’t for the political calendar, “there would be some subsidy, but it would likely be lower,” he said.

Diesel in Brazil is 28% cheaper than international prices and gasoline is 21% cheaper, according to an Itaú BBA market analysis cited by local media Wednesday.

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Thursday will feature a sun/cloud mix and east-southeast winds, sustained 5 to 10 mph. There may be some spotty showers or storms in the mix Thursday morning into early afternoon. Later in the day, storms will tend to migrate west of metro-Dade/Broward. Temperatures are expected to reach the low 90s-- humidity will make it feel around 100°F.

“Para este gobierno es de máxima importancia toda información que contribuya a esclarecer los hechos ocurridos durante ese período... para dar con los responsables de los actos de violencia”, dijo en una rueda de prensa el ministro de Exteriores.

La cita se produce un día después de que el diplomático estadounidense asegurara en una entrevista televisiva que un análisis de la inteligencia de Estados Unidos vincula la violencia vivida en el estallido social chileno con organizaciones y activistas de izquierda.

No obstante, hasta hoy no han sido identificados de forma oficial potenciales líderes de las manifestaciones que pusieron en jaque el sistema político del país.

Consultado sobre las críticas de distintos sectores políticos a esos dichos y a la supuesta injerencia del diplomático estadounidense en asuntos internos, Pérez Mackenna aseveró que “los embajadores no deben opinar sobre la política interna en los países en que están”.

“Eso lo hemos hecho saber al embajador ya en varias oportunidades y hoy día es exactamente uno de los temas que tocamos”, afirmó.

A finales de 2019, Chile registró una serie de protestas para pedir transformaciones estructurales y una nueva Constitución. Las manifestaciones se alargaron durante varios meses y pronto se convirtieron en los disturbios más violentos registrados en la nación sudamericana desde el regreso de la democracia en 1990.

En la entrevista Judd dijo que “la evidencia apunta” a esos izquierdistas, aunque reconoció que no ha entregado dichos antecedentes a la justicia chilena. Agregó que, en caso de que el gobierno chileno solicitara “inteligencia específica”, Chile y Estados Unidos son “naciones que comparten información de inteligencia”.

De acuerdo a los datos oficiales de la fiscalía, el estallido social dejó entre el 18 de octubre de 2019 y el 31 de marzo de 2020 más de 20.000 víctimas, entre ellas una treintena de fallecidos y 464 personas que sufrieron trauma ocular por la violencia institucional perpetrada por agentes del Estado.

Las investigaciones igualmente indicaron que la protestas no tuvieron líderes formales ni una organización centralizada, ya que surgieron como una demostración estudiantil contra la tarifa del transporte público y pronto se convirtieron en masivas movilizaciones espontáneas que aglutinaron a distintos sectores de la ciudadanía.

Tras las declaraciones, el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores convocó a Judd y le solicitó formalmente que entregue cualquier información relacionada con los episodios de violencia en aquellos meses para derivarla a la fiscalía y otros organismos investigativos.

Sin embargo, a su salida de la sede de Cancillería, Judd se desdijo de sus dichos y explicó que Estados Unidos no ha realizado una “investigación independiente” sobre el estallido social. Lo que hizo, acotó, fue “revisar e investigar la información que salía de Chile” a través de fuentes abiertas.

"Nosotros tenemos la misma información que tiene su policía. Nosotros solo recibimos la información que fue recopilada aquí mediante fuentes abiertas de información”, dijo el diplomático a los periodistas.

Las declaraciones del embajador han generado malestar y desataron una fuerte respuesta política de los principales partidos del país. Además, diputados de la oposición presentaron el mismo miércoles una denuncia ante el Ministerio Público para que investigue una posible violación de la ley de Inteligencia del país.

Lancaster County’s coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, said he told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of his conclusions. CDC officials, however, have not said whether they will count either death as measles-associated, and the agency's website still carries a disclaimer about them.

Ivan Miller died on Aug. 14 shortly after his birth of a ruptured spleen, Diamantoni said.

Mary Stoltzfus was 6 weeks old when she died Aug. 18 at her home. She was born with a genetic birth defect that left her highly vulnerable to an infection. A measles infection killed her, Diamantoni told The Associated Press.

He said he was releasing the information in response to a state right-to-know law request by WPMT-TV, Fox 43.

The causes of death differed

Diamantoni's office didn't perform an autopsy on the girl. The cause of death was determined by the doctors caring for her, he said.

She had been born with a condition called Amish lethal microcephaly that causes an unusually small head and underdeveloped brain. Children with the condition typically live 6 months or less.

His office did autopsy the boy, and determined he died from a ruptured spleen. Exactly how and when that happened is still under investigation, Diamantoni said.

The boy was infected with measles, which is listed on the death certificate as a contributing factor. But Diamantoni said measles did not contribute to what happened to the spleen, and that measles is noted only because it was considered “a significant condition” that the boy had at the time of death.

Neither was old enough to be vaccinated; the first dose is typically given at around 1 year of age.

The deaths have received outsized attention

Details of the deaths have come under unusual national scrutiny and became the focus of a furious political battle between Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and officials in Republican President Donald Trump's administration.

Pennsylvania officials announced the deaths last month, with Shapiro stressing that vaccinations could have averted the deaths.

Soon after, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump administration appointee with a history of raising alarms about established vaccines, attacked Shapiro and suggested the deaths “may even have been altogether fabricated.”

Kennedy’s statements echoed ones he made last year, when three measles-related deaths were recorded. Kennedy questioned whether one of the children who died was killed by measles.

The health secretary oversees the CDC, and some public health experts have voiced concern about whether the CDC can still be counted on to post public health data that clashes with Kennedy's worldview.

“Frankly, the CDC is not to be trusted in sharing information,” Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told the AP last week. “People are questioning their motives.”

CDC website still doesn't show the deaths

That worry was fueled by some unusual edits to the CDC's measles webpage. At one point, the webpage noted two measles-associated deaths but then was changed to say that the CDC was not counting the two deaths until it reviewed additional information.

The page, which was last updated Friday, now says, “CDC will update its reporting as additional information becomes available and relevant reviews are completed.” It still doesn’t reflect either Pennsylvania death.

In a social media post last week, Kennedy acknowledged Diamantoni's conclusion that one of the deaths was due to measles.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's measles outbreak continues to expand, with more than 620 cases across 37 counties this year, state officials said Wednesday.

The U.S. eliminated the domestic spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but they have fallen in recent years to below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks. Meanwhile, measles infections have been surging in recent years.

In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles-free status.

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