According to an arrest report, the incident occurred just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday at the family’s home.

Police said the suspect’s wife told them that her husband, Rene Matute Godoy, 43, was dropped off at home by a friend and was “extremely intoxicated.”

According to the report, Matute Godoy insulted his wife when he arrived, tapped her on the arm and told her, “I’m going to hit you.”

Police said the wife told Matute Godoy not to touch her or insult her again, at which point he became enraged, went into the backyard and grabbed a machete.

According to the report, the wife grabbed two of her four children and fled to the front yard of the home while the eldest child grabbed her younger sister and locked themselves in the bathroom as they hid from their father.

Police said Matute Godoy then went into the home and began swinging the machete inside the kitchen area, destroying various items before going outside again and striking his wife’s vehicle.

The wife told police that she handed her children over to a friend as her husband continued damaging the vehicle and mailbox until officers arrived.

According to the arrest report, Matute Godoy’s eldest child heard her father yell in Spanish, “I’m going to kill you all!”

Matute Godoy also made threats toward an officer before entering his home again, police said.

According to the report, Matute Godoy eventually exited the home and was taken into custody.

He was arrested on multiple charges, including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without the intent to kill, assault on an officer, damaging property/criminal mischief, child neglect and resisting an officer without violence.

As of Tuesday morning, Matute Godoy was no longer appearing in the online jail database.

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Miami-Dade Schools Police School Resource Officer Anthony Davila said he treats the kids there as if they were his own.

It was on March 11 when he put his life-saving skills to the test, saving 13-year-old Alex Sanabria from choking.

Now the two have an inextricable bond.

“Oh, I thought it’s over,” said Sanabria. “I was gonna turn blue and fall on the ground. It’s over.”

Sanabria was having lunch at school when he began choking on potato chips, and immediately ran toward the one person he knew could help save his life.

“I knew this child’s life was in my hands,” said Davila. “I performed back blows, and when that wasn’t working, I switched to the Heimlich.”

“I knew in that moment I was gonna be OK,” said Sanabria. “When he was doing the Heimlich.”

“And luckily, he threw the object up and regained breathing,” added Davila. “Right there, I realized that I saved his life. It didn’t kick in until that moment. It could have gone so many ways.”

And that realization left Sanabria with no choice but to throw his arms around the man who saved him.

“Because he saved my life and I was very grateful,” he said. “Because if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today.”

“It melted my heart,” said Davila. “Especially the hug at the end. It touched right here.”

Now the two are bonding further over their shared love of law enforcement.

Sanabria says he wants to be an officer someday.

“I just don’t like seeing people do bad things to other people so I wanna send the bad guys to jail,” he said.

Davila was recognized on Wednesday for his life-saving actions, a moment he says he’ll remember forever.

“This impacted me a whole lot, knowing I saved Alex’s life,” he said. “I see these students as my kids. And I wanna make sure they get home to their parents and families every day safely.”

Sanabria said he already knows the Heimlich maneuver and wants to learn CPR next.

El agente de recursos escolares de la Policía de Escuelas de Miami-Dade, Anthony Davila, dijo que trata a los estudiantes como si fueran sus propios hijos.

Fue el 11 de marzo cuando puso a prueba sus habilidades para salvar vidas, rescatando a Alex Sanabria, de 13 años, de asfixiarse.

Ahora ambos tienen un vínculo inquebrantable.

“Oh, pensé que todo había terminado”, dijo Sanabria. “Me iba a poner azul y caer al suelo. Se acabó”.

Sanabria estaba almorzando en la escuela cuando comenzó a ahogarse con papas fritas y de inmediato corrió hacia la única persona que sabía que podía salvarle la vida.

“Sabía que la vida de este niño estaba en mis manos”, dijo Davila. “Le di golpes en la espalda, y cuando eso no funcionó, cambié a la maniobra de Heimlich”.

“Supe en ese momento que iba a estar bien”, dijo Sanabria. “Cuando estaba haciendo la maniobra de Heimlich”.

“Y afortunadamente, expulsó el objeto y recuperó la respiración”, añadió Davila. “En ese momento me di cuenta de que le salvé la vida. No lo procesé hasta ese instante. Pudo haber terminado de muchas maneras”.

Esa realización llevó a Sanabria a abrazar al hombre que le salvó la vida.

“Porque me salvó la vida y estoy muy agradecido”, dijo. “Porque si no fuera por él, no estaría aquí hoy”.

“Me conmovió mucho”, dijo Davila. “Especialmente el abrazo al final. Me llegó al corazón”.

Ahora ambos fortalecen su relación por su interés compartido en el orden público.

Sanabria dice que quiere ser agente algún día.

“No me gusta ver a la gente hacer cosas malas a otros, así que quiero meter a los malos en la cárcel”, dijo.

Davila fue reconocido el miércoles por sus acciones para salvar una vida, un momento que dice recordará para siempre.

“Esto me impactó mucho, saber que salvé la vida de Alex”, dijo. “Veo a estos estudiantes como mis hijos. Y quiero asegurarme de que regresen a casa con sus padres y familias todos los días de manera segura”.

Sanabria dijo que ya conoce la maniobra de Heimlich y quiere aprender RCP después.

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Arman Motiwalla, 37, of Plantation, was a successful insurance executive and father who worked at Synergy Insurance Affiliates LLC at 350 Camino Gardens Blvd. in Boca Raton.

But on April 8, while leaving work in the overnight hours, Motiwalla was shot multiple times and killed in the parking lot of the business.

At the time of his death, Motiwalla was involved in a bitter legal battle with his former employer, the Coral Springs-based company Innovative Partners.

“He was terminated for objecting to or refusing to participate in a practice or policy that violated a law, rule, or regulation,” his attorney, G. Ware Cornell Jr., said.

Records show Motiwalla filed the whistleblower case last summer, and Innovative Partners LLC even countersued in a strong denial of allegations of mismanaging funds.

Cornell said the insurance executive’s murder was just nine days before new evidence was set to be introduced in court tied to the lawsuit.

This has only added to the murder mystery, with some people even speculating Motiwalla was working with federal authorities to help bring down his former company.

“He never told me that he was ever any kind of witness or participant in anything involving any kind of police agency,” Cornell said.

While the case remains under investigation, police have called the parking lot shooting an isolated incident and Cornell isn’t pointing the finger at anyone.

Because of the murder, a judge has now dismissed the original whistleblower lawsuit.

There’s no known connection between the suit and Motiwalla’s murder. Police said they’re still investigating but no arrests have been made.

Arman Motiwalla, de 37 años, residente de Plantation, era un ejecutivo de seguros exitoso y padre de familia que trabajaba en Synergy Insurance Affiliates LLC en 350 Camino Gardens Blvd., en Boca Ratón.

Pero el 8 de abril, mientras salía del trabajo durante la madrugada, Motiwalla fue baleado múltiples veces y asesinado en el estacionamiento del negocio.

Al momento de su muerte, Motiwalla estaba involucrado en una intensa batalla legal con su ex empleador, la empresa Innovative Partners, con sede en Coral Springs.

“Fue despedido por oponerse o negarse a participar en una práctica o política que violaba una ley, norma o regulación”, dijo su abogado, G. Ware Cornell Jr.

Los registros muestran que Motiwalla presentó la demanda como denunciante el verano pasado, y Innovative Partners LLC incluso presentó una contrademanda negando enérgicamente las acusaciones de mala gestión de fondos.

Cornell dijo que el asesinato del ejecutivo de seguros ocurrió solo nueve días antes de que se presentara nueva evidencia en la corte relacionada con la demanda.

Esto ha añadido más misterio al caso, con algunas personas especulando que Motiwalla estaba colaborando con autoridades federales para ayudar a desmantelar a su antigua empresa.

“Él nunca me dijo que fuera algún tipo de testigo o participante en algo relacionado con alguna agencia policial”, dijo Cornell.

Mientras el caso sigue bajo investigación, la policía ha calificado la balacera en el estacionamiento como un incidente aislado y Cornell no señala a nadie como responsable.

Debido al asesinato, un juez ha desestimado la demanda original de denunciante.

No se conoce una conexión entre la demanda y el asesinato de Motiwalla. La policía dijo que la investigación continúa y que no se han realizado arrestos.

El condado compró el proyecto de viviendas Southcliff Estates, ubicado en 95295 Overseas Highway en Key Largo, utilizando fondos provenientes de un fondo de $35 millones USD del impuesto turístico administrado por el Tourist Development Council tras el auge del turismo posterior al COVID.

“Es frustrante para todos nosotros porque estábamos muy entusiasmados con este proyecto”, dijo la alcaldesa del condado Monroe, Michelle Lincoln. “Pensábamos: ‘Esto va a ser increíble. Vamos a poder ayudar a la gente de inmediato. No tendremos que esperar a que se construya ni pasar por permisos’. Y está vacío”.

Diseñado para trabajadores de la industria turística de los Cayos de Florida, el proceso de solicitud para las 11 unidades de un dormitorio y un baño se abrió en agosto con un alquiler de $2,995 USD al mes.

El precio inicial provocó sorpresa entre algunos residentes.

Pero incluso después de que los comisionados redujeran el alquiler a casi $1,900 USD al mes, ni una sola unidad ha sido alquilada.

Lincoln dijo que el condado buscará actualizar su proceso de encuestas para reflejar con mayor precisión las necesidades de los trabajadores en los Cayos.

“Ahora hemos pisado el freno y vamos a actualizar los estudios que hicimos hace años para determinar específicamente cuáles son las necesidades de vivienda”, dijo.

Un portavoz del condado indicó que se está actualizando la estrategia de promoción para incluir un cartel más visible en la propiedad, publicaciones en redes sociales y anuncios en el sitio web inmobiliario Zillow.

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Two pilots were killed in a collision between a plane and a fire truck on an active runway.

Officials have since revealed that the fire truck did not have a crucial tracking device, a transponder, that is standard for vehicles at many airports.

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, more than 30 million people take off and land annually.

Supported by airport data, tracking transponders are essential for safety at both FLL and Miami International Airport.

“If it detects an object close to or near especially the runway environment, it alarms,” said FLL Chief Operating Officer Mike Nonnemacher. “It lets the air traffic controller know there’s a potential conflict.”

There are busy areas of an airport that travelers may never see, but Local 10 was given access to some of those movement areas of FLL.

It’s a constant ballet of speed, timing and trust.

FLL has six fire trucks equipped with transponders onboard, tracking planes second-by-second.

There are 26 operational vehicles that are a part of that system that go out to check runways, and another 21 maintenance vehicles, at FLL.

That’s because on the ground, the work never stops. Lightbulbs, pavement, signs and many other small fixes are all part of a very big system.

And backing it all up is another set of eyes, an airport surface detection radar that is silently, constantly searching.

According to the FAA, the installation of transponders was only guidance, but not mandatory.

“The FAA is actively encouraging airports to voluntarily equip vehicles with VMATS,” the FAA said in a statement to Local 10.

Similarly to FLL, Miami International Airport also has a surface detection system.

By the numbers, MIA has 51 vehicles with transponders that handle ramp access, wildlife control, electrical work, pavement issues and more.

As for fire and emergency vehicles, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has nine emergency response vehicles at MIA, but without transponders.

Local 10 has been told that transponders have recently been ordered; MDFR and the Miami-Dade Aviation Department said they are working together to get it done.

Dos pilotos murieron en una colisión entre un avión y un camión de bomberos en una pista activa.

Desde entonces, las autoridades han revelado que el camión de bomberos no contaba con un dispositivo de rastreo crucial, un transpondedor, que es estándar para vehículos en muchos aeropuertos.

En el Aeropuerto Internacional de Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, más de 30 millones de personas despegan y aterrizan anualmente.

Respaldados por datos del aeropuerto, los transpondedores de rastreo son esenciales para la seguridad tanto en FLL como en el Aeropuerto Internacional de Miami.

“Si detecta un objeto cercano, especialmente en el entorno de la pista, emite una alerta”, dijo el director de operaciones de FLL, Mike Nonnemacher. “Le indica al controlador de tráfico aéreo que hay un posible conflicto”.

Hay áreas concurridas de un aeropuerto que los viajeros nunca ven, pero Local 10 tuvo acceso a algunas de esas zonas de movimiento en FLL.

Es un constante ballet de velocidad, tiempo y confianza.

FLL cuenta con seis camiones de bomberos equipados con transpondedores a bordo, que rastrean aviones segundo a segundo.

Hay 26 vehículos operativos que forman parte de ese sistema y salen a inspeccionar las pistas, y otros 21 vehículos de mantenimiento en FLL.

Eso se debe a que en tierra el trabajo nunca se detiene. Bombillas, pavimento, señales y muchas otras reparaciones pequeñas forman parte de un sistema muy grande.

Y respaldándolo todo hay otro conjunto de “ojos”: un radar de detección de superficie del aeropuerto que busca de manera silenciosa y constante.

Según la FAA, la instalación de transpondedores era solo una recomendación, no obligatoria.

“La FAA está alentando activamente a los aeropuertos a equipar voluntariamente sus vehículos con VMATS”, dijo la agencia en un comunicado a Local 10.

De manera similar a FLL, el Aeropuerto Internacional de Miami también cuenta con un sistema de detección de superficie.

En cifras, MIA tiene 51 vehículos con transpondedores que manejan acceso a rampas, control de fauna, trabajos eléctricos, problemas de pavimento y más.

En cuanto a los vehículos de bomberos y emergencia, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tiene nueve unidades de respuesta en MIA, pero sin transpondedores.

Local 10 fue informado de que recientemente se ordenaron transpondedores; MDFR y el Departamento de Aviación de Miami-Dade dijeron que están trabajando juntos para implementarlos.

Some aspects of sustainable seafood are obvious and well-trod, even if the how-to intricacies likely are lost on most consumers.

But sustainability today is complicated terrain, as much about business as bycatch, and why, for your next clam chowder, human rights matter as much as healthy habitats.

Advocates now want you considering issues of labor abuses, the rights of indigenous populations to use traditional fishing practices, the carbon footprint of a salmon fillet relative to a filet mignon, even whether the fishing boats offer free, high-speed Wi-Fi.

All of this is certified, rated and labeled by a tapestry of competing and overlapping groups.

For the already seafood-averse consumer -- Americans have a notoriously limited appetite for seafood -- it all can be a bit overwhelming.

“I’m an expert and I still sometimes struggle to look through some of the systems to figure out which product in the store actually matches which rating, and which label is different,” said Robert Jones, global director of aquatic foods for The Nature Conservancy.

The old 'traffic light' ratings

For several decades, the most recognizable expression of seafood sustainability was Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which encouraged or admonished consumption of specific species with cards labeled green, yellow and red.

Driven largely to preserve seafood populations -- eat the abundant Arctic char, but take a pass on the tenuous tuna -- the simplicity resonated.

Twenty-five years ago, that was the right focus, said Jennifer Kemmerly, vice president of global ocean conservation for Monterey Bay. Overseas fisheries, the source of much of the seafood consumed in the U.S., might be immune to American regulations, but would respond if enough consumers demanded sustainable choices.

But the simple, traffic-light ratings also created a guilty-until-proven-innocent aura that lingers, said Barton Seaver, a seafood sustainability expert with National Geographic. Rather than tease out whether farmed or wild salmon is better (the answer has changed over the years), many people just opt for chicken.

“The entire category had to be exonerated,” he said. “Yes, (the information) was more easily digestible, but the end result was fear, trepidation and a general lack of participation.”

The many meanings of sustainability

Seafood Watch eventually fell silent, partly a victim of pandemic pressures. By then, the definition of sustainable had broadened dramatically. Safeguarding endangered stocks still matters, of course. But a host of other issues -- treatment of workers, regenerative practices, local vs. corporate ownership of the fleet -- can mitigate that.

And plenty of people in and outside the industry argue that any test of sustainability also must weigh the impact of seafood against the alternatives.

“When we do so across five very important metrics -- greenhouse gas, land-use alteration, feed conversion, freshwater and antibiotics -- seafood just comes out on top in the animal-protein conversation,” said Seaver.

“If you want the sustainable option for dinner, the yellow-list or even red-list seafood might be the better environmental option than chicken or beef,” he said.

The result is an equation too complex for most consumers. It doesn’t help that many of the newer sustainability issues simply aren’t intuitive to the consumer. That on-ship Wi-Fi, for example? A lifeline for workers to report labor abuses while at sea for months at a time.

The monoculture-like beef, pork and poultry industries easily align on methods and messaging (after all, everyone knows what’s for dinner and which is the other white meat.) But seafood is inherently complex, comprised of thousands of species, regions and regulations.

“The biggest loser here is the American consumer,” said celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern, whose documentary “Hope in the Water” highlighted efforts to make seafood more sustainable.

Aiming higher

Despite the information overload, Kemmerly sees the complexity as a sign of success.

“These big companies who 25 years ago made a sustainability commitment thinking it was just the environmental piece are now also on the hook -- no pun intended -- for reporting on environmental, social and governance issues,” she said.

The way forward, many say, is to sell confidence in American seafood. Zimmern wants to see all the players -- from fishermen and wholesalers to watchdog groups -- agree on regularly updated standards. It puts the onus for good choices on the industry and frees the consumer to feel good about whatever they purchase.

That may not be as wishful as it sounds. The Alaskan seafood industry benefits from a sustainability halo because regulations mandating good practices are written into the state constitution.

“We’ve always said, if you choose Alaska, it’s the easy choice from a sustainability standpoint. There’s not a single one of our fisheries that isn’t sustainably managed,” said Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “We’ve tried to simplify that for them.”

The best way to support the industry, Seaver said, is to let chefs and consumers focus on what tastes good. And Seafood Watch seems to agree. The program is in the midst of a relaunch that will focus on educating chefs about making sustainable choices.

So what’s a befuddled seafood shopper to do? The consensus seems to be: Buy American, local when possible. Though hardly perfect, the U.S. seafood industry is highly regulated and works with retailers who insist on sustainability standards.

“When you go to Whole Foods, you trust that they’ve done the job for you. And that’s the case for a lot of large grocery chains these days,” Woodrow said. “Consumers should feel confident when they go to the freezer case or the fresh case that that fish is going to be coming from a responsible fishery.”

___

J.M. Hirsch is a longtime food writer who was food editor of The Associated Press for nearly a decade until 2016.

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The county purchased the Southcliff Estates housing project, located at 95295 Overseas Highway in Key Largo, using money from a $35 million pool of Tourist Development Council bed tax funds from the post-COVID tourism boom.

“It’s frustrating for all of us because we were so excited about this project,” said Monroe County Mayor Michelle Lincoln. “We were like, ‘This is going to be amazing. We’re going to be able to help people right away. We’re not going to have to wait until it’s constructed and to go through permits.’ And it’s empty.”

Designed for workers in the Florida Keys tourism industry, the application process for the 11 one-bedroom, one-bathroom units opened in August at a rate of $2,995 a month.

The initial rental rate gave some residents a dose of sticker shock.

But even after commissioners amended the rental price to nearly $1,900 a month, not a single unit has been rented.

Lincoln said the county will look to update its survey process to more accurately reflect the needs of workers in the Keys.

“We have now tapped the brakes, and we are now going to update the studies we did years ago for specifically what are the housing needs,” she said.

A county spokesperson said marketing is being updated to include a more visible banner on the property, social media posts and ads on real estate website Zillow.

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Andre Bernard, 35, was hospitalized after the crash on Tuesday.

“They came straight into me, so I just braced myself for impact, held my seatbelt ― boom ― that was it,” he said. “I woke up on the ground.”

Bernard says he is very sore, walks with a limp and is covered with road rashes, deep cuts and needed stitches on his right arm.

He told Local 10’s Sanela Sabovic he was trying to make a U-turn when another driver hit him.

The crash happened in the area of Southwest 16th Street and Fourth Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.

The impact ejected Bernard from his postal truck.

He remembers waking up on the ground and neighbors rushing in to help him out.

Cellphone video shows Bernard on the street with people tending to him, pieces of mail and glass shards scattered all over the roadway.

He was rushed to Broward Health Medical Center for treatment.

Bernard said he’s never had anything like this happen before.

The father of three small children is thankful to be alive and to be spending this time recovering with them.

“It means a lot because I feel like I have a second chance at life,” he said. “Home with kids, stay strong and keep going.”

Bernard will be out of work for 45 days or so.

He said he is so thankful to all of the residents in the neighborhood who rushed in to help him out.

For those who wish to assist Bernard during his recovery, visit Bernard’s GoFundMe page.

Andre Bernard, de 35 años, fue hospitalizado después del choque el martes.

“Se me vinieron directo encima, así que me preparé para el impacto, me sujeté el cinturón ― boom ― eso fue todo”, dijo. “Desperté en el suelo”.

Bernard dice que está muy adolorido, camina cojeando y tiene abrasiones por el asfalto, cortes profundos y necesitó puntos de sutura en su brazo derecho.

Le dijo a Sanela Sabovic de Local 10 que intentaba hacer un giro en U cuando otro conductor lo chocó.

El accidente ocurrió en el área de la Southwest 16th Street y Fourth Avenue en Fort Lauderdale.

El impacto expulsó a Bernard de su camión postal.

Recuerda haber despertado en el suelo y a vecinos corriendo para ayudarlo.

Un video de teléfono celular muestra a Bernard en la calle mientras personas lo atendían, con piezas de correo y fragmentos de vidrio esparcidos por toda la vía.

Fue trasladado de emergencia al Broward Health Medical Center para recibir tratamiento.

Bernard dijo que nunca le había pasado algo así.

El padre de tres niños pequeños agradece estar vivo y poder pasar este tiempo recuperándose con ellos.

“Significa mucho porque siento que tengo una segunda oportunidad de vida”, dijo. “En casa con mis hijos, mantenerse fuerte y seguir adelante”.

Bernard estará fuera del trabajo por unos 45 días.

Dijo que está muy agradecido con todos los residentes del vecindario que acudieron a ayudarlo.

Para quienes deseen ayudar a Bernard durante su recuperación, pueden visitar su página de GoFundMe.

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It was Sunday morning when Alexandra Anaya heard a clicking sound coming from the battery pack of the new electric wheelchair she’d bought at a thrift store.

After hearing the noises, to be safe, she moved it outside of her home located along the 5900 block of North Farragut Drive.

Surveillance video captured her watching the wheelchair for a moment and then sprinting away just before it exploded and caught fire.

Fortunately, it was away from the home and the blaze didn’t spread any further.

Anaya’s mother passed away recently, and in this close call, she said she believes her mom was watching out for her.

“She’s just gotta be looking over me,” Anaya said. “There was just too much coincidence here to be a coincidence.”

Hollywood Fire Rescue officials said her actions saved her and her family from catastrophe, confirming that it was a dangerous lithium battery fire.

Anaya hopes her story helps prevent disaster from happening to someone else.

“Don’t leave this stuff charging when you’re not home,” Anaya said. “Always do it when you’re home and you can keep an eye on it, because stuff explodes. This could’ve happened to anybody.”

Officials with Hollywood Fire Rescue said if you hear clicking, popping or hissing on one of those devices, immediately stop using it and move it to an area outside if you can.

Fue el domingo por la mañana cuando Alexandra Anaya escuchó un sonido de clic proveniente del paquete de batería de la nueva silla de ruedas eléctrica que había comprado en una tienda de segunda mano.

Tras escuchar los ruidos, por precaución, la sacó de su casa ubicada en la cuadra 5900 de North Farragut Drive.

Un video de vigilancia la captó observando la silla por un momento y luego corriendo justo antes de que explotara y se incendiara.

Afortunadamente, estaba lejos de la vivienda y el fuego no se propagó más.

La madre de Anaya falleció recientemente, y tras este incidente, ella dijo que cree que su mamá la estaba cuidando.

“Ella tiene que estar velando por mí”, dijo Anaya. “Había demasiadas coincidencias”.

Funcionarios de Hollywood Fire Rescue dijeron que sus acciones la salvaron a ella y a su familia de una catástrofe, confirmando que se trató de un peligroso incendio de batería de litio.

Anaya espera que su historia ayude a prevenir que algo así le ocurra a otra persona.

“No dejen estas cosas cargando cuando no estén en casa”, dijo Anaya. “Háganlo siempre cuando estén en casa y puedan vigilarlas, porque las cosas explotan. Esto le pudo haber pasado a cualquiera”.

Funcionarios de Hollywood Fire Rescue dijeron que si escucha sonidos de clic, estallidos o silbidos en uno de estos dispositivos, deje de usarlo de inmediato y muévalo a un área exterior si es posible.

The civil rights group made the announcement on Tuesday, saying President Donald Trump's administration appears to be preparing legal action against it or some of its employees.

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

The SPLC previously paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities, often sharing it with local and federal law enforcement, Fair said. It was used to monitor threats of violence, he said, adding that the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

He said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”

The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The investigation could add to concerns that Trump's Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The SPLC regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.

The SPLC came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The SPLC included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the SPLC, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the SPLC had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden's Democratic administration "to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

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According to police, Yarilis Mendez-Carrillo was reported missing March 11 by her grandmother and was last seen in the 300 block of Southwest 12^th Avenue.

Police said Mendez-Carrillo does not have a cellphone and has not been in contact with anyone since she was reported missing.

Mendez-Carrillo is described by police as a Hispanic female, who is 4 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs about 130 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes.

Police said she has a large circular scar on her upper right thigh.

Mendez-Carrillo was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and blue shorts.

A Missing Child Alert has been issued by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as the search for the teen continues.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call the Homestead Police Department at 305-247-1535 or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

Según la policía, Yarilis Mendez-Carrillo fue reportada desaparecida el 11 de marzo por su abuela y fue vista por última vez en la cuadra 300 de la Southwest 12th Avenue.

La policía indicó que Mendez-Carrillo no tiene teléfono celular y no ha estado en contacto con nadie desde que fue reportada como desaparecida.

Mendez-Carrillo es descrita por la policía como una mujer hispana, que mide 4 pies y 7 pulgadas de estatura y pesa aproximadamente 130 libras. Tiene cabello negro y ojos marrones.

La policía dijo que tiene una cicatriz circular grande en la parte superior de su muslo derecho.

Mendez-Carrillo fue vista por última vez usando una camiseta blanca y pantalones cortos azules.

El Departamento de Cumplimiento de la Ley de Florida ha emitido una Alerta de Menor Desaparecido mientras continúa la búsqueda de la adolescente.

Cualquier persona con información sobre su paradero debe llamar al Departamento de Policía de Homestead al 305-247-1535 o a Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers al 305-471-8477.

Según la Patrulla de Carreteras de Florida, el accidente ocurrió en los carriles en dirección norte de la autopista cerca de la salida 49 hacia Hollywood Boulevard.

Los agentes dijeron que el conductor del Honda chocó contra un camión tráiler, lo que provocó que el camión impactara una barrera de contención y se volcara.

El camión quedó detenido a unos 10 pies de un cuerpo de agua, indicaron las autoridades.

Los agentes señalaron que el conductor del camión tuvo que ser rescatado del vehículo y fue atendido por una lesión en la mano.

“Botellas rociadoras misceláneas se derramaron del remolque, y más de 50 galones de combustible se filtraron”, dijo un portavoz de la FHP en un correo electrónico a Local 10 News. “Las labores de limpieza mantienen dos carriles bloqueados”.

No está claro qué causó que el conductor del Honda chocara contra el camión.

Leer en español

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the crash occurred in the northbound lanes of the highway near the Exit 49 ramp to Hollywood Boulevard.

Troopers said the driver of the Honda crashed into a semi-tractor-trailer, causing the semi to strike a guardrail and roll over.

The semi-truck came to rest about 10 feet away from a body of water, authorities said.

Troopers said the truck driver had to be extricated from the semi and was treated for a hand injury.

“Miscellaneous spray bottles spilled from the trailer, and more than 50 gallons of fuel leaked,” an FHP spokesperson said in an email to Local 10 News. “Cleanup operations have 2 lanes blocked.”

It’s unclear what caused the Honda driver to crash into the semi-truck.

That home went up in flames slower because it was fortified with better materials. Add moving vegetation, mulch, wood fences and hot tubs with their highly flammable insultation several feet away and experts said you can protect houses from the increasing danger of wildfires on a warming planet.

The research is being done by workers at a remote site in South Carolina. They have set fire to 13 houses because scientists need to burn to learn.

Inside the carefully crafted home were sensors and a few cameras the site's manager said will “give their life for science.” Outside are nearly $1 million of other cameras and instruments in a fireproof building nearby and scattered around.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety is a nonprofit created by insurers to make houses and other buildings more resilient. The institute's 100-acre (40-hectare) site in Richburg, South Carolina, started to study hurricanes and heavy wind and rain.

As wildfire danger increased in recent years, they sometimes turn the six-story tall wall of 105 fans stacked on top of each other to blow out of the wind tunnel's massive doors and spread fire.

“We crash test houses,” said Roy Wright, the president of the institute.

Wildfires are worsening, costing more damage

From 2016 to 2025, wildfires in the United States on average burned an area the size of Massachusetts each year, slightly more than 11,000 square miles (28,500 square kilometers). That’s 2.6 times the average burn area of the 1980s, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Canada’s land burned on average for the last 10 years is 2.8 times more than during the 1980s, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

In the United States, wildfires have caused an average of $17.7 billion a year in damage since 2020, according to statistics kept by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the nonprofit Climate Central.

Climate change is intensifying and extending fire seasons across the U.S. and a growing population puts densely packed neighborhoods into fire-threatened areas. In the past three years, massive and devastating wildfires hit California, Maui in Hawaii and the North and South Carolina mountains.

Drought across much of the United States — especially in the West and Southeast — is at record severe levels for this time of year. Add to that record heat and unheard of levels of low moisture in the West for the first three months of 2026 and it looks like this upcoming fire season will be extraordinarily bad, unless late spring or early summer rain somehow bails out the country, said UCLA climate and fire scientist Park Williams.

Test fires lead to building changes

The institute's research has already led to some conclusions that strengthened California's fire code. New homes must have ignition-resistant walls, tempered or double paned windows and mesh over vents to prevent fire embers from getting inside.

As important is taking care of the outside. Creating a 5-foot (1.5-meter) buffer where any material that burns easy like pine straw, a hot tub, a wooden fence or overhanging branches is an important line of defense.

The fire testing makes that clear. Researchers at the test site set fire to wooden blocks that look like Jenga towers within the buffer zone. The simulated winds, which in a recent test purposefully fluctuated between 30 and 55 mph (50 to 90 kph), continually pushed the flames toward the home.

Once the windows and walls are breached, all the combustible things inside like couches, furniture, clothes and plastics quickly erupt and begin sending large showers of dangerous burning embers lofted by heavy wind, setting new fires a block or two away.

But fire standards can only help so much. “Under really severe fire conditions, especially those involving very high winds, they probably are of more limited value,” Syracuse University fire researcher Jacob Bendix said.

Home fire prevention becomes a business

Fire prevention tools and techniques are becoming a big business.

After the 2018 Woolsey fire near his home in Ventura County, California, Nicholai Allen watched firefighters use fire retardants and wondered if homeowners could do the same. He became a wildland firefighter and learned that preventing embers from getting into homes’ attics and garages are the key.

Allen now makes and sells Safe Soss (pronounced like sauce), which include carbon filters or guards for attics and vents, fiberglass heat-resistant ember-stopping tape and a spray fire retardant that can work from a garden hose, all of which recently became available at a major hardware chain.

Allen compares it to how people up north get ready for winter.

“It’s kind of like if you live in the snow, you have a snow shovel, you have scrapers, and you know that you have to take certain preventative steps in order to live in an environment that, hey, sometimes snows,” Allen said.

Trial by fire

The test fires by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety are carefully controlled. The homes are made to be as similar to regular houses as possible without electricity or plumbing.

The attention to detail and safety is exacting. The institute likes spring fire testing at its site about halfway between Charlotte, North Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina, because while summer temperatures in the South can nearly match those in the fire-prone West, the swampy humidity in July is a bad approximation to a mountain canyon.

High winds delayed last week's fire for more than six hours with anxious workers worried they couldn't wait for the next day because an outdoor burning ban was starting after an unusually dry and hot spring.

Tarps and machines heat the houses to summer levels just before the fires are set on a huge concrete pad just outside the giant hanger where the fans line one wall and the hurricane testing takes place.

Elsewhere at the site, researches have started looking into hail and how it can damage homes. Another part of the campus has dozens of roofs just sticking above the ground as the shingles freeze and bake and are soaked by Mother Nature sometimes for more than a decade for more testing.

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Borenstein reported from Washington. Associated Press journalist Erik Verduzco contributed from Richburg, South Carolina.

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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.

Leon Smith, 46, has spent his entire 25-year career at Haverford High School, where he teaches Advanced Placement classes in U.S. history and African American studies. He describes himself as a “warm demander,” someone who sets high expectations while surrounding students with love and support. Often, that means recognizing hidden talents and bringing them to the forefront, he said in an interview Monday.

“An adult can tell you that they see something in you that maybe you didn’t see in yourself,” he said. “I love to do that for students. When I see ambition, when I see talent, I let them know that so that they can hopefully pursue that goal and achieve their dreams.”

Smith starts each class with a community building exercise — on Monday, he asked his students to talk about a song that made them happy. One shared a track that reminded him of a family vacation. Another recalled music she listened to with friends before they went their separate ways. The exercise helped settle the students before the discussion shifted to a harder question: When, if ever, should the United States enter a war happening far away?

“We want to make sure that our students can think critically, that they have empathy, that they can understand the nuance and complexity that goes into making decisions,” he said. “My hope is that when they leave my classroom, that they can be civically engaged, that they can make sure that they can create a society that they can be proud of.”

Smith also extends his teaching to outside the school, taking students to the state Capitol each year to engage with policymakers. That won him praise from the organization behind the award, the Council of Chief State School Officers, which also cited his emphasis on the inclusion of multiple perspectives in history.

As the Teacher of the Year, Smith will spend a year promoting the pivotal role educators play in shaping the next generation.

“They’ve moved societies. They have empowered activist movements. They’ve helped people to figure out what they want to do when they group up,” he said. “They’ve had a tremendous impact, and my hope is that people are inspired to join that legacy.”

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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

That patient’s grieving widow spoke to Local 10’s Jeff Derderian, saying she hopes that doctor never treats another patient again.

Beverly and Bill Bryan, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, had been married for 33 years.

But the two kept a rental place in Miramar Beach ― in Florida’s Panhandle.

One day, a trip to the hospital revealed that Bill Bryan, 70, needed surgery.

Beverly Bryan said Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky performed that surgery, but something went terribly wrong.

Prosecutors said Shaknovsky, 44, removed her husband’s liver instead of his spleen by accident, which led to complications.

“His spleen was completely intact,” said Beverly Bryan. “He had a small cyst that ruptured.”

She said afterward, Shaknovsky held her hand, prayed with her and then lied about what happened.

“He offered his condolences, said Bill was in a better place and the Lord would take care of him,” she said.

Beverly Bryan said her husband wanted to go back to Alabama for the surgery, but she said the doctor insisted, pressing and urging them to do it now.

She recalled her last words to her husband.

“I told him that I loved him and he said he loved me,” she said.

Records show Shaknovsky’s Florida medical license is not currently active.

According to a lawsuit, Shaknovsky said that in the chaos and shock of that operating room, he could not identify the organ.

He now faces a second-degree manslaughter charge.

“No surgeon that we’ve talked to can make sense of what he did,” said Beverly Bryan’s attorney, Joe Zarzaur. “It doesn’t make sense, because no one in the trained field can make sense of it all.”

Beverly Bryan said her husband was literally hours away from being cremated when the medical-mistake was brought to her attention, otherwise she may have never had known.

When asked if the doctor has ever apologized, Bryan didn’t hesitate.

“Not once,” she said. “Not a word.”

But it is the European Union's policy toward Israel — and how to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as security deteriorates in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, as well as in Lebanon — that is dividing the 27-nation bloc.

The EU has an Association Agreement, signed in 2000, that regulates trade and cooperation with Israel. Spain, Slovenia and Ireland have proposed suspending it in total, a move which likely does not have the unanimous support among EU nations required.

However, a partial suspension targeting just the trade aspects could have enough political support, said Spanish Foreign Minister José Albares.

“The European Union has to say today very clearly to Israel that a change is needed,” he said.

The EU has found indications Israel had violated that agreement in its military campaign in Gaza.

Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Israel's recent adoption of the death penalty for some Palestinians, and ongoing fighting in Lebanon should push EU nations to ramp up pressure on Israel.

“We need to act. We need to make sure that our fundamental values are protected. And we need to make sure that any agreement that we have with any other country that country is fulfilling and upholding their obligations,” McEntee said.

Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said that France and Sweden have brought forward a plan to curtail trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam spoke at the meeting in Luxembourg about the fragile ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, disarming the Hezbollah militant group, and the need for EU assistance for the war-torn nation.

“Lebanon today needs its European partners more than ever,” Salam posted on X on Tuesday.

While now mainly headquartered in Brussels, EU institutions are also spread out in northern Europe like the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany and the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Lawmakers, diplomats and officials regularly move between the cities for meetings.

The Luxembourg meeting comes a day after 60 nations sent representatives to a Palestinian peace conference in Brussels with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Mustafa and Bulgarian diplomat Nikolay Mladenov, who heads the Board of Peace set up by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, one of the loudest dissenting voices within the EU is shortly leaving office.

Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán routinely obstructed EU action on issues ranging from support for Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion to sanctions on Israelis accused of violent extremism.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that Orbán’s defeat by pro-European opposition leader Péter Magyar in Hungary’s recent election could accelerate action.

“A lot of issues ... have been blocked” by Hungary, she said. “We are reopening the discussions and hope that we get a positive result.”

On Iran, EU diplomats called for diplomacy as a ceasefire struck between Tehran and Washington was set to expire Tuesday.

Kallas called on the ceasefire to be extended “until there is a diplomatic solution.”

“The ceasefire is very fragile, but diplomacy should have a chance,” she said.

Germany’s foreign minister called on Iran to send negotiators to Islamabad to meet with U.S. Vice President JD Vance.

“Iran should now take this outstretched hand in the interest of its own people,” Johann Wadephul said.

The war in Iran has throttled global oil and gas markets and rattled the EU as a major importer of energy.

While foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg, EU transportation ministers discussed on video conference how to protect consumers at home and at the pump after the head of the International Energy Agency warned that Europe has “ maybe six weeks ” supply left of jet fuel.

Since the war between Israel, the U.S. and Iran started, fighting has killed at least 3,375 people in Iran and more than 2,290 in Lebanon. Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. service members throughout the region have been killed.

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McNeil reported from Brussels.

A spike in gas prices due to the Iran war, now in its eighth week, resulted in a hefty 1.7% gain in retail sales in March after a revised 0.7% increase in February, according to the Commerce Department’s report on Tuesday. The increase marked the fastest one-month increase in retail sales in more than three years.

The report marks the first read on spending to capture the effects of the Iran war.

Excluding gas prices, retail sales were up 0.6%, helped in part by government tax refunds and warm weather.

Business at gas stations rose 15.5% percent.

Elsewhere, shoppers were still willing to spend. Sales at department stores rose 4.2%, while sales at furniture and home furnishings stores were up 2.2%. Online retailers saw a 1% gain. Consumer electronics and appliance stores posted a 0.9% increase. The only area that saw a decline for March was miscellaneous retailers, according to the Commerce report.

The snapshot offers only a partial look at consumer spending and doesn’t include things like travel and hotel stays. The lone services category – restaurants – registered a more modest gain of 0.1%.

The so-called control group—which excludes food services, autos, building materials and gas station sales and is used to calculate economic growth—rose 0.7%. That offered a good sign of broad spending by consumers, economists said.

“It’s a blowout retail sales figure for March,“ Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a report.

She noted that the impact of tariffs is visible in the high spending on electronics and appliances due to higher prices. A small increase at restaurants may indicate some early signs of pullback as consumers have to spend more at the pump, she said.

“Overall, the American consumer is still healthy,” she added. "Extra income from tax refunds is helping many households weather this oil shock, but that extra money won’t last forever.”

The Iran war began Feb. 28 and has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

Late last month, U.S. gas prices jumped past an average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022.

Economists had believed that an unusually large jump in tax refunds would kick start spending at the start of the year. But spiking gas prices are taking a bite out of that money. And the Iran war is also further dampening shoppers' mood. Consumer sentiment plunged to a record low in April, according to a survey released earlier this month by the University of Michigan, largely because of the Iran war and concerns over higher gas prices.

Shoppers aren’t just feeling it at the gas pump, but are also starting to see unforeseen costs everywhere, including when they travel such as higher baggage fees. They will also likely see higher prices on different products ripple through the supply chain as companies start to pass on higher transportation costs to shoppers, analysts said.

The jump in gas prices caused a sharp spike in inflation last month, creating major challenges for the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve and increasing already significant political hurdles for the White House.

Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March from a year earlier. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.9% in March from February, the largest such gain in nearly four years.

Heading into the war, shoppers were already cautious. But Bryan Eshelman, Americas leader of retail and a partner and managing director at consultancy AlixPartners, noted his retail clients see their customers pulling back even more now.

“Particularly in the low-end economy, people are shifting from wants to needs,” he said.

R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research at Placer.ai, noted that for seven straight weeks, traffic at nondiscretionary retailers like grocers outpaced that of discretionary merchants. That trend was reversed the week of April 6, helped by the distribution of tax refunds and spending tied to spring break and Easter.

But after the data goes past Easter trends, future visits will largely depend on consumer sentiment regarding broader macroeconomic conditions and gas prices, Hottovy said. The firm tracks people’s movements based on cellphone usage.

Through his long months in captivity, family and friends hoped that, like Frankl, he would come back with a message of hope. Then, in August 2024, after nearly a year in captivity, he and five other hostages were shot dead by their captors deep underground, likely as Israeli forces were closing in.

The quest for his why has fallen to his family, who led a high-profile campaign for his release. His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, has a new book released Tuesday.

“When We See You Again,” has no narrative arc, no tidy uplifting message, no score settling with the Hamas militants who killed her son or the Israeli leaders who many blamed for his death — only a searing account of her grief.

She hasn’t yet decided whether the book is an exceptionally painful love story, or a love-filled pain story.

“I’m still trying to figure out with clarity what is my why, but it’s clear to me that my why is not done,” Goldberg-Polin said, a photo of a smiling Hersh behind her. “I just really wanted to tell the truth. It’s very ugly.”

A face of the hostage crisis

Hersh was among the 251 people abducted by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack. His hand was blown off by a grenade before he was dragged into Gaza and eventually into the militant group’s labyrinth of tunnels.

The war sparked by the attack led to the killing of over 70,000 Palestinians and the destruction of much of Gaza before a ceasefire deal in October led to the release of all the remaining hostages. Hersh had been killed, along with five other hostages, more than a year earlier.

Rachel had campaigned tirelessly for her son’s release, appearing in countless media interviews, meeting with then-President Joe Biden and addressing the Democratic National Convention. She also joined mass protests in Israel accusing the government of failing to reach a deal sooner.

Her son was among the best-known hostages. Posters and graffiti with his name and face still appear across the country, often bearing the line from Frankl.

A human portrait

In her memoir, Rachel takes care not to mythologize him. She notes that he picked his scabs as a kid and was bad at doing dishes.

“Hersh has become a symbol to many,” Goldberg-Polin writes in the book. “I don’t know what to do with that. But it’s OK. If people need Hersh to be something, he will be that. That is the essence of service, being what is needed.”

Rachel grew up in Chicago and moved to Israel with her husband and three children when Hersh, the oldest, was six. She tells stories from the “before time”: of how Hersh as a child would wow people with his encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. presidents, and how he loved Jerusalem's local soccer team and their sister team in Bremen, Germany.

She only briefly touches on his capture and the details of his captivity, which have been widely reported. She writes about their desperate search for information in the chaotic and terrifying days after the attack, their long fight for his release and the news of Hersh's killing, along with five others, after 328 days.

The book is mostly a “very raw, peeled, oozing, throbbing pain,” Goldberg-Polin said. She describes “hundreds of sodden days dripping with anguish.”

“The book really started just as a way of taking this tremendous weight of suffering that was causing my soul to buckle,” she said in an interview in Jerusalem.

The writing came out in bursts, without a plan for a final project, just a question of “How do I survive the next 15 minutes?” she said.

A fellowship of grief

The book emerged in part from her frustration when people asked how she was. “I think, ‘Well, do you not see this dagger sticking out of my chest at my heart? How can you possibly be asking me that?’” she said. “But I realized they don’t see it. And it’s not because they’re mean or insensitive. They simply don’t see it.”

“Someone who’s born blind doesn’t know what blue is, and it’s very difficult to describe blue to someone who’s blind. But I’m desperate for people to see my blue, and I’m yearning for people to feel my pain,” she said.

Then there were those who wanted to share their own stories of death and loss, even during her son’s shiva, the traditional Jewish week of mourning after the funeral. It’s an experience that she describes as overwhelming and eye-opening, revealing the “surplus of suffering” in the world.

“They’re not trying to comfort me, they’re saying: ‘Let me stand next to you and we’ll be in this together,’” she said.

During the campaign to release the hostages, one of Rachel’s mantras was “Hope is mandatory,” even when it felt impossible. Now, wherever they go, people ask her and her husband for a bit of their creased and crumpled hope.

She has no easy answers, as she tells Hersh in a letter addressed to her dead son near the end of the book.

“I will carry your why,” she writes. “I'll do it, I’ll carry your why around the world.”

Republicans are already calling for the expulsion of Cherfilus-McCormick, who is in her third term and is running for reelection in a southeastern Florida district. She is also facing federal criminal charges accusing her of stealing $5 million in coronavirus disaster relief funds and using the money to buy items such as a 3-carat yellow diamond ring.

Cherfilus-McCormick has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and says she is not guilty of ethics violations, either.

The allegations against the congresswoman center on how she received millions of dollars from her family’s health care business after Florida mistakenly overpaid the business by roughly $5 million with COVID-19 disaster relief funds. She is accused of using that money to fund her 2022 congressional campaign through a network of businesses and family members.

Cherfilus-McCormick declined to testify during a previous Ethics Committee hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her attorney, William Barzee, sparred with some of the lawmakers and argued that they should have allowed a thorough ethics trial, at which he could present witnesses and evidence to counter the conclusions of House investigators.

A group of supporters in Cherfilus-McCormick’s congressional district have weighed in on her behalf with the lawmakers who lead the Ethics Committee. They noted that the committee’s decision could leave hundreds of thousands of people without representation in Congress during an important time in their state, and they urged committee leaders to proceed with caution.

“Our communities deserve stability. Our voices deserve to be heard. And our right to representation must be protected,” said one of the letters sent to the committee signed by about a dozen local faith leaders, union officials and others.

In all, the panel’s two-year investigation led to the issuance of 59 subpoenas, 28 witness interviews and a review of more than 33,000 pages of documents.

Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, has said he will move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick once the Ethics Committee makes a determination on what punishment it will recommend.

That move could in turn prompt Democrats to seek the expulsion of Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who is the subject of a wide-ranging investigation by the Ethics Committee that includes whether he violated campaign finance laws, misused congressional resources and engaged in sexual misconduct or dating violence. That investigation is ongoing. Mills has denied any wrongdoing.

The focus on lawmaker wrongdoing comes just one week after two lawmakers resigned during ethics investigations into alleged sexual misconduct. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas headed off possible expulsion votes with their resignations.

House Democratic leaders have declined to condemn Cherfilus-McCormick, saying they wanted to see the ethics process play out. Potential punishments include a reprimand or a censure, which serve as forms of public rebuke. The committee could also recommend a fine. The most severe form of punishment is expulsion, but the House has historically been reluctant to serve as the final arbiter of a lawmaker’s career, preferring to give that final say to the voters.

Only six members of the House have been expelled. The first three fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and were expelled for disloyalty. The next two had been convicted of crimes. The final one was George Santos, the scandal-plagued freshman who was the subject of a blistering ethics report on his conduct as well as federal indictment. Santos, a New York Republican, served time in prison for ripping off his campaign donors before President Donald Trump granted him clemency, and he has apologized to his former constituents.

Under the Constitution, at least two-thirds of the House has to vote for expulsion for it to occur, a high threshold that requires enormous bipartisan support.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters last week he believes the House will move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick.

“The facts are indisputable at this point, and so I believe it’ll be the consensus of this body that she should be expelled,” Johnson said.

In a social media post, the Pentagon said U.S. forces “conducted a right-of-visit maritime interdiction” and boarded the M/T Tifani “without incident.”

It's the latest move in the U.S. war on Iran to stop any ship tied to Tehran or those suspected of carrying supplies that could help its government, from weapons and oil to metals and electronics. The announcement comes hours ahead of the expiration of an already tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, and as Pakistan attempts to broker talks between Washington and Tehran.

Ship-tracking data showed the Tifani was carrying oil in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday between Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The Pentagon described the Tifani as “stateless” despite it being a Botswana-flagged vessel. The announcement did not say precisely where or what time Tuesday the ship was boarded.

“As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran —anywhere they operate,” the Pentagon announcement said, echoing previous statements from Trump administration officials. “International waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the U.S. blockade would extend beyond Iranian waters and the war theater under control of U.S. Central Command.

U.S. forces in other areas of responsibility, he told reporters at the Pentagon, “will actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.” He specifically pointed to operations in the Pacific and explained that the U.S. would target vessels that left before the blockade began outside the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for energy and other shipments.

The military also detailed an expansive list of goods that it considers contraband, declaring that it will board, search and seize them from merchant vessels “regardless of location.” A notice published Thursday says any “goods that are destined for an enemy and that may be susceptible to use in armed conflict” are “subject to capture at any place beyond neutral territory.”

Ralph de la Rosa, of Imperial Freight Brokers, based out of a Doral warehouse, has clients who include a range of importers who bring in things like aluminum, windows and doors and even work in the food industry.

Speaking to Local 10’s Christina Vazquez, he explained how his clients are eager to get a tariff refund.

“We have expanded this quite a bit because people are putting cargo here because of tariffs,” he said. “I have some clients that are getting tens of millions of dollars back and I have others that maybe had less but several are getting a good bit of money back.”

Those clients are filing claims through an online portal U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched on Monday.

This comes one year after President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs ― on a day he dubbed “Liberation Day” ― that, in February, the U.S. Supreme Court largely struck down as unconstitutional.

“Today, I think my clients would think it is their ‘Liberation Day’ because we were able to start filing, this morning, the process by which they can reclaim the hundreds of millions that was paid by the U.S. importer because, at the end of the day, the ones who pay this are the companies that are importing these goods,” said de la Rosa. “So today, I have gotten very happy emails from my clients.”

As for how those dollars could translate to the consumer, things get a bit trickier.

“Many times, they ate the tariff, so it is difficult to gauge how much they can possibly pass back to the ultimate consumer,” said de la Rosa. “It is not the easiest thing to track.”

A defiant Trump said he will press forward by other means, including imposing by executive order a 10% global tariff.

“The problem is nobody can predict the future, and we do know that this administration has shown that it does want to impose tariffs to the importing community, and so you are almost waiting to see what is going to happen next,” said de la Rosa.

Government officials have said refunds are expected in 60-to-90 days.

“Sixty-to-90 days ― if there is no further court challenge, which will remain to be seen,” said de la Rosa. “Another variable. It is almost like being on a roller coaster ride. You don’t know if it is going to be nice or quiet or take an unexpected turn.

“I think people are just hoping that they can get some predictability because that is what business wants, predictability. Even if it is a tariff, if they know what it is going to be and it is going to be for a set amount of time, then they can adjust. What they don’t want is unpredictability.”

That is, if it survives a potential legal challenge, explained Lenny Feldman, Managing Partner of the customs, trade and tariff law firm of Sandler, Travis and Rosenberg.

“For now, it is a great start, a good day, but there might still be an appeal to this court case which might put an end to these tariff refunds,” he said.

Plus, when you consider legal challenges facing the other means by which the president said he would press forward with tariffs, Feldman said business owners need to prepare for the situation to remain fluid.

“You have to probably prepare for another storm, there are going to be various tariff tempests coming through,” he said. “Now we are settling up, cleaning up the pieces of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Now we have another one called Section 122 and that is already in court. We may have to do through this process again if the courts find those are unlawful, and then the bridge is to the next set of tariffs, Section 301, and we have to see if those are going to be able to take root or not, so it is going to be much of the same and I think tariffs are going to be in play pretty much at the same figures.”

Local 10 News also spoke with Richard Trent, the executive director for Main Street Alliance, a national advocacy network for small business owners.

“The worst thing that you can do to a small business owner, is make their day to day unpredictable and unstable,” he said. “Larger businesses have the benefit of navigating uncertainty with massive teams and the economies of scale. It’s just like a little kerfuffle for them.”

Trent said tariffs have driven up costs and disrupted supply chains for small businesses who found it especially difficult to absorb the new tax given their already slim margins.

“You can imagine for small business owners that had to pay essentially taxes illegally, there’s an urgency around getting their money back,” he said. “Some claims are still being reviewed by customs and aren’t actually subject to refund at this time, so there’s still a lot of spottiness that Main Street entrepreneurs are trying to navigate.”

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Las noches con heladas no son inusuales en esta época del año. En toda la región, la fecha promedio de la última helada va desde mediados de abril hasta principios de junio, según el Northeast Regional Climate Center de la Universidad de Cornell. Pero la primera mitad de abril fue inusualmente cálida en gran parte de la región y eso, sumado a la rápida caída de la temperatura, podría causar algunos problemas.

Algunas zonas de Nueva Inglaterra vieron cómo las temperaturas subían hasta los 80 grados Fahrenheit (unos 27 Celsius) la semana pasada, seguidas de nieve unos días después. Y el frío continuó esta semana: el Servicio Meteorológico Nacional emitió una advertencia de helada para la noche del lunes y la mañana del martes en partes de Ohio, Pensilvania, Virginia, Maryland y Carolina del Norte.

En Ohio, el clima cálido hizo que los durazneros y manzanos empezaran a brotar temprano en Apple Hill Orchards, que incluye unas 80 acres (32 hectáreas) en Mansfield y 110 acres (45 hectáreas) en Fredericktown. Pero luego la temperatura bajó a unos -5 ºC (poco más de 20 ºF), lo que arruinó una variedad de durazno, lamentó la propietaria Anne Joudrey.

“La agricultura es la agricultura, y nunca sabes qué te va a tocar, pero tuvimos una floración bastante buena, así que esperábamos una cosecha bastante buena”, comentó el lunes.

Las manzanas iban bien, explicó, y ayuda que los árboles estén plantados en terreno elevado, de modo que el aire frío se escurre y se aleja.

“Deberíamos salir bastante bien, con suerte”, señaló. “Pero nunca se sabe”.

En Vermont, el cambio de temperatura afectó las operaciones de Understory Farm en Bridport, que cultiva flores de corte. Los tulipanes que se suponía que estarían listos para el Día de la Madre a mediados de mayo ya han florecido en los invernaderos de la granja, indicó el propietario Gregory Witscher.

“Eso solo significa que tenemos que cosecharlos todos al mismo tiempo”, dijo. “Tenemos que cosecharlos y guardarlos con los bulbos puestos en cajas dentro de una cámara frigorífica por más tiempo”.

Witscher cultiva unas 50 variedades de flores para mercados mayoristas. Las fluctuaciones del clima exigen flexibilidad, afirmó, y se ha vuelto más común que las pequeñas granjas de hortalizas y flores tengan cubiertas para hileras o calefactores para proteger las plantas del frío, o mallas de sombreo para el calor extremo.

“Con el calor y luego el frío, creo que es intenso y hace que las cosas sean difíciles”, expresó. “Cuanto más tiempo hago esto, más quiero tener tantas opciones como sea posible y contar con muchas herramientas y recursos disponibles para ser extremadamente ágil”.

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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.

Ternus will take over as chief executive in September for Tim Cook, who turned Apple into a $4 trillion, tech colossus during his 15-year reign after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs.

Ternus, 50, has spent almost his entire career with Apple. He joined the company 25 years ago and has spent the past five years overseeing the engineering that underlies the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

It's made him a prime contender to succeed Cook who on Monday, when Apple announced the change in leadership, hailed Ternus as “without question the right person to lead Apple into the future.”

Ternus worked on some of Apple's signature products under Cook, including the Apple Watch, AirPods and Apple Vision Pro. He was also involved in the MacBook Neo, "arguably one of the most disruptive products” that Apple has released in a while, said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.

“This mentorship will undoubtedly ensure a smooth transition, and initially, I expect very few changes to the company’s strategy,” Wood said.

The appointment appeared to be carefully timed, following Apple's 50th anniversary celebrations and ahead of its annual WWDC developers conference in June.

The change also arrives at a pivotal time for the Cupertino, California, company. While Cook led Apple through an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity, Apple has fallen behind in the artificial intelligence race. Apple has stumbled in its efforts to deliver new features built on AI, as was promised nearly two years ago.

“The challenge for the new CEO is really to make sure Apple is able to crack AI as the new user interface and reinvent human machine interaction," Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said.

Wood says attention at WWDC will be on the new CEO's AI strategy, and what the company will do next after turning earlier this year to Google — an early leader in the AI race — to help make the iPhone’s virtual assistant Siri more conversational and versatile.

“A big strategic question is how far Apple will invest in building its own AI platform versus relying on other companies’ models and platforms,” Wood said.

Ternus will also be tested by host of other challenges that don't involve his expertise in hardware.

“Apple faces a turbulent market amid geopolitical uncertainty and macroeconomic pressures,” Wood said. “The consumer electronics industry faces a perfect storm, with memory chip shortages and the war in the Middle East having widespread implications for consumer confidence. Apple will also need to decide how much it wants to continue its deep reliance on China for manufacturing.”

Ternus is not well known outside of the Apple universe. He joined the company in July 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile, which does not have any posts.

Before joining Apple, he spent four years as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. He graduated in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the swim team and for his senior project developed a mechanical feeding arm for quadriplegics controlled by head movements.

In a 2024 commencement speech to the university's engineering school, Ternus said he was intimidated when he first started working at Apple and wasn't sure he belonged. He learned to “always assume you’re as smart as anyone else in the room but never assume you know as much as they do.”

“There will always be new skills to master and new people to learn from,” he said.

Ternus said in Apple's announcement that he was "humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”

Frosty nights aren't unusual this time of year. Across the region, the average date of the last frost ranges from mid-April to early June, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. But the first half of April was unusually warm for much of the region, and that, coupled with the quick drop in temperature, could cause some problems.

Some parts of New England saw temperatures climb into the 80s (around 27 Celsius) last week followed by snow a few days later. And the cold continued into this week: The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning for Monday night and Tuesday morning for parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.

In Ohio, the warm weather pushed peach and apple trees to start budding early at Apple Hill Orchards, which includes about 80 acres (32 hectares) in Mansfield and 110 acres (45 hectares) in Fredericktown. But the temperature then dropped into the low 20s (around minus 5 Celsius), ruining one variety of peach, said owner Anne Joudrey.

“Farming is farming, and you never know what you’re gonna get, but we had a pretty good bloom, so we were expecting a pretty good crop,” she said Monday.

The apples were doing OK, she said, and it helps that the trees are planted on high ground so cold air drains away.

“We should fare pretty well, hopefully,” she said. “But you never know.”

In Vermont, the temperature swing affected operations at Understory Farm in Bridport, which grows cut flowers. Tulips that were supposed to be ready for Mother's Day in mid-May have already bloomed in the farm's greenhouses, said owner Gregory Witscher.

“That just means that we have to harvest them all at the same time,” he said. “We have to harvest them and store them with the bulbs on in crates in a walk-in cooler for longer.”

Witscher grows about 50 varieties of flowers for wholesale markets. Weather fluctuations require flexibility, he said, and it's become more common for small vegetable and flower farms to have row covers or heaters to protect plants from cold or shade cloth for extreme heat.

“With the hot weather and then the cold weather, I think its intense, and it makes things challenging,” he said. “The longer I do this, the more I want to have as many options as possible and have a lot of tools and resources available to be extremely nimble.”

The auto train service between Sanford, Florida, near Orlando, and Lorton, Virginia, outside Washington, was canceled for Monday, Amtrak said in a statement. The train service allows passengers to take their cars on trips.

The Silver Meteor route, which runs between Miami and New York, was starting and ending in Jacksonville instead of South Florida on Monday, and one of its two daily train trips was canceled for Tuesday.

The Floridian route, running from Miami to Chicago via Washington, was starting and ending in Savannah, Georgia, and one of its two train trips was canceled for Tuesday, Amtrak said.

Amtrak on Monday was providing some bus service between Jacksonville and Miami for passengers on the Silver Meteor and Floridian routes.

The Florida Forest Service reported a 2,700 acre fire along the eastern border of Putnam and Clay counties, south of Jacksonville.

The America Reads the Bible event — with each participant reading a passage aloud — is being livestreamed this week from the Museum of the Bible in Washington and other locations. It is slated to feature a video of Trump on Tuesday evening reading a passage that called for national repentance in ancient Israel — words that have been used prominently for decades by those promoting the belief that America has been and should be a Christian nation.

The Bible is “indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life,” Trump said in a statement commemorating the event. The statement cited historical figures such as the Puritan leader John Winthrop as “imploring his fellow Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for all the world to see.”

Critics say the event has a highly partisan list of participants and is part of a larger project to connect America's upcoming 250th birthday with a Christian nationalist vision that portrays the nation's founding as essentially Christian, something many historians dispute. White Christians, particularly evangelicals, have been crucial to Trump's electoral base.

The list of participants — which overwhelmingly includes Republican politicians and Christian supporters of Trump — shows it to be “very much a right-wing MAGA, Christian nationalist effort," said Brian Kaylor, author of “The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power,” referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

“If they wanted this to be a unifying American project, there would have been a whole lot more attention to getting political diversity and ideological diversity,” added Kaylor, president and editor-in-chief of Word&Way, a progressive site covering faith and politics.

Historian Jemar Tisby, whose books have challenged what he says is enduring Christian complicity in racism, criticized the event on Facebook: "You cannot quote the Bible while justifying violence, war and exclusion.”

Bunni Pounds, founder of Christians Engaged, said that reading the Bible alone isn't enough. “Faith without works is dead,” she said, adding: “We need the word first to bring faith into our life.”

Trump's latest faith-related tensions

The Bible event comes just a week after Trump drew rare criticism from his evangelical supporters for circulating a social media meme in which a white-robed Trump appeared as a Jesus-like healer surrounded by patriotic symbols. Trump removed the image from his Truth Social site while insisting he was depicted as a doctor, not Jesus.

It also comes shortly after Trump's high-profile clash with the U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war.

Other high-ranking officials have been or will be reading biblical passages in person or by video. They include Cabinet officials such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as House Speaker Mike Johnson and several other Republican members of Congress. Prominent evangelical supporters of Trump who are participating include evangelist Franklin Graham, pastor Jack Graham and pastor Paula White-Cain, who heads Trump's White House Faith Office.

Pounds said that the organization invited Democratic members of Congress as well as leaders of some denominations that might be considered progressive but that they didn’t accept.

Each speaker is taking a turn in the ongoing reading of the 66 books of the Bible as recognized by Protestants. Jews recognize the Hebrew portion of the Bible that Christians call the Old Testament but not the New Testament books centered on Jesus, while Catholics and Orthodox recognize additional books of the Bible that are not included in this reading. The event does include some Catholic representation, including the president of CatholicVote, which endorsed Trump in 2024.

The event involves a comprehensive reading of the entire Bible, from the famous verses ("Let my people go," "The Lord is my shepherd") to the obscure. Passages range from the creation of the world to bloody battles and apocalyptic destruction, from exhortations to love of God, neighbor and the needy to passages telling of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.

Trump will read from 2 Chronicles

The event organizer is Christians Engaged, a nonprofit whose stated mission includes “discipling Americans on biblical worldview and their responsibilities to pray, vote and engage.”

Trump's appearance will be from the Oval Office, where he will read from the seventh chapter of 2 Chronicles, set during King Solomon's dedication of the temple in ancient Jerusalem. In it, God promises forgiveness if a future generation rebels then repents: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The verse has long been quoted at many conservative Christian rallies and political events such as the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Pounds noted that the Chronicles passage has for decades been a major theme at annual National Day of Prayer events and that organizers invited Trump to read from it. “It’s a powerful statement that he decided to read that passage,” she said.

The Bible-reading marathon comes just weeks before a May 17 event called a “National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise, and Thanksgiving,” to be held on the National Mall. It's the climactic event of “America Prays,” a project Trump announced last year in conjunction with America 250, calling for prayer for the country and to “rededicate ourselves to one nation under God."

Several of the groups and individuals involved in America Prays are also participating in this week’s Bible reading event.

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

“We thank the Lord for the great gift of the life of Francis, to the church and the world,” Leo said.

The American pope delivered the tribute in Italian while speaking with reporters aboard the papal plane heading from Angola to Equatorial Guinea, the final leg of his four-nation African trip.

Francis died on Easter Monday last year after suffering a stroke. He had been at the Vatican recovering from a five-week hospital stay for double pneumonia, and had managed to deliver a final Easter salute to the crowd with a popemobile romp through St. Peter’s Square.

His death, at 88, set the stage for the conclave that elected Leo a few weeks later. It was an outcome for which Francis had laid the groundwork by promoting the former missionary priest, Robert Prevost, whom he considered “a saint.”

In his tribute, Leo recalled with precision some of Francis’ most memorable homilies and messages, saying he “gave so much to the church with his life, with his witness, with his word and with his gestures.”

“So many times what he did was live truly being close to the poorest, the smallest, the sick, children, the elderly,” he said.

He cited Francis’ preaching promoting human fraternity and “authentic respect” among all people, as well as a special Holy Year he called in 2015 to emphasize God’s mercy and forgiveness. Francis famously opened the year in the Central African Republic, and Leo delivered his tribute just as his plane was flying over that part of Africa.

Leo recalled Francis’ first Sunday noon prayer as pope, and a Mass he celebrated two days before his pontificate was officially inaugurated, when he preached about an adulterous woman “and how he spoke from the heart of the mercy of God.”

“Let us pray that he is still enjoying the mercy of the Lord,” Leo said.

Books recall Francis’ life and what he thought of Prevost

The anniversary was being marked with commemorations in Rome, including the release of commemorative books about and recollections of Francis, and a Mass on Tuesday evening at St. Mary Major basilica, where Francis’ tomb is located.

Among the flurry of recollections, one by Salvatore Cernuzio stands out because it offers a view of the current pope from his predecessor.

Cernuzio, an Italian reporter with Vatican Media, the Holy See’s in-house news operation, developed a close personal relationship with Francis and often traveled in his entourage when the pope left the Vatican. However, the book, entitled “Padre,” or “Father,” details the private side of their relationship, of Cernuzio’s visits with Francis at the Santa Marta hotel where he lived, and their conversations.

“Him? He’s a saint,” Francis told Cernuzio of the then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, whom Francis had brought to Rome in 2023 to take up the important job heading the Vatican’s bishop-vetting office.

Francis’ assessment, delivered in 2023 after he had announced Prevost would be included in his new batch of cardinals that year, adds even more weight to the hypothesis that Francis saw in Prevost a possible successor.

Cernuzio recalls that when Francis called someone a saint, it was usually “to describe people who are able to handle conflicts, tensions, and complex situations with composure, and who are able to foster a sense of community.”

Prevost was spotted and promoted by Francis

The hypothesis that Francis laid the groundwork for Prevost’s election is well-founded, given it’s clear Francis had his eye on Prevost from the start and greatly appreciated his experience as a missionary who spent two decades working in Peru.

After Prevost finished a second consecutive stint as head of the Order of St. Augustine, Francis sent him in 2014 to be bishop of the complicated diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, and he rose up within the Peruvian bishops conference from there to take on leadership roles.

Francis then moved Prevost to head one of the most important Vatican jobs — prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops — that gave Prevost crucial experience in the Vatican bureaucracy and contacts with the cardinals who would eventually choose Francis’ successor.

The combination made Prevost a viable contender in a future papal election, overcoming the otherwise impossible conclave hurdle of his American citizenship. There had long been a taboo in the church against a U.S. pope, given the geopolitical power the country already wields.

The two men, who later became good friends, had known each other from when Prevost was the Augustinian prior general and the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Prevost has recounted that at one point Bergoglio had expressed interest in assigning an Augustinian priest to a specific job in his archdiocese.

“And I, as prior general, said ‘I understand, Your Eminence, but he’s got to do something else’ and so I transferred him somewhere else,” Prevost told parishioners in his home state of Illinois in 2024.

Prevost said he “naively” thought the Francis wouldn’t remember him after his 2013 election as pope, and that regardless “he’ll never appoint me bishop” due to the disagreement years earlier.

Bergoglio not only made him bishop, he laid the groundwork for Prevost to succeed him.

The six were all in custody. A seventh suspect, former Bayelsa state Gov. Timpre Sylva, is accused of helping to conceal the plot and is still at large.

In the 13-count charge sheet, authorities said suspects “conspired with one another to levy war against the state to overawe the president of the Federal Republic."

The Nigerian government first said it had foiled a coup attempt in January, when it announced that several military officers would stand trial. They were part of a group of 16 military officers arrested in 2025 over what military authorities described as “acts of indiscipline and breaches of service regulations," which fueled rumors of a coup plot that the government initially denied.

Africa's most populous nation experienced five coups in the 20th century but has not seen one since it transitioned to democracy in 1999.

The alleged coup plot comes on the heels of a surge in coups and attempted coups in West and Central Africa, the latest in Benin and Guinea-Bissau late last year. The military takeovers, experts say, follow a pattern of disputed elections, constitutional upheaval, security crises and youth discontent.

“I think that this is the election that’s going to be the sea change, not only for getting to a pro-equality majority but for changing the momentum on this fight for equality,” said Kelley Robinson, the Washington-based organization's president, in an interview with The Associated Press. “This movement is ready for its next wind, its second wind.”

Besides eight congressional districts that could help determine control of the U.S. House, the Human Rights Campaign is also supporting Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio and Texas. The money will be spent on advertising, events and canvassers.

The LGBTQ+ movement has been reckoning with a wave of defeats on the campaign trail and in the courtroom that have left Democrats struggling to regain their footing.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has rolled back protections for transgender people, such as banning them from serving in the military and cutting off gender-affirming care for children. The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority has upheld Republican states’ restrictions while striking down bans on “conversion therapy” practices in Democratic states.

“I believe that our movement made ourselves believe that we were closer to equality than we actually are,” Robinson said. “The last few years, we’ve been doing an incredible amount of listening, of learning, also of repositioning this work.”

After the 2024 presidential election, Democrats were divided over the role that LGBTQ+ rights played in their party’s losses. The Trump campaign ran a series of advertisements mocking Vice President Kamala Harris for supporting medical gender transitions for incarcerated people and highlighting the issue of transgender people playing on women's sports teams.

“Kamala Harris is for they/them,” said a voice-over in one national ad. “President Trump is for you.”

Robinson argued that the ad was effective because of an implicit economic message, not for its critiques of the policy toward transgender people. But conservative activists and some moderate Democrats have argued such stances are too unpopular with swing voters.

“There’s a real disconnect between most voters and the party elite," said Leor Sapir, a fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

He added, “If I’m a Democrat consultant, my advice would be: Do everything in your power to keep this issue off the public agenda."

Robinson said her organization has been soul-searching on how to best craft winning messages on LGBTQ+ rights.

“Our job is to move away from the fireballs that our opposition wants to talk about and instead find a way to get back to the things that are impacting folks every day,” she said.

In January, the Human Rights Campaign published a guide to blunting conservative attacks on LGBTQ+ issues, citing the successful campaigns of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

Although the guide encourages candidates to “lead with your values” and “address concerns directly," it also encourages them to “go big” and quickly pivot to issues like cost-of-living concerns.

“I think the number one way to shut out a voter is to try to make them believe that their fears are not real. So what we coach candidates on doing is listening,” Robinson said. “For folks who have questions about the issues, that’s OK. We’re in a moment where the stakes in front of us are too high to look away.”

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Follow the AP's coverage of LGBTQ+ issues at https://apnews.com/hub/lgbtq.

Former Foreign Office head Olly Robbins said that Starmer's office had a “dismissive attitude” to security vetting of the scandal-tainted Mandelson. The testimony increases the heat on Starmer, who is facing calls to resign over the appointment of Mandelson, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, to one of the U.K.'s most important diplomatic posts.

The prime minister fired Robbins last week after the revelation that Mandelson was approved for the job in January 2025 against the recommendation of the government's security vetting agency.

Robbins said that the concerns about Mandelson didn't relate to his relationship with Epstein. He declined to say when questioned by lawmakers what led the government's vetting agency to flag him as a potential security risk.

Mandelson had to resign twice from senior posts in previous Labour Party governments because of scandals over money or ethics. A separate background report prepared before he was appointed ambassador flagged potential business links to Russia and China as a concern.

Robbins said that the vetting agency considered Mandelson a “borderline case” and was “leaning toward recommending against” giving him security clearance. Robbins decided to clear him anyway.

Politicians wanted appointment approved

Starmer has called it “staggering” that Foreign Office officials failed to tell him about the security concerns, which he says he only found out about last week.

But Robbins said that the rules bar details of the sensitive vetting process from being shared except in “exceptional circumstances.”

Robbins told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that there was an “atmosphere of pressure” coming from Starmer’s office to approve the appointment so Mandelson could be in the post at the start of the second term of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Starmer announced the choice of Mandelson in December 2024, before intensive security checks were carried out. Robbins said that there was “a very, very strong expectation” that Mandelson “needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible” and “a generally dismissive attitude” to the security vetting from Starmer's office.

Robbins said that he was “very conscious” that refusing Mandelson security clearance would have caused “a real problem for the government and a problem for the country” in relations with the Trump administration.

Robbins insisted that his department “did not bow to that pressure.” He said that his decision to grant Mandelson clearance was based on security advice that the risks could be managed.

Robbins declined to identify any individuals as being behind the pressure. Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, a protégé of Mandelson, resigned in February, saying he took responsibility for the decision to appoint Mandelson.

The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, said that Robbins’ testimony “is devastating to Keir Starmer.”

She said that “it is now absolutely clear that ‘full due process’ was not followed. Keir Starmer has misled" the House of Commons — generally considered a resigning offense.

Starmer, who has denied misleading lawmakers, acknowledged on Monday that he made the wrong judgment when he picked Mandelson for the job. But Starmer said that he would have withdrawn the appointment if he’d known about the failed security vetting.

Starmer fired Mandelson in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.

The U.K. leader has ordered a review into any security concerns arising from Mandelson’s access to sensitive information while ambassador.

Questions over Starmer's judgment

Critics say the Mandelson appointment is more evidence of bad judgment by a prime minister who has made repeated missteps since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024.

He picked Mandelson as ambassador, despite being warned by his staff that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein exposed the government to “reputational risk.”

But Mandelson's expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with the Trump administration.

The scandal has caused gloom among lawmakers in Starmer’s center-left Labour Party, already anxious about its dire poll ratings. Starmer already defused one potential crisis in February, when some Labour lawmakers urged him to resign over the Mandelson appointment.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said that he had raised concerns about the choice of ambassador, but didn’t think Starmer should resign over the debacle.

“If every time a prime minister made a mistake they resigned, we would shuttle through prime ministers like nobody’s business,” Miliband told the BBC.

Mandelson is under police investigation for suspected misconduct in public office after a trove of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department in January included emails suggesting that Mandelson had passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, after the global financial crisis.

British police launched a criminal investigation and arrested Mandelson in February. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He doesn't face allegations of sexual misconduct.

Neither the U.S. nor Iran has publicly confirmed the timing of the talks in Islamabad, with Iranian state television denying any official was already in Pakistan’s capital.

Pakistan-led mediators received confirmation that the top negotiators, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, will arrive in Islamabad early Wednesday to lead their teams in the talks, the regional officials told The Associated Press.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

A ceasefire that began April 8 was set to expire Wednesday.

Trump says he doesn't favor extending ceasefire

Both sides remain dug in rhetorically. U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that “lots of bombs” will “start going off” if there’s no agreement before the ceasefire deadline, and Iran’s chief negotiator said that Tehran has “new cards on the battlefield” that haven't yet been revealed.

The ceasefire could be extended if talks resume, though Trump said in an interview Tuesday with CNBC: “Well, I don't want to do that.”

"We don’t have that much time,” Trump said, adding that Iran “had a choice” and “they have to negotiate.”

During his CNBC interview, Trump confirmed that he’s considering the possibility of a currency swap with the United Arab Emirates to help the Mideast ally secure U.S. dollars, as its oil-rich economy has been rattled by the Iran conflict.

The president expressed surprise that the nation needs assistance, but made clear he was open to the prospect of making the move to help meet his ally’s concerns.

While it has been able to send some of its oil out via a pipeline to the Gulf of Oman, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has squeezed the country’s oil exports.

White House officials have said that Vance would lead the American delegation, but Iran hasn't said who it might send. Iranian state television on Tuesday broadcast a message saying that “no delegation from Iran has visited Islamabad … so far.”

Iranian state TV long has been controlled by hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy. The on-screen alert likely reflects the ongoing internal debate within Iran’s theocracy as it weighs how to respond to the U.S. Navy’s seizure of an Iranian container ship over the weekend.

US says its forces board sanctioned oil tanker

On Tuesday, the U.S. said its forces boarded an oil tanker previously sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil in Asia. The Pentagon said in a social media post that U.S. forces boarded the M/T Tifani “without incident.”

The U.S. military did not say where the vessel had been boarded, though ship-tracking data showed the Tifani in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia on Tuesday.

The statement added that “international waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”

The U.S. military on Sunday seized an Iranian cargo vessel, the first interception under blockade of Iranian ports. Iran’s joint military command called the armed boarding an act of piracy and a violation of the ceasefire.

Strait of Hormuz control key to negotiations

The U.S. imposed the blockade to pressure Tehran into ending its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane through which 20% of the world’s natural gas and crude oil transits in peacetime.

Iran’s grip on the strait has sent oil prices soaring. Brent crude, the international standard, was trading at close to $95 per barrel on Tuesday, up more than 30% from Feb. 28, the day that Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran to start the war.

Before the war began, the Strait of Hormuz had been fully open to international shipping. Trump has demanded that vessels again be allowed to transit unimpeded through the waterway.

European Union transportation ministers were meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss how to protect consumers after the head of the International Energy Agency warned that Europe has “ maybe six weeks ” of jet fuel supplies remaining.

Over the weekend, Iran said that it had received new proposals from Washington, but also suggested that a wide gap remains between the sides. Issues that derailed the last round of negotiations included Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, its regional proxies and the strait.

Qalibaf on Tuesday accused the United States of wanting Iran to surrender. He said that, on the contrary, Iran has been preparing “to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”

“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats,” he wrote in an X post.

Pakistan hopeful talks will proceed

Pakistani officials have expressed confidence that Iran will also send a delegation for more talks.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met with the ambassador from China, which is a key trading partner with Iran, while the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said the conflict was at a “critical stage of transition between war and peace.”

Security has been tightened across Pakistan’s capital, where authorities have deployed thousands of personnel and increased patrols along routes leading to the airport.

The arrangements appear stricter than those put in place during the first round of talks held in Islamabad on April 11 and 12, suggesting the possibility of high-level participation, if negotiations make progress, said Syed Mohammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst.

Historic Israel-Lebanon talks also set to resume

Meanwhile, historic diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon were set to resume on Thursday in Washington, an Israeli, a Lebanese and a U.S. official said. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes negotiations.

The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met last week for the first direct diplomatic talks in decades. Israel says the talks are aimed at disarming Hezbollah and reaching a peace agreement with Lebanon.

A 10-day ceasefire began on Friday in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants broke out two days after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran to start the war. Fighting in Lebanon has killed more than 2,290 people.

Since the war started, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, according to authorities. Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. service members throughout the region have been killed.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Gambrell from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. David Rising and Huizhong Wu in Bangkok; Sam McNeil in Brussels and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this story.

Amid the frustrated jeers of an infuriated home crowd, the Hurricanes now had to regroup and continue the grinding fight of a postseason game that appeared over only moments earlier. And that led to forward Jordan Martinook immediately standing at center ice with another chance to end it as he waited to take a penalty shot — a rarity in OT during the playoffs.

“Try having a penalty shot after all that,” Martinook quipped.

Nothing came easily Monday night for the Eastern Conference's top seed against the Ottawa Senators in a 3-2 double-overtime win that secured a 2-0 lead in their first-round series. That was particularly true of those gut-churning few minutes when the Hurricanes thought they had secured a victory, then learned they hadn't, then got an immediate second chance at a walk-off win, only for Martinook to be denied.

Martinook ultimately got his winner, beating Linus Ullmark from the slot at 13:53 of the second OT to finally end this one more than four hours after the puck dropped on Game 2.

“Hockey’s crazy, sports are crazy,” Martinook said. “Being able to score after that, I’ll tell my grandkids about that one, that’s for sure.”

Not that anyone around here will soon forget this one, not with the emotions — and fortunes — changing at whiplash speed.

“There's a lot there to unwind, that's for sure,” Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said.

The Hurricanes won the series opener 2-0 on Saturday, then found themselves up 2-0 in the second period Monday before giving up goals to Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens that eventually pushed the game into overtime. Ullmark had been brilliant all night on the way to 43 saves, one coming when he gloved down a hammered one-timer from Taylor Hall as the puck shifted cross-ice to his left side.

Another came in the final seconds of regulation when Ullmark got his left shoulder on Jordan Staal’s shot from the top of the crease.

That all became prologue to those few minutes when things got weird in Raleigh.

The Hurricanes appeared to break through late in the first OT, with Mark Jankowski skating in to pounce on a loose rebound and beat Ullmark on the left side with 2:42 left to send the home crowd into a frenzy. But officials reviewed the sequence and determined Staal didn’t have possession and control of the puck as he entered the zone, coming as Martinook skated through the middle across the blue line for a 1-on-1 chance on Ullmark.

“I don’t know that rule,” Staal said. “I pick up the puck, I look up where Marty is and apparently I lost control of it. And then I make a nice pass to Marty for a breakaway. I don’t really get it. … We battled through it. It is what it is.”

“It's a weird play, you don't see it a lot in overtime,” Senators coach Travis Green said, adding: “I felt like it was offside. I thought the refs made the right call.”

But that sequence ultimately led to a hooking penalty on Warren Foegele, meaning Martinook quickly had to pivot to taking the first OT penalty shot in a postseason game since August 2020 and only the fifth ever.

Martinook skated in on Ullmark and tried to beat him to the glove side, only for Ullmark to knock down the puck and ensure the game would continue.

Afterward, a reporter mentioned to Martinook that he had a chance to become the first player ever to end a playoff game on an OT penalty shot.

“Thanks for that,” Martinook said with a grin.

“I was trying to tell them we needed the power play, not the penalty shot,” Martinook said. “Yeah, I've never seen that. That's a first.”

The Hurricanes ultimately came out on top — after the Senators nearly got their own sudden-death winner in the second overtime when Michael Amadio got an in-close shot. Frederik Andersen made the stop with his glove to deflect the puck, which kept rising and hit the crossbar before bouncing away.

Roughly 2 1/2 minutes later, Martinook buried a shot past Ullmark to finally end this one.

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

The Timberwolves forward pretty much labeled all the Nuggets' players bad defenders. Thrown in there were All-Stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.

“Go after Jokic, Jamal, all the bad defenders,” said McDaniels, who had 14 points and three assists. "Tim Hardaway (Jr.), Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team, just go at them.”

So they're all bad defenders?

“Yeah, they’re all bad defenders,” McDaniels added.

The Timberwolves overcame a 19-point deficit to even the first-round series, which shifts to Minnesota for Game 3 on Thursday night. Anthony Edwards led the way with 30 points despite playing on a sore knee. He also had 10 rebounds.

“They don’t got people that can defend the rim,” McDaniels said. "We’re still more athletic than them and just got to be able to finish when we do.”

Jokic had 24 points and 15 rebounds — all on the defensive end — while Murray scored 30 points. But Denver's dynamic duo shot a combined 2 of 12 for four points in the fourth quarter. Murray had a chance to tie the game with a 3-pointer in the closing seconds but elected to pull up for a 2-point shot instead.

He missed.

“I was happy he took the two points,” Edwards said. “I thought he had a good look at a 3 when he first came off but yeah, he took the 2-pointer. I guess if he made it, we would have been in a free-throw situation. But yeah, I’m kind of happy he took the 2-pointer.”

Murray said he “didn't make enough shots tonight.”

"That’s really about it,” he added. "We all could have played better. It’s not all on one person, that’s just the way the game goes sometimes. They played hard as well. It was a good game. I thought we had the game in our hands, but we just didn’t make enough shots, in my opinion.”

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

Let’s make a deal.

There have been 60 trades involving first-round picks over the past five years. Eighteen were traded in 2022. Last year, six first-round picks were dealt. That was tied for the fewest since 1985.

The Bengals, Packers, Jaguars, Falcons, Colts and Broncos don’t have a first-round pick while the Giants, Jets, Dolphins, Cowboys, Browns and Chiefs each have two.

Cincinnati traded the 10th overall pick to the Giants on Saturday for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. New York owns the fifth and 10th picks. Green Bay doesn’t have one because of its blockbuster trade for Micah Parsons last August. Jacksonville traded its 2026 first-rounder to Cleveland on draft night last year to move up to get Travis Hunter with the second overall pick.

Atlanta sent this year’s first-round pick to the Rams on draft night a year ago to select edge rusher James Pearce Jr. at No. 26. Indianapolis traded its first-rounder to the Jets for Sauce Gardner. Denver sent the 30th overall pick to Miami in the deal for Jaylen Waddle.

Here are five teams that could be active on Thursday night:

Philadelphia Eagles

General manager Howie Roseman is one of the most active and aggressive executives in the NFL. The Eagles own the 23rd pick. They moved up from No. 10 to No. 9 in 2023 to get defensive tackle Jalen Carter. A year earlier, they went from 15 to 13 to get defensive tackle Jordan Davis. In 2021, Philadelphia moved up from 12 to 10 to select wideout DeVonta Smith. Roseman also moved up in 2019 and 2016. He traded out of the first round in 2018.

“I think we go into this draft being very comfortable with having 23 guys we’re ready to take. We’re there ready and prepared for that,” Roseman said. “If something happens where somebody who’s higher on our board than 23rd is available, we’ll be ready for that. If there’s an opportunity that we think makes sense to move up based on the value of that player, we’ll move up. If we have multiple guys at our spot and there’s a trade that makes sense to move back, we’ll move back.”

The trade involving the Eagles that’s been a hot topic throughout the offseason isn’t expected to happen this week. A.J. Brown is likely on the move, with the Patriots expected to be the leading contender to land the star wide receiver, reuniting him with coach Mike Vrabel. The Rams already pursued Brown earlier in the offseason. The Eagles would be able to spread a $40 million salary cap hit over two seasons by waiting until June 1 to deal Brown.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

With the 15th pick in the first round, the Buccaneers might miss out on one of the top players on their board. They need an elite rusher and could use more draft capital because they have only one pick in each round. There are several potential pass rushers who could be a fit in the 16-25 range that would allow Tampa Bay to move back and add more premium draft picks.

“In a lot of scenarios that we’re working through, yeah,” GM Jason Licht said about moving back. “You have a group of players that you say, ‘No matter what, if this player’s there, we’re taking (them).’ If there’s a group of three, then maybe you go back one or two to make sure that you ensure you get one of your three, but the part of that that makes it difficult is you’ve got to find a trade partner. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes teams just don’t want to move up. They don’t want to give up picks, and I understand why.”

Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys have the 12th and 20th picks, and Jerry Jones has hinted at being aggressive. But it would make more sense for Dallas to trade down in one of those spots to add extra picks because the defense has several needs.

The Cowboys don’t have a second-round pick after sending it to the Jets in a deal for defensive tackle Quinnen Williams before the trade deadline. Moving down from 20 and adding a second-rounder plus other picks is one scenario.

New York Jets

The Jets have four of the top 44 picks in the draft, including Nos. 2 and 16 in the first round. They have three 2027 first-round picks.

If there’s a player they covet — perhaps an elite wideout — they have the draft assets to jump up from 16. They have their choice of edge rushers at No. 2 after quarterback Fernando Mendoza goes first to the Raiders.

Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins have the 11th and 30th picks in the first round and plenty of needs. They’re in full rebuild mode. Trading one of those to add more picks could help Miami replenish its roster.

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

Many Iran-backed militias are funded through the Iraqi state budget and embedded within the security apparatus, drawing criticism from the United States and other countries that have borne the brunt of their attacks and say Baghdad has failed to take a tougher stance.

Despite mounting pressure from the U.S., Baghdad has struggled to contain or deter the groups. The most hard-line factions now operate under Iranian advisers using a decentralized command structure, the five officials told AP, each on condition of anonymity to speak freely about sensitive matters.

“The various forces have been granted the authority to operate according to their own field assessments without referring back to a central command,” said one militia official, who didn't have permission to speak publicly.

The war in the Middle East has exposed the fragility of Iraq’s state institutions and their limited ability to restrain these groups. A parallel confrontation between Washington and the militias has deepened the crisis, with factions acting as an extension of Iran’s regional campaign and escalating attacks on U.S. assets in Iraq before a tenuous ceasefire deal was reached in April.

Even if the ceasefire agreement holds, Washington is expected to intensify efforts against the groups militarily and politically, particularly as they gain latitude to operate more independently, officials and experts said. On Friday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on seven commanders and senior members of four hard-line Iran-backed Iraqi militia groups.

“The U.S. is still going to feel it has the freedom of action to hit Iraqi militias,” said Michael Knights, head of research for Horizon Engage, a geopolitical risk consulting firm, and an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That may well play out into an effort to try and guide a less militia-dominated government formation.”

For Iran-backed militias in Iraq, a move to decentralized control

Days into the war sparked by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, an Iranian delegation arrived in Iraq’s Kurdish region and delivered a blunt message: If militia attacks escalated near U.S. military bases, commercial interests and diplomatic missions, Iraqi Kurdish authorities should not come to Tehran with complaints, as there was little they could do about it.

“They said they’ve devolved authority to regional Iranian commanders,” a senior Iraqi Kurdish government official said on condition of anonymity, citing the subject's sensitivity.

In the past, Kurdish leaders in Iraq would call Iranian officials after attacks to ask why they had been targeted. “This time, they wanted to preempt that by saying, ‘We can’t help you with the groups in the south right now,’” the official said.

This shift reflects lessons drawn from the 12-day war in June, the official said. Militia officials corroborated the claim. During that war, operations were tightly centralized. In its aftermath, greater autonomy was granted in the field.

A spokesperson for Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, among the Iran-backed militia groups that have attacked the U.S. in Iraq, said there was “coordination” with Iran in launching attacks but didn't give details.

"Since we are allies of the Islamic Republic, we have coordination with our brothers in the Islamic Republic,” Mahdi al-Kaabi said.

In the recent war, key Iraqi militia leaders appeared to step back from the latest phase and didn't appear to be directly involved in operations, Knights said. U.S. strikes largely killed mid-level commanders, according to militia officials.

“None of the first-line leaders have been killed,” said a second militia official, who wasn't authorized to brief reporters.

Rather than targeting top figures, the U.S. also focused on Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisory cells, said Knights, who tracked the attacks. In one strike in Baghdad’s upscale Jadriya neighborhood, three Guard advisers were killed at a house used as their headquarters during a meeting, according to the second militia official.

Pressure on Iraq is intensifying

At the heart of government efforts to rein in militia groups lies a paradox: The factions the government says it cannot control are tied to political parties that brought it to power.

The Coordination Framework, an alliance of influential pro-Iran Shiite factions, helped install Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister in 2022. He now serves as caretaker premier amid a prolonged political deadlock.

Militia forces carrying out attacks on U.S. targets aren't rogue actors; they're part of the state’s Popular Mobilization Forces, created after the fall of Mosul in 2014 to formalize volunteer units that were critical in defeating the Islamic State.

The PMF has evolved into a powerful force that surpasses the Iraqi army, with fighters receiving state salaries and access to government resources, including weapons and intelligence. The result, critics say, is a deep contradiction: Certain state-funded groups operate in line with Iranian priorities, even when doing so undermines Iraq’s national interests.

Al-Sudani’s office didn't respond to the AP’s requests for comment on the decentralized control of militia groups.

The U.S. is focused on curbing the power of these groups in Iraq, the senior Iraqi Kurdish official and a Western diplomat said, which will put increasing pressure on the government, still functioning in caretaker status. The diplomat also spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't permitted to brief reporters.

Last week, Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S. was summoned to Washington to hear U.S. condemnation of attacks by Iran-backed factions on American personnel and diplomatic missions, according to State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Bigot.

“The Deputy Secretary affirmed that the United States will not tolerate any attacks targeting its interests and expects the Iraqi Government to take all necessary measures immediately to dismantle Iran-aligned militia groups,” Bigot said in a statement.

Militias resist steps from Iraq's government

Al-Sudani has taken limited steps to curb militia influence, including further institutionalizing the PMF and occasionally removing commanders who act outside state authority. The efforts have met significant resistance from militia groups.

Further institutionalizing them has deepened their entrenchment within the state. The U.S. may seek to isolate the most hard-line factions — including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada — from others more embedded in Iraq’s political system. “The bad militias from the worse militias,” the senior Iraqi Kurdish official said.

Harakat al-Nujaba spokesperson al-Kaabi offered a dual framing of the group’s position, stressing both its alignment with Iran and its claim to Iraqi state legitimacy.

“To put it bluntly, we are allies of the Islamic Republic,” he said. He described the group as part of Iran’s regional “axis” alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansar Allah in Yemen.

At the same time, he insisted the group operates within Iraq’s political order, supporting the state and government when they serve national interests.

“It’s true we’re not affiliated with the government or the prime minister, but we respect the law and the constitution,” he said.

This time, they overcame a 19-point deficit, rallying past the Nuggets 119-114 on Monday night behind 30 points from Anthony Edwards and 24 from Julius Randle to tie their first-round playoff series at one game each.

“Just coming together, staying poised within those moments," Edwards said.

Jamal Murray scored 30 points for Denver, which had won 13 straight games since losing on March 18. The Nuggets jumped out to a 44-25 lead early in the second quarter only to see a potential laugher quickly turn into a head-scratcher.

After outscoring the Wolves 39-25 in the first, the Nuggets watched Minnesota flip that exact score in the second period.

“So, basically same quarters, first and second, just opposite teams,” said Nikola Jokic, who had 24 points, 15 boards and eight assists for the Nuggets.

After a slow start, Edwards looked much better than he did during his 22-point effort in Game 1, when his rust from a bum knee was apparent. This time, he drove to the basket more instead of settling for jumpers, fueling the comeback.

“He was awesome. It was unbelievable,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “Also in that (first) period when we were down, he was great on the bench. Great leadership, positive. He recognized he needed to get into attack mode and get downhill a little bit more. He did that."

Denver blew a chance to take control against its Northwest Division rival. The Nuggets are 8-0 in their history when winning the first two games of a playoff series, and the Wolves are 0-8 when dropping Games 1 and 2.

Edwards turned the ball over with 31 seconds left and Christian Braun got fouled at the other end after Jokic passed up a floater to tie it. Braun missed one of two free throws, leaving Denver trailing 115-114 with 19 seconds remaining.

Randle then sank two free throws and Donte DiVincenzo added a breakaway dunk to cap the comeback.

“I trust C.B. to make free throws,” Denver coach David Adelman said. “It rimmed out. That happens in the NBA. You're going to have moments that you don't want to remember. That's a tough moment for C.B. after playing such a good game."

Murray sank a 51-foot 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to tie it at 64. Jokic came on strong after a quiet start, scoring 16 points in the third quarter when Denver took a 93-90 lead. But the Nuggets' All-Star duo shot a combined 2 for 12 in the fourth quarter as the Wolves evened a best-of-seven series that shifts to Minneapolis for Game 3 on Thursday night.

“I feel like we had the game in hand,” Murray said, “and then we just didn't make our shots.”

Jaden McDaniels, who added 14 points for the Wolves, said the key to Minnesota's bounce-back was going "after Jokic, Jamal, all the bad defenders. Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team, just go at them. Yeah, they’re all bad defenders.”

Before tipoff, Finch complained for a third straight day about the free-throw disparity in Game 1, when the Nuggets outscored Minnesota 30-14 from the stripe. He cracked that maybe his players need to “start flopping, too.”

Each team went to the line 30 times Monday night.

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

Adoring crowds in the largely Catholic country lined the road from the airport into the capital, Malabo, cheering the first pope to visit since St. John Paul II in 1982. Wearing his formal red mozzetta cape, Leo thrilled the flag-waving masses by arriving at the presidential palace in his open-sided popemobile.

“There is a lot of joy today because we waited 44 years for the pope to come,” said Diosdado Marques, a senior Catholic official in the country. “It’s a blessing for the country, we hope many things will change and we will deepen our faith.”

The former Spanish colony on Africa’s western coast is run by the continent's longest-serving president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been accused of widespread corruption and authoritarianism.

The discovery of offshore oil in the mid-1990s transformed Equatorial Guinea’s economy virtually overnight, with oil now accounting for almost half of its GDP and more than 90% of exports, according to the African Development Bank.

Yet more than half of the country’s nearly 2 million people live in poverty. And rights groups including Human Rights Watch — as well as court cases in France and Spain — have documented how revenues have enriched the ruling Obiang family rather than the broader population.

Leo, who arrived from Angola, met with Obiang at the presidential palace and then addressed government authorities, diplomats and civil service representatives. Noting that the encounter occurred on the first anniversary of Pope Francis’ death, Leo quoted the late pope in denouncing income inequalities that he said had been exacerbated by a global economy focused on the pursuit of profit at all cost.

“Such an economy kills,” Leo said. “In fact, it is even more evident today than in years past that the proliferation of armed conflicts is often driven by the colonization of oil and mineral deposits, occurring with no regard for international law or the self-determination of peoples.”

The Trump administration, which has announced plans to create a minerals trading bloc with its allies, has been racing to get access to Africa’s regions rich in critical minerals and to beat competition from China in a region where Beijing has long dominated.

Last year, as the administration emerged as a key broker for a peace deal to end the fighting in Congo’s mineral-rich but conflict-battered eastern region, it was also signing a partnership with Congo that would allow American companies access to those conflict minerals.

The U.S. is also investing funds in the Lobito Corridor, a major rail project in Africa that would facilitate export of minerals from mineral-rich regions in Zambia and Congo through Lobito in Angola. At the same time, the U.S. has also backed a South Africa project aimed at extracting rare earth minerals from industrial waste. The project developer has said it can extract key metals used in electronics and defense systems.

Two models of cities

The pope's meetings took place in the old presidential palace. The government has built a new capital on the mainland, named Ciudad de la Paz, or City of Peace, but the transfer of government buildings hasn’t been completed yet.

Authorities have said the decision to build the new capital was strategic, given the potential for expansion of the city carved out in the middle of a tropical forest. But critics said the relocation of the capital would exacerbate existing inequalities and give further opportunities for the presidential circle to enrich themselves

Leo referred to the new capital by citing to the famous work of St. Augustine, “City of God,” in which the 5th-century philosopher interpreted humanity through two models: The “earthly city” where people live temporarily, and the eternal “city of God,” characterized by God’s unconditional love and love of one another, especially the poor.

Leo didn't call out the corruption associated with the Obiang family or the criticism of the new capital. But he suggested Equatorial Guinea should look to the “City of God” as a model.

“The earthly city is centered upon the proud love of self, on the lust for power and worldly glory that leads to destruction,” he said. “It is essential to discern the difference between that which lasts and that which passes, remaining free from the pursuit of unjust wealth and the illusion of dominion.”

A secular but very Catholic country

Equatorial Guinea is officially a secular country, but about 75% of its population is Catholic, making it one of the most Catholic countries in Africa.

Church leaders “are very much interconnected intrinsically with the government,” said Tutu Alicante, a U.S.-based activist who runs the EG Justice rights group. “Part of it is the fear the government has instilled in everyone, including the church, and part of it is the monetary gains that the church derives from this government.”

The Rev. Fortunatus Nwachukwu, No. 2 in the Vatican’s missionary evangelization office, said the Catholic Church is present in difficult civil spaces and knows how to operate in them to carry out its mission.

“Should the church go to war against the government? Surely no,” Nwachukwu said. “Should the church swallow everything as if it were normal? No. The church has to continue preaching justice, always in defense of life, human dignity and the common good.”

In addition to official corruption, the country’s government also faces rampant accusations of harassment, arrest and intimidation of political opponents, critics and journalists.

Equatorial Guinea is also one of several African nations that have been paid millions of dollars in controversial deals with the Trump administration to receive migrants deported from the U.S. to countries other than their own.

AP reporting shows that at least 29 such migrants with no ties to the country have been deported there. Some remain in detention in Malabo with restrictions on legal and medical support, while others have been forcibly returned to their countries where they face persecution.

Leo, who will visit a prison in the port city of Bata on Wednesday, has criticized the Trump administration’s overall migration deportation policy as “extremely disrespectful.”

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Associated Press writers Monika Pronczuk in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and Ope Adetayo in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to the reporting.

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

But both sides have sent mixed messages, with U.S. President Donald Trump saying Tuesday that “I expect to be bombing” and Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf saying Tehran has “new cards on the battlefield” that haven’t yet been revealed.

Pakistan-led mediators have received confirmation that Qalibaf and U.S. Vice President JD Vance are expected to arrive in Islamabad early Wednesday, the regional officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Here is the latest:

Pakistan calls for Iran ceasefire extension in meeting with US diplomat

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister met U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Natalie Baker on Tuesday, urging that Washington and Iran extend the ceasefire and pursue diplomacy, the Foreign Ministry said.

In a statement, it said Ishaq Dar “underscored Pakistan’s consistent emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy as the only viable means to address challenges and achieve lasting regional peace and stability.”

Baker, in response, conveyed Washington’s appreciation for Pakistan’s constructive role in supporting regional peace and facilitating dialogue, the statement said.

More on the UAE as US weighs offering it a currency swap

The United Arab Emirates, an autocratically ruled federation of seven sheikdoms on the Arabian Peninsula that’s home to Dubai, became wealthy from its oil deposits. It pegs its currency, the dirham, to the U.S. dollar.

While it has been able to send some of its oil out via a pipeline to the Gulf of Oman, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has squeezed the country’s oil exports.

The UAE has an estimated $2.5 trillion in savings and sovereign wealth funds, but may be seeking the swap to “bolster investor confidence in the UAE’s financial position if the war were to drag on,” said Jason Tuvey, an analyst at Capital Economics.

Trump says administration is weighing currency swap for UAE

Trump confirmed in his CNBC interview that he’s considering a request from the United Arab Emirates Central bank for a currency swap to help secure dollar liquidity for the oil-rich economy that’s been rattled by the Iran conflict.

The president expressed surprise that the nation needs assistance, but made clear he was open to the prospect of making the move to help meet his ally’s concerns.

“I mean I’m surprised because they are really rich,” Trump said. He added, “You know, they’re very good for this country. So, yeah, if I could help them, I would.”

Trump says he doesn’t want to extend Iran ceasefire if talks with US progress

Trump was responding to a question during a live telephone interview Tuesday on CNBC, a business news network.

Asked if he would continue the ceasefire if there’s progress in the next round of Iran talks, Trump said, “Well, I don’t want to do that. We don’t have that much time.” He said Iran “had a choice” and “they have to negotiate.”

But it remained unclear when the ceasefire actually expires. Tuesday night was the deadline when the pause was announced two weeks ago, but Trump told Bloomberg News the ceasefire will expire Wednesday night.

Trump says he’s ready to resume Iran bombardment if talks don’t go well

In an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Trump was asked directly if he’d resume strikes if there isn’t progress in the coming talks in Islamabad.

“Well, I expect to be bombing because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with,” Trump said. “But, you know, we’re ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go.”

Pakistan says it tests locally made anti-ship cruise missile

The navy says it successfully conducted a live firing of the Taimoor air-launched missile.

The announcement comes amid the Pakistani navy’s ongoing efforts to escort merchant vessels transiting key routes including the Strait of Hormuz.

US forces board oil tanker sanctioned for smuggling Iranian oil

The Pentagon on social media says U.S. forces “conducted a right-of-visit maritime interdiction” and boarded the M/T Tifani “without incident.” Ship-tracking data showed the Tifani in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

The announcement described the boarding as happening overnight. It added that “international waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”

Regional officials say US and Iran arriving Wednesday for Round Two

Neither the U.S. nor Iran have publicly confirmed the timing of talks. Iranian state television has denied any official is already in Pakistan’s capital.

Pakistan-led mediators received confirmation that the top negotiators, Vance and Qalibaf, will arrive in Islamabad early Wednesday, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

A two-week ceasefire is due to expire.

— Munir Ahmed and Samy Magdy

Germany calls on Iran to head to Pakistan for talks

Germany’s top diplomat has called on Iran to come to Islamabad for negotiations with the U.S.

“We are now urgently calling on Iran to come to Islamabad and engage in constructive negotiations with the United States,” Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Tuesday on the sidelines of the European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg.

Wadephul pointed out that Vance is ready to travel to Pakistan and that “Iran should now take this outstretched hand in the interest of its own people.”

He also called on the American side to continue to keep its openness to negotiate with Iran.

“I believe there is still a window of opportunity to end this war through negotiations,” Wadephul said.

The German foreign minister also called on Iran “to immediately restore free and safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.”

‘Most severe energy crisis in a generation,’ U.N. chief says

The conflict in the Middle East has triggered “the most severe energy crisis in a generation,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, speaking remotely from New York to a climate conference in Berlin.

The current crisis, he said, makes it clear that “fossil fuels are not just wrecking our planet, they are holding economies hostage.”

Guterres said that the energy crisis should be solved without exacerbating the climate crisis and that can be done by investing in homegrown renewables, developing the infrastructure to support them and providing financing for less developed economies to transition away from fossil fuels.

Climate change and fuel price chaos warning

The Iran war has locked the world in much higher fossil fuel costs for months and likely years to come, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said on Tuesday in Berlin.

“Fossil fuel driven stagflation is now stalking economies, driving up prices, driving down growth, pushing budgets deeper into the quagmire of debt and stripping away governments’ policy options and autonomy,” he said.

He referred to climate change and fuel price chaos as “twin reapers” and said that climate cooperation and faster investments in clean energy were needed to overcome this challenge.

15 bridges hit in Lebanon since war started

Lebanon’s public works and transport minister says 15 bridges have been damaged or destroyed during the latest war.

Fayez Rasamny told the local LBC TV channel on Tuesday that the government still doesn't have a final estimate for the damage caused by the almost seven-week Israel-Hezbollah war.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war was halted by a 10-day ceasefire that went into effect last week.

Rasamny said that he believes that the losses could be worth between $7 billion and $8 billion. He said that the government was waiting until there is a permanent ceasefire before reaching out to donors.

Israeli strikes kill 5 in Gaza

Israeli strikes killed at least five people in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, hospital authorities said.

Four suspected militants were killed when a drone strike hit a security point overnight in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Nasser hospital said.

Another man was wounded in the strike, it said.

Israel’s military didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The militant-manned point was around 4 kilometers (2½ miles) west of the so-called Yellow Line, separating the Israeli-controlled areas from the rest of Gaza, according to relatives of those killed.

In the northern town of Beit Lahiya, a 30-year-old woman was killed when the Israeli navy opened fire toward tents sheltering displaced people early Tuesday, the Shifa hospital said.

The Israeli military said that it wasn’t aware of attacks in Beit Lahiya.

The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since a fragile October ceasefire deal took hold to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas.

No delegation from Iran in Islamabad, state TV says

Iranian state television on Tuesday issued an on-screen alert saying that “no delegation from Iran has visited Islamabad ... so far” as speculation about possible talks with the United States grows.

The on-screen alert likely reflects the internal debate ongoing within Iran’s theocracy as it weighs how to respond to the U.S. Navy’s seizure of an Iranian container ship over the weekend.

Iranian state television long has been controlled by hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy.

So far, no official has acknowledged that a delegation will be heading to Islamabad, where officials have been on standby for days now for the possible talks.

Vance is expected to lead an American team to the talks.

Iran has offered no word on who could lead its delegation.

Last time, Qalibaf led the Iranian side.

China says war is at ‘critical stage of transition’

China says that it hopes all parties can maintain the momentum for peace talks, as the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war is set to expire Wednesday.

“The current situation is at a critical stage of transition between war and peace. At such a moment, it is all the more necessary for all parties to show the utmost sincerity, remain committed to a political solution, maintain the momentum of the ceasefire and negotiations,” Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

While it’s not directly involved in ongoing mediation efforts, diplomats have said that China had pressed for Iran to attend the first round of negotiations.

Pakistan says China supports efforts to facilitate talks

China has expressed support for Pakistan’s efforts to facilitate engagement between the United States and Iran for peace and stability in the region and beyond, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry said Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong conveyed the message during a meeting with Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad, where both sides discussed the latest regional developments.

Dar reaffirmed the “all-weather” Pakistan-China strategic cooperative partnership, underscoring strong bilateral ties and the importance of continued high-level exchanges, the statement said.

Thousands of security personnel deploy in Islamabad

Security has been tightened across Pakistan’s capital, where authorities have deployed thousands of personnel and increased patrols along routes leading to the airport, as U.S. and Iranian delegations are expected to arrive this week for the second round of talks, witnesses and officials said Tuesday.

Security arrangements appear stricter than those put in place during the first round of talks held in the capital on April 11 and 12, following diplomatic efforts by Pakistan and regional countries, including China, to ease tensions in the region.

Pakistan hasn't announced final dates for the talks, however.

Analysts say the scale of the security measures suggests the possibility of high-level participation if negotiations make progress.

“The arrangements this time are markedly different from those during the first round,” said Syed Mohammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst.

“Pakistan appears to be preparing for the possibility of visits by top U.S. and Iranian leaders if the talks advance to a stage where an agreement could be signed,” he told The Associated Press.

EU ministers meet on energy, jet fuel concerns

Transportation ministers from across the 27-nation European Union are meeting in Brussels Tuesday to discuss spiking energy prices because of the war in Iran, and how to protect consumers at home and at the pump after the head of the International Energy Agency warned that Europe has “maybe six weeks” jet fuel supplies remaining.

“This evolving geopolitical crisis in the Middle East has highlighted that Europe may have a short-term issue in supply of fuel,” said Cyprus Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades, who is chairing the virtual meeting.

He said that there is currently no crisis, but that the bloc must prepare for the possibility of shortages.

“If this ever happens, it will affect connectivity, it will affect every citizen in the union,” Vafeades said.

“We need to be ready to avoid queues at the gas stations if this ever happens.”

Pakistan and Egyptian foreign minister speak

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday spoke with Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty to discuss the latest regional developments, as part of a diplomatic push linked to a possible second round of talks between the United States and Iran.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry in Islamabad said in a statement that both leaders emphasized the importance of dialogue and engagement for peace and stability and agreed to remain in close contact.

The statement gave no further details.

While Pakistani officials have expressed confidence that Iran will send a delegation late Tuesday, there has been no formal announcement from Tehran.

Trump said over the weekend that he's sending a U.S. delegation to Pakistan.

Russian authorities lift flight restrictions

Russia’s Transport Ministry has announced that Rosaviatsia, Russia’s civil aviation authority, “lifted recommendations for Russian airlines to temporary halt sales of tickets to flights to and from" the United Arab Emirates, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Restrictions on flights via Iranian airspace have also been lifted, the report quoted the ministry as saying in an online statement.

Flights to Iranian airports and transit flights over the country will be carried out with recommendations from local aviation authorities taken into account, the report said.

Restrictions on flights to the Middle East were introduced in February.

Man hanged over January protests in Iran

Iran said Tuesday that it hanged a man convicted after being accused of setting fire to a mosque in northern Tehran during nationwide protests in January.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency identified the man as Amir Ali Mir Jafari.

There was no immediate information about Jafari among activists who follow Iran.

Iran has been accused of repeatedly holding closed-door trials against suspects who can’t challenge the evidence against them.

Iran already has hanged people from the January protests, something that Trump had described as a red line before the recent war.

Asian shares mixed and oil prices slip

Shares are mixed in Asia and oil prices have slipped following the latest rise of U.S.-Iran tensions.

The lackluster start to trading Tuesday followed a modest retreat on Wall Street.

On Monday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.2% from its all-time high and the Dow industrials edged less than 0.1% lower. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.3%.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil remains above $95.

Trump attacked critics after a second round of talks with Iran was thrown into doubt by the U.S. Navy’s seizure of an Iranian-flagged cargo ship.

Financial markets have had vicious swings, both up and down, since the war began because of uncertainty about how long it may last.

The fear is that a long-term disruption could keep so much oil and natural gas off global markets that it creates a punishing wave of inflation for the global economy.

McCollum not only replaced Young in Atlanta, now he's replaced him in Madison Square Garden — as the villain who carried the Hawks past the New York Knicks in a playoff game.

“I ain't no villain,” McCollum said. “I'm a nice guy with two kids and a wife.”

The veteran guard scored 32 points Monday night to help the Hawks rally for a stunning 107-106 victory that tied the Eastern Conference first-round series at one game apiece.

He was profanely taunted by the Garden fans after he and Jose Alvarado went nose-to-nose and were each given technical fouls in the third quarter, just as Young was in a 2021 first-round series. And just like Young did in Game 1 of that series when New Yorkers picked him as their target, he made the big plays late that left them silent.

“I love it. I love it. That’s why we play the game,” McCollum said. “It’s fun being in opposing arenas and when the buzzer sounds and it’s quiet and you walk off the court, I think there’s a level of mutual respect.”

When the Hawks decided to move on from their longtime star guard, coach Quin Snyder knew McCollum could step in as a veteran leader on a young team. But he also knew the 34-year-old could replace some of the firepower Young had provided.

“Yeah, I felt like we needed both, you know?” Snyder said. “Being in the West for a while, I’ve watched him do that when he was in Portland.”

Then it was on to New Orleans, before the Pelicans dealt him in July to Washington. Then came the trade to Atlanta and what McCollum called his “light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I’m just thankful to be able to play in the playoffs on a good team in a good situation,” McCollum said. “I think you take the journey for what it is in stride and just hope for the best. And I think when you do things the right way you get rewarded at the end of the tunnel, and my reward is playing the Knicks in the Garden.”

He outplayed counterpart Jalen Brunson, seemingly looking for every opportunity to go 1-on-1 at the Knicks All-Star, and made the go-ahead basket, a jumper with 33 seconds to play.

He left the door open for the Knicks to win by missing two free throws with 5.6 seconds remaining, but Mikal Bridges missed a jumper. Now the Knicks have to win at least once at Atlanta — and figure out how to cool off McCollum.

“CJ hit a couple big buckets late. He hit his and we missed ours and you give a guy like CJ a lot of credit,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “That’s what those guys are supposed to do and he got it done.”

___

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

Hayden, 73, who headed the Library of Congress from 2016-2025 and worked in libraries for much of her adult life, cited her profession as a vital bridge between writers and the general public.

“Libraries are where storytelling meets opportunity,” she told the audience gathered for the Guild's annual dinner-gala, held at Cipriani Wall Street. “They are where a child discovers a first favorite book, where a new American finds language and belonging and where research uncovers hidden history, and where communities see themselves in the pages of literature. Libraries do more than house books. You know that. They connect people to ideas, to knowledge, and to one another. They ensure that storytelling is not reserved for the few, but shared by all.”

Hayden, was among three honorees, along with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Percival Everett and “The Joy Luck Club” author Amy Tan. Hayden, the first woman and first Black person to be appointed Librarian of Congress, didn’t refer to Trump or her ouster during her brief remarks. But her speech was an implicit rebuttal to Trump's attacks against what he calls “woke" culture that have been directed at her and at such cultural institutions as the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Institution.

She praised libraries as “engines of accessibility and inclusion” and as havens for free expression at a time of record-high book bans.

“In many places today, librarians are under attack for believing in the power of the written word and in the principle that free people should be able to read freedom,” she said. “Yet librarians remain steady and hopeful.”

The gala was a forum for opposing bans and for other causes crucial to the Guild and to the thousands of published writers its represents. Author David Baldacci was among those who denounced AI, which has been the subject of various lawsuits filed by writers against Microsoft,OpenAI and other companies that alleges their work had been used without their permission for AI generative programs. Baldacci was among several writers present who have been plaintiffs in legal action, and his name was invoked later in the evening: It was attached to the prize given to Everett, the Baldacci Award for Literary Activism.

Everett, 69, whose “James” won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, is a prolific author and longtime academic who joked that receiving an honor for activism was like being called an athletic chess player. His books are known for their cutting and provocative takes on racism and other subjects, and he referred indirectly to Hayden's departure by picturing a future — one he finds all too plausible — in which the only kinds of works available at the Library of Congress are the writings of Ayn Rand and other conservative favorites.

“That is where we are, and I can't tell you how sad I am about this,” Everett said.

Tan, 74, was cited for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community. Besides writing “The Joy Luck Club” and such novels as “The Kitchen God's Wife” and “The Bonesetter's Daughter,” she also has a long history of supporting emerging writers and for helping young people pay for treatment for Lyme disease, which she has suffered from for decades.

Tan offered a deeply personal account of the importance of writing, thinking and how she came to think of herself, and other writers, as “political.” As a girl, she was chastised by a minister for reading the allegedly immoral “The Catcher in the Rye.” The minister then assaulted her, an attack that left her devastated, an “unwanted life lesson" that made her question everything and set her on a path to storytelling that was compassionate and intrinsically “political” because of its power to change minds.

“Books, by their nature, have far reaching consequences regardless of our conscious intentions. Books have readers, readers have reactions and what they do with those reactions is of consequence,” said Tan, a daughter of Chinese immigrants who summarized herself as a “writer, an American writer, an American who uses her freedom of expression."

Four years after the queen’s death, the shop is doing a brisk business in mugs, tea towels and key rings bearing the likeness of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch as the nation marks the centenary of her birth on Tuesday. Items featuring her son King Charles III? Well, not so much.

“We still sell more than the king any day,’’ said Ismail Ibrahim, the store’s manager.

The late queen’s memory looms over the monarchy after a 70-year reign that saw her evolve from the glamorous young sovereign who cheered Britain during the gloomy post-war years to the beloved national grandmother who rallied the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still ‘the queen’

When she died in September 2022, Elizabeth was the only monarch most Britons had ever known. Even now, mention of “the queen” is more likely to evoke thoughts of Elizabeth than of Queen Camilla, Charles' wife.

But the passage of time has also tarnished the late queen’s legacy. While she is celebrated as a symbol of tradition and continuity who helped unite Britain as the end of empire, economic struggles and mass migration changed the nation’s perception of itself, revelations about the former Prince Andrew’s links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have raised questions about why she let the problem fester for years.

“Despite her absence, Elizabeth II remains this key presence whenever we think about the monarchy,’’ Ed Owens, author of “After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself?’’ told The Associated Press.

“She’s certainly the most significant figure in the history of the institution in the last 100 years and, I think, therefore deserves probably the attention that’s going to be focused on her in connection with what would have been her 100th birthday.”

The festivities include a Buckingham Palace reception where Charles will congratulate centenarians who share the late monarch's birthday, and the dedication of a memorial garden at Regent's Park in central London. An exhibit of the queen's fashions is already underway.

An unexpected reign

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor wasn’t meant to wear the crown. Born on April 21, 1926, she started her long life not in a castle but at 17 Bruton St., a townhouse in London’s Mayfair district.

As the elder daughter of King George V’s second son, Elizabeth was expected to live the life of a minor royal. Dogs and horses, a country house, a suitable match — a comfortable but somewhat anonymous life — seemed her future.

But destiny intervened. A decade after Elizabeth’s birth, her uncle King Edward VIII abdicated to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Elizabeth’s father became King George VI, thrusting the young princess into the spotlight as heir to throne.

Elizabeth became queen the day her father died on Feb. 6, 1952. Just 25, she heard the news in Kenya and hurried home to take up her duties.

Global ambassador

For decades, she presided over the annual opening of Parliament in crown and ermine robe, hosted banquets for visiting leaders at Buckingham Palace and made thousands of appearances across the U.K., often wearing brightly colored suits to make sure the people could catch a glimpse of their queen.

She also became a global ambassador for brand Britain, making more than 200 overseas trips that helped bolster ties with one-time colonies from India to Tanzania, former enemies Germany and Japan and long-time friends such as the United States.

Late in life, the queen became an internet star when she and James Bond star Daniel Craig used moviemaking sleight of hand to parachute into the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics and teamed up with Paddington Bear to celebrate her 70 years on the throne.

The king recalled his mother's impact on people around the world in a video tribute released Tuesday.

“Millions will remember her for moments of national significance; many others for a fleeting personal encounter, a smile, a kind word that lifted spirits, or for that marvelous twinkle of the eye when sharing a marmalade sandwich with Paddington Bear in the final months of her life,'' he said.

In a world of relentless change, she moved with the times — applauding the nation’s successes and consoling Britons during difficult times, while remaining above the fray of politics, Robert Hardman, author of “Elizabeth II: In private. In public. The Inside Story,’’ told the AP.

Scandal's shadow

But those accomplishments make her failure to end the scandal surrounding her second son even more glaring.

Despite concerns about his boorish behavior, questionable business dealings and unsavory friends, Andrew spent 10 years as Britain’s special envoy for international trade and remained a prince of the realm until the details of his relationship with Epstein were revealed last year. In an effort to shield the monarchy from the continuing fallout, Charles fi nally stripped his younger brother of his princely title. He is now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

“He was problematic and that gave her cause for worry,’’ Hardman said. “But I do think people let him have an easy ride because they thought if they came down hard on him, they might somehow upset the queen. Now that’s partly attributable to her, but partly attributable to others.”

Besides, her “great achievements’’ far outweighed any errors, Hardman said.

Elizabeth took the throne as a young woman with two small children at a time before jet travel existed and no one had even thought of going to the moon, then remained a constant presence in British public life across generations.

“She just reigned through this vast span of the ages and was as authoritative and loved and respected at the end as she was at the beginning,” Hardman said. “And she was working till the very end, ‘til her last day.”

As historians debate the queen’s legacy, members of the public are making their own judgements.

Take Sylvie Deneux, and her daughter Clara, who stopped by Cool Britannia during a visit to London from their home in Lille, France.

They praised the late monarch for her elegance and described her as an icon. But when asked about Mountbatten-Windsor, Sylvie Deneux, 49, paused and looked at her daughter. Failing to quickly quash the scandal was a mistake, she said. But Deneux could still muster sympathy for Elizabeth, because she made those decisions as a mother, not as a queen.

“Can we blame her?’’ she asked. “I’m not sure.”

La lista está integrada por los abogados Néctor Guilebaldo de León, Zoila Tatiana Morales, César Avila, Julio Rivera Clavería, Beyla Estrada y Gabriel García Luna. Arévalo deberá tomar su decisión a más tardar el 16 de mayo, último día de Porras en el cargo.

La comisión —integrada por los decanos de las facultades de derecho del país, el colegio de abogados y la presidenta de la Corte Suprema de Justicia— revisó los expedientes de 48 candidatos a fiscal general y recibió duras críticas por modificar los criterios para calificar a los aspirantes.

Debido a estos cambios, la comisión no otorgó valor alguno a los 25 años de experiencia como juez del ministro de Gobernación Marco Villeda, uno de los hombres de confianza de Arévalo.

El panel, integrado por 15 personas, postuló a los 12 candidatos con la mayor calificación. Porras alcanzó la nota más alta con 92 puntos, pero no recibió el apoyo de los miembros de la comisión.

Porras buscaba su tercer periodo a pesar de que ha sido objeto de sanciones de más de 40 países, incluidos Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea, por socavar la democracia de guatemalteca y obstaculizar la lucha anticorrupción.

Porras intentó impedir la llegada de Arévalo al poder en 2023, a pesar de ganar las elecciones. La fiscalía lo acusó en su momento de presunto fraude electoral y otros delitos, e incluso llegó a secuestrar boletas, solicitándole a un juez que proscribiera al partido político con el que llegó al poder.

La Relatora Especial sobre la Independencia de los magistrados y abogados de Naciones Unidas, Margaret Satterthwaite, cuestionó en 2015 a la fiscalía —a cargo de Porras— por mantener una política de criminalización contra colectivos, operadores judiciales, líderes sociales y periodistas como represalia por sus denuncias de corrupción.

“El presidente de la república está al tanto y espera la lista definitiva para continuar el proceso de evaluación de perfiles”, señaló la oficina de presidencia después de darse a conocer los nombres de los aspirantes.

El exfiscal Juan Francisco Sandoval, quien denunció desde el exilio a Porras por presuntos actos de criminalización, señaló que la lista de candidatos “sin duda” marca el cierre de un ciclo de ocho años que estuvo profundamente cuestionado por el grave daño que causó al sistema de justicia”.

“Se abre una oportunidad real para redefinir el rumbo del Ministerio Público”, subrayó.

Añadió, sin embargo, que el proceso ha provocado inquietudes al haber pasado por alto a abogados con trayectoria y capacidad que debieron ser considerados, especialmente a los perfiles de jueces. Afirmó que su omisión "transmite un mensaje equivocado sobre el valor de la carrera judicial".

Sandoval agregó que la decisión del presidente será determinante. “No se trata únicamente de nombrar a una persona, sino de decidir si el país apuesta por la reconstrucción institucional del Ministerio Público o por la continuidad de las prácticas que tanto daño le han hecho a la justicia guatemalteca”.

Owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week announced the newspaper's sale to a nonprofit foundation that said it was committed to keeping it open. A news outlet that predates the U.S. Constitution was due to close on May 3, which would have made the Steel City the nation's largest community without a city-based paper.

Weeks earlier, the alternative Pittsburgh City Paper, whose staff learned on New Year's Day that it was closing after 34 years, roared back to life under new ownership.

They were rare positive developments for a local news industry that has seen its share of the opposite over the past two decades — newsrooms shuttered or thinned out, journalists thrown out of work, consumers drifting away. No one is pretending that a true turnaround will be easy in Pittsburgh. One thing that may help is that the city faced a news abyss and was forced to prepare for it.

“It's human nature that sometimes you have to be shaken a bit to realize what's important in your life,” said Halle Stockton, co-executive director and editor-in-chief of the digital news outlet Public Source.

The many incarnations of the Post-Gazette

The Pittsburgh Gazette was born on July 29, 1786, the first newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains. It went through several names with the expansion and contraction of a newspaper market that supported seven at the beginning of the 20th century. There was The Commercial Gazette, the Gazette-Times and, briefly, the Pittsburgh Gazette and Manufacturing and Mercantile Advertiser.

A consolidation caused by the closing of the Pittsburgh Post in 1927 made it the Post-Gazette, which has remained its name for 99 years.

It had a solid reputation, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for its coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. “The Post-Gazette is really the paper of record for this city,” said Kevin Acklin, chief of staff to a former Pittsburgh mayor and former president of the Penguins hockey team. The other longtime “paper of record,” The Pittsburgh Press, closed in 1992 after a Teamsters Union strike.

Labor woes marred the Post-Gazette's last few years as well. Much of the staff was on strike between 2022 and 2025, though the newspaper limped along. Its owner, Block Communications, Inc., announced the closing on the same January day that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected its appeal of a ruling on health benefits seen as favorable to former strikers.

Since then, rumors about its future ebbed and flowed. Acklin worked this winter with other investors to buy the newspaper, but a potential deal fell through when Block insisted the union not be part of it.

To anyone watching closely, a clue to the newspaper's future was revealed across town in mid-March.

“You thought we were dead and gone, didn't you?” Ali Trachta, top editor at the Pittsburgh City Paper, wrote on the outlet's revived website. “So did I. But, to be honest, only very briefly.” She announced that the paper was returning to cover community news, politics, the arts “and the creative, weird and uniquely Pittsburgh stories” that have defined it since its founding in 1991.

A new nonprofit, Local Matters, led by a former engineering manager at Apple, had gathered investors to buy the City Paper. It would return to printed editions on a monthly basis and was launching a membership program for readers to pledge support. Most of its staff would return. The paper used to print weekly until its previous owner in 2025 said it would shift to only four printed editions a year.

That former owner? Block Communications.

A new nonprofit enters Pittsburgh's civic arena

When Block announced its sale of the Post-Gazette last week, it was also to a nonprofit. The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, which publishes the digital success story The Baltimore Banner, bought the Post-Gazette even though Block said it was not the highest bidder. Many in Pittsburgh feared it would be sold to a hedge fund notorious for stripping newspapers of resources.

Does that make Block, long seen as a villain in the local journalism industry, a hero in this story?

“For better or worse, the Blocks will never get credit for that," said Andrew Conte, a journalism professor at Point Park University who runs Pittsburgh's Center for Media Innovation. “But it does seem like they made an effort to come up with the best outcome they could as they were leaving Pittsburgh. They could have just walked away and said, ‘You know, we’re done.'”

Now the work begins. Venetoulis officials did not return inquiries from The Associated Press. The institute's benefactor, hotel magnate Stewart Bainum Jr., has said that he plans to invest $30 million in both the Banner and Post-Gazette over the next five years. The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh said it hopes to be part of the process of rebuilding. Whether the union will be invited is uncertain.

“This is going to be one of the most closely-watched newspaper acquisitions in years,” said Tim Franklin, founding director of the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. “Can a money-losing newspaper with serious labor strife be saved and resurrected as a non-profit? If Stewart Bainum and his team pull this off — and I hope they do — it could be a model for the nation.”

Anticipating a Pittsburgh without the Post-Gazette, other news sources in the city had begun making plans to fill gaps in the marketplace, and they're not necessarily changing them because of the sale.

Another area newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, will reinstate a Sunday print edition in Pittsburgh on May 9. It had stopped printing in the city a decade ago. The Trib is also going ahead with adding about a dozen new journalists to boost its coverage of business, health care, transportation and education, said Jennifer Bertetto, its CEO. Based in Greensburg, 30 miles to the east of Pittsburgh, some city residents view the Trib as an outsider.

Stockton's Public Source, launched in 2011 primarily as a home for investigative news stories, is widening its outlook. The outlet has also convened town halls over the past few months for residents to talk about what they want in local news, and published a list of 40 to 50 small news outlets in the region that focus on subject areas like the arts and business, or different neighborhoods and towns.

People less engaged in news were looking for new ideas. “People are actively interested in where they get their information and who they can trust for it,” Stockton said. “So we're leaning into that.”

With their careers in limbo the past several months, Post-Gazette content editor Erin Hebert and photographer Steve Mellon were among several journalists meeting regularly as the Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting, or PAPER, seeing if they could create a digital news site. Hebert said it hasn’t been decided what will happen now with those plans.

Conte can walk a few blocks from the university to show office space set aside for journalists from small, local publications. He hopes to convince the Tribune-Review to print a periodic insert featuring the best reporting from these outlets.

Talk to someone young, and the challenge is obvious

A clue to the challenge faced by news organizations in 2026 is obvious when speaking to students in Conte’s journalism class. When they're asked how many had checked the Post-Gazette's website that morning, only a couple of hands tentatively go up.

Sites like Instagram or TikTok are often their destinations for news. It’s more convenient and without pay walls, said Gabriela Wait. The journalism students know to check with more reliable sources if they’re not sure they can believe what they see. Many of their friends don’t.

Makenna Smith recalled her grandparents and parents reading newspapers when she was growing up, keeping them informed and entertained. Few people her age have the same habit.

A study released earlier this month by the Pew Research Center showed that public interest in news is a problem for all ages. Pew found that 37% of Americans in 2016 said they followed local news very closely. That dropped to 21% in 2025.

To Conte, that reinforces the need for news organizations to cooperate. A former Trib reporter, he recalled his paper's bitter competition with the Post-Gazette.

“Literally, they were trying to kill each other,” he said. “I don't think any of us want to go back to a point where we're doing that. We've evolved. We're trying to work together. Even if we're competing for scoops and clicks and dollars, there's also a benefit to having us get around the same table once a month.”

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

Since Weinstein became a major target of the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct nearly a decade ago, he has been convicted of some sexual assault charges and acquitted of others in trials on two U.S. coasts. But the rape charge involving a 2013 encounter in a Manhattan hotel has lingered, due to an overturned conviction followed by a jury deadlock.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies ever having nonconsensual sex. He said in court in this winter that he had been unfaithful to his then-wife and “acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone.”

The jury — seven men and five women — was selected over several days last week. Weinstein's last New York jury was majority-female, but his first was mostly male.

The current jurors were questioned about, among other things, their familiarity with Weinstein and whether they could be fair and impartial regardless of what they might have heard.

Now a 73-year-old prison inmate, Weinstein was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. An Academy Award-winning producer and a studio boss, he helped bring such acclaimed films as “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “Gangs of New York” to movie houses and the popular reality series “Project Runway” to TV. He also was a prominent Democratic donor.

His career collapsed in 2017, when decades of Hollywood whispers about his behavior toward women became public accusations in news and social media. Criminal charges followed in New York and Los Angeles.

His accuser in this trial, Jessica Mann, was a hairstylist hoping to break into big-time acting when she met Weinstein at a Los Angeles-area party in late 2012 or early 2013.

She has testified that she was looking for a professional connection but ended up, ambivalently, in a consensual relationship with the then-married Weinstein.

During a New York trip with a friend in March 2013, she arranged a breakfast for both of them with Weinstein, she said. According to Mann's prior testimony, Weinstein ultimately trapped her in a hotel room, ignored her protestation that “I don't want to do this,” demanded she undress and grabbed her arms, and she succumbed because she “just wanted to get out.”

Weinstein’s former lawyers emphasized that Mann kept seeing him, accepting invitations, asking him for career help and sending warm messages to him. He has switched legal teams for this retrial, and it remains to be seen how their approach may differ.

The trial is expected to take up to four weeks.

Many advocates in the aftermath of the deadly shootings have said the tragedies pointedly highlight troubling underlying trends where Black women are more likely to experience domestic violence — and they see the killings as an opportunity to confront how disparities in access to care and resources make some women and children more vulnerable to violence in the home.

On Sunday morning, a man police identified as Shamar Elkins fatally shot seven of his children and another child in Shreveport, Louisiana. A relative has said Elkins was in the midst of separating from his wife who was wounded.

And last Thursday, police found the bodies of former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and his estranged wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, in their suburban Washington, D.C., home. Justin Fairfax shot his estranged wife and then himself, and their two children in the home at the time were unhurt, police said. Like Elkins, Fairfax was in the process of separating from his wife and had faced a judge's upcoming deadline to move from the house.

While it's not clear what prompted the Shreveport killings or the apparent murder-suicide in Annandale, Virginia, experts say that the harrowing details of the killings echo familiar patterns that play out in homes across the country — and underscore the need for solutions that address the root causes of the disparate violence.

A ‘silent epidemic’

Sunday wasn’t the first time that Elkins’ family had suffered from gender-based gun violence: Shaneiqua Elkins and the other woman who was shot, Keosha Pugh, were sisters, and lost their mother to gun violence when they were under age 10, according to their uncle Lionel Pugh.

“It’s sad. It just breaks you down," Pugh said.

Shreveport Councilman Grayson Boucher said at a news conference Monday that the Louisiana killings were emblematic of “a true epidemic of domestic violence" across the small southern city of roughly 180,000 people.

Those trends go well beyond Shreveport as experts have pointed out how both race and gender make Black women in particular more vulnerable to domestic violence.

More than four in 10 Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes — a much higher rate than women who are white, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander — according to a 2014 study by the Centers for Disease Control.

Paméla Tate is the executive director of Black Women Revolt, which runs programs to prevent abuse and offers survivors' resources. She said a logical skepticism about police and government child services agencies based on a history of institutionalized racism makes Black women reluctant to seek help — and especially vulnerable to domestic violence.

Additionally, Black women are two times more likely to be murdered by men than their white counterparts, according to a 2025 study published by the Violence Policy Center, based on federal government data from 2023. Those men are more often than not familiar to their victims, according to the study, which found that more than nine in 10 Black female victims knew their killers, with the majority of those killings being carried out with guns.

Ultimately, Tate said, “domestic violence doesn't see color," and is primarily driven by the prevalent belief among men — across racial demographics — that women are subjects or property.

“Domestic violence is about exerting power over someone that you profess to love and controlling their behavior,” Tate said.

Lack of resources for Black men

There has been intense speculation about the role that mental health crises might have played in both shootings.

A relative of Elkins' wife told The Associated Press that Elkins had voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for about a week and a half for mental health help.

In Virginia, Justin Fairfax was a rising star in the Democratic Party until two women accused him of sexual assault, casting doubt on his trustworthiness as a political leader. The former lieutenant governor's “mental and emotional health” suffered before he killed his wife and himself, according to court documents, which say he drank heavily and withdrew from his family after the allegations were made public in 2019.

Adult and child psychiatrist Christine Crawford hasn’t examined the killings in Shreveport or Annandale, but said financial troubles, marital issues and problems at work — in addition to underlying mental health vulnerabilities — can lead someone to “crack."

“It makes some think about the amount of pain, distress and hopelessness they found themselves in at that time,” said Crawford, who practices at the Webster Clinic in Boston and is interim chief medical officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

She noted many Black people find themselves priced out of programs and care for mental health for such reasons as private care costs and a lack of insurance.

That level of desperation can make some people feel “completely out of options on how to deal with the pain he was in at that moment," Crawford said. T

Some have said that there are social dimensions to these economic trends, too.

“Mental health disparities in the Black community is not accidental,” said University of Michigan Social Work Professor Daphne C. Watkins. “They are the predictable result of structural racism” in schools, employment and other aspects of society.

Watkins, founder of the YBMen Project which provides young Black men with a safe place to discuss their mental health, manhood and social support, said studies show that 10% of Black adults experience moderate to severe depression, while 18% experience anxiety disorders.

But Black men tend to forego mental health treatment due to cultural expectations, in addition to costs, said Watkins. Without an outlet, stressors from family, work and relationships can pile up.

“For a long time, in the Black community, we didn’t talk about anxiety. Now, you have to talk about it hand in hand along with depression.”

Mental health not an excuse, some say

Others have emphatically said that mental health is not an excuse for domestic violence.

“To say they’re mentally ill, that doesn’t cut it,” Tate said. “There are people who are depressed or people who have schizophrenia and don’t harm the their partners, much less kill them.”

Shaneiqua Elkins and Cerina Fairfax could have been struggling with mental health challenges too, Tate added, and they both “had the same access or ability to go and purchase a gun” but chose not to.

“The mental illness is not what we’re talking about here,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Sophie Bates contributed in Shreveport, Louisiana.

A proposed constitutional amendment backed by Democratic officials would bypass the state's bipartisan redistricting commission to allow use of new congressional districts approved by state lawmakers in this year's midterm elections.

The referendum tests Democrats' ability to push back against President Donald Trump, who started the gerrymandering competition between states after successfully urging Texas Republicans to redraw congressional districts in their favor last year. Virginia is the second state, after California last fall, to put the question to voters.

It also tests voters' willingness to accept districts gerrymandered for political advantage — coming just six years after Virginia voters approved an amendment meant to diminish such partisan gamesmanship by shifting redistricting away from the legislature.

Even if Democrats are successful Tuesday, the public vote may not be the final word. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the redistricting plan is illegal in a case that could make the referendum results meaningless.

Virginia Democrats are following California's lead

Congressional redistricting typically is done once a decade after each U.S. census. But Trump urged Texas Republicans to redistrict ahead of the November elections in hopes of winning several additional seats and maintaining the GOP's narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party that is out of power during midterms.

The Texas gambit led to a burst of redistricting nationwide. So far, Republicans believe they can win up to nine more House seats in newly redrawn districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.

Democrats think they can win up to five more seats in California, where voters approved a mid-decade redistricting effort last November, and one more seat under new court-imposed districts in Utah. Democrats hope to offset the rest of that gap in Virginia, where they decisively flipped 13 seats in the state House and won back the governor’s office last year.

Leaders of both major parties see Tuesday’s vote as crucial to their chances to win a House majority in the fall. Trump weighed in via social media Tuesday morning, telling Virginians to “vote ‘no’ to save your country!”

Former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, rallied with opponents of the measure Monday night, calling the redistricting plan “dishonest” and “brazenly deceptive.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at the Capitol earlier in the day that a vote to approve the redraw “will serve as a check and balance on this out-of-control Trump administration.”

The back-and-forth battle over congressional districts is expected to continue in Florida, where the Republican-led legislature is scheduled to convene April 28 for a special session that could result in a more favorable map for Republicans.

A lobster-like district could aid Democratic efforts

In Virginia, Democrats currently hold six of the 11 U.S. House seats under districts that were imposed by the state Supreme Court in 2021 after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a map based on the latest census data.

The new plan could help Democrats win as many as 10 seats. Five are anchored in Democratic-heavy northern Virginia, including one shaped like a lobster that stretches into Republican-leaning rural areas.

Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads dilute the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia lumps together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.

The Virginia redistricting plan is "pushing back against what other states have done in trying to stack the deck for Donald Trump in those congressional elections,” Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger said during an online rally last week.

Ads for the “yes to redistricting” campaign featuring former President Barack Obama have flooded the airwaves.

Opponents have distributed campaign materials citing past statements from Obama and Spanberger criticizing gerrymandering, but those were before Trump pushed Republican states to redraw their congressional maps in advance of this year's midterms.

Democrats “were all against gerrymandering before they were for it,” Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeff Ryer said.

Virginia court weighs whether lawmakers acted illegally

Virginia lawmakers endorsed a constitutional amendment allowing their mid-decade redistricting last fall, then passed it again in January as part of a two-step process that requires an intervening election for an amendment to be placed on the ballot.

In February, they passed a new U.S. House map to take effect pending the outcome of the redistricting referendum. Republicans have filed multiple legal challenges against the effort.

A Tazewell County judge ruled that the redistricting push was illegal for several reasons. Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. said lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session.

He ruled that their initial vote failed to occur before the public began casting ballots in last year’s general election and thus didn’t count toward the two-step process. He also ruled that the state failed to publish the amendment three months before that election, as required by law.

If the state Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, the results from Tuesday's vote could be rendered moot.

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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

Chadwick Scott Willacy, 58, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1990 killing of Marlys Sather. Willacy was sentenced to death a year later upon a 9-3 jury recommendation after being convicted of first-degree murder, burglary, robbery and arson.

Court records indicate Sather had returned to her Palm Bay home for her lunch break in September 1990 and found Willacy burglarizing her home. He struck her in the head with a blunt object, fracturing her skull, and then bound her hands and ankles with wire and tape, according to investigators.

Willacy attempted to strangle Sather with a telephone cord, and when that didn’t work, he doused her in gasoline and set her on fire, records show. An autopsy determined that Sather had died from smoke inhalation, indicating she was still alive when she was set ablaze.

Willacy also stole Sather’s car and other items from her home, and used the woman’s ATM card to steal cash, officials said. When Sather failed to return from her break, her employer caller her family. Her son-in-law went to check on her and found her body.

The Florida Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing in 1994 because the trial judge failed to allow defense attorneys a chance to rehabilitate a potential juror who indicated she could not recommend the death penalty. Willacy was resentenced to death in 1995 with an 11-1 recommendation by a new jury.

This would be Florida’s fifth execution in 2026 following a record 19 executions in the state last year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.

The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Willacy last Wednesday. He had made claims based on the state's refusal to grant public records requests about executions and lethal injection.

Willacy's final appeals were pending before the U.S. Supreme Court as the execution date loomed.

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

Another execution has been scheduled in Florida for later this month. James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, is scheduled to received a lethal injection on April 30. He was convicted of beating and choking his 13-year-old niece to death.

All Florida executions are by lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency confirmed that it has asked prosecutors to request a court warrant for arresting Bang, the billionaire founder and chairman of Hybe.

Bang’s legal team in a statement to The Associated Press did not directly address the accusations but expressed regret that police were seeking his arrest “despite our full and consistent cooperation with the investigation over an extended period.”

“We will continue to cooperate with all legal procedures and make every effort to clearly explain our position,” the statement said.

Bang, who has been barred from leaving the country since August, is being investigated over allegations that he misled investors in 2019 by telling them Hybe had no plans to go public, prompting them to sell their shares to a private equity fund, before the company proceeded with an initial public offering. Police believe that the fund may have paid Bang around 200 billion won ($136 million) in a side deal that promised him 30% of post-IPO stock sale profits.

Hybe officials say Bang denies any wrongdoing.

Bang’s legal troubles are a major public relations setback for Hybe, coming as BTS embarks on a global tour after a nearly four-year hiatus as its seven members served their mandatory military service, which is required for most able-bodied South Korean males.

BTS performed in front of tens of thousands of international fans at a free comeback concert in Seoul last month and have also held several concerts in South Korea’s Goyang city and Tokyo. The group is to kick off a series of U.S. events with a concert in Tampa, Florida, later this month.

Bang, a music executive and producer who founded Hybe as Big Hit Entertainment in 2005, is widely seen as one of the most powerful figures in K-pop and has sought to capitalize on the global success of BTS to build his company into an international pop powerhouse.

In 2021, Hybe spent about $1 billion to purchase Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, securing the management rights to artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

While Hybe’s roster includes some of K-pop’s biggest acts, such as Seventeen, Le Sserafim and Katseye in addition to BTS, the company has seen turmoil in recent years, including a highly public fallout between Bang and star producer Min Hee-Jin over the popular girl group NewJeans.

The rift erupted in 2024 when Hybe attempted to remove Min as CEO of Ador, the subsidiary managing NewJeans, while accusing her of illegally attempting to take control of that company. Min, in turn, accused Bang of hostile treatment and of undermining NewJeans in favor of other groups, as the dispute moved into courts. Members of NewJeans, who have described Min as a mentor, tried to leave the label following her ouster, but a court last year ruled they must honor their contract through 2029.

It happened Saturday night along Southwest 272nd Street and 127th Avenue.

Authorities said a driver lost control and slammed their vehicle into a tree.

That collision caused the car to split in half, officials said.

Two people, a 33-year-old and a 9-year-old, were taken by helicopter to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in stable condition.

The S&P 500 added 0.2%, coming off just its second drop in 14 days, and is close to another all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 397 points, or 0.8%, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.

UnitedHealth helped lead the market with a jump of 9.4% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the beginning of the year than analysts expected. It also raised its forecast for profit over the full year of 2026.

That’s big because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term. It’s a double-plus for investors when companies not only top earnings estimates but also forecast even better growth ahead.

Quest Diagnostics rose 5.8% after it likewise joined the fattening list of companies topping expectations for profit and revenue during the latest quarter. It also raised its forecast for profit for the full year.

They helped offset an 8.3% drop for Tractor Supply, whose profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of expectations.

Other signals are also indicating the U.S. economy may be doing OK despite the sharp up-and-down swings for oil prices because of the war with Iran. A report on Tuesday morning showed that U.S. retailers made more money in March, the first full month of the war, than analysts expected.

Growth was even relatively stable for retail sales when not including those from gasoline stations.

“It’s become cliched to say that the economic hit will depend on the duration of the Middle East conflict, but that cliché does ring true,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, dipped 0.7% to $94.78 ahead of the scheduled expiration early Wednesday, Tehran time, of a U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement. Both sides are continuing to talk tough, but hope remains after both have signaled they will hold a new round of ceasefire talks in Pakistan.

Much of the tension in financial markets has focused on what will happen to the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast that oil tankers use to exit the Persian Gulf. A long-term closure would keep crude oil pent up in the gulf and away from customers worldwide.

The price of a barrel of Brent oil has gone from roughly $70 before the war to $119 at times as worries have risen and fallen about a long-term closure for the strait.

On Wall Street, Apple slipped 0.6% after Tim Cook said he’ll step down as CEO on Sept. 1 and become the iPhone maker’s executive chairman. He’s handing control over to John Ternus, a company veteran who rose through the iPhone maker’s hardware engineering ranks.

Amazon rose 1.4% after Anthropic said it signed a new agreement and is committing more than $100 billion over the next 10 years to AWS technologies to train and run its Claude chatbot.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.7% for one of the world’s biggest moves.

In the bond market, Treasury yields edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.27% from 4.26% late Monday.

Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, will be speaking on Capitol Hill later Tuesday. He'll face a tightrope walk, as investors will want to see if he would keep the Fed's independence from political meddling even though Trump has been pushing hard for lower interest rates.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

Potential jurors were sent home around 1:30 p.m. after the judge in the case said the families had resolved the matter.

The case is related to a crash and a fire that killed Edgar Monserratt Martinez and Barrett Riley, both 18 years old, in May of 2018.

Monserratt Martinez was a front-seat passenger in the 2014 Tesla Model S that Riley was driving at 116 mph in a 30-mph zone in Fort Lauderdale.

Riley crashed the Tesla into a wall along Seabreeze Boulevard.

In 2022, Riley’s parents claimed Tesla designed the defective batteries that were to blame for the fire that followed. That lawsuit was dismissed.

Riley’s parents also claimed Tesla installed a device to prevent travel above 85 mph, and a Tesla technician in Dania Beach removed it without their consent.

Attorneys representing Tesla denied both accusations and focused on Riley’s driving record during that trial.

A jury ruled Riley was most responsible, so Tesla was only liable for $105,000.

In this most recent civil lawsuit, Monserratt Martinez’s family claimed negligence by both Riley and Tesla, and that they were to blame for the tragedy.

Monserratt Martinez and Riley were only about 18 days away from earning their high school diploma from Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale when they died.

The judge and the attorneys in the case declined to disclose any details about the settlement.

All of those negotiations happened behind closed doors and that information was not presented to the jurors before they were dismissed.

McCollum led a late surge that was almost for naught when he missed two free throws with 5.6 seconds remaining. The Knicks rushed the ball up the court without any timeouts left, but Mikal Bridges missed a jumper as time expired.

“It’s a long game,” McCollum said. “You’ve got to play to zero.”

The Hawks had trailed the whole second half and were down 12 after three quarters. Atlanta chipped away and a basket by McCollum gave the Hawks a 101-100 lead — their first of the series in the second half — with 2:09 to play. He made another for a three-point lead, and after Jalen Brunson tied it with a 3-pointer, McCollum answered with another jumper to make it 105-103 with 33 seconds to play.

Jonathan Kuminga added 19 points off the bench and Jalen Johnson scored 17, including a basket with 10 seconds left for a four-point lead for the No. 6 seeds, who host Game 3 on Thursday.

Brunson had 29 points for the Knicks and Karl-Anthony Towns added 18.

The Knicks are trying to reach the second round for a fourth straight season, their longest stretch since the 1991-92 to 1999-2000 seasons, and seemed well on their way.

“This is a game we should have won,” New York's Josh Hart said. “In the playoffs you can’t give away games.”

The Knicks had been 40-1 in the postseason since the advent of the shot clock in 1954-55 when leading by 12 or more after three quarters. The only loss was when Reggie Miller scored 25 points in the fourth for Indiana in Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals.

Towns, who had four points in the first half, scored 14 in the third quarter as the Knicks extended the lead to 78-64. They were still ahead by eight with under five minutes remaining.

But their young players who sparked the Hawks' surge after the All-Star break finally made some plays before McCollum — ignoring profane jeers after he and Jose Alvarado went nose-to-nose and were each given technical fouls in the third quarter — then closed it out.

McCollum was acquired from Washington in the January trade for Trae Young, the Hawks star who was a former playoff villain at Madison Square Garden. He filled the role perfectly Monday, outplaying Brunson in the second half and stealing a game that looked lost.

Hart had 15 points, 13 rebounds and six assists.

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

Investigators with the Homestead Police Department said Samantha Morales, 34, drunkenly opened fire after confronting the victims after they walked out of Dr. Limon Ceviche Bar, located at 2508 NE 10th Court ― within the large Homestead Pavilion shopping plaza.

According to police, the victims told investigators that after they “exited the restaurant and began to say their goodbyes,” Morales drove up in a Tesla and asked them whether they were “good” or “OK.”

An HPD report doesn’t state whether or how Morales knew the women.

After one of the victims replied, “Yes, I’m OK. Are you?,” police said Morales retorted, “Yes, b----. But it looks like you have a problem.”

Police said Morales opened her car door and pulled out a gun, asking, “What are you gonna do about it?”

After one of the victims asked Morales whether she was going to “intimidate” them with the gun, police said the group continued to argue until Morales opened fire, shooting two of the women.

According to the report, one of the women “lunged” at Morales in an effort to disarm her.

“The two then began to fight and were separated by the police,” a detective wrote. “The victim then noticed she was shot.”

Detectives said Morales told them that she “she did not remember the incident but claims she was fighting for her life” and “admitted to having three alcoholic beverages.”

Authorities arrested Morales on three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and one count of using a firearm ― all felonies ― plus misdemeanor charges of improper exhibition of a firearm and using a firearm while under the influence of alcohol.

As of Monday, she remained behind bars at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center after a Miami-Dade judge ordered her held without bond.

Martinook — who was stopped on a penalty shot in the first OT — kept the winning play alive by chasing down a loose rebound toward the boards to keep the possession in the offensive zone. Moments later, Nikolaj Ehlers found Martinook between the circles to beat Ullmark, who was partially shielded by Carolina captain Jordan Staal at the top of the crease.

That set off a mob celebration by the Hurricanes around Martinook in a corner of the ice, ending a game that saw them hang on despite blowing a 2-0 lead and having an apparent winner by Mark Jankowski waved off in the first overtime due to an offside call on review.

The Hurricanes still had a chance to win it after the overturned goal, only for Ullmark to stop Martinook on the NHL's first OT postseason penalty-shot attempt since 2020.

“I didn't feel very good about myself after that penalty shot, and that intermission felt really long," Martinook said. “That was cool. I'm happy it worked out that way. It didn't matter who scored, but it was going to be a long night if that penalty shot came back to bite me.”

The Eastern Conference's top seed managed to protect home-ice advantage — barely — as the series moves to Canada’s capital for Game 3 on Thursday.

“That’s the toughest thing: You have it won, a hard-fought game, and then to have it turned over," Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "You’ve got to give the guys tons of credit, because our game didn’t change. We actually got better, I think, in the second overtime.”

Logan Stankoven and Sebastian Aho also scored for Carolina, while Frederik Andersen shook off giving up two second-period goals to finish with 37 saves and multiple key stops late.

Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens scored for Ottawa, while Ullmark finished with 43 saves and was terrific all night. He had multiple big stops in the second period, one when he extended his glove to knock down a hammered one-timer from Taylor Hall as the puck shifted cross-ice to his left side. Another came in the final seconds of regulation when he got his left shoulder on Staal's shot from the top of the crease.

“A hell of an effort,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “Playoffs are hard sometimes. Some of the games you lose, they sting. This one's going to sting.”

The Hurricanes appeared to have pushed through late in the first OT, with Jankowski skating in to pounce on a loose rebound and beat Ullmark on the left side with 2:42 left to send the home crowd into a frenzy. But officials reviewed the sequence and determined that Staal didn’t have possession and control of the puck as he entered the zone, coming as Martinook skated through the middle across the blue line for a 1-on-1 chance on Ullmark.

That sequence ultimately led to a hooking penalty on Warren Foegele, with Carolina scrambling an extra attacker and getting Jankowski’s offside-overturned score and then Martinook's penalty shot.

“Hockey’s crazy, sports are crazy,” Martinook said. “Being able to score after that, I’ll tell my grandkids about that one, that’s for sure.”

The Senators played without defenseman Artem Zub, who left Game 1 with an undisclosed injury. He had been considered a game-time decision.

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

The 19-year-old Martone became the sixth-youngest player in NHL history to score in each of his first two playoff games when he beat Stuart Skinner deep into the second period to put Philadelphia in front. Garnet Hathaway added a short-handed goal a few minutes later, and Luke Glendening chipped in an empty-netter late in the third.

Vladar made it stand up as the red-hot Flyers, who needed a scorching finishing stretch just to reach the playoffs, frustrated the suddenly offensively challenged Penguins all night.

“He’s been like that all year for us,” Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet said of Vladar. “Guys enjoy playing for him.”

Game 3 is Wednesday night in Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh, the NHL's third-highest scoring team during a resurgent regular season, again struggled to get pucks on net against Vladar. The Penguins, who had just 17 shots in a Game 1 loss on Saturday night, vowed to come out with more jump.

While Pittsburgh controlled long swaths of the game after another slow start, including sustained pressure in the third, it could not find a way to slip the puck past Vladar.

“(We) should be frustrated, we just lost two games at home,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said. "But with frustration it’s how are you going to respond. ... Nobody is happy. Nobody should be.”

The 28-year-old Vladar, who had never won a playoff game in his six-year career before this series, held firm as the Flyers headed home with momentum.

Pittsburgh shuffled its top two lines midway through the game looking for a jolt. While it created more opportunities, it did not result in more goals. The Penguins went 0 for 5 on the power play to fall to 0 for 7 with the man advantage during the series.

Stuart Skinner made 20 saves for the Penguins, including a couple of breakaways that could have broken things open, but it wasn't against the young Flyers, who seem to be gaining confidence with each passing game.

Martone, who was playing collegiately at Michigan State last month, scored his fifth goal in 10 games as a pro when a rebound off a Travis Konecny shot came right to his stick. Martone powered it into the open net to put Philadelphia in front with 6:21 to go in the second.

“I made this jump because I believed I could help this hockey team,” Martone said. "I hopped on a moving train and it’s been good ever since.”

The Flyers were on the penalty kill just over four minutes later when they doubled their lead. Owen Tippett fought off a pair of Penguins to keep the puck in the Pittsburgh zone and then fed Hathaway, who deposited it into the open net on a night the only place Philadelphia dominated was the scoreboard.

“Sometimes in the playoffs you have to win those ugly games,” Tocchet said. "It was an ugly game for us. ... Sometimes you’ve got to win games like that.”

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

Evan Mobley had 25 points and eight rebounds for the Cavaliers, who had at least three players score at least 25 points in a postseason game for the second straight season and fourth time overall.

“They threw the kitchen sink at us, gave us a lot of different looks and (we) kept our poise,” Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Donovan and James closed it for us, but I thought our defense kind of forced them to go small. This is what the playoffs are about. They came at us hard and we responded.”

Cleveland — which never trailed — has won 12 straight playoff games against Toronto, tying the NBA postseason record for consecutive wins against an opponent. The streak began in the 2016 Eastern Conference finals, when the Cavaliers took the final two games. Cleveland swept Toronto in four games in the second round in 2017 and '18.

The Cavaliers also have 12-game winning streaks against Detroit and Atlanta, while the Los Angeles Lakers had a 12-game run against Seattle from 1980 through '89.

Scottie Barnes led Toronto with a playoff career-high 26 points. RJ Barrett had 22 points and nine rebounds.

The Raptors had 16 fast-break points after being held to a season-low three on Saturday. But Toronto committed a season-high 22 turnovers that led to 22 Cavaliers points.

“The only time the game got away was when we made a lot of turnovers. We played super hard, we adjusted to how the game was going, and did certain things that helped us,” Barnes said.

The series shifts to Toronto for Game 3 on Thursday night.

Harden had four assists to move into seventh place on the playoff career list with 1,139. He also had five steals, the fourth time he’s had at least that many in a playoff game.

A driving layup by Barnes got Toronto within 99-90 midway through the fourth quarter. Mitchell responded with seven straight points to put it away.

The Cavaliers had a 73-57 advantage midway through the third quarter before the Raptors countered with a 16-6 run.

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

After years away from the professional circuit, Patton James, who was played with raw intensity by Daniel MacPherson, is a man living a quiet life as a commercial fisherman.

But when his brother lands in trouble, James is forced back into the ring.

The film three years in the making and was almost a no-go.

MacPherson isn’t alone in this fight. He’s joined by Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, who also co-wrote the script.

Crowe plays Sammy, a trainer who stops at nothing to see James emerge victorious.

Shot on location in Sydney and during live events in Bangkok, “Beast” promises a level of authenticity rarely seen in sports.

From the brutal choreography to the emotional stakes, it’s a comeback story that hits hard.

Local 10 News’ Jason Carter chopped it up with the film’s leading man, and their conversation can be seen at the top of this page.

Ralph de la Rosa, de Imperial Freight Brokers, con sede en un almacén en Doral, tiene clientes que importan aluminio, ventanas, puertas y productos alimentarios, entre otros. Explicó que sus clientes están ansiosos por recibir el reembolso de aranceles.

“Tengo algunos clientes que van a recuperar decenas de millones de dólares, y otros que quizás tenían menos, pero varios van a recuperar una buena cantidad de dinero”, dijo.

Esos clientes están presentando solicitudes a través de un portal en línea que el Servicio de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de EE.UU. lanzó este lunes. Esto ocurre un año después de que el presidente Donald Trump anunciara aranceles generalizados —en un día que llamó “Día de la Liberación”— que la Corte Suprema de EE.UU. anuló en gran parte como inconstitucionales en febrero.

“Hoy, creo que mis clientes pensarían que es su ‘Día de la Liberación’, porque pudimos comenzar a presentar, esta mañana, el proceso por el cual pueden reclamar los cientos de millones pagados por los importadores estadounidenses”, dijo de la Rosa. “Hoy he recibido correos electrónicos muy felices de mis clientes.”

En cuanto a si esos dólares se traducirán en ahorros para el consumidor, la situación es más complicada. De la Rosa explicó que muchos importadores absorbieron el costo de los aranceles, lo que hace difícil determinar cuánto podrían trasladar al consumidor final.

Un desafiante Trump dijo que seguirá adelante por otros medios, incluyendo la imposición de un arancel global del 10% mediante orden ejecutiva. Los funcionarios del gobierno han dicho que los reembolsos se esperan en un plazo de 60 a 90 días, aunque de la Rosa advirtió que posibles impugnaciones legales podrían complicar el proceso.

Lenny Feldman, socio gerente del bufete de abogados especializado en comercio y aranceles Sandler, Travis and Rosenberg, coincidió en que la situación podría cambiar. “Por ahora es un gran comienzo, un buen día, pero podría haber una apelación a este caso judicial que podría poner fin a estos reembolsos de aranceles”, dijo, añadiendo que los empresarios deben prepararse para más turbulencias arancelarias en el futuro.

Richard Trent, director ejecutivo de Main Street Alliance, una red nacional de defensa para pequeños empresarios, señaló que los aranceles han encarecido los costos y perturbado las cadenas de suministro para los negocios pequeños, que tienen menos capacidad para absorber nuevos impuestos. “Pueden imaginar la urgencia que sienten los pequeños empresarios que tuvieron que pagar esencialmente impuestos ilegales por recuperar su dinero”, dijo.

Arman Motiwalla, de 37 años y residente de Plantation, era un exitoso ejecutivo de seguros y padre de familia que trabajaba en Synergy Insurance Affiliates LLC, ubicada en 350 Camino Gardens Blvd. en Boca Raton.

El 8 de abril, mientras salía del trabajo en horas de la madrugada, Motiwalla recibió múltiples disparos y fue asesinado en el estacionamiento del negocio.

En el momento de su muerte, Motiwalla estaba involucrado en una amarga batalla legal con su antiguo empleador, la empresa Innovative Partners, con sede en Coral Springs.

“Fue despedido por objetar o negarse a participar en una práctica o política que violaba una ley, regla o reglamento”, dijo su abogado, G. Ware Cornell Jr.

Los registros muestran que Motiwalla presentó el caso de denuncia de irregularidades el verano pasado, e Innovative Partners LLC incluso contrademandó negando categóricamente las acusaciones de manejo indebido de fondos.

Cornell dijo que el asesinato del ejecutivo de seguros ocurrió apenas nueve días antes de que nueva evidencia estuviera programada para ser presentada en el tribunal relacionada con la demanda.

Esto solo ha añadido al misterio del asesinato, con algunas personas incluso especulando que Motiwalla estaba trabajando con las autoridades federales para ayudar a desmantelar a su antigua empresa.

“Nunca me dijo que fuera ningún tipo de testigo o participante en nada que involucrara algún tipo de agencia policial”, dijo Cornell.

Mientras el caso sigue bajo investigación, la policía ha calificado el tiroteo en el estacionamiento como un incidente aislado, y Cornell no señala a nadie como responsable.

A raíz del asesinato, un juez desestimó la demanda original por denuncia de irregularidades.

No se conoce ninguna conexión entre la demanda y el asesinato de Motiwalla. La policía dijo que aún investiga el caso y que no se han realizado arrestos.

El Comité de Ética de la Cámara está programado para reunirse el martes con el fin de recomendar un castigo, luego de dictaminar que la demócrata del sur de Florida cometió más de dos docenas de violaciones éticas.

La investigación de dos años del panel bipartidista encontró lo que describe como evidencia clara y convincente de que Cherfilus-McCormick, de 47 años, robó $5 millones en fondos de alivio de COVID-19 de FEMA y canalizó ese dinero hacia su campaña.

La demócrata ha negado categóricamente los cargos y le dijo a Glenna Milberg de Local 10 en “This Week in South Florida” que el intento de expulsarla es parte de un ataque político.

“Les dije a todos desde el principio que todo esto estaba políticamente motivado para generar titulares escandalosos”, dijo Cherfilus-McCormick.

Pero las exigencias hacia Cherfilus-McCormick desde el Congreso no han hecho más que crecer. El representante federal Greg Steube, republicano de Florida, encabeza el impulso por la votación de expulsión y escribió en redes sociales: “Expulsar a alguien que le robó $5 MILLONES a los contribuyentes debería ser el voto más fácil en el Congreso.”

Forzar la salida de Cherfilus-McCormick del cargo requeriría que una ola de demócratas cruce las líneas partidistas. Hasta ahora, el líder de la minoría en la Cámara, Hakeem Jeffries, se ha negado a pronunciarse.

“Tendremos una conversación como caucus después de la recomendación, que anticipamos será bipartidista del comité de ética”, dijo Jeffries.

La votación del comité de ética llega tras una serie de salidas poco ceremoniales del Congreso. El representante republicano Tony Gonzales y el representante demócrata Eric Swalwell renunciaron la semana anterior después de enfrentar crecientes acusaciones de conducta sexual inapropiada.

Los casos están aumentando la presión sobre los legisladores para que rindan cuentas a sus colegas, incluso los de su propio partido.

“Ya basta de esta basura”, dijo el senador federal Ben Ray Luján, demócrata de Nuevo México. “Ya basta de proteger a la gente, ya basta de tanto maquillaje. La gente está aquí con la confianza del pueblo americano y actúan así.”

Estas renuncias han mantenido al Comité de Ética extraordinariamente ocupado en las últimas semanas. Este lunes, el panel publicó un comunicado diciendo que debe haber cero tolerancia para la conducta sexual inapropiada de cualquier tipo en los pasillos del Congreso, y pidió a quienes hayan experimentado conducta inapropiada en el Capitolio que se comuniquen con ellos.

Ya existe desde hace meses una moción para expulsar a Cherfilus-McCormick en la Cámara.

El legislador que la presentó dijo que esperaría a que el Comité de Ética concluyera su proceso para llevarla a votación.

Eso podría ocurrir muy pronto, ya que según se informó, los miembros recibieron instrucciones de estar listos para votar sobre la expulsión de la congresista el miércoles por la tarde.

The vote was held behind closed doors during a routine meeting of Luxon’s center-right National Party lawmakers and was sought by the Prime Minister himself. Luxon emerged afterward to read a brief statement announcing the vote and departed without taking questions from reporters.

“The last week, there has been intense media speculation about my leadership,” Luxon said, adding that he had called for a confidence vote “to put that media speculation to rest.”

His party caucus had “answered clearly and decisively,” the Prime Minister said. “It has backed my leadership.”

He did not say that the vote had been unanimous. Nicola Willis, the party's deputy leader, said later Tuesday that vote had been a secret ballot with only scrutineers knowing the final tally, but that Luxon must have received a majority.

The confidence vote happened months ahead of New Zealand’s next national election, scheduled for Nov. 7. Recent drops in the polls for National had prompted speculation from analysts that he would face a leadership challenge.

That was seen by party lawmakers as an unwelcome distraction in an election year for National, which has governed New Zealand in a right-wing coalition government since the 2023 vote. Luxon, a former airline executive who entered Parliament in 2000, has led the party since 2021.

While two recent New Zealand prime ministers — National's John Key and Labour's Jacinda Ardern — have voluntarily quit the post, it would have been extremely unusual for lawmakers to oust a sitting prime minister.

Luxon blamed reports of unrest within his party's ranks on news outlets, but one political poll released days ago appeared to have made a discussion of leadership unavoidable. The 1News-Verian poll suggested slumping support for Luxon and for National in a hypothetical election.

The levels of support in the most recent poll implied the right-wing bloc led by his party could come in behind the left-wing bloc led by Labour if an election were held immediately, though the vote won’t occur for more than another six months.

“If the media want to keep focusing on speculation and rumor, I am not going to engage,” Luxon said Tuesday.

“I felt like I was back in the Northwest League,” manager John Schneider said before Monday night’s series opener against the Los Angeles Angels. “But we made the best of it, we all got here safe, and we’re ready to go.”

Schneider said he was informed by Blue Jays traveling secretary Rodney Hiemstra of the mechanical problem at about 4 p.m. on Sunday, as the Blue Jays were finishing a 10-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“There was an issue with the joystick, which is pretty important — apparently, it’s used for takeoffs and landings,” Schneider said. “So the options were to get a new plane, which would have had to fly down from Vancouver and wouldn’t have landed until 10 p.m., or drive. We took a team vote, and the team voted to bus.”

While pitcher Dylan Cease, who was Monday night's scheduled starter, flew commercial from Phoenix to Orange County, the team had to unload all the luggage and food from the charter plane and drive it all back to Chase Field. There, it was loaded onto three buses — two for players and one for the rest of the traveling party of about 40, which included the coaching staff.

“The math was a little off,” Schneider said. “It worked out way better for the players, but there was a whole lot of doubling up for us. I had my own two seats, and I still had cases of water around me, and you feel bad reclining on people.”

Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer was on the losing side of the vote — he preferred the team fly to Orange County — but the veteran right-hander was still able to find some humor in the situation.

“I got reprimanded by Max for electing to travel that way,” Schneider said as he showed reporters a letter Scherzer printed out for the manager. “So we’re going to go to a trial in kangaroo court.

“I was like, ‘Max, why don’t you just buy a plane? You've got plenty of cash.’ Most of the guys who were playing (Monday night) wanted to get out of there.”

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

Michael Bailey had departed from Tampa North Aero Park in the Cessna 401B, and he crashed in a Wesley Chapel neighborhood, according to the FAA.

He was 59, according to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

“I think that the pilot is a hero,” Galbiati told reporters on Monday. “He knew that it was going down, and he found a perfect spot to land.”

The Cessna 401B crashed near Aldus Drive in the Grand Oaks area and caught on fire.

“He went straight in between houses, which I imagine is a pretty hard thing to do,” Galbiati said. “He landed right in between those two unfenced yards. It takes seconds to make that decision.”

There was property damage, but no one was injured. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating.

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“Braylon, he’s not here,” she recalled one of her students saying Monday.

Braylon Snow, who just turned 5, was one of seven siblings who were fatally shot Sunday by their father in an attack that also killed their cousin. The shooting rattled classrooms in Shreveport where teachers like Hall on Monday came face-to-face with distraught parents and a messy stew of emotions.

In Hall's classroom at Johnnie L. Cochran Head Start, it's likely students noticed Braylon's absence immediately. Each day, Hall instructs her students to look around for friends who aren't there.

“When they come back tomorrow, we can tell them, ‘Hey, we missed you, we’re glad you’re back'” she tells them.

But Hall wasn't ready to tell the students that the boy she described as a “cool little dude” wasn't returning. She kept circle-time moving. Numb and heartbroken, she lasted until noon and then went home.

“I’m no good to my babies right now because I just feel like I need to be in a moment of silence and just pray,” she said.

Preschool comes to an end

At Head Start, preparation's for next month's graduation ceremony have been in full swing. Hall, an organist and pianist at her local Baptist church, wrote a song for the ceremony.

Students, who dress in caps and gowns for the festivities, have been busy learning the words, excited about the prospect of starting kindergarten in the fall. Hall was working hard to make sure they were ready.

Just last Thursday, she pulled Braylon's mother aside during morning drop-off, boasting that Braylon was writing his first and last name. Braylon also was getting so independent, squirting syrup for his pancakes onto his plate by himself. He didn't even need a reminder to wash his hands.

“Braylon doesn’t give me any problems,” she told his mother.

Braylon greeted Hall — known to her students as “Mrs. Hall” — each day with a small wave.

As the year progressed, she nudged more gap-toothed smiles from him. He loved his time on the playground — playing chase, tag and even partaking in "a little wrassling.” She laughed as she remembered it.

“He was for the majority of the time kind of a quiet little soul in the classroom," she said. "When he did get a little extra energy or something, it was just a joy to see him smile and laugh."

News of the shooting emerges

But then came Sunday. After church, she went to her mother's house. It was then that she stumbled across an article about the shooting.

The number of victims was so high she struggled to comprehend it. Then she learned Braylon was among the victims. She also knew one of his brothers. He had been a Head Start student at the school last year.

“I just broke down and just started crying,” she said.

The same thing happened Monday morning at drop off when she locked eyes with a parent. Neither could say anything; the preschoolers were all around them.

“I just immediately broke down,” she said. So too did the parent and a teacher's aide.

She is relying on her faith now. She prays for the dead, for the families and also for the teachers.

“And I’m just praying for all the educators that were connected to these children because it’s tough because my parents’ babies, they become my babies. And I treat them like they’re my own. So I’m just really praying that he sustains us all during this time.

“Just give us that strength."

The procedure will be performed Wednesday at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic in Los Angeles, and Díaz is not expected back until the second half of the season.

The Dodgers placed the 32-year-old right-hander on the 15-day injured list and recalled left-hander Jake Elder from Triple-A Oklahoma City. Elder, was acquired from the Washington Nationals on April 1 for cash, has allowed two runs in 5 1/3 innings this season with Oklahoma City.

Díaz is 1-0 with a 10.50 ERA, 10 strikeouts and four saves in five opportunities over seven appearances. He gave up three runs without recording an out in Sunday's 9-6 loss at Colorado. He has allowed three earned runs in each of his past two appearances.

“It gives other guys opportunities, but losing your closer is a big loss,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers beat the Rockies 12-3 on Monday night. “Other guys are going to have to step up. Fortunately for us, we’ve got a lot of depth and we’ve got some other guys who should be coming here in the next few weeks.”

The Dodgers signed the three-time All-Star to a three-year, $69 million deal last December after he opted out of the final two years and $38 million of his contract with the New York Mets.

The two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers split their four-game series at Colorado. Their seven-game trip continues with a series at San Francisco that starts Tuesday.

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

The charges were filed Monday, but the allegations in the disturbing case stretch back to 2023 — just a year after the singer's first single made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The 21-year-old's defense attorney pleaded not guilty on his behalf during an arraignment Monday afternoon.

Here's a look at the timeline of the investigation, the allegations and the career of D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke.

2022: Burke's music goes viral

Burke, a content creator who began making his own music to accompany the video game montages he would post online, goes viral on TikTok for his song “Romantic Homicide.” The song ultimately peaks at No. 4 on Billboard's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and Burke signs with Darkroom and Interscope Records.

Sept. 7, 2023: Prosecutors say the abuse begins

Burke allegedly begins the continuous sexual abuse of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had just turned 13, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. The girl has been described by authorities as a runaway, and court documents say she lived with Burke in Los Angeles.

April 5, 2024: Rivas Hernandez is reported missing

Rivas Hernandez's family reports the seventh grader missing from her home in Lake Elsinore, a town about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, for the last time. They had reported her missing several times before.

April 11, 2025: Burke makes his Coachella debut

Burke performs at the music festival Coachella and goes viral again — this time for face-planting hard on the stage during a failed backflip attempt. In an interview with The Associated Press during the festival, Burke talked about using social media feedback from fans to refine his set lists. “I am my fans and my fans are me. And we work in tandem with each other and it's such a beautiful poetic kind of thing that we have,” he said.

April 23, 2025: Rivas Hernandez is last known to be alive

The charging documents filed by prosecutors in the case against Burke have few details, but they do allege he killed Rivas Hernandez “on or about” April 23, the day they say she was last heard from. Prosecutors say Burke killed Rivas Hernandez because she posed a threat to his career.

April 25, 2025: Burke releases debut album, ‘Withered'

Burke releases his first album, “Withered.” In social media posts and media interviews, he describes using a recurring motif in his music and videos — an alter ego character he calls “IT4MI,” after “itami,” a Japanese word for pain. “He's basically like the evil version of me," Burke said in a YouTube interview with the “Tape Notes” podcast published May 2025. Burke's videos sometimes depict the character blindfolded, in a shirt that appears covered in blood.

May 5, 2025: Authorities say Rivas Hernandez's remains are mutilated

One of the felony charges against Burke is “unlawful mutilation of human remains." Prosecutors say Rivas Hernandez's arms and legs were severed from her body on or around May 5.

Aug. 5, 2025: Burke launches tour

Burke's tour for the album “Withered,” begins with a show in Del Mar, California. He also released an official Fortnite anthem, “Locked & Loaded,” on Sept. 3. The collaboration with video game creator Epic Games echoed his start in the music world, when he would create and post Fortnite montages online.

Sept. 8, 2025: Celeste Rivas Hernandez's body is discovered

One day after she would have turned 15, Rivas Hernandez's badly decomposed remains are discovered in body bags inside the trunk of a Tesla registered to Burke, prosecutors say. The 2023 Tesla Model Y had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned. Police searching the vehicle found a cadaver bag covered in bugs with Rivas Hernandez's head and torso inside. A second bag containing her arms and legs was found underneath the first, according to court documents.

Sept. 19, 2025: Burke’s remaining tour dates are canceled

The remaining dates of Burke's tour, which had been scheduled to wrap up Nov. 4 in Warsaw, Poland, are canceled. The Associated Press confirmed that D4vd was also dropped by his label, Interscope Records, at some point in 2025.

Oct. 6, 2025: A funeral service is held for Rivas Hernandez

Multiple news outlets reported that Rivas Hernandez's family held a funeral service for her on at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery and Mortuary in Rowland Heights, California.

Nov. 24, 2025: Police block release of coroner's report

In an unusual move, police block the release of the coroner's report on Rivas Hernandez's death. The medical examiner's office said in a statement that it had received a “court order, initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), to place a security hold” on the case. The order said no records or details, including the cause and manner of death, could be released until further notice.

February 2026: Burke revealed as the target of a secret grand jury probe

The grand jury investigation into the case was kept under seal, as is standard in grand jury proceedings. But some documents were made public by an appeal of subpoenas by Burke's mother, father and brother that was filed in Texas. The court filings said the Tesla was registered in Burke's name at the address of his subpoenaed family members, and that the “target may be involved in having committed the following criminal offenses against the laws of the State of California, to wit: One count of murder.”

April 16, 2026: Burke is arrested

Burke is arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with Rivas Hernandez's death and is held without bail. The Los Angeles Police Department announces the arrest on social media pages, posting photos of several officers wearing tactical gear and holding weapons approaching a home.

April 20, 2025: Burke is charged with murder

Burke is formally charged with murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a body. The charging documents also allege several factors connected to the crimes that could lead to a harsher sentence if Burke is convicted. Those circumstances include allegations that Burke was “lying in wait” for Rivas Hernandez, who entered his home and was never seen again; that she was a witness to an investigation into the lewd and lascivious acts committed against her; and that Burke allegedly killed her for financial gain.

“When she threatened to expose his criminal conduct and devastate his musical career, Burke allegedly murdered her,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office wrote in a statement.

___

Boone reported from Boise. AP Music Writer Maria Sherman and journalist Liam McEwan contributed.

Reza Dindar, 44, was indicted in 2014 on charges that include conspiracy, smuggling and money laundering. He was arrested last July in Panama at the request of U.S. authorities and flown to Seattle last Thursday, the DOJ said. It's unclear where Dindar had been in the intervening years or why he had not been arrested sooner.

Dindar made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in the afternoon, and his arraignment was set for May 1. One of his attorneys, Farhad Alavi, told The Associated Press on Monday that he had no comment.

According to the indictment, which was unsealed Friday, Dindar ran a business called New Port Sourcing Solutions in Xi’an, China. In 2011 and 2012, he and others “used deception to purchase parts for three military sonar systems from a business in the Western District of Washington” by concealing that the items were ultimately destined for Iran and by claiming that no license was needed to export them, prosecutors said.

The company bought the sonar systems for $97,600, had them shipped to China and then surreptitiously sent them to Iran, according to the indictment. The conduct violated sanctions on Iran first imposed in 1995 and renewed in 2001, it said.

The U.S. and Israel launched a war on Iran Feb. 28 during talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. Since then at least 3,000 people have been killed in Iran, more than 2,290 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. service members throughout the region have been killed.

In an unrelated case, federal prosecutors said a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war.

Two months ago, Pembroke Pines police officers rescued a trio of puppies.

“The conditions were deplorable,” Capt. Adam Feiner said. “These animals were at or near death.”

Angela Goodwin, the president of Pooches in Pines, said the case was the worst she had ever seen.

“Just to the conditions of the dogs, just severely, severely malnourished, covered in feces and urine, just sitting in it, weak, unable to even move around, they were just so weak,” Goodwin said.

Jaylen Holmes, the animal abuse suspect, faced 12 misdemeanor charges when prosecutors decided to add two felonies after the puppies were assessed.

The nonprofit trusted Paula and Ramin Kordi with Lana as foster parents -- at first.

“We just fell in love with her, like the moment that I saw her, she was like a little thing this big, skin and bones,” Paul Kordi said. “She curled up to me and I was like, ‘OK this is it!’”

The couple renamed her Lulu, and she gets along wonderfully with her new 10-year-old sister Stella.

“It just broke my heart, it was absolutely horrible,” Paula Kordi said. “I couldn’t believe someone could do that to these beautiful animals.”

When Lana arrived, she weighed four pounds. Last checked, Lulu, a ball of puppy energy, weighed a very healthy 15 pounds.

“She walked in here, and she was like, ‘This is my house now! I live here! You’re not letting me go, lady,’” Paula Kordi said. “This is it!”

In Tamarac, Ashley Conon and Catina Moretti, also started as temporary foster parents and decided to adopt Lulu’s sibling, Sasha.

Conon and Moretti renamed her Luca. At 20 pounds, the puppy, an “only child,” loves to trade treats for tricks and has plenty of space to play.

“She looks so much bigger, so much healthier, her coat is much shinier, and she just has a lot more confidence,” Conon said.

In Fort Lauderdale, Alexa Goldman adopted Peaches and renamed her Ginger.

“It was her face, you know, it’s like she got me at ‘Hello,’” Goldman said.

The playful Frenchie has three new brothers: Riley, Tanner, and Tito. Goldman said they were “standoffish” at first, but they love her now.

“Once they have that love ... and they have their people, they are just like, ‘Yeah, I can do this ... I am ready,’” Goldman said about Ginger’s healing.

Holmes appeared in Broward County court on Monday as prosecutors move forward with the case.

For more information about how to support Pooches in Pines, visit this page.

The comments underscore the challenges face by Kevin Warsh, a former top Fed official who Trump named in January to replace the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell, whom Trump has repeatedly attacked for not cutting rates. Investors will be watching the hearing closely to see how Warsh balances Trump's demands for lower interest rates with an economy where inflation is rising as the Iran war has pushed up gasoline prices.

Higher inflation typically leads the Fed to raise rates, or at least keep them unchanged, rather than cut them. When the Fed changes its key rate, it tends to over time affect mortgages, auto loans, and business borrowing.

In a prepared statement that Warsh will deliver to the Senate Banking Committee, he said one of this top goals would be to fight inflation, which remains elevated at 3.3% annually.

“Congress tasked the Fed with the mission to ensure price stability, without excuse or equivocation, argument or anguish,” Warsh said. “Inflation is a choice, and the Fed must take responsibility for it.”

Separately, in an interview on CNBC, Trump was asked if he would be disappointed if Warsh, should he be confirmed, doesn't cut rates “right away.”

“I would,” Trump said.

Warsh would be in a tough spot if confirmed. Inflation is worsening as the Iran war has spiked gas prices, making it much harder for the Fed to implement the interest rate cuts Trump so desperately seeks. The conflict could also slow the economy as well as hiring. And if Warsh ultimately becomes chair, he may very well find his predecessor, Jerome Powell, still sitting on the Fed’s governing board, an uncomfortable arrangement that hasn’t occurred since the late 1940s.

Warsh, a former top official at the Fed and a wealthy investor, will likely face a range of tough questions at the hearing. Democrats on the committee have already signaled they will press him about what they argue is a lack of transparency regarding some of his vast financial holdings, which total more than $100 million, according to a recent disclosure.

Another top issue will be Trump's repeated demands for cuts in the Fed's short-term interest rate, which has created the perception that Warsh was nominated to do the president's bidding. Most other Fed officials have said they support keeping the central bank's key rate unchanged, now that inflation has begun to rise again.

Warsh expressed support for the Federal Reserve's independence in his opening statement.

He said such political independence is “essential,” but he also said it wasn't threatened when “elected officials — presidents, senators, or members of the House — state their views on interest rates." Trump has repeatedly urged Powell to cut the Fed's key rate from its current level of about 3.6%.

While the long-delayed hearing is a necessary step for Warsh, it's not clear when the committee may even be able to vote on his nomination. The Justice Department is investigating Powell and the Fed over a building renovation, and Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, has said he would effectively block Warsh until the probe is dropped.

“Clearly there’s a majority of the committee that’s not going to move this nomination forward, especially while this sham of a criminal investigation is going on,” Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, told reporters on a conference call Monday. “It feels a bit like we’re going through the motions when we really have not addressed the fundamental challenges that this nomination has.”

The turmoil could make a potential transition from Powell to Warsh an unusually turbulent one for the world’s most important central bank, which has typically seen smooth transfers of power. Should the change in leadership prove particularly bumpy, it could unnerve markets and lift longer-term interest rates.

Powell's term as chair ends May 15. He said last month that he would remain as chair until a successor is named. Powell also is serving a separate term as a member of the Fed's governing board that lasts until January 2028. Fed chairs typically leave the board when their terms as chair end, but Powell also said last month he would remain on the board, even if a new chair is approved, until the investigation is dropped.

When asked about Powell's comments, Trump said he would fire Powell if he tried to stay at the Fed. Yet Trump's previous attempt to remove a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, has been tied up in courts. During oral arguments in January, a majority of justices on the Supreme Court appeared to lean toward letting Cook keep her job.

The complaint stems from a massive leak in a 72-inch (183-centimeter) pipeline, called the Potomac Interceptor. The pipe collapsed Jan. 19, shooting sewage out of the ground and into the river just north of Washington in Montgomery County, Maryland. The leak spilled 244 million gallons (924 million liters) of raw sewage into the Potomac River and shined a fresh light on the country's aging infrastructure.

The local water authority, DC Water, said it knew the pipe, first installed in the 1960s, was deteriorating, and rehabilitation work on a section about a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the break began in September and was recently completed.

The complaint alleges that DC Water failed to properly operate and maintain its sewer system in a manner that keeps untreated sewage out of the Potomac River and tributaries, and other areas with risk of human contact.

“After decades of use and years of neglect, including at least eight years of DC Water knowing about severe corrosion requiring immediate repair, a section of the Potomac Interceptor known by DC Water to be severely corroded catastrophically failed,” the filing said.

"DC Water's failure to maintain the Potomac Interceptor resulted in raw sewage flowing into the Potomac River and the surrounding environment, posing a direct risk to public health," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson in a statement. “As cities grow and infrastructure ages, cities must invest in their wastewater system to prevent such catastrophes.”

The complaint was one of two filed against DC Water Monday. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown filed a separate action in Montgomery County Circuit Court seeking civil penalties and damages for costs from the contamination of the river.

“The utility must take full responsibility for the damage caused and take immediate and lasting action to prevent future spills," said Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain in a statement.

DC Water said in a statement that it was “fully committed to the long-term rehabilitation” of the Potomac Interceptor. The agency added that its highest priority was to contain the overflow and repair the damaged section of the pipe, which it did in fully stopping “all discharges to the Potomac River within 21 days. The repairs of the affected segment were completed in 55 days. DC Water is working now to accelerate the rehabilitation of more than 2,700 linear feet of pipeline in this area that was previously scheduled for improvement.”

The statement declared that both lawsuits were “under review.”

The leak sparked political recriminations from President Donald Trump — who blamed local Democratic leaders, focusing especially on Maryland's Democratic Gov. Wes Moore. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declared an emergency in February and asked Trump for help. He issued an emergency declaration days later that provided a rush of federal assistance.

The pipe was returned to operation last month after emergency repairs were completed.

The leak is largely under control, but it could take months to fully repair the pipe. DC Water, along with the EPA, has been working to repair the leak and monitor the impact on the river.

The House Ethics Committee is set to meet Tuesday to recommend a punishment after ruling the South Florida Democrat committed more than two dozen ethics violations.

The two-year investigation from the bipartisan panel found what it calls clear and convincing evidence that Cherfilus-McCormick, 47, stole $5 million in FEMA COVID-19 relief funds and funneled that money toward her campaign.

The Democrat has fiercely denied the charges, telling Local 10’s Glenna Milberg on “This Week in South Florida” that the push to expel her is part of a political attack.

“I told everybody from the beginning that this was all politically motivated to have salacious headlines,” Cherfilus-McCormick said.

But demands to Cherfilus-McCormick from Congress have only grown louder. U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Florida is leading the charge on the expulsion vote, writing on social media: “Expelling someone who stole $5 MILLION from taxpayers should be the easiest vote in Congress.”

Forcing Cherfilus-McCormick out of office would require a wave of Democrats to cross party lines. So far, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has refused to weigh in.

“We’ll have a conversation as a caucus in the aftermath of the recommendation which we anticipate will be bipartisan from the ethics committee,” Jeffries said.

The ethics vote comes after a flurry of unceremonious exits from Congress. Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales and Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell both resigned the week prior after facing mounting sexual misconduct allegations.

The cases are turning up the pressure on lawmakers to hold fellow members accountable, even those in their own party.

“Enough of this garbage,” said U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico. “Enough of guarding people, enough of all the sugarcoating here, man. Like, people are here with the trust of the American people and they want to act like this.”

These resignations have kept the Ethics Committee extraordinarily busy in recent weeks. Just Monday, the panel released a statement saying there should be zero tolerance for sexual misconduct of any kind in the halls of Congress and they are asking anyone who has experienced misconduct on Capitol Hill to speak with them.

There has already been a motion to expel Cherfilus-McCormick in the House for months.

The lawmaker who introduced it said he would wait until the Ethics Committee wraps up its process to bring it forward for a vote.

That could happen very quickly, with members reportedly being told to be ready to vote on expelling the congresswoman Wednesday afternoon.

Otherwise, behind this front, we will experience a significant drop in the humidity which will make it feel extremely comfortable outdoors.

With the 14-day ceasefire to expire Wednesday, Trump whipsawed in telephone interviews and social media posts between measured optimism that a deal could soon be reached and warning that “lots of bombs” will “start going off” if there’s no agreement before the ceasefire deadline.

Trump indicated that he still expects to dispatch his negotiating team, led by Vice President JD Vance, to Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad for a second round of talks, even as Iran insisted it would not take part until Trump dialed back his demands.

Iran’s chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, accused the United States of wanting Iran to surrender and added that on the contrary, Iran has been preparing “to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”

“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats,” Qalibaf wrote in a post on X early Tuesday.

Trump insisted he feels no pressure to end the war until Iran agrees to his terms.

“I am under no pressure whatsoever,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, “although, it will all happen, relatively quickly!”

Pakistani officials moved ahead with preparations for a new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran as the tenuous ceasefire was further strained over the weekend by renewed conflict around the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump told Bloomberg News he was “highly unlikely” to renew the ceasefire.

Iran holds out on resuming negotiations

Tensions flared after the U.S. Navy attacked and seized a ship on Sunday that it said was trying to evade its blockade of Iranian ports. On Saturday, Iran fired at vessels and abruptly stopped traffic in the strait, abandoning its promise to allow some ships to pass and claiming the U.S. was not holding up its side of the ceasefire.

The U.S. actions are “incompatible with the claim of diplomacy,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday in a social media post.

He gave no indication what Iran will do after the ceasefire expires or whether Iran will return to a second round of negotiations with the U.S.

Over the weekend, Iran said it had received new proposals from the U.S. but suggested that a wide gap remains between the sides. Issues that derailed the last round of negotiations included Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, its regional proxies and the strait.

Iran has throttled traffic through the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the open seas, since shortly after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war. The U.S. has also instituted a blockade of Iranian ports. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade normally passes through the strait.

Trump swipes at war critics, seeks to calm investors

The U.S. president lashed out at war critics at home who are urging him to wrap up the conflict that began more than seven weeks ago.

“How bad is it that when you are in the middle of negotiations and you have got the Iranians in a perfect position, including being militarily defeated, and you have Democrats and some Republicans asking to settle it now?” Trump told the New York Post.

Even as Trump bristled at his detractors, he sought to soothe jittery investors as U.S. stocks slipped modestly Monday, following the chaotic weekend in the Persian Gulf.

The president found himself remonstrating his energy secretary, Chris Wright, who on Sunday said American motorists might not see gas prices fall back into the $3 per gallon range until late this year or next year.

“I disagree with him totally. I think it’ll come roaring down if it ends,” Trump told PBS. “If we end it, if Iran does what they should do, it will come roaring down.”

Israel-Lebanon talks to resume, official says

Meanwhile, historic diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon were set to resume Thursday in Washington, an Israeli, a Lebanese and a U.S. official said. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes negotiations.

The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met last week for the first direct diplomatic talks in decades. Israel says the talks are aimed at disarming Hezbollah and reaching a peace agreement with Lebanon.

A 10-day ceasefire began Friday in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants broke out two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran. Fighting in Lebanon has killed more than 2,290 people.

In two separate encounters on Monday, the Israeli air force struck and killed Hezbollah militants that the military said approached its troops in a threatening way. Israel has carried out several airstrikes since the ceasefire went into effect.

Hezbollah said it detonated explosives Sunday in an Israeli convoy inside Lebanon.

Iran says more than 3,000 have been killed in the country so far

Since the war started, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, according to a new toll released Monday in official Iranian media by Abbas Masjedi, the head of Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization.

He did not break down casualties among civilians and security forces, saying instead that 2,875 were male and 496 were female. Masjedi said 383 of the dead were children 18 years old and younger.

Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. service members throughout the region have been killed.

Oil prices on the rise again after renewed conflict in Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s grip on the strait has sent oil prices skyrocketing and given rise to one of the worst global energy crises in decades.

Oil prices were up again Monday, with Brent crude, the international standard, at just over $95 a barrel — up from about $70 a barrel before the war started.

Iran said it had reopened the strait to ships Friday, but traffic halted after Trump refused to lift the U.S. blockade.

Sunday’s U.S. seizure of the Iranian cargo was the first such interception under the blockade. Iran’s joint military command called the armed boarding an act of piracy and a ceasefire violation.

Trump said the blockade will remain “in full force” until Tehran agrees to a deal. The U.S. military said on Monday that it has directed 27 ships to return to Iranian ports since the blockade began last week.

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Ahmed reported from Islamabad, and Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press journalists Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; David Rising in Bangkok; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Josef Federman in Jerusalem; Joshua Boak and Matthew Lee in Washington; and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

But beyond the lights and cameras, Davis is also a steady shoulder for those navigating the toughest storms of life.

From now through May 15, she’s standing in the gap for people battling blood cancer. Davis is participating in the Visionaries of the Year fundraising campaign for Blood Cancer United, formerly The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). It is the largest nonprofit dedicated to creating a world without blood cancers.

“Accepting the nomination to be part of this campaign was not a swift decision,” shared Davis. “I thought about how various forms of cancer have impacted my loved ones. My father beat bladder cancer. My sister’s mother-in-law succumbed to Acute Myeloid Leukemia.”

Davis took time to research and engage in intimate “chats with God,” as she described it, before committing to the campaign. Two weeks after she confirmed her participation, Davis learned that another family member had received a cancer diagnosis.

“I took this devastating news as a divine sign that this fundraising campaign for Blood Cancer United is absolutely worthy of my attention,” said Davis.

Davis will be fundraising for research to advance lifesaving treatments, drive advocacy policies that protect patient access to treatments and provide patients and families with guidance, education and support.

If you would like to support this cause and help Davis reach her fundraising goal, click here.

The deadline to donate is May 15.

“This is an organization making an impact with the dollars it raises, and I am proud to assist,” added Davis. “I hope you join me.”

Victor Wembanyama — as expected — was announced Monday as the league's top defensive player. The San Antonio center was second in the voting for DPOY as a rookie, was the favorite last season until a medical condition ended his season prematurely, then left no doubt this year.

At 22, he's the youngest winner of the award.

“The real struggle might have been getting to 65 games,” Wembanyama said — referring to the number he needed for award eligibility — on NBC Sports Network. “But I’m super, super happy to win this award and actually super proud to be the first-ever unanimous.”

Oklahoma City's Chet Holmgren was second and Detroit's Ausar Thompson was third after both helped their teams secure No. 1 seeds for the playoffs. But this was never in doubt, not after the 7-foot-4 — or maybe taller — Wembanyama led the NBA in blocked shots for a third consecutive season and generally terrorized opponents any time they wanted to score.

“Best player in the world,” Spurs forward Keldon Johnson said.

The NBA will continue its award announcements Tuesday when the Clutch Player of the Year — either Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Denver's Jamal Murray — is revealed. Wembanyama is also a finalist for MVP, with the winner of that trophy not set to be revealed until next week at the earliest.

First, the league got this announcement out of the way. And Wembanyama's win was accompanied by a slew of milestones.

— Every other winner of the award had been at least 23. Wembanyama doesn't turn 23 until next January.

— The Spurs became the first franchise with four players to win DPOY, which was first handed out in the 1982-83 season. The others? Alvin Robertson in 1986, David Robinson in 1992 and Kawhi Leonard in 2015 and 2016.

— Wembanyama joins Robinson and Michael Jordan as the only players to win both Rookie of the Year and DPOY.

“I’ve had the chance to have great coaches over my career who have taught me great habits on defense,” Wembanyama said.

The biggest accomplishment may be this: Wemby got every voter to agree.

Golden State's Stephen Curry was the unanimous MVP in 2016 and in the 10 seasons that have followed, there have been only two instances of a player collecting 100% of the first-place votes for an award.

Those were Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year in 2024, and now this.

No player in at least the last 50 seasons — and maybe ever, since it's hard to say with certainty because some full voting results for awards handed out generations ago are not known publicly — has won two major individual awards unanimously.

It's the 10th known unanimous pick in any vote for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Most Improved Player, DPOY or Coach of the Year. And some of biggest names, including LeBron James and Michael Jordan, never won a major award unanimously.

“I feel like he is one of the hardest workers that I’ve ever been around,” Johnson said. “He takes his craft very seriously. I feel like this is just a small token of what’s to come for Victor. He’s a special player now. He’s a special player on the court and even more special person off the court as well. This is just a small token, small flowers that’s given to him for Defensive Player of the Year.”

Holmgren and Thompson both got votes for the first time; a panel of reporters and broadcasters who cover the league were asked to pick their top three in the category, with ballots due last week before the playoffs started.

Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert — a four-time DPOY winner — was fourth, followed, in order, by Toronto’s Scottie Barnes, Boston’s Derrick White, Oklahoma City’s Cason Wallace, Houston’s Amen Thompson, Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels and New York’s OG Anunoby.

There was a three-way tie for 11th between Detroit’s Jalen Duren, Golden State’s Draymond Green — the 2017 winner — and Miami’s Bam Adebayo.

Wembanyama is an MVP finalist (along with Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, and three-time winner Nikola Jokic of Denver), which almost certainly means he'll be an All-NBA first-team selection. And the DPOY win means he'll also be on the All-Defensive team, so the Frenchman is assured of no fewer than four trophies from this year's award season.

“We often overlook the team aspect,” Wembanyama said. “I’m sitting here. I happen to be the guy who’s put in the spotlight, but I am part of a system and I couldn’t get this award and I couldn’t do what I do if it wasn’t for my teammates ... and my coaching staff.”

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AP freelance writer Raul Dominguez contributed to this report.

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

Under a proposal submitted Monday to a state judge in Texas, The Onion would be granted an exclusive, temporary license to the intellectual property of Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, allowing the outlet to put its own content on the Infowars website and social media accounts.

Ben Collins, chief executive of The Onion, said the deal could be in place around April 30, if approved by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin. He said The Onion has already hired people to run Infowars as a parody site including Tim Heidecker, one half of the comedy duo Tim and Eric known for their work on the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” shows.

“We’ll build this into a bigger comedy network,” Collins said in phone interview Monday, adding the Sandy Hook families would receive profits from the new operations.

“A big part of it for us is that the way people consume news now is they see somebody who has no idea what the (expletive) they’re talking about staring into their camera and just like coming up with conspiracy theories or telling you health hacks that will actually get you poisoned, things like that,” he said. “We’re going to create a bunch of characters and worlds around those kinds of things.”

After the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, Jones called it a hoax staged by “crisis actors” in an effort to increase gun control. Many relatives of the victims, along with an FBI agent who responded to the shooting, sued Jones and his company for defamation and infliction of emotional distress.

On his show Monday, Jones vowed to fight the licensing proposal in court but acknowledged he and his crew could be kicked out of the building at the end of the month. He said he would continue his shows in another studio he is preparing, and they would air on his personal X account and other new social media accounts and websites, as well as dozens of radio stations. He also has set up new websites for the merchandise he sells, including dietary supplements and clothing that bring in millions of dollars a year.

“I’m going to continue the exact same show,” he said. “It’ll just be called the ‘Alex Jones Show.’ So, it’s the same satellite, same system. It's a different news site and news studio. So I’m not going anywhere.”

The licensing deal with The Onion would be for six months, with the right to renew it for another six months as a court-appointed receiver works to eventually sell the assets of Infowars’ parent company, Austin-based Free Speech Systems, and give proceeds to the Sandy Hook families. The receiver is supporting the plan, which calls for The Onion to pay $81,000 a month to cover the rent for the building housing Infowars' studios, along with utilities and other costs.

During a trial of the defamation suit in Connecticut in 2022, victims' relatives testified that people whom they called followers of Jones subjected them to death and rape threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media over the hoax claims. Jones argued there was never any proof that linked him to the actions of others.

A jury and judge awarded the families and the FBI agent more than $1.4 billion in damages. In a similar lawsuit in Texas, the parents of a child killed at Sandy Hook were awarded nearly $50 million. Jones appealed both awards. He lost his challenges to the Connecticut judgment, while his appeal of the Texas award is still pending.

Jones filed for bankruptcy in late 2022. In those proceedings, an auction was held in November 2024 to liquidate Infowars’ assets to help pay the defamation judgments, and The Onion was named the winning bidder. But the bankruptcy judge threw out the auction results, citing problems with the process and The Onion’s bid.

The attempt to sell off Infowars’ assets later moved to the state court in Texas, where Guerra Gamble appointed a receiver to liquidate the assets of Jones' company. Jones is also appealing that ruling, which has put a hold on the liquidation.

A lawyer for the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones in Connecticut said they support The Onion's plan.

The Sentry was canceled last January on drought-stricken Maui when the grass on the Plantation course at Kapalua was dying due to restrictions brought on by a dispute with the company in charge of a century-old water delivery system.

Two staff members at Kapalua, which is operated by Troon Golf, were notified Monday of the decision not to return. The PGA Tour confirmed it when contacted by The Associated Press.

The Sony Open on Oahu was in the final year of its sponsorship. It had leaned on being the week after Kapalua since 1999 to help attract players for a two-week stay in Hawaii.

The Sony Open is working toward becoming a PGA Tour Champions event to be packaged with the Mitsubishi Electric Championship on the Big Island.

“We are grateful to The Plantation Course at Kapalua, Kapalua Resort, Maui County and the state of Hawaii for their longtime support of our season-opening PGA Tour event, as well as the fans, partners and volunteers across Maui who have supported the event throughout the years,” the tour said in a statement.

It said it would share more details on the 2027 schedule at a later date. The tour also confirmed it was in conversations with the Sony Open about a spot on the PGA Tour Champions schedule, without further comment.

Kapalua began as a winners-only start to the PGA Tour season in 1999, a favorite among players for its wide fairways and endless views of the ocean on the west end of Maui.

Wisconsin-based Sentry took over as title sponsor in 2018, and its most recent extension takes it through 2035.

The most likely landing spot for Sentry is Torrey Pines in San Diego, where several executives attended this year. The previous sponsorship for Torrey Pines with Farmers Insurance ended this year without any intention of renewing.

Stephanie Smith, the company’s chief marketing and brand officer in charge of the golf partnership, did not mention future plans, only to say Sentry was proud of its eight-year run at Kapalua.

“We have said from the beginning, we love Maui and Maui is a Sentry community not unlike our hometown of Stevens Point, Wisconsin,” she said. “We cherish the friends and partnerships we have formed over the past several years. Our commitment to the island runs deep, and we remain committed to being active in the community.”

Hideki Matsuyama was the last winner at Kapalua. The final stroke was an 8-foot birdie putt that set the PGA Tour record for score to par at 35 under.

The tour had been subsidizing the purse increase to $20 million when it became a signature event, and The Sentry was among the most expensive operations because of shipping so much equipment to Maui. Attendance was moderate at best.

The water dispute involved accusations from the Kapalua owner, Japanese billionaire Tadashi Yanai, homeowners and Hua Momona Farms that Maui Land & Pineapple had not maintained the water delivery system.

MLP then filed a countersuit and alleged Kapalua was violating water restrictions.

The Sony Open dates to 1965 and had been played continuously since 1971, played at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, along the ocean down from Diamond Head. It took over as the season opener this year when The Sentry was canceled, won by Chris Gotterup.

The most famous moment in tournament history was Isao Aoki holing out from the fairway for eagle to win in 1983. Ernie Els became the first player to sweep the tour’s Hawaii events in 2003 when he won at Kapalua and Waialae.

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

The attack on Sunday morning unfolded in two homes in a Shreveport neighborhood. The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, died after a police pursuit that ended with officers firing on him, authorities said.

Police have not provided a motive for the killings. Family members said Elkins and his wife were separating and community leaders called for a reckoning over domestic violence as the shooting reverberated across the city, including in the classrooms where the children attended school.

Here's what to know about the attack.

Shootings began before sunrise

The attack began before dawn in a neighborhood south of downtown Shreveport.

Police received the first report around 5:55 a.m. from a caller stating they were on top of a house where someone had been shot, Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said. Five minutes later, police were told that Elkins had shot everyone inside the 79th Street house.

Troy Brown, Elkin's brother-in-law, said his wife and his 12-year-old daughter had escaped through the home’s roof.

Officers arrived within minutes but another call at 6:07 a.m. reported a second attack on nearby Harrison Street, where the caller said Elkins had shot her before fleeing, according to Smith. Police then received word the gunman had stolen a car, leading to a pursuit and eventually an exchange of gunfire.

Elkins was pronounced dead about an hour after police received the first call. It was not clear whether he was killed by officers or from a self-inflicted gunshot, Smith said.

Gunman had felony gun conviction

Court records showed that Elkins was placed on probation in 2019 after pleading guilty to illegal use of weapons. A police report for that case said Elkins fired five rounds at a vehicle and told police that someone inside it had pulled a gun on him.

Under Louisiana law, a person convicted of illegal use of a weapon is banned from having a gun for at least 10 years after completing their sentence and probation. Investigators were not aware of other domestic violence issues involving Elkins, said police spokesperson Chris Bordelon.

Authorities have not said how or where Elkins obtained the weapon used in Sunday's attack.

Elkins had served in the Louisiana National Guard from 2013 to 2020, held the rank of private and had no deployments, a guard spokesperson said. He was a signal support system specialist and a fire support specialist.

Elkins had voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for just over a week, according to Brown. He said Elkins appeared “better when he came home” and seemed fine a day before the shooting.

The murdered children were all under 12

The eight children ranged in age from 3 to 11. Besides Elkins' seven children, his nephew was among the slain, according to the Caddo Parish coroner’s office.

Family members described the gunman’s wife, Shaneiqua Elkins, as a doting mother who celebrated her children’s success in school and carefully dressed them before family events.

Francine Monro Brown, a cousin of Shaneiqua Elkins, said she would often see the children playing in the yard on Sunday mornings when she drove past the house on her way to church. She called them “happy” and “joyful.”

Family member says couple was separating

Elkins and his wife were separating and had been arguing about their relationship before the shooting, said Crystal Brown, a cousin of a woman shot in the attack.

The shooting in Shreveport was the deadliest in the U.S. since January 2024, when eight people were killed in a Chicago suburb, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

Felipe Llanos Colon was driving a U-Haul van after stealing from the Franky Diamonds booth at 7900 NW 27 Ave., in the West Little River area, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputy’s report.

“The victim jumped onto the hood of the offender’s vehicle, and the assailant proceeded to drive away, with the victim mounted on the hood of the van,” the deputy wrote, according to the report.

Llanos Colon fled with a $39,500 watch at about 1:05 p.m. on April 13; Miami police officers arrested him on Friday for another case; and deputies re-arrested him for the theft.

“Screenshot images of the defendant’s face from the video were obtained and later submitted to the MDSO real-time operations center, which used facial recognition software to identify the defendant,” a deputy wrote, according to the report.

The victim at the flea market’s Franky Diamonds booth reported that Llanos Colon ran away after putting on the watch, so he chased him to the parking lot and attempted to stop him by jumping onto the van’s hood.

LLanos Colon “drove off the property through a cutout in a fence, leading to Northwest 30th Avenue, where he proceeded southbound ... while the victim maintained a grip on the hood of the van,” according to the report.

Llanos Colon stopped at Northwest 79th Street, got out of the van, ran westbound, and vanished near the MetroRail area, according to the report.

After Miami police officers arrested Llanos Colon on Friday at 1280 NW 60 St., in Liberty City, Miami-Dade corrections booked him at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Llanos Colon appeared in court on Saturday, and a judge ordered him to stay away from the Franky Diamonds booth employee and ordered house arrest with an electronic monitor.

Miami-Dade prosecutors filed two criminal cases against Llanos Colon on Saturday, according to county court records.

Llanos Campos faced charges of second-degree grand theft and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. His bond was $20,000. Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Ariel Rodriguez was set to preside over this case.

For the arrest in Liberty City, Llanos Campos faced charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and knowingly driving with a suspended license. His bond was $500. Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Julie Nelson was set to preside over this case.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Carson Merlo contributed to this report.

Christian Q. Bouie, the burglary suspect accused of shooting Appie in the shoulder on Saturday night, was at the Broward County Main Jail on Monday.

After the shooting, another police dog bit Bouie, 30, during his arrest, and fire rescue personnel took him to the Broward Health Medical Center.

Bouie faced four charges: Use of a deadly weapon on a police animal, interfering with law enforcement with violence, possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted felon, and resisting arrest without violence.

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En una ceremonia en Santiago, representantes de los dos países suscribieron una enmienda a la Carta de Acuerdo sobre control de narcóticos y cumplimiento de la ley, que contempla el fortalecimiento de las capacidades institucionales para enfrentar amenazas como el narcotráfico, el ciberdelito y el lavado de dinero a través de la cooperación técnica, la capacitación y la coordinación entre agencias.

El instrumento, firmado por el subsecretario de Seguridad chileno Andrés Jouannet, y el subsecretario de Estado para el Control de Armas y la Seguridad Internacional de Estados Unidos, Thomas DiNanno, prevé además el aporte de un millón de dólares de Washington para modernizar el equipamiento tecnológico y logístico de Chile, como vehículos, ordenadores y otros aparatos de investigación.

“Estos recursos son una inversión directa en la seguridad cotidiana de las personas”, dijo el canciller de Chile, Francisco Pérez Mackenna, en una rueda de prensa.

El ministro indicó además que la medida “posibilita la creación de un equipo interinstitucional entre la Policía de Investigaciones de Chile y el FBI (buró federal de investigaciones)", que “representa un salto cualitativo” en la cooperación bilateral.

Por su parte, el representante de Washington dijo que la iniciativa permitirá asegurar un hemisferio “más seguro”.

“En nombre del presidente Trump y del secretario de Estado Rubio, Estados Unidos está deseoso de colaborar con la administración del presidente Kast para promover un hemisferio más seguro, más fuerte y más próspero”, aseguró DiNanno.

El acuerdo marca “una nueva era dorada en las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Chile”, agregó.

DiNanno explicó que, con el pacto, “Estados Unidos lanzará un nuevo programa bilateral en Chile” para “debilitar y, en última instancia, desmantelar las operaciones de organizaciones criminales transnacionales”.

“Me complace anunciar que Estados Unidos destinará un millón de dólares para establecer una unidad especializada en la lucha contra el crimen organizado transnacional, incluyendo al Tren de Aragua”, añadió sobre el grupo criminal que se originó en Venezuela y se ha extendido en la región.

Desarrollo de minerales críticos

En la misma ceremonia, Santiago y Washington suscribieron un Memorándum de Entendimiento sobre minerales críticos para un futuro acuerdo que busca promover la inversión, el intercambio de experiencias y el desarrollo de capacidades en distintas etapas de la cadena de valor.

“A través de él compartiremos experiencia en desarrollo de minerales críticos y recursos de tierras raras y buscaremos proyectos que podamos apoyar en ambos países”, dijo el embajador estadounidense en Chile, Brandon Judd. “También ayudaremos a fortalecer las cadenas de suministro para asegurar que ni Chile ni Estados Unidos dependen jamás de un solo país para estos recursos”.

La firma de estos acuerdos se enmarca en los esfuerzos impulsados por el gobierno del ultraderechista José Antonio Kast durante los primeros 90 días de gestión para impulsar la inserción internacional de Chile y diversificar mercados.

"Hoy hemos suscrito dos instrumentos que, aunque distintos en su materia, son expresión de una misma convicción, que la cooperación bilateral profunda, fundada en valores compartidos y beneficio mutuo, es el camino para enfrentar los desafíos del siglo XXI”, destacó Pérez Mackenna.

The earlier requests were for ballots and other records from 2020, the presidential election President Donald Trump lost, while the fresh request is for the last round of voting in a swing state Trump won.

The letter, from the head of the department's Civil Rights Division, appears to be a widening of Trump's grievances over his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election while at the same time looking ahead to this fall's critical midterm election, when control of the U.S. House and Senate is in the balance.

In a statement issued Sunday joined by Michigan's Democratic governor and secretary of state, Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel derided the move as “weaponizing the Justice Department” in an attempt to “interfere in state elections.”

"If this administration wants to bring this circus to our state, my office is prepared to protect the people’s right to vote,” Nessel said.

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon's letter, dated April 14, demanded 2024 ballots and other records from Wayne County, which includes the strongly Democratic city of Detroit. Nessel said nearly 865,000 votes were cast there in 2024.

Dhillon said the reason for the demand is to ensure no fraud occurred in the 2024 balloting, citing three instances of fraudulent votes in 2020 and a civil lawsuit filed over absentee ballot processing. According to a response by Nessel, Michigan officials identified and prosecuted the three cases and a judge dismissed the lawsuit after finding that “sinister and fraudulent motives” were alleged which were “incorrect and not credible.”

“Michigan’s elections are safe and secure," Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in the joint statement. “This demand is a poorly disguised attempt to justify more doubt and misinformation about our elections as well as direct federal interference.”

Michigan officials' failure to produce the records within 14 days of receiving the request could mean the U.S. Justice Department would seek a court order, but Nessel appears in no hurry to comply. She objected to a number of issues she believes preclude a response, including the age of the fraud incidents cited, how rare such cases are and that the request was made of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett, while ballots are in the possession of 43 local clerks across the county.

An emailed request for comment from Garrett did not receive an immediate reply.

Federal pressure yielded election records in the earlier swing states. The FBI, acting on a search warrant signed by a judge, in January searched the election office of heavily Democratic Fulton County, Georgia, which has been a target of election conspiracy theories related to Trump's 2020 loss. Fulton County officials have since been in court attempting to regain possession of the seized records.

A grand jury subpoena last month forced the Arizona state Senate to turn over to the FBI records related to a contentious audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. Democrats in the state criticized the GOP Senate president for complying, noting he is aware of multiple reviews, independent investigations and legal challenges over the election that have shown no evidence of widespread fraud.

Chavez-DeRemer is the third Trump Cabinet member to leave her post after Trump fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month.

In a statement posted on social media, Chavez-DeRemer praised Trump and wrote, “I am proud that we made significant progress in advancing President Trump’s mission to bridge the gap between business and labor and always put the American worker first.”

Unlike other recent Cabinet departures, Chavez-DeRemer’s exit was announced by a White House aide, not by the president on his social media account.

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said on the social media site X. “She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives.”

He said Keith Sonderling, the current deputy labor secretary, would become acting labor secretary in her place. The news outlet NOTUS was the first to report Chavez-DeRemer's resignation.

Labor chief, family members faced multiple allegations

Chavez-DeRemer’s departure follows reports that began surfacing in January that she was under a series of investigations.

A New York Times report last Wednesday revealed that the Labor Department’s inspector general was reviewing material showing Chavez-DeRemer and her top aides and family members routinely sent personal messages and requests to young staff members.

Chavez-DeRemer’s husband and father exchanged text messages with young female staff members, according to the newspaper. Some of the staffers were instructed by the secretary and her former deputy chief of staff to “pay attention” to her family, people familiar with the investigation told the Times.

Those messages were uncovered as part of a broader investigation of Chavez-DeRemer’s leadership that began after the New York Post reported in January that a complaint filed with the Labor Department’s inspector general accused Chavez-DeRemer of a relationship with the subordinate.

She also faced allegations that she drank alcohol on the job and that she tasked aides to plan official trips for primarily personal reasons.

Late Monday, on her personal X account, Chavez-DeRemer posted, “The allegations against me, my family, and my team have been peddled by high-ranked deep state actors who have been coordinating with the one-sided news media and continue to undermine President Trump's mission.”

Both the White House and the Labor Department initially said the reports of wrongdoing were baseless. But the official denials got less full-throated as more allegations emerged — and when Chavez-DeRemer might be out of a job became something of an open question in Washington.

At least four Labor Department officials have already been forced from their jobs as the investigation progressed, including Chavez-DeRemer’s former chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, as well as a member of her security detail, with whom she was accused of having the affair, The New York Times reported.

“I think the secretary demonstrated a lot of wisdom in resigning,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Monday after her departure was made public.

She enjoyed union support — rare for a Republican

Confirmed to Trump’s Cabinet on a 67-32 vote in March 2025, Chavez-DeRemer is a former House GOP lawmaker who had represented a swing district in Oregon. She enjoyed unusual support from unions as a Republican but lost reelection in November 2024.

In her single term in Congress, Chavez-DeRemer backed legislation that would make it easier to unionize on a federal level, as well as a separate bill aimed at protecting Social Security benefits for public-sector employees.

Some prominent labor unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, backed Chavez-DeRemer, who is a daughter of a Teamster, for Labor Secretary. Trump’s decision to pick her was viewed by some political observers as a way to appeal to voters who are members of or affiliated with labor organizations.

But other powerful labor leaders were skeptical when she was tapped for the job, unconvinced that Chavez-DeRemer would pursue a union-friendly agenda as a part of the incoming GOP administration. In her Senate confirmation hearing, some senators questioned whether she would be able to uphold that reputation in an administration that fired thousands of federal employees.

She was a key figure in Trump's deregulatory push

Aside from reports of wrongdoing in recent months, Chavez-DeRemer had been one of Trump’s more lower-profile Cabinet picks, but took key steps to advance the administration’s deregulatory agenda during her tenure.

For instance, the Labor Department last year moved to rewrite or repeal more than 60 workplace regulations it saw as obsolete. The rollbacks included minimum wage requirements for home health care workers and people with disabilities, and rules governing exposure to harmful substances and safety procedures at mines. The effort drew condemnation from union leaders and workplace safety experts.

The proposed changes also included eliminating a requirement that employers provide adequate lighting for construction sites and seat belts for agriculture workers in most employer-provided transportation.

During Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure, the Trump administration canceled millions of dollars in international grants that a Labor Department division administered to combat child labor and slave labor around the world, ending their work that had helped reduce the number of child laborers worldwide by 78 million over the last two decades.

In her statement Monday, Chavez-DeRemer said, “While my time serving in the Administration comes to a conclusion, it doesn’t mean I will stop fighting for American workers.”

The Labor Department has a broad mandate as it relates to the U.S. workforce, including reporting the U.S. unemployment rate, regulating workplace health and safety standards, investigating minimum wage, child labor and overtime pay disputes, and applying laws on union organizing and unlawful terminations.

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Associated Press writers Steven Sloan and Will Weissert in Washington and Cathy Bussewitz in New York contributed to this report.

Cook, 65, will turn the CEO duties over to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on Sept. 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman. That’s similar to the transitions made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as CEO.

To allow Cook to assume his new job, Arthur Levinson will relinquish his role as Apple's non-executive chairman while remaining on its board of directors.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company," Cook said in a statement. “I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people.”

Ternus, 50, has been with Apple for the past quarter century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac — a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Cook.

“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Ternus said in a statement.

Cook and Ternus may have more to say about the changing of the guard on April 30 when Apple is scheduled to release its financial results for the first three months of the year.

The transition to a new CEO comes at a pivotal time for Apple. Artificial intelligence has unleashed the most upheaval within the industry since Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007. Apple has gotten off to a rough start in AI after stumbling in its efforts to deliver new features built on the technology, as promised nearly two years ago.

Earlier this year, Apple finally turned to Google — an early leader in the AI race — for help making the iPhone's virtual assistant Siri into a more conversational and versatile helper.

“Cook created a major legacy at Apple but it was ultimately time to pass the torch to Ternus with the AI strategy now the focus,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said.

Although he never shook the perception that he lacked Jobs’ vision, Cook leveraged the popularity of the iPhone and other breakthroughs orchestrated by his predecessor to lift Apple to heights that seemed unfathomable when it was on the brink of bankruptcy during the mid-1990s.

Not long after Cook took over, Apple became the first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion, then became the first to be valued at $2 trillion and $3 trillion, too.

But after Apple's slow start in AI, chipmaker Nvidia rode the feverish demand for its processors that power that technology to be the first company to reach the $4 trillion threshold and then the first to break through the $5 trillion barrier, too. Apple is currently valued at $4 trillion, up from $350 billion when Tim Cook took over in August 2011, shortly before Jobs died after a long bout with cancer.

“Steve Jobs was never going to be an easy act to follow, yet Tim Cook took Jobs’ legacy and transformed Apple into a durable, resilient financial powerhouse,” said Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee.

Besides guiding Apple to a phenomenal run of financial success, Cook also made his mark in an October 2014 essay acknowledging his homosexuality – a disclosure by the leader of a renowned company that was hailed as a breakthrough for the gay rights movement.

Before his death, Jobs spent time grooming Cook to be his successor – a move that reflected the Apple co-founder’s respect and admiration for an executive that he hired in 1998 to oversee the company’s supply chain. Knowing his successor would likely be measured against his legacy, Jobs advised Cook to be guided by his own instincts and never bother musing, “What would Steve do?”

Cook, an Alabama native who previously worked at Compaq Computer and Apple’s former nemesis, IBM, masterminded the intricacies of an international supply chain that plumbed the cheaper labor and efficiency of China’s manufacturing plants. It has played an instrumental role in the production of the Mac computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads and other products that account for most of Apple’s annual revenue of $416 billion – up from $108 billion when Cook became CEO.

But most of Apple’s best-selling devices were all conceived while Jobs was still CEO, raising questions about whether Cook was more of a logistics man than an idea man.

“While Cook has kept Apple’s growth trajectory moving at a steady clip, he has not overseen a step-change innovation that would reset Apple’s competitive position for the next two decades, as Jobs did with the iPhone,” Chatterjee said.

The company did create the two popular new product lines – the Apple Watch and wireless AirPod headphones – and a still-niche Vision Pro headset for experiencing virtual reality, but none of them have been the kind of breakthroughs that became Jobs’ trademark. Meanwhile, other ballyhooed projects such as Apple’s effort to build a self-driving car never materialized after years of research and investments.

Apple’s reliance on overseas manufacturing required Cook to master the art of political diplomacy, particularly while President Donald Trump waged trade wars with China during both his terms in the White House. After persuading Trump to exempt the iPhone and other products from Trump’s first-term tariffs, he faced a more daunting challenge during the current administration.

While insisting that Apple shift its iPhone manufacturing from China to the U.S., Trump imposed some tariffs on the device this time around. But Cook still managed to minimize the fees by shifting the production of iPhones destined for the U.S. market to India and also winning some exemptions after promising Apple would invest $600 billion in the U.S. during Trump’s second administration.

Nathan Romero was driving a black Toyota Corolla on Interstate 95, and he was “reversing into” a black Mitsubishi sports utility vehicle, near Miami Gardens Drive, according to the arrest report.

Romero, of Kissimmee, drove “towards both victims ... in an apparent attempt to run them over ... Both victims began running away and were able to jump out of the way,” according to the arrest report.

Romero “struck the concrete wall ... drove forward and placed the vehicle in reverse ... attempted to run them over again,” and struck the Mitsubishi and a sergeant’s unmarked car, according to the arrest report.

Romero got out of the Toyota, armed “with a knife,” and the sergeant “pointed his firearm” at him and shouted orders: “Stop! Drop the knife!”

Romero “tossed the knife,” and surrendered, according to the arrest report.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel took Romero to Jackson Memorial North Hospital before corrections booked him shortly after 7:55 p.m. on Saturday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Florida Highway Patrol troopers documented the crashes.

On Monday, Romero faced three new charges: Aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer and two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

A judge denied Romero bond for the charge of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer and set the bond for the other two charges at $15,000.

Romero also had a warrant case for reckless driving with damage to property or person. His bond was $500.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Carson Merlo contributed to this report.

The 46-year-old author and the vice chair of the Clinton Foundation ran the 26.2-mile (42.195-kilometer) race in 3 hours, 40 minutes, 52 seconds. Joining former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet her at the finish line was 2014 champion Meb Keflezghi — the last American man to win the race.

According to athlinks.com, Chelsea Clinton has run six other marathons, including New York four times, and Monday's run was a personal best.

Other notable participants who ran in Monday's record-setting race included astronaut Suni Williams, who finished in 5:52:49; hockey Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara, who ran it in 3:18:00; 2018 Boston winner Des Linden, who finished second in the women's masters division in 2:35:49; and 1968 men's winner Amby Burfoot, who finished in 5:11:29.

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

Mohammad Sharifullah is accused of scouting the bomber's route to the airport before the attack that killed nearly 200 people, including 13 U.S. service members, at the end of America’s longest war. FBI agents interviewed him for hours over the course of several days after his capture.

But one of Sharifullah's lawyers said he had no role in the bombing plot and suggested that the Afghan national gave a false confession.

“The U.S. government got the wrong man,” defense attorney Geremy Kamens said during the trial's opening statements. “That is why we are proud to represent Mohammad Sharifullah in this trial.”

Justice Department prosecutor John Gibbs said Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, spoke to a journalist about killing American “crusaders” who invaded his home country after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

“The feeling was just to catch the crusaders and kill them,” Sharifullah told the journalist, according to Gibbs.

Sharifullah told FBI agents that he joined an Islamic State regional branch known as ISIS-K around 2016. Although he denied having a planning role in the Kabul airport bombing, he told the agents that he had done “a lot of other things” on behalf of ISIS-K, Gibbs said.

President Donald Trump announced Sharifullah’s capture during his State of the Union address in March 2025. Sharifullah arrived in the U.S. a day later to face prosecution and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Twelve jurors and three alternates were picked Monday in Alexandria, Virginia, for Sharifullah's federal trial on one count of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death. The trial is expected to last about a week.

U.S. troops were conducting an evacuation operation at the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021, when a lone suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device near an entry point known as Abbey Gate. Approximately 160 Afghans were killed in the attack along with the 13 U.S. service members.

A review by U.S. Central Command found that the Abbey Gate bomber was Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an Islamic State militant who had been released from an Afghan prison by the Taliban. Sharifullah recognized the alleged bomber as an operative he had known while incarcerated, according to an FBI affidavit.

A former Marine testified to Congress that he and others had spotted two possible suspects behaving suspiciously on the morning of the bombing but didn't get permission to act. However, the Central Command review concluded that the snipers hadn't seen the actual bomber and that the attack was not preventable.

Still, the carnage led to sharp criticism of how Democratic President Joe Biden's administration handled the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after a war spanning two decades. On the campaign trial, before he won a second term in the White House, Trump repeatedly condemned Biden’s role in the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal and blamed him for the Abbey Gate attack.

One of the prosecutors assigned to the Abbey Gate case was fired by the Justice Department last year after a right-wing commentator publicly criticized him over his work during the Biden administration. Michael Ben’Ary's ouster was part of a broader purge of Justice Department veterans deemed to be insufficiently loyal to Trump, a Republican.

Sharifullah is accused of participating in other attacks linked to ISIS-K. The FBI said he provided instructions on the proper use of firearms before other ISIS-K members carried out a March 2024 attack at a Moscow concert hall that killed roughly 140 people.

Kamens suggested that Sharifullah gave a false confession under duress while in Pakastani custody. The defense lawyer told jurors that the airport bombing was likely an “inside job” aided by sympathetic Taliban extremists who were in power and helping with airport security that day.

“The Pakistanis wanted him to confess, and their intelligence service tortures people,” Kamens said.

According to court documents obtained by Local 10 News on Monday, two of them are now in custody: Joseph Marsicek, 55, and girlfriend Lisa Bulinski, 53, both of Zephyrhills, are each facing felony charges.

Investigators said they, along with Marsicek‘s mother, Mary Ann MacPherson, moved out of the home and to Pasco County on Feb. 15. Three days later, investigators said the victim was trying to show her friend her collection when she realized the coins had vanished, leading her to call the Hollywood Police Department.

According to investigators, the victim and MacPherson had known each other since the 1980s, when they both worked part time at a jewelry store. Police said about four years ago, MacPherson “called complaining her living situation” in Zephyrhills and said she wanted to come back to South Florida, so the victim allowed MacPherson to stay with her under the condition that she pay rent and get a job.

But police said MacPherson also arrived with Marsicek, making the victim “uncomfortable.” Nevertheless, police said the victim let MacPherson stay in a room and Marsicek sleep in his car, and later a tent, outside. Authorities said he then began dating Bulinski.

All three are accused of stealing the valuable coins and taking them to a gold and jewelry buyer.

They made about $72,000 from selling the coins as they complained about money and lived on the dole, police said, but detectives suspect that represents a fraction of what they stole.

“I believe the suspects are still in possession of a large quantity of the victim’s property,” HPD Officer Mark Robbins wrote in a report.

The victim, police said, believes the trio took about $400,000 worth of coins.

Records show that Hollywood police arrested Marsicek and Bulinski on Thursday in the 5900 block of Taft Street. It wasn’t immediately clear how they were located.

MacPherson, who records show is also slated to face charges in the case, did not appear in Broward or Pasco jail records as of Monday afternoon.

As of Monday, Marsicek and Bulinski remained jailed in Broward on charges of first-degree grand theft, pawning items with false information and dealing in stolen property.

Their bonds were set at $125,000. But they’ll have to prove any funds they may post come from a legitimate source before being released.

Schlittler has overcome similar threats to experience success against the Red Sox in the postseason spotlight, so he has reason to carry confidence into his first game at Fenway.

Schlittler grew up a Red Sox fan in Walpole, Massachusetts. Despite his background with the Red Sox, Schlittler told the New York Post that he and his family have received death threats leading up to Thursday night's game. He compared the threats to normal trolling from fans and said he hasn't felt the need to get police involved.

“Most normal fans could care less, right?” Schlittler told the newspaper. "It’s just those diehards that just have nothing else in their lives other than baseball or sports that really care about this, and the fact that I play for the Yankees makes it worse for them.”

After his family was targeted with hurtful comments on social media during last season's AL Wild Card Series against the Red Sox, Schlittler responded with a dominant performance. He became the first postseason pitcher with at least eight scoreless innings and 12 strikeouts without allowing a walk, pitching New York to a 4-0 clinching win over Boston in New York.

This season, the 6-foot-6 Schlittler has enjoyed more success. The 25-year-old is 2-1 with a 1.95 ERA in five games. He has 36 strikeouts in 27 2/3 innings.

He says his strong start will only encourage more venom from Red Sox fans.

“It’s gonna be bad, it’s gonna be bad," Schlittler told the Post. "I’m not nervous about it, but it’s gonna be loud. ... They’re gonna probably have dudes that are my age or a little bit younger, sitting right outside the bullpen, yelling whatever, probably throwing stuff at me, trying to grab me.

“That’s kind of what I expect. So I know the guys are excited for it and I’m excited for it.”

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

El evento ocurrió pasadas las 11:30 de la mañana, cuando un hombre que se encontraba en la plataforma situada en lo alto de la Pirámide de la Luna comenzó a disparar contra turistas que estaban a su mismo nivel y contra otros que bajaban por las escalinatas, según explicó a The Associated Press un guía turístico que se encontraba en el lugar que pidió el anonimato por razones de seguridad.

El agresor, quien posteriormente se quitó la vida, fue identificado como Julio César Jasso, un mexicano de 27 años, dijo a la AP un funcionario estatal que habló en condición de anonimato al no estar autorizado para discutir el caso.

La Fiscalía del Estado de México, entidad donde se encuentra la zona arqueológica, confirmó más tarde en redes sociales que Jasso fue el único agresor involucrado en el incidente. Añadió que la causa de su muerte será determinada según los protocolos correspondientes.

“Algunas personas, como estaban asustadas,se tiraron pecho a tierra y todos los demás empezamos a bajar”, comentó el guía al relatar cómo el tirador, al ver descender a los turistas por las escalinatas de la pirámide, disparó e hirió a varias personas.

Otro grupo quedó tendido sobre la plataforma de la pirámide sin moverse para evitar ser atacado por el tirador.

La canadiense Brenda Lee contó a una televisora de su país que ella y otras siete personas se encontraban a la espera para poder comprar un recuerdo cuando escucharon las detonaciones. “Oímos lo que pensamos que eran petardos y, antes de que nos diéramos cuenta, alguien gritó: ‘no, son disparos, corran’, y vimos a gente saltando desde lo alto".

Lee relató que la tensión se apoderó rápidamente del lugar mientras la gente intentaba escapar. “Había miles de personas y se oían muchos disparos que no paraban”, señaló.

La mujer y su grupo se alejaron de la zona siguiendo las indicaciones de su guía turístico. Lee aseguró que el incidente no cambia su percepción de México como destino turístico. “No nos hemos sentido inseguros en ningún lugar y esto, sinceramente, podría pasar en cualquier parte del mundo”, agregó.

Las autoridades del Estado de México indicaron previamente en un comunicado que entre los heridos hay seis estadounidenses, tres colombianos, entre ellos un niño de 6 años que recibió dos impactos de bala en la tibia y el peroné derecho; una canadiense, dos brasileños y un ruso. Siete de los heridos sufrieron lesiones por disparo de arma de fuego.

El embajador de Estados Unidos en México, Ronald Johnson, manifestó su “profunda preocupación" y tristeza por el incidente, e indicó en la red social X que en su país “estamos listos para brindar apoyo según sea necesario mientras las autoridades mexicanas continúan su investigación”.

Los primeros en responder al tiroteo fueron los policías que prestan seguridad dentro de las ruinas arqueológicas, y poco después llegó un grupo de la Guardia Nacional en una camioneta para atender la emergencia.

El tirador “no tenía como una percepción de lo que estaba haciendo”, indicó el testigo.

Hasta el momento se desconocen las causas del ataque. En el lugar las autoridades decomisaron un arma de fuego, un arma blanca y cartuchos.

El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia anunció la noche del lunes en un comunicado que la zona arqueológica de Teotihuacan permanecerá cerrada hasta nuevo aviso.

La zona arqueológica de Teotihuacan es uno de los destinos turísticos más importantes del país y el año pasado atrajo a más de 1,8 millones de visitantes internacionales, según datos del gobierno. A pesar del gran número de turistas que recibe todos los días, el lugar tiene poco personal de vigilancia, no cuenta con detectores de metales ni se hace una revisión a los visitantes, según constató la AP.

La presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum publicó en X que “lo ocurrido hoy en Teotihuacán nos duele profundamente. Expreso mi más sincera solidaridad con las personas afectadas y sus familias. Estamos en contacto con la embajada de Canadá”.

Al lamentar los hechos, la canciller canadiense Anita Anand, expresó en su cuenta de la red social que “como consecuencia de un terrible acto de violencia armada, una ciudadana canadiense ha perdido la vida y otro ha resultado herido en Teotihuacán”, y que “sus pensamientos están con sus familiares y seres queridos”.

En videos difundidos en las redes sociales se observa a un hombre que desde lo alto de la Pirámide de la Luna comienza a disparar mientras decenas de turistas se esconden entre las ruinas prehispánicas y otros corren.

Teotihuacán es conocido por su enclave arqueológico del mismo nombre que es Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad y uno de los atractivos turísticos de la zona es sobrevolar las impresionantes pirámides del Sol y la Luna en globo.

Fue una gran ciudad con más de 100.000 habitantes que se extendía por unos 20 kilómetros cuadrados entre el año 100 a. C. y 750 d. C. pero fue abandonada por razones todavía inciertas antes del ascenso de los aztecas en el siglo XIV.

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El periodista de The Associated Press, Jim Morris, contribuyó a este despacho desde Vancouver.

Ariyoshi, a Democrat who led the state from 1973 to 1986, died peacefully while surrounded by family on Sunday night, according to a statement Monday from current Gov. Josh Green.

“Governor Ariyoshi devoted his life to Hawaiʻi with humility, discipline and an unwavering sense of responsibility to the people he served,” Green said. “He led our state during a pivotal moment with quiet strength and integrity, and his legacy as a trailblazer and public servant will endure for generations."

Ariyoshi was a three-term governor who first rose to the position in October 1973. Three years earlier, he had been elected lieutenant governor, and he then became acting governor when Gov. John Burns fell ill with cancer.

Ariyoshi won the office outright in 1974 and was reelected in 1978 and 1982. Hawaii governors are now subject to a two-term limit. His political career coincided with the Democratic Party's rise to power in Hawaii.

Democrats wrested control of the Legislature from Republicans in 1954, the year Ariyoshi won the first of two terms in the Territorial House of Representatives. He won a territorial Senate seat in 1958, becoming a state senator the following year when Hawaii became a state.

Ariyoshi won three more state Senate races — in 1964, 1966 and 1968 — before becoming lieutenant governor.

Ariyoshi was born March 12, 1926, in a two-room tenement near Honolulu Harbor to parents who immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. He grew up in the hardscrabble neighborhood of Kalihi, near downtown Honolulu.

His father, Ryozo, a sumo wrestler from Fukuoka Prefecture, became a stevedore and owner of a dry cleaning shop in Hawaii. His mother, Mitsue, came from Kumamoto, Japan.

In his 1997 autobiography, “With Obligation to All,” Ariyoshi wrote about growing up with a lisp.

“The fact that we had no money did not seem to be a barrier, but I had a barrier of a different kind," he wrote, describing how he wanted to grow up to become a lawyer if he could learn to speak properly.

Following graduation from McKinley High School in 1944, Ariyoshi served as an interpreter with the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Service in Japan at the end of World War II.

After the war, Ariyoshi attended the University of Hawaii before transferring to Michigan State University, where he received a bachelor's degree in history and political science in 1949. Ariyoshi earned a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1952.

Going to school on the U.S. mainland, Ariyoshi didn’t feel a sense of being treated differently. “On the contrary, I enjoyed the fact that Hawaii had a reputation even then for people of different backgrounds coming together and living harmoniously,” he wrote in his book.

He began practicing law in Hawaii the year after he graduated from law school. Ariyoshi withdrew from private practice and resigned various corporate directorships after he was elected lieutenant governor.

He said his decision to seek the position was influenced by a desire to break the barrier for minorities.

“The new state of Hawaii had produced United States representatives and senators of Caucasian, Chinese and Japanese ancestry, reflecting our diversity,” he wrote. “But only Caucasians had been governor.”

Ariyoshi’s time as governor was marked by Hawaii becoming a tourist destination and a booming population. “I was convinced that neither our infrastructure nor our environment would support this rate of growth,” he wrote.

In 1975, Ariyoshi and his wife, Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi, attended their first National Governor’s Conference in Washington, D.C., where they were invited by President Gerald Ford to a black-tie dinner at the White House.

Jean Ariyoshi wrote in her book, “Washington Place: A First Lady’s Story,” that as the couple jitterbugged on the dance floor, she stood on tip-toe and whispered in his ear: “Look at the little girl from Wahiawa dancing at the White House.”

He replied: “And she’s dancing with the kid from Kalihi.”

John Waiheʻe, who became Ariyoshi’s lieutenant governor in 1982, went on to be elected the first governor of Native Hawaiian ancestry in 1986 with Ariyoshi’s support.

In addition to his wife Jean, Ariyoshi is survived by daughter Lynn and sons Donn and Ryozo.

The shooter was identified as 27-year-old Julio Cesar Jasso of Mexico, a state official told the AP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the case. Jasso later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said, and security officials found a gun, a knife and ammunition. Jasso was the sole assailant in the attack, the State of Mexico government confirmed on Monday night.

The local government said seven people were wounded by gunshots. How the other people were injured was not disclosed, but a number of people fell when shooting started, some while climbing on the pyramids.

Those taken to hospitals for treatment were six Americans, three Colombians, one Russian, two Brazilians and one Canadian, the local government said. The youngest person who was injured was 6; the oldest was 61, Mexican authorities said.

Video and photos published by local media showed a man, later identified as Jasso, standing with a gun on top of a pyramid while people ducked for cover. A number of gunshots rang out in the videos.

The Teotihuacan pyramids, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are a series of massive structures on the outskirts of Mexico City built by three different ancient civilizations. As one of Mexico’s most important touristic destinations, the site drew more than 1.8 million international visitors last year, according to government figures.

The shooting took place shortly after 11:30 a.m. when dozens of tourists were at the top of the Pyramid of the Moon. The standing on the structure’s platform began firing upward, according to a tour guide who was at the scene and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

“Some people, because they were scared ... threw themselves face down on the ground, and the rest of us started to go down,” the guide said, recounting how the shooter, upon seeing the tourists descending the pyramid’s steps, began firing.

Another group of visitors lay motionless on the pyramid’s platform to avoid being targeted by the shooter, who authorities have not yet identified.

Brenda Lee, of Vancouver, British Columbia, said she was waiting to buy a souvenir when she and others in her group thought they heard firecrackers.

"Before we knew it, someone said, ‘No, that’s gunfire, run,’ and we saw people coming off the top,” she told CTV News, one of Canada’s national television broadcasters.

“There were thousands of people there and there were a lot of gunshots that just kept coming,” Lee said.

The scene quickly turned chaotic as people tried to escape, Lee said.

“And then a fellow jumped,” she said. “It was someone trying to get away, and he dropped to the next level, but he fell on his back, and it was ... it just was awful.”

In past years, staff at the archaeological site carried out security scans before people entered the area but have since stopped, one local guide noted.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on social media that the shooting would be investigated and that she was in touch with the Canadian Embassy.

“What happened today in Teotihuacán deeply pains us. I express my most sincere solidarity with the affected individuals and their families,” she wrote.

Anita Anand, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, said on X that as a “result of a horrific act of gun violence, a Canadian was killed and another wounded in Teotihuacán” and that her “thoughts are with their family and loved ones."

Later in the evening U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson also expressed “deep concern” and sadness over the deaths and numerous injuries, and said on a post on X that the U.S. is “ready to provide support as needed while Mexican authorities continue their investigation.”

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a statement that the Teotihuacán archaeological site will remain closed until further notice.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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AP journalist Jim Morris contributed to this story from Vancouver, British Columbia.