Unlike many people assume, the iconic lighthouse is not funded by the federal government or the U.S. Coast Guard. Instead, it is maintained by the Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society, a nonprofit organization that relies almost entirely on fundraising, memberships and public tours to pay for maintenance and restoration.

“We get zero dollars from the Coast Guard. We get zero dollars from the government,” said Ralph Krugler, historian for the Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society. “It’s mostly what we do with fundraising events and public tours in order to generate money. That’s why it’s taking so long.”

The lighthouse first went into service on March 8, 1907, and has become one of South Florida’s most recognizable landmarks. Krugler, who leads many of the organization’s monthly tours, says visitors are often captivated by the sweeping views from the top of the 11-story structure.

But the climb also reveals the toll more than a century of salt air has taken on the lighthouse.

Rust has eaten away at original iron components, and cracks and corrosion are visible throughout portions of the structure.

“Because of the salt air,” Krugler said. “The environment is just so hard on iron.”

Workers are now removing damaged material, applying new protective coatings and planning to replace deteriorating iron pieces with stainless steel, which is expected to better withstand South Florida’s harsh coastal conditions for decades to come.

The full restoration project is expected to cost as much as $2 million.

So far, the preservation society has raised only a fraction of what is needed.

“It’s taken us like 10 years to get $400,000,” Krugler said.

To help accelerate fundraising, the organization has partnered with local boating influencer Camilla Pavan, who created the “Save the Lighthouse” social media campaign and a GoFundMe page.

Pavan said she regularly passes the lighthouse while boating and believed social media could help bring more attention to the preservation effort.

“I knew it would go viral,” she said.

She said the preservation society had little social media presence before she became involved.

“Honestly, the Lighthouse Association was kind of not up to date when it came to donations and social media,” Pavan said. “So that’s when I kind of stepped in and tried to help.”

The online campaign has already raised thousands of dollars, giving preservation leaders hope they can build enough momentum to complete the restoration before the damage worsens.

“We’re trying to up our presence and get more people to realize that, hey, this is part of the community,” Krugler said. “If you really want it to stick around, can you help us out?”

The Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse is accessible only by boat. For information about tours or membership opportunities, click here.

Now, after a massive infusion of cash from Congress, President Donald Trump's administration is swiftly building what it has dubbed a “smart wall,” a combination of 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel fencing and an array of sophisticated technology like sensors, cameras and towers allowing Border Patrol to surveil the territory.

The wall is under heavy scrutiny for the billions of dollars being dedicated to it when border crossings are at their lowest in decades. Critics say the U.S. is militarizing the border as it increasingly deploys sophisticated surveillance technology to the area, impacting local communities.

“We are seeing a massive expansion of surveillance and surveillance technology across the borderlands,” said Ricky Garza, border policy counsel at the Southern Border Communities Coalition, an advocacy group. “The wall in all its forms is harmful to communities.”

Officials say the technology is complementary to the physical wall and frees up agents for other tasks.

“It’s a smart wall. It’s not just a barrier,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said during recent congressional testimony. “It maximizes the use of our most valuable resource, which is our agents.”

Contracts for hundreds of miles of wall already inked

The wall has been a top priority for Trump, a Republican, since he first ran for president.

During the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, the border emerged as a flashpoint, with thousands of people seeking to cross into the country each day. Those numbers started to taper off shortly before Trump returned to office last year and then slowed to a trickle, with his broader immigration crackdown serving as a deterrent for would-be migrants.

Flush with $46 billion to finish the wall after an infusion by Congress for immigration enforcement, CBP is inking tens of billions of dollars in contracts to build the wall and push along the president's signature project.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said recently that a preliminary part of the wall will be finished by “this time next year.” Scott said his agency is putting up 6 miles (10 kilometers) of wall a week.

Hundreds of miles had already been built before Trump returned to office. As of mid-June 2026, CBP has erected another 74 miles (119 kilometers) and aims to build hundreds more. There is no wall planned for roughly 535 miles (861 kilometers) of the roughly 2,000-mile-long (3,200-kilometer-long) border, because rugged terrain already serves as a barrier. Ground sensors and towers will be used instead.

CBP is also going back to hundreds of miles of already built wall and adding more technology, lights and roads. Along the long stretches of river in Texas that mark the border with Mexico, they're deploying 12- to 15-foot-long (3.7- to 4.5-meter-long) cylinder-shaped buoys meant to keep migrants or smugglers from crossing the border.

More technology being deployed on the border

Technology is playing a greater role in the Trump administration’s effort to make illegal crossings along the border more difficult, part of a broader transformation of CBP in the years since Sept. 11, 2001, into an intelligence operation with a mass surveillance network whose reach extends far beyond the nation's frontiers, according to reporting by The Associated Press.

And critics say the border technology poses a threat.

The Southern Border Communities Coalition says surveillance technologies can push migrants into more dangerous routes to avoid being detected.

Garza, the group's policy counsel, warned that surveillance technology infringes on the privacy rights of border residents and that locals have found ground sensors used to detect smuggler or migrant traffic placed on their property without their consent.

Nayda Alvarez and her relatives own land along the Rio Grande roughly 125 miles (200 kilometers) inland from the Gulf of Mexico. She has found cameras placed on her family's land, and just last week she spotted a surveillance tower about a quarter of a mile (almost half a kilometer) down the river from her house.

“Are we expecting a war or something?” she said. "It doesn’t make me feel safer.”

Dave Maass, director of investigations for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on civil liberties related to digital technology, said the technology has made the border area “a hostile environment” for locals and would-be migrants.

The foundation has published a guide on the various types of surveillance towers in use along the southern border designed to help local residents.

These can range from fixed towers with video, infrared and radar technologies that have a range of roughly 8 miles (13 kilometers) to remote video surveillance systems that have cameras and a spotlight fixed on top. Some are mounted on the backs of trucks so agents can drive them to different parts of the border.

Increasingly, these towers are autonomous. They can scan an area, analyze what they're seeing using artificial intelligence and alert Border Patrol agents to something suspicious. Proponents say this helps keep Border Patrol agents out in the field instead of sitting in front of computer screens watching for activity. But it also increases AI decision-making along the border when experts have warned about the technology’s potential for bias or other problems.

The big GOP tax cuts and spending bill passed by Congress last summer requires that CBP buys only the autonomous towers, and the department is deploying an additional 95.

Underground, buried fiberoptic cables can sense movement, capturing data that is also then analyzed by AI.

“We follow the contour of the land. We go through trees. We go down into the river banks. We can go absolutely everywhere,” said Magnus McEwen-King, CEO of Sintela, which has a contract with CBP to install the cables. He spoke at a recent border security expo in Phoenix, where some of the technology was on display.

CBP also uses ground sensors and trail cameras to detect smuggling routes.

Concerns over cost and future plans

The nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has questioned both the huge amounts of money for the wall-building and whether taxpayers are getting their money's worth.

In 2011, under Democratic President Barack Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pulled the plug on a project to build a “virtual wall” of integrated technology like radars, sensors and cameras across the entire border after it ran over budget, faced technological glitches and was behind schedule.

Josh Sewell, director of research and policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the organization would like to see more “robust evaluation” of the technologies being used to avoid similar scenarios. And he criticized the Trump administration for lack of oversight on how the money is being spent, a charge CBP has denied, citing “oversight mechanism.”

In the Big Bend area of southern Texas, opposition to the department's wall-building plans gathered strong bipartisan support especially in the most sensitive areas that run through a state and national park and a wildlife area.

CBP now says it is not planning to build a 30-foot-high (9-meter-high) bollard wall in those areas. Its recently announced plans include installing patrol roads and some barriers designed to stop cars and using detection technologies.

Clara Benson, who is one of the founders of the No Big Bend Wall coalition, says bright lights in the area designed to illuminate the border could pollute the skies in an area renowned for having some of the best views of the stars. Even without a 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel wall running through the land, there is concern about CBP's plans.

“There's still a lot of fear and dread that the plan is still going to be quite damaging,” she said.

Supporters of England, Belgium, Senegal, the United States and Bosnia were all represented, creating a melting pot of soccer fans.

The crowd was expected to keep growing as kickoff for the U.S.-Bosnia match approached. During previous matches, Bayfront Park reached capacity, and it remained to be seen whether that would happen again for Wednesday night’s game.

“At the end of the day, it is in our city, it is beautiful, and we are 100% percent supporting our country,” said U.S. fan Dylan Rodriguez.

“Honestly, it’s nice to see — bringing all these people together,“ said fan Caleb. ”At the end of the day, that’s what we want to see.”

Fans said the event has been a unifying experience, with friendships forming between people from around the world who share a passion for soccer — or futbal, depending on who you ask.

Families also packed the park, creating lasting memories while enjoying more than just the match. Along with watching the game, fans had access to food, drinks and a variety of activities throughout the festival.

But members of one local business group are pointing the finger at themselves instead.

What started with one table has quickly grown into one of the newest Business Network International chapters in Wilton Manors.

“We are the fastest growing chapter in all of Florida,” said Jerry Windle, who helps lead the group.

The chapter is the only officially designated LGBTQ+ ally chapter in Florida, but most of its members are not part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Instead, they are allies, including contractors and hetero family-man Ted Knote.

“We have a great group here,” Knote said.

Chapter members said that in less than a year, they have generated nearly $2 million in referral business.

Windle said part of the idea behind growing the chapter came after seeing corporate sponsorships pull away from LGBTQ+ organizations amid the current political climate and anti-DEI legislation.

“It’s very easy to become reactive and say why and point the finger and blame, blame, blame,” Windle said.

“Despite what may happen politically — and we can like it, we can not like it — but rather than point fingers and say would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, it’s what can we do now?” he said.

The group’s efforts have gone beyond growing business.

They have also helped support organizations like the Pride Center, where the chapter meets. The center has struggled to continue its HIV prevention efforts after losing federal funding under the Trump administration.

Windle said the chapter has donated $20,000 to the Pride Center.

“We have strength when we create the gravitas to sit at the table and we create the table,” he said.

The business group meets once a week in Wilton Manors.

Awab Metwally, who is an international student and champion swimmer from Egypt, said he didn’t hesitate when it sounded like someone was in danger.

“I was like flying because I know there’s something going on,” Metwally said. “There was, like, an emergency, so I have to act.”

Video shows Metwally running from behind the cameraman before jumping into the water to rescue a man who couldn’t hold onto a ring buoy that had been thrown to him.

“That guy, he was sinking. He was dropping into the water,” Metwally said.

He said watching others throw a lifesaver without jumping in convinced him he needed to act.

“Nobody is doing anything. They’re just throwing to him a lifesaver. Nobody jumped. Nobody did anything. So I said, ‘This guy is going to die,’” he said.

Metwally said it wasn’t easy pushing the man to the back end of the yacht.

“It was hard for me to grab him and to push him all the way to the top of the water, but I did my best,” he said.

Metwally said he started swimming at a very young age in Egypt.

“Thanks to my mom and dad, they put me in swimming training since I was a kid. That paid off today,” he said.

Those lessons have earned him the title of Good Samaritan.

“So if I see somebody, I will do it for sure again. I get goosebumps really bad, but I will do it,” he said.

Metwally said paramedics performed life-saving measures on the man before taking him to a hospital. First responders have not released any information about the man’s condition.

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The man was identified by the Broward Sheriff’s Office as Bart Diguglielmo, of Lauderhill.

According to BSO, the shooting was reported just before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of the Walmart, located at 7900 W. McNab Road.

Deputies and North Lauderdale Fire Rescue medics responded to the scene and found Diguglielmo suffering from a gunshot wound, authorities said.

Deputies said paramedics transported Diguglielmo to Broward Health Medical Center, where he died.

Local 10 exclusively obtained video showing the moments that the fatal shooting occurred.

According to BSO, Diguglielmo and a woman had gotten into an argument over a parking space prior to the shooting.

Deputies said the woman remained at the scene after the shooting and claimed she shot Diguglielmo in self-defense.

Detectives confirmed that the woman was detained for questioning and is cooperating in the investigation.

The victim’s daughter, who asked to be identified only as Amanda, was in tears as she described her father during a Zoom interview with Local 10 News, calling him a “good man” who previously served in the military.

She told Local 10’s Rosh Lowe that nobody “deserves to lose their life over a parking spot.”

Amanda told Lowe that she was “hesitant to do the interview,” but said she wanted her dad “to be remembered for who he was and not who the media is portraying him to be.”

“I heard one news site say it was over a parking spot,” Amanda said. “Another says it was because my dad was making some type of advance towards the woman, which I will completely debunk because my dad is not that person. He’s not perfect, but not someone that would do this to this extreme.”

Amanda said she had been estranged from her dad for many years, but they had recently been working on repairing their relationship.

Detectives said upon the completion of the investigation, the case will be presented to the Broward County State Attorney’s Office to determine whether criminal charges will be filed against the woman who shot Diguglielmo.

The woman’s identity has not been released.

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Immigrant rights and faith groups have decried conditions at the facility for years and organized Wednesday protests.

They said detainees are subject to overcrowding and overheating.

Protester Luis Rivera said he has a close family friend who had a required appointment at the office. He said he’s scared and worried.

“You have people -- your family, your friends -- (who) you love,” he said. “It’s hard.”

Arianne Betancourt said her father was detained at the facility for six months. She now works full time to make sure people have humane conditions when held in detention.

“They’re going to spread the cruelty,” she said.

Betancourt added, “I talk to people who tell me that before they got to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ (in Collier County), they were able to walk and now they require a wheelchair and at these centers they don’t give wheelchairs, so these elders are bed-bound now.”

A Local 10 News crew saw a fire truck and ambulance go inside and get escorted out by authorities.

Rivera said he wants to protect his friend’s identity, but described him as a 20-year-old who came to the U.S. three years ago.

He said his friend is OK “for the moment, but he continued in the line, so I don’t know when he go inside (if) they’re going to remove (his) phone.”

Rivera said they live in Orlando, but he drove his friend to the Miramar office, because that’s where his appointment was.

Protesters said they plan to continue the weekly protests.

An ICE spokesperson released the following statement to Local 10 News:

“The Miramar facility functions as a check-in location for individuals on a non-detained docket and serves as a processing site for daily operational arrests. The number of individuals temporarily held at the facility varies based on operational needs. After processing, individuals are transferred to local detention centers.

“Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.

“ICE ensures that all individuals waiting to check in at the Miramar facility have access to restrooms and water. Restrooms and water fountains are available in the lobby, and individuals need only request access. Allegations that individuals in line do not have access to water or restrooms are totally false.”

ICE spokesperson

What she didn’t know when she entered the water on that day in 2024 was that another woman had been bitten by a shark 90 minutes earlier and just 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) down the beach. Had she known about the earlier attack, there is no way she would have been swimming, she said.

Gribbin’s story has inspired new federal legislation to authorize emergency alerts to mobile phones to warn beachgoers when a shark has bitten someone in the area.

President Donald Trump last week signed “Lulu’s Law,” which requires the Federal Communications Commission to allow the emergency messages. The legislation, which Gribbin advocated for, authorizes the warnings by classifying a shark attack as an event for which an emergency alert can be issued. It is up to states to implement the warnings. Gribbin’s home state of Alabama approved such a warning system last year.

“It’s really just common-sense legislation. It says that whenever there has been a shark attack in a certain area where you are near, it will send an alert to your phone, exactly like how an Amber Alert system works when a child is abducted,” she said.

Gribbin said she hopes the alert system will help prevent attacks like hers. “I definitely see this law working in the future and I'm really excited to hopefully save lives,” she said.

A fight to survive

Gribbin was one of three people bitten by a shark on June 7, 2024, off the Florida Panhandle.

She was on a mother-daughter trip to the Florida Panhandle. Gribbin said she and her friend had been diving for sand dollars.

“All of the sudden my best friend yelled, ‘Shark!’ and so we all started swimming for our lives,” Gribbin recalled. She said she remembered that sharks are attracted to frantic splashing and yelled for everyone to be calm. Gribbin, who was closest to the shark, was bitten.

“The shark bit off my hand first, and I raised my arm out of the water, and there was just flesh and bone there,” Gribbin said. The shark then latched onto her leg. A man punched the shark off her and strangers on the beach rushed to help. She was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital.

Doctors were able to save the teen's life but had to amputate part of her right leg.

Choosing positivity throughout her recovery

In the hospital, Gribbin made a deliberate decision to choose joy and to never give up.

She initially struggled knowing, “that I only have two regular limbs, and that my life would be completely different.”

“I would cry, and I would ask my mom, ‘Why is it happening to me?’ And on that day, we put a Bible verse on my bedside table that said, ‘With God, all things are possible.’ And then she told me that what you look like doesn’t define you, it’s who you are on the inside. And so, I think that stuck with me throughout my whole recovery the past two years.

It doesn’t matter what I look like, as long as I’m spreading positivity and inspiring others to stay strong and to never give up,” she said.

Gribbin was fitted with prosthetic limbs, quickly regained her ability to walk, returned to sports and got her driver’s license. She has gone back in the water and learned to surf, meeting Bethany Hamilton, a professional surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack.

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, the Alabama Republican who sponsored the legislation, said the legislation happened because of the teen's “courage, perseverance, and advocacy to protect future beachgoers.”

“Because of her strength, lives will be changed. We should all be inspired by her,” Britt said.

Shark bites remain rare

While sharks are commonly found in the waters off the United States, shark bites are rare, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program.

There are between 60 to 80 known unprovoked bites worldwide each year, he said. It's extremely rare that two or more people are bit in close proximity. He said in a database of known shark bites, called the International Shark Attack File, there have only been a few instances of multiple bites in a single day.

When that happens, he said it’s likely because of environmental conditions such as sharks following schools of bait fish closer to the shore. Murky water conditions can also be a factor because they increase the chance that a shark will mistake a person for a fish or seal.

In the area where Gribbin was bitten, there are about 20 to 30 bull sharks 1,312 feet (400 meters) offshore at all time, Naylor said. Great white sharks have been spotted more frequently in the chilly waters of New England and Atlantic Canada, according to conservation groups. A smartphone app called Sharktivity also allows shark spotters to report their sightings.

The sightings might unnerve people, but Naylor said it's important to remember that shark attacks are rare.

“If sharks wanted to eat people, we’d have about 10,000 bites a day. The fact that we have so few is basically testament to the fact that the sharks are doing their level best to avoid people, not to target them,” Naylor said.

Gribbin said she would rather people have the opportunity to get information and make decisions about protecting themselves than to go into the water without knowing.

Another survivor praises the alert system

Braxton Rocha, who was bitten by a large tiger shark off the north shore of the Big Island of Hawaii, said he liked the idea of an alert system. He thinks it is information that people, particularly tourists to the island, will want to know.

Rocha was spearfishing in 2015 when he saw the large shark. “Looked like a bus or submarine. She was the biggest thing I’d seen in the ocean at that time,” Rocha said. He started making his way to shore. When he looked back to check where the shark was, the animal was right in front of him. He tried to push the shark away, but the animal was too big and powerful. It latched onto his leg. Rocha punched it in the nose and the shark let go and swam away.

“Everything happened so fast. It was almost like being struck by lightning. I was still kind of out of it. I looked down and see giant clouds of blood just bursting out of my leg,” he said.

It took nearly 100 staples to repair the gaping wound on his leg. But the experience did not dampen Rocha's enthusiasm for the ocean and wildlife. “I’ve always loved sharks,” Rocha said.

In just the past week, Trump has issued dark warnings that members of the Democratic Party's ascendant left are communists who want to “completely destroy the traditional American way of life" and even engage in assassinations. Vice President JD Vance has similarly called out communism as a political shift that is “something we haven't seen in the U.S.” House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried “radical candidates” who are “self-described, self-identifying Marxists.”

The GOP's ideological focus conflates democratic socialism, which often centers on securing universal healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy and stricter corporate regulation, with communism, under which private ownership is largely eliminated. It has been building since Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor last year.

But it's kicked into a higher gear recently after democratic socialists won several New York City congressional primaries last week. The primary victory on Tuesday by another democratic socialist, Melat Kiros, for a Denver congressional seat suggested the trend may extend beyond Manhattan liberalism.

“The Democrats are making this easy for us,” Rep. Richard Hudson, the North Carolina Republican who leads the House GOP's strategy and fundraising arm, said in an interview. “They're nominating extreme liberals, leftists who are out of touch even with mainstream Democrats.”

Republicans are holding onto slim majorities

The messaging effort comes as Republicans scramble to hold onto threadbare congressional majorities in the November midterms. It risks overlooking public frustration, particularly among younger voters, with unfettered capitalism at a time of growing income inequality and rising costs.

But it also gives Republicans a much-needed opportunity to shift the conversation back to territory that is more comfortable for them after their party has spent much of the year on defense over the fallout from Trump's decision to launch a war against Iran, which contributed to widespread price spikes.

Ralph Reed, the longtime conservative activist who hosted Trump last week at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, acknowledged that Republicans are facing steep headwinds this year. But the recent string of wins by democratic socialists, he said, allows Republicans to present a contrast between “common sense and crazy.”

Democrats are uncertain over the party's direction

The renewed push could tug at tensions among Democrats who are largely united in their loathing of Trump but are divided over the party's direction. This year's primaries are shaping up as a referendum between centrists who are eager to course correct from what they see as progressive overreach earlier in the decade and a left-wing pushing for even more sweeping change.

“A lot of this anger has been boiling under the surface,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, which was founded by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. “It’s coming to the fore in this moment in a very powerful way.”

But Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a centrist New Jersey Democrat, called the victories in Colorado and New York “aberrations.”

“We’ve got to fight like hell to keep our party from being hijacked by socialists,” he said. “Most of them are bomb throwers, not problem solvers.”

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford easily dispatched a more progressive rival earlier this year in his Democratic bid for governor in a state Trump carried in 2024. As he eyes a general election challenge to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, he insisted candidates like those who won in New York don't represent all Democrats.

He said the Democratic Socialists of America “is not the face of our party.”

Rep. Suzan DelBene, a Washington Democrat who chairs the House Democratic campaign committee, said in a statement that Republicans were “resorting to desperate attacks that aren’t actually about the pocketbook issues.”

Trump risks overreaching with communism argument

Trump and fellow Republicans risk missing the mark when the public's embrace of capitalism might not be as strong as it was decades ago.

About half of U.S. adults, 54%, have a positive view of capitalism, according to an August poll from Gallup, a slight decline from 61% in 2010. Democrats have driven some of the shift, but favorable opinions of capitalism have fallen among independents as well.

Only 42% of Democrats viewed capitalism favorably, while 66% had a positive view of socialism. The poll found that both younger and older Democrats have warmed slightly on socialism since 2010, but Democrats under age 50 are much less likely to view capitalism favorably. Democrats age 50 or older didn't shift meaningfully.

“Young voters, who I would argue are driving a lot of the electoral energy that we're seeing, came of age politically in a post-Soviet world,” Geevarghese said. “The attacks don't land in the same way when Donald Trump was politically of age.”

Hudson, who is running the House GOP campaign committee, acknowledged the communism line might not resonate in the same way with all voters, particularly younger people. That's why, he said, it's important for Republicans to tailor their message to the needs of individual districts.

“I've never run cookie-cutter campaigns where we just say one thing over and over everywhere,” he said.

Still, the argument was high on Trump's mind again on Wednesday as he visited the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota. He called the former president a “ferocious opponent of a thing called communism.”

“It’s the biggest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, September 11,” he said. "It’s a bigger threat, potentially a bigger threat than that, because it’s like a cancer that spreads, and you better stop it fast.”

Beverly Gage, a history professor at Yale University who has written on the rise and fall of Sen. Joe McCarthy, said earlier eras of anti-communism politics took hold because there was a large and active Communist Party in the U.S. and the Soviet Union was the country's primary foe. But she said Trump's focus on the issue is notable given his ties to Roy Cohn, a onetime confidant of Trump who earlier worked for McCarthy.

“It's not very many steps to get from McCarthy to Roy Cohn to Donald Trump,” she said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential candidate, shrugged off Trump's communism focus as “bunk.” In an interview, he said the direction of the party isn't all that different from the dynamics he's navigated for decades in California politics.

“I governed in an environment where the DSA was otherwise known as progressives," he said. “This dialectic is so deeply familiar to me, and I don't over read any of it.”

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This story has been corrected to show the spelling of the Washington congresswoman’s first name is Suzan, not Susan.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in contributed to this report

The princess, who early last year announced her cancer was in remission, is the patron of the All England Club.

“On arrival, Her Royal Highness visited The Queue, spending time meeting attendees who have queued since early this morning, alongside AELTC’s honorary stewards, who volunteer each year to manage The Queue and welcome guests as they arrive at the Championships,” Kensington Palace said in a statement.

Wimbledon leaves a small batch of tickets available for same-day purchase and fans begin lining up and camping out the evening before in Wimbledon Park to get them each day.

The palace said Kate — who also helped out in a Wimbledon ticket office — was to meet with children from Shine Camera Club, a local program that supports children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Kate last year was at Centre Court on consecutive days to present the winners’ trophies to singles champions Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner.

A year ago, Kate offered consoling words to women's runner-up Amanda Anisimova after a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Swiatek.

In 2024, while recovering from cancer, Kate did not attend the women’s final but was on hand for Carlos Alcaraz’s win over Novak Djokovic.

Fery was playing Otto Virtanen of Finland on Court 18. She sat next to Tim Henman, the former Wimbledon semifinalist who is now an All England Club board member.

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

Employment projection data offers a grim outlook for the women-dominated profession that may be particularly vulnerable to AI-induced job displacement compared to the broader workforce. But some admins are embracing the technology — and even using it as a tool to get ahead.

Deanna Danger, 43, has worked in an administrative role since 2003. She says adapting and staying ahead of the curve is a key part of her constantly-changing role, and AI is no exception.

“All you do is have to evolve,” she says.

Danger started using AI professionally in 2022, learning through experimentation and collaboration with fellow admins. Today, she no longer takes notes during meetings — she's set up Copilot and ChatGPT to do it for her. That has freed her to “actually participate in the meetings, and not just worry about making sure I typed everything out that was said,” says Danger, executive assistant to the chief information officer at Vanderbilt University. “Honestly, what used to take me hours I’m now done with in under five minutes.”

How — and to what extent — AI might reshape her profession remains to be seen, but jobs for administrative assistants and secretaries have been dwindling for decades. In 2004, about 3.5 million people worked in the role — nearly 97% of them women, according to Current Population Survey data. Twenty years later, that number slid to 2.1 million — despite overall workforce growth during the same period.

And except for medical secretaries and administrative assistants — a category projected to grow 4% by 2034 thanks to growth of the healthcare industry — economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predict a continued decline in the profession.

“The overall story in office and admin occupations from the projection standpoint for the last several cycles has been one of productivity-enhancing technologies, limiting demand for employment,” said Emily Rolen, lead economist for the division of employment projections at the BLS. Technological advances — word processing, speech-to-text transcription, scheduling tools and apps — each transformed the duties of administrative professionals and contributed to overall decline.

Clerical and administrative workers may be more exposed to AI-induced job displacement than other professionals because they “lack adaptive capacity due to limited savings, advanced age, scarce local opportunities, and/or narrow skill sets," according to a Brookings Institution report published in January. About 86% of these 6 million workers are women.

Indeed, more secretaries and administrative assistants are 55 and older compared to the workforce at large (34% vs. 23%), median pay is lower than that of all U.S. workers ($47,460 vs. $49,500), and a high school diploma is sufficient for many entry-level roles.

But what labor data doesn't capture — as noted by the Brookings report — is an individual’s ability to navigate a changing environment, including administrative assistants like Danger, who say they “are way more capable than people think.”

Danger hosts a biweekly virtual coffee chat for peers through the American Society of Administrative Professionals, a professional group that says it serves about 132,000 members. Participants in a May session shared their AI use cases: creating flyers, scouting out restaurants for executive events, coming up with captions for employer social media accounts, drafting standard operating procedure language, and more.

But despite the overall atmosphere of enthusiasm, some participants raised concerns, including data security and the lack of AI regulation. Others emphasized that AI cannot, and will not, replace the emotional intelligence and relationship building skills that are hallmarks of a successful admin.

Fiona Young, founder of Carve, a business focused on training executive assistants on AI, says she has seen “a massive shift in demand" for her services since 2023. Young, a former executive assistant herself, says she has delivered AI training to administrative professionals globally, including at Google, Amazon, Uber, Salesforce and LinkedIn. In her experience, employers want staff to be able to leverage AI — “not just loosely understanding it, but genuinely using it as an integral part of how people are working every day,” she says.

Oana Manolache takes an even stronger stance. The founder and CEO of Sequel.io, a platform that enables companies to host webinars on their own websites, wrote in a LinkedIn post last year: “I will fire anyone who doesn’t use AI.”

But even Manolache says AI could not replace her executive assistant, Stephanie Martinez.

Manolache says Martinez uses AI to “free herself” from tasks like note-taking and meeting prep to focus on the “human work” of building team connectivity, making judgment calls, understanding executives' relationships with stakeholders and communicating accordingly.

Maybe AI could supplant the “traditional” assistant, but “it doesn’t replace what an executive assistant does now as the role has evolved,” Manolache says.

Martinez works remotely from El Salvador through Viva Talent, which — in another example of the shifting landscape for the role — trains and matches assistants from Latin and South America to primarily U.S.-based tech companies.

“The people who truly want to succeed in this role have a massive opportunity," Manolache says. “This person has access to information across the entire organization.”

For instance, when the company aimed to drive more customer reviews on a software review platform, Martinez, who manages most invoices and billing, approached the problem innovatively. She leveraged AI to sift through all customer communications, pinpoint good candidates for reviews, and draft outreach emails. Without AI, “it would have taken her so long to do this,” Manolache says, adding that it also freed up Martinez to “think creatively.”

That freedom to strategically implement AI is just as important as education and training, since many assistants are interested in adopting AI but lack the bandwidth to incorporate it, says Melissa Peoples, an Austin, Texas-based executive assistant coach and former C-suite executive assistant.

Gender dynamics compound that challenge in an industry dominated by women who are often paired with male leaders, Peoples says.

“You see those that are early adopters, and are crushing it, and are partnered with really empowering executives, and can do all of these things," she says. "And then you see the other side of this, where literally assistants are being told, ‘You’re not smart enough to be in the room. Just bring me my coffee.’”

With effective AI training, Peoples says admins can “find their voice” and “have higher impact so they are protected against what is going to happen as agentic AI becomes more commonplace and more easily accessible.” ___

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. 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.

The strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, has emerged as one of the top issues in negotiations to reach a permanent end to the Iran war. The statement from the Khatam al-Anbiya military command, reported by Iranian state television, comes after both U.S. and Iranian diplomats met with mediators on Wednesday in Qatar.

It wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the threat from Iran. However, the U.S. military's Central Command had put out a statement about having a meeting with officials from Mideast nations in Bahrain that said “leaders underscored their shared commitment to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.”

That appears to have been the phrase to anger Iran, which is preparing for the funeral that begins this weekend for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the war's first moments in February.

“Any failure to comply, deviation from the designated route, or disregard for the navigation protocols of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz will be met with an immediate and forceful response from the armed forces, endangering the security of the violating vessels,” the Iranian statement said.

It also said the continued presence of U.S. fighter jets over the strait “causes insecurity in this waterway and threatens regional security.”

“Any attempt by the United States to interfere in security matters or any disruptive action in the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a threat to Iran’s national sovereignty and will be met with a rapid and decisive reaction,” the Iranian warning added.

Iran and the United States agreed as part of an interim deal to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. But Tehran insisted it must control the routes of the vessels and later charge fees for passage, upending decades of practice in the waterway.

The U.S. and many Gulf Arab states say they won’t agree to the charges. An effort by Oman and a United Nations agency to launch a new route near Oman’s shore sparked attacks across the Mideast last weekend, highlighting the tensions.

Despite the tensions, Wednesday's talks saw “positive progress,” Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said. He told journalists that Pakistan hoped the next round of talks would be scheduled as soon as possible after Khamenei’s funeral.

___

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

The report, which was shared before publication with The Associated Press, plotted 144 suspected drone sightings across Europe, including in NATO members Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Denmark, between 2024 and 2026.

Those sightings peaked in late 2025, forcing the temporary closure of several European airports, including in Germany, Spain and Denmark.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the incidents in her country as the “ most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date.”

The IISS said the Russian campaign was designed to fall below the threshold of triggering discussions for a collective NATO response and was a “strategic failure” for Europe that exposed how the continent’s air defenses are not fit to deal with the current threat.

Air Chief Marshal John Stringer, NATO's deputy supreme allied commander in Europe, told AP that it is up to each alliance member to decide how to respond to such threats — and many countries are taking them increasingly seriously.

Several senior European officials said it’s difficult to attribute the drone incursions to Russia, and Stringer did not blame Moscow. But he suggested the activity fits the pattern of behavior seen in a widespread campaign of disruption across Europe that Western officials have blamed on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Of the handful of countries that have confirmed drone sightings, only Sweden has blamed Moscow directly — when a military drone flew toward a French aircraft carrier from a Russian spy ship.

President Vladimir Putin said in May that Russia is not waging a sabotage campaign against Europe.

European nations struggled to respond to drones, the IISS said

Drones are challenging to detect because they fly low and slow, and on radar can look like birds or planes. They can be launched inside, or near, national borders, bypassing missile defenses, which are designed to detect supersonic missiles fired from abroad. And even if a drone is shot down, it’s extremely difficult to identify where it came from or who sent it and why.

The incursions showed drone defenses in Europe need to rapidly be improved, the IISS said.

Creating a comprehensive picture of threats is often difficult because the responsibility for tackling drones is often split among various authorities, Lt. Gen. Jonny Lindfors, Sweden’s military representative to NATO, told AP. It’s also a “tough decision,” he said, to decide to shoot a drone down because it could cause civilian casualties.

In a June report, Denmark’s Defense Command said the armed forces “could have been in a stronger position” to respond to drone sightings and that there were shortcomings in equipment used to detect them. Following the incidents, Denmark and several other European countries said they would boost their drone defenses.

Countries that may have had a “benign” view of the danger a few years ago have now realized that counterdrone systems are a critical part of air defense, said Stringer.

Russia is launching drones from shadow ships, the IISS said

The IISS plotted the movement of Russian shadow fleet vessels — ships of uncertain ownership that help Moscow dodge sanctions — and concluded that it’s highly likely that Russia is using them as platforms for launching drones.

The report focused on sightings of drones across central and northwest Europe and did not examine incursions along NATO’s eastern flank, where multiple Russian and Ukrainian attack drones have entered European airspace.

On Dec. 2, the Vezhen, a shadow ship linked to the severing of a Baltic cable, sailed in circles off the coast of Ireland when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived for his first official visit, the IISS said. Another ship was nearby, but its signal was off, it said.

At that time, four large military drones were spotted off the Dublin coast, flying for two hours above an Irish navy ship, the report said. The Irish Defense Forces did not reply to a request for comment.

The report cited other sightings that occurred when shadow fleet ships were nearby, several in Denmark.

— On Jan. 3, 2025, as the shadow fleet vessel Arctica sailed along the Danish coast, the IISS said up to 20 drones flew over the port of Koege, Denmark, before disappearing toward the sea.

— On Sept. 22, drone sightings led to the closure of Copenhagen Airport. The IISS found several shadow ships were in the area at the time, including the Arctica and the Boracay.

— Over the next several days, as the Boracay rounded Denmark and several other ships were in the area, more drones were reported over the country, including near military installations.

The IISS said suspicion for at least some of the sightings in September fell on the Boracay. The French military boarded the ship at the end of the month, and President Emmanuel Macron said he can't rule out that the vessel was involved in the drone flights over Denmark.

Denmark’s Defense Command confirmed that drones were identified in the country’s airspace in September and October 2025. It didn’t link them to Russia but noted that Moscow is carrying out hybrid attacks against the West, including those that are of a “character and scope far beyond what Russia carried out before the war in Ukraine.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption” that Russia is launching drones from shadow fleet ships, said Lindfors, though he noted it's often “almost impossible” to attribute them to one nation or actor.

Russia flew drones above military sites, the report said

The report also concluded that Russia likely tried to monitor military sites in the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany and force NATO nations to scramble to defend against drones, and so reveal radar positions and gaps in defenses. Among the reports of drones over military installations cited by the IISS were:

— The U.S. Air Force in Europe said there were multiple sightings of drones in November 2024 over four American air bases in the U.K.

— German authorities recorded more than 1,000 suspicious drone sightings in 2025, including over defense companies and military bases where Ukrainian soldiers were training.

— Dutch and Belgian defense officials said drones were spotted in November and December 2025 over military bases in the Netherlands and Belgium. The IISS said the bases are believed to host American B61 nuclear bombs.

— Drone sightings were reported at the Ile Longue submarine base, which hosts France’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

The U.S. Air Force in Europe said it couldn't provide more detail on the incidents in the U.K., the Netherlands and Belgium, nor confirm the presence of American nuclear weapons.

A British defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military information, said a defense police investigation found no evidence to conclusively link the drone sightings in the U.K. to Russia. The Dutch Defense Ministry confirmed drones were seen over Volkel Air Base and said it took steps to defend military sites against drones.

The French army chief of staff headquarters said an investigation of the drones over Ile Longue is ongoing. It didn’t respond to questions about whether the military suspects the drones were launched from shadow fleet ships.

Requests for comment were also sent to defense ministries in Belgium, Denmark and Germany.

With so many incursions, “it would be naive to believe it’s just a coincidence,” said Lindfors, suggesting that such threats are the new normal.

___

Associated Press writers John Leicester, Lorne Cook and Mike Corder contributed.

Aceh’s Sharia court ordered the two people to be whipped with a rattan cane 21 times each for kissing without being married. At least a hundred people witnessed the caning, carried out by a group of people wearing robes and hoods on a stage in Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh.

The couple, a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, were arrested in April after a Feb. 27 livestream in which they kissed in a car in Banda Aceh went viral and prompted reports to local Sharia authorities.

Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that enforces a version of Islamic law. Indonesia’s secular central government granted the province the right to implement religious law in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end a separatist war.

In 2015, Aceh expanded the law to apply to non-Muslims, who account for about 1% of the province’s population.

The law allows up to 100 lashes for morality offenses including adultery and gay sex. Caning is also allowed to punish people gambling and drinking, and for women who wear tight clothes or men who skip Friday prayers.

The couple caned Thursday were sentenced to 25 lashes each, but it was reduced to 21 strokes because they had already spent four months in prison.

The court also seized a cellphone and a USB flash drive containing the TikTok live video as evidence to be destroyed.

Four other people were publicly caned on Thursday for online gambling and adultery.

Amnesty International Indonesia said public caning in Aceh as a form of human rights violation because it is cruel, inhumane and degrading to human dignity, even though Indonesia has ratified a convention mandating the abolition of inhumane punishments.

“Such behavior might be considered inappropriate because social media is viewed by people of various age groups, including children. But is it a crime that warrants imprisonment or even caning? That would be excessive,” said Usman Hamid, the Executive Director of Amnesty International Indonesia on Thursday.

Aini Nadhirah, 22, a Banda Aceh resident who attended the caning, said the public concern over the punishment could provide a lesson for others.

“In my opinion, this caning is entirely justified because it serves as a warning to other Aceh residents to be more careful when using social media. It also raises awareness that such actions are unacceptable, thereby educating the public,” Nadhirah said.

___

Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.

A total of 35 monks from Mukdahan province, about 600 kilometers (372 miles) northeast of the capital Bangkok, were on the pilgrimage. Five monks were killed at the site, while four others died at a hospital. Thirteen were hospitalized with three in critical condition, according to the provincial administration.

The group started the 260-kilometer (161-mile) walk to Ubon Ratchathani province about 30 minutes before the crash.

Security camera footage shared by a local rescue group, Ruam Jai Mukdahan Rescue Association, shows the monks walking in a single line on the side of a road before the truck crashes into them.

The boy is in custody and will be questioned when state child protection officers arrive, police said.

The cause of the accident is under investigation, but police said the monks described seeing the vehicle swerving before it slid off the road and crashed into the group.

By declaring a schism and extending sanctions to potentially thousands of Catholics, the Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors. While a fringe movement on the Catholic right, the SSPX has been a thorn in the Vatican's side for five decades because it claims to be even more Catholic than the Holy See.

The harshness of the response suggested that after trying to negotiate with the SSPX, the Vatican under Pope Leo XIV has had enough.

During a ritual-filled, five-hour Mass on Wednesday at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Leo, who had urged the group to hold off for the sake of church unity. An estimated 15,500 people and their children attended, a sign that the SSPX has plenty of supporters who came from around the world knowing full well they were defying Rome.

A decree targeting bishops and faithful

In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops who participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a “schismatic act” and declared the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican warned the faithful to stop going to the society’s Masses, declaring “those who adhere formally” to the society are considered themselves schismatic and excommunicated. It declared SSPX priests to be schismatic, and therefore excommunicated, and invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that they administer.

The Vatican has previously described “adherence” to the SSPX as including those faithful who share in the schism by placing their loyalties to the society above the pope, and those who participate exclusively in SSPX Masses. As a result, Thursday's decree could potentially involve the excommunications of thousands of rank-and-file SSPX faithful who attend SSPX Masses.

The sanctions, especially those targeting the priests, the faithful and the sacraments they can receive, were particularly harsh and reversed concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years as part of its outreach to bring the group back under Rome's wing.

The actions were announced just as one of the new bishops, Pascal Schreiber of Switzerland, was celebrating his first Mass as a bishop in Econe.

A group formed in opposition of modernism

French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent in 1988. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a “schismatic act.”

Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications as part of his yearslong outreach to the group. But the SSPX today has no legal standing in the church and with Thursday’s decree is declared to be in schism.

The consecrations had posed a crisis for Leo because the American pope has stressed the need for church unity. He has reached out especially to the conservative and traditionalist wing of the church that was in many ways alienated during the Pope Francis pontificate.

The Vatican responded so aggressively in part because the group poses something of a threat by representing a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church that has grown in the decades since its original break from Rome. While representing a fraction of the 1.4-billion strong Catholic faithful, the SSPX now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians training in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

Traditionalists in communion with Rome respond

In a note accompanying the decree, the Vatican said it was willing, “like a caring mother,” to welcome any SSPX faithful back into the fold. But it didn't create any specific Vatican entity to receive them, decreeing only that Vatican ambassadors around the world would establish procedures for local bishops to follow. The Vatican was expected to explain the procedures later Thursday in a doctrinal statement.

While the SSPX is out of communion with Rome, plenty of other Catholic traditionalists who love the Latin Mass remain in communion with the Holy See. They had been watching carefully to see how Leo's Vatican would respond to the SSPX consecrations and were surprised by the harshness of Thursday's sanctions.

Luigi Casalini, of the blog Messa in Latino, meaning Latin Mass, said the excommunication of the bishops was correct because canon law provides for it.

But the extension of the excommunications to SSPX priests and faithful was “an act of unusual severity,” he said, while saying the invalidation of SSPX sacraments was problematic.

“Above all, we find it hard to believe that, to date, no Vatican body has been established to manage potential defectors,” as was the case after the 1988 excommunications, Casalini told The Associated Press.

The SSPX has accused the church of being rife with errors, such as modernism and liberalism, and that only it is upholding the true faith of Christ. It has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful. Only two of the original four bishops consecrated in 1988 are alive, and the SSPX has said they simply are too old to minister to all the SSPX faithful.

In his homily during the consecrations Wednesday, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX superior, insisted the consecrations served Leo and the church.

“We are accused of not respecting the pope,” Pagliarani said. “But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don’t want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.”

One of the thousands of worshippers at Wednesday’s consecrations was Allison Isermann, a 24-year-old from St. Marys, Kansas, who grew up as a society member and strongly defended its teaching in opposition to Vatican II, specifically its openness to those of other faiths.

“It is actually very anti-Catholic and anti-charitable to affirm others and their beliefs when it is our duty and our mission to actually convert and sanctify the world and to restore all things in Christ,” she said.

___

Jamey Keaten contributed from Econe, Switzerland.

___

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.

Futures for the S&P 500 were unchanged before the opening bell, while Dow Jones Industrial futures inched up 0.2%. Nasdaq futures were off 0.4%.

Most chipmakers were down modestly premarket after a big sell-off a day earlier that saw Micron lose more than 10%. Micron fell another 2.3% overnight while most other chipmakers were down less than 1% early Thursday.

In Asia, South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index sank 7.9% to 7,648.09. with chip-related shares trading lower. Memory chipmaker SK Hynix lost 14.6% and Samsung Electronics tumbled 9.1%.

Surging demand for artificial intelligence has pushed many AI and tech stocks higher in recent months, with markets in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan reaping big gains. So far this year, the Kospi and Nikkei 225 have gained about 77% and 33%, respectively.

However, concerns over a potential glut in supply given the massive investments made by Big Tech companies in the U.S. and elsewhere have been clouding investor sentiment.

“AI demand may continue to grow but at a slower pace than expected,” economists Megan Fisher and Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics wrote in a note on Thursday. “Firms and investors may be underestimating the barriers to AI adoption.”

While transformative technologies can be adopted widely, they may still fall short of generating financial returns soon enough in order to justify the massive scale of investments made by many firms, the economists said.

Coming later Thursday morning is more data on the U.S. labor market. The June jobs report comes out a day earlier due to the July 4 holiday and the weekly unemployment benefits report, which acts as a proxy for layoffs, is also scheduled for release.

Oil prices fell after negotiators from the U.S. and Iran met separately with mediators from Qatar and Pakistan on Wednesday, as traders eyed developments in talks on achieving a permanent end to the war in Iran.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell $1 to $70.57 per barrel, effectively the price it was in the days before the war started. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.08 to $67.50 per barrel. U.S. crude was below $67 a barrel in the days leading up to the U.S.'s and Israel's attacks on Iran.

Hopes have risen that crude supplies will improve markedly with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that’s key for the world’s oil transport, even though the number of ships crossing the strait is still limited.

In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.5%, France's CAC 40 advanced 0.8% and Germany's DAX climbed 0.9%.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 2.5% to 68,733.15. Shares of chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron shed 7.4%.

Taiwan’s Taiex declined 0.6% as chipmaking giant TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., fell 1.6%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed 0.8% higher at 23,055.03. Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD’s shares rose 8.1% after it reported its sales rose for a second straight month. The Shanghai Composite index fell 2% to 4,028.90.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged less than 0.1% higher to 8,724.50.

India's Sensex climbed 0.6%.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar was at 161.36 Japanese yen, down from 162.58 yen, after the yen fell to a four-decade low against the dollar on Wednesday. The euro was trading at $1.1415, up from $1.1377.

After Trump questioned Italy’s reliability as a wartime ally and claimed Giorgia Meloni had groveled for his attention, European leaders rallied to Meloni's side, thawing what had been a frosty relationship over her hard-right political roots.

It is the latest example of how the often divisive American president is helping to draw Europe closer together.

European leaders are finding more reasons to coordinate on defense, tariffs and foreign policy as they confront wars in Ukraine and Iran, a ballooning trade deficit with China, and threats from Russia. That leaves Trump, who has often preferred to negotiate with European countries individually, with less ability to do so, analysts say.

“Most of the mainstream leaders realize that Europe is getting squeezed between China and America, and so, if not now, then when?” said Sudha David-Wilp, vice president at the German Marshall Fund. “They need to act as a bloc in order to maintain Europe’s place in the world.”

This newfound European unity could be tested next week at a NATO summit in Turkey.

European leaders rally around Meloni

Meloni's spat with Trump has helped her strengthen ties with European leaders once wary of her party’s post-fascist roots.

A pivotal moment came in March when she wouldn't allow U.S. bombers headed to the Middle East to use a base in Sicily without parliamentary approval.

For years before then, France and Germany often kept Meloni outside the small-group talks that helped shape Europe’s response to major foreign policy crises. That persisted into 2026 amid disagreements over the Russian war on Ukraine, including Meloni’s rejection of a proposal by Britain and France to send European troops there following a possible ceasefire.

But Trump’s escalating attacks on Meloni — who called Trump's criticism of Pope Leo “unacceptable” — helped shift the dynamic, prompting European leaders to rally around her.

After all, they, too, have been on the receiving end of Trump's barbs.

Meloni was firmly in the fold at a late June meeting in Berlin with the leaders of Germany, France, Britain and Poland. And she met the next day with French President Emmanuel Macron in southern France — the first bilateral summit since the pandemic.

Europe's nationalist parties are adjusting

Even nationalist parties across the continent once aligned with Trump are recalibrating their stances because his trade policies and war with Iran are proving unpopular with voters.

In France, far-right leader Jordan Bardella recently blasted U.S. actions as “foreign interference” and described Trump as “erratic” and “extremely unsteady.” Bardella had previously welcomed Trump's brand of nationalism as a “wind of freedom.”

In Germany, leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany party have criticized the U.S. military campaign against Iran. The co-leader of the party, Tino Chrupalla, said in March he was “extremely disappointed” with Trump, whom he had viewed as a politician who would avoid new conflicts.

The changing rhetoric comes as elections approach, putting more focus on domestic issues.

“This pushes everyone to consider a European horizon more than an international one,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a political analyst and professor at Rome’s LUISS University,

Beyond Europe’s biggest powers

These dynamics are playing out beyond the European Union, from the Arctic Ocean to the Balkans.

When Trump threatened to take Greenland by force, protests erupted in its capital, Nuuk, and in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. Leaders across the political spectrum bristled at the threatened infringement of European sovereignty and feared it could shatter the already stressed NATO military alliance.

In Albania, a luxury development being planned that is linked to Trump’s family business has become a major political issue, drawing protests in June.

The political risks of close alignment with Trump were perhaps most clearly illustrated in Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — long regarded as Trump’s closest ally in the European Union — was voted out of office in April despite support from the U.S. president and prominent figures in the MAGA movement.

An analysis by the consultancy Maplecroft suggested that negative perceptions of the Trump administration may have weighed on Orbán politically.

Meloni’s balancing act

Though Meloni remains closely aligned with Trump on issues like immigration and security, she has long diverged from him on Ukraine. Her steadfast support for Kyiv made her more palatable for European leaders and has been a key factor in forging a more united European front toward the U.S.

During their public spat last month, Meloni said her friendship with Trump came with a heavy political cost.

In her response to his accusation that she had “begged” to be photographed with him while at the recent G7 summit in France, she wrote on social media: “As for my popularity, being your friend has certainly not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you.”

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that Trump is deeply unpopular in Italy. According to the survey, 83% of Italians have no confidence in Trump’s ability to do the right thing regarding foreign affairs. His handling of a range of issues -- including Iran, tariffs, and U.S. immigration policies -- received a low level of support.

With a national election due by 2027 — and possibly as early as next spring — Meloni faces mounting political pressures, including fallout from the unpopular Iran war and her former ties to Trump.

Voters across Europe could hold their own politicians accountable for the actions of an American president beyond their control, said Castellani, the political analyst.

“At a certain point, when voters see the price of gasoline rising because of a war perceived as distant, they ask Meloni for the bill, not Trump.”

___

McNeil reported from Brussels. Associated Press Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.

More than a year after first trying to buy Infowars, The Onion on Thursday will debut a send-up under its own website with plans to give some of the revenue to families of the victims in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The families have still received no money from Jones since courts ordered him to pay more than $1 billion for falsely calling the 2012 shooting a hoax.

The Onion will start by sending the families $100,000 from merchandise sales that combine the conspiracy empire’s brand with the The Onion’s logo in rainbow colors, according to CEO Ben Collins, whose company is still in court trying to take control of Infowars.

“Don’t give comedy writers a grudge for 18 months,” Collins said.

The parody will include a series of shows and other content under Infowars branding that spoof Jones’ aggressive mashup of conspiracies linking major news events, dubious scientific claims, attacks on people suffering in tragedies and sales of supplements and survival gear.

Jones' claims that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut is a hoax have no truth, but Jones continued to amplify them. His followers started to harass victims' families, suggesting they were “crisis actors” and even making death threats.

Jones' Infowars empire had 10 million visitors a month and generated more than $50 million in annual revenues at its peak, according to the company. But the $1.4 billion judgements in defamation cases in Connecticut and Texas, where Jones is based, forced him into bankruptcy and broke Infowars apart.

“All he’s been left with is an iPhone and a fancy microphone," said Chris Mattei, an attorney for nine of the Sandy Hook families.

Jones has moved his show to a different website. An email sent to an address to request interviews went unanswered.

The families knew they could never stop Jones from getting his message out, and he has managed to avoid paying the judgement so far. But they could expose what he said and assure he can never profit again, Mattei said.

“Every dime Alex Jones makes from here until the end of eternity is going to be claimed by the families,” Mattei said.

The Onion stepped in when Collins saw Infowars' assets were going to be sold at auction.

Collins spoke to Sandy Hook families, who said they were briefly skeptical, but then saw how The Onion's staff could use the Infowars style and branding to take the moral high ground and make fun of the people who not only caused them so much pain but they felt also poisoned society.

Collins didn't want to give away too much of the new stuff before it goes live Thursday.

But the new Infowars will maintain The Onion's sharp satire sprinkled with shock value. Collins said there will be a section selling a penis flattening device, a fake “pro oxygen” supplement pill that the host claims can replace breathing, as well as an extended debate on how many Bozo the Clowns there are.

“It’s old-fashioned Infowars — using the tricks that they use to get people addicted to outrage and, I would say, addicted to anticipation, trying to find the thing that’s around the corner that’s going to save your life,” Collins said.

The Onion will keep chasing Jones' property. Collins thinks they will soon get control of the Austin, Texas, studio Infowars once used.

Some families can't wait for that day. Collins said that Robbie Parker, whose daughter died at Sandy Hook, plans to read his book about fighting Jones while dealing with so much grief in the place Jones once sat.

The families at first wanted Infowars shut down forever and Jones never heard from again. But they are now looking forward to seeing what The Onion has planned, attorney Mattei said.

“The idea that it could be turned to some social good. I think it’s even better,” Mattei said. “So, yeah, I think the families are both pleased and amused with what they’ve been able to achieve here.”

So if a certain pop idol were to choose this island, at this moment, for her vows, could anywhere be more fitting?

“This city has always known how to celebrate big moments. But this summer, so many of them have collided at once,” says Rabbi Yael Buechler, 40, of the Riverside section of the Bronx, who is preparing a “Swiftie Shabbat” this weekend with friendship bracelet cookies and a bedazzled challah bread she says is inspired by her “Chuppah Era.” “When I look back on the summer of 2026, I won’t remember just one event. I’ll remember a season when New York felt united in celebration.”

New York is always a city whose seduction battles its struggles, where the thrill of finding a subway car with an open seat meets the realization that it’s empty because its lone passenger is hurling trash across it. The schlepping, the waiting on line, the $9 boxes of cereal and $32 burgers and microscopic apartments with titanic rents, the sidewalk mounds of trash, the gutted rat you nearly step onto in the street. All of it can congeal into too much, separating New Yorkers for a season from New Yorkers for life.

But then there are those days when the streets are a storybook, with all the eclectic, utopian splendor Richard Scarry could muster, where you step out of an impossibly tiny, immeasurably cute cheese shop to find an impromptu classical concert on a front stoop. Neighbors exchange knowing looks at whatever absurdity unfolds before them, parks unfurl like paintings, a kaleidoscope of humanity seems in sync, lights twinkle, dumplings are cheap, pizza is perfect, bagels are fresh from the oven, dreams are all fulfilled.

Optimism emerges for summer in the city

In the battle between the slog of metropolitan life and its many daily gifts, some felt the recent arrival of a thumb on the scale.

The city’s trademark cynicism faded a bit. And in a place where celebrity passersby and visiting monarchs typically get the same collective shrug, a certain exuberance appeared. The beaming young mayor, fresh off an announcement that a swath of New York’s tenants would see no rent hike, was even found jumping into a city pool in a suit and tie.

This town has known seasons of many stripes, from that autumn of grief after 9/11 to that spring of solitude and trepidation as COVID-19 first emerged. They always pass. The city moves forward. But however long this Summer of New York stretches and the city pulsates with positivity, locals are relishing it.

“It’s easy to feel alone in the big city, but we all feel a bit closer right now,” says Dallas Short, a 38-year-old publicist who lives in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Manhattan. “Anything seems possible and attainable right now.”

More than anything, the Knicks’ fantastic run fueled today’s New York temperament, with its underdogs-coming-out-swinging, constantly-rallying-from-behind, Jalen Brunson methodically delivering, OG Anunoby tipping in an impossible shot, and millions of onlookers unsure of what they just witnessed as they slid into a warm bath of delight.

Spike Lee, a sideline fixture for decades and quintessential New Yorker, captured the city's darker side with his film “Summer of Sam,” set in the city's long-remembered summer of 1977. This year, he oozed joy even before victory was sealed.

“This is truly Fun City,” he proclaimed in The New York Times, “born again!”

Then there were those soccer games

Before the thrill of that even wore away, the world’s soccer fans descended, turning Times Square into a Viking longship and points across the city into flag-waving, drum-beating celebrations. In a city whose most iconic statue is a testament to its openness to newcomers, teams from Cape Verde to Paraguay to Congo found local fans and international visitors found compatriots.

“There is electricity in the air,” says Steven Gottlieb, a real estate agent and born-and-bred New Yorker who lives in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan. “Many of us have a love-hate relationship with New York City, but there’s a lot to love right now.”

Which brings us to none other than Taylor Swift.

After moving here over a decade ago, she penned “Welcome to New York,” which called the city a “true love” and portrayed it as an “ever-changing,” “drives you crazy,” “keeps you guessing” paramour.

Asked about her new home at the time, she told Rolling Stone, “In terms of being happy, I’ve never been closer.”

Swift was spotted courtside at Madison Square Garden in Game Four of the Knicks’ run. And if rumors prove to be true, she’ll return to the arena this week to celebrate a marriage to football player Travis Kelce. Should it come to pass, it would arrive on a week capped by all the revelry the city can serve up for the 250th anniversary of the country’s independence, in a fireworks-blasting, tall ships-sailing spectacle.

In this city scarred by terror, darkened by blackout and flooded by storm, no New Yorker would be so naïve as to think it all will last. The rents will rise. The kvetching will return. The smells and the crowds will again grow too much.

Let it be remembered, though: For a blissful moment in the summer of 2026, joy reigned here.

___

Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky

Democratic lawmakers and governors see it as a way to help pay for the joint federal and state insurance program that covers low-income residents as federal policy changes are expected to make the program more expensive for states and may lead to a reduction in the number of people with coverage.

Proponents also say it's about fairness because employers benefit from having some lower-income workers with taxpayer-funded health coverage.

Business groups object. So do some liberal policy organizations.

New Jersey is putting the fee in place

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a measure Tuesday night to charge employers that have at least 50 workers covered by Medicaid, and the state budget she approved earlier in the week counts on raising $145 million this year from the program.

Under the plan, companies will be billed for each employee and employees' dependent receiving Medicaid, the joint state-federal insurance program.

The fees per person would start at $325 a year for companies with 50 to 249 Medicaid beneficiaries and top out at $725 annually for employers with at least 500 recipients.

Federal Medicaid changes are prompting Democratic-led states to act

A bill passed this week in California doesn't impose a charge now, but it does direct the state administration to present lawmakers options for doing so next year.

Finishing the job would fall to the successor of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is leaving office in January. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has made an employer charge part of his election platform.

State Sen. John Laird, a Democrat who sponsored the California proposal, said the big tax and policy law President Donald Trump signed a year ago was a major factor in the need for action because it could prompt the state to spend more on Medicaid to plug holes left by federal changes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects more than 10 million people will be uninsured because of the law by 2034. It requires some beneficiaries to work, be in school or volunteer — and requires even more to document whether they meet the requirements. Most employees at the bigger companies would not be at risk of losing Medicaid coverage as long as they're working at least 20 hours a week.

Laird also said there's an equity issue involved.

“If you're a small business person in California, you are quite likely paying for health insurance for your employees. And through your taxes, you're paying for health insurance for some of the biggest employers in California,” he said. “And that's not fair.”

Legislation with similar intents passed one legislative chamber in both Colorado and Oregon this year, but neither made it to law. A measure was also introduced in Washington.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat who is seeking a third term in November's election, has called for the same move there with the idea of making it a part of the state budget that would kick in two years from now.

Opposition comes from business and some liberal groups

It's no surprise that business organizations have criticized the approach, which would add to their expenses.

“The fact remains that many job-creators are still going to be penalized for something they have no control over,” Christopher Emigholz, the chief government affairs officer at the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said in a statement. “If an employee declines an employer-provided health plan because they’d rather be on Medicaid, it is unfair to penalize the employer for that employee’s decision.”

Some left-leaning policy organizations also oppose the charges.

Gideon Lukens, who analyzes health policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that while the idea may be well-intentioned, it could lead companies to employ fewer people from low-income household or single parents. He said companies could also consider the policy in decisions about whom to hire or lay off — and also on where to locate or how many workers to employ.

And, he said, it could make employees — or potential employees — less likely to enroll in Medicaid knowing it would make them less attractive to employers.

“Usually, when I see a tax on something it’s going to discourage whatever being taxed,” he said in an interview.

New Jersey's legislation tries to address some of the concerns. It would exempt temporary, seasonal and part-time employees. It would also bar employment decisions based on a workers’ Medicaid status.

The idea has come up before, though it's never stuck for long

Charging companies whose workers are covered by Medicaid isn't a new idea. At least two states have previously enacted it, and it's been proposed in Congress.

Massachusetts lawmakers in 2017 adopted a charge on employers up to $750 per nondisabled worker who was covered through Medicaid or a state-subsidized health exchange plan. The program began in 2018 was not renewed when it expired the next year.

An even earlier policy in Maryland, in 2006, immediately affected only Walmart. An industry group challenged it in court and won, stopping the fees. A federal judge found that it required the company to track and allocate employment benefits differently in Maryland than in other states in violation of a federal law that governs self-insured employee health plans.

The latest generation of proposals may avoid that legal pitfall by not referencing those health plans in the legislation.

Those in the crowd beat their chests rhythmically in the intense summer heat, the wails of women cutting through the noise. Mourners rushed the casket, causing the 86-year-old religious leader's white-wrapped body to tumble out into the crowd.

Initial reports said the chaos killed at least eight people and injured some 11,000 others. It was recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest percentage of a population to attend a funeral, drawing an estimated 10.2 million people — about one-sixth of Iran’s population at the time

Now, as Iran prepares to bury the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, The Associated Press is making its story and historic photographs of Khomeini's funeral available. The story has been edited for typographical errors, but maintains the AP style of the day.

___

Mourners Block Funeral, Postpone Burial; Scores Crushed in the Chaos

By ALEX EFTY

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Millions of mourners beating on their heads and chests today blocked the funeral procession of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and scores of people, including Khomeini’s son, were crushed in the chaos.

The unyielding crowds forced authorities to postpone the burial.

There was no immediate word on if or how many people were killed, injured or simply fainted because of the 91-degree heat. At least eight people were killed and hundreds hurt Monday during a similar huge show of mass grief.

Security forces fired in the air to disperse the crowds, but the grieving multitudes remained, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The Revolutionary Guards beat mourners on their hands to let go of Khomeini’s coffin.

Khomeini’s only son, Ahmad, 43, was knocked down in the dusty north Tehran square outside the Mosalla Mosque where Khomeini’s body had lay in state since Monday in an air-conditioned glass-encased bier.

Ahmad Khomeini’s white turban fell off as he was being hoisted above the crowds and passed from hand to hand to an ambulance at the edge of the square. He appeared pale and drowsy, but conscious.

The hearse carrying the body was stranded in a sea of mourners clad in black, unable to move forward because of the crowds, IRNA said.

Tehran television said it was “impossible” to break through the grieving multitudes to bury Khomeini before dusk. Islam forbids burying the dead after nightfall.

Khomeini died Saturday at age 86.

He was to be buried at the Baheshte Zahra cemetery, 22 miles south of Tehran, alongside victims of the Islamic revolution that catapulted him to power 10 years ago and thousands killed in the Iran-Iraq war.

The television said alternative arrangements for Khomeini’s burial would be announced later.

Shouts of “Allah Akbar!” God is Great, echoed across the city. The hearse had hardly covered a half mile of the journey two hours into the funeral procession.

Many of Tehran’s 6 million people turned out to bid Khomeini farewell. Millions more converged on the city from other regions, the official media reported.

The procession began at 7 a.m. when Khomeini’s devout militants, the Revolutionary Guards, carried his body down from the bier.

Five helicopters hovered overhead as a martial band played somber tunes.

Khomeini’s body was wrapped in the Islamic republic flag and laid on the ground in the open air as the white-bearded Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Golpaygani prayed. Golapaygani, one of the four remaining senior ayatollahs in Iran, choked often and lifted his spectacles to wipe tears with a handkerchief.

After the 30-minute service, Khomeini’s body was placed in a wooden coffin that was covered with a white cloth, then carried by Revolutionary Guards from hand to hand into a white van.

Crowds cried hysterically. Readings from the Koran, Islam’s holy book, blared from the mosque’s minaret as the masses cried: “Farewell beloved imam!” and “Oh Khomeini, why have you left us?”

They pounded their heads and chests with clenched fists in a traditional Shiite Moslem expression of grief.

In the chaos, women, clad in head-to-toe black chadors, were rubbing shoulders with men, defying an Islamic ban on physical contact between a woman and a man other than her husband.

Firefighters sprayed the mourners with water to cool them off.

About 2 million frenzied mourners had kept a nightlong candle-lit vigil around the bier.

Some mourners scratched their faces until the blood ran and threw ashes over their clothes.

Khomeini died of a heart attack 11 days after intestinal surgery without resolving the problem of who would succeed him. He left a 29-page “political testament,” excerpts of which were read over Tehran radio on Monday.

The excerpts made no reference to how Iran should be governed after his death. But such proposals may have been in the sections that still have not been made public.

President Ali Khamenei, 49, was appointed caretaker leader Sunday. A presidential election and referendum on constitutional reforms, which are likely to increase the president’s executive power, are scheduled for Aug. 18.

Khamenei’s swift appointment was designed mainly to fill the vacuum amid political turmoil that has prevailed since Khomeini launched his resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism in February with a call for the death of British novelist Salman Rushdie.

In the absence of a single personality who can match Khomeini’s religious and political authority, it seemed likely that Iran would be ruled by a collective leadership.

Khamenei has endorsed the presidential candidacy of Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani, 55, a political ally and the only declared candidate.

Former Iranian President Abolhassen Bani-Sadr said from exile in France that Khamenei’s appointment indicated “total failure” by the government.

“Imagine a church that cannot find a pope. It is exactly the same, like a dynasty that cannot find a king. … It will not last,” he said.

Officials are actively enforcing that rule change.

The latest incident came on Tuesday night when Ecuador defender Piero Hincapié was sent off in second-half stoppage time of his team’s 2-0 loss to Mexico in the round of 32. The red card didn’t impact the outcome of the match, which ended moments later.

Hincapié’s red card came after an exchange with Mexico forward Santi Giménez.

Why did FIFA establish the new rule?

FIFA established the new rule to prevent players from hiding abusive, discriminatory or offensive language while on the field.

Nicknamed the “Prestianni Law,” rules for red cards to players at the World Cup were added because of a controversy in international soccer this year.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino pushed for changes after Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni tried to hide verbal insults toward Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior in a Champions League match. Soccer’s rule-making panel, the International Football Association Board, agreed that players can be penalized with a red card if they cover their mouths when verbally confronting another player.

The rule is not mandatory within the Laws of the Game but gives tournament organizers like FIFA the option to use it at their discretion.

The rule change was unanimously approved by IFAB, which includes officials from FIFA and the four British soccer federations, at a special meeting ahead of the FIFA Congress. FIFA’s proposal followed Vinícius, backed by Real Madrid teammate Kylian Mbappé, accusing Prestianni of making a racially charged insult while raising his jersey to cover his mouth during the game in February.

Is Piero Hincapié the only player who has received a red card at the World Cup?

No. Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almirón was the first player to be punished under the new rule when he was sent off in a group match against Turkey for covering his mouth during a confrontation with defender Mert Mulder.

Paraguay won 1-0, but Almiron missed Paraguay’s final group game against Australia. FIFA said that decision was not subject to appeal.

What does it mean when a player receives a red card at the World Cup?

If a player is shown a red card by an official, he is ejected from the match and must serve a one-game suspension in the following match.

The team is forced to play the remainder of the match with 10 players — putting them at a huge disadvantage — but is allowed to start the following match at full strength with 11 players, just not the suspended player. ___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

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After 16 single direct-knockout matches, the winning teams will advance to the tournament’s Round of 16, which begins on the Fourth of July.

Here is the list of the teams that have advanced to the Round of 16:

1. Canada, the Group B runner-up, qualified after a 1-0 victory on June 28 against Canada. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 1 p.m. on July 4 against Morocco.
2. Brazil, the Group C winner, qualified after a 2-0 victory on June 29 against Japan. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 4 p.m. on July 5 against Norway.
3. Paraguay, the third in Group D, qualified after a 1-1 draw that ended with a 4-3 victory on penalties against Germany on June 29. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 5 p.m. at Philadelphia Stadium.
4. Morocco, the Group C runner-up, qualified after a 1-1 draw that ended with a 3-2 victory on penalties against the Netherlands on June 30. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 1 p.m. on July 4 against Canada.
5. France, the Group I winner, qualified after a 3-0 victory again Sweden on July 1. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 5 p.m. on July 4 against Paraguay.
6. Norway, the Group I runner-up, qualified after a 2-1 victory against the Ivory Coast on July 1. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 4 p.m. on July 5 against Brazil.
7. Mexico, the Group A winner, qualified after a 2-0 victory against Ecuador on July 1. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 8 p.m. on July 5 against England.
8. England, the Group L winner, qualified after a 2-1 victory against Congo on July 1. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 8 p.m. on July 5 against Mexico.
9. Belgium, the Group G winner, qualified after a 3-2 victory against Senegal on July 1. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 8 p.m. on July 6 against the United States.
10. The U.S., the Group D winner, qualified after a 2-0 victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1. The team’s Round of 16 match is at 8 p.m. on July 6 against Belgium.

TRACK PROGRESS

• Eliminations during Round of 32
• Round of 32 teams
• View the knockout bracket

TOURNAMENT’S SCHEDULE

Round of 32 knock-out matches

July 2

• Spain vs. Austria at 3 p.m. at Los Angeles Stadium
• Portugal vs. Croatia at 7 p.m. at the Toronto Stadium
• Switzerland vs. Algeria at 11 p.m. at BC Place Vancouver.

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 3

• Australia vs. Egypt is at 2 p.m. at the Dallas Stadium.
• Argentina vs. Cape Verde is at 6 p.m. at the Miami Stadium
• Colombia vs. Ghana is at 9:30 p.m. at the Kansas City Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from 1 p.m to 9 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

Round of 16 begins

July 4

• Canada vs. Morocco is at 1 p.m. at the Houston Stadium
• Paraguay vs. France is at 5 p.m. at the Philadelphia Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from noon to midnight at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 5

• Brazil vs. Norway at 4 p.m. at the New York/New Jersey Stadium
• Mexico vs. England at 8 p.m. at the Mexico City Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens for the last day from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 6: There are two matches at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

• U.S. vs. Belgium at 8 p.m. at the Seattle Stadium.

July 7: There are two matches at noon and 4 p.m.

Quarterfinals begin

July 9: There is a quarter-final match at 4 p.m.

July 10: There is a quarter-final match at 3 p.m.

July 11: There are two quarter-final matches at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Sunrise watch party: The indoor Amerant Bank Arena is hosting a free watch party for ticket holders at 5 p.m. on July 11. Parking is free.

Semifinals begin

July 14: The fan festival is closed. There is a semi-final match at 3 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 3 p.m. on July 14 at The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the semifinal match.

July 15: There is a semi-final match at 3 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 3 p.m. on July 15 at The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the semifinal match.

Finals begin

July 18: The third-place play-off match is at 5 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 3 p.m. on July 18 at The Sandbowl, behind The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the 5 p.m. bronze final.

Sunrise ride to stadium: The Amerant Bank Arena has free parking for FIFA World Cup ticket holders who ride Broward County’s free Express bus transportation to the Miami Stadium, also known as Hard Rock, in Miami Gardens.

July 19: The final match is at 3 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 1 p.m. on July 19 at The Sandbowl, behind The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the 3 p.m. final.

Sunrise watch party: The indoor Amerant Bank Arena is hosting a free watch party for ticket holders for the final on July 19. Parking is free.

Senegal held a 2-0 lead with just 5 minutes of regulation time remaining but late goals by Romelu Lukaku and Youri Tielemans pushed the round of 32 match into extra time.

Tielemans completed Belgium’s comeback by converting a penalty in the 125th minute of the game – the latest goal in World Cup history.

“Being part of this comeback is a proud moment because I scored the last two goals to give the team the win today. I’m very proud of that to be able to help the team to score goals and bring us over the line,” Tielemans said.

He was fouled with only seconds to go and with a penalty shootout looming, and the referee awarded the spot kick after a video review, ignoring protests from the Senegal team.

“I do not want to interpret the decision. We all have different interpretations when it comes to awarding a penalty,” Senegal coach Pape Thiaw said. “I’d rather not comment, not interpreting the referee’s decision.”

The win for Belgium marked the second time in the last 11 World Cups that a team trailed by two or more goals in the knockout round and advanced. Belgium also did so in a 3-2 victory over Japan in the round of 16 at the 2018 tournament.

“Senegal deserved to win,” Belgium coach Rudi Garcia said. ”But, I am happy it was us.”

Many of the key players from the Belgium team that finished in third place in Russia in 2018 were instrumental to Wednesday’s victory. Lukaku, who leads his nation in goals scored, came off the bench to get Belgium back into the match by scoring in the 86th minute, setting the scene for Tielemans to force extra time.

“It is a cruel loss, as we were good in the game,” Thiaw said. ”We had the advantage. We were leading 2-0. However a football match is not an 85-minute one. Belgium came back, and we were not able to deal with that ... We must congratulate Belgium as they progress.”

Belgium is back in the round of 16 for the third time in four tournaments. The team reached the quarterfinals in 2014 and the semifinals in 2018 but failed to get out of the group stage four years ago in Qatar.

The Belgians will next face the United States on Monday in Seattle.

Senegal long appeared to be heading toward the round of 16. Habib Diarra scored in the first half and Ismaïla Sarr made it 2-0 at the start of the second. It was his fourth goal of the World Cup, and one of the most beautiful of the tournament. Sarr made a perfect first touch off his chest on a long ball from Moussa Niakhaté and then sent his shot past Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.

Courtois, who was playing in his fourth World Cup, then made three key saves to keep Senegal from increasing its lead.

Senegal defender Krépin Diatta said Belgium should not have been allowed to get back into the game.

“It shouldn’t have happened. You have to defend your box and you have to be the boss of your box,” he said. ”We suffered, but we have to go on. It’s a pity.”

Lukaku said Belgium showed character with its late comeback.

“This Senegal side is one of the best teams in the tournament,” he said. “Technically, physically and tactically, it was really tough. But when we stepped up the intensity of our pressing, when we were there for the second ball, our team spirit shone through and we won the match.”

Senegal headed to the World Cup as the second-highest ranking team in Africa, behind Morocco. It won a chaotic Africa Cup of Nations final on Jan. 18 against Morocco, but the result was overturned by the governing body of African soccer because Thiaw had temporarily pulled his players off the pitch.

Senegal advanced to the World Cup knockout phase as one of the best third-place finishers after losing to France and Norway and beating Iraq.

“It’s the best African nation. It’s as simple as that,” Garcia said. ”They showed that even against France, they dominated in the first half. They came out of a difficult group. I would have preferred not to play against them.”

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Harry Kane ensured England avoided an early exit from the inaugural 48-team World Cup by scoring two second-half goals in a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Congo in the round of 32 on Wednesday.

The late victory, England’s second ever at the World Cup after conceding the first goal, earned the 1966 champions a spot in the round of 16 and a match against co-host Mexico.

“It was just about pounding the rock, keep pounding the rock and our moment would come,” Kane said after scoring his fourth and fifth goals of the tournament. “We spoke about people having hero moments. It can be anyone in the team … Whoever it is, we have hero moments, and for me it was the day.”

That team’s next match will be played at the Azteca Stadium, the site of Argentina great Diego Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God” goal that eliminated England from the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals.

Getting there didn’t come easy against a Congo team that nearly pulled off one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history.

England’s only other World Cup victory after trailing 1-0 came in the 1966 final against West Germany at Wembley Stadium.

“That’s a good sign. It just shows you the level of determination and the level of belief and also the level of focus,” England coach Thomas Tuchel said. “I didn’t feel the weight on their shoulders and I found that we played it with the exactly right attitude and we trusted our spirit.

“The goalkeeper kept on saving incredible saves ... but this team today did not accept a defeat as an outcome.”

Kane made sure the early deficit wasn’t a problem Wednesday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium by extending his record as his country’s leading scorer in tournament history to 13. He has a record 84 goals for the national team in total.

His first goal came in the 75th minute. Substitute Anthony Gordon lifted a cross from the left and despite Congo goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi getting a hand to Kane’s header, he didn’t stop it from nestling into the bottom corner.

Eleven minutes later, Kane sent his shot into the top corner to put the thoughts of an upset to rest.

“When you get to the knockouts, the pressure and the risks are so much higher. But from an attacking point of view, that was easily our best game of the tournament,” Kane said. “Sometimes you just have to grind wins out and we did exactly that today. I told the boys to enjoy it. We’re through, and we go again in four days.”

Brian Cipenga had put Congo in the lead in the seventh minute after collecting a cross on the left of the box and shooting low past England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford at the near post.

Mpasi did his best to keep that 1-0 lead alive. He denied Jude Bellingham on three occasions — blocking two close-range headers before halftime and then clawing away another deflected effort after the break.

Kane nearly made a breakthrough late in the first half, but Mpasi blocked a powerful shot at the near post. And the keeper was also caught up in a collision with Kane in the box. England thought it should have been awarded a penalty, but referee Adham Makhadmeh waved away appeals.

Congo had a chance to double its lead when Yoane Wissa hit the post in the first half.

“We’re disappointed because we really believed we could do it,” Congo coach Sébastien Desabre said. “We played well. Towards the end of the match, we conceded two chances and one of the world’s best players scored two goals against us. It’s a shame.”

England’s only major soccer title came in that 1966 tournament at home. But the team has been getting closer to another in recent years, reaching back-to-back European Championship finals and the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Tuchel has been hired to end that winless run. As a German, his appointment was a controversial choice given England’s long-standing rivalry with his country. So anything other than a deep run in this year’s tournament would likely reignite questions over the wisdom of that decision.

Despite winning Group L with two wins and a draw at this year’s World Cup, there has been a mixed response to England’s performances.

And in a tournament that has seen traditional powers like Germany and the Netherlands eliminated early, the fear was that England could follow that trend against a Congo team that already held Portugal to a 1-1 draw in the group stage.

The 46th-ranked Congo team had already made history with its first goal, point and win at a World Cup, 52 years after its only previous appearance when competing as Zaire at the 1974 tournament in West Germany.

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

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

After 16 single direct-knockout matches, the winning teams will advance to the tournament’s Round of 16, which begins on the Fourth of July.

Here is the list of the Round of 32 teams eliminated:

1. South Africa, the Group A runner-up with 4 points, was eliminated on June 28 after Canada won 1-0.
2. Japan, the Group F runner-up with 5 points, was eliminated on June 29 after Brazil won 2-1.
3. Germany, the Group E winner with 6 points, was eliminated on June 29 after a 1-1 draw ended with a 4-3 defeat on penalties against Paraguay.
4. The Netherlands, the Group F winner with 7 points, was eliminated on June 29 after a 1-1 draw ended with a 3-2 defeat on penalties against Morocco.
5. Ivory Coast, the Group E runner-up with 6 points, was eliminated on June 30 after Norway won 2-1.
6. Ecuador, the third in Group E with 4 points, was eliminated on June 30 after Mexico won 2-0.
7. Sweden, the third in Group F with 4 points, was eliminated on June 30 after France won 3-0.
8. Congo, the third in Group K with 4 points, was eliminated on July 1 after England won 2-1.
9. Senegal, the third in Group I with 4 points, was eliminated on July 1 after Belgium won 3-2.
10. Bosnia and Herzegovina, the third in Group B with 4 points, was eliminated on July 1 after the U.S. won 2-0.

TRACK PROGRESS

• Round of 16 qualifications
• Eliminations during Round of 32
• Round of 32 teams
• View the knockout bracket

TOURNAMENT’S SCHEDULE

Round of 32 knock-out matches

July 2

• Spain vs. Austria at 3 p.m. at Los Angeles Stadium
• Portugal vs. Croatia at 7 p.m. at the Toronto Stadium
• Switzerland vs. Algeria at 11 p.m. at BC Place Vancouver.

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 3:

• Australia vs. Egypt is at 2 p.m. at the Dallas Stadium.
• Argentina vs. Cape Verde is at 6 p.m. at the Miami Stadium
• Colombia vs. Ghana is at 9:30 p.m. at the Kansas City Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from 1 p.m to 9 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

Round of 16 begins

July 4

• Canada vs. Morocco is at 1 p.m. at the Houston Stadium
• Paraguay vs. France is at 5 p.m. at the Philadelphia Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from noon to midnight at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 5

• Brazil vs. Norway at 4 p.m. at the New York/New Jersey Stadium
• Mexico at 8 p.m. at the Mexico City Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens for the last day from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 6: There are two matches at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

July 7: There are two matches at Noon and 4 p.m.

Quarterfinals begin

July 9: There is a quarter-final match at 4 p.m.

July 10: There is a quarter-final match at 3 p.m.

July 11: There are two quarter-final matches at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Sunrise watch party: The indoor Amerant Bank Arena is hosting a free watch party for ticket holders at 5 p.m. on July 11. Parking is free.

Semifinals begin

July 14: The fan festival is closed. There is a semi-final match at 3 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 3 p.m. on July 14 at The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the semifinal match.

July 15: There is a semi-final match at 3 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 3 p.m. on July 15 at The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the semifinal match.

Finals begin

July 18: The third-place play-off match is at 5 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 3 p.m. on July 18 at The Sandbowl, behind The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the 5 p.m. bronze final.

Sunrise ride to stadium: The Amerant Bank Arena has free parking for FIFA World Cup ticket holders who ride Broward County’s free Express bus transportation to the Miami Stadium, also known as Hard Rock, in Miami Gardens.

July 19: The final match is at 3 p.m.

Miami Beach watch party: Doors open at 1 p.m. on July 19 at The Sandbowl, behind The Bandshell, at 7275 Collins Ave., for the 3 p.m. final.

Sunrise watch party: The indoor Amerant Bank Arena is hosting a free watch party for ticket holders for the final on July 19. Parking is free.

Track group-stage

• Group A
• Group B
• Group C
• Group D
• Group E
• Group F
• Group G
• Group H
• Group I
• Group J
• Group K
• Group L

Wednesday marked the first day of Plastic Free July, a campaign encouraging people to reduce their use of plastics. Miami-Dade County is joining the effort with a new initiative.

Miami-Dade County unveiled its first Hope Hydration Station at the Government Center Metrorail station in downtown Miami, offering free cold, filtered water to anyone who wants to refill a reusable bottle.

“It’s going to really change culture. I’m sure we’re going to see more people utilizing this and saying no, refusing those plastic water bottles,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.

The goal is to encourage people to switch to reusable bottles and refuse plastic ones to help curb the massive amount of plastic waste ending up in the environment.

“It’s super easy. Place your bottle, water comes out chilled, it’s filtered, it’s free, and our whole thesis is that if these are more accessible, more beautiful and easier to access, then everyone is going to be more sustainable. There’s no need for a plastic bottle if there are Hope stations everywhere,” said Cristina Gnecco, co-founder and COO of Hope Hydration.

Hope Hydration founder and CEO Jorge Richardson said the timing of the station’s unveiling ahead of Plastic Free July was intentional.

Plastic Free July is a global movement urging people to reduce their plastic waste one reusable choice at a time.

“We don’t need a few people doing this perfectly. We need a lot of people trying, and that’s how we will actually start to have this ripple effect impact,” said Maddie Kaufman, program director for Debris Free Oceans.

The idea is to start small by eliminating one plastic habit from daily life.

“It takes, like, two weeks to build a habit. So take two weeks to try to build a habit with one item,” Kaufman said.

The need for action has never been greater.

“It is a scary number. And yes, we are in crisis mode,” said Marcus Eriksen, co-founder and director of research for the 5 Gyres Institute.

Roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, adding to the more than 171 trillion plastic particles already there. Plastic production is projected to double over the next 25 years.

“We pick up 20,000-plus pounds of trash per day on International Coastal Cleanup Day. Our landfills are filling up with plastic. Our bodies are filling up with plastic,” Kaufman said.

Advocates say recycling alone will not solve the problem. Globally, only 9% of plastic is ever recycled, and they say the only way forward is to refuse plastic whenever possible.

“Recycling does not work. We cannot reasonably keep up with the plastic that’s produced now and will be in the future,” said Catherine Uden, senior field representative for Oceana South Florida.

With Florida law preventing local governments from regulating most single-use plastics, much of the responsibility falls on consumers.

Programs like Plastic Free Miami Beach and Plastic Free 305 help consumers make better choices by highlighting businesses that have significantly reduced their plastic packaging and single-use items.

“73% of visitors, tourists and consumers want to spend their money on sustainable businesses and their products,” said Cynthia Seymour of the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District.

Hope Hydration plans to install 15 more stations throughout Miami-Dade County at public parks and other county venues. The goal is to expand to 250 stations over the next year, making it easier, free and more convenient for people to stop buying bottled water in plastic containers and use refillable bottles instead.

The Ice Bucket Challenge gained popularity in the summer of 2014 as a way to raise ALS awareness. People took a video or photo as they got a bucket of ice water dumped on them, and they’d challenge friends or relatives to do the same.

According to the ALS Therapy Development Institute, the drive helped raise an estimated $135 million in the United States and $220 million worldwide in the fight against ALS.

Johnson attempted to boost the cause once more in an Instagram post Wednesday, two days after announcing on “Good Morning America” that he’s dealing with ALS.

Johnson said he was inspired after watching former Utah men’s basketball player Hunter Mecum post an Instagram video in which he dumped ice water on his head to honor the 40-year-old former running back.

“The support you’ve shown me over the last few days has meant more than I can put into words,” Johnson said in his post. “Seeing this video reminded me of something powerful. Years ago, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge united millions of people around one cause and helped change the fighting against this disease. Today, I’m asking you to help me do it again.”

Johnson challenged former All-Pro running back Marshawn Lynch and former Tennessee Titans teammates LenDale White and Adam “Pacman” Jones to participate. Johnson later added Instagram Story posts showing White and others getting doused with water.

In his “Good Morning America” interview, Johnson said he was diagnosed with ALS last year.

The 2008 first-round draft pick from East Carolina rushed for 9,651 yards during a 10-year career that included stints with the Titans (2008-13), New York Jets (2014) and Arizona Cardinals (2015-17). He rushed for 2,006 yards and was The Associated Press offensive player of the year in 2009.

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

The World Cup’s daily group-stage matches ended on June 27 after 16 teams were eliminated.

The 48 qualifying teams started the tournament with matches within 12 groups of four on June 11.

As the tournament continues, the single direct-knockout matches to advance into the Round of 16 are set to end on July 3.

The list of 32

Here is the list of the teams in order of group-stage placement, points earned, and FIFA ranking:

1. Argentina (1) wins Group J with 9 points. The match is at 6 p.m. on July 3 against Cape Verde.
2. France (2) wins Group I with 9 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
3. Mexico (14) wins Group A with 9 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
4. Spain (3) wins Group H with 7 points. The match is at 3 p.m. on July 2 against Austria.
5. England (4) wins Group L with 7 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
6. Brazil (6) wins Group C with 7 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
7. The Netherlands (8) wins Group F with 7 points. The team was eliminated on June 29.
8. Belgium (9) wins Group G with 7 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
9. Colombia (11) wins Group K with 7 points. The match is at 9:30 p.m. on July 3 against Ghana.
10. Switzerland (17) wins Group B with 7 points. The match is at 11 p.m. on July 2 against Algeria.
11. Germany (10) wins Group E with 6 points. The team was eliminated on June 29.
12. United States (15) wins Group D with 6 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
13. Morocco (7) is the Group C runner-up with 7 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
14. Ivory Coast (30) is the Group E runner-up with 6 points. The team was eliminated on June 30.
15. Norway (31) is the Group I runner-up with 6 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
16. Portugal (5) is the Group K runner-up with 5 points. The match is at 7 p.m. on July 2 against Croatia.
17. Japan (18) is the Group F runner-up with 5 points. The team was eliminated on June 29.
18. Egypt (26) is the Group G runner-up with 5 points. The match is at 3 p.m. on July 3 against Australia.
19. Australia (27) is the Group D runner-up with 4 points. The match is at 3 p.m. on July 3 against Egypt.
20. Canada (32) is the Group B runner-up with 4 points. The team advanced to Round of 16.
21. South Africa (54) is the Group A runner-up with 4 points. The team was eliminated on June 28.
22. Cape Verde (64) is the Group H runner-up with 3 points. The match is at 6 p.m. on July 3 against Argentina.
23. Austria (22) is the Group J runner-up with 4 points. The match is at 7 p.m. on July 2 against Spain.
24. Croatia (11) is the Group L runner-up with 6 points. The match is at 7 p.m. on July 2 against Portugal.
25. Senegal (18) classifies after placing third in Group I with 4 points. The team was eliminated on July 1.
26. Algeria (29) classifies after placing third in Group J with 4 points and a minus two goal difference. Game day: July 2
27. Ecuador (32) classifies after placing third in Group E with 4 points. The team was eliminated on June 30.
28. Paraguay (37) classifies after placing third in Group D with 4 points and a minus two goal difference. The team advanced to Round of 16.
29. Sweden (38) classifies after placing third in Group F with 4 points. The team was eliminated on June 30.
30. Congo (46) classifies after placing third in Group K with 4 points plus one goal difference. The team was eliminated on July 1.
31. Bosnia and Herzegovina (64) classifies after placing third in Group B with 4 points and a minus one goal difference. The team was eliminated on July 1.
32. Ghana (65) classifies after placing third in Group L with 4 points. The match is at 9:30 p.m. on July 3 against Colombia.

TRACK PROGRESS

• Round of 16 qualifications
• Eliminations during Round of 32

TOURNAMENT’S SCHEDULE

Round of 32 knock-out matches

July 2

• Spain vs. Austria at 3 p.m. at Los Angeles Stadium
• Portugal vs. Croatia at 7 p.m. at the Toronto Stadium
• Switzerland vs. Algeria at 11 p.m. at BC Place Vancouver.

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

July 3:

• Australia vs. Egypt is at 2 p.m. at the Dallas Stadium.
• Argentina vs. Cape Verde is at 6 p.m. at the Miami Stadium
• Colombia vs. Ghana is at 9:30 p.m. at the Kansas City Stadium

Miami watch parties: The fan festival opens from 1 p.m to 9 p.m. at Bayfront Park, at 301 Biscayne Boulevard.

Rodríguez, the interim president of Venezuela since Nicolás Maduro’s capture, faced accusations that her administration and supporters were hindering the disaster relief effort instead of contributing to it.

“If in fact we are having impediments being put in the way of getting the help to the people of Venezuela, then we need to exert as much pressure as possible,” U.S. Rep. Carlos A. Giménez said on Wednesday in Doral.

César Rodríguez, a pilot with W Aviation in Fort Lauderdale, reported having to wait for operating permits from the Venezuelan National Institute of Civil Aviation, or INAC, to be allowed to land with aid.

“We still have two planes with cargo,“ César Rodríguez said in a public update on Tuesday on Instagram.

In Venezuela, Francisco Lermanda, a member of the search-and-rescue team Topos Chile, reported that they had found a 14-year-old boy who was trapped and at risk of a deadly blood clot, so they used a phone to call their team’s physicians for guidance.

“A soldier took away our phone because he said it could be espionage,” Lermanda told Venezuelan Diario La Grey about how the armed Venezuelan military disrupted their effort to save the teen.

Lermanda warned that he had experienced how the Venezuelan government was militarizing and politicizing the response to the earthquakes — and this concerned him.

“It is very difficult to cope with this situation,” Lermanda told Diario La Grey.

The world-famous leader of the Brigada Internacional de Rescate Topos Azteca, Héctor “El Chino” Méndez, has been active since the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

“I am not a politician; I am a rescuer,” Méndez told reporters in Spanish while working in Venezuela. He later added, “I’m 80 years old, and you’re not going to come to me to tell me what to say.”

A spokesperson for the Mexican Topos Tlaltelolco Rescue Brigade later released a statement asking the public to keep the focus on the victims and on the rescue efforts.

Sebastian Eduardo Martinez Borrego, also known as “Boikido,” was among the Venezuelan English-Spanish translators who reported they were harassed over their work with foreigners.

“I fear for my life, I am being pursued and harassed by state repressive agencies,” Martinez Borrego wrote on Instagram, as he blamed Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, or DGCIM.

Before many of the foreign rescue teams arrived, the civilian volunteers who had rushed to rescue survivors with nothing but their bare hands and tools suddenly faced a new obstacle on June 26: The government required a new permit for access.

Despite the urgency, the volunteers had to stand in line to apply before officials in uniform, who sat behind desks in Caracas to process permits, as the Venezuelan military restricted access to La Guaira.

Venezuelan officials allowed foreign journalists into the area with a list of limitations and requirements. The Venezuelan National Press Workers Union, or SNTP, was documenting the limits to on-the-ground reporting.

Journalists with Runrun.es reported that the Venezuelan military didn’t give them access to the devastation at Carayaca, a city in the state of Vargas, just west of La Guaira.

“The country needs verified and timely information, especially the families of the victims,” a spokesperson for SNTP wrote in Spanish on June 29 on X.

On Tuesday, Diosdado Cabello, a former Venezuelan military officer who serves as the minister of justice, announced the arrests of law enforcement personnel who were accused of looting in La Guaira.

Cabello, who is wanted in the U.S. for narcotrafficking, identified the four suspects as Maya Aguilar Reyes, Fredy Rafael Lugo Oliveros, Roger Andrés Omaña, and Josue Jhonatan Burgos Sánchez.

A witness recorded and shared a video that went viral. It showed Aguilar Reyes, his identification, and a woman in tears who confronted him, took a bag he was holding full of U.S. dollars, and ripped the bills into pieces over the rubble near a collapsed building.

Delcy Rodríguez’s brother Jorge Rodríguez, the president of the National Assembly, announced on Wednesday that the death toll had increased to 2,295.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates fatalities in the tens of thousands, and the United Nations announced the procurement of 10,000 body bags.

“I would like more presence of public entities, who really are those responsible for this, but in the end, we’re used to making do with almost nothing,” Mijaed Diaz, a veterinarian who was searching for body bags for four bodies in La Guaira, told Reuters.

With the support of the U.S. State Department, North Carolina-based nonprofit Samaritan’s Purse opened a temporary 56-bed field hospital near Paseo La Guaira, north of Caracas.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Southern Command announced some changes on Wednesday afternoon, as U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Jarrard continued to lead in Venezuela.

Joint Task Force-Bravo, under Col. David Webb’s command since June 18, moved “advanced elements” from the Simón Bolívar International Airport to the Port of La Guaira, where the USS Fort Lauderdale had a medical support platform.

A U.S. Army medical unit, a military ambulance, and marine logisticians, who had a water purification system, a tram, a mobile potable water container, and a tow truck/wrecker, were on the ground, according to SOUTHCOM.

Helpful list: Aid drop-off locations in South Florida

More on HELPING VENEZUELA

• Doral-based nonprofit GEM dispatches over $1 million in aid from community

• Inter Miami, Marlins, Dolphins join relief efforts
• NFL star joins Global Empowerment Mission’s team; his message to South Floridians, ‘Do what you can’
• More than 100 Venezuelans who were deported from the US hours before the earthquakes are missing

• Food for the Poor welcomes investments in reconstruction
• Physicians in Miami-Dade collect donations of medical supplies near Doral
• Meet Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Capt. German Leal

• Pembroke Pines police officers announce collection drive
• Airbnb partners with nonprofit CADENA for emergency housing
• Hogar Bambi aims to protect vulnerable children

• Grey Bull Rescue Foundation team arrives at Caracas
• Officials close La Guaira, require volunteers to register in Caracas
• Amazon donates to Airlink to help charities with logistics

• Miami search-and-rescue team prepares to deploy
• Centro Comunitario AFE hosts collection drive in Miami-Dade
• Weston-based charity partners with local pharmacy

• Veteran-led Project DYNAMO delivers 20,000 pounds of aid in 1st 48 hours
• Altruism at El Arepazo feeds Global Empowerment Mission’s team effort
• Salvadoran rescuers work to free 15-year-old survivor in Caraballeda

• Food For The Poor packs disaster relief kits with ‘hopeful’ hand-written notes
• U.S. Southern Command focuses on airport damage
• State Department deploys Miami-Dade search-and-rescue team

• Miami Beach opens 4 new aid drop-off locations
• Miramar to keep 6 aid drop-off locations open 24/7
• Miami-Dade’s tax collector opens 11 drop-off locations
• Doral opens 4 aid drop-off locations

• Aid drop-off location opens in Homestead
• Starlink offers free service through July 25, but a kit is $470
• International Medical Corps deploys staff, needs donations
• Save The Children asks for emergency fund donations

• Samaritan’s Purse focuses on ‘emergency field hospital’
• Red Cross asks for Disaster Response Emergency Fund donations
• UN asks for donations for ‘underfunded’ program for kids

• World Vision asks for ‘disaster relief fund’ donations
• World Central Kitchen asks for donations for fresh meals
• United Way Miami launches ‘Operation Helping Hands’

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Authorities said Milagros De La Caridad Navarro, 35, was arrested Tuesday by the Miami Gardens Police Department after surrendering herself in connection with the Feb. 22 shooting.

According to an arrest report, officers responded to the 100 block of Northwest 202nd Terrace just after 1 a.m. on that day after receiving reports about a shooting.

Miami Gardens police said they were notified about 30 minutes later that a gunshot victim had arrived at HCA Florida Aventura Hospital.

The report states the driver who took the victim to the hospital told officers she was unfamiliar with the area because she was visiting from Georgia.

The driver said she heard multiple gunshots while driving before realizing her mother-in-law had been struck and then took her to the nearest hospital, according to the report.

The driver told investigators she did not know who was responsible for the shooting, the report states.

Investigators said they later interviewed the victim after her breathing tube was removed.

According to the report, the victim had difficulty speaking and recalling the events, but remembered leaving Hollywood Beach with another woman, returning home to shower and cook, and later leaving a home where a woman identified as “Caridad” had been present.

The report states that the victim told detectives her next memory was waking up in the hospital.

Police said the investigation included witness interviews, photo lineups and surveillance video.

According to the report, a witness identified Navarro during a photo lineup conducted on March 3. Another witness later identified Navarro in a separate lineup after telling investigators she had left her home in Navarro’s care while she was away, the report states.

Detectives also obtained surveillance video from a neighbor that, according to the arrest report, showed Navarro “shooting multiple shots in the direction of the victim.”

Investigators said a separate witness later told investigators that she saw Navarro pulling a handgun from a black fanny pack before the group got into a vehicle. They said that witness claimed she did not see the gun being fired, but saw Navarro holding the gun in her right hand as they drove away.

Jail records show Navarro is facing two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of aggravated battery with a weapon causing great bodily harm.

As of Wednesday, Navarro was being held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

A motive for the shooting remains unclear at this time.

Tillman delivered the goal of his life, and one of the biggest ever by a U.S. man at the World Cup, sending this American soccer fairytale into the round of 16.

“I’ve been dreaming about this game," Tillman said after scoring the final goal in a 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday night. “I’ve been dreaming about maybe taking a free kick and scoring a free kick. I’ve practiced this in training and I think today I showed what I can do.”

The round of 32 win set up a Monday matchup in Seattle against Belgium as the U.S. hopes to make a deep run on home soil. The Red Devils beat the Americans 2-1 in extra time at 2014's round of 16.

“It’s about to keep dreaming,” said U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino, who belted out “Take Me Home, Country Roads” as it played over the public-address system after 10 minutes of stoppage time. “In football all is possible if you believe.”

Folarin Balogun put the Americans ahead in the 45th minute with his third goal of the World Cup, then was sent off in the 64th for a red card.

Star Christian Pulisic had a goal disallowed for offside in the 78th, and Tillman helped seal the win when he curled in a free kick that got over the wall and on target from just outside the box in the 82nd. The ball went off diving goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj’s right hand and in despite the pain in Tillman's bloody right foot from being stepped on.

Balogun dominated the first half and scored in the 45th minute. The Americans had to scramble after his foul for awkwardly stepping on Tarik Muharemovic and preserved the shutout despite playing short-handed for more than 30 minutes.

“It felt so comfortable, even down to 10 men,” captain Tim Ream said. “That’s the way you want to feel. You don’t want to have that panic set in. You want have that calm and focus and we had that.”

Pochettino became the first U.S. coach with three World Cup victories, and the Americans gained just their second World Cup knockout round win. They made it to the semifinals in the first tournament in 1930 by winning their group and won a round of 16 matchup against Mexico in 2002.

Balogun leads the U.S. with three goals, but will miss the Belgium match because of an automatic suspension for the red card, assessed by Brazilian referee Raphael Claus after a video review. Balogun stepped on an ankle of Tarik Muharemovic, apparently not intentionally.

“Obviously the ref made a decision that he made, but I think it’s questionable,” midfielder Weston McKennie said. “I think there’s been many other plays like that throughout the tournament on other players that a card wasn’t given at all. It’s disappointing.”

Balogun matched Landon Donovan in 2010 for the second-most goals by an American in a World Cup, behind only Bert Patenaude’s four in 1930.

“Of course he’s a great player," Tillman said. "We have great players who can replace him, and give the best they can, and hopefully score some nice goals as well.”

The win snapped a 10-game losing streak for the U.S. against European teams dating to a tie against England in the 2022 World Cup. The Americans had lost seven games and tied six against European nations in World Cup play since beating Portugal in their 2002 opener.

The U.S. had started fast in the group stage matches by scoring in the first 15 minutes of all three games but it was Bosnia that had the better chances early. Matt Freese needed to make two saves early to stop Ermedin Demirovic following a deceptive goal kick that caught the U.S. defense napping and then again on the ensuing corner kick that Kerim Alajbegovic almost scored on directly.

Balogun took over from there. He had an apparent 31st-minute goal called off for offside and was knocked down in the box on two other opportunities before finally delivering. Ream intercepted a Bosnia goal kick at midfield and passed to Tyler Adams, who flicked to Tillman. The ball, with the help of an errant Bosnian clearance attempt and a deflection, found Balogun in the box. Balogun slid the left-footed shot past Vasilj.

Balogun punctuated the goal with his version of the LeBron James Silencer celebration, drawing a positive reaction from King James himself.

Balogun nearly scored again in first-half stoppage time but his shot from in close deflected off the crossbar and out of play.

Bosnia’s second World Cup trip was a success with a draw against Canada in the opener and a win over Qatar that helped the team advance to the knockout round for the first time. But it ended in disappointment.

“We had our moments after the red card,” Vasilj said. “You could feel that there was something. The only thing that was missing was a goal. And then in the worst moment, out of nothing, I would say, a free kick and we conceded a second goal. After that it was really difficult.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

De los 11.000 millones de dólares comprometidos tan sólo por la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA, por sus siglas en inglés), se han desembolsado unos 2.700 millones de dólares, en su mayoría para cosas como equipos, materiales y costos de diseño arquitectónico y de ingeniería, según la Oficina de Rendición de Cuentas del Gobierno (GAO, por sus siglas en inglés).

El gobierno estadounidense está legalmente obligado a desembolsar ese dinero para el propósito especificado.

El informe de 86 páginas se basa en una auditoría realizada de agosto de 2024 a junio de 2026. Fue publicado por legisladores demócratas de Estados Unidos.

"La gente de Puerto Rico ha esperado nueve años a que su gobierno cumpla su palabra", indicó el representante demócrata Jared Hoffman, de California, en un comunicado. "Vieron cómo se asignaban miles de millones y casi nada de eso llegó”.

El huracán María azotó Puerto Rico en septiembre de 2017 como una tormenta de categoría 4, dejando sin electricidad a algunos vecindarios durante casi un año, el apagón más prolongado en la historia de Estados Unidos. Se estima que 2.975 personas murieron en las secuelas de la tormenta.

Dos semanas antes de que María tocara tierra, el huracán Irma rozó la esquina noreste de la isla como una tormenta de categoría 5, también afectando el suministro de electricidad.

Múltiples problemas retrasan el avance

Los apagones crónicos llevaron a la gobernadora de Puerto Rico a declarar estado de emergencia en abril de 2025, pero las interrupciones persisten, y aproximadamente la mitad de esos incidentes se atribuyen a la vegetación que invade las líneas de transmisión y distribución.

Según el informe, hasta febrero sólo se habían despejado 640 kilómetros (400 millas) con fondos federales de los 26.000 kilómetros (16.000 millas) planificados. En total, se despejaron casi 4.500 kilómetros (2.800 millas) de líneas en el año fiscal 2025, de acuerdo con Luma Energy, una empresa privada que supervisa la transmisión y distribución de electricidad en Puerto Rico. Actualmente enfrenta una demanda del gobierno de la isla que busca rescindir su contrato. La empresa ha presentado una contrademanda.

El informe señaló que la rotación de personal; los procesos de revisión de proyectos, que describió como “engorrosos”; y la situación financiera de la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica de Puerto Rico —que aún pasa apuros para reestructurar más de 10.000 millones de dólares de deuda— están impidiendo el avance.

Una medida que retrasó aún más la liberación de fondos ocurrió cuando la entonces secretaria de Seguridad Nacional, Kristi Noem, implementó una política en junio de 2025 para que los gastos del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) superiores a 100.000 dólares fueran aprobados personalmente por esa oficina. La norma fue revocada en abril por el nuevo secretario de Seguridad Nacional, Markwayne Mullin.

Muchos fondos asignados, pero pocos desembolsados

Hasta diciembre de 2025, se completaron nueve grandes proyectos financiados por la FEMA, la mayoría relacionados con la generación; otros 133 proyectos se encuentran en distintas etapas.

La agencia también ha comprometido alrededor de 1.300 millones de dólares para 24 proyectos prioritarios de generación, siete de los cuales se han completado.

El informe indicó que los trabajos de reparación a menudo implican apagones programados y que encontrar piezas de reemplazo puede tomar hasta dos años.

De los 2.900 millones de dólares asignados por el Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano para modernizar y reparar la red, hasta febrero sólo se habían desembolsado unos 589 millones de dólares.

Mientras tanto, de los 1.000 millones de dólares comprometidos por el Departamento de Energía, se han desembolsado alrededor de 255 millones de dólares, determinó el informe.

Unos 365 millones de dólares asignados originalmente para proyectos de energía solar desde entonces se han redirigido a la red eléctrica, para “arreglos prácticos y reparaciones de emergencia”, según funcionarios del departamento entrevistados por los auditores.

El Departamento de Energía también canceló hasta 350 millones de dólares en subvenciones en el marco de un programa de energía solar, señaló el informe.

Sí desembolsó los 1,2 millones de dólares previstos para centros destinados a proporcionar electricidad a comunidades vulnerables en Puerto Rico durante desastres.

DHS dice que Puerto Rico es el responsable “en última instancia”

La GAO instó a la FEMA a actualizar sus directrices para reflejar flexibilidades y al Departamento de Energía a aclarar funciones y responsabilidades, y a crear un plan de colaboración.

“Dada la complejidad del financiamiento, los numerosos actores involucrados y los diversos planes para la recuperación de la red, una coordinación amplia entre Puerto Rico y las entidades federales es vital”, señala el informe.

El Departamento de Energía y el DHS coincidieron con las recomendaciones, aunque este último señaló que “el gobierno de Puerto Rico es en última instancia responsable de desarrollar una solución integral y reconstruir la red eléctrica”.

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

Leer en español

A team of community donors, volunteers, and GEM’s staff moved some 235,000 pounds of donations in a logistics-heavy operation.

The team had some 50 tons of aid at a warehouse in Doral and another 50 tons at a warehouse in Valencia, which is operating as a distribution center.

“It’s the worst disaster that we have ever experienced,” said Doral Councilman Rafael Pineyro, a GEM volunteer who was born in Caracas.

GEM had the support of the U.S. State Department, the agency President Donald Trump tasked with running the U.S. response in Venezuela. U.S. Rep. Carlos A. Giménez stopped by the warehouse in Doral.

“It’s not about politics, it’s about getting help to the people in need,” Giménez said.

The U.S. Southern Command has deployed every branch of the military.

The State Department also activated the Florida Task Forces from Miami and Miami-Dade County. They joined two other highly-trained search-and-rescue teams from Fairfax, Virginia, and California.

Hassel Mendoza, a Venezuelan engineer who lives in Tampa, traveled to La Guaira to search for his mother, sister, nephew, and brother-in-law in the ruins of a collapsed nine-story apartment building.

“We lost a lot of time trying to figure out new tools to use for a specific activity, like to cut steel,” Mendoza told CNN, adding that the government teams and volunteers didn’t have equipment such as drills or sensors.

On Tuesday, Diosdado Cabello, a former Venezuelan military officer who serves as the minister of justice, announced the arrests of law enforcement personnel who were accused of looting in La Guaira.

Cabello, who is wanted in the U.S. for narcotrafficking, identified the four suspects as Maya Aguilar Reyes, Fredy Rafael Lugo Oliveros, Roger Andrés Omaña, and Josue Jhonatan Burgos Sánchez.

A witness recorded and shared a video that went viral. It showed Aguilar Reyes, his identification, and a woman in tears who confronted him, took a bag he was holding full of U.S. dollars, and ripped the bills into pieces over the rubble near a collapsed building.

“I know that many Venezuelans are feeling pain and frustration; I deeply share those sentiments,” said Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president since the U.S. military captured Nicolás Maduro.

Rodríguez’s brother Jorge Rodríguez, the president of the National Assembly, announced on Wednesday that the death toll had increased to 2,295.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates fatalities in the tens of thousands, and the United Nations announced the procurement of 10,000 body bags.

GEM staff and partners asked the public for online cash donations and to signup online for a shift to volunteer. The high-priority needs included hygiene products, non-perishable foods, and first-aid items.

Helpful list: Aid drop-off locations in South Florida

More on HELPING VENEZUELA

• Inter Miami, Marlins, Dolphins join relief efforts
• NFL star joins Global Empowerment Mission’s team; his message to South Floridians, ‘Do what you can’
• More than 100 Venezuelans who were deported from the US hours before the earthquakes are missing

• Food for the Poor welcomes investments in reconstruction
• Physicians in Miami-Dade collect donations of medical supplies near Doral
• Meet Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Capt. German Leal

• Pembroke Pines police officers announce collection drive
• Airbnb partners with nonprofit CADENA for emergency housing
• Hogar Bambi aims to protect vulnerable children

• Grey Bull Rescue Foundation team arrives at Caracas
• Officials close La Guaira, require volunteers to register in Caracas
• Amazon donates to Airlink to help charities with logistics

• Miami search-and-rescue team prepares to deploy
• Centro Comunitario AFE hosts collection drive in Miami-Dade
• Weston-based charity partners with local pharmacy

• Veteran-led Project DYNAMO delivers 20,000 pounds of aid in 1st 48 hours
• Altruism at El Arepazo feeds Global Empowerment Mission’s team effort
• Salvadoran rescuers work to free 15-year-old survivor in Caraballeda

• Food For The Poor packs disaster relief kits with ‘hopeful’ hand-written notes
• U.S. Southern Command focuses on airport damage
• State Department deploys Miami-Dade search-and-rescue team

• Miami Beach opens 4 new aid drop-off locations
• Miramar to keep 6 aid drop-off locations open 24/7
• Miami-Dade’s tax collector opens 11 drop-off locations
• Doral opens 4 aid drop-off locations

• Aid drop-off location opens in Homestead
• Starlink offers free service through July 25, but a kit is $470
• International Medical Corps deploys staff, needs donations
• Save The Children asks for emergency fund donations

• Samaritan’s Purse focuses on ‘emergency field hospital’
• Red Cross asks for Disaster Response Emergency Fund donations
• UN asks for donations for ‘underfunded’ program for kids

• World Vision asks for ‘disaster relief fund’ donations
• World Central Kitchen asks for donations for fresh meals
• United Way Miami launches ‘Operation Helping Hands’

Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital for hours during the night, with many people sheltering in subway stations after authorities issued air raid warnings. Emergency crews were still digging through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings in search of victims as dawn broke.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the deadly bombardment was in response to Ukraine’s long-range strikes that have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine's increasingly frequent and large-scale attacks — described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz — have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians, more than four years after Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Ukrainian officials say they are trying to force Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow's response has been to hit back.

Diplomatic efforts to end the war, most recently by the Trump administration, haven’t produced results. Putin thinks that time is on his side, that Western support will peter out and that Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse under pressure from strategic bombing, Western analysts say.

Ukraine's top diplomat says it

was a 'night of horror’ in Kyiv

The attack killed 20 people in Kyiv, according to Kyiv city administration head Tymur Tkachenko. More than 90 others were injured, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a “night of horror” in the capital.

Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Some 20 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Flashes from exploding drones and missiles lit up the night, and loud booms echoed through Kyiv. Tracers from air defense fire streaked through the air as a huge pall of black smoke rose into the sky.

Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district of the city. “We were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking — the ceiling and floor, everything,” the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.

In Kyiv's Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-story residential building, and in the Darnytskyi district six levels of a nine-story building collapsed.

Russia’s General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov reported the results of the “massive retaliatory strike” to Putin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The bombardment was “exclusively against military or military-linked targets,” Peskov said.

Russia's aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.

Sybiha said in April that domestic production meets up to 75% of Ukraine’s military needs and accounts for up to 95% of long-range strikes against Russia. The location of the factories making those weapons is secret.

Elsewhere, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region a Russian guided bomb strike killed a 7-year-old girl and wounded four other people, including an 11-year-old girl, all members of the same family, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.

Ukrainian officials urge countries to provide more air defenses

The attack used “high-precision long-range weapons” and drones on “military industry facilities and fuel and energy complexes in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in four other regions of Ukraine,” the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement said.

It published a list of targets it said the barrage hit, mostly plants manufacturing and assembling Ukrainian drones, missiles and components.

Russia fired 74 missiles, 24 of them ballistic, and 496 drones of various types in the attack, Ukraine’s air force said.

Ukraine's air defenses have improved throughout the war, especially in countering Russian drones. But ballistic missiles are harder to stop, and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pleaded with partner countries to supply more Patriot missile systems that offer the best protection.

Sybiha urged countries not to delay decisions on supplying air defense systems and missiles.

He rejected any Russian attempts to justify the strikes as retaliation for Ukraine’s long-range attacks, saying Ukraine was exercising its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter while Russia remained the aggressor.

Sybiha said on X that the death toll may rise as rescue teams continue their work.

Ukraine attacks another Russian oil refinery

Ukrainian forces struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries overnight in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, starting a fire, Ukraine's General Staff said.

Also, Ukrainian forces struck a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, it said. The bridge was used by Russian forces to transport personnel, weapons and military supplies, according to the General Staff.

Ukraine's recent success with drone strikes that keep Russian troops pinned down on the front line, disrupt Russian supply lines in the rear and damage oil facilities have brought a significant change in the war, Western analysts say.

“Russia’s spring-summer 2026 offensive has failed to achieve operationally significant gains thus far, and Russian forces’ rate of advance in June 2026 (was) a fraction of the rate of advance that Russian forces achieved in June 2025,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an assessment late Wednesday.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The proximity of the projects embodies what experts describe as an “all-of-the-above" energy approach for Inner Mongolia, which has become China's largest base of both renewable energy and coal production. Its energy transition mirrors China as a whole: Wind and solar capacity are expanding quickly while coal remains indispensable.

China has been installing wind and solar power faster than any other country. Yet coal-fired plants still supplied around 51% of China’s electricity in 2025, according to the latest data from the National Energy Administration.

“While China as a whole is transitioning away from coal, Inner Mongolia is most certainly the most paradoxical part of the story. In Inner Mongolia’s case, more renewables often means more coal capacity as well,” said David Fishman, an energy consultant at The Lantau Group, who has visited Inner Mongolia's coal plants and the solar farms.

Inner Mongolia wants wind and solar power to increasingly replace electricity traditionally supplied by coal, while also meeting the country’s growing demand for power. But officials said both renewables and coal will continue to rise for now, with coal needed to supplement when weather causes interruptions in wind or solar power.

“Many people see there is a conflict or a competitive relationship between traditional energy and renewable energy,” said Gu Qing, an official of Inner Mongolia’s energy administration, standing at the edge of the Dalad Banner solar farm.

“As more renewable energy capacity is added, coal-fired power will also continue to grow, although the pace will gradually slow,” Gu said.

The Dalad Banner solar farm, which Associated Press reporters visited on a recent government-organized tour, currently generates around 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. It is part of a broader clean energy program started in 2018 in northern China’s Kubuqi Desert.

Inner Mongolia is crucial to China's power transmission plan

Inner Mongolia is one of the most crucial nodes in China’s “West-to-East Power Transmission Project," which transmits electricity from the country's resource-rich northwest to its industrialized east. In 2025, 40% of Inner Mongolia’s electricity generation, about 350 billion kilowatt-hours, was sent to other parts of China. The amount is enough to power 120 million households for a year.

Solar and wind installed capacity has more than doubled in the past five years in Inner Mongolia, but coal still dominates electricity generation. Coal-fired plants produced around 590 billion kilowatt-hours in 2025 in Inner Mongolia, while solar and wind generated about 277 billion kilowatt-hours combined.

Coal power capacity in Inner Mongolia has continued to expand over the past five years.

“Because wind and solar are intermittent…we cannot do without the support of coal-fired power,” said Huang Zhiqiang, vice governor of Inner Mongolia, during a recent news briefing.

“What is changing is that coal power units are turning from supply-guarantee units to serving as a supporting and regulating role,” he said.

Inner Mongolia mined around 1.2 billion tons of coal in recent years, accounting for one quarter of China’s total coal production. Over 60% was transported to other provinces. Ordos, the city administering the Dalad Banner, is also one of the country's five largest coal-producing centers designated by the central government.

Managing the energy transition

Officials said renewable energy is beginning to replace existing demand conventionally provided by coal. The transition requires that coal plants ramp down when renewable output is abundant and ramp up when it is not. Huang said Inner Mongolia refurbished all coal power units so they can ramp down to operate at 15% of their capacity so less coal is burned.

But Fishman, the energy consultant, said ramping units down to 15% is “an aspirational or best-unit capability rather than something that applies across the whole fleet in day-to-day operations,” because it will cause stress both technically and financially.

Similarly, Anika Patel, China section editor at the climate change research organization Carbon Brief, said: “Just because a plant can operate flexibly doesn’t mean that it is operating flexibly."

She said that it's challenging to relegate coal to a supporting role because of Chinese economic and political incentives around its use. Patel said China’s long-term power contracts reduce flexibility for power grids to purchase renewable electricity, while lengthy interprovincial trading arrangements make it harder to include solar and wind.

Supporting artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and manufacturing

The government said Inner Mongolia is not only building more wind and solar projects to meet the rising electricity demand from AI computing, electric vehicle charging and manufacturing. It is also investing in energy storage, transmission infrastructure and other ways to make the grid efficient.

Gu said Inner Mongolia will encourage factories to adjust production to better match patterns of wind and solar generation so renewable energy can be used more efficiently.

For over a decade since the early 2010s, China experienced a rapid solar and wind energy expansion that was largely driven by government targets and investment incentives, leading to issues such as overcapacity.

Power generation is only one part of Inner Mongolia’s coal strategy. The region is also a big hub of coal chemical industry, in which coal is converted to chemicals or fuels to produce other products. The processes emit more carbon dioxide than using coal to generate electricity. Huang said Inner Mongolia will deploy carbon-capture technologies to curb emissions.

He said Inner Mongolia has been expanding capacity of coal-to-oil, coal-to-gas and coal chemical industries. The Iran conflict and the close of the Strait of Hormuz exposed the vulnerability of countries that rely on imported oil and liquefied natural gas.

“At the industrial level, this can help offset and ease China’s reliance on imported oil and gas, reducing dependence on overseas supplies,” Huang said.

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Video producer Olivia Zhang contributed to this report.

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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.

The FBI did not specify how many ransom notes have been received, other than saying “several.”

“This case continues to be investigated as a kidnapping for ransom case,” the FBI said in a statement.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department is also investigating the case. The department declined to comment on the notes Wednesday but said it's taking every tip in the investigation seriously.

Tucson TV station KOLD has said it received two notes, one demanding millions in Bitcoin in exchange for Guthrie’s return and another that said she had died. TMZ also received a note.

Guthrie is the mother of longtime “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie. Authorities believe she was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will on Feb. 1. They found blood near the front doorstep of her home just outside Tucson, and the FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night.

Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the weeks after she vanished. A volunteer group recently conducted a search for her body near the Arizona-Mexico border.

Of the $11 billion obligated by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency alone, some $2.7 billion has been disbursed, mostly for things like equipment, materials and architecture and engineering design costs, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Obligated funds means the government is legally bound to disburse that money for a specific purpose.

The 86-page report is based on an audit from August 2024 to June 2026. It was released by U.S. Democratic lawmakers.

“The people of Puerto Rico have waited nine years for their government to keep its word,” Rep. Jared Hoffman, a California Democrat, said in a statement. “They watched billions get appropriated and almost none of it arrive.”

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017 as a powerful Category 4 storm, knocking out power in some neighborhoods for almost a year – the longest outage in U.S. history. An estimated 2,975 people died in the storm’s sweltering aftermath.

Two weeks before Maria hit, Hurricane Irma swiped past the island’s northeast corner as a Category 5 storm, also knocking out power.

The grid was further destabilized by a series of strong earthquakes that struck southern Puerto Rico in late 2019 and early 2020.

Multiple issues delay progress

Chronic blackouts prompted Puerto Rico's governor to declare a state of emergency in April 2025, but outages persist, with about half of those incidents blamed on vegetation overrunning transmission and distribution lines.

As of February, only 400 miles (640 kilometers) had been cleared using federal funds out of 16,000 planned miles (26,000 kilometers), according to the report. Overall, nearly 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) of lines were cleared in fiscal year 2025, according to Luma Energy, a private company overseeing the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico. It currently is facing a lawsuit by the island’s government seeking to terminate its contract; the company has since counter sued.

The report noted that staff turnover; project review processes it described as “onerous;” and the financial state of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority – which is still struggling to restructure more than $10 billion in debt – are preventing progress.

One move that further delayed the release of funds was when former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem implemented a policy in June 2025 that DHS expenditures over $100,000 be personally approved by that office. The rule was rescinded in April by new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Many funds allotted but few disbursed

As of December 2025, nine large FEMA-funded projects were completed, most of them related to generation; 133 projects remain at different stages.

The agency also has obligated about $1.3 billion to 24 critical generation projects, seven of which have been completed.

The report noted that repair work often means planned outages and finding replacement parts can take up to two years.

Of the $2.9 billion allotted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to modernize and repair the grid, only about $589 million had been disbursed as of February.

Meanwhile, of the $1 billion obligated by the U.S. Department of Energy, about $255 million has been disbursed, the report found.

Some $365 million originally allotted for solar energy projects have since been redirected to the power grid, for “practical fixes and emergency repairs” according to department officials interviewed by auditors.

The Department of Energy also canceled up to $350 million in grants under a solar access program, the report noted.

It did disburse all $1.2 million slated for hubs aimed at providing vulnerable communities in Puerto Rico with electricity during disasters.

DHS says Puerto Rico ‘ultimately responsible’

The Government Accountability Office called on FEMA to update guidance to reflect flexibilities and on the Department of Energy to clarify roles and responsibilities, and create a collaboration plan.

“Given the complexity of funding, the numerous players involved, and the various plans for grid recovery, extensive coordination across Puerto Rico and federal entities is vital,” the report states.

The Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concurred with the recommendations, although the latter noted that “the government of Puerto Rico is ultimately responsible for developing a comprehensive solution and rebuilding the electrical grid.”

The court’s two Black justices notably had very different views on U.S. citizenship in the context of Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Tuesday’s decision rejects an order President Donald Trump issued at the start of his second term, declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The majority, composed of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, determined that birth on U.S. soil plus being subject to U.S. law is enough for citizenship.

Several dissenters, including Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, say birth alone is not enough — the child’s parents must have a deeper political allegiance or relationship to the U.S.

Jackson’s direct disagreement with Thomas’ dissent highlights a major rift between the legal minds. Here are the justices in their own words:

Chief Justice John Roberts

Much of Roberts’ opinion was a history lesson on English common law, in which he concluded that birthright citizenship has always depended primarily on birthplace — not on parents’ immigration status or domicile.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, citing congressional debate over the amendment, “We keep that promise today.”

“We break no new ground today,” Roberts said on the bench as he read the court’s majority opinion.

Justice Clarence Thomas

Thomas, who wrote the main dissent, disagreed with the majority’s opinion and argued that American-born children are not automatically American citizens.

The basis of his argument, among other things, is that the court ignored evidence from Reconstruction debates that suggested citizenship depended on a deeper relationship to the country. After the Civil War, the U.S. underwent a series of political and constitutional battles over how to define the civil rights and citizenship status of formerly enslaved Black Americans.

“The Citizenship Clause was enacted for people who were born in this country and called it home. It was enacted for freed slaves such as Dred Scott, who had ‘a domicile’ here and therefore were entitled to sue as citizens,” Thomas wrote in his dissent, concluding that Reconstruction was a targeted remedy for freed slaves to restore citizenship to a wrongfully excluded group.

“In my view, the Citizenship Order is not facially unconstitutional,” Thomas wrote, referring to Trump’s executive order. “The Order is consistent with the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause, at least insofar as it applies to children born to parents, here lawfully or unlawfully, who are not domiciled in the United States.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed with the opinion in full, but wrote to respond to Clarence Thomas’ dissent, arguing that Thomas fundamentally misunderstands what the Reconstruction Amendments — the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments — are trying to accomplish.

“Despite his longstanding endorsement of a ‘colorblind’ Constitution, Justice Thomas, now surprisingly suggests that the Citizenship Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure, relating only to ‘freed slaves such as Dred Scott’ — but that narrow vision of the Fourteenth Amendment bears little relationship to the history of its ratification.”

“The Reconstruction Amendments were an anti-caste, anti-subordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery.”

“The Court’s conception of a color-blind Constitution and the Government’s (and principal dissent’s) cramped, group-specific reading of the Citizenship Clause are two sides of the same coin, stemming from a basic misunderstanding of the relevant history.”

But UPS said in its own submission to the National Transportation Safety Board that the reason it never required those enhanced bearing inspections inside the pylons that hold the engines to the wings of its MD--11 freighters is because Boeing said incorrectly that the failure of those bearings wouldn't jeopardize the safety of flight. And the enhanced inspections were never required.

The plane crashed last fall while accelerating down the runway at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport, killing killed all three pilots and 12 people on the ground. Twenty-three more were injured.

The failures that kept mechanics from taking a close look at the key parts securing the engines to the wings were highlighted at two days of investigative hearings on the crash in May, but the documents released Wednesday provide additional details.

The NTSB might not publish its final report on the cause of the fiery crash that happened as the UPS plane was trying to take off in Louisville, Kentucky, last November until late this year or possibly early next year. But UPS said it's clear “once the pylon separated from the aircraft, the crash was inevitable.”

Boeing and Federal Aviation Administration officials acknowledged during the hearings that they misunderstood the risks related to the potential failure of a steel bearing and metal sheath in the engine mount before the crash, not realizing that it could lead to the lugs that secure engines to an MD-11’s wings breaking. The bearings are tucked deep inside near the pylons, so problems are hard to spot without removing each engine for detailed inspections.

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the actions of Boeing, UPS, FAA and the maintenance company STE San Antonio Aerospace all contributed to this crash.

“There’s just lots of subtleties and semantics that these four entities are using. But in the end, this got missed and to some degree, all four have some role to play in that,” said Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and FAA. “Safety is a shared responsibility, and I think the NTSB’s task now is to apportion that responsibility.”

Failure of key part securing the engine never identified

Chris Hentz, who is Vice President of STE San Antonio Aerospace, said UPS only required its mechanics to check for corrosion and not for signs of bearing failure. But Hentz and UPS both pointed out that even as Boeing said “changes to the inspection requirement of the spherical bearing were warranted” the planemaker said in the same letter that the existing inspection requirements were sufficient.

Hentz said in his letter that Boeing “stated that while the MD-11 inspection intervals and requirements for an inspection of the aft bulkhead were sufficient, changes to the inspection requirements of the spherical bearing were warranted to ensure that the migration of the outer race would be reliably detected and identified during inspection.”

UPS said that even though Boeing developed an enhanced inspection procedure that it added to the MD-11 maintenance manual, the planemaker never added that procedure to its federally approved maintenance schedule that would have required it.

“Relying on Boeing’s representations that the issue was not safety-of-flight and that existing MPD inspections were sufficient, UPS determined that no additional changes to its maintenance program were necessary beyond what was already being performed.” the package delivery giant said.

Past problems didn't trigger alarm

At one point, Boeing even successfully petitioned the FAA to extend the schedule for required inspections from once every 19,900 cycles of takeoffs and landings, to once every 29,260, so that airlines could complete more of the major maintenance tasks simultaneously, with less down time.

The planemaker sought the change even after receiving reports about seven of the flaws in the bearings well before the planes had reached their original inspection limits. In the years after the schedule was relaxed, three more instances were discovered before the crash.

The UPS plane that crashed after losing its engine had flown 21,043 cycles, so it should have been thoroughly inspected under the original schedule. There has been only one other crash, decades earlier, involving a similar plane model losing an engine, but that one was blamed on improper maintenance and not the same flaw.

FedEx and other operators of these MD-11s reported at least 10 other instances of failures of these bearings or the parts that hold them in place over the years before the UPS crash. But it's not clear what these other operators might have been doing differently in their maintenance.

FedEx resumed flying its MD-11s in May after the FAA approved Boeing’s plan to ensure their safety. The engine mounts were closely inspected following the November crash, and going forward the spherical bearings will be replaced regularly, after every 4,000 cycles of takeoffs and landings. UPS decided to retire all of its MD-11s early after this crash.

The decision by the U.S. House Committee on Ethics, dated June 10, came after the panel, while investigating then-U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Florida, had “sought documents and testimony“ from Joseph, who failed to hand over any papers or appear before the committee despite being issued ”multiple subpoenas."

According to the report, a subcommittee said Joseph’s actions were “egregious and warrants referral to the U.S. Department of Justice.”

The ethics panel made allegations of illegal campaign donations to Cherfilus-McCormick, who resigned in April under the threat of possible expulsion, through a political committee chaired by Joseph.

If convicted of the federal contempt charge, a misdemeanor, Joseph could spend up to a year in jail and receive a fine of up to $100,000.

Joseph has also faced separate questions over his conduct as mayor. He narrowly avoided being censured by city commissioners after a city investigation concluded he placed North Miami Beach in “substantial legal, financial and ethical risk.”

The allegations suggested that Joseph asked an employee to alter official government records, a potential violation of state public records laws and city employees raised questions about some of Joseph’s travel expenses to Japan “including an upgrade to First Class resulting in a charge in excess of $3,000 to the City,” an investigation report stated.

The mayor, at the time, called the report “inaccurate.”

Local 10 News contacted Joseph and a city spokesperson seeking comment on Wednesday night. As of publication of this article, we hadn’t received a response.

Cherfilus-McCormick, who resigned in April before the House Ethics Committee started proceedings that could have led to her expulsion. She is facing federal charges after being accused of stealing $5 million in federal disaster aid funds.

Meanwhile, Cherfilus-McCormick, who is seeking her old seat back, has pleaded not guilty in her criminal case and denied any wrongdoing.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday announced his intent to recommend CAIR be formally designated on a state list as a terrorist organization.

“We have to draw a very strong line in the sand here,” DeSantis said.

Signed in April, the governor’s office says HB 1471 allows the state to designate terrorist organizations, announcing an “intent to designate” list that includes CAIR, which DeSantis said would prevent “foreign and extremist influence from taking root in the state.”

“This is, I think, what the people of Florida expected when I signed this law, which took effect today,” DeSantis said.

Back in April, representatives for CAIR Florida told Local 10 News they opposed the law.

“Today is a dark day for the Florida Constitution and the United States Constitution,” Wilfredo Ruiz, the communications director for CAIR Florida, said at the time.

Omar Saleh, an attorney for CAIR Florida, said in April that “people don’t become a security risk just because you don’t like them and you don’t agree with them.”

The governor said organizations designated under Florida law may also be subject to dissolution as provided by statute.

DeSantis said upon confirmation by the Florida Cabinet, individuals who “knowingly” provide material support or resources to organizations designated under the new statutory authority as terrorist organizations could face criminal penalties.

State and local governments will be prohibited from providing the groups taxpayer funding and contracts.

Public schools and colleges will also be prohibited from using public resources to support or promote the organizations.

“It will impact Florida’s K-12 school choice scholarship,” DeSantis said. “I am not sending scholarships to schools that are in cahoots with groups like CAIR. That is not going to happen.”

“Florida is not the free state that it says it is, especially when you look at laws like this,” Saleh said in April. “It’s baloney.”

In December, DeSantis signed an executive order that resulted in litigation.

“It is being challenged under the First Amendment right now,” legal analyst Bill Barner said. “CAIR had a district court block the executive order, now the governor is taking to Federal Circuit of Appeals.”

Barner, a criminal defense attorney and ex-prosecutor who teaches at Nova Southeastern University, said, the district judge found that the governor “shouldn’t have the power to be able to do that and also suspects that this was politically motivated ― that it’s political theater."

Court records show a bench trial has been scheduled to start this upcoming January.

Barner said DeSantis “has announced that he plans on using the litigation, the discovery process behind the litigation, to try to find proof of what they’re alleging ― that there are ties with Hamas.”

An attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing CAIR, said in a statement to Local 10 News that it, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups “look forward to responding in court.”

“Regardless of what Gov. DeSantis thinks, the U.S. Constitution is supreme across our nation, including in Florida,” Scott McCoy, the SPLC’s deputy legal director, said. “Gov. DeSantis is seeking to unilaterally silence a leading American civil rights nonprofit and punish those who support it.“

Court filings:

CAIR filings by Chris Gothner

Cair vs Desantis - March Order by Chris Gothner

Authorities took six men into custody.

Investigators said they posted an ad online depicting underage girls and a phone number, and on Tuesday, the men called.

According to the arrest reports, in each case the men agreed to pay money for sex with what he believed to be one or two girls aged 14 and 15.

In one case, a man allegedly said he’d pay $200 for a “quick visit” with both, but after arriving at the rendezvous point, the men instead were met by cops.

State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said her office will be cracking down on sex crimes and other illicit activity that pick up during big events like the World Cup. According to the arrest reports, four of the six men have addresses in Miami-Dade; the other two are from Broward.

They identified the suspects as:

• John Alcin, 30, of northwest Miami-Dade
• Henry Castillo Martinez, 20, of Miami
• Jaasar Rocha Rivas, 23, of Miami
• Melvin Phillip Putney, 47, of Miami Beach
• Deyvi Richard Silva, 36, of Fort Lauderdale
• Ibrahim Vazquez Cobas, 54, of Miramar

The arrests come on the heels of a sting in Homestead in which 12 men were arrested in mid-June.

The men all face charges including human trafficking and traveling to meet a minor for sex.

Conwell was acquired by Miami in a draft-night trade after being selected in the second round, 37th overall, in the 2026 NBA Draft.

The former Louisville guard started all 34 games as a senior last season, averaging a team-high 18.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.1 steals and 30.9 minutes per game. He shot 40.8% from the field, 34.5% from 3-point range and 83.2% from the free-throw line.

Conwell earned All-ACC Second Team honors and was named to the NABC All-District Second Team. He scored 638 points last season, a single-season career best, and finished his college career with 1,991 points.

He also made 124 free throws and 112 3-pointers last season, ranking among the top 15 nationally in made 3-pointers. Conwell had 15 games with at least 20 points, including two 30-point performances.

He led the Cardinals in points, steals, defensive rebounds, field goals made, 3-pointers made, free throws made and minutes.

La tormenta estaba en el mar y no representaba ninguna amenaza para tierra firme, informó el Centro Nacional de Huracanes en Miami. Douglas se encontraba unos 1.925 kilómetros (1.195 millas) al oeste-suroeste del extremo sur de la península de Baja California, México.

Sus vientos máximos sostenidos eran de alrededor de 65 km/h (40 mph) con ráfagas más fuertes. La tormenta se desplazaba hacia el norte a 11 km/h (7 mph), informó el centro, y agregó que se esperaba un giro gradual hacia el noroeste a finales de esta semana.

Los vientos con fuerza de tormenta tropical se extendían hasta 150 kilómetros (90 millas) desde el centro. Se esperaba que Douglas se debilitara de manera progresiva a partir del jueves.

Brown — the 2024 NBA Finals MVP, a five-time All-Star and the league's fourth-leading scorer this past season — is getting traded by the Celtics to the Philadelphia 76ers, a person with knowledge of the deal's terms said Wednesday.

Boston is getting Paul George, along with a slew of draft capital that could become two first-round picks and two second-round picks, said the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade does not yet have the required league approvals.

ESPN first reported the trade agreement, and the terms were later confirmed by The Boston Globe.

Add this move to the list of blockbuster moves across the NBA so far this offseason. LeBron James is leaving the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent, and now this trade joins a long list of moves that involve All-Star-caliber players — like Giannis Antetokounmpo going from Milwaukee to Miami, Kawhi Leonard and Brandon Ingram headlining a swap between the Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Clippers, and Ja Morant getting traded to Portland by Memphis.

Now, this.

“Welcome to Philly, JB!” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on social media. “Sixers get way better and, as a bonus, the Celtics got worse!"

It's a move that breaks up what has been one of the league’s most successful 1-2 punches in Brown and Jayson Tatum, who helped carry the Celtics to the 2024 NBA title.

Tatum missed most of this past season while recovering from an Achilles tear that happened during the 2025 playoffs, meaning Brown had to carry even more of the load for Boston — and he wound up with career-best averages of 28.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game.

It seemed, though, that Brown has felt underappreciated, especially after it became known that Boston had included him in trade talks with Milwaukee when Antetokounmpo was on the market.

“Nobody has won more combined regular-season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago,” Brown posted on social media over the weekend. He’s right: The Celtics have won 523 games with Brown in the lineup, including playoff contests, which is six more than Denver has won with Nikola Jokic over that span.

Brown now gets to be part of a squad in Philadelphia alongside guard Tyrese Maxey and center Joel Embiid — someone who Brown recently called a flopper on a livestream.

“Joel Embiid is a great player, one of the best bigs in (expletive) basketball history,” Brown said. “Flops. He know it. This ain’t breaking news.”

Brown, Maxey (the league's No. 5 scorer this past season) and Embiid (a two-time NBA scoring champion) could become a positively frightening trio in Philadelphia, and the Celtics deciding to play a role in creating such a triumvirate only adds to the intrigue surrounding why they wanted to trade Brown in the first place.

The trade ends a tremendously disappointing two-year stint for George, who was traded with two years left on a four-year, $212 million free-agent contract. The 36-year-old George never approached his nine-time All-Star form in Philadelphia and his tenure was marred by a 25-game suspension last season for flunking a drug test.

He averaged just 16.7 points in his two seasons in Philadelphia after topping the 20-point mark in nine straight seasons with Indiana, Oklahoma City and the Los Angeles Clippers.

Brown is the latest big name brought in to team with All-Stars and franchise cornerstones Embiid and Maxey. Brown can try and lead the Sixers to their first title since 1983; a feat a steady string of stars from Ben Simmons to James Harden to George failed to do when paired with Embiid and Maxey to make a Big Three.

George cited mental health reasons as to why he failed a drug test and was suspended in late January for violating the terms of the NBA’s anti-drug program. His first year in Philly was marred by knee and adductor injuries that resulted in the forward having one of the worst years of his NBA career.

George averaged 16.2 points in just 41 games, easily his lowest scoring average in a full season since he averaged 12.1 points for Indiana in his second NBA season. He then had surgery in July on his left knee after he was injured during a workout and missed the first 12 games of this past season.

This was the first blockbuster pulled off under new team president Mike Gansey, who replaced the fired Daryl Morey.

Morey was fired after the Sixers failed to advance out of the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs in his tenure and they were swept by the eventual NBA champion Knicks in the second round last season — but only after erasing a 3-1 deficit to oust Boston in Round 1.

“Philadelphia is a good basketball team," Brown said after the Game 7 loss to the 76ers, surely not knowing at that time that he would be joining them a couple months later.

His job now will be to make that good basketball team even better.

___

AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed.

___

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

Beasley, the latest big name caught up in a sweeping federal gambling investigation, said little at his arraignment in Brooklyn federal court. He answered a judge's questions with “yes, your honor” but let his lawyer, Jason Goldman, enter his plea on his behalf.

Afterward, the 6-foot-4 (1.92 meter) shooting guard stood quietly as Goldman spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, demurring when one asked if he had anything to say to his fans. Beasley, who played for six NBA teams in nine years, missed the most recent season because he was under investigation. Instead, he played for a Puerto Rican team co-owned by the rapper Bad Bunny.

“He looks forward to fighting. He’s fought every day,” Goldman said. “He’s presumed innocent and that has to mean something still, obviously."

Beasley, 29, and sports agent Paolo Zamorano, who also pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, were among six people charged in an indictment unsealed this week.

They are the newest defendants in a gambling sweep that has netted more than three dozen arrests, including former Miami Heat star Terry Rozier, who was accused of conspiring with friends to help them win bets, and Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, who was accused of conspiring to fix high-stakes poker games.

Zamorano, 39, formerly represented another co-defendant, ex-NBA player Ed Davis, who had loaned money to Beasley and is accused of acting as his “gatekeeper" in the alleged scheme.

“We look forward to our day in court," Zamorano’s lawyer, Kenneth Breen, told reporters.

Beasley and Zamorano were both released on bond. They're due back in court for a status conference on Aug. 6.

Beasley is accused of fixing or trying to fix his performance in at least four games while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2024 by under or overperforming bookmakers' expectations. In exchange, the indictment said, the bettors bribed Beasley and his debts to Davis were reduced or eliminated.

“Only way you can beat Vegas is sports betting,” Davis told Beasley in a Jan. 26, 2024, text message, according to the indictment. “Everything else they got the edge.”

In one example, according to the indictment, Beasley told Davis that he would try to outperform the 3.5 line that sportsbooks had set for his rebound total in Milwaukee’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers on March 10, 2024.

With a second left, and the Bucks up by seven points, Beasley challenged a Clippers shot and dashed past four players to grab his fourth rebound and securing a win for the bettors as the horn sounded.

One bettor made a $3,252 profit on a $2,838 wager, the indictment said, and another made a $2,107 profit on wagers totaling $2,400. Other bettors missed out and lost money, mistakenly placing wagers on Beasley to underperform the rebound total because of an apparent miscommunication, the indictment said.

“What’s funny is after he got it he had a big sigh of relief,” a co-conspirator said in a text message, according to the indictment.

Beasley borrowed money from Davis, a former teammate, after racking up millions of dollars in gambling losses. His widely reported financial problems include disputes with a Detroit landlord, a Milwaukee barber and a Minnesota dentist. A 2025 lawsuit from a sports marketing agency resulted in a $1 million default judgment against him.

“There’s a bigger conversation here about the industry, about individuals and institutions that are profiting billions and billions of dollars and fueling the addiction,” Goldman said.

Beasley has been aware of the investigation for about a year, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Weintraub said.

He last played in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons on a one-year, $6 million contract in the 2024-2025 season. He averaged 16 points per game and scored 20 in his last game, a playoff loss to the New York Knicks. He is one of five players in NBA history with more than 300 three-pointers in a season.

Beasley's release was secured by his parents, actors Michael and Deena Beasley, who joined the arraignment by phone from their home in Georgia. Stone-faced for most of the hourlong proceeding, Beasley laughed at his mother's answer to Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl's question about how often they talk to each other.

“I probably call him every day. He might not answer every day,” Deena Beasley said, prompting chuckles in the courtroom. “If I call him six times a week, he'll answer five times.”

Thursday will feature a sun/cloud mix with the chance for “here/there” showers along the east coast in the morning. As temperatures make a run for the low 90s, showers and storms are expected to develop during the afternoon.

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First off, the Main Development Region of the tropical Atlantic – where most our strongest hurricanes form during the season – just recorded its coolest June in 5 years.

The warmth of the eastern part of the Main Development Region – the band of waters between Africa and the Caribbean – is one of our most reliable predictors for seasonal hurricane activity. The cooler the waters, the lower tropical activity we should expect.

While waters here are still slightly above the 30-year average, the trend is down, and the easterly trade winds – prevailing winds that blow from Africa toward the Caribbean throughout the year – that help to regulate the Atlantic’s temperature are forecast to be much stronger than average through at least mid-July. The stronger east-to-west flowing winds mix up the Atlantic and cool it, so I don’t see the Atlantic rebounding to a warmer place as August approaches.

The other bellwether we look to in July for what the cards might hold for August and September is the amount of wind shear through the Caribbean Sea. While wind shear – the change in wind strength and direction with altitude – doesn’t tell us much in June, come July it tends to be one of our best predictors for future hurricane activity.

For June, shear was running well above average, but more importantly, the trend for above-average wind shear across the Caribbean is headed even higher for July courtesy of an increasingly strong El Nino in the eastern Pacific.

Higher wind shear suggests would-be storms will have a tougher time organizing, and it’s the Caribbean and western Atlantic that are most affected during El Niño years like this one.

Lastly, we look to global upper-air patterns to assess the health of the Atlantic basin. One of the telltale signs of a healthy Atlantic are global circulation patterns supporting rising air over the North Indian Ocean and sinking air over the eastern and central Pacific. This year, we have the exact opposite pattern, with impressive subsidence, or sinking air, centered squarely over the North Indian Ocean, and reams of rising air over the Pacific, indicating things just aren’t right in the Atlantic.

The upshot is the tropical Atlantic isn’t looking ripe for a big storm season. That of course doesn’t mean we can’t (and won’t) see strong hurricanes this year, but they’ll be fewer and have a much tougher time than in any year since at least 2015. We’ll be looking more to the subtropics – the region to the north of the traditional tropical belt that runs from Africa through the Caribbean – for activity this season than in seasons of the recent past. We’ll also not want to sleep on the Gulf, which is running well above average, for tropical seedlings that might slip through the shear-laced cracks this fall.

But for now, the Atlantic is fast asleep. The low pressure area we’ve been tracking off the Carolina coast is nothing but an innocuous low-level cloud swirl absent any thunderstorms, and development isn’t expected anywhere across the Atlantic basin for at least the first few weeks of July.

The incident happened on June 21 during a softball league game at Waterways Park, located at 3310 NE 213th St., according to police.

Authorities said a verbal argument between teams escalated into a physical altercation, with multiple players pushing and shoving.

Police said Roberto Araujo, 41, of Allapattah, grabbed a metal bat and hit another player, William Rodriguez, in the back of the head.

Newly released body camera video shows Aventura officers arriving at the field and speaking with Rodriguez after the alleged attack.

“I was assaulted,” Rodriguez could be heard telling officers.

Rodriguez described the moments leading up to the incident, telling police the teams were involved in an exchange before he fell to the ground and was hit.

“I think he tripped over my feet. We both fell down and he just came around and swinged me in the head with the bat,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez’s aunt, who witnessed the incident, previously told Local 10 News that she saw Araujo swing the bat while her nephew was on the ground.

“Willie was on the ground, so he just swung as if he was hitting,” she said.

The aunt was also able to provide police with the suspect’s tag number, which helped investigators locate Araujo.

The new video shows officers later taking Araujo into custody.

“Hey bro, listen, just stand up right now. Turn around, put your hands behind your back,” an officer said.

“For what?” Araujo responded.

Police said Araujo initially fled the scene after the alleged attack.

Rodriguez told officers the teams had a history of aggression in the league before Araujo realized he was going to jail.

“I’m being detained or I’m being arrested?” Araujo asked the officer in the video.

The incident led to Araujo’s arrest on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Rodriguez’s aunt said she believes the charge is justified.

“I think he deserves to be in jail because he almost killed someone,” she said.

Araujo has since been released from jail, but he is still facing the felony charge.

La lista de más de 130 nuevas leyes de Florida incluye legislación para cambiar el nombre de un aeropuerto y una autopista en honor al presidente Donald Trump.

La nueva ley de Aeropuertos de Servicio Comercial cambia el nombre del Aeropuerto Internacional de Palm Beach a Aeropuerto Internacional Presidente Donald J. Trump.

La nueva ley de Designación de Vías de Transporte define la nueva Autopista Presidente Donald J. Trump como la Carretera Estatal 870, desde la Carretera Estatal A1A o South Ocean Boulevard en el Condado de Palm Beach, continuando hacia el oeste a través de los condados de Hendry y Lee, y Commercial Boulevard en el Condado de Broward. También designa una parte de la Carretera Estatal 985, o Southwest 107th Avenue, en el Condado de Miami-Dade como la Avenida Conmemorativa Charlie Kirk.

MÁS LEYES NUEVAS

La lista también incluía legislación relacionada con organizaciones terroristas, el medio ambiente, las nuevas tecnologías, la educación y la seguridad.

Terrorismo

La nueva ley de Influencia Extranjera limita los vínculos con “países extranjeros que suscitan preocupación”, amplía las sanciones penales relacionadas con “organizaciones terroristas extranjeras” y prohíbe los acuerdos de adopción preestablecidos o los contratos de gestación subrogada que involucren a “países que suscitan preocupación”.

La nueva ley sobre sistemas jurídicos y organizaciones terroristas permite al jefe de seguridad nacional del Departamento de Aplicación de la Ley de Florida designar a las “organizaciones terroristas”.

Seguridad pública

La nueva ley de Delitos Peligrosos , más conocida como la Ley de Missy en honor a Missy Mogle , la niña de 5 años víctima de asesinato , incluye “cualquier violación relacionada con la pornografía infantil o la explotación infantil” y exige la detención preventiva independientemente de la declaración del acusado.

La nueva ley sobre delitos sexuales revisa las penas mínimas obligatorias para los delincuentes sexuales condenados y aumenta las sanciones por solicitar, poseer, controlar o ver y crear intencionadamente material de abuso sexual infantil a sabiendas.

La nueva ley de Designación de Infractores Habituales de Tráfico , más conocida como la Ley de Isaías, crea una nueva categoría para los conductores que acumulan tres o más condenas por conducir sin una licencia válida en un plazo de cinco años.

La nueva ley sobre violencia doméstica y órdenes de protección reclasifica las penas por cometer un delito de violencia doméstica si una persona tiene una condena previa por violencia doméstica.

La nueva ley de prevención de ahogamientos amplía el programa de vales para clases de natación y ordena al Departamento de Salud de Florida que desarrolle materiales educativos.

Educación

La nueva ley sobre bienes inmuebles sin urbanizar de los distritos escolares exige un inventario anual de propiedades sin urbanizar o baldías para el Departamento de Educación de Florida. Si no se llega a un acuerdo antes del 1 de julio de 2027, la ley obliga a los distritos a ofrecer dichas propiedades a las escuelas autónomas.

La nueva ley de Atletismo en las Escuelas Públicas K-12 permite a los entrenadores deportivos de las escuelas secundarias realizar contribuciones personales de hasta 15.000 dólares anuales para ayudar a sufragar los gastos de transporte, alimentación y recuperación de sus jugadores.

Ambiente

La nueva ley sobre políticas gubernamentales prohibidas que regulan las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero prohíbe las políticas de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero de “cero neto”.

La nueva ley sobre sustancias perfluoroalquiladas y polifluoroalquiladas ordena al Departamento de Protección Ambiental de Florida que regule la espuma formadora de película acuosa, o AFFF, que se utiliza para la extinción de incendios.

La nueva ley de resiliencia costera prohíbe las operaciones de cruceros y el dragado o relleno dentro de la Reserva Acuática Terra Ceia, cerca del condado de Manatee, y ordena al Departamento de Protección Ambiental (DEP) que emita nuevos procesos de permisos antes del 1 de enero.

Nueva tecnología

La nueva ley de vertipuertos permite al Departamento de Transporte de Florida financiar el 100% del costo de los proyectos en vertipuertos públicos que no cuenten con fondos federales y el 80% cuando sí los haya.

La nueva ley de centros de datos otorga a los gobiernos locales un mayor control sobre la planificación y el desarrollo urbanístico de los centros de datos a gran escala, y prohíbe que se trasladen los costes de los servicios públicos a los residentes o a las pequeñas empresas.

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The list of more than 130 new Florida laws includes legislation to rename an airport and a highway after President Donald Trump.

The new Commercial Service Airports law renames the Palm Beach International Airport to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.

The new Transportation Facility Designations law defined the new President Donald J. Trump Highway as State Road 870, from State Road A1A or South Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach County, continuing westward through Hendry and Lee counties, and Commercial Boulevard in Broward County. It also designates a portion of State Road 985, or Southwest 107th Avenue, in Miami-Dade County as the Charlie Kirk Memorial Avenue.

MORE NEW LAWS

The list also included legislation related to terrorist organizations, the environment, new technology, education, and safety.

Terrorism

The new Foreign Influence law limits ties with “foreign countries of concern,” expands criminal penalties related to “foreign terrorist organizations,” and bans pre-planned adoption agreements or surrogate contracts involving “countries of concern.”

The new Systems of Law and Terrorist Organizations law allows the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s chief of domestic security to designate “terrorist organizations.”

Public safety

The new Dangerous Crimes law, better known as Missy’s Law after 5-year-old murder victim Missy Mogle, includes “any violation related to computer pornography or child exploitation” and requires pre-trial detention regardless of the defendant’s plea.

The new Sexual Offenses law revises mandatory minimum sentences for convicted sex offenders, and increases penalties for knowingly soliciting, possessing, controlling, or intentionally viewing and creating child sexual abuse material.

The new Habitual Traffic Offender Designation law, better known as Isaiah’s Law, creates a new designation for drivers who get three or more convictions of driving without a valid license within five years.

The new Domestic Violence and Protective Injunctions law reclassifies penalties for committing a domestic violence offense if a person has a prior conviction for domestic violence.

The new Drowning Prevention law expands the Swimming Lesson Voucher Program and directs the Florida Department of Health to develop educational materials.

Education

The new School District Unimproved Real Property law requires an annual inventory of “unimproved” or vacant property for the Florida Department of Education. Without an agreement by July 1, 2027, the law requires districts to offer such properties to charter schools.

The new Athletics in Public K-12 law allows athletic coaches in high schools to make personal contributions of up to $15,000 annually to help support their players’ transportation, food, and recovery.

Environment

The new Prohibited Governmental Policies Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions law bans “net-zero” greenhouse gas emission policies.

The new Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances law directs the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to regulate Aqueous Film-Forming Foam, or AFFF, which is used for fire suppression.

The new Coastal Resiliency law bans cruise ship operations and dredging or filling within the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve near Manatee County, and it directs DEP to issue new permitting processes by Jan. 1.

New tech

The new Vertiports law allows the Florida Department of Transportation to fund 100% of the cost of projects at public vertiports that don’t have federal funds and 80% when federal funds are available.

The new Data Centers law empowers local governments with more control over the planning and land development of large-scale data centers, and it prohibits passing on the utility costs to residents or small businesses.

Herman, 42, misappropriated more than $100,000 from 2022 to 2025, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office detective’s request for an arrest warrant.

Herman was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2010. He was a personal injury attorney based in Fort Lauderdale when a few of his clients accused him of withholding settlement funds in civil court in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, according to court records.

The Florida Bar temporarily suspended Herman on Oct. 6, 2023, and on July 29, 2024, before disbarring him on Sept. 25, 2025, records show.

A judge signed the warrant for Herman’s arrest on Thursday. After deputies arrested him, corrections booked him on Tuesday at the Broward County Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale, records show.

Herman appeared in bond court on Wednesday morning. He faced charges of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering, financial structure violation, and the misapplication of an insurance premium. His bond was $200,000.

Local 10 News Assignment Editor Carson Merlo contributed to this report.

Judge Christopher Wagner, who previously denied a temporary restraining order hours after the lawsuit was filed, said Wednesday during a hearing that his written order will be made on July 9.

The lawsuit was filed shortly after the NCAA Division I Cabinet approved a monumental change in eligibility rules last month.

“When each plaintiff completed their fourth season of competition during the 2025-26 academic year, they had every reason to know it was the end of the line and time to make way for the next generation of college athletes,” the NCAA wrote in a filing.

The plaintiffs are seeking to be eligible to play a fifth year during the upcoming season, representing athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 and began their college sports careers that fall and never redshirted.

“Each plaintiff was harmed each time he or she competed in a basketball game against a fifth or sixth-year player without being offered the same opportunity to compete in a fifth season themselves,” attorney Ryan Downton wrote in a filing.

The NCAA now allows athletes five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

The move will all but eliminate waivers or redshirt years for extended eligibility except for religious missions, pregnancy or active-duty military service. Extensions will no longer be considered for athletes who are injured.

Athletes whose eligibility expired by spring 2026 under the traditional model — four years of competition over five years — will not be allowed a fifth year of competition under the new rules that go into effect this fall.

Similar lawsuits are being filed in other states.

The Division I Cabinet has said in a statement posted on X that it was aware of legal action challenging its decision and that “we do not intend to change course.”

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Gregory DaSilva compareció este miércoles por la mañana ante un tribunal de fianzas de Broward, donde un juez ordenó que permanezca detenido sin derecho a fianza por dos cargos de asesinato premeditado.

Los registros de la cárcel muestran que también enfrenta un cargo de agresión agravada con un arma mortal.

La Policía de Lauderhill informó que los apuñalamientos ocurrieron alrededor de las 11:15 a.m. del martes en la cuadra 5300 de Northwest 19th Street.

Los investigadores informaron que inicialmente un agente fue abordado por un hombre que denunció que una persona armada con un cuchillo había intentado atacarlo.

Luego, los agentes localizaron a un sospechoso que coincidía con la descripción, pero la Policía indicó que este huyó hacia un vecindario residencial cercano.

Mientras los agentes registraban el área, los investigadores informaron que recibieron una llamada al 911 sobre un hombre con aparentes heridas de arma blanca. Mientras recorrían el vecindario, los agentes confirmaron que encontraron a una segunda víctima de apuñalamiento.

La Policía informó que una de las víctimas fue declarada muerta en el lugar, mientras que la otra falleció después de ser trasladada a un hospital cercano.

Vecinos dijeron a Local 10 que una de las víctimas, un hombre de unos 20 años, estaba leyendo una Biblia momentos antes de ser atacado. También dijeron que la segunda víctima utilizaba una silla de ruedas y no pudo escapar.

“Cuando entré, tenía sangre por todo el estómago, las orejas y la nariz”, dijo un vecino.

Las autoridades no han identificado un motivo para los homicidios y los investigadores no han informado si DaSilva conocía a alguna de las víctimas.

Tras el ataque, agentes de Policía y de varias agencias, incluida la Oficina del Sheriff de Broward y el Departamento de Policía de Sunrise, participaron en la búsqueda. Una unidad K-9 finalmente localizó a DaSilva, quien fue arrestado sin que se registraran más incidentes, informaron las autoridades.

La violencia provocó el cierre preventivo del Broward County Boys & Girls Club, ubicado frente al complejo de apartamentos, donde había más de 200 niños en ese momento, según la Policía.

“Lo primero y más importante es asegurarnos de que los niños estén a salvo, cerrar todas las puertas, garantizar que nadie pueda entrar o salir y verificar que todos los niños estén presentes”, dijo Chris Gentile, director ejecutivo del Broward County Boys & Girls Club.

Además de ordenar que DaSilva permanezca detenido sin derecho a fianza por los cargos de asesinato, el juez fijó una fianza de $15,000 USD por el cargo de agresión agravada.

El juez también ordenó que DaSilva no tenga contacto con la víctima sobreviviente, le prohibió poseer armas y ordenó que se le practique una evaluación de salud mental.

Las autoridades informaron que la investigación continúa y exhortaron a cualquier persona con información a llamar a Broward Crime Stoppers al 954-493-8477.

Leer en español

According to an arrest report, the Aventura Police Department arrested Wetsmy Louicius, 25, of Lynn, Massachusetts, on a charge of aggravated battery.

Police said the attack happened on Feb. 4 at the Aventura Mall Transit Bus Depot, located at 19501 Biscayne Blvd.

According to the report, officers arrived to find the victim sitting on a bus bench surrounded by Aventura Mall security personnel, holding paper towels to her face as they observed “a significant amount of blood on the ground.”

The report states she was taken by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue medics to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital as a trauma alert.

Medical staff later determined the woman had multiple facial fractures and were concerned about her airway, according to the report.

Police said the victim told hospital staff on Feb. 6 that she was waiting for a bus when Louicius, who was sitting next to her, asked if she wanted to have sex. They said after she replied “no,” he “punched her in the face without warning,” according to the report.

Investigators reviewed surveillance video from the bus depot, which they said showed Louicius sitting beside the woman before she stood near the curb to look for an approaching bus.

Police said the video shows Louicius punching her, which caused her to fall off the curb into the roadway before fleeing on foot.

Detectives said they tracked Louicius using surveillance footage from nearby businesses, including a Citibank branch, a Total Wine store and a Marathon gas station, where they obtained a clear image of his face.

Authorities said detectives with the New Jersey Transit Police Department also identified Louicius from surveillance images and advised Aventura detectives that the Boston Police Department also had probable cause to arrest him in “similar” incidents.

Investigators said Louicius has also been linked to other alleged attacks. According to WCVB in Boston, he was arrested in December 2022 after Boston police accused him of assaulting three women near the Back Bay MBTA station.

As of Tuesday, he was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center after being transferred from Broward County, where his bond was listed as “to be set.”

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Gregory DaSilva appeared in Broward bond court Wednesday morning, where a judge ordered him held without bond on two counts of premeditated murder.

Jail records show he is also facing one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Lauderhill police said the stabbings happened around 11:15 a.m. Tuesday in the 5300 block of Northwest 19th Street.

Investigators said an officer was initially flagged down by a man who reported that someone armed with a knife had tried to attack him.

Officers then located a suspect matching the description, but police said he ran into a nearby residential neighborhood.

As officers searched the area, investigators said they received a 911 call about a man suffering from apparent stab wounds. While canvassing the neighborhood, officers confirmed that they found a second stabbing victim.

Police said one victim was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other died after being taken to a nearby hospital.

Neighbors told Local 10 that one of the victims, a man in his 20s, had been reading a Bible moments before he was attacked. Neighbors also said the second victim used a wheelchair and was unable to escape.

“When I came inside, (he) got blood all over his stomach, ears and nose,” one neighbor said.

A man named Nelson, who lives nearby, described his neighbor who was allegedly attacked in the wheelchair as a “good man” who “doesn’t give trouble” to anybody.

Authorities have not identified a motive for the killings, and investigators have not said whether DaSilva knew either victim.

Following the attack, police officers and deputies from multiple agencies, including the Broward Sheriff’s Office and Sunrise Police Department, joined the search. A K-9 unit eventually located DaSilva, who was taken into custody without further incident, authorities said.

The violence prompted a lockdown at the Broward County Boys & Girls Club located across the street from the apartment complex, where more than 200 children were inside at the time, according to police.

“The first and foremost thing is to make sure the kids are safe and that we lock down all the doors, make sure no one can get in or out, and we are accounting for all the kids,” said Chris Gentile, CEO of the Broward County Boys & Girls Club.

In addition to ordering DaSilva held without bond on the murder charges, the judge imposed a $15,000 bond on the aggravated assault charge.

The judge also ordered that DaSilva have no contact with the surviving victim, prohibited him from possessing any weapons, and ordered a mental health screening.

Authorities said the investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information is urged to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.

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Veteran goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky has signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team confirmed.

Bobrovsky agreed to a three-year, $21 million contract with Toronto, ESPN’s Kevin Weekes and SportsNet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed Wednesday.

Bobrovsky spent seven seasons with the Panthers, helping the franchise win back-to-back Stanley Cups while becoming one of the most beloved players in team history.

“A sincere thank you to Sergei Bobrovsky for everything that he’s done for the organization,” said Panthers general manager Bill Zito. “Not just on the ice, but his contribution in the community, but there’s a lot of things that he did that aren’t public. A thank you to Bob.”

The two-time Vezina Trophy winner also helped Florida eliminate Toronto in the playoffs twice over the last four seasons.

The move comes after a difficult 2025-26 season for Bobrovsky, who finished with a .877 save percentage, the worst mark of his Panthers career.

Toronto added the 37-year-old after trading goalie Joseph Woll to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Bobrovsky’s reported departure comes shortly after the Panthers announced an eight-year contract extension for forward Eetu Luostarinen and the signing of veteran defenseman Radko Gudas, who played for the Panthers from 2020-2023.

The decision handed several victories to the League of Women Voters of Arkansas and other plaintiffs, which sued last year amid efforts in various states to make it harder for regular citizens to make laws or amend their states’ constitution through ballot initiatives.

One such measure required someone signing a petition to show photo ID. That and other additional ballot-initiative restrictions were imposed by Arkansas’ GOP-controlled state government after election officials cited a legal technicality to reject petitions submitted by abortion rights supporters in a 2024 effort to legalize abortion in the conservative state.

One of the plaintiffs, Protect AR Rights, called the decision an “important victory for the people of Arkansas and their constitutional right to direct democracy."

The decision, issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks, also rejected some challenges by the league and its fellow plaintiffs, while Brooks sent three other disputes to trial.

The defendant, Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester, a Republican who had defended the laws in court, said in a statement that his office plans to appeal Brooks' decision and “will fight tirelessly for common sense safeguards like voter ID.”

Among the laws Brooks struck down are 2025 measures requiring canvassers to verify a petition signers' identity through a photo ID and to read the ballot question aloud or require a petition signer to read the entire ballot question before signing it. The ballot questions are often hundreds of words long.

Requiring a petition signer to possess and present a photo ID “before engaging in core political speech” plainly violates free speech laws, Brooks wrote, and noted that the Arkansas secretary of state's office reviews every signature to confirm that the petition signer is a registered voter.

The ID requirement regulates what a registered voter “must do before signing a petition and what a canvasser must do before allowing them to,” Brooks wrote. “This impedes supporters of a measure from expressing their views by signing a petition.”

State officials had contended that requiring a reading of the ballot question before anyone can sign a petition was necessary to prevent a canvasser from misrepresenting the ballot question.

But Brooks wrote that the state had refused to prosecute reported cases of such canvasser misconduct, and that it should enforce its existing laws before it chose a more restrictive alternative of “imposing burdensome speech codes on good and bad actors alike.”

Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., allow citizen-initiated ballot measures, according to the nonprofit Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

In March, the center reported that it had found a “sharp escalation” by lawmakers in both the number and severity of anti-democratic attacks on the ballot measure process over the past several election cycles.

Sponsors of such efforts, it wrote, framed them as steps to improve election integrity, administrative efficiency or voter protection.

One of the most common methods is making it harder for initiatives to qualify for the ballot by placing restrictions on where, when and how signatures are collected, it wrote.

It singled out efforts in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.

Another common method of restricting ballot initiatives, it said, is requiring a larger majority of voters, rather than a simple majority, to approve a referendum, thus making it harder to pass. It cited efforts in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio.

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Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter

Según el informe de arresto, el Departamento de Policía de Aventura arrestó a Wetsmy Louicius, de 25 años y residente de Lynn, Massachusetts, por un cargo de agresión agravada.

La Policía informó que el ataque ocurrió el 4 de febrero en la terminal de autobuses del Aventura Mall, ubicada en el 19501 de Biscayne Blvd.

Según el informe, los agentes llegaron al lugar y encontraron a la víctima sentada en una banca de la terminal, rodeada por personal de seguridad de Aventura Mall, sosteniendo toallas de papel sobre el rostro mientras observaban “una cantidad considerable de sangre en el suelo”.

El informe indica que paramédicos de Miami-Dade Fire Rescue la trasladaron al Hospital HCA Florida Aventura como paciente de trauma.

Posteriormente, el personal médico determinó que la mujer presentaba múltiples fracturas faciales y estaba preocupado por el estado de sus vías respiratorias, según el informe.

La Policía informó que la víctima les dijo a miembros del personal del hospital el 6 de febrero que estaba esperando un autobús cuando Louicius, quien estaba sentado a su lado, le preguntó si quería tener relaciones sexuales. Indicaron que, después de que ella respondió “no”, él “la golpeó en el rostro sin previo aviso”, según el informe.

Los investigadores revisaron videos de vigilancia de la terminal de autobuses, los cuales, según informaron, muestran a Louicius sentado junto a la mujer antes de que ella se pusiera de pie cerca de la acera para buscar el autobús que se aproximaba.

La Policía informó que el video muestra a Louicius golpeándola, lo que provocó que cayera de la acera hacia la vía antes de huir a pie.

Los detectives dijeron que rastrearon a Louicius mediante videos de vigilancia de negocios cercanos, incluidos una sucursal de Citibank, una tienda Total Wine y una gasolinera Marathon, donde obtuvieron una imagen clara de su rostro.

Las autoridades informaron que detectives del Departamento de Policía de Tránsito de Nueva Jersey también identificaron a Louicius a partir de las imágenes de vigilancia y notificaron a los detectives de Aventura que el Departamento de Policía de Boston también tenía causa probable para arrestarlo por incidentes “similares”.

Los investigadores informaron que Louicius también ha sido vinculado a otros presuntos ataques. Según WCVB, de Boston, fue arrestado en diciembre de 2022 después de que la Policía de Boston lo acusara de agredir a tres mujeres cerca de la estación Back Bay de la MBTA.

Hasta el martes, permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight tras ser trasladado desde el condado Broward, donde su fianza figuraba como “pendiente de fijación”.

La Oficina del Sheriff de Broward identificó al hombre como Bart Diguglielmo, de Lauderhill.

Según la BSO, la balacera fue reportada poco antes de las 12:30 p.m. del martes en el estacionamiento del Walmart, ubicado en el 7900 de West McNab Road.

Agentes y paramédicos de North Lauderdale Fire Rescue respondieron al lugar y encontraron a Diguglielmo con una herida de bala, informaron las autoridades.

Los agentes informaron que los paramédicos trasladaron a Diguglielmo al Broward Health Medical Center, donde murió.

Según la BSO, Diguglielmo y una mujer habían discutido por un espacio de estacionamiento antes de la balacera.

Los agentes informaron que la mujer permaneció en el lugar después de la balacera y aseguró que le disparó a Diguglielmo en defensa propia.

Los detectives confirmaron que la mujer fue detenida para ser interrogada y que está cooperando con la investigación.

Indicaron que, una vez concluya la investigación, el caso será presentado ante la Fiscalía Estatal del Condado Broward para determinar si se presentarán cargos penales contra la mujer.

La identidad de la mujer no ha sido divulgada.

Contienen bolsas para cadáveres.

El hombre es Germán Bello, un voluntario de 39 años de la Brigada Internacional de Rescate Topos Azteca, una de las organizaciones civiles de búsqueda y rescate más conocidas de México. Fundada tras el devastador terremoto de 1985 en Ciudad de México, la brigada sin fines de lucro opera de manera independiente y se ha ganado una reputación internacional por desplegarse ante grandes desastres dentro y fuera del país.

La noche del martes, Bello se dirigía a uno de los desastres naturales más mortíferos de Venezuela en la historia moderna. Casi una semana después de que dos potentes terremotos devastaran la costa caribeña del país, las autoridades informaron el miércoles que más de 2.200 personas han muerto y más de 11.000 han resultado heridas.

Las esperanzas de encontrar sobrevivientes se desvanecen

Los equipos internacionales de rescate continúan buscando en edificios de apartamentos y viviendas derrumbadas en La Guaira, el estado más afectado, aun cuando las esperanzas de hallar más sobrevivientes se desvanecen y la misión se desplaza cada vez más hacia la recuperación de cuerpos.

Bello no sabe cuándo regresará a casa. Además del equipo de rescate, lleva bolsas para cadáveres y otros implementos que podrían utilizarse para recuperar a quienes murieron en los terremotos.

Ingeniero electricista y dueño de un pequeño taller de reparación de autos, Bello es conocido dentro de la brigada como “La Secre” —abreviatura de secretario— porque funge como la mano derecha del fundador del grupo, el veterano rescatista Héctor “El Chino” Méndez.

Méndez, de 80 años, ayudó a organizar los esfuerzos espontáneos de rescate civil tras el terremoto de 1985 en Ciudad de México y ha encabezado misiones de los Topos en todo el mundo durante cuatro décadas. Ya está en La Guaira, ayudando a buscar a los pocos sobrevivientes que aún podrían estar atrapados bajo edificios colapsados.

“Los más difícil es decirle a alguien que ha fallecido su familiar”, afirma Bello.

Rescatistas de su equipo señalan que deben mantener a raya sus emociones una vez que llegan a la zona del desastre, donde mantenerse concentrados puede significar la diferencia entre la vida y la muerte.

La voluntaria Merry Valencia, que ha pasado 14 años en la brigada, recitó parte del código de conducta del grupo: “No hay hambre, no hay calor, no hay sueño. No hay miedo”.

Una vez que evalúan la estabilidad de las estructuras colapsadas, los rescatistas se dividen en pequeños equipos asignados a distintas secciones de los escombros. Se arrastran por aberturas estrechas y huecos dentro de edificios derrumbados, una práctica que les valió el apodo de “Topos”. A menudo usan cámaras térmicas y otros equipos especializados para buscar señales de vida.

Armados con palas, martillos y otras herramientas, retiran lentamente los escombros, centímetro a centímetro, tratando de evitar provocar nuevos derrumbes.

Un llamado al silencio se propaga rápidamente

“¡Somos rescatistas mexicanos, si hay alguien vivo, hagan ruido, o griten. ¡Ahora!”, gritó el sábado un rescatista del Ejército mexicano mientras buscaba entre las ruinas de un edificio colapsado en La Guaira.

Momentos después, levantó un puño cerrado en el aire.

El gesto indica una orden de silencio total, una técnica de búsqueda que surgió durante el terremoto de 1985 en Ciudad de México y que más tarde fue formalizada por los Topos. Hoy, equipos de rescate en todo el mundo utilizan versiones del protocolo.

La señal se extiende al instante por la zona del desastre. Rescatistas, soldados, voluntarios y periodistas tienen que dejar de hablar. Durante varios segundos, lo único que se oye es el silencio.

Luego, los rescatistas esperan con atención cualquier indicio de vida, usando micrófonos sensibles, cámaras telescópicas o simplemente pegando el oído a los escombros, con la esperanza de detectar una voz, un golpe o el más leve movimiento.

El equipo puede llevar un rayo de esperanza

De vuelta en el aeropuerto de Ciudad de México, un joven con gafas se acerca a Bello tras enterarse de que se dirige a Venezuela. Le pregunta si él y su colega forman parte de la misión de rescate.

Cuando Bello responde que sí, el hombre rompe en llanto.

“Gracias por venir, mi familia está en Caracas”, dice el ingeniero venezolano Diego Bejarano

Bello lo abraza con fuerza. Es probable que sea el primero de muchos abrazos en los días por venir, mientras se suma a otros equipos internacionales de rescate en la zona del desastre en Venezuela.

Después de que Bejarano se aleja, Bello se seca las lágrimas de los ojos y explica por qué sigue ofreciéndose como voluntario para misiones como esta.

“Esa es mi recompensa: poder darle un rayito de esperanza a alguien”.

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Arráez informó desde La Guaira, Venezuela.

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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.

“Aquí (la exfiscal) formó un gobierno paralelo que destruyó la carrera fiscal, principalmente al haber destituido a un promedio de entre 800 y 1.000 trabajadores durante su gestión” de ocho años, aseguró García Luna en una entrevista con The Associated Press.

El nuevo jefe del Ministerio Público asumió el cargo hace 40 días y ya ordenó desarticular la red de personal administrativo y fiscal de confianza de la exfiscal Porras denunciada por criminalizar y perseguir a exoperadores de justicia.

“Todos tienen un concepto de un Ministerio Público que se puede usar de una forma y eso ya no podemos tenerlo, no es un ente político, ni un arma política de nadie y yo no pienso volver a hacer cosas que se hicieron en anteriores administraciones”, señaló el García Luna, sentado en un lujoso y vacío escritorio de madera, herencia de su antecesora, en su nueva oficina.

García Luna, de 49 años, es doctor en derecho y comenzó su carrera dentro del sistema de justicia a los 17 años en un cargo menor en un juzgado, hasta llegar a ser juez y magistrado de Sala de Apelaciones. Llegó con el desafío de cambiar el rumbo de una fiscalía general que con Porras al frente (2018-2026) fue señalada de perseguir y criminalizar a decenas de operadores de justicia, activistas y periodistas que buscaron el exilio.

Porras también intentó detener la toma de posesión del presidente Bernardo Arévalo al buscar que el partido que lo llevó al gobierno fuera cancelado por un juez y que se desconociera su presidencia alegando un presunto fraude que no fue comprobado.

El nuevo fiscal apuesta a un cambio radical de una fiscalía “represora y de venganza” a opositores políticos a otra nueva con el relanzamiento de la carrera fiscal. Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea, que sancionaron a Porras y a varios de sus fiscales por obstaculizar la lucha anticorrupción y socavar la democracia, han ofrecido apoyo a ese proyecto y al combate al crimen transnacional organizado.

Porras fue nombrada por el entonces gobernante Jimmy Morales (2016-2020) y reelecta por Alejandro Giammattei (2020-2024), y aunque se presentaron varias denuncias contra es dos exmandatarios, Porras optó por desestimar, no investigar o no accionar judicialmente contra quienes la eligieron.

La exfiscal siempre negó asimismo las acusaciones en su contra, señalando que “afectan el derecho al honor, la dignidad, reputación y presunción de inocencia”.

En mes y medio, el fiscal García Luna ha destituido a una treintena de allegados a Porras, que habrían cometido faltas como destituir a fiscales que llevaban investigaciones importantes para bloquear procesos y por ordenar traslados injustificados para entorpecer investigaciones, entre otras razones.

“Estamos investigando si sus acciones tienen alguna responsabilidad judicial”, dijo.

El miércoles, el fiscal general firmó la destitución de otro grupo de exfiscales y personal, entre ellos el de Gilberto de Jesús Porres de Paz, exfiscal de Sección Adjunto de la Fiscalía contra la Corrupción y esposo de la exfiscal Porras, debido a que según dijo “su trabajo no representaba las políticas de la nueva fiscalía”.

Muchos exoperadores de justicia, como el exfiscal Juan Francisco Sandoval, quien vive exiliado tras denunciar persecución por parte de Porras por su trabajo en casos de corrupción de alto impacto, consideran que los colaboradores de la polémica exfiscal cesados deben ser objeto de una investigación imparcial e independiente.

García Luna dijo que no descarta tomar acciones penales contra Porras, quien enfrenta varias denuncias, una de ellas por presunta trata de personas en un caso de adopciones irregulares.

El nuevo fiscal también creó una comisión que revisa los expedientes de quienes han denunciado criminalización, y aseguró que colabora con la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos de la OEA que ha fijado para el 4 de agosto una audiencia para conocerlos.

García Luna señaló, además, que se revisan los casos en los que la fiscalía, bajo el mandato de Porras, benefició o permitió liberar a presuntos corruptos, narcotraficantes y acusados de otros delitos, con el fin de retomarlos e interponer las acciones judiciales que permita la ley para que no haya impunidad.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that it had confirmed at least 48 cases — 38 of them severe — as of June 30. Since 2004, the average number of cases reported to the CDC by the end of June is around 10. Federal health officials said 23 states have reported finding West Nile virus, the most in 10 years.

“These findings serve as an important reminder that mosquito season is well underway,” said Dr. Erin Staples, a CDC expert on insect-borne diseases. “As families gather outdoors to celebrate Independence Day, we encourage everyone to enjoy their holiday while taking simple steps to protect themselves and their loved ones from mosquito bites.”

Most of the cases have been in Arizona. Of the state's 32 total cases, 29 are in Maricopa County. The county, which includes Phoenix, has also recorded four deaths from the virus so far this year.

Officials there asked people to wear bug spray containing DEET, patch up broken window screens and get rid of standing water, where mosquitoes often breed.

“Even an overturned bottle cap can hold enough water for mosquitoes to breed,” said Melissa Kretschmer, a county health department official. “It’s important that we remove these breeding sources that can form after rain or watering plants.”

The CDC also recommends people wear long, loose-fitting clothes when outside to make it harder for mosquitoes to bite them. Experts also suggest people avoid being outdoors around dusk and dawn, when the mosquitoes that carry the virus are most active.

West Nile virus was first reported in the United States in 1999 in New York, and then gradually spread across the country. It peaked in 2003, when nearly 10,000 cases were reported.

Scientists say many people — perhaps tens of thousands each year — are infected but don’t know it because they have no symptoms, or only mild ones such as headaches, body aches, joint pain, vomiting, diarrhea and rashes.

In severe cases, damage to the central nervous system causes potentially deadly inflammation of the brain or spinal cord. Adults older than 60 and people with underlying medical conditions or weakened immune systems face the highest risk of such complications.

In the last decade, health officials have fielded reports of 2,000 cases annually on average, including 1,200 life-threatening neurological illnesses and about 100 deaths.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Andrew Boutros, the U.S attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said the massive review will include all pending grand jury proceedings in his district as well as other presentations by prosecutors going back almost 20 years. It was sparked by revelations of grand jury misconduct that forced prosecutors to abandon a closely watched case against four activists who protested outside a federal building during last year’s immigration crackdown in the city.

“It’s going to be a massive review, a comprehensive review and it is underway,” said Boutros, who was in Washington for an unrelated news conference. Boutros said the process is meant to ensure that his prosecutors have “acted ethically” and to provide “assurances and confidence" that other pending cases have not been tainted by similar issues.

The Justice Department dropped charges against the activists in May after a judge scrutinized allegations of misconduct, which included a prosecutor meeting with a grand juror outside proceedings and other jurors who disagreed with the case being dismissed from participating.

When the case was dismissed, Boutros told a judge that the conduct was upsetting, adding that: “No one acted with the intent to mislead, your honor.”

The judge overseeing the case took the extraordinary step last month of releasing the transcripts of the presentation made by prosecutors, who were seeking to secure an indictment against the activists in the most high-profile cases to come out of the crackdown that rippled across the nation’s third-largest city and its suburbs last year.

The transcripts showed that one of the grand jurors called the case a “crock of (expletive)." The grand juror was subsequently excused from the proceedings.

El gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, anunció el martes su intención de recomendar que CAIR sea designado formalmente en una lista estatal como organización terrorista.

“Tenemos que trazar una línea muy firme aquí”, dijo DeSantis.

La oficina del gobernador informó que la HB 1471, firmada en abril, permite al estado designar organizaciones terroristas, al anunciar una lista de “intención de designar” que incluye a CAIR, lo que, según DeSantis, evitará que “la influencia extranjera y extremista eche raíces en el estado”.

“Creo que esto es lo que la gente de Florida esperaba cuando firmé esta ley, que entró en vigor hoy”, dijo DeSantis.

En abril, representantes de CAIR Florida dijeron a Local 10 News que se oponían a la ley.

“Hoy es un día oscuro para la Constitución de Florida y la Constitución de Estados Unidos”, dijo en ese momento Wilfredo Ruiz, director de comunicaciones de CAIR Florida.

Omar Saleh, abogado de CAIR Florida, dijo en abril que “las personas no se convierten en un riesgo para la seguridad solo porque a uno no le agraden o no esté de acuerdo con ellas”.

El gobernador dijo que las organizaciones designadas bajo la ley de Florida también podrían estar sujetas a disolución según lo establecido por la legislación.

DeSantis dijo que, tras la confirmación por parte del Gabinete de Florida, las personas que “a sabiendas” proporcionen apoyo material o recursos a organizaciones designadas como terroristas bajo la nueva autoridad legal podrían enfrentar sanciones penales.

Los gobiernos estatales y locales tendrán prohibido proporcionar fondos públicos y contratos a esos grupos.

Las escuelas públicas y las universidades también tendrán prohibido utilizar recursos públicos para apoyar o promover a esas organizaciones.

“Esto afectará el programa de becas de libre elección escolar K-12 de Florida”, dijo DeSantis. “No voy a enviar becas a escuelas que estén asociadas con grupos como CAIR. Eso no va a suceder”.

“Florida no es el estado libre que dice ser, especialmente cuando se observan leyes como esta”, dijo Saleh en abril. “Es una tontería”.

En diciembre, DeSantis firmó una orden ejecutiva que dio lugar a un litigio.

Los registros judiciales muestran que un juicio sin jurado está programado para comenzar en enero próximo.

Documentos judiciales:

CAIR filings by Chris Gothner

Alibaba operates some of the world's largest e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com.

The U.S. alleges that Alibaba’s U.S.-based payment processor, AUS Merchant Services, violated federal law by failing to prevent merchants from selling and importing illegal products into the U.S. through Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com.

Alibaba acknowledges in an agreement with the Justice Department that between January 2016 and December 2024, it failed to stop roughly 80,000 product sales involving unlawful imports that violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other federal laws.

A news release on the settlement resolution says that Alibaba employees raised concerns that the company’s compliance controls were inadequate and failed to prevent the sale of illegal products — and, in some instances, merchants used Alibaba’s messaging service to direct buyers to third-party messaging platforms to facilitate illegal sales.

In a statement, Alibaba said the firm and the U.S. government reached a mutually satisfactory resolution to bring stricter compliance to the sale of products in the U.S. by third-party merchants on its e-commerce platforms.

Law enforcement officers across the FDA, FDIC, IRS-CI, and other agencies conducted more than 40 undercover purchases of pharmaceuticals and equipment that were illegal to import into the U.S., according to the news release. A non-prosecution agreement was crafted between Alibaba and the Justice Department.

IRS Criminal Investigations' Chief Jarod Koopman said the resolution "underscores IRS Criminal Investigation’s commitment to following the money and ensuring that companies operating in the United States comply fully with federal law.”

Un equipo formado por donantes, voluntarios y personal de GEM trasladó unos 235.000 libras de donaciones en una operación logística compleja que incluyó dos almacenes en Doral y Valencia, que funcionaban como centro de distribución.

“Es el peor desastre que jamás hayamos vivido”, dijo Rafael Pineyro, concejal de Doral y voluntario de GEM, nacido en Caracas.

GEM contó con el apoyo del Departamento de Estado de EE. UU., la agencia a la que el presidente Donald Trump encargó la respuesta estadounidense en Venezuela. El Comando Sur de EE. UU. desplegó todas las ramas de las fuerzas armadas.

El Departamento de Estado también activó los grupos de trabajo de Florida, procedentes de Miami y del condado de Miami-Dade. Estos se unieron a otros dos equipos de búsqueda y rescate altamente capacitados de Fairfax, Virginia, y California.

Hassel Mendoza, un ingeniero venezolano que vive en Tampa, viajó a La Guaira para buscar a su madre, hermana, sobrino y cuñado entre las ruinas de un edificio de apartamentos de nueve pisos que se derrumbó.

“Perdimos mucho tiempo tratando de encontrar nuevas herramientas para una actividad específica, como cortar acero”, dijo Mendoza a CNN , y agregó que los equipos gubernamentales y los voluntarios no contaban con equipos como taladros o sensores.

El martes, Diosdado Cabello, un ex oficial militar venezolano que funge como ministro de Justicia, anunció la detención de miembros de las fuerzas del orden acusados ​​de saqueo en La Guaira.

Cabello, buscado en Estados Unidos por narcotráfico, identificó a los cuatro sospechosos como Maya Aguilar Reyes, una oficial; Fredy Rafael Lugo Oliveros, Roger Andrés Omaña y Josue Jhonatan Burgos Sánchez.

Un testigo grabó y compartió un video que se hizo viral. En él se veía a Aguilar Reyes, su identificación y a una mujer llorando que lo confrontó, le quitó una bolsa llena de dólares estadounidenses y rompió los billetes en pedazos sobre los escombros cerca de un edificio derrumbado.

“Sé que muchos venezolanos sienten dolor y frustración; comparto profundamente esos sentimientos”, dijo Delcy Rodríguez , presidenta interina de Venezuela desde que el ejército estadounidense capturó a Nicolás Maduro.

El hermano de Rodríguez, Jorge Rodríguez, presidente de la Asamblea Nacional, anunció el miércoles que el número de muertos había aumentado a 2.295.

El Servicio Geológico de Estados Unidos estima que el número de víctimas mortales asciende a decenas de miles, y las Naciones Unidas anunciaron la adquisición de 10.000 bolsas para cadáveres.

El personal y los colaboradores de GEM solicitan donaciones en efectivo al público a través de esta página web . El almacén de GEM, ubicado en 1850 NW 84th Ave., en Doral, aún necesita voluntarios para clasificar y empacar las donaciones. Para inscribirse, hay una página web disponible.

El almacén, abierto todos los días de 9:00 a 17:00, era uno de los muchos puntos de recogida en el sur de Florida. Entre las necesidades prioritarias se encontraban productos de higiene, alimentos no perecederos y artículos de primeros auxilios.

Lista útil: Lugares para entregar ayuda en el sur de Florida

Más información sobre cómo ayudar a Venezuela.

• Inter Miami, Marlins y Dolphins se suman a los esfuerzos de ayuda.
• Una estrella de la NFL se une al equipo de Global Empowerment Mission; su mensaje para los habitantes del sur de Florida es: “Hagan lo que puedan”.
• Más de 100 venezolanos que fueron deportados de Estados Unidos horas antes de los terremotos están desaparecidos.

• Food for the Poor celebra las inversiones en reconstrucción.
• Médicos del condado de Miami-Dade recolectan donaciones de suministros médicos cerca de Doral.
• Les presentamos al capitán German Leal del Departamento de Bomberos y Rescate de Miami-Dade.

• Agentes de policía de Pembroke Pines anuncian una campaña de recolección de donaciones.
• Airbnb se asocia con la organización sin fines de lucro CADENA para proporcionar alojamiento de emergencia.
• Hogar Bambi tiene como objetivo proteger a los niños vulnerables.

• El equipo de la Fundación Grey Bull Rescue llega a Caracas.
• Las autoridades clausuran La Guaira y exigen que los voluntarios se registren en Caracas.
• Amazon realiza donaciones a Airlink para ayudar a organizaciones benéficas con la logística.

• El equipo de búsqueda y rescate de Miami se prepara para desplegarse.
• Centro Comunitario AFE organiza campaña de recolección en Miami-Dade
• Una organización benéfica con sede en Weston se asocia con una farmacia local.

• El proyecto DYNAMO, liderado por veteranos, entrega 20.000 libras de ayuda en las primeras 48 horas.
• El altruismo en El Arepazo alimenta el esfuerzo del equipo de Global Empowerment Mission.
• Rescatistas salvadoreños trabajan para liberar a un sobreviviente de 15 años en Caraballeda.

• Food For The Poor incluye en sus kits de ayuda humanitaria notas escritas a mano con mensajes de esperanza.
• El Comando Sur de Estados Unidos se centra en los daños en los aeropuertos.
• El Departamento de Estado despliega un equipo de búsqueda y rescate en Miami-Dade.

• Miami Beach abre 4 nuevos puntos de entrega de ayuda.
• Miramar mantendrá abiertos 6 puntos de entrega de ayuda las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana.
• El recaudador de impuestos de Miami-Dade abre 11 puntos de entrega.
• Doral abre 4 puntos de entrega de ayuda.

• Se abre un punto de entrega de ayuda en Homestead.
• Starlink ofrece servicio gratuito hasta el 25 de julio, pero un kit cuesta 470 dólares.
• International Medical Corps despliega personal y necesita donaciones.
• Save The Children solicita donaciones para su fondo de emergencia.

• Samaritan’s Purse se centra en los “hospitales de campaña de emergencia”.
• La Cruz Roja solicita donaciones para su Fondo de Emergencia para la Respuesta ante Desastres.
• La ONU solicita donaciones para un programa infantil que carece de fondos suficientes.

• World Vision solicita donaciones para su “fondo de ayuda en casos de desastre”.
• World Central Kitchen solicita donaciones para comidas frescas.
• United Way Miami lanza la ‘Operación Manos Amigas’.

President Donald Trump's latest financial disclosure report showed he took in about $1.2 billion last year from various crypto holdings, overshadowing a real estate business that brought him fame and helped propel him to the nation's top office.

Whereas it took decades for Trump to amass his various properties, the rise of crypto in his portfolio was done in just over a year, a stunning development sped along by his own friendly policies toward the industry and help from billionaires and other actors with important business before the presidency.

Running over 900 pages, the mandatory annual report showed Trump struck several other new veins of wealth last year, raising questions about whether he is profiting from his high office.

He took in tens of millions from new property holdings in foreign countries eager to please a man with power over where to deploy the U.S. military and how much to charge in tariffs. And he got tens of million more suing media companies worried they could lose their broadcast licenses or not get deals approved by his regulators.

Ever the salesman, Trump even made big money off the smallest of things, pulling in millions by slapping his name on Bibles, guitars and watches — the latter alone bringing in $4.7 million.

Hail the new crypto king

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling “governance tokens" and “stablecoins” and other crypto assets. Another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the meme coins have plunged in value since his sales, partly because they are so difficult to value. Governance tokens, for instance, confer to holders only the power to vote on certain management policies at a company, not equity stakes, and so typical valuation measures don't apply.

Buyers pounced on Trump crypto anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February 2025, a federal lawsuit charging the billionaire, Justin Sun, with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

Sun has denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Separately, a company linked to the United Arab Emirates government bought a stake in World Liberty for $500 million shortly before Trump's inauguration. The disclosure says nothing about the deal explicitly, but notes Trump received his share of a “capital contribution” amounting to nearly $200 million.

Subsequently, the UAE got access to advanced U.S. chips that it had been previously banned from importing because of national security concerns.

The White House has repeatedly said that Trump has acted only in the public interest, never gets involved in a family business run by his two oldest sons and has zero conflicts of interest.

His real estate business is booming, too

Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas, amounting to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the UAE generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

Trump's Winter White House is hot

A big winner last year was Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, generating $77 million as heads of state and business people flocked to what Trump has dubbed his Winter White House. That's up 50% from a year earlier when Trump was just another citizen.

His golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, also is doing well from the glow of the presidency. Trump got $38 million from his so-called Summer White House, up nearly 20%.

In total his 16 golf courses and clubs around the world brought in more than $470 million in fees and licensing income.

The president's MAGA book sold more than the Bible

Trump took in millions last year from selling Trump books and various other Trump-branded goods in another unprecedented move for the presidency.

Trump Bibles made $208,486, but the word of God didn't sell as well as a trio of other literary offerings. His “Save America” book took in $1,893,965, “Letters to Trump” generated $590,730, and “A MAGA Journey,” $552,685.

His brand of guitars generated $35,920. Trump sneakers and fragrances took in $67,634.

Trump sued a lot, and made a lot of money

It's anyone's guess why exactly various media companies decided to settle Trump lawsuits alleging fraud and defamation, but settle they did — and paid up.

Lawsuits against ABC, CBS, Meta, and others took in more than $80 million, much of which went to Trump's planned Miami library.

Where Trump hasn't prevailed so far is with E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who won millions accusing Trump of sexual abuse and defamation. The disclosure says Trump owes her $50 million, pending appeal.

The festivities will kick off with a smaller rehearsal dinner planned for Thursday night, the official said. The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the events.

Speculation about the superstar singer and football player’s nuptials has built to a frenzy in recent days, following weeks of unconfirmed reports that it would take place over July Fourth weekend at one of New York’s iconic landmarks.

In recent days, crews have been unloading equipment from trucks outside the Manhattan arena. A large carpet was briefly unveiled outside one entrance and then promptly removed.

Still, nothing has been publicly confirmed by the couple, despite multiple requests from the AP to Swift’s representative for comment, including on Wednesday.

While city officials have made coy references to an upcoming wedding at Madison Square Garden, they have offered few details about the plan, including potential impacts to nearby businesses or local transit.

“We are fully prepared,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference on Wednesday. “There isn’t anything to share beyond that.”

In a separate social media post, he offered New Yorkers tips for staying cool during the heat wave, “especially if you’re (hypothetically) having your wedding at MSG this weekend.”

Swift and Kelce first announced their engagement on Instagram last August, fueling widespread speculation among the Swiftie fan base about possible venue locations.

Following initial reports last month that the event would be held at Madison Square Garden, some theorized that the choice could be an elaborate smoke screen to divert attention from the couple’s real wedding plans.

The arena, which seats up to 19,500 people, is located above Penn Station, the busiest rail hub in the U.S., in the heart of Midtown, Manhattan.

It has on occasion hosted weddings in the past, including funk singer Sly Stone’s marriage to actor Kathy Silva in 1974 and a mass ceremony officiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1982.

The arena has guarded entrances, a secure garage and a lack of windows, allowing Kelce, Swift and celebrity guests to stay out of sight of photographers or camera-equipped drones.

On Wednesday, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch outlined a slew of challenges facing the city this weekend, including huge Independence Day celebrations, a World Cup match and a searing heat wave.

“I would be remiss not to mention an event that we are tracking at Madison Square Garden on Friday night,” Tisch added. “The NYPD will, of course, have a detail in place, but I am not going to go into more specifics on that at this time.”

The report could show that 100,000 new jobs were added last month, according to a survey of economists by data provider FactSet. If so, it would be the fourth straight month of solid hiring, after a string of weak months late last year through February, when employers actually shed jobs. The unemployment rate is forecast to have stayed a low 4.3% in June.

Yet some economists expect a stronger figure as companies have adjusted to a series of challenges — higher tariffs, the Iran war, widespread AI investment — and are increasingly confident that the economy will keep growing. In the three months from March through May, employers added an average of 188,000 jobs a month, a significant pickup from an average loss of 4,000 in the preceding three months from December through February.

“Even though it’s still kind of a challenging market ... the understanding of where things are headed, it has calmed down a bit,” said Nicole Bachaud, labor economist at ZipRecruiter. “And so businesses are able to now execute on hiring plans.”

Still, inflation is at a three-year high of 4.2%, lifted by spiking gas prices, and that has eroded Americans' incomes. Inflation-adjusted after-tax incomes were flat in May from a year earlier, which could discourage some consumers from spending.

But a healthy labor market that can continue to generate jobs should enable many consumers, particularly upper-income ones, to remain resilient and spend more, boosting the economy.

The inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve, however, are under increasing pressure to raise rates to slow the economy and combat inflationary pressures. Now that gas prices are headed lower with the peace agreement between the United States and Iran, inflation should start to cool and many Fed officials will want to see how much closer it can get to the Fed's 2% target before raising rates.

Still, other officials say that solid job growth is a sign that the Fed's key rate — currently about 3.6% — may not be restraining the economy or cooling inflation pressures.

Historically, average job gains of 188,000 a month wouldn't be seen as that strong. Yet as more Americans retire and new immigration has dropped sharply, the U.S. workforce is barely growing. In that case, hiring at about 100,000 new jobs a month may be enough to keep the unemployment rate unchanged — or even lower it.

There are some wild cards that could affect the June data. In May, employers added 172,000 jobs, with 70,000 of those new positions at restaurants, bars, and hotels. And local governments added 55,000 jobs. Both gains, particularly in local government, were higher than normal and economists think it's unlikely they'll be repeated.

Some analysts speculate the May job gains at restaurants and hotels reflected additional hiring in preparation for the World Cup, which began June 11th. If so, the large gain would be unlikely to happen again. Yet many economists say that while the World Cup may have sparked more hiring in the cities hosting the event, it hasn't been large enough to affect the national data.

The ongoing adoption of artificial intelligence has led to widespread worries that it will replace many workers and reduce employment. Yet so far there haven't been widespread layoffs stemming from AI adoption, and economists argue that it could make many workers more efficient at their jobs instead.

Bachaud said AI adoption could have encouraged a trend she's noticed on their website: Companies are increasingly posting jobs seeking more senior, experienced workers, while job hunters are instead gravitating toward entry-level jobs.

With far fewer people quitting their jobs than just after the pandemic, Bachaud said, companies are having more trouble recruiting experienced workers from other businesses. At the same time, that's left less-experienced workers struggling to break into the job market.

That gap “just shows the mismatch between what employers are looking for and what current job seekers have to offer,” she said. It has likely contributed to the frustration many job seekers feel even as the unemployment rate remains low.

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The team announced Tuesday that center Eetu Luostarinen has agreed to an eight-year contract extension that will begin with the 2027-28 season. Financial terms were not immediately disclosed.

“Eetu has been a key piece of our two Stanley Cup championships, and we’re thrilled he’ll continue his career with the Panthers,” President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Bill Zito said in a statement. “His commitment to playing a strong two-way game and contributing on the penalty kill has been critical to our success.”

Luostarinen, 27, appeared in 73 games during the 2025-26 season, recording 11 goals and 22 assists for 33 points — the second-highest point total of his NHL career.

He led Florida’s forwards in shorthanded ice time with nearly 140 minutes, blocked 57 shots and averaged a career-best 16:34 of ice time per game. He also ranked fifth on the team with 121 hits.

Since joining the Panthers in 2020, Luostarinen has become one of the club’s most reliable defensive forwards. Over 447 career NHL games with Florida and the Carolina Hurricanes, he has totaled 61 goals and 101 assists for 162 points.

His impact has also carried into the postseason. Luostarinen has recorded 34 points in 73 playoff games with the Panthers and played a significant role in both of the franchise’s Stanley Cup-winning runs.

During Florida’s 2025 championship run, he set career highs with five goals, 14 assists and 19 points in 23 playoff games. He also owns the franchise record for most points in a road playoff game after tallying a goal and three assists against Tampa Bay in Game 5 of the opening round on April 30, 2025.

Internationally, the Finland native won a bronze medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, collecting four assists in six games. He also captured gold at the 2019 IIHF World Championship and represented Finland at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off.

Gudas, Petrovic return

The Panthers are bringing back two familiar faces on the blue line, agreeing to a six-year contract with veteran defenseman Radko Gudas and a two-year-deal with Alexander Petrovic, according to multiple reports.

Gudas’ deal is worth $9 million, carrying an average annual value of $1.5 million.

Gudas, 36, returns to Florida after serving as captain of the Anaheim Ducks for the past two seasons. The Panthers acquired his negotiating rights earlier this week in a trade that sent the rights to forward A.J. Greer to Anaheim, allowing the two sides to reach an agreement before free agency opened.

Petrovic, 34, played in 54 regular-season games with the Dallas Stars during the 2025-26 season, totaling two goals and eight assists for 10 points. He also ranked second among the team’s defensemen with 88 hits.

The exact terms of his deal were not disclosed.

“Alex is a stalwart shutdown defenseman who brings size and depth to our blueline,” said Zito. “We are excited to welcome him back to our organization.”

The 6-foot-5, 215-pound Edmonton, Alberta, native has appeared in 323 NHL games over 10 seasons with the Panthers, Edmonton Oilers and Stars. Across his career, he has recorded seven goals, 53 assists and 60 points, while adding 411 penalty minutes, 731 hits and 384 blocked shots.

The species' population has jumped from around 2,000 to around 35,000 in approximately 40 years, close to their population before whaling, said Enrico Marcovaldi, co-founder of the Humpback Whale Project. That means they are increasingly being spotted in Rio’s postcard Guanabara Bay.

“It’s wonderful. It shows that the whales are making a recovery, are healthy and thriving, and hopefully they’ll continue to do so,” said Marcovaldi.

In 1982, the International Whaling Commission decided that there should be a pause in commercial whaling on all whale species and populations from the 1985/1986 season onward.

Louise Raulais, who runs the Rio Ocean Club with her partner Theo Andrade, is among those who see the tourism opportunities in the whales' resurgence.

This year, the company began offering sailboat trips for between five and 10 people to observe the whales. Raulais said they always have a biologist onboard to share information, which can stimulate a desire to protect the whales and the ocean.

“These animals are so iconic and charismatic that they have the power to transform people, to change the way they see the world,” said Raulais.

Humpback whales are known for roaming long distances across major oceans in predictable patterns, typically following migration routes learned from their mothers. They feed on krill and small fish in the warmer months and breed in tropical waters over winter.

Between June and November, thousands of humpback whales migrate through Brazilian waters, traveling roughly 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean to breeding and calving grounds off northeastern Brazil.

Most gather around the Abrolhos Bank, a coral reef region spanning the coasts of Bahia and Espirito Santo that is one of the South Atlantic’s most biodiverse marine environments.

The Humpback Whale Project set up a scientific expedition, scheduled to run from June 26 to July 9, to study the humpback whales’ behavior, size and health, as well as identify their travel route, key gathering areas, and to measure how far offshore the whales pass.

“They’re exploring this area," said Pedro Fróes, a biologist for the Humpback Whale Project who is part of the expedition. "They want to find out whether, in the future, it could become a place for them to rest, to mate, or to give birth to a calf,” Fróes said.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday that there are no known specific or credible threats to this year’s celebrations, which will include parades of sailing ships and naval vessels on the Hudson and East rivers, jet flyovers and a massive fireworks show — all happening during a heat wave that could also tax emergency medical personnel.

Plus, police will be dealing with another event that will bring a lot of attention to the city — the wedding of pop star Taylor Swift and football player Travis Kelce.

“In a briefing about major events happening this weekend in New York City, I would be remiss not to mention an event that we are tracking at Madison Square Garden on Friday night," Tisch said in a winking reference to the nuptials. "The NYPD will, of course, have a detail in place, but I am not going to go into more specifics on that at this time."

A law enforcement official briefed on security plans told The Associated Press that the celebrity wedding will be held Friday, with a smaller rehearsal dinner Thursday night. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the events publicly.

Uniformed officers, K-9 units and heavy weapons teams will be out in force along the city's waterfronts for the Sail 250 festivities, which will bring around 100 vessels and about 27,000 sailors, crew members and dignitaries to the city for events Friday, Saturday and beyond.

Attendees will be required to go through security checkpoints as they head to waterfront viewing areas Saturday, officials said.

In the evening, the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks show will draw thousands of eyes upward as 85,000 shells are launched from six barges and a laser show beams up from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Also in the sky: the police department's aviation unit and drone teams, which will be monitoring the city and looking out for illegal drones hovering in the restricted flight area around the show.

“The message is clear: If there is any illegal drone activity that violates our temporary flight restrictions, your drone will be seized," Tisch said.

The department will also deploy counterterrorism resources, explosive detection K-9s, bomb squad personnel and heavy weapons teams, along with plain clothes officers and a harbor unit for the waterways.

Meanwhile, the city will again have special security restrictions in place at its busiest rail hub, Penn Station, on Sunday to accommodate thousands of fans headed across the Hudson to see Brazil take on Norway in the World Cup. Only people with a ticket to the match will be allowed into some parts of the station.

Police have already been setting up crowd-control barriers and hanging “no parking” signs near Madison Square Garden, which sits atop Penn Station, in anticipation of crowds of Swift fans and other gawkers hoping to catch a glimpse of wedding-related events.

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Associated Press reporter Jake Offenhartz contributed to this story.

A preliminary autopsy requested by the family of Kohen Wiley suggested the baby was shot from the side of the car, not the front, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said, disputing officers' claims that the car was heading toward them. Kohen's mother, who was holding her baby in the passenger seat, says her friend was driving away from the officers.

Kohen and his mother are Black, and the June 14 shooting has sparked protests and outrage in the small town of Senatobia. Residents point to a string of troubling encounters with police in recent years. Crump said the child was killed after police were called to a Walmart parking lot about diapers that may have been shoplifted.

“We’re going to try to continue to demand transparency,” Crump said. He spoke from the pulpit of Senatobia Church of Christ, surrounded by more than a dozen people including the baby's grandparents, some of them holding “Justice for Baby Kohen” signs.

However, Crump repeatedly emphasized that the pathologist did not have access to complete information. He said the family won't rest until authorities release the police body camera and dashcam video, as well as Walmart surveillance video.

A spokesperson for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is in charge of the ongoing inquiry, declined to comment Wednesday. Tate County Coroner Ernie Lentz said in an email the official autopsy report is not complete. An email was sent to Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford seeking comment.

An email was also sent to a Walmart spokesperson seeking comment.

On display at the church were photos and diagrams of Kohen’s body and a photo of the car. The passenger window was shattered and an apparent bullet hole pierced the windshield on the passenger side. The other woman in the car was badly wounded, authorities said.

The broken passenger-side window indicates a bullet was fired into that side the car, Crump said.

The preliminary findings, Crump said, show the bullet entered the baby’s torso on his right side and exited on his left. Crump said that assessment is supported by the clusters of cuts on the right side of his chest and abdomen that would have been caused by the broken tempered glass.

“That’s very important as we try to solve a puzzle,” he explained, adding: “The reason that we’re having to try to solve the puzzle is because they won’t release the video.”

In an initial account of the shooting, state investigators said: “Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene.”

Investigators will try to figure out the vehicle’s position, how everyone was sitting inside, and where the officers were standing, said policing expert Ian Adams, who teaches criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. They will need to look at damage to the car as well as bullet wounds, because people can move around.

“We need to know a lot more before drawing firm conclusions based on bullet wounds alone,” Adams said.

The killing has drawn comparisons to other instances where Black people lost their life over accusations of petty criminal offenses, such as the murder of George Floyd. Kohen’s mom says she thought her friend had paid for the diapers.

Crump, who rose to prominence representing the families of Floyd and other Black people killed by police, emphasized that the officers' own report says they saw two women and a child get into the car. He questioned why the officer would shoot, knowing there was a kid inside.

“They want us to believe that it was a life-or-death situation,” he added. “They told us that, but they have not showed us that.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Tuesday afternoon officially designating May 17 as Bruce Lee Day, according to the office of state Assemblymember Matt Haney, who represents San Francisco.

An 18-year-old Lee returned to San Francisco on May 17, 1959, after spending his childhood in Hong Kong.

Lee's daughter, Shannon, who is CEO of the Bruce Lee Foundation, said the honor is a testament to her father's enduring legacy as a bridge between cultures.

“From young people who found confidence and possibility in his philosophy, to families who finally saw themselves represented on screen, to athletes who still draw on his teachings of discipline and inner strength, his reach is profound," Shannon Lee said in a statement.

Haney called Lee the epitome of the best of California.

“At a time when Asian Americans were too often absent from or stereotyped on screen, Bruce Lee helped generations see themselves represented with strength and dignity,” he said in a statement.

The foundation and various Asian American organizations hope Lee will be celebrated every year with voluntary commemorative activities around the state such as cultural exhibits, public events and classroom lessons.

Born in 1940 to Chinese parents who were touring with an opera, Lee was allowed to have birthright citizenship. A few months later, the family returned to Hong Kong where Lee became a child actor and began learning Chinese kung fu. He moved back to the U.S. in 1959 and enrolled in the University of Washington in Seattle two years later. He dropped out and threw himself into practicing and teaching martial arts.

In the ‘60s, Lee found work in Hollywood, most notably as Kato in the TV series “The Green Hornet,” but studios wanted him to play racist stereotypes and paid him less than his white counterparts.

He pivoted back to Hong Kong and soon became a megastar of martial arts flicks, including “The Big Boss” and “Fist of Fury.” Lee died in 1973 at 32 after an allergic reaction to pain medication.

Lee's name and likeness remain popular. Fans gather on his birthday. A treatment for a proposed TV action series he wrote inspired the HBO Max show “Warrior.”

El veterano portero Sergei Bobrovsky firmó con los Toronto Maple Leafs, según múltiples reportes.

Bobrovsky acordó un contrato de tres años y $21 millones USD con Toronto, confirmaron el miércoles Kevin Weekes, de ESPN, y Elliotte Friedman, de SportsNet.

Bobrovsky pasó siete temporadas con los Panthers, ayudando a la franquicia a ganar dos Copas Stanley consecutivas mientras se convertía en uno de los jugadores más queridos en la historia del equipo.

El dos veces ganador del Trofeo Vezina también ayudó a Florida a eliminar a Toronto de los playoffs en dos ocasiones durante las últimas cuatro temporadas.

El movimiento se produce después de una difícil temporada 2025-26 para Bobrovsky, quien terminó con un porcentaje de atajadas de .877, la peor marca de su carrera con los Panthers.

Según reportes, Toronto incorporó al portero de 37 años después de traspasar al guardameta Joseph Woll a los Philadelphia Flyers.

La salida de Bobrovsky, según los reportes, ocurre poco después de que los Panthers anunciaran una extensión de contrato por ocho años para el delantero Eetu Luostarinen y la firma del veterano defensor Radko Gudas, quien jugó para los Panthers entre 2020 y 2023.

Se pronostican temperaturas de más de 30 grados Celsius (90 Fahrenheit) para el noreste; Filadelfia y Boston podrían superar los 37 ºC (100 °F) el jueves. Si se suma la humedad, la sensación térmica real será aún mayor en algunos momentos, informó el Servicio Meteorológico Nacional.

Una cúpula de calor —sistemas de alta presión sobre una región que atrapan el calor y la humedad— ha estado sofocando partes del territorio estadounidense desde la región centro-norte hasta la costa este. Esto añadirá mucha incomodidad en medio de desfiles por el 250º aniversario, flotillas de barcos, conciertos al aire libre y, en Boston, una popular lectura pública de la Declaración de Independencia desde un balcón histórico el sábado.

El alcalde de Nueva York, Zohran Mamdani, aconsejó a los residentes mantenerse frescos en interiores y evitar “temperaturas extraordinarias”.

“Que se llegue a tres dígitos a lo largo de estos próximos días es motivo de enorme preocupación, dado que con demasiada frecuencia el calor es algo que se subestima”, declaró Mamdani.

En Hamptonburgh, Nueva York, falló el aire acondicionado en un autobús que transportaba a cadetes del Junior ROTC —un programa en secundarias para el desarrollo del carácter—, lo que provocó múltiples enfermedades relacionadas con el calor, informaron las autoridades del condado de Orange. Algunos cadetes fueron llevados a hospitales como medida de precaución.

El concreto y el acero agravan el calor

La humedad no es inusual en el noreste. Pero el doctor Alexander Azan, de NYU Langone Health en Nueva York, señaló que las altas temperaturas del aire y la humedad son una combinación peligrosa.

“Su cuerpo no tiene ese nivel de aclimatación para responder adecuadamente al calor, y por eso el estrés térmico en forma de lo que llamamos agotamiento por calor, y en casos más graves, golpe de calor, puede ocurrir a temperaturas mucho más bajas de las que vemos en personas que viven en el sur”, explicó Azan.

Las ciudades, en particular, corren un mayor riesgo, según expertos.

“La concentración de concreto, asfalto, acero, todos esos materiales ayudan a retener el calor", señaló Vijay Limaye, científico climático del Natural Resources Defense Council, un organismo ambientalista sin fines de lucro. "La cifra en su teléfono puede que en realidad no refleje el verdadero perfil de temperatura al que va a usted a salir”.

La ciudad de Nueva York informó que más de 200 equipos de empleados del gobierno y voluntarios buscarán a personas sin hogar y las animarán a entrar en interiores. Habrá cientos de centros de enfriamiento, desde el centro de convenciones Javits Center hasta furgonetas y espacios al aire libre con ventiladores nebulizadores.

Aprovechando el clima

El teléfono parecía que no dejaba de sonar en Acme Ice Co. en Cambridge, Massachusetts, que entrega hielo a bares y restaurantes en el área de Boston. El propietario, Marc Savenor, dijo que esta racha de clima caluroso de esta semana es un “sueño de un hombre del hielo”.

“¿Qué podría pedir un hombre del hielo? ... He contratado a un par de conductores extra. He puesto en actividad un par de camiones extra. Puse hielo en diferentes congeladores para no quedarme sin él”, explicó Savenor. “Después de que mi hielo se agota aquí, vamos a recoger otra carga, la traemos de vuelta y la entregamos en todas partes”.

El Museo del Perro del American Kennel Club en Nueva York está permitiendo que los visitantes lleven a sus perros para refrescarse, hasta el domingo. El director ejecutivo, Christopher Bromson, comentó que se le ocurrió la idea al ver a su propio terranova tumbado en el piso fresco del museo.

“Pensé que todos los perros deberían tener acceso a esto”, comentó Bromson.

En Washington, D.C., donde la temperatura máxima fue de 35° C (95 F), niños sedientos tomaban botellas frías de agua de la Policía de Parques mientras esperaban en la fila para subirse a la rueda de la fortuna en el National Mall.

Mientras tanto, en la región centro-norte persistían los riesgos por el calor. Taylor Harnist, cuyo negocio en Cincinnati instala y repara aires acondicionados, contó que intentaba mantener cómodos a sus empleados con descansos, agua y bebidas con electrolitos.

“Cuando te toca un trabajo en un ático con este calor, los hacemos, pero es extenuante", declaró Harnist. "Hace tanto calor que los áticos alcanzan temperaturas de 145 grados (°F)”, lo cual equivale a 62 ºC.

Jeff Schlegelmilch, profesor asociado de la Escuela del Clima de la Universidad de Columbia, afirmó que el calor es una de las cosas más fáciles de atribuir al cambio climático.

“Hemos visto un aumento continuo de veranos más largos, temperaturas más altas, temperaturas más altas en una fecha más anticipada, más evaporación de la humedad, mayor humedad... efectos de ese tipo”, indicó Schlegelmilch.

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Contribuyeron a este despacho los corresponsales Jennifer Peltz en Nueva York, Rodrique Ngowi en Cambridge, Massachusetts, y Scott Bauer en Madison, Wisconsin.

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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.

The Resolute Desk is one of the most recognizable pieces of furniture in the White House — and probably in the entire nation. As the president’s desk, it’s been at the center of American history for nearly 150 years.

That famous front panel has its own story. Many accounts claim it was added during FDR’s presidency to conceal his wheelchair and leg braces, but some historians dispute that. They argue Roosevelt used the desk in his private study, away from the public eye, and that the panel itself was not installed until after his death.

The desk’s origins extend far beyond the Oval Office. In fact, it's not American; it’s British.

The desk is crafted of timbers from the HMS Resolute, a British naval vessel that set off for the Arctic in the early 1850s in search of Sir John Franklin, who disappeared while seeking the Northwest Passage. During that mission, the Resolute became trapped in ice and was abandoned by its crew. Years later, it was discovered drifting through Arctic waters by an American whaling vessel.

The United States repaired it and returned it to Queen Victoria. The vessel resumed service for many years before eventually being retired.

Once decommissioned, Queen Victoria expressed her gratitiude to the United States by ordering the timbers of Resolute to be transformed into several pieces of furniture. One of them was a large desk that she presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.

The desk spent much of its early White House history out of public view until 1961, when first lady Jacqueline Kennedy moved it into the Oval Office.

Every president since Jimmy Carter has used the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, with the exception of President George H.W. Bush, who instead placed it in the Treaty Room. The desk has also become the place where recent presidents leave a letter for their successor on Inauguration Day.

The Resolute Desk stands not only as a symbol of the American presidency, but also as a reminder of the enduring friendship between the United States and Britain.

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

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The banner read, “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”

The incident happened around noon Wednesday and local news outlets reported that the observation deck was later cleared.

According to various news outlets, the two began descending from the top of the building at about 12:35 p.m., and at one point, the man appeared to propose to the woman, who then removed her mask and kissed him.

The couple has since been identified as Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus who star in Netflix’s “Skywalkers A love Story” and have performed similar stunts.

At 1,454 feet tall, the Empire State Building is the eighth tallest building in New York City. The tallest building is One World Trade Center, which stands at 1,776 feet tall.

Bending Spoons priced 58 million shares at $29 apiece. The company is getting $1 billion in proceeds, while the rest is going to shareholders. The stock surged 39.7% in its first day of trading under the symbol “BSP” on the Nasdaq, giving it a market value of $25.2 billion.

Among the company's well-known holdings are the event creation and ticketing company Eventbrite, and the video hosting service Vimeo. AOL, formerly America Online, is a more recent acquisition for the company. The email and search engine service dates back to the dawn of the internet age.

AOL itself went public in 1992 and was a vanguard of technology and communication. It reached a market value of $164 billion in 2000 shortly before merging with Time Warner. It then crashed along with the rest of the industry following the bursting of the dot-com bubble. It has been bought and sold several times over the last two decades.

Bending Spoons' key focus is acquiring troubled tech companies and overhauling them. The company takes its name from the fictional concept of bending spoons with the mind, as portrayed in the dystopian AI-focused “The Matrix” films. The company's founders say the name is meant to evoke focus and dedication, as well as some humor.

“We were about to attempt to create a world-class company with $40,000, a team of five, and a track record that read 0 for 1," the company wrote in its prospectus. “A touch of irony seemed appropriate.”

The Italy-based company was founded by three friends in 2013 following the failure of their first attempt at building a technology startup. It has since grown by buying more than 50 companies.

The acquired companies are reorganized, and AI technology is often a key tool in the redesign. The focus remains on subscription-based revenue from the portfolio of businesses.

The company said it had net income of $27.5 million on revenue of $601 million during the first three months of 2026. It had more than 500 million monthly active users and 9 million monthly paying customers as of March.

The company has debt of just under $4.4 billion. It plans to use proceeds from the offering to invest in new acquisitions.

The Bending Spoons offering comes amid a resurgence in the IPO market this year, highlighted by the record-setting market debut of SpaceX last month.

El equipo anunció el martes que el centro Eetu Luostarinen acordó una extensión de contrato por ocho años que comenzará en la temporada 2027-28.

“Eetu ha sido una pieza clave en nuestros dos campeonatos de la Copa Stanley y estamos encantados de que continúe su carrera con los Panthers”, dijo en un comunicado Bill Zito, presidente de Operaciones de Hockey y gerente general. “Su compromiso con un sólido juego en ambos extremos de la pista y su aporte en situaciones de inferioridad numérica han sido fundamentales para nuestro éxito”.

Luostarinen, de 27 años, disputó 73 partidos durante la temporada 2025-26, en los que registró 11 goles y 22 asistencias para un total de 33 puntos, la segunda cifra más alta de su carrera en la NHL.

Lideró a los delanteros de Florida en tiempo sobre el hielo en situaciones de inferioridad numérica con casi 140 minutos, bloqueó 57 disparos y promedió 16:34 minutos por partido, la mejor marca de su carrera. También ocupó el quinto lugar del equipo con 121 golpes.

Desde que se unió a los Panthers en 2020, Luostarinen se ha convertido en uno de los delanteros defensivos más confiables del club. En 447 partidos de temporada regular de la NHL con los Panthers y los Carolina Hurricanes, suma 61 goles y 101 asistencias para un total de 162 puntos.

Su impacto también se ha extendido a los playoffs. Luostarinen ha registrado 34 puntos en 73 partidos de postemporada con los Panthers y desempeñó un papel importante en las dos conquistas de la Copa Stanley de la franquicia.

Durante la conquista de la Copa Stanley por parte de Florida en 2025, estableció marcas personales con cinco goles, 14 asistencias y 19 puntos en 23 partidos de playoffs. También posee el récord de la franquicia de más puntos en un partido de playoffs como visitante tras registrar un gol y tres asistencias contra Tampa Bay en el quinto partido de la primera ronda el 30 de abril de 2025.

A nivel internacional, el finlandés ganó una medalla de bronce en los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno de 2026, donde sumó cuatro asistencias en seis partidos. También conquistó la medalla de oro en el Campeonato Mundial de la IIHF de 2019 y representó a Finlandia en el torneo 4 Nations Face-Off de 2025.

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The event began with 70 service members raising 70 American flags across the airport, symbolizing freedom and commemorating 250 years of American pride, sacrifice and resilience.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the display serves as a visible tribute for the millions of travelers who pass through the airport.

“I am so proud that during this month of our America semi-quincentennial, all 70 flagpoles, all 70 here at MIA, will have our nation’s flag flying proudly for all of our visitors to see,” Levine Cava said.

As part of the celebration, airport officials also unveiled the “Renaissance of Towers,” a 20-foot-tall, three-ton stainless steel sculpture installed at MIA’s Central Boulevard entrance.

The new monument is intended to serve as a landmark welcoming travelers while commemorating the nation’s milestone anniversary and honoring those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

The ceremony comes just days before Independence Day, as airports across the country prepare for one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

El evento comenzó con 70 miembros del servicio militar izando 70 banderas estadounidenses en todo el aeropuerto, como símbolo de la libertad y en conmemoración de 250 años de orgullo, sacrificio y resiliencia de Estados Unidos.

La alcaldesa del condado Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, dijo que la exhibición sirve como un homenaje visible para los millones de viajeros que pasan por el aeropuerto.

“Me siento muy orgullosa de que durante este mes de nuestro semiquincentenario de Estados Unidos, los 70 mástiles, los 70 aquí en el MIA, tendrán ondeando con orgullo la bandera de nuestra nación para que todos nuestros visitantes la vean”, dijo Levine Cava.

Como parte de la celebración, funcionarios del aeropuerto también inauguraron “Renaissance of Towers”, una escultura de acero inoxidable de 20 pies de altura y tres toneladas instalada en la entrada de Central Boulevard del MIA.

El nuevo monumento está destinado a servir como un punto de referencia para dar la bienvenida a los viajeros, al tiempo que conmemora el aniversario histórico de la nación y rinde homenaje a quienes han servido en las Fuerzas Armadas de Estados Unidos.

La ceremonia se realiza apenas unos días antes del Día de la Independencia, mientras los aeropuertos de todo el país se preparan para uno de los períodos de mayor actividad de viajes del año.

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Authorities said it all happened just before 2:30 p.m. outside of the Red Roof Plus at 3401 NW Le Jeune Road.

Miami Springs police said a woman saw Kenton Torrell Williams “watching porn on his cellphone while having his penis exposed and masturbating” while in the burgundy sedan; she told him she was going to tell the front desk.

Police said she came back 30 minutes later and saw Williams, of Miami Gardens, still at it.

According to an arrest report, she then told him “she was going to call the police on him.”

That apparently did not deter Williams, according to police.

The report states that Williams got out of his car when an officer arrived and the officer saw him “with his pants below his groin area, exposing his underwear and with a black sock wrapped around his penis.”

As the officer handcuffed him, Williams said “I have a gun in my pocket,” leading the officer to find a small pistol, according to the report.

Police said after the officer asked if there were any more guns, Williams replied, “There is a rifle in the passenger seat but everything is clean, you can look anywhere you want.”

Everything was not clean, police said. Besides the AR-15, they said the officer found “a purple Crown Royal bottle bag containing a small clear Ziploc baggie” of powder cocaine. They said they also found a scale “and packaging materials consistent with the sale of narcotics.”

“I asked (Williams) why was he masturbating inside of his vehicle, to which he responded, ‘everybody has their kinks and I was molested as a child,’” the arresting officer wrote in the report. “I then questioned (him) on the narcotics located in his vehicle to which he responded, ‘I don’t sell drugs; I’m an addict.’”

Police arrested Williams on charges of armed drug possession, possession of drug paraphernalia and indecent exposure.

As of Wednesday, he was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on an $8,500 bond.

Las autoridades informaron que todo ocurrió poco antes de las 2:30 p.m. frente al hotel Red Roof Plus, ubicado en el 3401 de Northwest Le Jeune Road.

La Policía de Miami Springs informó que una mujer vio a Kenton Torrell Williams “viendo pornografía en su teléfono celular mientras tenía el pene expuesto y se estaba masturbando” dentro del sedán color vino, y le dijo que iba a informar al personal de la recepción.

La Policía indicó que ella regresó 30 minutos después y vio que Williams, residente de Miami Gardens, seguía haciendo lo mismo.

Según el informe de arresto, entonces le dijo que “iba a llamar a la Policía”.

Al parecer, eso no disuadió a Williams, según la Policía.

El informe indica que Williams salió de su vehículo cuando llegó un agente, quien lo vio “con los pantalones por debajo de la entrepierna, dejando expuesta su ropa interior y con un calcetín negro envuelto alrededor del pene”.

Mientras el agente le colocaba las esposas, Williams dijo: “Tengo un arma en el bolsillo”, lo que llevó al agente a encontrar una pistola pequeña, según el informe.

La Policía informó que, después de que el agente le preguntó si había más armas, Williams respondió: “Hay un rifle en el asiento del pasajero, pero todo está limpio, puede revisar donde quiera”.

Pero no todo estaba limpio, informó la Policía. Además del rifle AR-15, el agente encontró “una bolsa morada de Crown Royal que contenía una pequeña bolsa transparente tipo Ziploc” con cocaína en polvo. También encontró una balanza “y materiales de empaque compatibles con la venta de narcóticos”.

“Le pregunté a Williams por qué se estaba masturbando dentro de su vehículo, a lo que respondió: “Todo el mundo tiene sus fetiches y fui víctima de abuso sexual cuando era niño””, escribió el agente que realizó el arresto en el informe. “Luego le pregunté sobre los narcóticos encontrados en su vehículo, a lo que respondió: “No vendo drogas; soy adicto””.

La Policía arrestó a Williams por cargos de posesión de drogas estando armado, posesión de parafernalia de drogas y exhibición indecente.

Hasta el miércoles, permanecía detenido en el Centro Correccional Turner Guilford Knight con una fianza de $8,500 USD.

“I’m extremely torn up about the way that things were perceived,” Cavalli said before the Nationals beat the Red Sox 10-2. “Obviously, there was no ill intention behind that.”

Cavalli shouted at Contreras after striking him out looking with a full-count pitch in the fourth inning of the Nationals’ 8-1 victory over the Red Sox.

The term “boy” has a racist history in the United States. Contreras, who is Venezuelan, demurred when asked after the game if he felt there was a racial component to Cavalli’s word choice.

“My teammates know me, my family knows me, this organization knows me,” Cavalli said. “I couldn’t sleep because of it. It hurt my heart, knowing that, if there’s a 13-year-old Black kid in D.C. that sees that — that looked up to me and thinks that he perceived it in a way that wasn’t intended the way that it came out, and then he’s not looking up to me anymore — that hurts my heart.”

When asked, he said he understands the meaning behind the word used.

“There’s a history behind that word, and that’s just something that as a competitor, like in football or basketball, playing wiffle ball with my brother, you don’t understand it,” Cavalli said. “And then it gets perceived in a way that was not my intention, and then you learn from that. It’ll never happen again.”

The 27-year-old right-hander said he didn’t realize the public outcry on social media until he got back to his hotel room.

“I looked at my phone, and I saw what people were saying about me. Saw how torn up my wife was. It hurt my heart,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. Because I know that people know me, and they know my character, and that’s not me. So, it was hard. I truly didn’t sleep last night.”

Contreras was walking back to the dugout after striking out and yelled back at Cavalli: “Are you talking to me?” A few words were exchanged, and he charged the mound. He was stopped before he got to the pitcher. He tried to throw his helmet over a group of players at the righty.

Things settled down quickly after that, though the brief dustup ended with Contreras, Boston interim manager Chad Tracy, Red Sox outfielder Nate Eaton and Washington pitcher Miles Mikolas being ejected.

Cavalli said he hadn’t apologized to Contreras yet, but he hopes he hears his explanation.

“I have not reached out to him. I know that we’re both competitors, I hope that he hears this and he understands that was not what was intended at all,” Cavalli said. “I think he knows that. But if I see him, I want to make sure that he knows that.”

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

Grupos defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes y organizaciones religiosas han denunciado durante años las condiciones en la instalación y organizan protestas todos los miércoles.

Aseguran que los detenidos están sometidos a hacinamiento y calor extremo.

El manifestante Luis Rivera dijo que un amigo cercano de su familia tenía una cita obligatoria en la oficina. Afirmó que siente miedo y preocupación.

“Hay personas, tu familia y tus amigos a quienes quieres. Es difícil”, dijo.

Arianne Betancourt dijo que su padre estuvo detenido en la instalación durante seis meses. Ahora trabaja a tiempo completo para garantizar que las personas detenidas sean tratadas en condiciones humanas.

“Van a extender la crueldad”, dijo.

Betancourt agregó: “Hablo con personas que me dicen que antes de llegar a “Alcatraz de los Caimanes” (en el condado Collier), podían caminar y ahora necesitan una silla de ruedas, y en estos centros no les proporcionan sillas de ruedas, por lo que estos adultos mayores ahora permanecen postrados en cama”.

Un equipo de Local 10 News vio un camión de bomberos y una ambulancia entrar a la instalación y luego salir escoltados por las autoridades.

Rivera dijo que quiere proteger la identidad de su amigo, pero lo describió como un joven de 20 años que llegó a Estados Unidos hace tres años.

Dijo que su amigo está bien “por el momento, pero siguió en la fila, así que no sé si cuando entre le van a quitar el teléfono”.

Rivera dijo que viven en Orlando, pero que llevó a su amigo en automóvil hasta la oficina de Miramar porque allí tenía su cita.

Los manifestantes dijeron que planean continuar con las protestas semanales.

Local 10 News se comunicó con ICE para solicitar comentarios.

The team advanced on Wednesday, defeating Bosnia-Herzegovina to set up a round of 16 match against Belgium on Monday.

“Hershey to me is everything -- it’s where my family is from, it’s where I grew up,” Pulisic recently said on his Instagram account as he promoted limited-edition Pulisic’s Milk Chocolate Bars by the Hershey Company that feature custom wrappers with his signature. “It’s where I learned how to play. It’s just home.”

Pulisic grew up in this south-central Pennsylvania community surrounded by farms and rolling countryside, where even the streetlights along Chocolate Avenue are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. The community was founded in 1903 by Milton S. Hershey, the American businessman and philanthropist who also built homes for workers, a hotel and a theme park that Pulisic often visited with family.

More than 120 years later, the Hershey Company is still the economic engine of Chocolatetown, USA. But the “Man Behind the Chocolate Bar” now shares the hometown hero honor with the soccer player nicknamed “Captain America.”

Pulisic inspires young soccer players in Hershey

Pulisic’s hometown roots run deep, and during the World Cup, his community has rallied around him as the U.S. plays some of its most exciting soccer ever.

“It’s pretty amazing that he came from Hershey and played for my club,” said Hershey High School rising freshman Cecelia Stefanelli who, on a recent afternoon, kicked a ball to score a goal on her father at a field where Pulisic played.

The Americans won their first World Cup elimination game in 24 years on Wednesday evening, defeating Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 in the round of 32 despite playing a man down for more than 35 minutes. They had a healthy Pulisic in action after the star missed the second group-stage game with a calf injury and played only 33 minutes as a sub in the final group match against Turkey.

“I’d love if USA won the World Cup; it’d make me happy,” said Stefanelli, a center back who also plays for the Pennsylvania Classics soccer club. Pulisic often credits the structure and coaches at PA Classics, where he played for eight years, with helping develop his skills. In 2021, he returned to the club for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new fields that he financed and helped design. It's now known as the Pulisic Stomping Grounds.

The club is located in Lancaster County, surrounded by chicken and dairy farms that give off a pungent odor of fermenting feed and manure.

On a recent day, Liam Gustafson and Moussa Oumarou juggled a soccer ball and passed it back and forth as they warmed up for training in front of a huge collage of photos of Pulisic that trace from his childhood training to starring for the U.S. at the World Cup.

“It’s really special to see someone from around here, where we live, playing in the World Cup,” said Gustafson, a 17-year-old forward who dreams of playing pro soccer and calls Pulisic his role model. “It’s really inspiring to see someone who paved the way, so that we can do that someday.”

Pulisic's path to USMNT stardom ran through Hershey

The road to soccer was paved early as Pulisic followed in the footsteps of his parents. He was born in Hershey on Sept. 18, 1998, to Kelley and Mark Pulisic, both former collegiate soccer players at George Mason University. His father went on to play pro indoor soccer for the Harrisburg Heat. The family moved to England for a year while Pulisic’s mother completed a Fulbright Program teacher exchange and their 7-year-old rising star played for the Brackley Town youth team.

“Mark and Kelley could write a playbook on how to raise a humble, smart, kind superstar, while maintaining family relationships,” said Tara Seymour, a family friend and retired health and physical education teacher at Hershey Middle School. She met the family at a soccer camp and became close friends with Pulisic’s mother.

“She just quietly said to me one time, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’ This is a kid who could juggle the soccer ball hundreds of times when he was in elementary school,” Seymour said. Pulisic, she said, would practice in his backyard for hours, trying to emulate the moves of pros he saw on TV.

“He has an intensity that couldn’t be taught,” she recalled. “I think he had the opportunity to go pro earlier or go to Europe earlier and they held back just to make sure emotionally and maturity-wise he was ready.”

When the family returned to Hershey, Pulisic joined PA Classics at the age of 10. The club's president and co-founder Doug Harris said Pulisic's talent allowed him to play with older age groups, and he was often the smallest player on the field.

“I think if you were to pull kids in the world who want to achieve the level of Christian Pulisic, you’d have millions that would step up, raise their hand. They’re all gifted; they all can play,” Harris said. “But there’s something fundamental about what Christian has been able to do and I’d credit Mark and Kelley Pulisic with a lot of that.”

Looking forward to the future of American soccer

The Americans' only World Cup knockout win came on June 17, 2002, when they defeated Mexico 2-0 in the round of 16 in South Korea. Pulisic has said the team's approach won't change in this round and the mood remains light despite the high stakes.

“It’s just special to be here,” he said. “You just don’t want it to end.”

Ahead of the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina, PA Classics coaches Brittney Jakobson and Nick Jakobson took their children, Declan and Camden, to kick a ball at Pulisic’s former club. The Americans, they said, have a shot at winning the tournament. But their legacy goes beyond the trophy.

“Their goal is to inspire a generation and it’s really fun to see that happening in real time … to hear people going out and watching the games, to see people buying the jerseys,” Brittney Jakobson said.

“Pulisic, obviously, in the short term is a great kind of figure to follow,” said Nick Jakobson. “But he does very much encourage that it’s not just about him. It’s not about just these four years. It’s about the next eight, 12, 16. It’s forward-thinking, and they’re laying a good foundation for what we can build on.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Un video de vigilancia obtenido recientemente de una cámara ubicada en el exterior del complejo de apartamentos también capta una rápida ráfaga de disparos antes de que los residentes comenzaran a reaccionar a la violencia.

Un vecino llamó al 911 y les dijo a los operadores que tenía demasiado miedo de salir de su vivienda después de escuchar los disparos.

La Policía informó que la balacera ocurrió el 2 de mayo en un edificio de apartamentos cerca de Northwest 17th Avenue y 54th Street.

Según los investigadores, Antwan Carter, de 31 años, discutía con su novia durante un incidente de violencia doméstica cuando los dos hermanos de ella, Jahiem y Gianni Pierre, llegaron al apartamento para protegerla.

La Policía informó que, después de que la pelea se tornó física, Carter tomó un arma de su vehículo, regresó al apartamento y abrió fuego, matando a ambos hermanos.

Posteriormente, los detectives arrestaron a Carter después de que, según informaron, confesara el doble homicidio.

Carter permanece detenido en el Centro de Detención Metrowest, donde enfrenta dos cargos de asesinato en primer grado. Permanece detenido sin derecho a fianza y tiene previsto regresar a la corte a principios de agosto.

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Newly obtained surveillance video from a camera outside the apartment complex also captures a rapid burst of gunfire before residents begin reacting to the violence.

One neighbor called 911, telling dispatchers they were too afraid to leave their home after hearing the shots.

Police said the shooting happened on May 2 at an apartment building near Northwest 17th Avenue and 54th Street.

According to investigators, 31-year-old Antwan Carter had been arguing with his girlfriend during a domestic violence incident when her two brothers, Jahiem and Gianni Pierre, came to the apartment to protect her.

Police said that after a fight turned physical, Carter retrieved a gun from his car, returned to the apartment and opened fire, killing both brothers.

Detectives later arrested Carter after they said he confessed to the double murder.

Carter remains jailed at the Metrowest Detention Center on two counts of first-degree murder. He is being held without bond and is scheduled to return to court in early August.

La bandera decía: “Cuando el poder del amor vence al amor por el poder, el mundo conoce la paz”.

El incidente ocurrió alrededor del mediodía del miércoles y medios locales informaron que posteriormente fue desalojado el mirador.

Según varios medios de comunicación, ambos comenzaron a descender desde la cima del edificio alrededor de las 12:35 p.m. y, en un momento, el hombre aparentemente le propuso matrimonio a la mujer, quien luego se quitó la máscara y lo besó.

Con una altura de 1,454 pies, el Empire State Building es el octavo edificio más alto de la ciudad de Nueva York. El edificio más alto es el One World Trade Center, que mide 1,776 pies de altura.

Temperatures in the high 90s Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) were forecast for the Northeast; Philadelphia and Boston could top 100 by Thursday. Throw in humidity, and the real-feel heat index will be even higher at times, the National Weather Service said.

A heat dome — high-pressure systems above a region that trap heat and humidity — has been smothering parts of the U.S., from the Midwest to the East Coast. It will add much discomfort amid 250th anniversary parades, ship flotillas, outdoor concerts and, in Boston, a popular public reading of the Declaration of Independence from a historic balcony Saturday.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani advised residents to stay cool inside and avoid “extraordinary temperatures.”

“To be breaking into triple digits over the course of these many next days — it is of immense concern given that too often the heat is something that is underestimated,” Mamdani said.

In Hamptonburgh, New York, air conditioning failed on a bus carrying Junior ROTC cadets, resulting in multiple heat-related illnesses, Orange County authorities said. Some cadets were taken to hospitals as a precaution.

Concrete and steel aggravate hot weather

Humidity is not uncommon in the Northeast. But Dr. Alexander Azan of NYU Langone Health in New York said high air temperatures and humidity are a dangerous combination.

“Their body doesn’t have that level of acclimatization to respond appropriately to the heat, and so heat stress in the form of what we call heat exhaustion, and in more severe cases, heat stroke, can occur at much lower temperatures than we see in people who live in the South,” Azan said.

Experts say cities in particular are at greater risk.

“The concentration of concrete, asphalt, steel, all of those materials help to retain heat,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The number on your phone may actually not reflect the true temperature profile that you’re going out into.”

New York City said more than 200 teams of government workers and volunteers will check on homeless people and encourage them to get inside. There will be hundreds of cooling centers, from the Javits Center convention hall to vans to outdoor spots with misting fans.

Cashing in on the weather

The phone seemed like it wouldn't stop ringing at Acme Ice Co. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which delivers ice to bars and restaurants in the Boston area. The owner, Marc Savenor, said this week's stretch of hot weather is an “ice man's dream.”

“What could an ice man ask for? ... I’ve hired a couple extra drivers. I’ve put on an extra couple trucks. I put ice in different freezers so I don’t run out,” Savenor said. “After my ice is depleted here, we go pick up another load, bring it back, and we deliver it everywhere.”

The American Kennel Club’s Museum of the Dog in New York is allowing visitors to bring their dogs to cool off, through Sunday. Executive Director Christopher Bromson said he got the idea from seeing his own Newfoundland sprawled on the museum’s cool floor.

“I thought every dog should have access to this,” he said.

In Washington, D.C., where the high temperature was 95 F (35 C), thirsty children reached for cold water from U.S. Park Police as they waited in line for the Ferris wheel on the National Mall.

In the Midwest, meanwhile, heat risks remained. Taylor Harnist, whose Cincinnati business installs and repairs air conditioners, said he was trying to keep his employees comfortable with breaks, water and electrolyte drinks.

“You get an attic job when it’s this hot, we do them but it’s strenuous,” Harnist said. “It’s so hot the attics will reach temperatures of 145 degrees.”

Jeff Schlegelmilch, associate professor at Columbia University Climate School, said heat is one of the easiest things to attribute to climate change.

“We have seen a continued increase in longer summers, hotter temperatures, hotter temperatures earlier on, more evaporation of moisture, higher humidity — effects like that,” he said.

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Associated Press reporters Jennifer Peltz in New York, Rodrique Ngowi in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

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Authorities said they were tipped off that there were still RVs on their property, located at 15600 SW 212th Ave. in Miami-Dade County’s rural Redland area, and aerial surveillance on Jan. 20 showed it “was in substantially the same condition” as it was three years ago. Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies executed a search warrant on the property two days later.

MDSO deputies went back to the property, which directly abuts the Everglades, on Tuesday to take the 47-year-old twins into custody on felony charges of willful disregard for the environment and willful disregard of water pollution laws.

According to arrest documents, their January search, “revealed multiple modular structures and RVs” connected to unapproved sewage treatment and disposal systems, “some of which contained overflow pipes and/or pumps to allow the liquid effluent to be piped into the surrounding wetlands.”

“There were pipes from two of the RVs that went directly into the wetlands without any storage, including one on the western portion of the premises that was leaking and pooling within the premises and was also being piped directly into the neighboring wetlands,” it states.

Deputies said they also found a pond on the property filled with algae overgrowth and “dead animals,” saying that “testing of the pond revealed very high levels of bacteria, and tested positive for E. coli.”

But, according to MDSO, that’s not all deputies found.

They said that investigators found four mares “in a small corral without access to water” or shelter and a pig “in an elevated crate without access to food or water” or the ability to exercise.

Because of that, Juan Gonzalez-Osorio is facing five additional counts of animal abandonment.

Records show they were being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with bonds of $5,000 as of Wednesday. Juan Gonzalez-Osorio faces an additional $500 bond on the animal abandonment charge.

The lawsuit says the records would shed light on the motivations of government officials who are investigating Brennan and would form the basis of defense efforts to dismiss any eventual indictment on grounds that the case constitutes a vindictive prosecution.

Such an argument, his lawyers said, would be supported by the more than 100 verbal or written statements that President Donald Trump has made since 2017 lambasting Brennan and by the Republican president's directives to his Justice Department to initiate investigations of Brennan “without regard to factual or legal justification.”

“To fully consider those motions, the reviewing judge would need to scrutinize the motivations of the Justice Department officials who directed, oversaw, or undertook those actions to determine whether they violated Director Brennan’s rights, and specifically whether they were motivated by a desire to vindictively prosecute him as an act of retribution,” Brennan's lawyers wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington.

Without an order, the lawsuit contends, the records are at risk of being lost or intentionally deleted.

The lawsuit amounts to a preemptive strike of sorts on months-long investigations into Brennan and other perceived adversaries of the president, and represents another effort by Brennan's legal team to sound the alarm on inquiries they believe are part of a pattern of politically motivated probes driven by the White House. It asserts that Brennan is being targeted in a vindictive and selective manner arising from Trump's "obsession with punishing him for his lawful conduct as CIA Director and for his constitutionally protected criticism of the President and the President’s policies.

“That is the reason he is being singled out for investigation of concocted theories of criminal activity, and that will be the dominant reason for any criminal charges resulting from that investigation. That is also why Director Brennan will have an extremely strong basis to challenge those charges as the product of vindictive and selective prosecution,” the lawsuit says.

Investigators based in Florida are examining whether Brennan made a false statement to Congress in 2023 related to an assessment by intelligence agencies documenting Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, when Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The other investigation aims to determine whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump, including during the course of the Russian interference investigation.

Brennan has denied any wrongdoing.

The complaint seeks a court order requiring the preservation of all government records relevant to the investigations, including emails, calendar entries and communications — whether public or private — from Trump or other White House officials about the inquiries and efforts to advance them.

“Given these strong indicia of vindictiveness, Director Brennan expects that he will forcefully challenge any eventual indictment as the product of an unconstitutionally vindictive and selective prosecution,” the lawsuit says, adding that the judge presiding over any criminal case would look to those records for a glimpse of the government's motives.

The lawsuit says there's a “very real risk” that the requested communications will not be available by the time any indictment is brought, either because of technology changes that make deletion of records more routine or automatic or because of a Trump administration habit of “failing to observe their legal obligation to maintain such records.”

“Given the government’s questionable recent history with respect to its record preservation and other legal obligations, however, Director Brennan has a well-founded concern that those records and communications will not be preserved until such time as the court can review them for evidence of unconstitutional vindictiveness,” Brennan's lawyers wrote.

The lawsuit names as defendants Trump and other top officials from his administration, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Other defendants include Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Joe diGenova, a Reagan administration prosecutor who returned to the Justice Department in April to serve as a special counselor to the attorney general and help oversee the investigations.

Brennan's lawyer, Ken Wainstein, wrote in December to the chief judge of the federal court in Florida asking that the Justice Department be prevented from steering investigations related to Brennan to a “favored” Trump administration judge, Aileen Cannon, who in 2024 dismissed the classified documents prosecution against Trump.

Asked about Brennan's lawsuit, Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington said in a statement, “While we cannot comment on the existence, or lack thereof, of an investigation, it is certainly rich that John Brennan is accusing anyone of a ‘retribution campaign.’”

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

Some of the children discovered Tuesday were unable to speak and one — an 18-year-old who was developmentally disabled — could not even write her name, investigators said.

“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” said Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain. “Just a disgusting scene.”

The children's parents and two grandparents were charged with felony child endangerment, a prosecutor said.

Authorities found the children while carrying out a search warrant in an unrelated investigation, Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said Wednesday at a news conference.

Officials said it seemed as if no one outside the family knew about the children, who weren't enrolled in school.

“We didn’t know there were going to be 16 kids there,” said Wilson, who was nearly at a loss for words in describing what officials found in the tiny village of Hamden that sits in one of Ohio's poorest counties.

“It’s the type of thing that we’re not used to seeing here in America,” he said.

Rescued children looked like ‘feral animals’

The sheriff said it appears the children spent most of their time in a room that was roughly 12 feet by 12 feet (3.5 meters by 3.5 meters). He didn’t disclose how the kids were kept inside the home, but said authorities didn’t find any cages in the house.

The children ranged in age from 1 1/2 years to 18 years old and included both boys and girls, officials said. Seven were transported to hospitals in Columbus and two were flown by helicopter. One was in critical condition on Tuesday while some of the others were admitted for care, Wilson said.

“They looked like almost feral animals,” Wilson said. “It was terrible.”

The children were in temporary custody of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services.

Vinton County prosecuting attorney William Archer said the four adults were charged with second-degree felony child endangering because it involves “serious physical harm.”

Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders appeared in court Wednesday where a judge entered not guilty pleas on their behalf and set bond at $300,000 for each. They have not yet been assigned lawyers.

Steve Irwin, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office, would not say whether all of the children are siblings or how they were related.

Neighbor saw ‘no kids at all’

The house where the children were found sits on a road tucked away alongside a steep railroad embankment, where tracks carry rumbling trains through Hamden. The closest neighbors are separated by trees and thick brush, but the house is easily visible from the road.

An open door revealed bits of trash inside while a wooden deck and the backyard were filled with discarded tires, a high chair and other debris.

Investigators said members of the family had moved around southern Ohio over the past two decades and that it looks like they avoided setting up medical and government records.

“These folks were pretty good at hiding these kids,” Wilson said.

Investigators were reviewing whether the family was reported to any children’s services agencies in the past.

Neighbor Joseph Stewart, 60, said he saw “no kids at all” since the family moved in three houses down and that he could clearly see the house and yard when passing by.

“It’s a sad situation,” he said. Stewart has lived on the street for six years and called it “a quiet neighborhood.”

On Wednesday, the home's doors and windows stood open to the sweltering heat. A tangle of discarded children’s items -- two busted bicycles, a plastic play table, a beach pail and two infant carriers -- stood in a pile in the yard.

Hamden has a population of less than 1,000 people and is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Columbus.

The discovery of the children is reminiscent of past horrific cases of family abuse.

In 2019, David and Louise Turpin pleaded guilty to torture and years of abuse that included shackling some of their 13 children at their home in California, starving them and providing only a minimal education.

They were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. The couple were arrested in 2018 after their 17-year-old daughter escaped from the home and called 911.

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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Julie Watson in San Diego contributed.

The Russian climbers, who go by Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, were the subject of the 2024 Netflix documentary “ Skywalkers: A Love Story ” about their “rooftopping” exploits and budding romance.

Dressed in black and wearing masks but not tethers, the two balanced on a narrow ledge and appeared to kiss atop the New York skyscraper's antenna, news helicopter video showed. The banner, reading “when the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,” waved from the structure, which rises 1,454 feet (443 meters) above midtown Manhattan.

After lingering for a time, the two collected the banner and began to climb down, picking their way along the latticework of metal to a wider ledge, where one seemed to set up a piece of photography equipment and got down on one knee. After the two kissed again and hugged, the other person took selfies with an outstretched left hand, as if examining a ring.

Police Emergency Services Unit officers started ascending a ladder in the spindly structure to intercept them. Police body camera video showed an officer calling out a greeting and explaining, “Well, you can't be up here.”

An off-camera voice replied with what sounded like, “We are engaged.”

A few seconds later, officers reached a landing within the antenna and met the couple, who were coming down a ladder and calmly spoke with police, the video showed.

Nikolau posted images of the escapade on her social media accounts, including a photo that modeled an engagement-style ring above a bird’s-eye view of Manhattan.

The two climbers — whom police identified by their formal names, Angelina Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov — were awaiting arraignment on burglary, reckless endangerment and other charges. It wasn't immediately clear whether they had attorneys who could speak to the allegations. An assistant to Nikolau said early Thursday that the couple was unavailable for the time being.

“Skywalkers: A Love Story” follows Beerkus and Nikolau as they make often unauthorized ascents of tall structures, sometimes posing as construction workers to sneak in.

It wasn’t clear how the pair gained access to the Empire State Building's antenna, which rises well above public areas of the 102-story building. Building management said in a statement that the episode was “unauthorized” and didn’t endanger anyone in the skyscraper.

The management didn’t answer questions about how the two reached the antenna and what interactions, if any, they had with security workers. Empire State Building visitors are screened and told not to bring large packages, sports equipment, costumes or masks, among other items.

Tourist Julie Morris told local TV stations that she was on one of the building's observation decks when she saw two people pass through some mesh gates into an off-limits area. She said she assumed the pair, who weren't masked, worked there.

As the stunt unfolded, onlookers gaped from the sidewalks near the Art Deco office tower.

“It's crazy — it's like being in the movies,” said Jonathan Roman, a tourist visiting from the Scottish city of Glasgow. He and his 15-year-old son had observation platform tickets but arrived to find the building blocked off because of the antenna activity.

Still, the spectacle was “probably more exciting than going up to the viewing platform for the second time,” Roman reasoned.

Daredevils have previously climbed the antenna and other parts of the Empire State Building. Those ascents have largely been unauthorized, but actor and musician Jared Leto was allowed to climb up to the base of the antenna from the 86th floor in 2023 to promote a tour.

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This story has been corrected to show that the incident happened Wednesday, not Tuesday.

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Free agent guard Norman Powell has agreed to a two-year, $45 million contract with the Chicago Bulls, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

Powell, 33, earned his first career NBA All-Star selection with Miami last season after averaging 21.7 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game.

Over the past two seasons, he averaged nearly 22 points per contest.

The move comes after Miami decided to lock up another key piece of their roster.

Charania also reported on Monday that forward Andrew Wiggins plans to remain in Miami by opting into the final year of his current contract for the 2026-27 season before signing a two-year, $64 million extension.

The new agreement would keep Wiggins, 31, with the Heat through the 2028-29 season.

According to NBA insider Chris Haynes, the Heat are alos adding free agent swingman Tim Hardaway Jr. to their roster.

Hardaway Jr. is the son of former Heat star shooter Tim Hardaway.

Last season with Denver, Hardaway averaged 13.5 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists while shooting 44.7% from the field and 40.7% from downtown.

Miami is also bringing back forward Simone Fontecchio on a one-year contract, according to Charania. The veteran shooter averaged 8.5 points per game while making 37.5% of his 3-point attempts last season.

In addition, the Heat announced last week that they have exercised their team option on guard Pelle Larsson.

Larsson, 35, appeared in 70 games during his second NBA season, averaging 11.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 26.4 minutes per game while shooting 49.6% from the field and 79.7% from the free-throw line.

The moves come after Miami acquired superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Milwaukee Bucks in a blockbuster trade that sent Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and multiple draft picks to Milwaukee.

Local 10 digital journalist David DWork contributed to this story.