Also on the ballot is a long list of state and local contests, including a Los Angeles mayoral race where the Democratic incumbent mayor faces more than a dozen challengers. Among them is a former reality TV personality whose candidacy has caught the eye of another former reality TV personality, President Donald Trump.

California’s top-two primary format, where all candidates run on the same ballot regardless of party, has complicated the campaign calculus in several high-profile races, including the one to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. While Democratic candidates often welcome the opportunity to run head-to-head against a Republican in the dark blue state, the number of well-known Democrats in the race threatens to split the vote and inadvertently clear the path for two Republicans to advance to the general election, which would guarantee a Republican governor.

The Democratic field includes former U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, billionaire 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Republicans vying for the seat include Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, who has Trump’s endorsement.

Democrats Eric Swalwell and former state Controller Betty Yee will also appear on the ballot, although both have withdrawn from the race. Swalwell was a top contender in the campaign but withdrew on April 12 following sexual assault allegations he has denied. He resigned from Congress two days later.

In the race for control of the narrowly divided U.S. House, a new congressional map favorable to Democrats has complicated the reelection bids of several Republican House incumbents. Voters approved the new district boundaries in a Nov. 2025 referendum, which was a response to Trump’s initiative in Texas and other states to maximize the number of GOP seats heading into the fall midterm election.

In the 6th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley considered his limited options and left the Republican Party in March to run for reelection as an independent.

Republican U.S. Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim are competing against each other in the 40th Congressional District. Democrat Esther Kim Varet is one of several challengers hoping to snag one of two spots in the general election.

Also on the ballot is a special election in the 1st Congressional District to complete the term of the late Republican U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who died in January. The five-person field pits the Democratic state Senate President against the Republican state Assembly Minority Leader. If no candidate receives a vote majority, the top two finishers will compete one-on-one on Aug. 4. The winner will serve under the current district boundaries, not the new map going into effect in the next Congress.

A special election to fill Swalwell's vacant 14th Congressional District seat will be held June 16, also under the current boundaries.

In the race for Los Angeles mayor, Democrat Karen Bass seeks a second term in the nonpartisan office against tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, former MTV reality show cast member Spencer Pratt, City Councilmember Nithya Raman and others. Trump recently said of Pratt, “I’d like to see him do well.”

Democrats have a significant advantage over Republicans in statewide races based on their overwhelming support in the populous areas surrounding Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego. Republicans tend to perform best in the more sparsely populated areas of northern California and the Central Valley, while running competitively in Southern California suburbs outside of Los Angeles and San Diego. A Republican has not won statewide office in California since 2006.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. PT, which is 11 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in contested races for U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, attorney general, insurance commissioner, state school superintendent, Board of Equalization, state Senate, State House, mayor of Long Beach, mayor of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County sheriff.

Who gets to vote?

Any registered voter in California may participate in the state primary.

How many voters are there?

As of April 3, there were about 23.1 million registered voters in California, including about 10.4 million Democrats, about 5.8 million Republicans and about 5.3 million not registered with any party.

How many people actually vote?

About 7.3 million votes were cast in the U.S. Senate primary in 2024, roughly a third of registered voters.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 89% of vote in the 2024 U.S. Senate primary was cast before primary day.

As of Thursday, about 2.6 million ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election.

When are early and absentee votes released?

About four out of every five California counties release some or most of their results from mail voting in the first vote report of the night, usually before any in-person Election Day results are released. Almost half the counties release most or all of their in-person early voting results in the first vote report.

Since mail voting tends to favor Democrats and in-person Election Day voting tends to favor Republicans, the release of mail voting results at the start of the night could result in an early lead for Democratic candidates, while Republican candidates may narrow the gap as more Election Day results are counted.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2024 primaries, the AP first reported results at 11:08 p.m. ET, or eight minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 6:01 a.m. ET with about 52% of total votes counted. The count reached 99% of total votes about two weeks later on March 20 at 7:47 p.m. ET.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

There are no automatic recounts in California. Any registered voter may request and pay for a recount. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 14 days until the June 16 special primary in Congressional District 14, 63 days until the Aug. 4 special general election in Congressional District 1, 77 days until the Aug. 18 special general election in Congressional District 14 and 154 days until the Nov. 3 general election.

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

The nominal ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. has been repeatedly tested with such back-and-forth attacks, even as officials from both countries try to negotiate an end to the war. It’s not clear how close they are to a deal — and there is always the risk that an attack could derail those talks.

In the meantime, Iran has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies and driving up the price of fuel around the world, with far-reaching consequences.

Fighting has also escalated between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, despite their nominal ceasefire. Israel has extended its occupation deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah — which joined the war in support of its main backer, Iran — continues to launch drones into Israel.

US military attacks Iran

The U.S. military’s Central Command said it carried out the strikes in Iran on Saturday and Sunday around the city of Geruk and on Qeshm Island.

“The measured and deliberate strikes occurred ... in response to aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a U.S. MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters,” Central Command said.

“U.S. fighter aircraft swiftly responded by eliminating Iranian air defenses, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones that posed clear threats to ships transiting regional waters.”

Kuwait reports incoming fire

Kuwait said its air defenses opened fire early Monday morning to intercept incoming drone and missile fire.

Around the same time, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it responded to an American attack without saying where, likely referring to the attack on Kuwait. In a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency, the Guard said that U.S. forces had targeted a telecommunications tower.

Kuwait is home to U.S. Army Central, the Mideast forward command for the Army. While the U.S. Air Force no longer flies the MQ-1 Predator, the U.S. Army still does.

Iranian state television later shared footage of the ballistic missile launch, including a close-up showing a sticker on its body depicting a bruised U.S. President Donald Trump overlaid on a “closed” Strait of Hormuz with the caption: “Until the last American soldier leaves the region.”

Central Command said U.S. forces shot down two ballistic missiles Iran launched toward bases home to American troops. No Americans were hurt, it added.

Attacks rattle ceasefire talks

The attacks represent the latest escalation between the U.S. and Iran. Over the weekend, the U.S. fired a missile into the engine room of a Gambia-flagged cargo ship trying to break its blockade of Iranian ports.

A trickle of ships has made it out of the strait, through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas once passed, but pressure continues on global energy supplies, as well as on chemical fertilizer. That has led to fears of food shortages. The Gulf region produces 30% of globally traded chemical fertilizers.

Trump met with advisers on Friday but has yet to decide on whether to move ahead with a deal to extend the ceasefire and reopen the strait. Iran has said the deal had not been finalized.

The U.S. and Israel launched the war with strikes on Iran on Feb. 28. Trump has offered shifting goals for the conflict, although preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon is among them. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though it has enough highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested last week that negotiators are trying to strike general terms on Iran’s nuclear program, with the specifics to be hammered out in the ensuing talks.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei on Monday again accused the U.S. of “constantly” changing its positions.

“From the beginning, we knew — and we continue to know — that we are negotiating in an atmosphere of mistrust," Baghaei told journalists.

Trump expressed optimism about the talks in a post on his Truth Social platform early Monday in Washington.

“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us,” he wrote. “Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — It always does!”

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5% before the opening bell, while futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and Nasdaq futures added 0.2%.

Oil prices rose around 3% after the Pentagon said the United States bombed Iranian military sites, retaliation for Tehran's shooting down of an American drone.

Even amid the strikes, U.S.-Iran negotiations continued, including on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil and natural gas transit.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose $2.52 early Monday to $93.64 per barrel. It was approximately $70 a barrel in late February, before the start of the war.

Benchmark U.S. crude was $2.93 higher at $90.29 a barrel.

“In spite of another round of tit-for-tat attacks, market participants continue to operate on the assumption that, sooner rather than later, the Strait of Hormuz will re-open,” wrote Jonas Goltermann, chief markets economist at Capital Economics.

In equities trading, IBM surged 10% after analysts raised expectations for the tech giant's stock price. Shares of IBM also closed up 12% on Friday, giving it a nearly 30% gain in May, when the New York company announced a $1 billion government grant to help it build a quantum chip foundry.

FedEx Freight, a spinoff of the package delivery giant, rose more than 2% during premarket on its first day of trading.

Nvidia also gained more than 2% early Monday after the chipmaker unveiled powerful new chips to bring AI functions into laptops and desktop computers, including those made by Microsoft and Dell set to roll out later this year.

Elsewhere, at midday in Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.2%, France's CAC 40 edged up 0.2% and Germany's DAX gained 0.5%.

Asian shares mostly gained and Japan’s and South Korea’s benchmarks hit records, led by technology-related stocks, as investors continued to see growth in AI and other advanced technologies.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 ended 0.9% higher at an all-time record of 66,934.33. It also crossed the 67,000 mark for the first time during Monday's trading, reaching 67,231.28. Shares of SoftBank Group, the investment company that focuses heavily on AI, soared 14% and became Japan's most valuable listed company, surpassing Toyota.

In South Korea, the Kospi index jumped 3.7% to 8,788.38, also closing at a record high, after hitting an intraday record of 8,874.16. Samsung Electronics, its biggest company, was up 10.1%. Official data on Monday showed that South Korea’s exports surged 53% year-on-year in May, buoyed by global demand for semiconductors.

The Nikkei 225 was up more than 12% over the past month, while the Kospi surged around 27% during the same period.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng traded 0.9% higher at 25,398.18. The Shanghai Composite index fell 0.3% to 4,057.74, after China reported over the weekend that factory activity in May softened with signs of slowing new exports demand.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down less than 0.1% to 8,729.40.

Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 1.4%, while India's Sensex lost 0.7%.

Three months after the Iran war began, uncertainties over a permanent end to the war are still driving market movements and keeping oil prices swinging, even as optimism on robust AI demand and strong corporate earnings have fueled a stock market rally including on Wall Street.

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump met with advisers in high-level talks but had not decided yet on a tentative plan to extend the Iran war ceasefire by 60 days, while Iran had said a deal was not finalized. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz was also still in limbo. The strait has been largely closed and the U.S. has imposed a sea blockade on Iranian ports.

The Israeli army was also advancing in Lebanon as Israel targets the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, further complicating developments of a deal on the Iran war.

The two people remain unaccounted for since a search and rescue operation began last month in a rugged area of Xaisomboun province, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane. Five of the seven people initially trapped inside the cave have been rescued.

Malaysian diver Lee Kian Lie, who is involved in the operation, said workers were pumping water out of the cave.

“We will go into the suspected area to continue the search if the water level is lowered,” he told The Associated Press.

Another team of rescuers is also looking around the other side of the cave in hopes of finding a dry passage that could provide access to the area where the missing people are believed to be trapped, he said.

Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand have been working together for more than a week. They were joined by divers from countries including Finland, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia.

Several of the rescuers previously took part in the complicated 2018 cave rescue in northern Thailand that saved 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave.

Laos's Rescue Volunteer for People group posted on its Facebook page that heavy rain caused “massive amounts of water” to flow down into the area, forcing them to suspend operations on Sunday night.

Kengkaj Bongkawong, head of the Thai group Metta Tham Rescue Kalasin, said workers are also looking for air shafts from above that may provide access into the cave.

“The team and I have used a radar scanner and satellite images and many other things as a basis for our navigation of the mountain,” he said.

In remarks on his Facebook page, Kengkaj warned that even if a suitable alternative entrance is found, “it's going to be a very tough job,” with access difficult and the constant problem of continuing rain flooding the cave.

It would require not only pumping water out, but also installing equipment to keep ventilating the cave's air supply, he said.

Rescuers believe the two missing people are trapped deeper inside the cave than the location where the five survivors were originally found on Wednesday. But the passage into that area is said to be very narrow and heavily flooded.

The villagers reportedly entered the cave nearly two weeks ago to look for valuable minerals such as gold before being trapped by a flash flood that blocked their way out. One other villager escaped and alerted the authorities.

The first man was safely extracted on Friday, guided through a narrow flooded passage by an expert diver. The remaining four left the cave on Saturday after the water receded enough for them to walk out on their own, rescuers said.

But the second-place finisher, progressive Sen. Iván Cepeda, and his ally, President Gustavo Petro, questioned the results of the election Sunday night, without providing evidence.

De la Espriella rapidly gained traction in the lead-up to Sunday’s election, winning nearly 44% of the vote, and surpassing Cepeda, who had consistently led polling throughout the campaign and won less than 41% of the vote.

The two are slated to continue to a runoff election on June 21, where de la Espriella is expected to scoop up additional votes from Colombians who supported other conservative candidates in the first round.

Cepeda will face an uphill battle in the runoff, said Sergio Guzmán, a political analyst. “Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round. In other words, that’s a shift in public opinion that is very difficult to overcome. So now Abelardo is emerging as the likely favorite to win.”

Joining a political shift in the Americas

De la Espriella, known as “El Tigre” or “The Tiger,” has never held office in Colombia and prided himself on living a luxurious life in Italy before becoming deciding to run for president. He pitched himself as an outsider who would cozy up to President Donald Trump and follow El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's war on gangs, which has driven down homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

“I will wipe out narcoterrorism and those who I've declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats. I will unleash upon them the wrath of God never seen before ,” De la Espriella said in an interview with The Associated Press in the final stretch of the campaign, where he promised to open 10 mega-prisons to fight crime.

He joins a growing number of leaders across Latin America — from Chile to Honduras — seeking to latch onto the “Bukele model” as voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption.

De la Espriella's supporters come from a wide range of backgrounds. Yolanda Peréz, a 64-year-old women serving coffee in the downtown of Colombia's capital of Bogotá, said with a wink the day before the election: “I'm thinking of voting for El Tigre.”

Miguel Maheca, a 20-year-old first-time voter, flashed a paper showing that he voted to his mom while he strolled out of the polling station on Sunday, saying with a grin, “Love isn't what's going to make us safe in Colombia."

But experts say El Salvador's security successes will be nearly impossible to replicate in a place like Colombia, which is more than 50 times larger than the Central American nation and has many more armed groups warring for territory.

The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

De la Espriella, 47, made a name for himself as a lawyer defending high-profile clients such as former President Álvaro Uribe (2002–2010), as well as controversial figures like Alex Saab, a close ally of Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro who faces legal issues in the U.S. and whom he stopped representing about seven years ago.

A blow to Cepeda

De la Espriella's rise as a presidential candidate spells trouble for progressive Cepeda, who consistently led polls in the lead up to Sunday's election, though his competitor quickly gained speed in the weeks ahead of the vote.

Cepeda is a progressive senator who has promised to carry on his ally Petro's fraught plan to achieve “total peace” by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs.

Their political movement was born from a fierce rejection by many Colombians of a militarized offensive by Uribe in decades past used to beat back the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which ended in thousands of civilians being killed by Colombian forces in a scandal known as “false positives.”

De la Espriella “represents a return to the paramilitary politics and drug-trafficking — a mafia-run, plutocratic and corrupt past that the country experienced during Álvaro Uribe’s two administrations,” Cepeda said on Sunday.

Petro, a former rebel, won Colombia's presidency in 2022 in a historic election that ended decades of right-wing domination by leaders from Uribe's political movement. He gained massive support from rural-dwelling, Indigenous and poorer Colombians who felt they had never been directly spoken to by Colombian leaders.

Now, that movement is backed into a corner.

“This is De la Espriella’s election to lose,” wrote Renata Segura, director of International Crisis Group's Latin America and the Caribbean Program. “Cepeda thought he could win appealing squarely to the left, and that proved to be a massive mistake. How he pivots in the next month will determine if he has any chance to win.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

The winners will compete in November’s critical midterm elections, in which Iowa’s U.S. Senate and House seats could determine control of the narrowly divided chambers. The next governor could also play a pivotal role in the 2028 election, given the state’s long history of making or breaking presidential hopefuls.

Two Republicans and two Democrats are competing in primaries to replace Ernst, who announced in 2025 that she would not seek a third term. U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson faces former state Sen. Jim Carlin in the Republican primary, while state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls compete for the Democratic nomination. Carlin ran for Iowa’s other U.S. Senate seat in 2022, receiving about 27% of the primary vote against U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Reynolds also announced in 2025 that she would not seek a third term. Vying for the GOP nomination are state Rep. Eddie Andrews, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, entrepreneur and private school co-founder Zach Lahn, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former state administrative services director Adam Steen.

The winner will face Democratic state Auditor Rob Sand, who is unopposed in his primary. Sand is Iowa’s only Democrat in elected statewide office.

Hinson’s and Feenstra’s statewide campaigns have created open seat contests in the state’s 2nd and 4th Congressional Districts, respectively. Feenstra’s district is heavily Republican and is unlikely to play a major role in determining control of the chamber. Hinson’s district is more competitive, although she won reelection in 2024 with 57% of the vote.

In Iowa’s most competitive congressional seats, Republican U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of the 1st District and Zach Nunn of the 3rd District are both seeking reelection. Miller-Meeks faces a rematch with her 2024 primary opponent, advertising executive David Pautsch, who received about 44% of the vote. The Democratic field includes former state Rep. Christina Bohannan, who came within 800 votes of defeating Miller-Meeks in 2024.

In the 3rd Congressional District, both Nunn and his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, are unopposed in their primaries.

Republican Donald Trump received roughly 54% of the 2024 presidential vote in both the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts and about 52% of the 3rd District vote.

Polk, Linn and Scott counties are Iowa’s most populous, and all three play major roles in both Republican and Democratic statewide primaries. Johnson County is the fourth largest, but as home to Iowa City and the University of Iowa it is an overwhelming Democratic stronghold and tends to exert much less influence in Republican primaries.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. CT, which is 9 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, auditor, state Senate and state House.

Who gets to vote?

Only voters registered with a political party may participate in that party’s primary. However, voters may change their party affiliations at the polls on the day of the primary.

How many voters are there?

As of May 4, there were about 2.1 million registered voters in Iowa, including about 692,000 registered Republicans, about 496,000 registered Democrats and about 589,000 voters not registered with any party.

How many people actually vote?

About 196,000 Republican primary votes and about 157,000 Democratic primary votes were cast in the 2022 U.S. Senate primaries.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 16% of the Republican primary vote and about 25% of the Democratic primary vote in the 2022 U.S. Senate primaries was cast before primary day.

As of Thursday, about 41,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, roughly 26,000 in the Democratic primary and more than 15,000 in the Republican primary.

When are early and absentee votes released?

Nearly all counties release the results of absentee-by-mail voting at the start of the night. However, counties vary in terms of when they release in-person absentee voting results.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the last contested state primary in 2022, the AP first reported results at 9:12 p.m. ET, or 12 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:29 a.m. ET, with more than 99% of total votes counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

Iowa does not have an automatic recount law, but candidates may request and pay for a recount. Candidates do not have to pay for recounts when the margin is less than 1% of the total vote or fewer than 50 votes, whichever is larger. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 154 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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

A joint statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said that following what they called repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah and the “attacks against our cities and citizens,” they have ordered the Israeli military to attack targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs known in Arabic as Dahiyeh.

Hezbollah agreed to halt attacks on Israel when the ceasefire was signed in mid-April, but resumed following Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Israel characterized as self-defense.

After Monday's warning, large numbers of people were seen fleeing Dahiyeh, jamming roads leading out of the suburb, where Hezbollah enjoys wide support.

Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire overnight

Israeli airstrikes overnight on southern Lebanon left six people dead, including a Syrian citizen in a village near the city of Nabatiyeh, the state-run National News Agency said. Israel struck other towns and villages near the major city, close to the strategic Beaufort Castle and other towns the Israeli military captured in recent days.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said its air force had intercepted two projectiles launched from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, as well as a suspicious aerial target in the area where Israeli soldiers operate in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported, the military said.

Hezbollah said it carried out rocket and missile attacks on northern Israel on Sunday. It said early Monday it attacked Israeli troops in Zawtar al-Sharqieh, just north of the Litani River, and struck what they said was Israeli military infrastructure in Tiberius, a few dozen miles south of the border.

Israel and Lebanon set to hold talks in Washington

The latest attacks came despite a nominal ceasefire that has been in place since April 17 and just before Lebanon and Israel hold their next round of direct talks in Washington starting Tuesday. Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran, which has demanded an end to the war in Lebanon in its talks with Washington.

The talks between officials from Israel and Lebanon, which began in April in Washington, were the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations.

Lebanese officials have been scrambling in diplomatic calls, including with Washington, in a desperate bid to push back Israel’s military escalation after Netanyahu’s announcement, a Lebanese diplomatic official said. Beirut is still committed to holding talks to end the conflict despite the boiling tensions, the official said, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted Monday that any ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran is a “ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon."

“Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts," Iran's top diplomat said in a post on X.

Beirut has been mostly spared from airstrikes since the ceasefire went into effect, apart from two targeted attacks on the city's southern suburbs in May.

A U.S. official said late Sunday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to propose a fresh path to continue ongoing negotiations, as President Donald Trump weighs a tentative ceasefire extension with Iran.

Under the proposal, Hezbollah would halt all attacks on Israel and Israel would refrain from escalating military operations in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations.

The official said Aoun was open to the idea but that Lebanese parliament chief Nabih Berri had responded by demanding that Israel first stop all military action.

The official said the Trump administration does not expect Israel to give up retaliating for Hezbollah strikes on its territory.

Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said in a statement Sunday that he can guarantee the militant group’s “full, comprehensive and immediate commitment to a ceasefire.” Berri added: “But who will force Israel to stop its aggression?”

Aoun on Monday said in comments released by his office that “Lebanon is facing a fierce and condemned Israeli aggression.” Aoun added that his government is continuing work to end “the suffering of the Lebanese in general and the southerners in particular.”

Later, the president issued a statement reiterating Beirut's commitment to negotiations, saying it is “safer” than war."

“It will not solve the problem within moments, but it is a process that needs time," he said. “And we have no other choice.”

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,412 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people.

Israel’s military said a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon overnight in a drone attack by Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber-optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 26 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

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Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.

Republicans hold a narrow House majority but face a tough midterm environment in which the party holding the White House typically loses congressional seats. Although Republicans may see gains from mid-decade redistricting in several states and from a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling threatening Democratic-held majority-Black districts across the South, winning competitive seats like New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District remains central to both parties’ strategies to hold or retake the chamber.

U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is running for a third term in the 7th District and is unopposed for the Republican nomination. His father, Thomas Kean Sr., served two terms as New Jersey’s Republican governor in the 1980s.

He will face the winner of a competitive Democratic primary featuring former healthcare executive Rebecca Bennett, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, physician Tina Shah and entrepreneur and business owner Brian Varela. Bennett leads the Democratic field in fundraising and had the most campaign funds available heading into the final stretch of the campaign.

Kean’s whereabouts have been a question on the campaign trail and in the halls of Congress. On April 27, he released a statement saying that he was addressing “a personal medical issue” and that he expected to return “very soon.” As of Monday, he had not voted on any legislation since March 5, missing more than 100 consecutive votes.

The 7th Congressional District in northern New Jersey stretches from Staten Island to the Pennsylvania border. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump narrowly carried the district in 2024, edging Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, 49.6% to 48.5%.

Also on the ballot is U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who faces no primary opposition in his bid for a third full term. The Republicans hoping to challenge him in November are physician Robert Lebovics, former Tabernacle Deputy Mayor Justin Murphy, Army veteran and former state trooper Richard Tabor and former local TV news reporter Alex Zdan.

Bergen and Middlesex counties in the greater New York City area are among the most populous in the state and are important battlegrounds in both Democratic and Republican statewide primaries. Essex County, which is home to Newark, is also a major population center, but its heavily Democratic electorate makes it less influential in Republican primaries. The counties that contribute the most votes in statewide Republican primaries tend to be Ocean, Monmouth and Morris.

Union County comprises the largest share of the 7th Congressional District vote, followed by Somerset and Hunterdon counties.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate and U.S. House.

Who gets to vote?

Registered party members may vote only in their own party’s primary. In other words, Democrats can’t vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters may participate in either primary, but voting in a party’s primary will enroll them in that party.

How many voters are there?

As of May 1, there were about 6.7 million registered voters in New Jersey, including about 2.5 million registered Democrats, about 1.7 million registered Republicans and about 2.4 million voters not affiliated with any party.

How many people actually vote?

About 841,000 Democratic primary votes and about 466,000 Republican primary votes were cast in the 2025 gubernatorial primary. That was higher than the turnout for the 2024 U.S. Senate primaries, when about 525,000 and 318,000 votes were cast in the Democratic and Republican primaries, respectively.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 46% of the Democratic primary vote and about 31% of the Republican primary vote in the 2025 gubernatorial primaries was cast before primary day.

As of Wednesday, about 285,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, about 79% from Democrats and about 20% from Republicans.

When are early and absentee votes released?

Counties in New Jersey typically release results from mail and in-person early voting before releasing results from in-person Election Day voting. Counties tend to release all or almost all of their mail and early voting results in the first vote report of the night, before any in-person Election Day results are released.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2025 gubernatorial primaries, the AP first reported results at 8:03 p.m. ET, or three minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 11:43 p.m. ET, with about 93% of total votes counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

Recounts are rare in New Jersey. The state does not have automatic recounts, but candidates and voters may request and pay for them, with the cost refunded if the outcome changes. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 154 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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

Comedian Nate Bargatze has been on quite a tear the last few years. Television audiences love his family-friendly stand-up act, which has been featured in multiple specials.

He’s proven even more popular doing live concerts, becoming the top-grossing comedian of 2024 and 2025. It’s no surprise he’s making the transition to the big screen, with another family-friendly project: “The Breadwinner.”

Bargatze stars as “Nate Wilcox,” the top salesman at the local Toyota dealership. (Toyota gets a lot of product placement in this film, as does Walmart, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Tennessee Titans and a few other companies.)

He’s married to his stay-at-home wife, played by Mandy Moore (“This is Us”), who does a magnificent job managing their household and taking care of their three daughters, well-played by Stella Grace Fitzgerald, Birdie Borria, and Charlotte Ann Tucker.

Nate is so impressed by a simple organizer device that his wife has invented that he encourages her to try to put it on the market.

That leads to a funny scene with both of them on the TV show “Shark Tank” and a proposal that has Nate and his wife switching places, resulting in the salesman trying to cope as a stay-at-home dad.

And yes, that is territory covered before in movies like “Mr. Mom,” but it does provide for lots of comedy possibilities. The script was written by Bargatze and Dan Lagana (“Musica”), with Eric Appel (“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”) taking on the directing duties.

I think all parties involved realized that Bargatze isn’t a super-experienced actor. His delivery — no surprise — often sounds like someone who’s on a comedy club stage. The creative team decided wisely to surround him with other comic performers to help carry the funny ball.

Probably most notable is Colin Jost (“Saturday Night Live”) as a neighbor who sees Nate as a threat to his status as the No. 1 house husband among the local ladies. Jost demonstrates his talents beyond doing “Weekend Update” as the two have some funny scenes together.

Other support comes from Will Forte (“MacGruber”) as an enthusiastic but incompetent contractor working on the family house, and Kumail Nanjiani (“The Big Sick”) as a super competitive fellow car salesman. I usually like Nanjiani, although this time out, he’s a little over the top in his performance.

The problem here is that the movie kind of jumps from scene to scene and often feels like a series of barely related skits that have just been strung together with not a lot of connectivity to what has already happened.

One early scene suddenly introduces someone sleeping on the Wilcox family couch, who we discover is Nate’s father. We haven’t heard about him prior to that, and don’t hear about him again until late in the movie when he takes part in an elaborate diversion that they’ve cooked up.

It is interesting that the end credits of the film feature various clips from Bargatze’s past stand-up performances, where he references situations that were later incorporated into this movie.

“The Breadwinner” starts to feel more cohesive toward the end, but overall, it comes across as a pleasant enough comedy that’s not offensive, but is very lightweight.

This might be a movie to just wait and see at home, although in a positive move to entice people to theatres, Bargatze and the studio releasing the film are offering a “Nate Rate” discount on tickets at some cinemas by using a special code.

A heavy military presence was observed in the capital, Addis Ababa, as observers called for a peaceful election in the country that is Africa's second-most populous and hosts the headquarters of the African Union.

Long queues began forming before the 6 a.m. opening time, with voters eager to cast their ballots and make their voices heard.

Ethiopians are choosing more than 500 members of the House of Representatives, who will subsequently vote to select the prime minister.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party is expected to secure a majority of seats, paving the way for him to retain office for another term.

About 50 million people, out of Ethiopia’s estimated population of 130 million, are registered to vote. Voters are also electing members of local government councils. Results are expected later on Monday.

Opposition parties have raised concerns over what they describe as a shrinking political space, alleging that they were prevented from actively campaigning and persuading voters. Ethiopia has also faced criticism over reports of human rights abuses targeting government critics and journalists.

A human rights defender, Noah Yesuf, said the election was illegitimate "from the beginning."

“The fairness of an election is judged by whether there is a level playing field for the opposition and a conducive environment for citizens to freely participate,” he told The Associated Press.

There’s an element of voter apathy due to citizens feeling let down by politicians.

Senait Dereje, a 37-year-old shopkeeper, is certain her vote matters.

“I have registered to vote. I am not sure if my vote will bring the change that I want and that will help change my livelihood,” Dereje told the AP. “I know many friends refuse to vote as they have given up on the politicians but I have not and I see it as a referendum like vote on the mixed record of the government."

This year’s election themes include national reconciliation due to the fighting seen in regions such as Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara, and there is also a development theme as the government pledges to undertake major projects.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the interception in a post Monday on X, saying the Tagor was boarded on Sunday in the Atlantic. The post included a video showing a person rappelling from a helicopter onto a ship. It is the latest in a series of French naval interceptions of tankers suspected of links to Russia.

“It is unacceptable that boats skirt international sanctions, violate the law of the sea and finance the war that Russia has been waging for more than 4 years against Ukraine,” Macron wrote. “These ships, that don’t respect the most elementary rules of maritime navigation, are also a threat to the environment and everyone’s security.”

Oil revenue is a key part of Russia’s economy, allowing Putin to pour money into the war effort against Ukraine without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a currency collapse.

Russia is believed to be using a fleet of hundreds of ships to evade international sanctions imposed over the war. France and other countries have vowed to crack down on the sanction-busting so-called “shadow fleet.”

Responding to the latest French interception, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia “considers such actions illegal.”

“They border on piracy,” he said Monday. “We absolutely disagree that they are being carried out in full compliance with international law.”

French maritime authorities said the tanker was intercepted more than 400 nautical miles west of France, in international waters in the Atlantic. It was traveling from the northwestern Russian port of Murmansk, according to the authorities’ statement.

It said the tanker is suspected of operating under a false flag and that the French navy is now escorting it to an anchorage for more checks.

Tankers previously intercepted by France include the Deyna, boarded in the Mediterranean Sea in March. Another tanker, the Grinch, intercepted in the Mediterranean in January, was released in February after paying a multimillion-euro penalty.

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Associated Press writer Elise Morton in London contributed.

New research from CR found that the exact same grocery basket can vary dramatically in price depending on the store.

CONSUMER REPORTS: Most and Least Expensive Supermarkets

Most Americans shop at more than one grocery retailer each week, and Consumer Reports analyzed how prices compare across major chains by building baskets filled with common items like packaged foods, produce, and meat. Walmart served as the baseline for comparison.

According to CR’s findings, the difference between the most expensive and least expensive grocery baskets in the same city often exceeded 33% for identical items. When warehouse clubs and specialty grocery stores were added to the comparison, the price gaps grew even larger.

Consumer Reports found that warehouse clubs like Costco and BJ’s frequently ranked among the cheapest places to shop, often coming in about 20% less expensive than Walmart.

Discount chains such as Aldi and Lidl also performed well for affordability.

On the other hand, stores like Whole Foods—and in some areas even Trader Joe’s—could cost 25% to nearly 40% more than Walmart for similar groceries.

Still, Consumer Reports says shoppers don’t necessarily have to commit to one store to save money. Instead, a more strategic approach can help cut costs.

Mixing trips between discount stores and traditional supermarkets, buying some staples in bulk, and picking up specialty items elsewhere may help stretch your grocery budget further.

Consumer Reports also recommends taking advantage of loyalty programs and store apps, which often unlock digital coupons and discounts that aren’t available otherwise.

Before heading to the store, CR suggests checking what’s already in your pantry and refrigerator and making a focused shopping list. Being intentional about what you truly need can help reduce impulse purchases and food waste.

One more simple tip: set aside one night each week to eat what’s already in your fridge and move foods that need to be used soon to the front, where they’re easier to see. Small habits like these can add up to meaningful savings over time.

Here are the tools you need:

• Download & Save The Weather Authority’s Hurricane Survival Guide
• Hurricane preparedness: What experts want you to do right now
• Shop now, before a storm: Building your family’s hurricane kit
• How to prepare your home for hurricane season before a storm threatens
• Emergency ready in Florida: What to pack in a ‘financial go bag’ before hurricane season
• Hurricane season prep: JEA urges Jacksonville customers to trim trees, build supply kits

And here’s a look at this season’s forecast -- and what could be coming in the future:

• NOAA releases 2026 hurricane outlook predicting below-normal season
• Are hurricanes getting stronger? What the science — and AI — say about the future of storm forecasting

Also, this season marks 10 years since Hurricane Mathew struck the First Coast. Meteorologist Jenese Harris takes a look back with local survivors:

• 10 years later: Recalling the impact of Hurricane Matthew on Northeast Florida

Gardner, Bridegan’s ex-wife, and Fernandez, her now-estranged second husband, are charged with the killing of Bridegan, a father of four who was gunned down while driving home with his toddler daughter.

Last month, Gardner’s defense attorneys asked Kite to throw out two court-authorized wiretaps placed on her cellphone, Apple Watch and her sister’s cellphone, arguing that police lacked the legal basis to capture the conversations in the first place.

A Jacksonville Beach Police Department detective submitted a probable cause affidavit in support of the wiretap application. According to the defense, that affidavit was loaded with evidence against others — surveillance footage, location data, financial records and a Google search for a 10 mm pistol by J.B. — but offered very little when it came to Gardner herself.

“The January Affidavit provided scant information against Ms. Gardner,” the motion states, noting it was limited to her relationship with the victim and with Fernandez, an alleged motive tied to a dispute that occurred years earlier, and three checks written to accused gunman Henry Tenon — checks signed by Fernandez, not Gardner.

The defense argues there was no surveillance footage, no location data, no controlled calls and no incriminating statements tying Gardner to the crime.

Gardner’s attorneys also filed a motion to block testimony from the Bridegans’ daughter, arguing that she was only 2 years old at the time of the shooting, and to compel another deposition from Bridegan’s widow, Kirsten.

Gardner, Fernandez and Tenon are all under indictment for first-degree murder and other charges in the February 2022 ambush shooting. They have each pleaded not guilty.

After initially planning to try Gardner and Fernandez at the same time, defense attorneys and state prosecutors have since agreed that they should face separate trials, with two separate jury selection periods.

Jury selection for Fernandez will be from Aug. 10-14, with a pool of 250 potential jurors. His trial is then slated for Aug. 17-28.

Gardner’s jury selection will run from Aug. 31-Sept. 4 with a pool of 500 jurors. Her trial will then run from Sept. 8-25.

Timeline: How we got here

More than four years ago, Jared Bridegan dropped his then-9-year-old twin children off at the home of his ex-wife, Shanna Gardner, after a “date night” with their dad.

He left Gardner’s Jacksonville Beach home on Feb. 16, 2022, with his 2-year-old daughter, Bexley, strapped in her car seat in the back of his dark-colored SUV. They were headed back to St. Augustine.

But the 33-year-old Microsoft executive never made it home.

Following his normal route through the Sanctuary neighborhood, Bridegan suddenly had to stop in the area of Jacksonville Drive, America Avenue and Sanctuary Boulevard.

A tire was in the road.

When Bridegan stepped out of his SUV, he was ambushed by gunfire. At least one bullet missed Bexley by mere inches in her car seat.

RELATED | Murder-for-hire plot included practice run along Jared Bridegan’s normal route home: prosecutors

Bridegan was left lying in the street next to the SUV with the door wide open, and the shooter seemed to melt into the shadows just as quickly as he had launched his ambush attack.

None of the 911 callers that night mentioned seeing a shooter or a vehicle leaving the scene.

LISTEN: Press play below to hear 911 calls from night of Jared Bridegan’s murder (WARNING: May include graphic content)

But eventually, detectives tracked down the man they say pulled the trigger.

Investigators say that it was all part of a murder-for-hire plot set in motion by Gardner and her new husband, Mario Fernandez. It was a conspiracy that began in November of 2021, according to court documents.

Interactive Timeline

Alleged murder-for-hire scheme

According to detectives, Gardner was tired of sharing custody of her twin children with Bridegan.

Fernandez, she knew, could “take care of him” because of his military background, Gardner told a friend. At least that’s what the friend told investigators as she detailed the strained marriage between Gardner and Fernandez and the contentious ongoing custody battle between Gardner and Bridegan.

RELATED: A friend of Shanna Gardner said she could help in Jared Bridegan’s murder case. Here’s what she told investigators | How investigators say they untangled conspiracy to kill Jared Bridegan

Investigators say that’s exactly what Fernandez did, hiring Henry Tenon, a tenant at one of his properties, to kill Bridegan.

In his initial interview with police in July 2022, Tenon told investigators that he had been renting a home from Fernandez in Jacksonville’s Biltmore neighborhood for several years.

Tenon’s original court records said he became involved in the conspiracy on Jan. 4, 2022 -- just over a month before Bridegan was killed.

Investigators said when Tenon was arrested on an unrelated felony driving charge in August 2022, they questioned him about Bridegan’s murder and a Ford F-150 truck they had been searching for since the shooting.

RELATED | Follow the money: Checks written to Jared Bridegan’s admitted killer connect him to 2 accused in ‘murder-for-hire plot’ | Jared Bridegan’s wife files wrongful death lawsuit against 3 accused in his murder

Tenon was later arrested in Bridegan’s murder, and investigators said the single link between Tenon and Bridegan was Fernandez.

In 2023, Tenon pleaded guilty and admitted to being the gunman who killed Bridegan, but he has since backtracked, and a judge granted his motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

Gardner and Fernandez have also both pleaded not guilty. State prosecutors initially said they would be seeking the death penalty against both if they were convicted, but they have since taken the death penalty off the table, with the support of Bridegan’s widow, Kirsten, and his family.

Here's a virtual tour of author-owned bookstores across the U.S.

Judy Blume: Books & Books, Florida

Judy Blume and her husband, George Cooper, are longtime residents of Key West, Florida, and have become fixtures in the local culture. Cooper helped restore an old movie theater into a multiplex venue and Blume and Cooper helped found the nonprofit Books & Books — an outpost of the Miami-based sellers that opened in 2016 — located just off the town’s main road. Blume may be known worldwide for such novels as “Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret,” but on a given day you can find her ringing up a sale at the register, or helping a customer choose a book. Or you can see her greet the many fans who have traveled far to meet the author they say changed their lives.

Louise Erdrich: Birchbark Books & Native Arts, Minnesota

Founded by Louise Erdrich in 2001, Birchbark is based in Minneapolis and has a mission tied closely to the author’s Ojibwe background (she’s an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians). Her store specializes in Indigenous literature and bills itself as a meeting point for “literate Indigenous people who have survived over half a millennium on this continent.” Birchbark even served as a muse for Erdrich’s 2021 novel, “The Sentence,” narrated by a bookstore employee whose boss just happens to be a woman named Louise. “I guess I have some things in common with her,” the author confided to GMToday.com.

Lauren Groff: The Lynx Books, Florida

Lauren Groff’s store in Gainesville, Florida, isn’t just a member of the author-owned circle but part of a wave of stores opened in recent years that have a larger social mission. Based in a state that ranks among the country’s leading book banners, The Lynx is a general-interest bookstore that Groff and husband/co-owner Clay Kallman opened in 2024 and emphasizes books forbidden in schools and libraries. “One of the purposes is to create a lighthouse, sort of showing that the rest of the country and world that Florida is not an intolerant backwater,” Groff, author of National Book Award finalist “Fates and Furies,” told the Southern Literary Review in 2025. “It is full of good people who work very hard to allow for the freedom of expression, tolerance, and love of all people.”

Jeff Kinney: An Unlikely Story, Ma

ssachusetts

Local stores are expected to be modest in scale, but the blockbuster sales for the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series expanded the ambitions of author-owner Jeff Kinney to superstore heights. He didn’t simply reconfigure an existing building, but had a new one built from scratch, with all the trimmings. An Unlikely Story is a bookstore housed in a colonial-influenced, 3-story building in downtown Plainville, Massachusetts that also includes a cafe, event space and writing-drawing quarters for the author. Kinney, who opened his store in 2015, recently said he is planning to add a restaurant, beer garden and park to the downtown area.

George R.R. Martin: Beastly Books, New Mexico

Like the stores run by Groff and Erdrich, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Beastly Books is very much an extension of the worldview of its owner, “A Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin. It is a “cozy den” for speculative fiction, according to the store’s homepage, and a haven for banned books, locally written works and rare first editions. Founded in 2019, Beastly Books is located close to another Martin outpost, the Jean Cocteau Cinema, and is named in part for Cocteau’s classic film adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Ann Patchett: Parnassus Books, Tennessee

Not every bookstore opening leads to a guest appearance with Stephen Colbert, but a year after the launch of Parnassus, Ann Patchett found herself on “The Colbert Report,” whose host likened her venture to the Nora Ephron comedy “You've Got Mail,” in which Meg Ryan plays an independent store owner driven out of business by a nearby chain. The Nashville-based Parnassus has since become one of the country's signature independent sellers, visited by “You've Got Mail” co-star Tom Hanks among others, and a platform for Patchett to champion fellow authors.

Emma Straub: Books Are Magic, New York

Like Patchett, Emma Straub became a bookstore owner in the aftermath of a local absence: BookCourt, where the author once worked, had closed. She and her husband, Michael Fusco-Straub, opened Books Are Magic in 2017 in Brooklyn. The store with the pink murals in front became a local hit and gained national recognition, cited as a personal favorite by Jenna Bush Hager of the “Today” show. Straub and her husband have since opened a second Books Are Magic location in the borough.

Senate Republicans who are returning to Washington on Monday say they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on a new $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies. But Trump has shown little interest in doing so, even after a judge temporarily halted any payouts.

It’s unclear how they will settle the dispute.

The Trump administration is “going to have to come up with some suggestions and ideas,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said before the Senate left town on May 21. Thune, of South Dakota, said that the settlement money — some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — “just makes everything way harder than it should be.”

The impasse over the “anti-weaponization” fund could be an inflection point as Republicans try to keep their majority in this year’s elections and advance their agenda. Trump’s campaign year push to defeat GOP lawmakers who he sees as disloyal, including some of Thune’s most reliable Republican votes in the narrow 53-47 Senate, has only added to the tension.

Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas both lost reelection in May after Trump endorsed their primary opponents, and it is unclear how supportive they will be of the president’s agenda going forward. And a growing number of GOP senators have become frustrated with the president as he ignores what they see as their political needs.

“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune said.

Democrats have said they plan to offer several amendments to the immigration bill to scale back or eliminate the settlement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a letter to colleagues Monday morning that Democrats will launch “a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door.”

“No matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote on it,” he wrote.

As anger among Senate Republicans swelled, Trump made clear that he wasn’t highly concerned.

“I don’t care about the midterms,” Trump said last week in a discussion about the Iran war.

Senate Republicans draw lines on settlement fund

At a closed-door meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche before they left town, Republican senators gave an ultimatum of sorts — put some limits on the settlement or we will do it for you.

GOP senators had been discussing several ways that they could curb the fund, including limiting who can receive payouts, changing the makeup of the commission in charge of settlement decisions, adding some sort of judicial review for applicants or scrapping the fund altogether. Republicans have discussed adding parameters on the settlement to the unrelated immigration enforcement measure but would prefer that the White House make changes on its own.

There were few sings of progress over the Memorial Day recess.

Sen. Todd Young of Indiana told The Associated Press last week that he hadn’t seen any indications “that would suggest they sent us a plan that our leadership thought was acceptable.”

“It’s in their court,” Young said of the White House.

Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee said on Fox New Channel's “Fox News Sunday” that there are discussions underway “to get to something that’s going to work.”

“I think there were just more details and more questions last week that needed to be resolved,” Hagerty said, adding that “I’m looking forward to seeing the details this coming week.”

Acting attorney general spars with the Senate

Blanche told the AP in an interview Thursday that “a lot of the questions will be answered in the short term.” But he would not elaborate, saying that “talking in hypotheticals is something that I don’t think is fair to the process.”

The acting attorney general’s meeting with senators before they left town was “angry,” according to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who described it on his podcast. Cruz said that of around 45 Senate Republicans who attended, “at least half of them were blasting the attorney general.”

The Senate had planned to stay in session late that night to vote on the immigration spending bill, but leaders canceled votes and sent everyone home. Cruz said Republican senators were “yelling” and told Blanche that the fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, “feels like self-dealing" and "feels like Trump cut a deal with himself.”

Cruz, who said he supports the fund, noted that Democrats had said they would offer amendments to kill it. Republicans "would have lost every vote” if they had stayed in session, he said.

He predicted that “we will see the administration announcing at a minimum a modification of this, because if they don’t, they’ve got a full-on revolt in the Senate.”

Jan. 6 defendants could get settlements

Cruz said that there were a lot of questions from senators about the Jan. 6 defendants and that Blanche reassured them that no one who committed an act of violence or assaulted law enforcement would get a payout. But Blanche has repeatedly declined to say that publicly, telling the AP that “there is no limit to who can apply.”

Asked about people who were violent on Jan. 6, Blanche suggested that might be too hard to define.

“Who is it? I mean, you tell me, right?” Blanche said. “You have to define something and then stick to it. So that’s something I’ve been hesitant to try to do because it’s very fact intensive.”

Trump has pardoned more than 1,500 defendants who were charged and prosecuted in the 2021 attack, including hundreds who were convicted for violently beating and injuring police as they broke into the Capitol.

Unity on immigration enforcement derailed by other issues

The divide over the fund comes after Republicans already abandoned $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, as Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project at a time of economic hardship. Besides the settlement, Democrats had planned to force Republican senators to vote for or against the ballroom money.

Left in the legislation is funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked for months in protest of the administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.

Republicans are using a complicated budget maneuver called reconciliation to fund the agencies through the end of Trump’s term without Democratic support. Still, success requires GOP unity and Trump’s eventual signature.

Democrats say they hope that their Republican colleagues continue to stand up to the White House. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said last week that he thinks the settlement fund is ”probably one of the most corrupt things that we’ve ever seen an American president do.”

It is “a bridge too far for some of my Republican Senate colleagues,” Peters said. "I hope they realize that what was done is simply unacceptable and that they’ll stand firm.”

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Associated Press writers Steven Sloan and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

“The new Liz Strout book is the best,” she says of Elizabeth Strout's “The Things We Never Say.” “You know, every single book she publishes, you just think, ‘Oh, well, she can’t possibly do that again.’ And then she comes out with another book and it’s even better.”

At 62, Patchett is the rare and fortunate writer whose words resonate among friends and strangers alike. She owns one of the country's signature independent bookstores, Parnassus Books, with customers ranging from Nashville's book lovers to Tom Hanks. She's also a popular and prize-winning novelist whose new books are inevitably among the year's most anticipated, and whose older ones, including the acclaimed “Bel Canto,” continue to sell. In 2021, she received a National Humanities Medal for “putting into words the beauty, pain, and complexity of human nature.”

Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages, but her home is in Nashville, where she spent part of her childhood and now lives with her husband, physician Karl VanDevender. Patchett spoke at Parnassus with The Associated Press on a sunny weekday morning, shortly before opening time. She also met with staff members gathered at the center of the 4,800-square-foot store to discuss upcoming events, and indulged the occasional interruption by one of the employee-owned “shop dogs” who hurry about like bargain-seeking customers.

The new book is called ‘Whistler’

Patchett is here early to talk about “Whistler,” which comes out Tuesday. Like “Bel Canto,” “State of Wonder” and other Patchett novels, it's a story of improbable meetings and deepening bonds. In this case, 53-year-old Daphne Fuller and her husband encounter an elderly man, Eddie Triplett, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and realize he was briefly her stepfather when she was a girl. Daphne and Eddie form a close friendship as they recall their times together, including a serious car accident followed by the breakup of Eddie's marriage to her mother.

Patchett doesn't write with any message in mind, but “Whistler” can be read as an ode to decency and benevolence. The title refers to a story-fable about a horse that runs away, only to turn up at a time of crisis. In the aftermath of the crash, as Daphne wonders if it's safe to leave and seek help, Eddie assures her, “I swear to you, it's mostly good people out there, with a few bad people around the edges.”

“The people that I interact with every single day are good people,” Patchett says. “It is vanishingly rare when I meet someone who’s not nice. Now, if you watch the news and read the news, it seems like everyone’s terrible and murderous. But it’s the difference between primary and secondary sources. So if I’m just operating off primary sources, what I see is goodness. I completely understand that there is incredible horror and cruelty in the world, but I also feel like incredible horror and cruelty is very well represented (in art). And what I actually experience in my daily life is not as well represented in art.”

“I don’t set out to write books about nice people,” she adds, “but I like people.”

Honored by PEN America

Patchett's sense of citizenship was recognized recently by PEN America, which at its annual May gala in Manhattan presented her with its Literary Service Award. In introducing her to a gathering of hundreds at the American Museum of Natural History, author Patrick Ryan cited her wide range of contributions, whether working “to get books into the hands of children in underserved communities,” supporting emerging writers or inspiring readers “who recognize themselves in her novels.”

Patchett has a well-lived appreciation of connections, and how they can be broken by discord or ended by death.

A native of Los Angeles, she was in early childhood when her parents divorced and she moved east with her mother, events drawn upon for her novel “Commonwealth." She has also written memorials for departed loved ones. In the memoir “Truth & Beauty,” she remembered her close friend Lucy Grealy, a poet and memoir writer who suffered from a rare form of cancer and endured multiple surgeries before dying at 39. In the title essay from her 2004 collection “These Precious Days,” Patchett honors the late Sooki Raphael, a Hanks assistant with whom the author became close while Raphael battled terminal cancer.

“Whistler” is dedicated to her friend Jim Fox, a former head legal counsel at HarperCollins who died in 2024 and is the inspiration for Eddie (and the namesake for a character in “State of Wonder”).

“He was brilliant, and a great reader,” she says. “Jim isn’t Eddie and I’m not Daphne, and certainly the circumstances aren’t the same, but the huge love that Eddie and Daphne shared is the huge love Jim and I shared.”

A bookseller who inspires

Patchett, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, remembers telling stories even before she could read, a gap she says only intensified her appreciation of the printed word. Raised before the rise of “young adult” books, she started out reading such children's favorites as “Charlotte's Web” and “The Little House on the Prairie” series, and ascended directly to the literary giants who became her formative influences: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and John Updike.

By her early 20s, Patchett was accomplished enough to have a story published in The Paris Review. Patchett's debut novel, “The Patron Saint of Liars,” came out before she had turned 30. She has since published nine other works of fiction, including “Whistler,” along with four nonfiction books and three picture books, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser.

“I was at my cousins' house a few months ago and they had boxes of old papers of mine,” Patchett says. “And they were from grade school, middle school, high school — notebook after notebook, poetry and stories. I was shocked by the extent I was practicing my craft at age 10.”

Patchett's life as a bookseller began around 2010, when the closing of two Nashville stores seemed to mirror a nationwide decline brought about in part by Amazon's rise. Patchett and business partner Karen Hayes came up with a seemingly wild plan: open a new store — a decision met with some skepticism at the time, but now a sign of the changing fortunes of independent sellers.

Membership in the American Booksellers Association has more than doubled over the past decade — including such author-run stores as Straub's Books Are Magic in New York City and Jeff Kinney's An Unlikely Story in Plainville, Massachusetts. Straub says that when she was thinking of opening her store, she spoke with various friends who owned small businesses.

“They all told me not to do it, but when I talked to Ann, she said ‘Do it,’” Straub says. “She's my hero. I think the friends who were telling me not to do it were speaking practically. But I didn't want to hear practical advice. I wanted to hear inspiration.”

The deal, struck in 2022 by Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak, involved sending migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country. It included arrangements for payments to Rwanda to help cover costs. Starmer’s home secretary at the time the deal was scrapped, Yvette Cooper, called it the “most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen.”

The Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected two Rwandan claims, each for 50 million pounds ($67 million), linked to funding for the canceled deal. The decision was dated May 15, but formally announced by the Hague-based panel on Monday. It also rejected two other Rwandan claims linked to alleged breaches by the U.K. of the pact.

In a 76-page ruling, the panel said that written diplomatic exchanges between the two countries after Starmer scrapped the deal amounted to an agreement that the U.K. would not make the two 50 million-pound payments, due in April of 2025 and 2026, to cover costs of migrant relocations.

Under the deal, migrants were to be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that the policy was unlawful because Rwanda is not a safe third country for migrants sent there.

The British government said in a statement: “The U.K. robustly defended its position, and the tribunal has now ruled in favor of the U.K. on all grounds."

It added that Starmer's under-fire government is "now focused on delivering vital reforms to restore order and control to our borders, including removing the incentives drawing illegal migrants to Britain and scaling up removals of those with no right to be here.”

There was no immediate response from Rwanda.

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Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed from London.

The protests come two days after Kenya’s High Court suspended the establishment of the facility and the arrival of any foreign patients pending the hearing of a case filed by the Law Society of Kenya and a constitutional watchdog.

The two organizations cited Kenya’s fragile health system as the reason why foreign Ebola patients should not be quarantined in the country.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the United States was planning to send Americans exposed to Ebola while abroad to a new facility in Kenya instead of flying them home. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s plans. They said the facility would be at Laikipia Air Base and would be operational with 50 quarantine beds by Friday.

On Monday, hundreds of youths marched to the gates of the air base, chanting anti-Ebola slogans.

Health Minister Aden Duale on Sunday said the quarantine center was for “everyone” and not exclusively for U.S. nationals.

The U.S. government intends to commit $13.5 million toward Kenya’s Ebola preparedness efforts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Local leaders, including Laikipia Governor Joshua Irungu, had told journalists that they were opposed to the establishment of an Ebola quarantine center.

“This will expose our people to Ebola,” he said, adding that many locals work inside the air base and could be exposed.

Kenya has not recorded Ebola cases, but neighboring Uganda has reported nine and closed its border with Congo.

At least 282 confirmed cases have been reported in Congo with over 1,000 suspected cases of the Bundibugyo virus, the current species of Ebola, which has no approved treatment or vaccine.

While Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia has already been massively successful in supplying high-end chips for data centers riding the worldwide AI demand boom, it is plotting different plans to expand its presence across AI systems and products.

Jensen Huang, the Taiwanese-American founder and CEO of Nvidia, made the announcement in Taipei at the annual Nvidia GTC event. Microsoft and Nvidia “are going to reinvent the PC (personal computer),” he said in his keynote speech.

“This is going to be the new PC,” Huang said as he unveiled Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip — which combines CPU, or central processing unit, and GPU, or graphics processing unit, capabilities — that would power new Windows laptop and desktop computer models in what the company called “AI personal computers,” expected to debut in the fall of this year.

Nvidia is already the world’s most valuable company, ahead of Apple, Google’s parent Alphabet and Microsoft.

The company said it will be “reinventing the personal computer” for creating and gaming. “When it has an autonomous (AI) agent, an agent that’s helping you, that understands you, you could talk to it. It could look at you. You could ask it to read files, go help you do some research. It could do a lot more,” Huang said.

Microsoft said in a separate statement that the personal computers running on Nvidia’s RTX superchips would be able to support “highly capable AI models” and complex workloads. With the new superchips, these personal computers can run AI agents locally, Nvidia said.

Nvidia’s move is significant at a time when demand is growing for the use of personal AI agents, said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

“For consumers, it means more choices, which is always a good thing,” Su said.

Neil Shah, analyst and co-founder of Counterpoint Research, described Nvidia’s announcement as a move that’s “revolutionizing how PCs would look like in the next 10 years.”

The new laptops and desktop computers “will drive agentic AI applications in every home,” Shah said, with an aim of having an “AI supercomputer” in each household.

Also during Monday’s speech, Nvidia’s Huang said its new Vera CPUs for data centers are in full production and are “going to be our new major growth driver” on the boom of AI agents, with early customers expected to include Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceXAI. He also revealed a humanoid robot reference design that could act as a blueprint for future research, especially within the higher education sector.

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Chan reported from Hong Kong.

According to NOAA, there’s about a 55% chance that this hurricane season will be below normal, with just a 10% chance of it being above normal.

We’re looking at a forecast of eight to 14 named storms forming, of which three to six could become hurricanes. Out of those, one to three may reach major hurricane status.

While those numbers are still worth keeping an eye on, it’s definitely not pointing to an overactive season.

Now, I know everyone’s wondering, why do the numbers look a little lower this year? We’re making a switch from a La Niña to an El Niño pattern, which is expected to boost wind shear over the Atlantic. That can make it tougher for hurricanes to form and strengthen.

Plus, I’m tracking the possibility of Saharan dust pushing off Africa in the coming months—that tends to put a lid on storm activity, too. Still, sea surface temperatures are running warm, which is always a wild card for development.

For now, the Atlantic is calm, and Exact Track 4D shows the next seven days looking quiet.

Fog and fire risk start the day

Over at JAX airport this morning, it’s feeling sticky and soupy.

Temperatures are at 73 degrees, but it feels more like 70 if you’re standing outside. Visibility in some spots has dropped to just about a mile, especially around Waycross, so it’s a good morning to take it slow and keep those low beams on if you’re heading out.

I know fog isn’t anyone’s favorite driving condition, and you’ll need a little extra patience on the roads. The fog will clear up as the day goes on, but until then, give yourself extra time and be sure to drive safely.

Even though our area saw some recent rain, the fire danger has not let up. It’s really important not to toss lit cigarettes out your window or light fires outdoors.

Conditions are still dry enough to start a problem quickly, so let’s all help keep the community safe.

Short-term forecast

Looking out for the rest of today and into the week, nothing big is brewing in the Atlantic right now—so our part of the tropics is expected to behave. I am, however, keeping a watch on some showers approaching I-75.

Want to share what’s happening in your neighborhood? If you snap a great weather photo or video, send it my way through SnapJAX at news4jax.com/snapjax/. You might just see it on-air or online!

Though it has gone by different names over the years, the Israel Day parade has always been a must-attend event for mayors, governors and other political leaders eager to win over the throngs of flag-waving revelers who congregate on Fifth Avenue to celebrate the birth of the Jewish state in 1948.

Not so for Mamdani. Two weeks ago the mayor's office released a video commemorating the Nakba, an Arabic word for “catastrophe” that is used to describe the displacement of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment.

“I said on the campaign trail that I wouldn’t be attending the parade, and I’ve made my views on the Israeli government abundantly clear,” Mamdani said at a news conference Thursday.

But he also promised a robust police presence to make sure it went off “seamlessly and peacefully.”

The city’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, did attend the parade.

“It is the mayor’s decision not to march, and it is my decision to march proudly,” she had said Thursday as she stood alongside Mamdani at police headquarters.

The mayor's absence, though long expected, has given fresh fuel to opponents who view his criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitic.

A delegation of members of Israel’s hardline government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, attended the parade. The visit came nearly two weeks after the far-right settler leader said the International Criminal Court was seeking an arrest warrant against him and marked his first trip to the United States since March 2025.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, founding senior rabbi of The Hampton Synagogue on Long Island and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which advocates for better relationships between Jews and Muslims, called Mamdani’s decision to not attend the parade “a slap in the face to all Jewish New Yorkers.”

“Do us a favor, stay home,” he said. “We don’t need you. We don’t want you.”

Schneier also slammed Mamdani’s Nakba video as “propaganda,” echoing concerns from other Jewish leaders who said it excluded context about Jewish peoples’ displacement during the period.

The video, which appeared to be the first such recognition from a sitting New York City mayor, featured the story of a woman who was displaced at 9 years old, interspersed with text about the Nakba, as she described a feeling of missing home, saying “it’s the soft hills of Palestine that actually touched me.”

“I’ve lived in different places, and I’ve always been an outsider,” said the woman, Inea Bushnaq.

Supporters of Israel were outraged, saying the video should have acknowledged the mass displacement of Jews from Muslim-majority countries or the role that the mass slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust played in the drive to establish a Jewish state.

Mayors in New York City, which has America’s largest Jewish population, have long been visible supporters of Israel, often visiting the country.

Support for Israel among Americans has deeply eroded in recent years, though, a trend that accelerated amid the outcry over Israeli military action in Gaza..

Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, has remained steadfast in his pro-Palestinian advocacy.

He has said he believes Israel has a right to exist but not as a hierarchy that favors Jewish citizens. Simultaneously he has pledged to protect Jewish New Yorkers and highlighted the work of the city’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.

The FHP report says the young man was walking east across I-95 around 4:30 a.m. when he stepped into the path of the bus and was hit.

A JTA spokesperson said the bus was not in service, and no customers were on board.

The 47-year-old man driving the bus was not hurt. He was wearing a seat belt, according to FHP.

But the pale pink birds — called “fenicotteri” in Italian — are now flocking to Venice in record numbers, as ecological efforts to restore damaged wetlands could help expand their habitat and possibly induce them to nest in the lagoon.

Flamingos — which most famously nest in Spain and France — started showing up in the vast Venetian Lagoon in the early 2000s, mostly in fishing valleys and mudflats in the lagoon’s furthest reaches, with only rare sightings in the canaled historic center of Venice that is most frequented by global tourists.

Venice Lagoon becomes an unlikely flamingo haven

Environmentalists say their arrival in Venice as the European flamingo’s range expands is a sign of the lagoon’s health and suitability as a feeding ground.

Last year, the number of wintering flamingos in Venice peaked at a record of nearly 24,000. That is 6,000 more than the previous year, numbers “that position the Venetian Lagoon as one of the most important wintering spots in its entire habitat range,” said ornithologist Alessandro Sartori.

Sartori surveys the lagoon weekly by boat for signs of nesting, which would indicate a self-sustaining Venetian colony. So far there are no fresh signs after two nesting attempts, in 2008 and 2013, in northern lagoon fishing valleys suffered serious setbacks, including violent hail that killed dozens of birds.

More than 90% of the birds counted in last year’s census were in the northern lagoon, which contains a large area of natural salt marsh. The flamingos are also attracted by the traditional fishing valleys, semi-natural embanked wetlands that provide abundant food but can also bring them into conflict with human activity.

Venice seeks to recover its lost marsh

A project to reconstruct salt marshes in the more isolated southern lagoon — past the historic center and the industrial port — raises prospects that flamingo numbers will increase there as well by offering a new habitat in an area of the lagoon where wetland erosion has been especially severe. It could also draw the birds away from competing human uses in the north.

The Venetian Lagoon, covering an expanse of 550 square kilometers (more than 200 square miles), was originally nearly half salt marsh. Today the area of salt marsh — or “barene” in the Venetian dialect — is just about 7%, about half of it reconstructed, said Jane da Mosto, the executive director of We Are Here Venice, the local partner in the EU’s 23.6 million euro ($27.5 million), 5-year WaterLANDS project to restore wetlands across Europe.

The damage is especially stark in the central and southern lagoon, due to the combination of natural erosion and the dredging of shipping channels to access the Marghera industrial port in the 1960s.

“And since then, there’s been much more widespread erosion and loss of sediments from the lagoon to the point that Venice is now on a trajectory to becoming a marine bay,” said da Mosto. The wetlands reconstruction project “is specifically to show that it’s possible to address this trend and change the course of history.”

Rebuilding the salt marshes increases the lagoon’s ability to capture carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas and driver of climate change, and mitigates the effects of rising sea levels. But da Mosto said much larger areas would need to be restored to produce meaningful climate benefits. The goal of the EU project is to make salt marsh reconstruction scalable.

Flamingos can also benefit as biodiversity increases.

Da Mosto’s team is researching ways to increase biodiversity on the reconstructed marshes, including planting species that can help reduce erosion and make the wetlands more resilient.

The mudflat where they are working contains signs of flamingo activity, chiefly stray pink feathers. On a recent day, a flock of some 30 were perched in the distance — scattering when a pair of squawking oystercatchers alerted them to visitors.

Already, Sartori believes that the reconstruction has begun to draw more flamingos to the area. Over the last three years, he has seen their numbers in the southern lagoon grow from just a handful to as many as 300 to 400 in certain periods.

“The hope is that they can find — as they have found in other parts of the Mediterranean — right here on these barene, places where they can nest,” Sartori said.

Venice’s pink newcomers could draw a different kind of visitor

The flamingos' presence in the lagoon underlines the importance of the Venetian ecosystem and offers a new way for visitors to interpret the canaled city and outer islands through their ecological — and not just historical and artistic — significance.

Still, visitors to Venice who hope to casually spy flamingos will probably be disappointed, and AP reporters recently had to travel by boat for an hour to spot any. The flamingos inhabit shallow, difficult-to-access reaches of the lagoon where navigating safely requires close attention to tides and channels. Even at a distance, the birds are easily disturbed and quick to take flight.

Sartori predicts flamingo spotting — already a possibility from the shores of the small lagoon islands of Murano and Burano but rare in the historic center — could become more common as their numbers continue to grow.

“Obviously this should always be done with respect for the animals, keeping a safe distance and not interfering with their daily lives,” he said.

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The outbreak remains focused in Congo's eastern Ituri province, where 264 of the cases have been recorded, Congo’s Ministry of Health said. Congo has reported over 1,000 suspected cases with the Bundibugyo virus, the current species of Ebola, which has no approved treatment or vaccine.

According to the health ministry, the main challenges in containing the outbreak include early detection and rapid isolation of cases, rigorous contact tracing, safe and dignified burials and strengthening infection prevention and control in health facilities.

The contact tracing coverage rate so far is 45% with 220 suspected cases under investigation, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, some of the five people who have so far recovered from the disease spoke of their relief in interviews with The Associated Press.

Baraka Bulambulu, a nurse, said he was overjoyed after the last two Ebola tests on him returned negative.

Bulambulu was among those presented certificates of recovery by the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as he opened a new Ebola treatment center in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, on Sunday.

“The first one came back positive, but the second and third were negative for me,” Bulambulu said with a wide grin. “Coming out of this illness alive is an indescribable joy."

Ezo Étienne, another nurse who recovered from the disease, said he first started feeling dizzy during ward rounds at the hospital as he checked on patients.

“That was how it started,” he recalled. “I called the team and told them, ‘Something’s wrong here.’ I checked my blood pressure and saw that I was immediately experiencing hypotension (low blood pressure). I decided to rest for a bit, and a few minutes later I started vomiting.”

The WHO has said all five survivors are health workers — four nurses and a laboratory worker — a group most affected in the outbreak.

Treatments so far have mostly targeted patients' symptoms, the organization has said.

“Your courage gives hope and your living story, that this outbreak can be stopped,” Tedros told the health workers on Sunday.

Neighboring Uganda has also reported nine cases of Ebola and closed its border with Congo seeking to limit its spread.

Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in Congo and Uganda, the Bundibugyo virus has been rare. The lack of approved vaccines and treatments, as well as the remote locations and armed violence in hot spots, have made the current response challenging.

Despite the challenges, the recoveries are “a victory worth celebrating,” said Dr. Dieudonne Mwamba Kazadi, the director-general of Congo's National Institute of Public Health.

"It’s a strong message that it is possible to recover from Ebola when seeking care early in a dedicated health facility,” he added.

They said he looked disheveled, asked for water and eventually accepted an Uber ride paid for by the family.

Hours later, the family learned that the same man, 30-year-old Austin Fisher, was wanted for murder in a triple stabbing just blocks from their home.

Bob Isacs told News4JAX reporter Briana Brownlee and photojournalist Jesse Hanson that Fisher, who introduced himself only as “Austin,” knocked on their door around 6:45 a.m. Thursday.

Isacs’ sister-in-law, who had just been outside smoking a cigarette, opened the door to find a “rough-looking young guy” asking for some water.

Isacs said the sister-in-law woke him up because the man said “he did somethin’ he wasn’t gonna be forgiven for” and admitted to stabbing multiple people.

Isacs said his family wasn’t sure what to think as Fisher described getting into a fight with his roommate and stabbing the roommate and the roommate’s father.

“I’m thinking he just, like, cut someone or something,” Isacs said. “I’m not thinking, you know, what I find out later.”

What Isacs and his family found out later was that Fisher was accused of fatally stabbing three people: 49-year-old Edwin Barber, 27-year-old Savannah Barber and 37-year-old Shad Cole at a home on Exodus Way in Normandy Estates.

RELATED: Police ID woman, 2 men killed in triple stabbing on Jacksonville’s Westside | Man, 30, charged in stabbing attack that left 2 men, 1 woman dead on Jacksonville’s Westside

Family members said Savannah was Edwin’s stepdaughter and Cole was her fiancé.

Isacs said the site of the triple stabbings is just a few blocks from where his family lives.

“It was shocking. I mean, my sister-in-law started crying, because you don’t think someone would do something that bad," Isacs said. “I just feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the people that got killed too, don’t get me wrong. But I met him, and he didn’t seem like a killer.

“He was just a calm kid,” Isacs continued. “He was scared. You could see it in his eyes.”

Isacs said Fisher described spending hours in a ditch hiding from police, who were searching for him with helicopters, and said he was “coming down” off drugs. Fisher said he was probably going to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Isacs was skeptical of his story, though, because Fisher was so calm.

“If I would have felt scared, I’d have pulled my gun on him. You know what I’m saying?” Isacs said. “But he just was really calm, and he knew what he did.”

Isacs said he woke up his nephew, who was also in the home, and his nephew eventually called an Uber for Fisher, who said he wanted to go see his mom.

Isacs said Fisher had cash on him and offered the nephew $100 to cover the cost of the ride, but the nephew wouldn’t take the money.

“We actually said bye to the kid. We told him to get his life straight, and he got in the Uber, and he was gone,” Isacs said.

Later, when they saw the news about the nearby stabbings, Isacs’ family immediately called the police.

“I don’t really feel bad about not calling the police when he was here because I didn’t think I had to call the police,“ Isacs explained. ”I really thought he did something wrong, but he was gonna take care of it."

The SWAT team eventually took Fisher into custody after an hours-long standoff at a motel on Ramona Boulevard, police said.

“He never ever said he was sorry or nothing like that, but you could see it on his face,” Isacs said. “He was remorseful.”

What police say happened

According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, around 3 a.m. Thursday, dispatchers received a call that a man was knocking on the front door of a home on Exodus Way.

When the District 5 Patrol officers arrived, they found Edwin Barber on the front porch with a stab wound to his chest.

Investigators quickly learned Barber had been stabbed at his home down the street and had run to his neighbor’s house for help.

When officers went to Barber’s house, they found Savannah Barber inside a bedroom with multiple stab wounds, and then found Cole with multiple stab wounds on the porch of another house.

Savannah Barber and Cole died before they could receive medical attention. Edwin Barber died at the hospital, police said.

JSO said investigators learned from community tips that Fisher was the likely suspect and found him hiding at a motel in the Normandy Village area.

The SWAT Team went to the motel to take Fisher into custody, but he refused to exit. After several hours in a standoff, JSO said, they took Fisher into custody.

Fisher made his first appearance in court on Friday morning (press play below to watch) on three charges of second-degree murder and one count of armed robbery. He was ordered to be held without bond and will be back in court on June 18.

The rules require social media platforms with at least 8 million users including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, to implement age-verification systems and block users under 16 from creating accounts.

Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission said Monday that age verification for existing users will be rolled out progressively over the next six months.

Users identified as under 16 will have a month to download or transfer their data, including photos and videos, before any restrictions, suspensions, or other actions are applied, it said in a statement.

Companies that fail to comply could face penalties of up to 10 million ringgit ($2.5 million). But parents whose children manage to bypass the law will not be penalized.

The government said the measures are aimed at protecting children from harmful content, cyberbullying and platform features designed to encourage excessive use.

Other countries including Australia,Brazil and Indonesia have introduced or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children’s access to social media. Countries including Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand and South Korea are also studying or developing similar approaches.

The regulator said the rules are not intended to prevent children from accessing digital technology.

“These measures help strengthen the protection of children in the online environment, while providing added reassurance to parents in navigating increasingly complex digital risks," it has said.

Platforms are required to improve user safety, discourage excessive use and take action against underage accounts and harmful content.

Technology companies have yet to detail how they will comply with Malaysia’s new requirements.

Clara Koh, Meta’s director of public policy for Southeast Asia, had cautioned in April that Malaysia's blanket under-16 ban could backfire by driving teenagers away from protected apps and into unregulated corners of the internet.

She said Meta has launched “teen accounts” for those under 18 that limits contact, screen time and exposure to inappropriate content.

Malaysia's curbs come as governments face growing pressure to address concerns about social media’s impact on children’s mental health and online safety.

In March, a U.S. jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay millions of dollars in damages in a case alleging that platform design features contributed to harm suffered by a young user.

How two Malaysian families see the changes

Kuala Lumpur parents Saravanan Ganasan and Jayaradha Veerasamy — whose children are 12 and 15 — approve of the changes. They already banned their kids from using social media, believing minors lack the psychological capacity to cope with it.

The couple ban unsupervised scrolling on TikTok and Instagram. Devices are kept out of bedrooms, screen time is limited to common areas, and their son is not allowed to lock his phone with a password.

“Exposure is what we fear,” Saravanan said. “The wrong kind of exposure will do damage to the mind.”

Aadhavan Saravanan, 15, said he believes he would be addicted to social media if allowed full freedom. “Social media is like, a luxury and it’s not a necessity,” he said

The couple said the restrictions have forced their children to develop offline life skills. Instead of scrolling, Aadhavan reads books in a backyard mango tree and repairs broken household appliances, while their daughter cooks and does crafts.

“A lot of parents are very scared that children get bored,” the kids' mother, Jayaradha, said. “But boredom is actually very good because they start thinking out of the box.”

But Shaun Hew, who lives in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Cheras, feels the new restrictions go too far.

Hew believes social media offers an outlet for his kids to spend time productively, as long as there is proper adult oversight. His 11-year-old son uses platforms to learn cooking and his daughter, 14, uses YouTube for exam revision.

He worries a sudden cutoff could cause teenagers to rebel and find unregulated ways to bypass internet blocks.

Some voice concerns over privacy and safety

Some critics contend that Malaysia’s move could increase the risks of data privacy breaches and expand state surveillance.

“It is very much following the trend but in a way that is raising alarms due to requiring a government ID for age verification,” said Benjamin Loh, social science lecturer at Monash University in Malaysia.

Loh also said experiences elsewhere suggest age-based restrictions have yet to prove consistently effective. Without penalties on parents, families can easily bypass the law by creating accounts for their children, he said.

“This is a major gap that unless regulators are willing to fix, will result in the law having little effect in stopping children from using social media,” he added.

The special Sandiganbayan anti-graft court had initially issued a warrant for Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest Friday on a graft charge that was bailable. He then surrendered and was released on bail and again denied any wrongdoing.

Estrada, 63, has strongly denied allegations mainly by a former government public works engineer that he received more than 570 million pesos ($9.3 million) in kickbacks from flood control projects.

Before leaving the Senate to surrender, Estrada suggested that the corruption cases he was facing and his arrest were a result of his being aligned with the camp of former President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte, a former ally but now an arch political rival of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“I will not yield to threats. I will not be intimidated,” Estrada said at the Senate.

“I will not be pressured into surrendering my independence of judgement,” he said.

The senator was an actor like his father, former President Joseph Estrada. Both have been previously detained on other corruption-related charges.

Several other senators and members of the House of Representatives have been implicated in the flood control anomalies in a poverty-stricken Asian archipelago that is among the most vulnerable to deadly floods and typhoons.

With Jinggoy Estrada’s looming arrest, two senators in the 24-member chamber would now be effectively sidelined by legal troubles.

Another senator, Ronald dela Rosa, has gone into hiding after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for an alleged crime against humanity.

Dela Rosa was a former national police chief who enforced a brutal anti-drugs crackdown under then-President Rodrigo Duterte that left thousands of mostly low-level suspects dead. The unprecedentedly large numbers of killings alarmed Western governments.

Duterte, who stepped down in 2022 after his stormy six-year term, was arrested last year on orders of the ICC and flown to the Netherlands, where he was detained and will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity starting in November over some of the killings.

Duterte and dela Rosa have denied any wrongdoing but Duterte had repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death.

The young, the old, ruling party leaders and propagandists alike shout it at official events, street demonstrations and on state television, pumping their fists to show loyalty to the self-described socialist government — and its traditional antipathy toward the United States. Even when confronted with overwhelming truths that defy such bravado, the diverse coalition of military, ideological and opportunistic hangers-on has acted in lockstep.

But cracks in that unity have emerged after the stunning U.S. military operation that captured then- President Nicolás Maduro in January. Longtime loyalists are airing disagreements with the government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez and even discussing publicly rumors that an insider’s betrayal helped the U.S. depose Maduro.

A warming relationship with the US draws criticism

Rodríguez, has done away with some of Chávez’s policies, complied with U.S. demands and shuffled the government to her liking, removing ministers, pushing legislation through the National Assembly to overhaul the nation's oil industry and releasing political prisoners.

Supporters of Chavismo are making their disapproval known. Many criticize the warming relationship between Rodríguez’s government and the White House, whose occupant, regardless of party, Chavismo has historically seen as its main adversary.

May’s deportation of a former minister to face criminal investigations in the U.S. and Rodríguez’s recent authorization for the U.S. military to conduct a training exercise in Venezuela’s capital laid bare internal divisions.

Mario Silva spent years spreading pro-government propaganda as the host of a program on state TV before being removed from the airwaves after Maduro’s capture. Silva questioned the legality of the deportation of Alex Saab, a close ally of Maduro's, arguing that it violated a constitutional ban.

He contended that Rodríguez is not governing freely, as some decisions “are being made in the U.S. Embassy.”

“The imperialists don’t negotiate. They conquer, test and probe — until our country shatters,” Silva said in a livestream. “Nobody is safe right now. And that is a concrete, terribly dangerous fact.”

On May 23, a few dozen people in Caracas protested the training that saw two Marine Corps Osprey aircraft land at the U.S. Embassy. They held a Venezuelan flag with the message, “No to the Yankee drill” written over it. Participation was minimal, which stood out in a city used to frequent demonstrations with attendance in the thousands.

Elías Jaua, who served as Chávez’s vice president and in Maduro’s cabinet in his first years in office, repudiated the exercise on social media. He later told The Associated Press he was speaking up to raise awareness among Venezuelans of the “humiliating” situation facing the country.

“At this stage, the most important thing is to prevent this occupation and this colonial administration to which a nation like Venezuela is being subjected from becoming normalized,” Jaua said.

Chávez and Maduro — as well as Rodríguez, in her previous roles as vice president and communications and foreign affairs minister — had long prophesied that the U.S. would use force to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry, which has opened up to private capital after Maduro's capture. The Trump administration oversees oil sales and administers revenues as part of its phased plan to turn the troubled South American country around.

Maduro's ouster prompts power struggle

The social, political and economic crisis that took hold when Maduro became president in 2013 drove more than 7.7 million people to leave Venezuela and pushed millions of others into poverty. It also led to rounds of anti-government protests and U.S. economic sanctions, both of which the ruling party survived.

Party stalwarts celebrated a Maduro victory in a 2024 election despite overwhelming evidence showing he had lost. They also echoed the party leadership's denial of a surge of migration. Their loyalty was often rewarded, be it with food and basic goods for the poor or multimillion-dollar contracts and bodyguards for the better-off.

Andrés Izarra, a communications minister under Chávez and tourism minister under Maduro, said the fractures are not based in ideology or a defense of Chavismo, which he believes ended when its founder died in 2013. Maduro's interest, he said, was in enriching himself and remaining in power at all costs..

Self-interest, he said, is creating division.

“Since there is no ideological foundation, it is simply a struggle for power, money, positions, and survival. Do you think (he) would be protesting if he’d kept his bodyguards, or if they’d kept his little salary, or his share of power?” Izarra, who lives in exile since becoming a government target last decade, said of one critic of change under Delcy. “If they had an ideological interest, they would have spoken much earlier.”

Loyalists discuss possible betrayal of Maduro

Criticism even aired on state television last month, when a Colombian leftist leader sitting in the audience of Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello's show stood up and questioned Venezuela's efforts to free Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores from U.S. custody.

“We’ve seen a very weak campaign for Cilia and Nicolás’s freedom,” Manuel Caicedo said before a visibly stunned Cabello.

Another devout Chavista, lawmaker Iris Varela, told a podcaster she believed a government insider had helped the U.S. oust Maduro. The idea has widely rumored since President Donald Trump announced that the authoritarian leader had been captured on Jan. 3, but no evidence has emerged.

Of course there’s a betrayal,” Varela said. "I say that every Christ has a Judas. If our Lord Jesus Christ knew he was going to be betrayed and yet he let Judas kiss him on the cheek, ... won’t a traitor emerge for Maduro?”

Nearly everyone who regularly travels that section of I-95 near the Duval County line has a story about being stuck in seemingly endless traffic caused by a crash.

But News4JAX wanted to know what the data actually show. Is that stretch of highway really as dangerous as it appears?

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, from January 2023 through this April, there were 998 crashes on the section of I-95 between County Road 210 and State Road 207, with 14 deaths and 34 critical injuries.

That averages to about 25 crashes a month over the 40-month period.

In the same time period, the stretch of I-95 from Old St. Augustine Road to County Road 210 saw 548 total crashes with six deaths and 20 critical injuries.

That’s a little less than 14 crashes a month.

FHP said the crash total might sound high, but the corridor is heavily traveled. The more cars, the higher the probability of crashes, troopers said.

(NOTE: Scroll down for a year-by-year breakdown of the crash numbers)

So what’s to blame?

A viewer who flagged the issue with the high number of crashes along I-95 in St. Johns County called it the “Bermuda Triangle of 95.”

Troy Bowen told News4JAX that he believes that stretch of highway should be safer for drivers traveling between Jacksonville and St. Augustine.

So News4JAX asked FHP what’s the most likely cause of so many crashes.

FHP Master Sgt. Dylan Bryan said the agency has heard many theories about why the corridor can be dangerous, including sun glare, wind, and road design.

But he said in-depth reviews haven’t found any issues with the roadway.

“A lot of agencies have looked at this, not only from the enforcement side, but from the engineering side, like how the roadway is built, and everything is on par,” Bryan said.

Bryan said the issue is with drivers and that many of the crashes are lane-departure crashes.

“What we tend to see or have seen is either driver fatigue or driver distraction really kind of takes over,” Bryan said, acknowledging that the long, straight layout and long distances between exits can contribute to that fatigue and distraction.

Bryan said enforcement agencies, including FHP and local law enforcement, have increased patrol visibility in the area, and that FHP is seeing “a slow downtick” in crashes.

This year is trending slightly below last year’s pace, he said. So far in 2026, the stretch has averaged about 20 crashes a month.

But Bowen, the viewer who voiced concerns about the roadway, noted that the busiest travel months are still ahead.

“We’re not through the vacation months yet,” Bowen said. “So through the summer months, we’re going to have a lot more traffic coming down.”

Year-by-year data: CR 210 to SR 207

Bowen also asked Sophia to get the data for the stretch from Old St. Augustine Road to CR-210, a spot he says he also finds dangerous. Note: These data graphs are not comparisons.

Year-by-year data: Old St. Augustine to CR 210

The taking of Beaufort castle, near the city of Nabatiyeh, followed days of airstrikes and intense fighting in nearby villages between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants.

The capture marked a major Israeli advance in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, which began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran.

Since then, Israel has launched a ground invasion, capturing dozens of Lebanese villages and towns close to the border. Hezbollah has launched thousands of missiles and drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

The Israeli push came despite a nominal ceasefire that has been in place since April 17 and just days before Lebanon and Israeli hold their next round of direct talks in Washington starting Tuesday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to propose a fresh path to continue ongoing negotiations, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations. Under the proposal, Hezbollah would halt all attacks on Israel and Israel would refrain from escalating military operations in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, according to the official.

In a televised statement, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said he can guarantee the militant group's “full, comprehensive and immediate commitment to a ceasefire."

“But who will force Israel to stop its aggression?” he said in a statement on his television station, NBN.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss Israeli military operations in Lebanon, which he described as “unacceptable.”

“Nothing can justify the prolongation of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and its increasingly deep occupation of Lebanese territory,” Barrot said Sunday on French television BFM TV.

Diplomats said the council meeting might take place Monday afternoon, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

A historic and strategic fortress

The Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted photographs on X showing Israeli troops walking outside the castle, and Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that they raised an Israeli flag over the castle. Israeli troops previously captured the castle in 1982 and held it until they withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.

“Twenty six years after the withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon, the Israeli flag has returned to fly on the peaks that overlook the Galilee towns,” Katz said Sunday at a memorial ceremony for Israeli soldiers killed in its previous occupation of southern Lebanon.

Katz said Israel intends to hold the castle as its troops work to destroy thousands more homes that he says were used by Hezbollah and other military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

The Beaufort fortress, perched high atop Lebanon’s rolling green hills and overlooking the Litani River, has been a strategic military asset for centuries.

Built as a Crusader castle around the 12th century on top of previous fortifications, it has also been used by Saladin’s Jerusalem army, Mamluks, Ottomans, the French mandate and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Crusaders named it Beaufort, which is Old French for “beautiful fortress.”

The 1982 capture of the castle from the PLO was a major victory for the Israeli military, which was then led by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who later became prime minister. At the time, the Israeli army pushed all the way north and occupied Beirut.

In 2000, the castle was partially restored and opened to visitors.

During the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, UNESCO gave enhanced protection to 34 cultural sites in Lebanon, including Beaufort Castle, to safeguard them from damage.

The castle is a few kilometers north of the Israel border and overlooks wide parts of southern Lebanon and northern Israel. In Arabic, it is called Al-Shaqif castle, an old Syriac word referring to the formidable rocky area.

Beaufort is symbolic across the region, including in Israel, where it was one of the best-known places Israel controlled during the 18-year occupation. An Israeli film titled “Beaufort” explores moral questions about war in the last days before the military withdrew.

Israel expands invasion in Lebanon

In recent days, Israel has expanded the scope of its operations in Lebanon, sending troops across the Litani River, which previously served as a de-facto boundary, and demanding that residents leave much of southern Lebanon.

“The occupation of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic shift in the policies we are leading,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, citing the military occupation of security zones in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza along Israel’s borders. He said Israel has killed 3,000 Hezbollah militants since the start of the war. Hezbollah has not disclosed its casualty numbers.

Israel has designated the area from the Litani up to the Zahrani River a combat zone. Some residents have already left the area due to intense strikes in recent days, but people remain.

Israeli troops have been advancing for days in villages close to Beaufort castle. They are now about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Nabatiyeh, a major center in southern Lebanon. They have called on people to leave that area, as well as the coastal city of Tyre, the country’s fourth-largest city, and its surroundings.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah or the Lebanese government on the Israeli push.

The expanded operation would give Israel an upper hand in the upcoming talks with Lebanon in Washington, said Beirut geopolitical analyst Joe Macaron.

“We are at a tipping point,” Macaron said, adding that it is still too early to say how Hezbollah will react to the loss of land. “The more land they (the Israeli military) can grab before the ceasefire, the more they can impose conditions on Hezbollah before their withdrawal.”

Exchanges of fire across the border continue

Israel has continued striking near Tyre, including near the Hiram Hospital. The Lebanese Health Ministry said 13 health workers were wounded in the strike. Elsewhere, a strike in Deir al-Zahrani, near Nabatiyeh, killed eight people and wounded 16 others, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.

Hezbollah overnight claimed two attacks targeting Israeli troops and a Merkava tank in the southwestern town of Bayada near the border. In recent days, the group has said it has clashed with Israeli troops in several towns just north of the river near Nabatiyeh and the strategic castle. It also claimed attacks deeper into Israel near the northern city of Haifa, Nahariya, as well as border areas.

Hezbollah on Saturday fired salvos of rockets into northern Israel, including Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in the area.

Hezbollah's use of hard-to-detect fiber optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond. There have been nearly 200 alerts for Israeli civilians across northern Israel warning of drones and missiles in the past 24 hours, according to Israel's military.

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,350 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 25 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, including one on Saturday. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Then she listened to a song from a faith youth group that felt as if God were speaking to her. She joined the group, and now in addition to its weekly adoration with music sessions, Cabral is excitedly preparing to attend Pope Leo XIV ’s Mass in Gran Canaria with her friends.

“You get a restlessness about an emptiness that you don’t know how to fill,” Cabral, 26, says of her embrace of Catholicism. “God is the one looking for you first, but you need to go meet him.”

On trips to Spain this month and France in September, Leo will find thousands of young people like her in these traditionally Catholic but now staunchly secular countries, where historic churches are abundant and Mass attendance is sparse.

Church leaders and some experts see the success of youth movements and the surge in adult baptisms as signs that some young people are showing new interest in the church, while also challenging it to embrace a more inclusive message.

“They are drawing near with a look of surprise,” said the Rev. Josetxo Vera, spokesperson for Spain’s Catholic Bishops Conference. “It’s an excellent opportunity that bursts forth from heaven, not from the church.”

A drop in faith practice creates a blank slate

Vera has seen many teens “scare” their atheist parents by asking to be baptized after becoming aware of, and attracted to, Christian messages spread in popular culture — like Catalan pop star Rosalía and her recent, spirituality-infused album Lux.

They’re approaching faith in a drastically different environment than their parents and grandparents.

Until 1975, Spain was ruled by dictator Gen. Francisco Franco, who aligned with a deeply traditional Catholic Church still reeling from the anticlerical violence of Spain’s civil war. Becoming a democracy, the country saw “a kind of divorce between popular piety and the church’s religious culture,” said Mónica Cornejo Valle, a religion professor at Complutense University in Madrid.

Wildly popular religious processions and feasts have continued to be held in most Spanish regions and it’s hard to find a neighborhood or hamlet without some visible vestige of Spain’s outsized importance in the global history of the spread of Catholicism.

There are nearly 23,000 active Catholic parishes — but new priestly ordinations haven't started to bounce back. Most Spanish adults, 80%, were raised Catholic but only 47% currently identify as such, including a meager 2% who joined the faith from non-Catholic upbringings, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2024.

Only about 16% of Spanish Catholics go to Mass at least weekly, according to the 2024 Pew survey, even though it’s an obligation for those practicing the faith.

One of Cabral’s friends in Gran Canaria, José María Marrero, remembers attending Mass with his mother as a child, “and all you met were the old folks.” His wife, a teacher who was baptized in her early 20s, told him some of her students on a recent trip saw a picture of Jesus and asked, “Miss, that’s the Catholic one, right?”

In this overall environment, scholars like Cornejo Valle warn that a supposed revival in religiosity might amount to a “publicity effect” driven by a savvy use of media and popular culture.

But youth movement and church leaders see opportunity in this blank slate — especially if they “transmit Jesus’ message with happiness, a message that’s easy to understand,” as Cabral puts it.

Youth movements grow with appeals to belonging, solidarity

That’s the case for the group Cabral and some 35,000 other youth belong to, Hakuna, which started in the early 2010s in a Madrid parish when a group of college students set up a weekly hour of Eucharistic adoration, preceded by a short lecture and followed by a meetup at a local bar.

The movement became an official lay organization of the Spanish church in 2017, and has grown into volunteer trips and concerts, with seven records launched of Christian music, said its spokeswoman, Maca Torres.

“It’s the Holy Spirit, we’re the first to be surprised” by the success, Torres said, adding that most members are people who had stopped practicing, though there are a few converts.

In Catholicism, infants are baptized — but more than 13,300 baptisms of people older than 7 were counted in the latest annual report from Spain’s Catholic bishops conference.

And in France, a country whose approach to secularism is increasingly contested because of its strict regulation of religion in public life, some 13,000 adults were baptized at the Easter Vigil this year — 42% of them ages 18 to 25. That's according to the country's Conference of Catholic Bishops, which said that amounts to a tripling of such baptisms compared to 10 years ago.

Last summer at the Vatican, Leo encouraged a gathering of baptism candidates and newly baptized from France to share their experience of faith with others and let it guide their daily life.

“What a joy to see young people who are engaging with faith and want to give a sense to their life, by letting themselves by guided by Christ and his Gospel,” Leo told them.

The appeal for young people, experts say, seems to be twofold — a disenchantment with other institutions and with the growing loneliness of life lived on social media, together with a church that, starting with Pope Francis, has focused less on doctrine and more on social justice.

On June 6, the first day of his trip to Spain, Leo will hold a prayer vigil with youth in a vast Madrid public square — but he’s also later visiting a migrant center in the Canary Islands and a prison near Barcelona, outreach initiatives that tend to appeal to progressive youth.

“We don’t think that the number of Catholic young people has grown by a lot, but we do see that in general the profile of the Catholic youth is more committed than before,” Cornejo Valle said.

A quest for meaning that leads to the pews

María Salazar, 23, leads a Barcelona outpost of the global Catholic youth movement Effetá. She says many of her peers are looking for different forms of spirituality, within and outside the church.

“More than looking for faith, we look for a feeling of peace,” Salazar said. “We live in a microwave society — everything has to be immediate — but the Lord doesn’t work this way.”

She said there’s been “a boom of youth” in her parish, which also happens to be one of the most visited monuments in Europe — the Sagrada Familia, modernist architect Antoni Gaudí’s unfinished masterpiece.

About 120 of them engage in adoration and weekend-long spiritual retreats, the first of which saw organizers and the basilica’s rector stay up to prepare the church until well past midnight.

They also volunteer to help with the elderly going to Mass in the crypt and the international tourists flocking to worship services in the grand temple above it, where the pope will celebrate Mass on June 10 and inaugurate the new tower of Jesus Christ.

“We’re going to have him here at home,” Salazar gushed. “I see the tower from afar and I see the home that God gave us.”

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Associated Press journalist Nicole Winfield at the Vatican contributed to this report.

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

Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library overlooking Boston Harbor, Powell called universities, courts, Congress and the central bank “the foundation and the embodiment of our democracy” and argued that the Fed’s independence was a “priceless asset” that must be protected.

It was one of his most direct defenses of Fed independence, warning that a single administration’s decision to remove bank officials over policy differences would open the way for future elected officials to follow suit, ultimately undermining the credibility that the Fed has spent decades building.

Powell, who frequently clashed with Trump during his eight years as chair, stepped down as his term expired in May. He was succeeded by Kevin Warsh, whom Trump selected to lead the central bank.

After stepping down as chair, Powell took the unusual step of keeping his seat on the Fed’s governing board, which he has until January 2028. By doing so, he has deprived the Trump administration of an opportunity to appoint another member of the board.

The Trump administration has also sought to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, which would open an additional seat on the rate-setting committee the president could fill. Yet Cook sued and the courts have so far let her keep her seat.

While Powell never mentioned Trump by name Sunday, he repeatedly returned to the importance of protecting institutions from political pressure and preserving public trust in their independence.

“Like many other institutions, the Fed has been undergoing a stress test," he said. “Congress wisely chose to insulate monetary policy decisions from political pressure. All other advanced economy nations have done the same.”

Since 1989, the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award has recognized public servants who make what the foundation describes as courageous decisions of conscience despite personal or professional consequences.

Previous recipients include former Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former Vice President Mike Pence.

In March, the foundation said it was awarding Powell for protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve “despite years of personal attacks and threats from the highest levels of government.”

Trump harshly criticized Powell throughout his tenure as chair, frequently attacking the Fed’s interest-rate decisions and urging the central bank to cut borrowing costs more aggressively.

Beyond the Federal Reserve, Powell defended U.S. universities and research institutions, the Constitution, Congress and the court system.

“The United States has long been the leader of the world’s freedom-seeking people — the indispensable nation. Other countries know us as a nation built on integrity, and that integrity must be maintained,” he said.

In his remarks, Powell indirectly acknowledged mistakes as chair. The Fed is legally required to seek stable prices, but inflation surged amid the pandemic’s supply chain crunch. Many economists believe the central bank should have raised interest rates more quickly in response.

“At the Fed, we are, of course, human and thus imperfect,” Powell said. “When we make mistakes, we acknowledge them and change course.”

Powell was honored alongside residents of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, who received the award for what the Kennedy Foundation described as acts of courage during a federal immigration crackdown that led to thousands of arrests and the deaths of Minneapolis mother Renée Good and nurse Alex Pretti, both of whom were killed while observing or documenting enforcement activity.

“It’s wonderful just to be invited, honoring Renée,” Good’s father, Tim Granger, said as he entered the library with family members.

Kennedy’s only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy, and her son, Jack Schlossberg, said in a statement that without people like Powell and those in Minnesota “willing to put their lives on the line to hold America to its promises, our democracy can’t survive.”

Attendee U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is running for governor of Minnesota next year, reflected that the award was unusual because it recognized ordinary residents rather than elected officials.

“This didn’t go to an elected leader for a reason,” Klobuchar said. “It’s because the people stood up. They stood up by marching 50,000 strong. They stood by bringing kids they didn’t even know — strangers’ kids — to school, by bringing them groceries and they didn’t blink. And that’s what this award is about. It’s about courage.”

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AP journalist Christopher Rugaber contributed from Washington.

He said nothing on his radio, instead paying the penalty by going to the back of the field. Then he drove his way back to the front where he outraced Christopher Bell over the last four thrilling laps off a final restart to win at the Nashville Superspeedway.

“Man, what an unbelievable day,” Hamlin said. “Starting first, going to last and back to first.”

This was Hamlin's second win this year and 62nd of his career, and he wound up leading a race-high 57 laps including the one that mattered most.

The 45-year-old Hamlin wound up racing side-by-side with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Bell and Chase Briscoe making it three-wide before Hamlin took the lead down the backstretch to win by 0.115 seconds in his No. 11 Toyota.

“Well, that’s why on the last lap, I committed to just run the bottom," Hamlin said.

Team co-owner Heather Gibbs said watching the teammates race so hard was like kids on a family vacation swatting at each other in the backseat. But she said they raced cleanly.

“We want them to race for the win," Heather Gibbs said. "That’s what they do, and it makes us proud.”

Hamlin, who won at Las Vegas and also the All-Star race at Dover, pulled within 97 points of Tyler Reddick in the season standings. Reddick finished sixth.

The race started 80 minutes late after rain delayed NASCAR’s Cup Series for a second straight week. The wait was worth it with a record 31 lead changes among a record 15 leaders. The race also featured 12 cautions at the 1.33-mile, D-shaped oval that is NASCAR’s largest concrete track.

Bell finished second for a second straight race ahead of Briscoe. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fourth, and Shane Van Gisbergen rounded out the top five.

“I had the best car on the race track ... and we had the lead on the restart,” Bell said. “I got a great push from Denny on the restart, and I didn’t win the race.”

One win closer to Busch

Hamlin now is one Cup victory away from matching his one-time teammate Kyle Busch, who died May 22 at 41. Busch is ninth all-time with his 63 Cup victories, and Hamlin said he certainly aspires to get there.

“It just shows how good he was for so long,” Hamlin said. “I saw the stats online where we ran together 500 and some races, and he finished ahead of me 10 more times than I beat him in the same equipment.”

Long time coming

Ryan Blaney, trying to repeat as champ at this track, led the restart trying to hold off AJ Allmendinger on a one-lap shootout for the first stage. Allmendinger took the lead on the backstretch, then held off Kyle Larson to take stage one for his first stage victory since 2024.

Stage 2 win

Suarez took the second stage after staying out during a caution and took the lead on the restart on lap 182. Then Corey Heim drove his No. 67 Toyota into the back of Todd Gilliland’s No. 34 Ford, sending him backward into the Turn 1 wall. That brought out the seventh caution with Cole Custer spinning out in the crash.

Lots of rotor woes

Rookie Connor Zilisch had the right rotor explode on his No. 88 Chevrolet sending him into the wall and smashing the right side on Turn 1 of lap 72. Zilisch got the Trackhouse Racing car into the garage with some flames coming out from under the right tire, which was stuck and nearly sideway.

He had been running 24th after starting 38th on the last row.

Trackhouse teammate Ross Chastain had his own rotor issue on lap 82 sending him into the wall between Turns 1 and 2. Michael McDowell spun trying to avoid Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet. Zilisch called the rotor problems a surprise when both he and Chastain had been moving up.

“Just unfortunate circumstances,” Zilisch said. “Yeah, we’ll learn from it.”

Van Gisbergen is the third member of Trackhouse Racing. His crew told him not to worry with his No. 97 Chevrolet running a completely different brake package. Ryan Preece went to the garage with no water in his No. 60 Ford, and his crew found a piece of rotor broken off into the radiator before he got back on the track.

Then Allmendinger, who was third, had the rotor spark and flame before his No. 16 Chevrolet hit the Turn 1 wall on lap 173 — with 12 laps left in Stage 2.

Chris Buescher was running 17th with 12 laps left when his right rotor went as he entered Turn 3.

Up next

The series will be at Michigan International Speedway next week where Hamlin will be trying to win for a second straight year and continue his winning streak.

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

U.S. Southern Command announced the strike with its usual language that the vessel was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and operated by a designated terrorist organization. It provided no evidence for the allegation.

It's the latest in a monthslong campaign against alleged drug boats traversing the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific.

Video released by the military on social media shows a small vessel floating in the ocean before it's hit and engulfed in a fireball.

The attack brings the death toll to 205 in a series of U.S. strikes that began in early September, with other attacks announced on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The Trump administration has declared that the U.S. is at armed conflict with Latin American drug cartels, saying they are behind the flow of drugs into American communities.

U.S. Southern Command said in its post on X that the strike came at the direction of Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the top U.S. commander in Latin America.

Tyler Robinson’s defense has asked Judge Tony Graf to restrict access to the preliminary hearing on July 6-10, when prosecutors must show they have enough evidence to warrant a trial. It will mark the most significant presentation of evidence to date in a case that has so far focused on matters of media access.

Defense attorneys also have requested to seal dozens of exhibits that prosecutors plan to introduce at the July hearing, arguing they could taint the jury pool before a possible trial.

Robinson's lawyers have tried to guard against media coverage that they say sometimes misrepresents their client as his case has drawn tremendous public attention. The 23-year-old from southwestern Utah is charged with crimes including aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted. He has not yet entered a plea.

Prosecutors have argued that the preliminary hearing should remain open, but they agreed that media should be restricted from viewing or copying some exhibits that could be used in a future trial. They plan to introduce forensic analyses, surveillance video, recordings of witness statements, autopsy findings and alleged messages from Robinson admitting to the crime.

Authorities have said DNA consistent with Robinson’s was found on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk, the fired cartridge casing, two unfired cartridges and a towel used to wrap the rifle. Prosecutors also have said Robinson left a note for his romantic partner that read, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters' sentence last month following pressure from President Donald Trump.

The Colorado Department of Corrections would not confirm the time of Peters’ release, and a representative for her attorney said Peters would not speak to the media when she is freed.

Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with My Pillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 — and the person copied the county's Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021.

Peters then joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof that the election was rigged. Video and photos of the computer system upgrade, including passwords, were posted online. The move stoked false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Trump.

Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and other crimes by jurors in Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that supported Trump. An appeals court upheld her conviction in April, but ordered Peters to be resentenced because it said the judge who sent her to prison wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud.

Trump had championed Peters' case, but because the 70-year-old was convicted under state law, he did not have the power to pardon her. Instead, the president pressured Polis to do so, lambasting him on social media and disinviting him to a White House meeting with other governors. The Trump administration also announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and relocated the U.S. Space Command to Alabama.

Polis commuted Peters' sentence on May 15. In a letter, he wrote that although Peters was convicted of serious crimes and deserved to spend time in prison, the sentence was “extremely unusual and lengthy” for a first-time non-violent offender.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, called the move a “dark day for democracy” and said it amounted to ”selling out our state’s justice system for Trump.”

In the governor's race, former Fox News TV host and British political adviser Steve Hilton is urging Republicans to unite behind him as he fights for one of two spots in the November election alongside two Democrats, billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer and former state attorney general Xavier Becerra.

In the Los Angeles race for mayor, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt is hoping to turn his insurgent campaign into a surprise upset of Democratic Mayor Karen Bass. The two are tightly clustered with Nithya Raman, a progressive city council member running to Bass' political left.

“We can't give up on LA,” Pratt told applauding supporters at a block party Sunday. “We've got to fight.”

Democrats once feared that the party’s large field of gubernatorial candidates could open a path for two Republicans to advance to November. But now, in the campaign’s closing days, Hilton is warning the opposite could happen — what he called a “doomsday scenario” in which only Democrats advance.

Hilton is pleading with his chief Republican rival, county Sheriff Chad Bianco, to pull out of the contest, fearing an all-Democratic ticket would dampen GOP turnout across the state and reorder races for Congress and the Legislature.

Becerra and Steyer locking out a Republican from the November ballot would be “a disaster for California, it means no change. It’s a disaster for everyone who’s running as a Republican up and down the ballot,” Hilton said on the social platform X.

Mail voting began in early May, but just 15% of voters had returned their ballots as of Sunday. That's left the candidates seeing room for a last-minute shake-up in the race's closing days.

A vulnerable mayor looks for second term in LA

In heavily Democratic Los Angeles, Bass' shaky first term has left her vulnerable. She points to a drop in homelessness, though encampments and rows of rusting RVs remain a common sight in many neighborhoods. Meanwhile, she's still trying to overcome lingering fallout from the 2025 Palisades Fire, the most destructive in Los Angeles history. Bass was in Ghana as part of a presidential delegation when the flames ignited. Pratt lost his home in the blaze and has made the fire and the city's recovery a foundation of his campaign.

At Pratt's block party, Vivian Escalante, a historian who lives in the heavily Hispanic Boyle Heights neighborhood adjacent to downtown, said the quality of life has been sliding for years — dirtier streets, more homeless encampments and a lack of pride in the neighborhood she's called home all her life.

“It's gotten completely worse,” Escalante said, with a Pratt cap perched on her head. The Democratic Party, she said, has “completely abandoned us.”

The LA race is officially nonpartisan, but Bass is a Democrat, as is Raman, who made a last-minute decision to challenge her one-time ally and is among the top group of contenders.

Pratt, who rose to fame alongside his wife, Heidi Montag, on “The Hills,” is a registered Republican who has received a nod of approval — if not an outright formal endorsement — from President Donald Trump. He has sought to distance himself from national politics, saying his concerns are strictly within city limits.

A University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Los Angeles Times, found Bass tightly clustered with Raman and Pratt, with other candidates trailing. The poll of 1,351 likely voters conducted between May 19 and May 24 gave no candidate a statistically significant edge.

The city is at a difficult juncture.

Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years for cheaper filming locations. A downtown renaissance was crushed by extended pandemic closures and many office buildings remain desperate for tenants. The city has long struggled to provide basic services, whether paving buckled streets and fixing sidewalks or keeping streetlights on.

A crowded governor's race with no clear leader

The governor's race has been the most wide open in a generation. More than 50 names are on the ballot.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is banned by law from seeking a third term. Other candidates seeking to replace him include former Democratic U.S. Rep. Katie Porter,Democrat Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, and Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff.

Rebecca Katz, a strategist with Steyer’s campaign, said Sunday that they are “feeling pretty good” but emphasized how close the race was with a sporting reference, “It’s three candidates for two spots, every possession counts.”

Steyer, a former hedge fund manager turned liberal activist, has set spending records hoping to advance to the November contest. Hilton, a former Fox News host who has been endorsed by Trump, has promised to bring down costs in a state with some of the nation's highest gas prices, utility costs and taxes. Becerra has been stressing his experience in arguing he's best prepared to lead the nation's second most populous state, having served as the Biden administration's health secretary, a former U.S. House member and state attorney general.

Broadly, Republicans in the race are promising drastic change after years of Democratic governance — Democrats haven't lost a statewide race in two decades and Republicans last elected a Los Angeles mayor in 1997. Democrats, though in charge for years, are promising to bring down costs and continue to fend off the Trump administration in its numerous conflicts with Democratic California.

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Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

The energy price spike triggered by the Iran war has seeped into the price of bonds that help fund the U.S. government. Interest rates on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note are topping 4.44%, up from 3.95% before the war started at the end of February. Average mortgage rates have climbed to their highest levels in nine months, while auto sales are slumping.

The challenge is global in scale, as interest rates have risen for multiple countries as the world has been adjusting to the prospect of higher inflation, mounting questions about the sustainability of government debt and a dramatic surge in investment in artificial intelligence.

Trump has tried to assure Americans that he has a plan to trim the roughly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit. In the past, he has pointed to revenue from tariffs, payments from foreigners for his “Gold Card” visa, spending cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency, and faster economic growth. Last week, he said the fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance would be the key to unlocking massive savings.

“If he does really great, we’ll have a balanced budget without having to do anything,” Trump said.

Economists say this is probably unrealistic

Economists say Trump’s strategies to meaningfully curb the deficit are unlikely to deliver the promised results.

The cost of servicing the national debt has tripled since 2021 to more than $1 trillion annually, said Jessica Riedl, a budget and tax fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“President Trump signed a tax cut bill that will likely add $5 trillion to 10-year deficits — and tariffs are offsetting only a small fraction of those costs,” she said. “Budget deficits are still projected to soar past $4 trillion annually within a decade under current policies.”

Deficits are expected to grow over the next decade as the costs of Social Security and Medicare outstrip tax revenues.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury rate climbed as high as 4.67% in the middle of May and has since eased as negotiations over the Iran ceasefire continued — just as rates initially climbed in 2025 because of Trump's “Liberation Day” tariffs and then began to decline once Trump backed off the most extreme increases.

When Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, broke down the math tied to rising 30-year Treasury yields, he estimated that 60% of the increase had come from the expectation that America will continue its outsized borrowing and the other 40% was tied to the inflation driven by the Iran war and Trump’s tariffs.

Glenn Hubbard, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the George W. Bush administration, worries that the U.S. may no longer have the same borrowing capacity as before to effectively combat an economic crisis, such as the 2008 crash or the coronavirus pandemic.

“I don’t think we have the space that we had in 2008 or 2020 to deal with it,” said Hubbard, now a professor at Columbia University's Business School. “Washington doesn’t seem to be full of ideas — good or bad — to solve it.”

Interest rates are a concern for voters

Higher interest rates are giving Democratic candidates in the races to determine control of the House and Senate another line of attack at a time when voters are concerned about high costs for food and gasoline.

In Colorado’s fifth congressional district, Democrat Jessica Killin is leaning into the message that the persistent deficits and higher interest rates make it harder to buy or renovate a home, afford a new car or manage credit card debt.

“Things are already expensive,” said Killin, an Army veteran who was a top aide to Doug Emhoff, the former second gentleman. “We can already talk about gas, but the cost of borrowing only makes that worse.”

Joe Reagan, an Army veteran also seeking the Democratic nomination, said in an email that he is talking “a lot about fiscal stewardship” in his campaign. “Every dollar spent paying interest is a dollar that isn’t being invested in infrastructure, education, veterans’ services, or economic growth," he said.

They are challenging Republican Rep. Jeff Crank in a district that their party views as a potential pickup. Killin said the deficit is an example of how “Trump says one thing and does the opposite.”

In his March 2025 address to Congress, Trump declared that “in the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget. We’re going to balance it.”

Crank, the Republican incumbent, did not reply to requests for comment.

Cutting fraud is the new deficit strategy

The administration maintains that it is going to steadily reduce budget deficits. As a share of the overall economy, the deficit last year was lower than it was in 2024, though that drop depended in part on tariff revenues that are subject to refunds after the Supreme Court ruled them to be illegal.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week cited a report showing that there was as much as $500 billion annually in fraudulent government spending that could be eliminated, “so that would reduce the deficit substantially.”

Bessent appeared to draw that conclusion from a 2024 report by the Government Accountability Office that estimated there had been between $233 billion to $521 billion each year in fraudulent spending. But those numbers were drawn in part from the pandemic era when the government borrowed heavily to stabilize the economy.

The White House and Treasury did not respond to questions about the source of Bessent’s claims.

On deficits, Bessent told reporters at the White House that the administration was essentially dealt a bad hand from former President Joe Biden, a Democrat. “We inherited the worst budget deficit in history — in history — when we were not in a recession or not at war,” Bessent said.

Bessent had previously announced that the administration would aim to reduce the annual deficit to 3% of overall U.S. gross domestic product. It’s roughly double that percentage currently and Bessent did not directly answer a question about the timeline for hitting his target.

As of now, investors continue to buy shares in U.S. companies, causing the stock market to increase in value in a sign of confidence in America’s economic potential. But the increase in interest rates also suggests that investors view the national debt as a vulnerability for the U.S.

The financial markets might be able to inflict enough pain with higher rates in order to compel political leaders to address the systemic imbalances. Multiple economists said they expected that markets would force the deficit issue before voters would.

Hubbard emphasized that the whole bond market system rests on the trust that the debt will be repaid. He noted that the word “credit” is linked to a Latin term that is also the root of the word creed about a system of beliefs.

“That is what debt is about: I believe you will pay me back,” Hubbard said. “That works until it doesn’t.”

They found Robbie, a robot that rolls out of a hallway into their living room several times a day.

“Do you want to exercise now? Please answer yes or no,” the caregiver robot asks 59-year-old Brian Marquis, who has been living with a traumatic brain injury since a 2012 car crash.

“Yes,” he responds. Then he stands up as the robot’s googly-eyed digital screen “face” morphs into an exercise video that guides him through an afternoon workout.

The decades-long quest to build home robots that are both helpful and lifelike — spurred on by fictional machines like The Jetsons’ humanoid maid Rosie —- is still mostly a pipe dream. That’s despite growing appeal as the oldest baby boomers are turning 80 this year and the United States faces a deepening shortage of home care aides, driven by low wages, high turnover and demanding workloads.

But the machine helping the Marquis family — a robot piloted by a University of New Hampshire laboratory, with funding from the National Institute of Aging — offers a glimpse of the emerging possibilities.

‘Stretch’ aids a dementia patient with a range of tasks

The wheeled robot that some have likened to a coat rack was not what Brenda Marquis initially had in mind when she wrote an email to a robotics professor at nearby UNH, asking for advice on robotic dogs.

Robbie, the couple’s name for a new robot model officially called Stretch 4, spends much of the day at a charging station between the kitchen and bedroom. When it comes out, it does important work, like nudging Brian, who has dementia, to eat lunch or drink water.

Brenda Marquis, 59, said she and her husband have physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities that make life complex.

“We’ve been kind of trapped in a problem here in New Hampshire of being able to find and recruit enough home care support,” Brenda Marquis said in an interview at the couple’s Durham, New Hampshire apartment, where she scoots around in a motorized wheelchair while taking care of her husband. “That was when I started looking into robotics and trying to figure out what to do.”

At the other end of Brenda's email was Momotaz Begum, a UNH computer science professor who has spent years experimenting with “socially assistive” robots that can aid people with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia. Her robotics lab is full of experimental robots, including the four-legged variety.

Begum said the lab asked focus groups of older adults at memory care units what kind of robot they would like as a home companion. Many preferred pet-like robot designs.

“The common feedback that we got about Stretch was, ‘OK, this one looks like a coat hanger,’" she said. "But what we learned over time is that the look doesn’t matter.”

Several makers are designing robots for elder companionship

Apart from robotic vacuum cleaners, the closest thing many older adults have to caregiving robots is a speaker powered by an artificial intelligence voice assistant like Alexa. Some robot makers have expanded that concept into swiveling tabletop machines like ElliQ, designed for elder companionship.

But those aren't mobile or functional enough for Begum, who said she is “trying to reduce that caregiver burden. And the caregiver actually does way more than social companionship.”

Humanoids, meanwhile, are still far from being useful in most homes and pose physical danger to people with limited mobility if the robot trips and falls.

The founders of Hello Robot, maker of the Stretch robots, said its simplicity is the point.

“Our robot’s very practical, pragmatic. I think it communicates that,” said CEO Aaron Edsinger, a former director of robotics at Google. "If you show up looking like a humanoid, that expectation’s going to be set so high, it’s going to be very hard to do."

The typical version of the Stretch 4 includes a telescoping gripper that can retrieve a water bottle and hold it out for a person to drink through a straw. Show it a prescription bottle and it can help read the fine print. The robot pulls together information from its cameras and onboard sensors, together with other sensors installed in a home, to figure out its location and who is in the room.

Manufactured at Hello Robot's headquarters in Martinez, California, and sold for nearly $30,000, the new model that launched in May is far from being as ubiquitous as a Roomba or an AI-powered speaker. But for its target clientele, it can be a lifeline.

Robbie’s programmed care protocol for Brian is posted on the couple’s wall, and it includes exercise instructions, meal and medicine reminders, evening routine reminders and quick washup prompts that are only triggered after Brian enters the bathroom.

“I was never into technology," Brian Marquis said. “Then I realized I can’t remember to wash my face and my armpits. So, it just really kind of set me free almost.”

Brenda Marquis said it also freed her from hours of daily work and helped her reduce expenses. Fearful of leaving her husband at home too long, she was ordering groceries on Instacart. Now she can leave him with Robbie and go get groceries herself.

“I can go ahead and go to that mahjong game or whatever. Robbie’s gonna take care of him,” she said.

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AP journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed to this report.

A defense lawyer for Rayann El Houli said expert evidence would be produced in court that her views had changed.

“She renounces ISIS and violent jihad,” Peter Morrissey said, using an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. “She wants nothing to do with it: not now directly or indirectly. Not in the future. Not for herself. Not for the people she loves and specifically not for the children."

El Houli, 34, applied for release on bail in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on charges that she joined a terrorist organization and entered and remained in Raqqa, Syria, more than a decade ago when it was the stronghold of the IS so-called caliphate.

Chief Magistrate Lisa Hannan outlined allegations within the prosecution’s summary of evidence that she wanted Morrissey to address in the bail hearing.

El Houli allegedly traveled to Syria between 2013 and 2014 with the intention of joining IS fighters.

“The accused expressed radicalized views while in Syria, including support for terrorist acts. She supported acts of martyrdom whilst in Syria. She repeatedly expressed views that supported the killing or serious injury of non-believers,” Hannan said.

She tried to indoctrinate her children and invited people living in Australia go to Syria for the “purposes of following a life and making decisions based on IS or other extremist ideology,” Hannan said.

El Houli left Raqqa in 2019 “when the caliphate was defeated and not as a result of her changing views,” the magistrate said.

The bail application was adjourned to a date that will be set later.

Each charge against El Houli carries a potential prison sentence of up to 10 years. People charged with terrorism offenses can only be released on bail in exceptional circumstances.

Hannan said she wanted to hear details of how El Houli escaped from the al-Hol camp for displaced people in eastern Syria and was smuggled into Lebanon.

She returned to Australia from Lebanon last year and was arrested in Melbourne last week.

Three other women also linked to IS who have returned to Australia recently were charged with slavery and terrorism offenses on arrival and remain in custody, and others remain under police investigation.

With no fanfare other than a social media post, the NBA announced Sunday that the image of the Larry O'Brien Trophy — the one given to the winner of the finals — will be painted at midcourt for games at both the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio and Madison Square Garden in New York for this season's title series.

Also back: the script logo for “The Finals" — to be on either side of the court. The series between the Spurs and Knicks starts Wednesday in San Antonio.

It's the first time since the 2009 finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic that the title series will feature the trophy logo at midcourt. The finals wordmark and logo last appeared on the court during the 2014 finals between the Spurs and the Miami Heat.

The league started using the finals wordmark on the court for the title round in 1989, went to a combined wordmark and trophy in 2004, then had the prominent trophy logo at midcourt from 2005 through 2009.

Fans had turned to social media in recent years to complain that the court lacked the finals flair. The league commissions alternate courts for events like NBA Cup games, and some fans wondered aloud about the lack of consistency — special courts for the in-season tournament, but no special markings for the finals.

This year's version comes with a new twist: the center court trophy logo will be integrated with the participating team's own branding.

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

With no candidate taking an outright majority of the vote, the election will head to a second round in June.

But Cepeda and Petro sowed doubt in the results of the first round, claiming without evidence that hundreds of thousands of votes were manipulated and that foreign actors manipulated the results of the election.

Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the results before accepting the election.

“Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said, though he acknowledged the vote was likely going to a second round.

Cepeda won 41% of the vote, while de la Espriella won 44% of the votes, with 99.98% of the results counted by electoral authorities.

Cepeda is a progressive senator who has promised to carry on a fraught plan to achieve “total peace" by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs. He was consistently leading polls in the run up to the Sunday vote, but in the weeks leading up to the election de la Espriella rapidly gained support with a promise that he would crack down on armed groups.

The neck-and-neck results likely spell trouble for Cepeda in the run-off election, as de la Espriella is expected to scoop up support from voters who threw their support behind another conservative candidate in the first round.

De la Espriella — a newcomer known as El Tigre, or “The Tiger” — has sought to portray himself as a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Let the United States of America and democratic parties monitor this runoff election. I will lead this battle; I will be Colombia’s best warrior," de la Espriella said in an impassioned speech Sunday night, pounding his chest behind bullet-proof glass in front of supporters.

Colombian voters are weighing peace deals or a crackdown

Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption. Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising heavy-handed security crackdowns.

The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.

On one side, Cepeda has promised to continue Petro’s progressive agenda and a largely failed effort to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups, following a plan that’s likely to sharply contrast with Trump’s vision for Latin America.

On the other side, de la Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down on criminal groups and build 10 mega-prisons, echoing the war on gangs policy of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, which has driven down homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia’s capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”

Vote is seen as a referendum on Petro

The election — 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — as seen as a referendum on Petro’s policies.

The deal a decade ago had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage of peace negotiations with Petro's government to make territorial gains.

That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally. Still, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.

Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for Trump, though Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful political current known as Uribismo.

Colombians are divided on the way forward

Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress on Friday in downtown Bogotá, Colombia's capital, said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.

While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country's medical infrastructure, she said she was voting for de la Espriella because violence in rural areas of the country has gotten out of hand. She said negotiating peace pacts was effectively rewarding armed groups.

“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned up.”

Others, like Acevedo, the sociologist, said a security crackdown such as the one promoted by de la Espriella meant a return to past military campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia's cycle of violence.

He said he supports Cepeda, adding that while the government hasn't done a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward with their political coalition's efforts to take a different approach in addressing the country's violence.

He added that his main critique of Petro's administration was the power grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.

“We're a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more war.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Uthmeier responded to a request from the Duval County Young Republicans to investigate and analyze the laws after they claimed Willie changed his address and that the new address falls outside his district’s boundaries.

In a post on X, Uthmeier wrote: “We are investigating! Thanks for bringing this to our attention.”

The ministry identified him as 26-year-old Imad Haroun Ishtayeh from the village of Salem, east of Nablus. It said Israeli forces shot him in a thigh in al-Ram town, and he was pronounced dead at the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah.

Footage circulating online showed people carrying his body and climbing down a ladder that had been placed against the wire-topped barrier, while traffic continued to roll by and a horn blared.

Israeli police said the man tried to unlawfully enter Israel by crossing the barrier.

Ishtayeh was attempting to cross from the West Bank to Israel. Many people have been shot trying to cross the barrier, including a 44-year-old father who was killed earlier this month.

Ishtayeh previously ran a poultry slaughterhouse in his home village of Salem, financially supporting his ill father. But business deteriorated as an economic crisis hit the West Bank and he decided to cross into Israel in search of a job, a relative, Nasser Ishtayeh, told The Associated Press.

On his first attempt on Saturday, Israeli security was tight, the relative said. After spending the night with other Palestinians hoping to cross into Israel, Haroun Ishtayeh tried again on Sunday morning and was shot.

“He was directly shot with live bullets and died at the hospital,” Nasser Ishtayeh said.

An increasing number of Palestinians from the West Bank have tried to enter Israel illegally to work in recent years. Tens of thousands of Palestinians had held Israeli work permits, but access was sharply restricted after the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparked the war in Gaza.

Since then, unemployment in the West Bank has surged amid an economic slowdown. And around 50 workers have been killed by Israeli fire, with over 38,000 arrested though many were later released, the Palestinian official WAFA news agency reported Sunday, citing the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions.

2 are killed in Gaza and 2 are hurt in a West Bank ramming

Two Palestinians were killed and at least 10 injured when a group of people was struck near the port in Gaza City, according to Shifa hospital, which received the casualties. There was no immediate comment from Israel's military.

A fragile ceasefire remains in place between Israel and the militant Palestinian Hamas group in Gaza.

And in the West Bank, emergency responders said a 17-year-old Israeli girl was in serious condition and a 15-year-old teen also was hurt in what police described as a ramming attack near a bus stop at Gush Etzion Junction.

Israel's military said a soldier “eliminated the terrorist on site.” It also said a third Israeli civilian was hurt.

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A previous version of this story corrected the spelling of the village of Salem.

Fueled by a fiery pep talk from captain Aaron Judge, the Yankees scored 13 runs in the third and beat the Athletics 13-8 — finishing one run shy of the largest inning in the storied history of the franchise.

“Remarkable,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Glad we were able to make it stand up. Obviously, a lot of really good things offensively. ... I don’t think the prettiest game on either side, necessarily. But we were able to make a really outstanding inning stand up.”

The game began well for A's starter Jacob Lopez, who retired all six New York batters in the first two innings. That led to a heated message from Judge to his teammates that they needed to wake up.

“I just felt like we were a little asleep there that first two innings. I expect more out of the guys and I know they expect more of themselves. A couple of choice words there just to get it going. The boys responded,” Judge said.

They sure did.

Lopez failed to retire any of the seven hitters he faced in the third, starting with a single by Anthony Volpe.

The totals in the inning were staggering as the Yankees had 11 hits, four walks and four stolen bases. They sent 18 batters to the plate and faced 75 pitches during their most productive inning since scoring 13 runs in the eighth against Tampa Bay on June 21, 2005. It was one off the franchise record for an inning set July 6, 1920, against the Washington Senators.

Lopez walked two batters after Volpe's hit and then failed to cover the bag on Paul Goldschmidt's bases-loaded grounder to first, allowing a run to score on an infield single. Ben Rice followed with a two-run double, Judge blooped a single to center and Cody Bellinger hit an RBI single to knock out Lopez.

The next five batters also reached safely against reliever Michael Kelly, marking the first time in 17 seasons that a team started an inning with 12 straight batters reaching safely, according to Sportradar. The Boston Red Sox were the previous team to do it on May 7, 2009, against Cleveland.

This marked the first time the Yankees had 12 consecutive batters reach safely in an inning since the first game of a doubleheader on Sept. 11, 1949, against Washington. It was just two batters off the record since 1920 that came when Detroit had 14 straight reach in the sixth inning against the Yankees on June 17, 1925, with Hall of Famer Ty Cobb hitting a home run in that inning.

The Yankees scored 10 runs before the first out was recorded when Goldschmidt struck out. Rice followed with a two-run triple, giving him two multi-run extra-base hits in one inning.

“To bat around with no outs, it’s incredible,” Judge said. “That’s what this team is capable of doing. We got our backs up against the wall, find a way to dig ourselves out of it and to continue to keep the pressure on them. We needed all 13 of those runs.”

Bellinger capped the scoring with an RBI single, marking the first time since 1950 that the A's allowed at least 13 runs in an inning. They gave up 14 in the first inning of the second game of a June 18 doubleheader that season.

“I really don’t know how to describe that inning,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “Obviosuly, the two walks became an issue right away. Hit after hit, really. At some point you figure the ball’s going to go at someone, and it never did.”

In all, eight of the nine Yankees batters had at least one hit and one RBI in the inning, with Austin Wells the lone exception with two walks. All nine batters scored a run, with Volpe becoming the third player in the last 50 years to have two hits, two runs and two steals in an inning.

It lasted so long that he was in the on-deck circle when the rally ended, hoping for a third at-bat in the inning.

“I was getting ready to go hit again,” Volpe said. “It was crazy. It felt like I would run the bases and then I’d get up and I’d have to put my stuff back on. It was a cool feeling.”

The inning took so long — 43 minutes — that Yankees starter Will Warren went to the bullpen to get loose. The right-hander said he threw about seven pitches in the bullpen late in the inning before returning to the mound.

“When they took the second mound visit, I ran to the bullpen,” Warren said. "Just staying loose. A lot of time sitting there. I just wanted to make sure I was sharp to get back out there after the boys put up 13."

The rest of the day wasn’t as productive at the plate for the Yankees. In the other eight innings, their only baserunner came when Bellinger walked leading off the sixth only to get erased on an inning-ending double play.

“I had a few gray hairs today, but obviously a great way to finish a really good road trip,” Boone said.

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

What happens next?

SB 538 contains two very big elements: boosting pay for extracurricular leaders like coaches and putting the brakes on rampant athletic transfer issues by nontraditional students (homeschool, charter, and virtual) that have emerged in Florida.

The additional pay for extracurricular leaders is likely to be the most polarizing aspect of the bill, and one that districts are in the process of analyzing in the wake of DeSantis’s signing of the bill. It becomes law on July 1.

It’s a deeply layered topic, one that is tangled up by collective bargaining and massive deficits at school districts across Florida. Duval County Public Schools is said to be roughly $100 million short in its budget, and hasn’t given a supplemental pay raise since the 1990s. St. Johns County, annually the state’s top district, is looking at a possible $15 million budget shortfall.

The message to districts from the Florida Coaches Coalition: find a way to deal with it.

That group has been a fierce advocate of better pay for the men and women in the state since late 2021. On Tuesday, it said the time for stalling is over, and the time to come up with a plan is now.

“Florida school districts have officially run out of excuses. The law is signed. The funding mechanism exists. And coaches can now legally be compensated through boosters without touching district budgets,” its statement read in part. “So if a district still chooses to block it, delay it, bury it in policy, or hide behind bureaucracy, understand something clearly: That is no longer ‘following the rules.’ That is a choice. …

“Florida coaches carried this profession on their backs for decades while districts benefited from the culture, success, and community they built. Those days are over. Every district is now on notice.”

The Coalition has vowed to continue its fight at the county level at each of the state’s 67 districts if it sees little movement on the issue.

Rep. Adam Anderson, one of the architects of the House version of the bill, said last March that he expected the coaching pay portion of the bill to be a slow process. Public school districts are unlikely to line up to pay extracurricular leaders more than their union-negotiated supplements, especially during a time of budget deficits all over Florida.

Anderson said after the bill passed almost unanimously in the Senate that the next crucial step would be educating superintendents on the bill and how best to implement it.

Lawmakers would like to see extracurricular leaders, like coaches, be able to capitalize on their skills in a free-market-type system. A state championship-winning coach should earn more than a team that goes winless and misses the playoffs. Coaching staffs shouldn’t be financially penalized for winning as many in Florida are.

Many feel that supplements shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all band-aid in districts. There should be acknowledgements in terms of additional pay for success. Lawmakers aren’t oblivious to the financial limitations facing districts. That’s why the ability to receive funds through entities like booster clubs is a path many in Tallahassee see as the most feasible option right now.

Rep. Shane Abbott, who, along with Anderson, sponsored the House version of the bill, referenced one dynamic in his district that includes Calhoun, Holmes, Jackson, Walton, and Washington counties. One high school under his purview had far more resources available due to robust alumni support than an adjacent high school. Abbott said the school that had the ability to do more with its facilities shouldn’t have to scale back because the adjacent school didn’t have those same resources.

There was massive bipartisan support for SB 538 because it didn’t bolt on mandates that forced districts to raise the pay of extracurricular leaders like coaches. Now, coaches should feel more empowered to go after pay increases that are decades overdue in some areas.

Reaction from area districts

News4JAX reached out to multiple counties in the coverage area about SB 538.

“As we close out the school year, we are taking this time to look closely at all aspects of Senate Bill 538, analyzing both the pros and cons of how it will reshape our athletic and extra-curricular programs moving forward. Navigating these legislative changes is no small task. That said, we are incredibly grateful for the dedication of our staff and adjuncts who work hard to keep the focus on our athletic and extra-curricular programs.” — St. Johns County School District

“As with any new legislation, we will have to await additional implementation guidance from the Florida Department of Education to fully understand and determine the impact.” — Duval County Public Schools

“Because Governor DeSantis signed SB 538 just before the holiday weekend, our district leadership and legal teams are currently in the early stages of reviewing the legislation. We are committed to full compliance with the new law, but it is too early to share specific implementation details or timelines at this moment.” — Clay County School District

Local districts have an opportunity to lead

Duval County Superintendent Christopher Bernier was in the front row at Ribault for DeSantis’s bill signing. Could he oversee pay raises in a district that hasn’t given a supplemental increase this century? Will districts in the area take a page from Nassau County, where voters passed a millage increase that helped boost supplemental salaries across the board? In 2015, high school football head coaches there earned $4,751 for spring and fall football. After the millage increase, Nassau County head football coaches now earn $7,217, the third highest in the state.

Area districts are all over the place in terms of pay. Only four of the school districts in the 11-county News4JAX coverage region pay anything for spring football work or pay coaches who reach the playoffs anything additional. Using football as an example, that’s 20 days of work in spring and up to five additional weeks of work in the fall for teams who make the state championship game.

Raines head coach Donovan Masline has led the Vikings to back-to-back state championship game appearances. That translated into 10 additional weeks of work. He received the same paycheck ($4,699) as the head coaches at Sandalwood (1-19), Westside (1-18), and Englewood (3-17), teams whose work ended after the regular season. The Raines coaching staff earns the same thing as the Vikings staff did during the program’s first state championship in 1997.

The transfer part of the bill will be huge

The transfer part of the law should have teeth when it becomes official on July 1. The Florida High School Athletic Association is in the process of crafting how that new law will operate. The law doesn’t eradicate athletes from being able to play for different schools outside of their residential school zone. The state’s controlled open enrollment and school choice options aren’t covered by SB 538.

The law closes the loophole of virtual, charter, and homeschool students being able to bounce from school to school for solely athletic reasons. Those nontraditional students will have to compete at a school within their assigned residential district.

If there isn’t a school within their district of residence that offers the sport they want to play, then they would have the ability to find a school that does offer it in an adjacent district. Students would no longer have the option to play sports at multiple schools in the same year, something that has become common during the past few years.

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• Making Cents: High schools in Florida struggle with low coaching pay. One group is trying to change that
• Sad state of pay: Florida high school coaches earn little compared to others
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• Four local counties have their football coaches on 10-month contracts and don’t pay for summer work

The question, a few minutes after he and the San Antonio Spurs won the Western Conference title and earned the right to go to this year's NBA Finals to face the New York Knicks, was about his relationship with former coach Gregg Popovich and what this playoff run likely means to the winningest coach in league history.

And Wembanyama paused, clearly emotional, before starting his answer.

“I don’t know what it means for him,” Wembanyama said. “That’s a guy who’s got more experience as a coach than almost anybody and has been through so many things in his career and so many things right now as ‘El Jefe.’ He goes through some things we can’t even imagine. So, I need to call him. I need to see him. I need to talk to him because there’s no way I can understand right now how he feels.”

The official title for the 77-year-old Popovich is President of Spurs Basketball. Unofficially, the Basketball Hall of Famer may as well be coach emeritus — still regularly seen at practices in San Antonio, still seen at games, sometimes walking with the assistance of a cane. He's still in the ears of players and coaches, even visiting the locker room after the Spurs lost Game 3 of the West finals to Oklahoma City for a bit of a pep talk and bit of a chewing out, depending on perspective.

But really, he's El Jefe. The boss. It's what he announced himself as when he retired last year, speaking publicly for the first time since the November 2024 stroke that essentially ended his coaching career and led to Mitch Johnson getting the job on basically a couple hours' notice. He came out for that event in a jacket, then opened it to display the shirt with “El Jefe” on the front.

“You talk about the greatest coach pretty much of all time to be able to sit here and tell you the experiences that they went through or that he’s been through or that he sees," Spurs guard Devin Vassell said. “I mean, it’s second to none, honestly. He helps out. He helps out a lot. ... He just has so much wisdom and stuff that you can’t take for granted.”

Game 1 of the Knicks-Spurs series is Wednesday in San Antonio.

Knicks coach Mike Brown saw first-hand how Popovich operated the Spurs; he spent three years as an assistant coach under him in San Antonio.

Brown still has family members living in San Antonio — causing him to joke a few days ago that a Knicks-Spurs matchup in the NBA Finals would save him a little bit of money because he wouldn't have to fly as many people in to see games.

“He still has a huge presence. He will always have a presence," Brown said of Popovich. “The job that he’s done, not only on the court with that team or that organization but off the court too, is going to be imprinted for as long as the game of basketball exists. His presence is very, very much felt all the time and I’ve got a lot of respect for the organization for a lot of different reasons.”

And Popovich still commands that respect, even now.

Popovich met the Spurs at the airport after they flew home from Games 3 and 4 of their West semifinal series against Minnesota a couple weeks ago — for a purpose. Wembanyama was ejected from Game 4 for a flagrant elbow he threw at Timberwolves forward Naz Reid. When Wembanyama got off the plane, Popovich was waiting. Cameras caught the exchange and it was pretty clear that Popovich was doing the talking and Wembanyama was doing the listening.

“He gives feedback and talks to us regularly,” Wembanyama said, without disclosing what Popovich's message was that afternoon.

Popovich was also at the airport in the wee hours of Sunday morning, when the Spurs returned home from Oklahoma City — on a night in which thousands of fans, both there and in the city's streets, celebrated the win.

Popovich won five NBA championships as San Antonio's coach, the first of those coming in 1999 when the Spurs beat the Knicks. The next era of Spurs basketball is here, with Johnson coaching, and it's an interesting coincidence that his first finals as Spurs coach is against the Knicks.

“I’m fortunate my old boss is still around, and has been through this a few times,” Johnson said. “Coach Pop has been a resource.”

And in the immediate aftermath of his biggest win yet — the one that got him to his first of what he hopes is many NBA Finals — Wembanyama simply could not wait to talk to El Jefe.

When I talk to him, it’s going to be only stored in my head — except if I record it in secret," Wembanyama said. “But I need to talk to him, so quick.”

There are more lessons to learn. There are four more wins to get. And Wembanyama knows that if anyone truly knows the way to those wins, it's Popovich.

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AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in Greenburgh, New York, contributed.

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

As a result, shower and storm coverage will remain widespread during this period.

Monday will feature more of the same. We will see a mostly cloudy sky with highs in the mid to upper 80s.

Scattered showers and storms are likely in the afternoon and evening.

Heavy rain, gusty wind and frequent lightning will be possible in any storm. Make sure to keep an eye to the sky as showers and storms could develop rapidly in the afternoon and evening.

Isolated instances of flooding can’t be ruled out, especially for those areas that have seen several rounds of showers and storms.

Storm coverage will remain widespread through Tuesday. Temperatures will remain near 90 degrees through the middle of the week.

Guidance shows that an area of low pressure may develop along the stalled front to our north off the coast of the Carolinas. Our region would be on the backside of the system which will play a big role in our rain and storm coverage.

This will likely bring drier air from the north into our area on Wednesday through the upcoming weekend. The humidity would fall and it wouldn’t be as oppressive. The drier air would limit any widespread shower and storm activity during this period.

Regarding the drought, the latest drought monitor reflects some improvement across our area. Most of our area remains in an extreme drought. However, rainfall our area has received over the past week has helped our region.

Unfortunately, rain and storm coverage will likely drop later this week into the upcoming weekend.

TONIGHT: Mostly Cloudy. Patchy Fog. Low 72.

MONDAY: Sun & Clouds. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 88, Low 71.

TUESDAY: Sun & Clouds. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 91, Low 69.

WEDNESDAY: Mostly Sunny. High 83, Low 65.

THURSDAY: Mostly Sunny. High 85, Low 66.

FRIDAY: Mostly Sunny. High 88, Low 69.

The curfew around Delaney Hall will be in place between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until further notice, Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement.

The move came after another night of standoffs between law enforcement and demonstrators at the facility, as protesters could be seen in photographs and videos fighting over barricades as police used riot shields to push them back. A video posted on social media showed police on horseback marching into crowds attempting to break up groups of protesters.

The high-profile demonstrations at Delaney Hall began earlier this month after advocates said detainees inside launched a hunger strike over poor living conditions at the 1,000-bed facility, the latest hotbed of opposition over the federal government's immigration crackdown.

New Jersey state police on Friday relieved federal immigration enforcement agents who had been facing off against protesters at the facility for days.

In a statement Sunday morning, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said masked individuals attacked a barrier in a designated protest area set up by state police and were “throwing projectiles, utilizing the barriers as weapons, and lighting tires on fire in the street.”

“These actions put both peaceful protestors and law enforcement in danger,” Sherrill said, urging calm to focus on advocating for “better conditions for the detainees, for their families, and ultimately, for the closure of Delaney Hall.”

Sherrill also said that the federal government has reopened family visits at Delaney Hall starting Sunday.

Asked about visitations resuming, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security provided a statement that said “To be clear: Visitation was only suspended because of violent riots. Now that we have a secure perimeter, visitation can resume.”

Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, posted a video taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the five-minute video, Gertner avoided speaking directly about her husband's reported texts, dubbing the broader coverage as “gossip" and saying that “being married is hard.”

“I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip,” she said in the informal, selfie-style video where she walked along a road. “No marriage is perfect, and I don't want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage.”

Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely watched Senate races as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the party's efforts to win control of the narrowly divided Senate. The Maine primary is June 9.

Genevieve McDonald, a then-campaign staffer for Platner, told the The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married" and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”

Platner told reporters Sunday that what McDonald had said wasn’t true. Asked if he was confirming that the text messages didn’t exist, Platner replied, “I’m confirming that what Genevieve McDonald said in The New York Times is not true.” Platner didn't provide any specifics. He was referring to a Times story that names McDonald Saturday, after The Wall Street Journal first reported the story.

Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren't a liability to the campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal. Platner's campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023. The two are in counseling, Gertner has said.

Platner told reporters that he and Gertner spoke with the campaign about their marriage, but reiterated that McDonald’s claims were false.

Platner's campaign on Sunday did not specifically confirm the text messages to the AP, but issued a statement from Gertner saying the disclosure of the conversations she had with a campaign aide was a betrayal that “deeply hurt.”

“I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind," she wrote.

It's not Platner's first controversy

Platner, who has never held public office, has a gruff, less buttoned-up approach on the campaign trail, fashioned a platform around economic equality and has already had to navigate statements that surfaced from his past.

The candidate had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he said he didn't realize until he was several weeks into the campaign. There's also been much attention on his former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.

Platner's campaign weathered those earlier revelations in what had been considered one of the most competitive Democratic primaries before Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race in late April due to a lack of campaign funds. Mills, a two-term governor, had been seen as one of the Democrats' top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race before her campaign fizzled out.

Platner has still pulled support from big-name Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego as well as U.S. House Rep. Ro Khanna. The latter is scheduled to rally with Platner on Friday, and so far, it appears he hasn't lost any endorsements with this latest texting revelation.

Two Democratic senators on Sunday declined to directly address the topic when pressed by reporters. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy told CBS' “Face the Nation” that Platner had served his country and community, but “also made mistakes and he has admitted that.”

On CNN’s “State of the Union," New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim sidestepped, too. “With any campaign in the country, the character and the transparency about the different candidates is going to come out,” said Kim, “and the voters are going to decide what they ultimately think."

Barreling forward Sunday, Platner posted a video on X from an event “happening now” where he entered a room to a standing ovation from ecstatic supporters.

Questions over whether additional controversial information about Platner could still surface have added to some Democrats' anxiety over his chances in a general election against Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997.

In October, after the revelation that he once had a Totenkopf tattoo on his chest and promptly had it covered, the AP asked him if other scandals were on the horizon.

Platner said he was expecting his opponents were “going to keep dragging things up.”

“They’re going to keep making things up,” he said. “I fully expect people to just lie about me at this point.”

Voters are familiar with the couple's struggles, including with infertility and traveling out of the country to afford IVF treatment, which they've discussed on the campaign trail.

In late April, Platner shared that Gertner had suffered a miscarriage, and he’s discussed his own mental health struggles and the role of his family and therapist in helping.

Former aide explains why she went public

McDonald initially worked on Platner’s campaign as his political director and resigned a few months later when his now-deleted Reddit posts began surfacing, saying she couldn’t stand behind him as a candidate. She later declined a severance offer from the campaign in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement.

On Saturday, McDonald wrote on Facebook that Platner’s campaign had “demanded” she retract her statements she had made to The Wall Street Journal or his team would accuse her of violating the couple's trust. McDonald wasn’t named in the newspaper's article, but after that exchange, she said she made the choice to be publicly named in a New York Times story.

“His consultants greatly overestimate how much I do not aspire to be them,” she wrote on Facebook.

After resigning from Platner’s campaign, McDonald moved to help Democrat Jordan Wood’s congressional campaign in Maine’s second district. McDonald submitted her resignation from Wood’s campaign Saturday morning, according to Wood’s campaign.

Wood endorsed Platner after Mills dropped out.

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Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas and Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

Pulisic set up Sergiño Dest’s opener in the seventh minute, then made it 2-0 off a Ricardo Pepi pass in the 20th. Pulisic took a touch, rounded goalkeeper Mory Diaw and slotted into an open net from a tight angle for his 33rd goal in 85 international appearances.

The top American player, Pulisic had finished his AC Milan season scoreless in a career-high 19 club games since Dec. 28 and was without a goal in eight straight U.S. matches. Pulisic ran to a corner flag, dropped to his knees and repeatedly pumped his fists.

Sadio Mané scored twice following American mistakes, extending his Senegal record with 54 international goals. He beat goalkeeper Matt Turner at the far post in the 44th off a Habib Diarra pass that followed Antonee Robinson’s giveaway, then tapped the ball into the net in the 52nd after Nicolas Jackson had lifted it over onrushing goalkeeper Chris Brady.

Brady entered among 10 U.S. changes at the start of the second half in his international debut.

Balogun, another second-half sub, had a goal disallowed for offside in the 49th, then got his ninth international goal in the 63rd after Tim Weah’s cross deflected off a foot of Moustapha Mbow.

The No. 16 U.S. plays 10th-ranked Germany on June 6, six days before the Americans open the tournament against Paraguay. No. 14 Senegal faces Saudi Arabia in a June 9 friendly and start against France on June 16.

The American starting lineup averaged 44 international appearances, the team’s highest since the October 2017 loss at Trinidad and Tobago that ended the U.S. streak of seven straight World Cup appearances, according to Opta.

Turner, the American starting goalkeeper at the 2022 World Cup, made just his second U.S. appearance since a 4-0 loss to Switzerland last June.

In the absence of Chris Richards, sidelined by an ankle injury, the U.S. started Alex Freeman, Mark McKenzie and captain Tim Ream in a three center back formation. Gio Reyna made his first start for club or country since Dec. 19.

___

AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

The Buffalo Sabres' Konsta Helenius scored the gold-winning goal 10:42 into overtime. The 20-year-old Helenius netted from the right circle, beating Switzerland goaltender Leonardo Genoni with his team's 28th shot on goal.

Finland netminder Justus Annunen shut out Switzerland with 22 saves.

“We have a strong culture, you leave your ego outside the locker room, and that’s why it’s so awesome to come and play for Finland,” defenseman Olli Maatta said.

Finland also won in 1995, 2011, 2019 and 2022.

Switzerland wasted a two-minute, 5-on-3 advantage that started six seconds before the end of the opening period.

The final was a rematch of the two teams from their last group stage game, which the Swiss won 4-2.

That was the only loss for the Finns, who finished second in their preliminary group behind the Swiss. They went on to eliminate the Czechs 4-1 in the quarterfinals and upset tournament favorite Canada 4-2 in the semifinals.

Finland was led by captain Aleksander Barkov, who missed the entirety of the Florida Panthers’ season because of a major knee injury suffered 20 minutes into his first practice of training camp. The tournament was his first action in competitive games since the Panthers won their second consecutive Stanley Cup last June.

Barkov powered the Finns with three goals and eight assists from 10 games at the worlds.

Swiss disappointment

After finishing runner-up in the previous two years, host Switzerland hoped for more this time in front of its home crowd in Zurich.

Home fans clapped, chanted and cheered tirelessly throughout the tournament.

“It’s a huge disappointment, but, it’s hockey,” Switzerland forward Denis Malgin said. “It was a 0-0 game. We had our chances, and in OT it can go either way.”

Switzerland failed to score a single goal in the three finals.

The Swiss lost to the Czechs 2-0 in 2024, and were defeated by the U.S. 1-0 in overtime last year. They also finished second in 2018 and 2013 when they were defeated by rival Sweden.

Switzerland also finished second back in 1935.

No medal for Canada

Norway stunned Canada 3-2 in overtime of the bronze medal game to capture its first ice hockey world championship medal.

Noah Steen scored the winner 3:32 into overtime. The previous best result for Norway was a fourth-place finish in 1951.

In a wild ending, Canada was 2-0 down when it pulled netminder Jet Greaves. Robert Thomas then scored from the slot to reduce the deficit with 1:16 remaining in the final period with an unassisted goal.

With eight seconds to go, captain Macklin Celebrini and Ryan O’Reilly set up Thomas for his second to tie it at 2-2, forcing overtime.

Earlier, Emilio Pettersen gave Norway a 1-0 lead in the opening period and Stian Solberg added another with a deflected shot in the second. Goaltender Henrik Haukeland stopped 44 shots.

Greaves made 21 saves for Canada.

The Canadians have come up short at the worlds since they won their last and record 28th title in 2023.

They finished fourth in 2024 and were stunned 2-1 by Denmark in the quarterfinals last year.

The worlds ended in disappointment for Canada again this year despite a lineup that included teenage sensation Celebrini as captain and NHL great Sidney Crosby in addition to several established NHL stars, including O’Reilly, John Tavares and Mark Scheifele.

Canada managed to win all of its group games, including a 6-5 victory over Norway in overtime, and eliminated defending champion U.S. in the quarterfinals.

But Finland, led by Barkov, proved too good in the semifinals.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Undefeated this season on clay, 15th-seeded Marta Kostyuk showed her strong credentials as she reached the quarterfinals in Paris for the first time on Sunday by taking out four-time champion Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-1 and ruining her birthday.

She will be up against her compatriot Elina Svitolina next, ensuring there will be an Ukrainian woman semifinalist at Roland Garros for the first time in the professional era (1968). The seventh-seeded Svitolina rallied past Belinda Bencic 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.

“There’s going to be Ukraine in the semifinals, so it’s already amazing,” said Svitolina, whose country is in a 4-year-old war with Russia.

“I think it couldn’t be a better, amazing achievement for Ukrainian tennis. I think in such a difficult situation right now in the war, with the invasion, it’s really, really difficult, and I think it’s really inspiring for the next generation to really believe that it is possible one day to play on this court and win.”

None of the players still in the draw have yet lifted the trophy in Paris, following Coco Gauff’s elimination on Saturday and Swiatek's exit. It's the same in the men’s draw, after the defeats of Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic and with Carlos Alcaraz absent because of an injury.

In men's play, Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar moved into his first Grand Slam quarterfinal after coming back from two sets down to beat Pablo Carreno Busta 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. Jodar, who also played five sets in the previous round, will play second-seeded and former runner-up Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals. Zverev defeated Jesper de Jong 7-6 (3), 6-4, 6-1.

Also, 19-year-old Joao Fonseca followed up his five-set victory over Novak Djokovic by beating two-time runner-up Casper Ruud 7-5, 7-6 (8), 5-7, 6-2.

Fonseca will next face 20-year-old Jakub Mensik, who held off a comeback from Andrey Rublev in a 6-3, 7-6 (6), 4-6, 2-6, 6-3 win.

Swiatek's bad day

Kostyuk had lost her three previous matches against Swiatek and never taken a set against the former top-ranked player, who turned 25 on Sunday.

“I’m still in shock. To beat such an unbelievable player, who won four times here," she said.

Kostyuk has been the best player of the clay-court season. She defended extremely well, chasing Swiatek’s shots all over the court, and also produced some stunning groundstroke winners while her rival was also undone by her own mistakes.

An intense baseline battle unfolded from the outset. Swiatek showed signs of nerves as she double-faulted, shanked a forehand wide and then missed a volley at the net, allowing Kostyuk to level at 5-5 in the opener. Swiatek hit two more double faults in the 12th game and the 15th-seeded Ukrainian player sealed the set with a backhand passing shot.

Swiatek then briefly left the court. Meanwhile, Kostyuk kept herself warm by stretching and hopping beside her chair, then received some applause as she did a few dance moves to the music playing in the stadium.

Following a first week marked by a suffocating heatwave, relief finally arrived in Paris on Sunday, with temperatures dropping to 21 degrees C (70 F) around midday. When play resumed, Swiatek broke but another double fault coupled with more unforced errors brought her opponent back at 1-1. Kostyuk then won the last five games.

Kostyuk, who had reached the fourth round at Roland Garros in 2021 when she lost to Swiatek, extended her winning streak on clay to 16 matches. Ahead of the French Open, she won in Madrid, the biggest title of her career, after she claimed another clay-court title in Rouen, France.

“The most important thing that I’ve been doing this whole time is really just trying to enjoy,” she said. “It’s helping. I want to keep enjoying. I try not to focus at all on winning or losing because I’m not playing tennis to win, I’m playing tennis because I love it."

17 years later

Romanian veteran Sorana Cirstea, who is planning to retire at the end of the season, beat Chinese qualifier Wang Xiyu 6-3, 7-6 (4) to reach her second Roland Garros quarterfinal, 17 years after first making it to the last eight.

The gap between Cirstea’s first and second Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances in Paris is the longest at a single major by any woman in the Open Era.

“There is no expiration date for ambition and for dreams,” Cirstea said. “I think back then I was a kid, just started on tour. Now I have so many years behind me. I have so much experience, maturity. I feel I’m a completely different player.”

Also advancing was Mirra Andreeva of Russia, who beat Jil Teichmann 6-3, 6-2.

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AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf contributed to this report.

___

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

The Nicaraguan government issued a statement Sunday saying that Rivera died from a bacterial infection after his health had declined following a case of COVID-19, which led to his physical and neurological deterioration.

Human rights activists and groups worldwide denounced his death and an earlier statement by the government in which they referred to Rivera as “Brother” and said they were praying for him.

“They took him alive, and after refusing to tell his family, his lawyer, the world anything about his fate, then they call him brother,” said Reed Brody, an American human rights lawyer and member of a group of U.N. experts on Nicaragua. “Unconscionable cynicism on the part of the government to make it seem like they were trying to help him.”

The U.S. had called for his release on Friday after the Nicaraguan government published photos of him in the hospital in critical condition.

“This is just complete neglect,” said Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue. “His death represents the magnitude of repression."

The Argentina-based Inter-American Center for Legal Assistance in Human Rights also denounced Rivera’s death. Those responsible for the death of the Indigenous lawmaker "should be held criminally accountable,” it wrote on X.

Albert R. Ramdin, secretary general of the Organization of American States, said he was “deeply concerned” about reports of Rivera's death.

“His death demands an immediate, independent, and transparent investigation,” Ramdin wrote Sunday on X. “The rights to life, personal integrity, and due process must be guaranteed. My condolences to his family and the Miskito people. We continue to demand the unconditional release of all political prisoners unjustly detained by the Nicaraguan regime.”

A fight for land and autonomy

Rivera led the Miskito people, who live along Nicaragua’s northeast coast and have long fought to retain their lands.

For decades, he fought the ruling Sandinista government and helped establish the area along the northeast coast as an autonomous region. It is rich in gold, silver and other resources, and it is considered a key area for the administration of co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo to attract foreign investment.

Rivera’s fight for Nicaragua’s Indigenous people began in the 1960s. After opposing Ortega’s Sandinista’s government in the late 1970s, he temporarily went into exile in nearby Costa Rica in 1980.

He later returned to Nicaragua, where he survived an attack by Sandinista forces, forcing him once again to seek safety elsewhere, this time, in Colombia.

In the late 1980s, he founded the group known as Yatama, the Organization of the Peoples of Mother Earth. It played a key role in securing limited autonomy for Indigenous people following peace negotiations with the Sandinistas.

“He has been fighting in one way or another for their rights,” Brody said. “He fought for land, he fought for autonomy.”

Nicaragua’s Indigenous people operated autonomously until they were annexed into the country in 1905.

“Since then, they have advocated for the recognition of their rights and for respect for their identity,” stated a September 2024 report published by the group of U.N. experts.

First official sign of life since the 2023 arrest

In April 2023, Rivera traveled to Geneva to participate in a U.N. forum on Indigenous people, where he spoke out against the Nicaraguan government.

Shortly afterward, Ortega and Murillo banned him from returning to the country, but he slipped in anyway and lived in hiding until September 2023, when he was arrested and accused of terrorism.

“Nobody heard from him since then,” Brody said in a phone interview, adding that he and other U.N. experts wrote the government requesting that it provide some sign of life. “The government never gave any indication. He was a disappeared person.”

It wasn’t until late last week that the government published pictures of Rivera in the hospital.

Rivera was not only respected by his supporters, but by political opponents as well, Orozco said in a phone interview, noting he had known Rivera for decades.

“It’s disheartening how this dynasty is just getting rid of people, back and forth, left and right and getting away with it," he said.

Ever since his arrest and that of his second-in-command, Rivera’s party has gone into hiding, Orozco said.

“This is a big blow,” he said. “They have been basically dispersed, not organized. They keep a certain level of communication, of political engagement underground, but mostly with people in the exile.”

Condolences for Rivera poured in online, with one person writing on Facebook: "He was a father to our generation; he taught us, guided us, and led us with actions, not words."

Brody noted that the U.N. group of experts has documented 124 cases of arbitrary detention of Indigenous people in Nicaragua since 2018, and 46 deaths following violence incidents.

He noted that at least six political prisoners have died in custody since 2019, including two last August.

“Brooklyn Rivera spent 40 years fighting for his people,” he said, “and hopefully the international community will finally pay attention.”

The 11-hour flight covering more than 5,500 miles from Ezeiza International Airport touched down in Missouri just after 11 a.m. local time. The flight number for the Aerolineas Argentinas charter was 1978, an homage to the 1978 World Cup that Argentina won as the host nation over the Netherlands before more than 71,000 fans at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires.

The plane itself, an Airbus A330, also celebrated the Argentine squad with special livery. The No. 10 of Lionel Messi was featured on the tail amid the national team's iconic blue and white stripes, while three gold stars represented its three World Cup titles.

Argentina is the first of four national teams making their World Cup home base in the Kansas City metro to arrive.

The Netherlands, England and Algeria — which will be at the University of Kansas in nearby Lawrence — are due to arrive this week.

Most of the Argentina squad arrived on its charter, though some players will arrive from clubs elsewhere in the world. After stepping off the plane, players and staff walked across the tarmac to waiting charter buses for the trip to the team hotel.

Messi and Co. will be staying at the Origin Hotel near downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Fences have been built around the property and extra security provided for the team, while inside the relatively new hotel, signage, posters and other nods to the team known as La Albiceleste are ever-present, including huge images of some of the team's biggest stars on the outside of the building.

The team planned to spend Sunday doing light training in the hotel gym while awaiting the arrival of the rest of its players. Its first full workout is set for Monday at the Compass Minerals National Performance Center, the home of MLS club Sporting Kansas City.

Argentina plays Honduras in a friendly on Saturday at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, the home of Texas A&M. Its final tuneup is three days later against Iceland at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Alabama, the home of another SEC football team, Auburn.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni revealed his 26-man World Cup roster on Thursday. It is headlined by Messi, who turns 39 in less than a month, and features 17 players that were part of the team that triumphed four years ago against France in the final in Qatar.

Several players were in doubt because of injuries of varying severity ahead of the June 1 deadline set by FIFA for finalizing all World Cup squads. Among them was Messi, who is suffering from muscle fatigue and a mild strain in his left hamstring.

The club has said that his recovery time will depend on “his clinical and functional progress.” Messi will be playing in his sixth World Cup, having previously participated in Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and Qatar.

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup.

Soo Bin Joo, the 22-year-old South Korean going for her first LPGA Tour title, lost her four-shot lead at the turn and then fell behind for good on the 13th hole, the same hole where earlier Boutier had taken the lead with a 30-foot birdie putt.

Joo missed another fairway to the right into a clumpy lie, pitched back to the fairway, sent her wedge over the green with a front pin, chipped 8 feet by the hole and missed the putt, taking a double bogey to fall three shots behind.

Boutier kept hitting solid shots, rarely getting in trouble. She missed a 4-foot birdie putt on the final hole to post at 9-under 204, and no one could catch her.

“To have a chance to win today is definitely something very special,” said Boutier, the 32-year-old French player who won the ShopRite LPGA five years ago. “I think it’s great tournament, very special for me, so really excited to be able to have another win here.”

Yubol, who was penalized one shot in the second round Saturday for going over her maximum time, birdied the last two holes for a 66. It was her second runner-up finish of the year, having finished four shots behind Nelly Korda in Mexico.

Lauren Walsh (67) finished third, followed by Joo among four players who tied for fourth.

“It was so fun. It was my first time leading the tournament, and I think I did my best out there as much as I can and I prepared well and I'm very proud of myself,” Joo said. “I was trying to do my best to stay mentally calm, and I think I still got to work on that a little more.”

Chizzy Iwai, who also started four shots behind, had two birdies in three holes, but then closed with 15 straight pars.

Boutier finished the front nine with two straight birdies to reach 7 under, and that gave her a share of the lead when Joo made bogey on the par-4 eighth. Boutier then hit her approach to 4 feet for birdie on 10th. Joo caught her with a birdie on the ninth but couldn't keep up the rest of the way.

The ShopRite LPGA is one of two 54-hole events on the schedule, and the field was particularly weak this year — one player from the top 10 — because of timing. The U.S. Women's Open is next week across the country in Los Angeles, held at Riviera for the first time.

Boutier now has seven career LPGA title and 12 worldwide. She has struggled to start this year, with a tie for ninth her best finish among 10 tournaments.

“I feel like my game has turned around the last few weeks. I could see it coming together, and I definitely did not expect it to come together this week and today,” she said. “But I’m super excited to be back in the winner’s circle.”

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

And the Oklahoma City Thunder spent Day 1 of the offseason making clear that they support him.

If the ballyhooed matchup in the West finals was Holmgren vs. San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, then it was a one-sided one. Wembanyama had the superior numbers in the series and the Spurs wound up prevailing, while Holmgren was barely a factor offensively with the Thunder season on the line Saturday night.

"Every minute Chet Holmgren’s been on the team, we’ve been the 1 seed in the Western Conference," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Sunday, when the team gathered for end-of-season meetings. “And it wasn’t the case before Chet was healthy.”

Holmgren had likely his best season, with career-highs of 17.1 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. He made All-NBA for the first time, All-Defensive for the first time as well, got his first All-Star nod, plus was second in the Defensive Player of the Year balloting.

He finished second in that voting behind Wembanyama — just like he did for Rookie of the Year in 2024, and just like the Thunder did in these West finals.

“We need Chet. We need Chet Holmgren,” Thunder guard and back-to-back reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Before Chet was here, we weren’t who we are today. We didn’t have the success we had today. When he’s the best version of himself, we’re the best version of ourselves and it’s no secret.”

It's easy to envision the West finals matchup — Thunder vs. Spurs — becoming a rivalry for years to come. Both teams have young, obviously highly talented corps, and now they have the ingredient that all rivalries truly need, that being a playoff matchup, to help provide fuel.

“I definitely think that they’re different in terms of I don’t think there’s another team that has their play style, their personnel,” Holmgren said. “They're unique in that way. You can’t just kind of play like a base normal, ‘this is what we kind of do on an average Tuesday night’ type of thing.”

And while the outside world might have looked at Holmgren as one of the reasons why Game 7 didn't go Oklahoma City's way, the rest of the Thunder disagreed.

Gilgeous-Alexander, for example, pointed to himself — and that was after he had a brilliant 35-point effort in the deciding game against San Antonio. He even went as far as to describe a second straight MVP season as “a failure.”

“I failed at my goal,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve, but through my experiences, I learned the most about myself and I make the greatest amount of increases I have in my career when I fail at my goal and don’t get what I want. And I look at this no different. I didn’t get where I wanted to go this season. There’s a reason for that. Now I have to look at that reason and try to make sure it never happens again.”

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

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 780 people were detained in Paris and other cities and 57 officers were wounded, with most suffering minor injuries, as football fans set off fires and vandalized shops overnight.

Nuñez said at a news conference on Sunday that “the situation has been largely brought under control."

“Most of the celebrations took place peacefully” across the French capital, he said, noting most incidents happened in the Champs Elysees neighborhood and close to the Parc des Princes stadium, in western Paris, where fans had gathered to watch the match.

Fans began celebrating in Paris after the final whistle on Saturday night in Budapest, Hungary, where Paris Saint-Germain was crowned Champions League winners after beating Arsenal in a dramatic penalty shootout. Fans marched along the avenues near Paris’ Arc de Triomphe monument, with some setting off flares and blaring car horns. Around 20,000 people gathered on the Champs-Elysees, where police worked to contain the crowd.

Planned celebrations for the team’s win on Sunday afternoon at the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower, went ahead as scheduled. Nunez warned that police would respond with “firmness and determination” to any potential violence.

With the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, up to 100,000 supporters showed up at the event that was placed under high security measures. Returning from Budapest late, PSG players — led by captain Marquinhos, coach Luis Enrique and club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi — were greeted by cheering crowds as the club anthem blared from loudspeakers. The players took turns lifting the trophy aloft, relishing their heroes’ welcome back home.

Macron appeals for an end to violence

The team was then hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee presidential palace. Macron condemned the violence.

“I don't want that we get used to it,” Macron said at the ceremony. “This is not soccer, this is not sport, this is not what we love. We will be uncompromising with those who have been caught. We do not want to see this happen again. It’s over. We’ve had enough. This must end."

Nuñez said incidents took place in about 15 cities in France, describing “one to two” shops vandalized in each other than Paris. He said 780 people were detained in all, with 480 of them in the Paris area alone.

Police also intervened five times overnight to prevent people from blocking traffic on the main ring road around Paris, he said. In one accident, a driver lost control of a car that rammed into a restaurant’s terrace, leaving two people wounded including one seriously, Nuñez said. We will be uncompromising with those who have been caught. We do not want to see this happen again. It’s over. We’ve had enough. This must end.

Paris police detain hundreds

The Paris prosecutors’ office said 306 people have been formally taken into police custody, including 81 minors, for alleged offences. Most were for assault of police officers while other allegations include theft, vandalism and disturbing the public order. Some 40 police officers were injured.

The Paris police prefecture said smaller groups caused disturbances in various locations, with some vandalizing shops and setting fires to garbage and self-service bicycles in the streets. Cars were also set ablaze. Some who attempted to storm a police station in the posh 8th Arrondissement neighborhood were dispersed, police said.

“The vast majority of Parisians celebrated it with joy, unity, and respect,” Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said on Sunday in a message on X, while condemning violence “in the strongest possible terms.”

Following PSG’s first Champions League title win in May 2025, 201 people were injured in the French capital and police made more than 500 arrests across France.

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

That wait is at 53 years and it can only end now by beating the Spurs again.

Nearly a week after clinching their first NBA Finals berth since 1999, the Knicks were at last able to practice Sunday while knowing who they were practicing for, after Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs knocked off Oklahoma City on Saturday night in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

“I mean, they’re a special team,” Knicks guard Deuce McBride said. “Obviously they have the Defensive Player of the Year, obviously a great organization and they’ve got a lot of great young guys, so we’re just excited for this matchup.”

It's the same one as the last time the Knicks were in the NBA Finals, when the Spurs beat them 27 years ago to leave New York without a title since 1973.

The Knicks believed they were going to have a good shot at ending the drought this year and got a test run at chasing a championship back in December, when they beat San Antonio in Las Vegas to win the NBA Cup.

The Knicks then passed on joining the Lakers and Milwaukee, the previous winners of the in-season tournament, in raising a banner at Madison Square Garden to acknowledge it. They aren't putting much stock in that victory six months later, knowing how different both teams are.

“Obviously there was good energy around that, but I don’t think that’s really going to be any equivalent to what the atmosphere or the energy is going to be like at their place, or obviously at the Garden," Knicks forward Josh Hart said.

"So technically that game didn’t happen, so I don’t think there’s anything that we can learn from,” Hart added, poking fun at the fact that the Cup final, an 83rd game for the two teams, doesn't count in the standings or statistics.

The teams split the two games that did matter, with San Antonio's victory on New Year's Eve starting a midseason spiral for a Knicks club that arrived with a 23-9 record. Then, after the Spurs went undefeated in February, New York snapped their 11-game winning streak with a 114-89 home victory on March 1.

Game 1 is Wednesday at San Antonio. More than Wembanyama and the Spurs, the Knicks' biggest problem might be their lack of playing rhythm.

Because they are rolling through the postseason with an 11-game winning streak, that will be just the 10th game in a 35-day span for the Knicks, starting with the April 30 clincher against Atlanta in Game 6 of the first round.

They then swept Philadelphia and had more than a week off before opening the Eastern Conference finals against Cleveland. Their inactivity clearly showed after that extended rest, as they were 4 for 23 on 3-pointers through three quarters and fell behind by 22 points early in the fourth before rallying to win in overtime.

“We understand what happened last time we had a layoff like this, so we’re just trying to be better than we were last time,” center Karl-Anthony Towns said.

That was the only trouble the Knicks had with the Cavaliers, easily taking the next three games and ending the series last Monday. They have outscored opponents by 262 points during the winning streak, the largest margin for any 11-game stretch in NBA history.

The Knicks don't expect anything so easy against the Spurs, whose victory in the 1999 matchup was their first of five NBA titles. New York coach Mike Brown was on the bench for one of them as an assistant to Gregg Popovich, and was the losing coach in another when the Spurs swept Cleveland in 2007.

“I got ties to San Antonio and you appreciate the people, you appreciate the journey and all that other stuff,” said Brown, who has family still living in San Antonio. “But at the end of the day, just like they want to beat you, you definitely want to beat them.”

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

The flight departed around 6 p.m. for Palma de Mallorca, Spain, but landed back at Newark at 9:37 p.m., according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The airline said there were 190 passengers and 12 crew members on board the Boeing 767 aircraft.

According to air traffic control audio, security came to inspect the aircraft after someone named their Bluetooth device a “certain four-letter word.” A passenger posting on social media said crew members repeatedly asked passengers to turn off all Bluetooth devices, but two devices remained on. The flight turned around after communicating with the airline’s headquarters in Chicago.

Passengers had to evacuate as the aircraft was swept by Port Authority police, and passengers were rescreened by TSA and Customs and Border Patrol before reboarding. The airline declined to provide specifics on the cause of the incident.

Passengers boarded a replacement flight with a new crew, which took off early Sunday morning and landed in Palma in the afternoon.

This was the latest incident with a United Airlines flight this month. On Friday, a domestic flight was diverted because of a security concern with an unruly passenger. Earlier this month, a United flight landing at Newark airport struck a semitrailer truck and a light pole, though no one was injured.

Also among the points of emphasis for referees and officials: a commitment to issuing red cards to any player who covers his mouth while talking to an opponent in a “confrontational situation," FIFA said.

“We are continuing on trying to achieve an objective, which is to eliminate from matches — as much as possible — the disruption of the tempo of the match," said Pierluigi Collina, FIFA chief refereeing officer and chair of the referees committee.

Other issues that referees will be mindful of during the tournament:

— If a player leaves the field of play after being angered by an official's decision, a red card can be issued.

— To speed up play, referees can institute a five-second visual countdown on goal kicks and throw-ins. If the goal kick is not taken before the end of that countdown, a corner kick will be awarded to the opposing team. If the throw-in is not executed by the end of the five-second count, a throw-in for the opponents will be the reward. It's along the same lines of the so-called eight-second goalkeeper rule that has been in place for some time to release the ball after making a save.

— Players getting subbed off must leave the field within 10 seconds, except for special situations such as ones involving injuries or a security issue.

— The protocol for Video Assistant Referee, or VAR, is being clarified in certain areas. VAR can be used to check when red cards are issued following a clearly incorrect second yellow card, or when cards are issued in the case of mistaken identity. Incorrectly awarded corner kicks can also be checked by VAR, FIFA said.

Players covering their mouth with a hand, arm or shirt will be given red cards if referees deem it not to be a friendly conversation, FIFA said. Conversations that are not confrontational but still have players shielding their mouths from public view will continue to be permitted without penalty.

“Confrontational ... a completely different story,” Collina said.

There has also been a clarification on VAR protocol “regarding clear offenses committed by the attacking team before the ball is in play at a corner kick or free kick” that directly impacts goals, penalty kicks or sanctions.

VAR can be used in those moments and “if the referee determines that an offense occurred before the ball was in play, the appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.”

But all the emphasis on speedy play won't necessarily mean quicker matches. There will be three-minute water breaks midway through each half of every match, FIFA said.

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

Bengaluru reached 161-5 in 18 overs after winning the toss and restricting Gujarat to 155-8 in its 20 overs.

Kohli smashed nine fours and three sixes in his 42-ball 75 not out. It was his sixth 50-plus score of the season and, along with Venkatesh Iyer’s 32 runs off 16 balls, helped Bengaluru make quick work of an under-par target.

“It is the stuff you dream of. I have thought of this moment many times, to win the IPL and stand here (unbeaten in the chase)," Kohli said. "The kind of team we have, it gives you confidence to face any situation. There is enough depth in our side. We had clarity – Venkatesh (Iyer) and I wanted to finish off the chase in the powerplay itself.”

With its first title in 2025, Bengaluru became only the third side to win successive IPL titles. Chennai Super Kings (2010 and 2011) and Mumbai Indians (2019 and 2020) previously achieved this feat.

Kohli finished with 675 runs in 16 matches, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked up 28 wickets this season.

Kumar took 2-29 on Sunday, sharing four wickets with Josh Hazlewood (2-37), and restricted Gujarat at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Washington Sundar finished on 50 not out, hitting five fours in his 37-ball innings. No other Gujarat batter topped 20. Medium pacer Rasikh Salam Dar took 3-27 in his four overs.

Gujarat’s Kagiso Rabada was the season’s highest wicket-taker – 29 in 17 matches.

Rajasthan Royals’ 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryanshi was the highest run-getter with 776 runs in 16 innings at a strike rate of 237.

Bengaluru pacers strike hard before Kohli’s chase

Gujarat never really gained any batting momentum and was down to 99-5 at the start of the 15th over. Openers Sai Sudharsan (12) and Shubman Gill (10) were out cheaply.

Krunal Pandya had Jos Buttler (19) stumped and, despite Sundar’s knock, the Titans didn't look comfortable.

Iyer hit two sixes and four fours in his rapid 32 for Bengaluru. Kohli and Iyer contributed 62 off 27 balls for the opening wicket.

Kohli got his half-century off 25 balls, his quickest in the IPL, and he finished the match in style with a six against Arshad Khan – a year after Bengaluru had won the title at the same venue.

The final was a rematch of the first playoff on Tuesday when Bengaluru beat Gujarat by 92 runs in Dharamsala. Gujarat won the IPL in 2022.

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

A pitch to the A's Tyler Soderstrom in the fourth inning was confirmed as a strike even though the replay showed it missed the zone by a little less than an inch.

The call in question came in the fourth inning of the 6-4 win by the Athletics when Ryan Weathers threw a 2-0 pitch that was called a strike. Soderstrom immediately challenged the call because he thought the pitch was low.

The replay never showed up on the videoboard as usual. But after a short delay, home plate umpire Adam Beck announced that the pitch was confirmed as a strike and the A's lost their challenge. But the replay on MLB.com showed the pitch was 0.8 inches low and should have been called a ball. It ended up being mostly moot as Soderstrom eventually drew a walk although the A's did lose one challenge.

“The explanation on the field was the umpires were told from the communication upstairs, the controller of the ABS, that the call was confirmed,” A's manager Mark Kotsay said after the game.

Kotsay said the A's got to see the replay at the end of the inning on the iPad in the dugout, which is standard, and saw that it should have been called a ball. Kotsay went out to talk to the umpires between innings but was unable to get the challenge back.

“Obviously, they don't have access to the iPad,” Kotsay said. “They only have access to the information they're being told through their ear piece. That's something we need clarified through the league and we will have that conversation with the league.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sunday he hadn't seen that happen before this season.

“My understanding was that we got one,” Boone said.

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This story has been corrected to show that it was Tyler Soderstrom, not Shea Langeliers, who challenged the call.

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

About 70 other people were injured in the explosion that took place around noon in the village of Kaungtup, in Namhkam township.

The area, located about 3 kilometers (2 miles) south of the Chinese border, is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, an ethnic armed group which has engaged in sporadic fighting against Myanmar’s central government.

A rescue worker who rushed to the site of the blast told The Associated Press that 46 bodies, including six children, had been recovered by Sunday evening and taken for cremation.

The rescuer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said 74 injured people had been transported to the township hospital and rescue operations were continuing.

Another rescuer in Namhkam, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said about 40 people were killed and more than 100 houses near the blast site were damaged.

Myanmar media outlets, including Shan State’s online Shwe Phee Myay news agency, reported death tolls ranging from 50 to 55. They published photos and videos showing smoke from the explosion and damaged buildings and debris in its aftermath.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported the explosion caused multiple deaths and injuries, with many residential houses being severely damaged, but did not give figures.

It said that according to preliminary investigations, the blast occurred at a site where large quantities of explosives used for mining operations were stored.

Local authorities are currently providing relief, medical care and resettlement assistance to affected residents, said the report.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, said in a statement released on its Telegram channel that gelignite had been stored by the group’s economic department for use in mining and stone quarrying sites, and that an investigation into the cause of the explosion is underway.

Gelignite is widely used in mining and rock blasting, but can become highly unstable over time and if poorly stored.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, is a member of the rebel Three Brotherhood Alliance, and has controlled the Namhkam area since the alliance and its allies launched a major offensive against the military in northeastern Myanmar in late 2023. The alliance members and other ethnic armed groups have long fought for increased autonomy.

The TNLA signed a ceasefire with Myanmar's military following China-mediated talks in October last year, but relations remain tense.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

Vingegaard, who rides for Team Visma-Lease a Bike, ended the three-week race with an overall advantage of 5 minutes, 22 seconds over second-place Felix Gall. Jai Hindley finished third, 6:25 behind.

Vingegaard won the Tour de France in 2022 and ’23 and last year clinched his first Spanish Vuelta title. It was his first Giro.

“It’s amazing. It’s something I’ve dreamt of my whole life and to now be able to do it, it’s something special,” an emotional Vingegaard said in his first interview as Giro winner. "I’m lost for words.

“It was a really special day, with so many people on the side of the road, so many spectators, it was really incredible. To get the honor to wear the maglia rosa in the streets of Rome is something special. With these last three weeks, it’s just such a nice way to end this race.”

After crossing the line in Rome, the 29-year-old Vingegaard embraced his wife and two children, who were wearing replicas of his maglia rosa — the leader's pink jersey.

“Yeah, that’s even nicer, it also gives me tears in my eyes, they’re always there for me,” said Vingegaard, who has celebrated his five stage wins at the Giro by kissing the photo of his family that is on the handlebar of his bicycle, before kissing his wedding ring.

Vingegaard also carried his children with him to the podium, where he was presented with the Trofeo Senza Fine (Trophy With No End).

Having dominated his first Giro — living up to his billing as pre-race favorite — Vingegaard will turn his attention to the Tour de France as he attempts to become the ninth man to complete the Giro-Tour double in the same year.

However, there he will face cycling’s top talent Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian, who skipped the Giro to focus on adding to his four Tour titles, became the first man in 26 years to do the Giro-Tour double when he achieved the feat in 2024.

Sunday's largely processional final Giro stage, that ended with eight laps through Rome, was won by sprint specialist Jonathan Milan.

The 131-kilometer route started in Rome and then went out the sea before returning to the Italian capital for the finishing circuit.

So relaxed were the riders that they were all seen sharing a box of sweets as they started the stage, before also being given glasses of Prosecco. They also all posed for team photos during the ride out to the sea.

Milan, who had seen other bids for stage wins end in disappointment earlier in the race, finally got his victory. The Italian edged out compatriot Giovanni Lonardi and French cyclist Paul Penhoët in a bunch sprint.

“I’m super happy to end this Giro in this way,” Milan said. “It’s beautiful. After three weeks that we were looking for this, winning the last stage in Rome means that we were keeping the head there, we never give up, we always keep fighting for the victory, we were always believing in it, we always believe in each other.”

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

Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian drones struck the Saratov oil refinery in southwestern Russia, causing a large-scale fire. It claimed the refinery has been supplying Moscow’s war effort.

The refinery belongs to Russia’s state oil enterprise, Rosneft. Local Russian Gov. Roman Busargin said Ukrainian drones had damaged civilian infrastructure, but did not give details. Astra, an independent Russian news channel, said an oil refinery was on fire in the city of Saratov.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russia’s oil and gas facilities in recent months, arguing the energy sector funds and directly fuels Moscow’s more than four-year invasion.

“Tonight, our soldiers applied Ukraine’s long-range sanctions against an oil refinery in Saratov, Russia — approximately 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the front line. A significant achievement,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media on Sunday.

Drone debris also set fire to a fuel depot in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, which borders Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Gov. Yuriy Slyusar reported on Telegram on Sunday. He said residents of nearby homes were evacuated.

Ukraine's General Staff on Sunday confirmed its forces were behind the strike on the facility in the town of Matveev Kurgan. Local authorities said a drone strike on the depot had caused a large-scale fire across a wide area.

According to its General Staff, Ukraine ​also struck the Lazarevo pumping station in Russia's Kirov region northeast of Moscow, more than 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled land. The station helps ship Russian oil ​from Siberia to Belarus.

Regional Gov. Alexander Sokolov said drones had hit ​a facility in the Kirov region, without giving further details.

Russia says a Ukrainian drone struck a nuclear plant

Kyiv denied that a Ukrainian drone struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest. Russia’s state nuclear energy company, Rosatom, said on Saturday that the drone exploded after tearing a hole in the wall of a turbine hall. Rosatom’s CEO Alexei Likhachev accused Ukraine of a deliberate attack.

“This afternoon, a Ukrainian kamikaze combat drone struck the turbine hall building of Power Unit No. 6, resulting in a detonation,” Likhachev said. He added there was no damage to main equipment.

Ukraine’s military said it did not target or strike the plant, describing the Russian claim as “yet another propaganda ploy.” A military statement said that it adheres to international humanitarian law and is aware of the "consequences of any actions targeting nuclear facilities.”

Rafael Grossi, head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — expressed “serious concern” in a post on X following the incident.

The IAEA said in a statement Sunday that its inspectors at the plant “observed damage to the exterior of a turbine building” that was “consistent with the impact" of a drone. It gave no details of where the drone may have come from, but said radiation levels at the site remained normal. It added that its inspectors had requested access to the inside of the turbine hall for further examination.

Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early weeks of the war, and it remains close to the front lines in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, one of four Russia has formally annexed despite lacking full military control or international recognition for its actions. The nuclear plant has repeatedly come under fire since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, sparking fears of a nuclear accident. Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for targeting the plant.

Zelenskyy claims Russia treats abducted Ukrainian children ‘as combatants’

In an interview broadcast Sunday, Zelenskyy told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that Russia treats abducted Ukrainian children “essentially as combatants,” claiming Kyiv has evidence they are being trained to fight against fellow Ukrainians.

“They taught these children to hate their native country, to hate (their) native people. And Ukrainians, can you imagine, such young Ukrainians — young boys — come to the battlefield and kill (other) Ukrainians,” he said.

He also alleged that Russians have separated abducted Ukrainian siblings, adopting them out to different families, and offered to trade some children for captured Ukrainian soldiers in prisoner swaps.

“There are hundreds of examples of such steps by Russia,” Zelenskyy said, without specifying what evidence his government had.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of children have been unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-held territories in eastern Ukraine.

Earlier this month, the European Union imposed sanctions on 16 officials accused of helping the abductions, claiming many children had their identities changed or were put up for adoption.

Sanctions were also slapped on seven centers suspected of indoctrinating the children or training them to serve in the armed forces, either for Russia or pro-Russian militias inside Ukraine.

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions.

Deadly drone attacks continue

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday that it had shot down 212 of 299 drones launched by Russia overnight. It said 14 drones had reached their targets, while drone debris fell in five locations.

A truck driver died early on Sunday as drones hit a parking lot in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, according to local administration head Vyacheslav Chaus.

Russian drones struck the city of Dnipro and an oil refinery in Ukraine’s Rivne region, causing fires, authorities said. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, of which Dnipro is the capital, said later on Sunday that one person was killed and nine were injured in Russian attacks in the province.

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

“Backrooms,” released by A24 in 3,442 locations in the U.S. and Canada, made an astonishing $81.5 million in its first three days in theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday. That’s just a few hundred thousand dollars shy of what “The Mandalorian and Grogu” earned in its first three days last weekend; And “Backrooms,” which was directed and co-written by YouTube creator Kane Parsons, cost only $10 million to produce.

The wild success of “Backrooms” didn’t even hurt “Obsession,” which is also the directorial debut of a YouTuber, Curry Barker, who is only 26. Three weekends in, “Obsession,” a movie that cost less than $1 million to make, still hasn’t dropped below its opening weekend earnings. This weekend, it was up 10% with another $26.4 million for a second-place finish, leaving Star Wars, the legacy franchise movie from the veteran filmmaker and the Walt Disney Studios, in third with $25 million.

YouTube might not be the death of movie theaters after all. If this weekend is any indication, it could be the industry’s new great hope.

This is a weekend where theaters also hosted the debuts of “The Breadwinner,” a PG-rated family comedy starring the popular comedian Nate Bargatze, and “Pressure,” a solid World War II drama about the tense 72 hours before D-Day with Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser. But it was the 20-something YouTubers that drew the most crowds. And both “Backrooms” and “Obsession” were produced by Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.

Abhijay Prakash, the president of Blumhouse-Atomic Monster said that the weekend is both staggering and validation of their business, which has from the beginning championed original horror movies that appeal to younger audiences, and generated over $10 billion in box office to date.

He noted that they’ve made a point of looking for up and coming talent on YouTube and, knowing how Hollywood works, this weekend likely inspire a wave of copycats. But beyond that, he’s encouraged by the fact that the young creators who’ve already had enormous success online still value the cultural currency of theatrical movies.

“It’s a great sign of relevance for us,” Prakash said. “With some distance, we’ll probably look back at this as a real turning point.”

“Backrooms” started as a creepypasta — an internet-generated urban legend — before Parsons turned the concept, about a never-ending expanse of dull, depressing rooms and hallways, into a viral web series, which he made with the help of the open-source 3D graphics software Blender. It caught the attention of James Wan and Shawn Levy’s production companies who were interested in taking it to the next level; Soon a movie was in development with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve starring.

It wasn’t just a domestic hit either; Including international showings, “Backrooms” has already made $118 million globally. A24 said Parsons is now the youngest director to have a No. 1 film globally. It’s also a record opening for the studio, whose previous high-water mark was “Civil War,” which opened to $25.5 million in 2024.

The R-rated film was well-reviewed by critics and drew a young and diverse crowd to theaters. According to exit polls, 86% of the audience was under 35, more than half were under 25 and 44% were under 21. Many attended in groups and there were reports of sold-out shows, packed theaters and repeat viewings. Audiences gave it a less-than-stellar B- CinemaScore, however.

But the buzz is still creating a frenzy of all ages, even teenagers, wanting to see “Backrooms.” Some theaters have even posted employees outside of the screens to make sure that anyone under 21 is accompanied by an adult. The same is true for the R-rated “Obsession," which has now made $104.7 million in North America, and is now Focus Features' highest grossing domestic release.

Luis Olloqui, the CEO of Cinépolis USA, which operates 26 theaters across the country — most of which are dine-in — said they’ve seen sellouts at many of their locations for both movies.

“We were a little worried that they would be competing for the same audience. It’s not the case,” Olloqui said. “It shows that when we have the right content, people from all ages are willing to go to the theater.”

“The Mandalorian and Grogu,” meanwhile, fell around 69% from its opening last weekend. The movie has now made $246.6 million globally.

“Michael” landed in fourth place with $11.7 million in its sixth weekend — the musical biopic has made $339.9 million domestically to date. “The Breadwinner,” released by Sony, rounded out the top five with an estimated $7.5 million. ”Pressure" opened in seventh place with $5.8 million.

Outside of the top 10 was the heist-romance “Tuner,” which expanded to 452 theaters in its second weekend, earning a solid $1.7 million.

“Everyone’s asking what’s the next big thing in Hollywood for movies, and what can bring people back to the movie theater? And this may be it,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Comscore.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Backrooms,” $81.5 million.

2. “Obsession,” $26.4 million.

3. “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” $25 million.

4. “Michael,” $11.7 million.

5. “The Breadwinner,” $7.5 million.

6. “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” $5.9 million.

7. “Pressure,” $5.8 million.

8. “The Sheep Detectives,” $4.6 million.

9. “Passenger,” $2.6 million.

10. “Mortal Kombat II,” $2 million.

For years, both businesses served as gathering places for the community — one through photography and content creation, the other through food and fellowship. Now, their owners are saying goodbye.

Carissa Glanton recently closed The Selfie Showroom, a photography and content creation space that operated in Jacksonville for four years.

“A lot of people came here to celebrate birthdays, take pictures, and have a unique experience,” Glanton said. “It was something different that I really wanted to bring to Jacksonville.”

But by the middle of last year, she said business began slowing down.

“That’s when things started to trickle down for us, and it was just hard to keep the operations going,” Glanton explained.

The Selfie Room officially closed on May 17.

For Glanton, the hardest part isn’t losing the business itself.

“It’s letting down the community,” she said. “We built so much here with Selfie Fest, and we’re doing all these parties here. It was like we were building our own community here, so and there’s a lot of people who, you know, wanted something different in Jacksonville and they really enjoyed this place.”

Just a few minutes away at Trout River Food Truck Park, another owner is facing a similar reality.

Chef Love, owner of Chef Love Sol Cuisine, announced she is also closing after five years in business.

Business, she said, has become increasingly difficult.

“Challenging. Uncertain. Confusing. Doubtful,” Chef Love said when asked how business has been lately.

The food truck has operated at Trout River Food Truck Park since 2023, after relocating from Arlington.

“The Northside embraced me with so much love,” she said. “They wanted Chef Love, and they’ve proven that to me.”

Despite strong community support, Chef Love said economic uncertainty has taken a toll on sales.

“We’ve seen a big decrease because of the economy,” she said. “People are unsure right now. Going out to eat is a luxury for many families. Even though I feel my food is affordable, it still comes out of their income.”

Chef Love also believes small businesses face unique challenges that many customers don’t always see.

“It takes a lot of sacrifice — financially, emotionally, and creatively,” she said. “Small businesses are not built overnight.”

Both owners said the most difficult part of closing is saying goodbye to the people who supported them.

“My customers have followed me from photography into the Selfie Room,” Glanton said. “Letting them down is what made this really hard.”

Chef Love echoed that sentiment.

“My customers, my team, and my community depended on me,” she said. “They’ve been sending messages and showing me love through all of this. I’ll never forget that.”

The two owners also spoke about the importance of supporting local businesses before they’re gone.

“When you don’t have the small businesses, you don’t have a good, solid community,” Chef Love said. “They need a place to go, because not everybody can go across the bridge.”

While both storefronts are closing, neither owner says this is the end of their journey.

Glanton hopes to remain involved in creative and community-focused work, while Chef Love says she plans to take time to reflect before deciding what’s next.

“Chef Love is not over,” she said. “I’m excited about the future. But right now, I need to take a break and look back at everything we’ve accomplished.”

For both women, the closures mark the end of one chapter — and the beginning of another.

“It’s not over,” Chef Love said. “I gave it my all.”

The City of Jacksonville says help is available through its Office of Economic Development, which offers resources ranging from startup assistance to business incubator programs and financial incentives.

More information can be found on the city’s website.

Roland Garros organizers have been criticized for scheduling only men’s matches under the lights in recent years, with organizers saying they are under pressure from TV broadcasters and that women’s best-of-three set matches are too short compared to the best-of-five format for men.

It will be only the fifth women’s match in the five years since the night sessions were introduced in Paris.

The last women’s match at night also involved Sabalenka, when she beat Sloane Stephens in 2023.

“YOLO,” Osaka said when asked on Saturday if her match against Sabalenka deserved to be held at night, using the abbreviation for “You only live once.”

Osaka has been putting on a fashion show for her walk-ons before each match of the tournament.

Sabalenka leads 2-1 in career meetings with Osaka, who has reached the fourth round in Paris for the first time.

“I’m just ready for the fight,” Sabalenka said. “It’s great to see her back on her level. … I really enjoy our battles. It’s high-level matches, and I really enjoy when somebody push me to the limit.”

The match is scheduled to start at 8:15 p.m. local time.

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

The French team, built with Qatari riches and styled by a Spanish perfectionist, looks capable of setting all kinds of records in European club soccer's biggest competition. And after triumphing 4-3 in a penalty shootout against Arsenal in Saturday's final, there is no indication that PSG is ready to relinquish its position of dominance.

“Of course we’re going to go to the market,” president Nasser Al-Khelaifi told TNT Sports while celebrations were just getting started in the center of the field at the Puskas Arena in Budapest.

Those words will ring ominously around Europe. When Qatar-backed PSG goes to the market, it goes hard.

That was the case when signing the world's biggest stars during its Galactico era of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi. And the same is true in its current incarnation, where it has amassed a remarkable array of young talent that has swept all aside and taken a stronghold on the Champions League in a manner only bettered by Real Madrid in the modern era.

The team that started against Arsenal had an average age of 25.8 years. Ten of the starting XI was in the starting lineup that won the trophy 12 months earlier.

In other words, Spanish coach Luis Enrique has built a squad that looks capable of dominating for years to come.

“It’s whet our appetite,” said man of the match Vitinha. “You always want to win again. Never give up. Never stop. Luis Enrique is probably guilty of that and I hope that he will continue to push us so we can win more and more.”

How to make the best better

The best don't stand still and Luis Enrique demonstrated his ruthless side when discarding goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma last year and promoting back-up Matvey Safonov as his replacement.

The 20-year-old midfielder Warren Zaire-Emery could have more of a prominent role next season and potentially break up the central trio of Fabian Ruiz, João Neves and Vitinha. Luis Enrique made a point of saying how unfortunate Zaire-Emery was not to start the final.

Perhaps a long-term successor to 32-year-old captain Marquinhos will be sought, but it is difficult to see how PSG can improve on a team that, even when it was not at its most fluid, totally dominated Arsenal.

"What they are able to do with the ball, individual actions, I haven’t seen it (before),” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said afterwards.

And while the usually lethal Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Désiré Doué were subdued by Arsenal's suffocating defense, PSG still found a way through when trailing to Kai Havertz's early goal.

Its incessant pressure paid off when Kvaratskhelia's dribbling forced Cristhian Mosquera into a rash challenge in the box to concede the penalty that Dembélé converted to take the game to extra time.

As mesmerizing as PSG’s attacking talent is, maybe a more consistent back-up to Dembélé than Goncalo Ramos would add depth. Bradley Barcola still has room to improve as demonstrated by his errant touch when given the chance to score a late winner at the end of regulation time.

Only the best will do

“We are going to follow the same line. We do not need a lot of players because it is very difficult to find the right players to play in our team,” Luis Enrique said. “We already have a great squad and we need some players to change some different positions. But we are the champions of Europe the last two years.”

It is an important point. Not only is PSG the best team in Europe, but it is also unlike any other team in Europe.

Luis Enrique's insistence on high-intensity, high-pressure soccer with electrifying forwards that dribble through defenses has created a rare blend — arguably even improving on Pep Guardiola's two-time champion Barcelona. It has expanded on the possession soccer of Spain's best teams with the addition of the risk-taking and attacking approach.

It is perhaps uniquely suited to such a young team and PSG's shift away from Galactico signings has seen it become an industry leader in identifying emerging talent, albeit still at a great cost.

Doué is a two-time Champions League winner at the age of 20. João Neves is 21. Nuno Mendes is 23.

"We are really hungry. We are a young team, and we know we are really ambitious. So next season we have to go again,” said Doué.

A question of longevity

How long the players can cope with the demands of Luis Enrique and an overloaded schedule is not known.

Last year, PSG was one game away from winning a quadruple of trophies, but ran out of steam in the final of the newly expanded Club World Cup.

While it has the benefit of playing in a relatively weaker domestic league in France compared to Europe's other top teams, the Champions League final was its 56th game of the season and came after a 65-game campaign the previous year.

Ballon d'Or winner Dembélé has not quite hit the same heights as last year. Ruiz has had an injury-disrupted campaign, which has given Zaire-Emery room to emerge. When Luis Enrique talks about the need to add to his squad, it may be in acknowledgement of the strain on his players.

PSG has the power to keep hold of its best talent

PSG is not the first team to amass such an array of young talent. Ajax, through its famed academy, has repeatedly done as much. The Monaco team of Mbappé did likewise.

Those teams were broken up when European giants came calling.

That should not be a concern for PSG, which has been owned by Qatar Sports Investments since 2011, and can withstand any approach from the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona or Manchester City. And that is what makes this team different and gives it the potential to emulate or even better Madrid's three Champions League titles in a row from 2016-18.

“It’s normal that big clubs want PSG players because they are at the top right now,” Vitinha said. “Today we can say we are the best in the world, the best in Europe and we take a lot of pleasure being here to play in this incredible group.”

The biggest signing of all

Maybe the biggest challenge will be to keep hold of Luis Enrique, who has joined an elite group of coaches including Bob Paisley, Zinedine Zidane and Pep Guardiola by winning three European Cups.

He has done what the likes of Carlo Ancelotti, Thomas Tuchel and Mauricio Pochettino could not in Paris, by leading it to the summit of European soccer. Keeping it there may be dependent on keeping him in the French capital.

“I want to thank all the managers, ex-managers who trained Paris Saint-Germain, but he’s very, very special as a coach, as a human being, as a person,” said Al-Khelaifi. “He’s fantastic. He’s the best coach in the world.”

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

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

“Four people will be discharged today and there was one that was discharged the day before yesterday,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during the opening of a new Ebola treatment center in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province.

“Of course, we’re still working on vaccines and treatments but that doesn’t mean that people cannot recover from Ebola,” he added.

The WHO said Friday a patient had recovered from the Bundibugyo virus, the current species of Ebola, which has no approved treatment or vaccine. It was the first documented recovery of a confirmed Bundibugyo patient during the current outbreak.

The health organization said authorities have reported 134 confirmed cases in Congo and neighboring Uganda, including 18 confirmed deaths as of May 29.

Recovered patients describe their experience

Baraka Bulambulu, one of those who recovered, told The Associated Press on Sunday that community members feared contracting an unknown illness from them, keeping their distance while delivering food and medicine.

He said the uncertainty was overwhelming, as he and other patients believed they might die without knowing what disease they had, though testing eventually confirmed Ebola.

“Being able to come out of this alive is an immense source of happiness,” Bulambulu said. ”Many people who were in the same situation died.”

Ezo Étienne, a nurse, said his symptoms began during ward rounds when he suddenly felt dizzy, then rapidly deteriorated into vomiting, intense itching, severe diarrhea and extreme weakness. He was tested seven times before Ebola was confirmed.

His treatment remained purely to treat the symptoms: medications to control vomiting, fluids to prevent dehydration and pain relievers. “That was all they could provide,” he said.

He urged the public and healthcare workers not to dismiss early symptoms such as vomiting and headaches, warning that misinformation leads many people to believe they have been poisoned rather than seeking hospital care.

Lack of supplies, distrust and insecurity complicate response

Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said Saturday the virus continues to spread faster than the response despite better-organized health facilities and new aid arrivals. It called for the immediate expansion of testing, faster deployment of aid workers and sustained access for medical supplies.

The dangers faced by health workers have been heightened by anger among residents over the stringent medical protocols for handling the victims’ bodies, which clash with local burial rites. Residents have launched at least three attacks against health centers.

Tedros stressed the importance of involving the community in the outbreak response during the opening of the new treatment center on Sunday.

“If you come to health facilities when you have symptoms, you can get the support and recover, so the key is to come forward as early as possible and to get the necessary support," the WHO chief said.

“We can stop this Ebola and anyone who has it can also recover. But the rule ... is this thing is everybody’s business and every citizen should be involved,” he added.

Attacks in the region by the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias have also hindered the response.

ADF fighters killed seven people Saturday in Beni, North Kivu province, an area also affected by the outbreak, the Congolese army and civil society groups said.

The illness also has been reported in both North Kivu and South Kivu, south of Ituri, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu.

“The final message we would like to share with the Ituri community is that there is hope,” Pierre Akilimali, incident manager at Congo's National Institute of Public Health, said during the inauguration on Sunday.

“With the symptomatic treatment that we are currently providing, we are seeing patients recover,” Akilimali added.

“We truly have hope. The virus here is not as complicated as those we have dealt with in the past, and with the support of all our partners, we believe we will be able to bring this outbreak under control as quickly as possible,” said Davin Ambitapio, another doctor at the treatment center.

——

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.

Jacob Daniel Baker was charged with counts of first- and second-degree murder Saturday, the Hawaii Police Department said in a news release.

Baker remained jailed without bond Sunday and police said his first court appearance was scheduled for Monday. It was not immediately known if Baker had an attorney who could speak for him.

Charges in the killings came two days after police apprehended Baker following a manhunt on Hawaii's Big Island, where the three victims were found in the rural Puna community known for its tropical landscape and free-spirited residents.

Robert Shine, 69, was found dead Monday partially submerged in a cement pond, according to police. The second victim, a 79-year-old man, was discovered Tuesday a few hundred feet away. Friends identified him as Chitta Morse.

Police found the third victim, 69-year-old John Carse, late Tuesday at a property 19 miles (31 kilometers) from where the other two bodies were located.

Police have not given a suspected motive for the killings. Hawaii Police Chief Reed Mahuna has said investigators found no connections among the victims other than that two of them lived near each other.

In addition to the murder charges, Baker also faces counts of burglary, auto theft and criminal damage to property.

The killings left residents on edge in Puna, a community set amid lush jungle and barren lava fields where people seeking to live off-grid commonly trade work for lodging.

Puna resident Stephen Shaffer said that Baker had worked for his ex-wife, climbing coconut trees on land where she grows fruit, in exchange for a place to live. After several months, Shaffer said, his ex-wife sought a restraining order against Baker, saying she felt threatened by him.

Donald Hyatt, a friend of Shaffer's ex-wife and of two of the men killed, said Baker left the cabin where he had been living months ago. Hyatt said that Baker recently returned claiming “squatter's rights” and threatened Shaffer's ex.

Just days before the killings, two women had requested temporary restraining orders against Baker, saying he had threatened and harassed them, according to court records. A judge denied both applications, saying there was not enough proof of harassment.

Court records showed Baker named in 20 other cases in the past two decades, many of them traffic infractions. In most of those cases, Baker had no attorney and represented himself.

The event has not been approved, permitted, or sanctioned by the City of Palatka. The property manager has confirmed that only individuals conducting business with mall tenants will be allowed on the premises. Anyone else remaining on the property may be subject to trespass enforcement.

Officers will be assigned to monitor the area and will take enforcement action as needed. Violations — including trespassing, reckless driving, racing, exhibition of speed, disorderly conduct, obstruction of traffic, and other criminal or traffic offenses — will be addressed accordingly.

“Participants and spectators are reminded that private property rights will be enforced and that unsafe or unlawful behavior will not be tolerated,” the department said. “Individuals choosing to attend should be aware that violations may result in citations, arrest, vehicle impoundment, or removal from the property.”

The Palatka Police Department said it remains committed to maintaining public safety and protecting the quality of life for residents, businesses, and visitors.

“While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study.

The drug is called daraxonrasib and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases — a target that had eluded treatment for decades.

The daily pills nearly doubled survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Sunday at the American Society for Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

Those taking daraxonrasib lived for a median of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. While that may seem like a small improvement, Wainberg said it marked the first drug to show a substantial advantage over chemotherapy.

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying" when first seeing the study results, Dr. Rachna Shroff of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, who wasn't involved with the research, said from the ASCO meeting. She was struck by how “patients stayed on this treatment because it was providing durable and meaningful benefit to them.”

The pills’ effects eventually wane but recipients used them for significantly longer than the comparison group stayed on chemotherapy, reporting less pain and a better quality of life as their tumors shrank. Many still were using the drug after the data was analyzed, which Wainberg said means the survival gap may widen as researchers continue tracking them.

Dr. Brian Wolpin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, presented the findings Sunday. He said the drug should become “a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, adding that researchers also will explore its use earlier in the disease, including to see if tumor shrinkage might let more patients qualify for surgery.

Side effects most likely to affect pill usage were a rash that can be severe and mouth sores, he said.

Maker Revolution Medicines funded the study and the Food and Drug Administration plans to expedite review of the drug. Meanwhile, the agency is allowing what’s called “expanded access” to the experimental drug for patients who meet certain criteria. The drug garnered public attention when former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse described on “60 Minutes” how he's had less pain while taking it. Oncologists are being flooded with requests as the special access program gets started.

Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms in large part because it’s hard to detect before it starts spreading to other organs. The American Cancer Society estimates about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year and more than 52,000 people will die from the disease. The five-year overall survival rate is 13%.

Unlike with other cancers that have benefitted from a variety of chemotherapy alternatives, pancreatic cancer has been harder to tackle.

Cancer specialists not involved in the new research expressed optimism that this may be a turning point in the quest for new options, with dozens of experimental drugs in development.

The new drug targets mutations in the RAS gene family that normally regulates cell growth. So-called KRAS mutations are especially critical in fueling pancreatic cancer. But a structure that made it hard for drugs to stick to the mutated proteins meant this cancer driver was long considered “undruggable.”

Revolution Medicines’ drug uses what’s essentially a molecular glue to bind with multiple KRAS subtypes. Wainberg said researchers next will probe whether the drug worked better in certain of those subtypes.

The drug will change pancreatic cancer treatment, said Dr. Andrew Coveler of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who wasn’t involved in the research.

“This thing works drastically differently,” he said.

Wainberg said other drugs in development target specific KRAS subtypes. Other approaches in earlier stages of testing include vaccines designed to prevent recurrence after pancreatic cancer surgery by teaching the immune system to recognize the mutated protein.

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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.

Adm. Frank Bradley, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told attendees of a recent annual special forces conference in Tampa, Florida, that troops “have to be very careful about how we come to (AI’s) employment and its inspiration into the delivery of lethality.”

Bradley said he can see a future where AI determines what targets to hit but that “we, as humans, have to have the confidence that ... it's going to deliver violence only where we intend it to be delivered.”

The remarks from Bradley, who oversees the units that handle the military’s most difficult and dangerous operations, about the need to ensure safeguards come as his boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is pushing to rapidly evolve the military through AI. It is a push that has led to clashes with some tech companies worried about safety measures.

Hegseth has insisted that the Pentagon be allowed to use the technology any legal way it sees fit. He told an audience of SpaceX employees in January he would reject any AI models “that won’t allow you to fight wars” and that his vision for the technology was systems that operate “without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications.”

AI's use in the military is part of the Republican administration's larger push to grow the capability it sees as a unique American advantage even as it faces pressure to ensure responsible safeguards.

President Donald Trump abruptly called off plans to sign a new AI executive order hours before an expected White House ceremony over concerns the measure could dull America’s edge on AI technology.

“We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that lead,” Trump told reporters.

Two differing AI worlds within the military

When asked about Bradley's remarks, a Pentagon official said efforts are focused on using AI to create “functional battlefield tools” that can help troops come up with and identify targets more quickly and, as a result, speed up strikes on those targets. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to offer more candid remarks.

Officials at U.S. Special Operations Command talked about AI not as something that will help eliminate targets but rather as a tool that can offer troops more time to focus on their mission.

Sgt. Maj. Andrew Krogman, the top enlisted official for U.S. Special Operations Command, said at the conference that he sees AI handling administrative tasks to free up operators or helping modernize how the command does business.

Melissa Johnson, the top acquisition official for the command, said AI should be “reducing the cognitive workload on mundane tasks.”

“We’re leveraging AI more and more, but it’s not to replace operator judgment, it’s to enhance it,” she added.

Helen Toner, interim executive director at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, said those differing descriptions about AI in the military are both true.

“There are a huge number of potential uses for AI in these kinds of bureaucratic settings, which the U.S. military is actively exploring,” Toner said.

Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, told a congressional committee in May that his troops used AI “bots” to convert top secret intelligence down to a secret classification within seconds to make it easier to share with drone operators on the ground during the Iran war.

However, there is no doubt that AI also is helping the military find and strike targets.

The center that Toner oversees published a case study two years ago on how the Army's 18th Airborne Corps used AI to target artillery strikes “just as efficiently as the best unit in recent American history" and with 2,000 fewer service members.

“Human operators are still the ones making crucial decisions, but AI ... is making it possible to operate with a new level of speed and scale,” she said.

AI safety has created a public dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic

The clash over the integration of AI into the military, who ultimately controls the technology and the ethics behind its use has played out in unusually public fashion during the Trump administration.

Hegseth and Anthropic are embroiled in a bitter contract dispute over the company's concerns about unchecked government use of its technology, including the dangers of fully autonomous armed drones and of AI-assisted mass surveillance that could track dissent.

After CEO Dario Amodei refused to back down over concerns about how the chatbot Claude is used in classified Pentagon networks, both Trump and Hegseth accused Anthropic of endangering national security.

The Pentagon formally labeled the San Francisco-based company a supply chain risk — ending its $200 million defense contract and prohibited other government contractors from working with the company.

Anthropic sued, claiming the Pentagon is illegally retaliating by stigmatizing the company with a designation meant to protect against sabotage of national security systems by foreign adversaries. The Pentagon has since emphasized its turn to Anthropic rivals — including Google, OpenAI and SpaceX — to secure AI technology that can “augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments.”

Toner, a former OpenAI board member ousted after a clash with CEO Sam Altman, said “the general public often seems to underestimate the caution with which the U.S. military approaches new technologies.”

“Commanders want their missions to succeed, which means both being able to create lethal effects at scale, and avoiding unintended effects like friendly fire, civilian casualties, or simply identifying targets incorrectly,” she said.

Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, one of the first international rescuers to arrive at the site, told The Associated Press that rains had filled the cave up to the second chamber, preventing divers from entering the cave until pumps can lower the water level.

Making the situation even more difficult, a drainage pump broke down, said fellow diver Yoshitaka Isaji of Japan.

The cave saga began with a quest to find minerals

The seven villagers reportedly entered the cave last week to look for valuable minerals such as gold before being trapped by a flash flood that blocked their way out. One other villager escaped and alerted the authorities.

Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand have been working together in the past week at the site in a rugged area in the central province of Xaisomboun, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane. They were joined by divers from countries including Finland, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia.

Several of the rescuers previously took part in the complicated 2018 cave rescue in northern Thailand that saved 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave.

The rescued men are being treated at a local hospital and are doing well, Malaysian diver Lee Kian Lie, who’s taking part in the operation, told the AP on Sunday.

“We interviewed them about how the deeper part of the cave looks like. We will continue to search based on the information we have, and perhaps we will be able to get to the other two,” he said.

According to rescuers, they have navigated more than 200 meters (650 feet) into the cave and discovered five chambers in the system. The five people rescued so far were found in the fifth chamber.

The 2 missing may be in a hard-to-reach chamber

Paasi told the AP that the survivors said there’s a narrow crack in the fifth chamber that could be a passage leading to a deeper part of the cave system.

“This was the only place that we haven’t checked in the mine, where the two lost miners could still be,” he said during a video interview.

“Now there’s a theory that, through that small crack, it still continues, and there’s a sixth chamber, which gives us hope now that, if we could penetrate that small restriction, we might be able to reach the sixth chamber and then see what is there.”

Isaji explained the difficulties of such an endeavor.

“The area between the fifth and sixth chamber is extremely narrow, and no one has seen its shape yet. Furthermore, it’s a narrow space, and of course, it’s muddy water, so visibility is absolutely zero. I’ve also heard that the shape is such that you have to twist your body to get through."

He suggested that even if rescuers could get through and find another trapped person, it would be extremely difficult to bring them out. In such a case, he said, a plan would probably involve getting food and water to those trapped and waiting for the passage to be drained.

Isaji also mentioned the possibility that the two missing villagers are not actually in the cave at all, since they were said to have moved separately from the five rescued people.

The five who were rescued were first found Wednesday. They were identified by their first names as Khamla, Mued, Ee, Ing and Laen.

The trapped men took the initiative when the water level dropped

The first man was safely extracted on Friday, guided through a narrow flooded passage by an expert diver. The remaining four left the cave on Saturday, after the water receded enough for them to walk out on their own, rescuers said.

The divers had been preparing to help with another extraction when the trapped men apparently saw that the water level dropped and decided to seize the opportunity, Paasi said, adding that he would have done the same had he been in their situation.

He and other people waiting at the cave entrance were taken by surprise, and when they emerged the atmosphere was like a party, he said.

Videos posted online Saturday showed emotional moments as the men emerged one by one from the cave. Some collapsed on the ground at the cave’s entrance, and were hugged by a group of workers who cried in joy. Later moments showed them lying on a stretcher, wrapped in foil blankets and fitted with an oxygen mask before being transported out of the site.

The Weather Prediction Center (WPC) has issued a slight risk of excessive rainfall for southeast Georgia and far northeast Florida, mostly areas north of I-10. A marginal risk covers the rest of northeast Florida through tonight.

Along the east coast and the St. Johns River Basin, rain chances get a boost thanks to sea breeze and river breeze interactions, meaning those areas could see higher rain chances, as well.

Storms are expected to continue through the evening hours, especially over central parts of the region just south of where a frontal boundary will set up. As the sun sets and the temperatures drop, some lingering light, steady rain is possible before eventually fading overnight.

Temperatures stay mild

Clouds and rainfall will keep temperatures a bit below normal across southeast Georgia today. Northeast Florida can expect highs in the mid-to-upper 80s.

Tonight’s lows will be in the 60s across inland southeast Georgia and lower 70s elsewhere.

Sturgeon told the BBC that she felt betrayed by the actions of her husband, Peter Murrell, who last week pleaded guilty to stealing more than 400,000 pounds ($540,000) from the SNP to fund a lavish lifestyle when he was the party’s chief executive. She consistently denied having any knowledge of his crimes.

“I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed,’’ she told the BBC. “I’m not going to apologize for somebody else’s crimes.”

Sturgeon’s comments came as she pushed back against widespread disbelief about her previous statements that she knew nothing about Murrell’s crimes. The case has heightened concerns about the accountability of U.K. politicians after a series of scandals that has eroded trust in government at all levels.

Many critics have also questioned why Murrell was allowed to remain chief executive of the SNP after Sturgeon became party leader in 2014. Sturgeon acknowledged that this was a mistake.

“Of course, with hindsight, I wish that I could go back and take a different decision,” she said.

Murrell’s plea capped a five-year police investigation of the SNP, which has led Scotland’s semiautonomous government for almost two decades while campaigning for the country to break away from the United Kingdom.

Turmoil within the SNP exploded in 2023, as questions swirled about the party’s finances and dwindling membership numbers.

Sturgeon led the Scottish government for almost a decade but abruptly resigned as first minister in February 2023. Observers were bewildered by her statement at the time that she knew in her “head and in my heart” that it was the right time to go.

The following month, Murrell quit his job after two decades as SNP chief executive and took responsibility for misleading the news media about the collapse in party membership. In April, police arrested him at the couple’s home in Glasgow.

Sturgeon was arrested in June of 2023 and l ater cleared by police.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been extremely harsh about NATO, and the comments at the Shangri-La conference came the day after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth again chided Western European allies at the forum for not devoting enough resources to defense.

Japan pushes for unity, saying it strengthens deterrence

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi praised Hegseth for his commitment to the Indo-Pacific, but at the same time stressed the continued need for strong coalitions globally.

“Division weakens deterrence, unity strengthens deterrence,” he told the conference, hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“If gaps emerge among the United States, Europe, and allies and like-minded countries, forces which take it as an opportunity will surely come in,” he said. “We must prevent such a situation. We must keep our cooperation going on. Now is the time to make our cooperation even stronger.”

Philippines, Japan remain critical of China despite softer US approach

As China has been rapidly expanding and modernizing its military, Japan has been reshaping its own defense policy. Last month, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet scrapped a ban on lethal weapons exports, a major change in its postwar pacifist policy.

China criticized the change, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun saying China would “resolutely resist Japan’s reckless moves toward a new type of militarism.”

Koizumi scoffed at that accusation as ironic, coming from China.

“Think about it, there is a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers,” he said, speaking in English. "Japan has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labeled new militarism. Isn’t it strange?”

He said that transparency comes from “discussion and dialogue” and lamented that China had not sent its defense minister to the conference.

At this year's conference, Hegseth toned down his comments from the previous year on China, when he had warned of rapidly developing threats from Beijing and cautioned it was “actively training” for a possible invasion of Taiwan.

This year's conference came only about two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump visited Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, however, where Hegseth said the two had agreed to “build a constructive relationship of strategic stability.” His comments were met with praise from China’s delegation in Singapore.

On Sunday, Philippines Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr., whose country has clashed repeatedly over competing maritime claims with China, told a small group of reporters that he wasn't concerned with the change in tone from his most important ally.

“The situation with the United States is different than that from the Philippines,” he said. “They can talk to China that way in a position of parity, if not superiority, while the Philippines cannot.”

He added, however, that he had no intention of following suit.

“If China doesn't change its behavior, my tone won't change,” he said.

Australia defends need for rules-based approach to defense

In his speech Saturday, Hegseth applauded many Asian partners for their efforts to step-up defense spending, while reiterating criticism of European allies, who he suggested got “distracted by empty globalist rhetoric about the rules-based international order, while European capitals threw open their borders and hollowed out their militaries.”

“You can have all the rules you want and rules are great,” Hegseth said. “But if you can’t back them up with hard power, the rules are not worth the paper they are written on.”

Many NATO countries failed for years to meet alliance defense spending commitments, but since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many dramatically increased military expenditures and plan more in the future.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference Sunday, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, said he agreed with Hegseth's point that “the rules based order needs to be underpinned by power,” but at the same time said strong rules were “more important today than they have ever been.”

“We are all committed to a rules based system, because that is actually what gives middle powers like Australia or smaller countries agency,” he said.

He also said alliances remain critical to the region's defense.

“This is a collective challenge and it demands a collective response, which is actually what the rules based order is all about,” he said.

Dutch defense minister pushes for shared response to global conflicts

Netherlands Defense Minister Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius said the current conflicts have global implications and demand a shared response.

“A war in Europe involves drones from Iran, soldiers and ammunition from North Korea and various types of support from China,” she said. “The lesson is clear: regional tensions are no longer regional. Our security is interconnected.”

She said that if middle powers do not work together, they risk becoming spectators or the “subject of conversations,” but with coalitions they can help preserve stability.

“The fact that international rules are being violated does not mean we should abandon them,” she said.

"On the contrary, it means we must defend them more constantly and more courageously. International law may be imperfect, but history teaches us that the alternative is far worse.”

His latest collection is called “Calados del Alma” or “Cutouts of the Soul.” It draws inspiration from ancient Mexican beliefs and papel picado, the delicate cut-paper ornaments commonly used during local celebrations and holidays.

“We try to create concepts that resonate with us and convey traditions that make Mexicans feel proud,” said Rosas, who has run a workshop with his brother Andrés near Mexico City since 2022. “The country’s best is reflected in papel picado, colors and town celebrations.”

The first jersey sketched by the brothers portrayed Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent deity revered by several pre-Hispanic civilizations. That garment remains Andrés’ favorite to date.

“Quetzalcoatl represents a balance that sees the world as a system, not as something extractive that human beings can simply benefit from,” said Andrés, who oversees the brand’s marketing. “I connect with that pre-Hispanic worldview, which is why most of our products are deeply rooted in that vision.”

Ancient beliefs, modern jerseys

Hugo’s World Cup collection builds on an earlier set of designs he called “Ofrenda Viva,” or “Live Offering.”

Its aesthetics and concept are rooted in Mexico’s Day the Dead — that the living remember and honor their dearly departed with celebration instead of sorrow.

“It’s a garment resembling papel picado so that a person can offer their actions, thoughts and passions as an homage to those who are already gone,” Rosas said.

The jerseys are made of polyester so the fabric can be cut like papel picado without becoming vulnerable to tears or rips. Rosas and his team once experimented with natural fibers, but the material could not withstand the weight and structure required after production.

Designing each jersey can take up to three weeks, while sewing and cutting requires between eight and 10 hours of work.

Rosas’ first step is deciding the symbols he wishes to depict. He then determines the size and shape of each figure so the stitching aligns with his vision. Once a design is ready, the team’s seamstresses patiently cut and sew each piece of clothing.

A modern armor

The Rosas brothers operate on a modest scale and are proud of that approach. They value the care and time devoted to each jersey, keeping the process as artisanal as possible.

Since the World Cup garments went on sale in April, their Mexclart brand has crafted about 30 jerseys. Hugo Rosas expects demand to increase as the opening ceremony approaches.

Among his other collections is one devoted to pre-Hispanic gods. His favorite portrays Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec ruler of the underworld, who is often depicted in skeletal form.

“Putting on a garment like this is like wearing a modern armor through which we can carry that pride and passion for our roots and show it to the world,” Rosas said.

He sometimes turns to books about Mexico’s history while developing his designs. However, the source of inspiration he enjoys the most is traveling to Indigenous communities where ancient ceremonies and customs remain alive.

“If it were up to me, I’d use gold or another material that could accurately represent our gods the way our ancestors did,” he said. “All the garments we create are meant to give Mexicans the chance to bring those deities into the present.”

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

The Oklahoma City guard — the back-to-back NBA Most Valuable Player — was great in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. The San Antonio Spurs were greater. And that meant there won't be a repeat champion in the NBA this year.

Gilgeous-Alexander scored 35 points and was his normal brilliant self with an array of mid-range scores, paint attacks, even stepbacks over San Antonio's 7-foot-4 wall named Victor Wembanyama. It wasn't enough and Gilgeous-Alexander made no excuses.

“So many things go into it," Gilgeous-Alexander said when asked about the difficulty of winning a championship — and trying to go back-to-back. "Sometimes it’s like things you can’t control, sometimes it’s things you can control. Yeah, it’s a hard task to do one time, so to do it twice will only make it even more challenging.”

The Thunder played all season to have home-court advantage in Game 7 and got it by two games, winning 64 to San Antonio's 62. But the Spurs beat the Thunder four out of five in the regular season, then got four more out of seven in the West finals. And Oklahoma City, to be fair, was not at its best — with Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell out with injuries.

“Not to make any excuses, but they’re a really good team over there," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "And losing Ajay and Dub the way we did in the midst of a series, you would think it would be a lot harder for us.”

Oklahoma City looks like a team that is built to contend for years. So, too, do the Spurs. A rivalry seems very much born.

“Yeah, they’re young, they're talented, well-coached," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Play the right way, play together, seems like they like each other. They have the makeup, for sure. You don’t beat us without the makeup and they beat us. They have the makeup to go get one.”

The Thunder will have some roster decisions to make and have multiple first-round picks to either use to add talent — or perhaps combine in a trade if they want to move up for a chance to draft a specific person.

Those decisions aren't for Gilgeous-Alexander to make. Canada is hoping he'll play a little bit of World Cup qualifying this summer — basketball's next World Cup is in 2027 — and he'll be looking to add to his game, as elite players always do.

“We just have to take it one day at a time from here on out,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Try to get better this summer, be a better team than we were this season — and try to get back over the hump.”

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

On a corner kick taken by Alexis Vega, Vázquez connected with a header that went in past the right post of goalkeeper Mathew Ryan in the 27th minute.

Mexico extended its unbeaten streak to seven games this year and has not lost since Nov. 18, when it fell 2-1 to Paraguay in a friendly match in San Antonio.

Mexico will open World Cup play June 11 against South Africa at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City. On the 18th, it will face South Korea in Guadalajara and close out the first round against Czechia on the 24th.

The Mexicans will have one last warm-up match next Thursday night in Toluca against Serbia.

Australia will open the tournament against Turkey on June 13 in Vancouver, British Columbia, then play the United States in Seattle on the 19th, and conclude the group stage against Paraguay on the 25th, in Santa Clara, California.

The Australians last friendly match will be June 6, when they take on Switzerland at the Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego.

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Wembanyama left the series with an MVP trophy of his own — and a whole lot more.

The French standout — in just his third season — has led the Spurs to the NBA Finals. The newly crowned Western Conference finals MVP had 22 points in a Game 7 win at Oklahoma City, one that gave San Antonio a chance to play for the NBA title for the first time since 2014. It'll be San Antonio vs. New York in the NBA Finals, starting Wednesday night.

“Winning the Larry O’Brien, it’s a childhood dream,” Wembanyama said, referring to the name of the trophy given to the NBA champions. “And having a real shot at it, having a chance, a tangible chance at winning it and realizing a dream … it’s a lifetime chance. You never know when it’s going to happen again.

“It’s hard to put into words. It’s almost like the meaning of my life now.”

He averaged 27.3 points and 10.9 rebounds in the series, scoring at least 20 points in every game. He set the tone with a 41-point effort in a Game 1 win, then did a little of everything — dunks, blocks, playing point guard even — to keep control on the way to the Game 7 win. He was the unanimous pick as series MVP, which should be no surprise. He carried that trophy into the locker room after the game, screaming in joy at supporters and teammates.

“You work all these hours, it’s for these type of emotions,” Wembanyama said. “I want to win so bad. It’s like my life depends on it.”

On the night he was drafted, Wembanyama talked about all the things he knew about San Antonio. Breakfast tacos, which he couldn’t wait to try. Spanish, which he said he wanted to learn. The culture, which he said he wanted to embrace.

And, of course, the winning.

“The ring,” Wembanyama said that night.

The ring. The championship ring. Not even three years since leaving France and coming to the U.S., Wembanyama is about to get his first chance to play for it.

“The best player in the world,” Spurs forward Keldon Johnson yelled at no one in particular, but making clear everyone knew who he was talking about.

He didn’t get that NBA MVP trophy. But it wouldn’t be difficult to say Wembanyama indeed is the best player in the world. Or at the very least, will be soon. He might not even be near his prime yet. The Spurs are young and built for the long haul.

Translated: This may just be the start.

“When you step into a game in regular season, you don’t even look at the big picture of the season. You look at what you need to do tonight, what you have to do in the first half, on the first possession,” Wembanyama said. “And when you lay a brick like this every time you get a chance and you lay it perfectly fine, at the end of the day you get a big castle — a beautiful house and we just did. This, it’s just like the entry hall of our castle right here.”

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

While Belarus has not contributed troops to battle, Lukashenko has backed President Vladimir Putin’s war effort by hosting Russia’s nuclear weapons and military infrastructure, as well as producing components for Moscow’s military industries. Earlier this month, the countries held joint drills of nuclear forces involving Russian weapons deployed in Belarus.

Lukashenko, in power for over three decades, has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist, relentlessly cracking down on dissent and relying on its close ties with Russia, as well as subsidies from the Kremlin's coffers, to counteract repeated Western sanctions.

Military cooperation between Moscow and Minsk is increasingly worrying Ukraine’s allies.

Belarus’ role in Ukraine

When Putin began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Russian troops that gathered in Belarus under the guise of drills dashed toward Kyiv, only about 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of the border.

Putin’s hope of capturing Kyiv quickly was shattered by staunch Ukrainian resistance, and convoys of Russian tanks stretching along narrow roads became easy prey.

A little over a month after the invasion, Russian troops that suffered heavy losses and struggled to maintain their supply lines pulled back from Kyiv and other areas they captured in northeastern Ukraine in what the Kremlin cast as a “goodwill gesture.”

When Moscow tried to negotiate a quick end to the conflict weeks after its start, Belarus hosted the first talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations. The talks moved to Istanbul but failed to produce a deal.

As the conflict became a war of attrition, Belarus has played a key role in supporting Moscow’s war effort. Belarusian plants have produced important components, including microchips and other electronics, optical guidance systems, artillery munitions and heavy trucks that carry Russian ballistic missiles.

Ukraine’s presidential envoy on sanctions policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, said fragments of an Oreshnik ballistic missile that Russia fired at Ukraine on May 24 contained microchips from Belarus. He urged Western allies to tighten sanctions enforcement against Belarus.

Belarus also provided training grounds for Moscow's troops, hosted joint drills and offered its hospitals to treat wounded Russian soldiers.

BELPOL, a group of former military and law enforcement officers who oppose Lukashenko, said the Belarusian industries have effectively been integrated into the Kremlin’s war machine. It says that over 500 Belarusian industrial plants are involved in manufacturing weapons and ammunition, repairing military equipment and providing logistics.

“Lukashenko’s regime is quite seriously involved in the war,” BELPOL head Uladzimir Zhyhar told The Associated Press. “Lukashenko is helping Russia in every way he can.”

In the Gomel region that borders Ukraine, construction has begun of a big firing range and barracks for large numbers of troops, Zhyhar said. Ukraine has been forced to maintain many forces at the border with Belarus, he added, keeping them from fighting Russian troops along the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line.

Under Russia's nuclear umbrella

Belarus, which also borders NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, has hosted some of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons. In December, Russia announced that its latest intermediate range nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system entered service in Belarus.

Russia has used a conventionally armed version of the Oreshnik to strike facilities in Ukraine three times — in November 2024 and then again in January and earlier this month.

In 2024, the Kremlin revised its nuclear doctrine, placing Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella. Putin has said that Moscow will retain control of its nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus but would allow its ally to select the targets in case of conflict.

Earlier this month, Russia and Belarus held massive drills that included the delivery of nuclear warheads to missile units and launch preparations. As part of the exercise, a Belarusian missile crew test-fired a nuclear-capable Iskander missile from a range in southern Russia.

“Belarus lacks military sovereignty, and as soon as Moscow sees it as necessary for its strategy, Moscow will naturally use Belarus as a launchpad for a new invasion of Ukraine or some kind of armed conflict with NATO countries,” Zhyhar said, noting that Belarus offers a “very convenient springboard” for such an invasion.

Zelenskyy warns of an attack from Belarus

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his intelligence services had learned Moscow recently stepped-up efforts to “draw Belarus much deeper into the war and launch additional aggressive operations precisely from Belarusian territory." He said the target could be along the Chernihiv-Kyiv area or against a NATO country bordering Belarus.

Zelenskyy said he ordered the military and security agencies to prepare a response and strengthen northern defenses.

Lukashenko has denied any aggressive plans, declaring Belarus will not enter the conflict unless attacked.

Sergei Shoigu, Russia's former defense minister and now secretary of its Security Council, also rejected Zelenskyy’s claim, describing it as a scare tactic to attract more Western aid for Kyiv.

But in a sign of growing Western concern, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to Lukashenko on May 24 to underscore the risks for Belarus of being dragged into the war, their first call since the invasion began. Lukashenko said that next week he will host a French envoy for talks on European security and prospects of easing EU sanctions.

Andrii Demchenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Border Guard Service, said last week that while intelligence data indicate that Russia has increasingly pressured Belarus to directly enter the war, Ukrainian forces haven’t yet spotted any buildup of troops and weapons near the border.

Belarus’ opposition leader-in-exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, visited Kyiv last week and emphasized that “Belarus must never again become a springboard for aggression.”

“Russian tanks must never again march through Belarus to Chernihiv, Zhitomir, Rivne, or Kyiv,” Tsikhanouskaya told AP. “Ukraine is fighting for itself and for all the peoples who have lived in the shadow of empire for too long. It is fighting for the right to live in peace. And the fate of my country, Belarus, also depends on Ukraine’s success.”

According to official data, Belarus' armed forces have 48,600 troops, a tiny force compared with Russia's 1.5 million. In case of war, Belarus is prepared to mobilize 290,000, but they would need weapons and training to become combat-ready.

“The Belarusian army is unfit for offensive action,” said Alexander Alesin, a Minsk-based military analyst. “An attack from Belarus would require ... mobilizing up to 500,000 troops."

That would mean taking all the men from the national economy and then finding arms for them, he said, adding: "I consider this option unlikely.”

Ukraine has built heavy fortifications on the border with Belarus and planted mines that would easily stymie any attempted incursion, he said.

“Even with a small force, the Ukrainians can easily defend themselves and inflict heavy losses on the Belarusian army,” Alesin said. “From a military perspective, it’s impossible to launch an attack from Belarusian territory without suffering heavy losses.”

Lukashenko is comfortable with Belarus’ position as a key supplier of military equipment and would strongly oppose direct involvement in the war, he added.

“The last thing Lukashenko wants is to fight, and he’ll cling to his current position at any cost, so he can avoid fighting while profiting handsomely from the war,” Alesin said.

Voters are looking for a replacement for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, and their decision will help determine the future of a state government that is a testing ground for progressive ideas and a punching bag for Republican President Donald Trump. California is not only the nation's most populous state, it has one of the world's largest economies and is home to Hollywood tastemakers, Silicon Valley disrupters and Central Valley farmers.

The race was upended in April when Rep. Eric Swalwell, who had been consolidating support among establishment Democrats, was accused of sexual assault and dropped out.

California eliminated partisan primaries in 2010 in favor of a “ jungle primary.” All voters will get the full list of candidates, and the top two finishers will advance to the general election regardless of party.

Two polls conducted in mid-to-late May suggested that Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton each have the support of about 2 in 10 likely voters. In one of the polls, Democrat Tom Steyer landed closer to Becerra and Hilton, with Republican Chad Bianco and Democrat Katie Porter trailing further behind, but similar shares of voters were supporting Steyer, Bianco and Porter in the other poll. None of the other candidates were polling in double digits in either poll.

Among the 61 names on the ballot, money and attention have accumulated around a handful of candidates with track records in politics. Here's a look at those top contenders.

Xavier Becerra, Democrat

Becerra has a 35-year history in California and national politics. He was a member of Democratic leadership in the U.S. House when then-Gov. Jerry Brown picked him to be California attorney general after Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate. He used that perch to aggressively fight Trump and his agenda in court during the president’s first term.

He later served in President Joe Biden’s cabinet as secretary of Health and Human Services.

That experience is at the core of his pitch to voters as a steady hand to guide California and stand up to Trump. It has also invited scrutiny.

Some Biden administration alumni have disparaged his record as health secretary, and he has faced persistent questions since a former top aide was convicted of stealing his campaign funds.

After Swalwell dropped out, Becerra consolidated support from many of California’s Democratic power players, including major labor unions, Planned Parenthood and the LGBTQ rights group Equality California.

Steve Hilton, Republican

Trump’s endorsement gives Hilton a leg up with Republicans and perhaps the clearest path of any of the candidates into the general election. But it could be a liability in November in a state that voted overwhelmingly against the Republican president. Hilton largely avoided mentioning Trump unless prompted during a series of debates.

Hilton is a conservative commentator and former Fox New host. Originally from England, he advised former British Prime Minister David Cameron.

In a nod to the dominance of Democrats in California, he is urging voters to elect a Republican as a check on the majority in Sacramento. In contrast with Bianco’s focus on cultural issues, Hilton’s message is tied more closely with the traditional Republican focus on lower taxes and smaller government. He has pledged to make people's first $100,000 of income tax free and to dramatically lower gas prices.

Tom Steyer, Democrat

The billionaire founder of a San Francisco-based hedge fund, Steyer — or his face, at least — is everywhere ahead of the primary. His record-breaking spending, mostly from his personal fortune, has made his advertising inescapable. That has helped him become one of the race’s frontrunners.

Steyer, who has never held elected office, first made a name for himself as a donor to Democratic politicians and groups committed to fighting climate change. He bankrolled a campaign calling for Trump's impeachment during his first term, and he later financed his own campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out after a disappointing showing in early-state primaries and caucuses.

Steyer is running as a progressive populist, railing against the political power wielded by special interests and corporations. His message has endeared him to unlikely allies for a billionaire financier, including the Bernie Sanders-aligned group Our Revolution.

Matt Mahan, Democrat

As mayor of San Jose, Mahan is a moderate Democrat rooted in the pro-innovation ethos of Silicon Valley. His business-friendly pitch and his own background as an entrepreneur have made him a favorite with some in the tech world.

Mahan says California should get “back to basics,” emphasizing technocratic problem solving over factional skirmishes. He entered the race late as an outsider to Sacramento leadership, building a statewide profile mainly by criticizing Newsom and the Legislature’s response to homelessness and crime.

His backing from tech executives — and their millions of dollars — has been controversial in some corners of the party, particularly among labor unions and populists worried Silicon Valley elites wield too much power.

Still, he has struggled to consolidate support on the pro-business left, and even some of his benefactors are hedging their bets. Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale also gave to Republican Steve Hilton.

Katie Porter, Democrat

Once a college professor, Porter made a name for herself with a whiteboard and simple policy messages during three terms representing Orange County in Congress. Her verbal sparring with business executives testifying on Capitol Hill went viral.

Porter is leaning on her populist, anti-corporate background, arguing that she can fight on behalf of normal Californians against powerful interests. Before running for office, she was California’s independent monitor of banks in the national mortgage settlement following the 2008 financial crisis.

Her grasp of policy has helped her amass support from newspaper editorial boards. But she has battled an image as a mercurial leader. Leaked videos showed her berating an aide who could be seen behind her in a Zoom video and threatening to walk out of a television interview. She has apologized and pledged to treat people more respectfully.

Porter ran for Senate in 2024, but she failed to make it through the primary.

Antonio Villaraigosa, Democrat

The former mayor of Los Angeles and speaker of the state Assembly has struggled to gain traction after more than a decade out of public office.

A one-time union organizer, Villaraigosa was the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century, a role he filled from 2005 to 2013.

Villaraigosa is pitching his experience in LA and the state Capitol, running as a pragmatic, centrist problem solver in an implicit contrast with his Democratic rivals emphasizing their commitment to a progressive ideology.

Villaraigosa’s roots are in the Southern California political ecosystem, which would be a contrast after four terms of Brown and Newsom, both governors from the San Francisco Bay Area.

He ran for governor in 2018 but finished third in the primary.

Chad Bianco, Republican

Bianco is the sheriff of Riverside County and is emphasizing his three-decade career in law enforcement, pledging to tackle crime and homelessness.

A staunch Trump supporter, Bianco stoked national notoriety when his office seized 1,000 boxes of election material including more than a half million ballots from a 2025 special election on redistricting. He says it is part of a legitimate criminal investigation, but critics see it as a nod to discredited conspiracy theories that have motivated Trump’s base. The state Supreme Court in April ordered him to halt the probe.

The seizure put him at odds with California's Democratic attorney general and raised his profile among Republicans.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ’s Prosperity Party currently holds more than 500 seats in the House of Representatives and is expected to win a majority in this election, securing him another five-year term.

Some 50 million people, out of a population of 130 million Ethiopians, are expected to vote for members of the House of Representatives, but insecurity in the most populous regions, including Amhara and Oromia, is expected to affect turnout.

Ethiopia’s electoral system allows voters to select their representatives, who then vote for a prime minister. Ethiopians will also vote for members of their local regional government councils.

This year’s election themes include national reconciliation due to the fighting seen in regions such as Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara, and there is also a development theme as the government pledges to undertake major projects.

Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who helped facilitate the Tigray peace talks, is leading 73 observers from the African Union.

Arriving in Ethiopia on Saturday, Kenyatta emphasized the importance of Ethiopia’s elections for the continent, as the country hosts the African Union headquarters. “Ours is to call for peaceful situation as Ethiopians are known for,” he said.

Abiy’s administration has been accused of human rights violations against critics and journalists despite the promise of democracy and peace he made in 2020.

During his tenure, Ethiopia has been through the Tigray war in the north of the country, where hundreds of thousands of people died as the federal security forces clashed with the regional forces. A peace deal was signed in November 2022.

Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for solving a long-standing conflict between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea, though the two countries are currently at loggerheads, with Addis Ababa accusing Asmara of supporting rebel groups to destabilize it.

There are fears that the situation could escalate and drag the volatile Tigray region into a proxy war, even as relief agencies warn of a dire humanitarian situation on the ground.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front — the dominant political party in Ethiopia’s far northern region of Tigray — has been outlawed as the party maintains control of the regional government and threatens to cancel the 2022 peace agreement, which the federal government sees as an attempt to trigger another conflict.

For the second time, the region will not take part in the national election, denying it a federal voice in Ethiopia’s 547-seat parliament and further pushing it to the margins amid escalating famine and conflict, combined with the alleged denial of resources by the central government.

Tigray has been excluded from federal representation for the last six years.

This election is likely to be fair due to the “technological advancements in the electoral process” and increased public awareness, according to Bayu Samuel, an Addis Ababa-based political analyst.

Some opposition parties have, however, decried the ruling party’s unfair advantage.

The electoral process is “far from genuine and democratic,” says Mistresilasie Tamerat, the youngest candidate and head of the opposition Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party.

“The system favors the ruling party, and we can’t even freely operate (or) meet with our constituents,” she said.

Eyoel Solomon, a spokesperson for the main opposition Ezema party, said it is dedicated to ending ethnic-based politics.

“We have seen citizens being attacked because of their identity. We have seen them being persecuted simply for living in areas deemed by others not to be ‘theirs’,” he said.

With much of the campaigning taking place in Addis Ababa, there has been a heavy military presence in the metropolis in recent days.

The vote has dominated local conversation across the city, even though campaigning has been unusually quiet, with fewer rallies and little door-to-door outreach.

The electoral body has declared Monday a national holiday, with government offices closed to encourage citizens to vote.

Former U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra has called for “hot competence summer" in his bid for governor, promoting his decades of public service as evidence he has what it takes to lead the nation’s most populous state.

Republican Steve Hilton pledged an end to a “bloated, nanny-state bureaucracy” during remarks outside the state Capitol on Wednesday.

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer told reporters this week in Berkeley, California, that he has made it his life's work to advance progressive causes, a mission he'll bring to Sacramento.

They are seeking to stand out in a field of roughly 60 names on a single gubernatorial ballot, regardless of party, under California’s top-two primary system. The two candidates who receive the most votes Tuesday will face off in the general election to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who can’t seek a third term.

The crowded race includes Democrats Becerra, Steyer, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose. Hilton, a former Fox News host backed by President Donald Trump, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco are the most prominent Republicans in the race.

As of Friday afternoon, 13% of voters had cast their ballots. That included 13% of Democrats and 18% of Republicans, according to a tracker by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell. The breakdown is unusual because Democrats in recent years have tended to vote early while many Republicans wait until Election Day.

Some Democrats have been waiting to cast their ballots to see if a candidate breaks away from the pack in the final days, or because they are unimpressed with the crowded field.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass is vying for reelection against critics who question her leadership of the nation’s second-largest city, and had several stops planned Saturday to try and pull ahead of her competitors.

Those include Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican who gained a name on the reality TV show “The Hills," and Nithya Raman, a progressive city councilmember. The race is officially nonpartisan.

Candidates for governor make their final pitch

The contenders have been traveling across the state that includes roughly 23 million registered voters as they seek an edge over rivals. Becerra, Hilton, Steyer and Bianco will all be in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. Fresno and Los Angeles have also been popular campaign stops.

Becerra has been highlighting the more than 35 years he's spent in state and federal office.

“This is not a place for on-the-job training,” he said on a podcast hosted by political commentator Ana Navarro. “You better know what you’re doing.”

He’ll hit a text-banking event with Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta in San Francisco and rally with the Service Employees International Union in San Jose.

Hilton has been selling himself as someone who would bring a fresh set of eyes to state government, reduce regulations, and bring down housing and energy costs. In a social media video posted Saturday night, Hilton warned Republican votes to unite behind him or risk a “doomsday scenario” of losing a spot in the general election. He urged Bianco to suspend his campaign in the race's final days.

“If we don't get together as a party, if we don't unite, then we could have Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra in the general election and that is a disaster for California — it means no change,” Hilton said.

He's pushed a message he has said is not ideological but commonsense, with a focus on cutting prices. Hilton held a town hall Silicon Valley on Saturday night. Hilton has been cautious not to emphasize Trump’s endorsement. If he advances to the November election, he will need to appeal to voters outside his party to win in the Democrat-dominated state that hasn’t had a Republican governor since 2011.

Steyer is a billionaire who, on X Saturday, said he's the “only candidate who would support the billionaire tax in November." The candidate has framed the race as a contest between three candidates: himself, Hilton and Becerra. Steyer has described Hilton as “a hard-right Republican who’s endorsed by Donald Trump.”

Steyer on Saturday focused several social media posts on Becerra, repeating an argument he recently told a crowd of supporters at a sports bar in Berkeley. Becerra, “to my surprise, is a corporate Democrat," he said, referencing Becerra's acceptance of campaign contributions from Chevron.

“And the third person’s me,” he said. “And I am running because Californians can’t afford to live here anymore.”

Steyer’s headed to a campaign rally Saturday in San Francisco to put a finer point on his message to voters.

Mahan, meanwhile, mingled with voters in Los Angeles, Porter motivated campaign volunteers in Orange County, and Bianco will laid out his vision at a church in San Jose. He didn't immediately respond to Hilton's social media plea for him to exit the race.

“Knock loud, be proud," Porter urged her supporters as they set out to encourage voters to turn in their ballots.

Los Angeles' mayoral candidates jostle to get the final words in

Bass is pursuing her second term after a tumultuous first, which included devastating wildfires and a rebuilding process that critics say is too slow.

The mayor has focused her reelection on the progress that has been made, such a decrease in street homelessness, which she leaned into on a livestream on Instagram Saturday before going after her opponent, Pratt.

“You have a failed reality TV star who wants to be famous,” she told two actresses on the livestream, before seemingly referencing President Donald Trump. “We know what it means if you put somebody who is a reality TV star in a seat of power.”

Pratt, who loss of his home in the wildfires became central to his campaign against Bass, is running a buzzy, social media driven campaign with populist messaging with promises to rid the city of disorder and dysfunction. On Saturday on X, Pratt threw out a few attacks at Raman, the city councilwoman, who both Pratt and Bass have, in different ways, tried to paint as too progressive.

Raman's campaign is partly focused on affordability and infrastructure. Both Raman and Pratt have attacked Bass for her response to the wildfires, though their recent posts have been directed at each other.

In a video posted to Instagram Saturday, Raman cited a recent poll. “After millions of dollars of spending against us, we are still here and we are still competitive," she said, before asking people to vote ahead of Tuesday.

A November runoff appears likely because there are more than a dozen names on the ballot.

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Associated Press journalist Terry Chea in Berkeley, California, contributed to this report.

The Thorns hosted the Utah Royals in a match between the top two teams in the National Women's Soccer League on Saturday afternoon, before the expansion Fire hosted Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever in the evening.

The teams hyped Saturday’s matches, selling a ticket package to both events for $80. T-shirts were sold that exclaimed “Portland Loves Women’s Sports.”

After the Thorns played to a 2-2 draw with the Royals, midfielder Olivia Moultrie was headed straight to the Fire game, where she was hoping to exchange jerseys with Clark. But she ultimately wanted a Fire win, too.

“Obviously, this city and women’s sports, like, that’s a match made in heaven,” Moultrie said. “Honestly, I think it’s just really cool to be able to support our own team now, with the fire, awesome.”

The Fire gave Moultrie her wish with a 100-84 victory.

The Thorns and the Fire share the same owners, Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who operate the teams under the entity Raj Sports.

“Just seeing the support that they show for both of our organizations, it means a lot. I think as just as a woman, you want that support. And just seeing where women’s basketball is going and growing and being able to know that the city’s behind us, it’s really cool,” Fire guard Sarah Ashlee Barker said.

The Thorns, who have played in Portland since 2013 as one of the founding teams of the NWSL, drew 20,053 fans. The Fire announced a sellout crowd of 19,347 at the Moda Center.

The two teams will soon share the nation’s first performance center shared by pair of professional women’s teams in different sports. The $150 million center, a repurposed former Nike facility on 12 acres west of Portland, is set to open Aug. 22.

“I hope in the future that we are always going to feel like we are one city and make sure we have two teams with one organization and one community with that,” Thorns coach Robert Vilahamn said. “So I'm very much looking forward to the collaboration.”

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

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

The champions are dethroned. Wembanyama and the Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals.

Wembanyama scored 22 points, Julian Champagnie got 18 of his 20 off of 3-pointers and the Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on Saturday night — bucking heavy odds to win a Game 7 on the road.

“This feeling, I can't explain it,” Wembanyama said. “It's so powerful.”

Stephon Castle scored 16 points and De’Aaron Fox had 15. Dylan Harper added 12 and Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell each finished with 11 for the Spurs, who are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.

They will host the New York Knicks in Game 1 on Wednesday night.

“Back in October, we knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.

Correction — the Spurs have a chance to be great. Championship-level great.

A huge moment came midway through the fourth, when San Antonio’s Luke Kornet blocked Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Hartenstein at the rim — denying a fast-break score that would have gotten the Thunder within four.

It felt like the last gasp for the Thunder. Kornet played six minutes, missed all three of his shot attempts and finished with only two points, but the block was an epic moment.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 35 points and nine assists, but for the eighth consecutive season the NBA will have a new champion. Cason Wallace scored 17 points, while Jared McCain and Alex Caruso had 12 apiece for the Thunder.

“You have to grow from every experience, including the tough ones,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “And it's the NBA — there are tough ones. We can also be really disappointed. ... There's nobody that we don't think we can beat, respectfully.”

After four straight games that were largely decided going into the fourth quarter — the Thunder led Game 3 by 11, the Spurs led Game 4 by 18, the Thunder led Game 5 by 10 and the Spurs led Game 6 by 26, those leads all holding up with relative ease — this one was different, worthy of a Game 7.

Spurs 80, Thunder 77 was the score going into the fourth, a bit of a back-and-forth contest where the Spurs led by as many as 14 in the first half and then by as many as 11 in the third, only to see the Thunder come roaring back both times.

“The players did what they've been doing all year and they met the biggest moment,” Johnson said.

The Spurs pulled away in the fourth again, daring the Thunder to try to come back one more time. The champions — short-handed, with Jalen Williams sidelined with a bad hamstring — just didn't have anything left.

“Winning an NBA championship is very hard in itself to do one time," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So to do it all over again would just only make it harder.”

San Antonio won eight of the 12 meetings against the Thunder this season — and in the end, the only matchup that really mattered.

“We want four more,” Wembanyama said. “We're not done.”

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

Déjà vu.

Back then for the Spurs, it was Tim Duncan. This time for the Spurs, it's Victor Wembanyama. Here they go again: San Antonio vs. New York is the matchup for the 2026 NBA Finals, a Spurs team looking to return to basketball's mountaintop for the sixth time and a Knicks team looking for its first championship in 53 years.

Game 1 is Wednesday in San Antonio.

It's an appealing matchup for so many reasons — among them, it's a rematch of this season's NBA Cup championship game won by the Knicks. It has appeal of a global capital like New York, it has the international element with a French superstar like Wembanyama and it extends an era of parity the likes of which the league has never before seen.

No matter who wins this series, it'll be the eighth different franchise to win a title in the last eight seasons — extending the longest such stretch in NBA history. Toronto won in 2019, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, then Milwaukee in 2021, Golden State in 2022, Denver in 2023, Boston in 2024, Oklahoma City last year, and now either New York or San Antonio will be added to that list.

The Spurs' win in Oklahoma City on Saturday night extended another part of the parity puzzle, that being no defending champion has even gotten back to the NBA Finals since Golden State won in 2018 and returned in 2019.

The Knicks are trying to do something not done since the days of Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Earl Monroe and Phil Jackson — that being, win it all. There have been 17 different franchises (18 if the Thunder and Seattle SuperSonics are considered separately, as some fans prefer) that have celebrated championships since the Knicks last won the title, with the Los Angeles Lakers having won 11 crowns in that span, Boston winning seven, Chicago six and Golden State five.

They're the talk of New York right now, after earning their first finals trip since 1999. The mood was quite different a month ago, when New York trailed Atlanta 2-1 after back-to-back one-point losses in Games 2 and 3 of their first-round series.

New York is 11-0 since, winning almost all those games by blowout. And if the team didn’t hear the negative noise from Round 1, it can’t hear all the effusive praise coming now, Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said.

“When there’s negative things being said about you, it’s important to ignore them,” Brunson said. “When there’s positive things about you, it’s easy to be able to read them to make you feel good. But you can’t do one and not the other. Just block it out as best you can.”

The series

Technically, the teams went 1-1 against each other. New York won two of the three meetings, but the NBA Cup final matchup — essentially an 83rd game in an 82-game season — doesn't count in any league records or statistics.

Both teams won their home game against the other this season. Julian Champagnie made 11 3-pointers and Wembanyama scored 31 points to lead the Spurs to a comeback 134-132 win over New York on Dec. 31. The Knicks pulled away in the fourth to a 114-89 win on March 1 to snap San Antonio's 11-game winning streak, plus won the Cup final in Las Vegas.

The odds

As would be expected, the Spurs — who have home-court advantage — are the early favorites to win the series. They were listed with odds of -210 on Saturday night, meaning bettors would to wager $210 to win $100.

The Knicks had odds of +170.

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

“I just wanted to give back to the kids in the community,” Guarnera said. ”The community that I played high school football in, grew up in. Bringing back all of the guys and having them workout the kids is something that I wanted to do and I’ve been thinking about for a year and a half and then I finally got to do it this year."

The camp drew a strong turnout, with 80 participants ranging in age from 6 to 14 years old.

“I’m really just blessed to do this with the kids and share all of the experiences that I’ve had with the younger generation and help them get better at what they love and what I love,” Ponte Vedra alum and Florida Gators running back Brian Case said. “I’m really happy to be out here and be back in my hometown.”

Campers rotated through a variety of football drills while receiving instruction from Guarnera, several of his former Ponte Vedra teammates and Mandarin alum and Michigan wide receiver Jaime Ffrench.

“These kids are very smart,” Ffrench said. “They are very coachable so they’re taking notes and know how to apply them and when to apply them so that’s good.”

Proceeds from the event will benefit the Special Forces Trust, a nonprofit organization that supports members of the U.S. Special Operations community and their families.

Guarnera said camps like this provide an opportunity to introduce young athletes to football in a positive environment while helping them develop their skills and confidence. The focus throughout the day was on learning the fundamentals of the game while making sure participants had fun.

“It definitely helped me fall in love with the sport,” Ponte Vedra alum and Utah Utes football and lacrosse player Ryker Kemp said. “As a kid you look up to these guys. I think we deserve to give back to the community.”

Carla Leite had 18 points and 12 assists, while Emily Engstler had 16 points and 10 rebounds, the first double-doubles for the expansion Fire. Portland has won four of its last five games.

Aliyah Boston led the Fever with 18 points and seven rebounds. Clark played for 22 minutes, going 1 for 7 from the field with two rebounds, six assists. She got into foul trouble, collecting her fourth in the third quarter, and finished with five.

The Fever were coming off a 90-88 loss at the Golden State Valkyries on Thursday night.

The Fire jumped out to a 29-15 lead after the first quarter after a layup from Gustafson, who led all players with eight points in the quarter.

Portland's dominance continued in the second quarter, with Sarah Ashlee Barker's 3-pointer putting the Fire up 44-26 with four minutes to go before the half.

After leading 50-37 at the break. the Fire stretched the lead to 25 points in the third quarter. Barker capped the period with another 3-pointer that put the crowd at the Moda Center on its feet.

With the Fire up 98-79 in the fourth quarter, coach Alex Sarama sat most of his starters.

Clark did not play in the Fever's May 21 game against the Fire in Indianapolis because of a back issue. The Fever disclosed her injury less than two hours before tipoff, prompting a warning from the WNBA the next day for not reporting the injury sooner. The Fever beat Portland 90-73 without Clark.

The game was a sellout with 19,347 at the Moda Center.

Up next

Fever: Host Atlantaon Thursday night.

Fire: At Golden State on Tuesday night.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Lemieux died of suicide at age 60 on Thursday, according to authorities, after earlier in the week serving as the Montreal Canadiens' torchbearer prior to a playoff game. He played nearly 1,500 NHL games with six teams from 1983-2009 and was known for his hard-hitting style and ability to perform in big games on the way to winning the Stanley Cup four times.

The family said it gave the CTE Center permission to publicly share any findings with Lemieux's name, adding that no conclusions should be drawn regarding any diagnosis.

“Claude dedicated his post-playing career to helping the next generation,” the family said, referring to Lemieux becoming an agent. “By allowing his name to be connected to this research, we hope his life can contribute to greater understanding, more honest conversations and better protection for athletes and families in the years ahead.”

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

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Fans began celebrating in Paris after the final whistle earlier in the evening in Budapest, Hungary, where PSG won by beating Arsenal on penalties in a dramatic final.

Fans marched along the avenues near the Arc de Triomphe, with some setting off flares and blaring car horns. Around 20,000 people gathered on the Champs-Elysees, with police working to contain the crowd.

The Paris police prefecture said smaller groups caused disturbances in various locations, with some vandalizing shops and setting fires. Cars were also set ablaze. One police officer was injured. Those who attempted to storm a police station in the posh 8th Arrondissement neighborhood were dispersed, police said.

It said that by 10 p.m., 45 people were taken into custody.

The main ring road surrounding Paris was briefly blockaded by a crowd before police dispersed it. Police also said one bakery and a restaurant were damaged.

Officers also contained about 1,000 people gathered near the PSG stadium in the 16th Arrondissement and cleared barricades made from bicycles.

In May last year following PSG’s first title, when 201 people were injured in the French capital and police made more than 500 arrests across France, Paris was on high alert, with 8,000 police officers deployed across the city.

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

The family wedding will go forward Sunday in South Carolina, but it also will be a time to mourn the loss of Dmitri and Ecaterina Doncev and their two children, Emily and Mark, a relative said Saturday.

“A son, a father — the whole family — everyone that has been dear to us,” Carolina Bublik said.

The Doncevs were killed when a motorcoach caused a chain-reaction crash with vehicles that had slowed down for a work zone on Interstate 95 in Stafford County around 2:35 a.m. Friday, authorities said.

The bus struck a Suburban, which then hit an Acura carrying the Doncev family, police said. Priscilla Mafalda, 25, of Worcester, Massachusetts, was in the Chevrolet SUV and also died.

More people were treated for injuries, including one who was in critical condition, though most were discharged, Mary Washington Healthcare said.

The bus driver, Jing S. Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York, was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, and additional charges were likely, Virginia State Police said. The prosecutor's office in Stafford County said Dong was arrested and would be in custody while he is treated for his injuries at a hospital.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Dong's first court appearance will not be scheduled until he is discharged but a magistrate approved holding him without bond until that time. It also said prosecutors saw enough probable cause to believe Dong was “driving in a criminally negligent manner.”

It was unclear whether Dong has an attorney who could speak on his behalf. The case did not yet appear in the state's online court records, and a call to the area's public defender went unanswered at a closed office Saturday.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, a monthslong task separate from the work of state police. NTSB board member Tom Chapman revealed few new details but said the bus was moving at a high rate of speed.

“It seems fairly clear that if there was any braking there wasn’t much, because of the speed and severity of the collision,” Chapman said.

The bus, which was taking people from New York to North Carolina, was operated by E&P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

Chapman said the driver's language proficiency would be part of the NTSB investigation. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, citing police, said on social media that Dong, a native of China, does not speak English.

Dmitri Doncev, 45, was a nurse who worked at Holyoke Medical Center. Ecaterina Doncev, 44, was a hairstylist who spent days making desserts for the family wedding, Bublik said.

They emigrated to the U.S. from Moldova in 2008 and settled in Greenfield, Massachusetts, she said.

Dmitri and brother Iuri tried to stay together while traveling in separate vehicles to South Carolina.

“At some point they ended up getting separated,” Bublik said. “Dmitri said, ‘You go ahead. I’ll catch up later.' It was a big shock when Iuri arrived at the house. Dmitri should have arrived around the same time. When his car did not show up, and he wasn't picking up the phone — that’s when the family started panicking.”

Sunday will feature more of the same. We will see a mostly cloudy sky with highs in the mid to upper 80s.

Scattered showers and storms are likely in the afternoon and evening.

Heavy rain, gusty wind and frequent lightning will be possible in any storm. Make sure to keep an eye to the sky as showers and storms could develop rapidly in the afternoon and evening.

Isolated instances of flooding can’t be ruled out, especially for those areas that have seen several rounds of showers and storms.

Storm coverage will remain widespread through Tuesday. Temperatures will remain near 90 degrees through the middle of the week.

Guidance shows that an area of low pressure may develop along the stalled front to our north off the coast of the Carolinas. Our region would be on the backside of the system which will play a big role in our rain and storm coverage.

This will likely bring drier air from the north into our area on Wednesday through the upcoming weekend. The humidity would fall and it wouldn’t be as oppressive. The drier air would limit any widespread shower and storm activity during this period.

Regarding the drought, the latest drought monitor reflects some improvement across our area. Most of our area is in an extreme drought. However, rainfall our area has received over the past week has helped our region.

Unfortunately, rain and storm coverage will likely drop later this week into the upcoming weekend.

TONIGHT: Mostly Cloudy. Patchy Fog. Low 72.

SUNDAY: Sun & Clouds. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 86, Low 72.

MONDAY: Sun & Clouds. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 87, Low 70.

TUESDAY: Sun & Clouds. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 91, Low 69.

WEDNESDAY: Mostly Sunny. High 83, Low 65.

THURSDAY: Mostly Sunny. High 85, Low 66.

FRIDAY: Mostly Sunny. High 88, Low 69.

Williams has been dealing with a strained left hamstring for much of the playoffs. Mitchell has a strained right soleus.

Williams missed 49 of Oklahoma City's 82 regular-season games with wrist and hamstring issues, and Saturday will be the 10th playoff game he's missed this year with new hamstring problems. He played in five, including about 10 minutes in Thursday's Game 6 loss to the Spurs.

Mitchell had been the starter that replaces Williams in the lineup, until he too got hurt. Oklahoma City has been starting Jared McCain in that spot since, alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort and Chet Holmgren. They went to Cason Wallace as the starter for Game 7, with McCain off the bench.

The Spurs reported no injuries going into Game 7.

Marc Davis, John Goble and Josh Tiven were selected by the NBA as the referees for Game 7 of Spurs-Thunder. It's the second Game 7 in these playoffs for Davis and Tiven; Davis worked the final game of the Cleveland-Detroit series in Round 2, and Tiven had Game 7 of Orlando-Detroit in Round 1.

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

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump fumed about the Friday decision from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper who also ordered Trump’s name removed from the center. Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper's ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs.

His post aimed to make the case for the project even as he says he's giving up on it. Hours after Cooper's decision, Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president's second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

In another post on Saturday, Trump invoked the Kennedy Center episode as he addressed a spate of musicians backing out of a celebration for the country's 250th anniversary.

"Cancel it,” Trump wrote, “just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN.”

The White House did not immediately say whether Trump would keep serving as the center’s board chairman.

Trump's signal that he's retreating from the center gave hope to artists who had been alienated by his takeover, said Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics lawyer who is involved in a lawsuit challenging Trump's Kennedy Center plans.

“I have already heard from artists and from audience members alike who are excited about the Kennedy Center returning to non-partisan normality,” Eisen told The Associated Press in a text message on Saturday. “It’s early days yet but as and when the court’s order is implemented, including Trump’s name coming off the building and the Board otherwise complying with the law, I’m optimistic that the Center will begin the long journey back.”

Trump cites judge's wife

Without offering evidence, Trump suggested that Cooper’s wife, lawyer Amy Jeffress, was to blame in part for the ruling. The president noted that Jeffress, a partner at the Hecker Fink law firm, is a former federal prosecutor who served as a counselor to Attorney General Eric Holder during the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama. Cooper was nominated for the bench by Obama.

Trump also noted that Hecker Fink is representing former President Joe Biden in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from the Democrat's interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained in an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents from his time as a senator and as vice president.

Trump asserted that the Kennedy Center, named for the late Democratic president and opened in 1971, was “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested” and that the ”new Building would have been incomparable."

Cooper said in his ruling that the center board’s March 16 vote to close the venue was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years. Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

The judge also found that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said. Cooper ordered that Trump’s name be removed within two weeks.

President defends adding name to the center

Trump on Saturday said it was the board, not him, that added the Trump name to the center. "They thought it would be good for this dying Institution,” he wrote.

Shortly after returning to office in January 2025, he ousted the center’s previous leadership and replaced it with a handpicked board of trustees that named him chairman.

Cooper held hearings in late April for parallel lawsuits challenging the project. One lawsuit was filed by a group of cultural and historic preservation organizations. The other was brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who serves as an ex officio member of the board through her position in Congress. He ruled in favor of Beatty’s request but rejected the other challenge.

Trump, in his post, also noted that Jeffress' firm represented E. Jean Carroll, the longtime advice columnist whose claims against Trump won her a $5 million award in 2023 for sexual abuse and defamation after a jury agreed that Trump sexually abused her in a New York department store dressing room in 1996. Another jury in 2024 awarded Carroll an additional $83 million for defamation. Both awards are under appeal.

Jeffress did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.