A Heat Advisory is in effect from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. Friday. Jacksonville will reach a high near 95 degrees, but the combination of heat and humidity could push feels-like temperatures as high as 105. Anyone spending time outdoors should drink plenty of water, take frequent breaks and limit strenuous activity during the hottest part of the afternoon.

Most neighborhoods will begin the day with plenty of sunshine before a few showers and thunderstorms develop after 3 p.m. Rain coverage will remain limited at around 30%, with most storms fading before 9 p.m. Overnight temperatures will only fall into the mid-70s.

The weekend stays hot and unsettled. Saturday will be mostly sunny with a high near 93 and heat index values approaching 103. Scattered showers and thunderstorms become more likely during the afternoon, with rain chances increasing to 60% Saturday evening before tapering overnight.

Sunday brings another mix of sunshine and clouds with a 30% chance of afternoon storms and a high near 94. Even hotter weather returns Monday, with mostly sunny skies and temperatures climbing to around 96.

Highs remain in the mid-90s through the middle of next week. Scattered afternoon showers and thunderstorms return Tuesday and continue Wednesday and Thursday, with daily rain chances between 30% and 40%.

Russell snatched top spot by 0.041 of a second from McLaren's Lando Norris, winner of the last race in Hungary, with Charles Leclerc third for Ferrari, 0.014 further back.

Standings leader Antonelli was fifth and revealed he'd been struggling with damage from a bumpy ride across a gravel trap in the first part of the session. The damage was “a couple of holes in the floor.” His closest championship challenger Lewis Hamilton could manage only seventh for Ferrari.

Pole is a long-awaited boost for Russell

Pole is especially welcome for Russell, who hasn't won since the Austrian Grand Prix in June and was one of the drivers hardest hit by software quirks in how his Mercedes uses its electrical energy.

“It was a tough end to the first half of the year,” said Russell, who’s 59 points off his 19-year-old teammate Antonelli after a near-stall ruined his race in Hungary last month. “The lap felt really good. It all came together nicely.”

Earlier Friday, Antonelli went fastest in the single practice session on a drying, constantly changing track after rain.

The 2026 cars and their formidable electrical power have yet to be tried in serious rain as part of a race weekend. That briefly seemed like it would happen in practice as teams started on intermediate tires, but the track soon dried out. Sprint qualifying was dry.

Dutch GP is unique. Here's why it's leaving

Max Verstappen has committed to Red Bull on a new contract through 2030 but there's no sign of his Dutch home race staying beyond this year.

The 80s rock anthem “The Final Countdown” rang around the venue Thursday as organizers geared up for the sixth and final Dutch GP since returning to the F1 calendar in 2021.

The race is a privately run operation in a calendar packed with races that boast government backing. Citing “risks and responsibilities,” organizers said in 2024 they'd rather “go out on a high" with two more races and no more.

Something else makes the Dutch GP stand out, too. Almost all fans attending are barred from driving to the track because the seaside resort town puts strict rules on traffic. Instead, they must take the train from Amsterdam or — in a uniquely Dutch take on F1 — join the tens of thousands riding bikes to Zandvoort.

Lawson and Tsunoda need to learn fast

Liam Lawson learned only on Monday he was being promoted to the main Red Bull team after Isack Hadjar injured his wrist. Lawson has tried the unfamiliar car only on the simulator so far, in a hastily arranged session Wednesday.

Lawson's promotion means Yuki Tsunoda is back on the grid with Racing Bulls. He hasn't raced under the new-for-2026 regulations at all. Lawson qualified 11th and Tsunoda 12th.

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See AP’s full auto racing coverage here

The ruling does not affect a $1.4 billion judgement against Jones in Connecticut, but is a significant legal victory for Jones after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages for claiming the mass shooting didn’t happen.

The unanimous opinion of by the Texas Third Court of Appeals found that Sandy Hook parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis did not show evidence that harassment enflamed by Jones’ hoax claims rose to a level that would allow them to exceed the state’s $750,000 cap on damages for each plaintiff.

Heslin and Lewis’s 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut. The lawsuit and 2022 verdict against Jones marked the first time Jones was held financially liable for peddling lies about the massacre, claiming it was faked by the government to tighten gun laws.

Jones, who portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, conceded during the trial that the attack was “100% real” and that he was wrong to have lied about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology wouldn’t suffice and called on them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.

Jones’ trial attorney Andino Reynal had said immediately after the verdict that Jones would appeal the damages amount, and predicted it would be reduced to $1.5 million.

Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy, and those legal proceedings continue. The satirical website The Onion also moved to take over Jones' Infowars platforms and turn his bullhorn of conspiracy theories into parody sites.

Jones gave up the Infowars brand in April and moved to a new location, switching his shows to new websites and posting them on his personal X account. The Onion, meanwhile, has set up its own Infowars webpage on its website, running videos of shows parodying Jones. ___ Dave Collins contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.

The ban for Paredes — who grabbed Spain's Eric Garcia by the throat and pushed Gavi to the ground — ranks with the FIFA sanctions for Uruguay forward Luis Suárez in 2014 as among the most severe in World Cup history.

Argentina defender Nahuel Molina was handed a seven-game ban while Thiago Almada was given a one-game suspension. FIFA imposed fines of $90,000 on Paredes and Molina, and $30,000 for Almada.

The ban for Paredes is effectively a one-year expulsion from the Argentina team as the FIFA calendar for national team schedules includes 10 games through June 2027.

All of those games could be friendlies with no competitive games currently scheduled.

Spain's Gavi also banned for game vs England

Gavi also was banned for one game, which is a Nations League match for Spain against England at Wembley on Sept. 26.

An Argentina coach, Roberto Ayala, also got a three-game ban and $30,000 fine.

The Argentine Football Association was fined $110,000 for a range of incidents during the World Cup including players carrying a political banner about the Falkland Islands after the semifinal win against England, and discriminatory chants by fans.

AFA also was ordered by FIFA to spend $100,000 on anti-racism projects. Argentina received $34 million in World Cup prize money from FIFA.

Argentina expected to appeal

AFA can appeal the longer sanctions and fines to FIFA, and likely after at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“The AFA legal department will, in a timely manner, request from FIFA the grounds for the reviewable rulings in order to file appeals with the governing body’s appeal committee, while retaining the future option of appealing to the CAS as a final recourse,” the federation said in a statement.

Suárez and Simunic cases

In 2014, Suárez was banned from all soccer for four months, including for his new club Barcelona, and eight more competition games for Uruguay for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini in a World Cup group stage game in Brazil.

Paredes' 10-game ban equals that in 2013 for Josip Simunic of Croatia after winning a World Cup qualifying playoff. Simunic used a megaphone to lead fans chanting a slogan used by the country's pro-Nazi regime during World War II.

The on-field clashes at last month's final in East Rutherford, New Jersey — which were charged by FIFA as assault cases — came after Argentina lost a testy final to Spain where it was mostly outplayed and barely created a scoring chance.

Spain forward Ferran Torres scored the only goal in the second period of extra time, after Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez was sent off.

FIFA disciplinary judges also ordered Argentina to play its next home game in a stadium limited to 50% of capacity. FIFA deferred a second stadium sanction and a $100,000 for probationary periods.

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AP Sports Writers Ken Maguire in London and Carlos Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed to this report

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

With sparse details, President Donald Trump announced this week that the U.S. would be imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to cave to demands to end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

The Latest:

Trump awaits word from Supreme Court in case against his ballroom

The administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week to allow the White House to continue building Trump’s $400 million ballroom project while it appeals a lower court’s order to halt the work.

A divided federal appeals court panel ruled earlier this month that construction must stop because Congress hasn’t approved the project. That order to halt construction is set to go into effect Friday.

The Supreme Court has options. It can allow construction to continue while the case plays out. It can also leave the lower court ruling in place — meaning ballroom construction would have to stop — during the litigation.

US Capitol Police clear headquarters for suspicious vehicle

The U.S. Capitol Police briefly evacuated the agency’s Washington headquarters Friday morning and blocked off neighborhood roads when officers spotted what they called a “suspicious” vehicle in the same block as the headquarters.

The evacuation ended and roads reopened quickly after authorities checked out the vehicle without incident. The agency said it was a routine suspicious vehicle check that ended up being nothing.

Roads are closed and a swath of the National Mall is fenced and blocked off and the security level is heightened throughout D.C. because of the weekend’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix. The FBI did not immediately respond to a question about the current threat level in the city.

US and South Korean militaries wrap up drill early

The U.S. and South Korean militaries ended their annual drill six days earlier than initially scheduled Friday in a conciliatory gesture toward North Korea.

Trump had earlier abruptly ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise just before it began Monday. Trump cited what he described as a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

The end of the drill comes after North Korea said such a step isn’t enough to persuade it to return to talks.

On Thursday, North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, apparently following through with its previous threat to respond to the drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.

Trump announces plan aimed at lowering beef prices

In a social media post Friday, the president said his administration will allow more beef to be imported into the U.S. without triggering a higher tariff rate that would otherwise go into effect.

The agreement, Trump said, allows up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be brought into the U.S. for the next 90 days without activating an “out of quota” tariff.

The president said he had a commitment that the beef would be sold at 25% below current market rates, making beef cheaper for American consumers.

Trump did not say who the deal was with or what countries the beef will be imported from. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for more details.

An out-of-quota tariff is a higher tax that goes into effect once a certain quantity of that product enters the U.S.

Trump said the agreement would help rebuild the U.S. beef herd and ultimately help American ranchers. But the American cattle industry has in the past balked at Trump’s plans to import more foreign beef, such as his effort last year to bring in more beef from Argentina.

Trump to stump for Sen. Darline Graham days ahead of South Carolina’s GOP Senate runoff

Trump is scheduled to travel to South Carolina on Friday to make a last-minute appeal for Sen. Darline Graham, his chosen candidate to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, ahead of a Republican runoff next week.

Voters will decide Tuesday whether Graham or Rep. Ralph Norman will be Republicans’ nominee on the November ballot.

The Myrtle Beach rally is the sort of campaign trail occasion that Trump hasn’t done as much of this year, compared with past midterms, making it a signal of the importance Trump is placing on a win for his pick.

It’s also an opportunity for the president to wade into friendly territory ahead of the midterm elections that leave his party’s control of Congress hanging in the balance. South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in decades, its House delegation has only one Democrat and Trump’s own victory in the 2016 presidential primary here helped propel him toward the nomination and ultimately the White House.

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Investigators seek interviews with Trump foes related to Mar-a-Lago search, AP sources say

Justice Department investigators have sought to interview law enforcement officials related to the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a Florida-based inquiry aiming to establish a conspiracy against the Republican president, multiple people familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The requests for interviews, made in recent weeks, suggest a conspiracy investigation that had mostly appeared focused on the decade-old question of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is also examining a more contemporary event — the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago that resulted in the FBI seizing top secret documents from the president’s Palm Beach estate.

The requests for voluntary interviews were not made through subpoenas, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation with The Associated Press.

It is not clear when or if prosecutors might seek to bring charges, or for what, but investigating conduct that occurred in Florida might give the Justice Department the legal hook it needs to try to anchor a prosecution in the state.

— Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer

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World shares are mixed and US futures edge higher, while oil prices slip

World shares were mixed Friday after a retreat on Wall Street as a U.S. Treasury Department plan to boost its government debt buybacks appeared to have only limited capacity to calm markets.

The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.3%.

The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it will at least double the size of its planned purchases of longer-term government debt, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled Thursday that the repurchase program could be larger.

The announcement temporarily brought down government bond yields, which have been elevated under concerns about high inflation partly caused by the war in Iran and rising U.S. government debt. Higher yields tend to slow the broader economy because of increased borrowing costs across the financial system and can undercut stock prices.

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Trump warns of ‘economic D-Day’ against Iran, but Tehran is well acquainted with sanctions

Nearing the six-month mark of the Iran war and facing diminishing stockpiles of key weapons, the Trump administration is touting a crushing financial campaign against Tehran, promising an “economic D-Day” against a country that has so far withstood nearly five decades of punishing American sanctions.

With sparse details, President Donald Trump announced this week that the U.S. would be imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to cave to demands to end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

It reflects the dire reality Trump faces with an increasingly unpopular war he can’t seem to end just months before pivotal midterm elections that will decide whether his Republican Party keeps control of Congress. Whether out of desperation or strategy, the president is refocusing America’s might on bringing Iran to its knees through an accelerated sanctions campaign against one of the most economically penalized countries in the world.

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The attack is the latest in a series of frequent and deadly aerial strikes targeting armed pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed groups in the country. The strikes often cause civilian casualties.

The attack occurred in Swel Le Oh village in Myaung township, about 75 kilometers (45 miles) west of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, according to Nway Oo, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense and Security Organization of Myaung Township, or CDSOM.

Nway Oo said that 14 people, including three women, were killed and 20 others were wounded when a fighter jet dropped a bomb in the compound of the village’s monastery.

A villager who spoke on condition of anonymity, because he feared for his safety, also confirmed the death toll to The Associated Press. The villager said that the fighter jet dropped two bombs 15 minutes apart, with the second bomb damaging a house near the monastery where more than 100 people were on a weeklong retreat during Buddhist Lent.

The villager, whose mother-in-law was killed in the airstrike, said that people fled to a nearby community after cremating bodies of the victims.

BBC’s Burmese-Language service and Myanmar’s media outlets, including Myanmar Now, reported the death toll at between 10 and 14. They also posted photos and videos showing what they said was the aftermath of the strike, with images of bodies.

The military didn't immediately comment. In the past, the army has said that it only attacks legitimate targets of war, accusing the resistance forces of being terrorists.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering a civil war. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are embroiled in conflict.

The military has increasingly used airstrikes to counter opposition forces, including the armed People’s Defense Forces in Sagaing region, a stronghold of armed resistance. The resistance has no effective defense against air attacks.

The monastery attack comes a week after the U.N.-established Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, or IIMM, said that it observed a notable escalation in aerial attacks by the military in the months preceding the elections held in December and January, and that they have continued unabated afterward.

Myanmar’s foreign ministry rejected the IIMM report on Sunday, saying that limited airstrikes and counterterrorism operations solely aim at military targets and were carried out in response to insurgents and terrorist groups in accordance with the rules of engagement, and that the security forces exercise maximum restraint to avoid civilian harm.

No act of Congress mandated the color, with its slight orange tint. Rather, a 1939 conference of transportation officials from all U.S. states (then 48) chose the shade for its visibility as one of the first safety standards. At their peak in the 1980s, the yellow buses took more than 60% of U.S. students to school.

The metal-bodied school bus got its start in rural America. Georgia car dealer Albert Luce designed it to carry cement workers, then marketed it to schools when the company turned it down.

It was impeccable timing as school districts replaced one-room neighborhood schoolhouses with larger ones much farther apart. That consolidation gave rise to the school bus.

“I don’t think you could’ve had one without the other,” says Matt Anderson, head transportation curator at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan, which houses Luce’s 1927 bus.

Decades later, buses helped desegregate schools, hauling Black and white children across the country’s racial divide. The controversial practice has mostly ended, and in much of the United States, schools have grown more segregated, not less.

Carl Fisher drove a metal school bus for two-thirds of its nearly 100-year history. With 66 years behind the wheel, Fisher retired in 2012 as the longest-working driver, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. His first model was a Dodge truck that his dad’s friend converted, adding benches and small stools to haul 20 children in Pleasant Hope, Missouri.

“He put windows in it and everything, really made it nice,” Fisher says.

The basics became industry standard and more safety upgrades followed, including padded seats and a flip-out stop sign.

“It’s the safest form of on-road transportation per passenger, per mile, bar none — without seat belts,” says Brad Beauchamp, who is with the electric vehicles team at Blue Bird, the yellow school bus maker Luce reputedly named after the bird his wife spotted on a fence post.

Due to driver shortages and other factors, a yellow school bus is no longeravailable to take many students to school, putting pressure on families to figure out transportation.

Jim Oppegard, who drove kids for more than two decades in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, retired at 94 as the oldest school bus driver on record. It's rewarding work, he says.

“You’re helping the kids and helping the overall society,” he says. “You’re doing an important job.”

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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.

The lawsuit was filed by players who graduated high school in 2022, whose college eligibility ended last season and who were not included in the NCAA’s controversial new rule that grants most players five years of eligibilty, beginning next season.

After winning a ruling in district court last month, many of those players were trying to figure out how to return to their former schools to play another year. Football season opens over the next two weeks.

This 2-1 ruling from a panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver puts that on hold until the appeal can be heard in total. It could tamp down the chaos from a series of rulings in courts around the country that had cleared the way for players to come back.

A big portion of the case rests on the idea that some athletes were trying to regain spots on rosters that had already been locked in. The plaintiffs argued it was a matter of fairness: They shouldn’t be restricted from a fifth year — and the educational and NIL compensation opportunities that go along with it — that a player one year younger was entitled to.

But, the NCAA countered in its legal filing, “fairness is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Countless student-athletes already on campuses, and schools who built their rosters in reliance on the rules the NCAA’s membership wrote and agreed to follow, do not believe it is fair for thousands of formerly-ineligible athletes to return to competition at the start of the 2026–27 season,” it said.

U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury, in her Thursday decision, concluded that Michael Jeffries “clearly possesses a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings” and is a “reasonably intelligent person and skilled communicator" following his stay at a federal prison hospital in Butner, North Carolina.

The federal judge on Long Island, New York, said she reviewed testimony and written reports from medical experts and listened to hours of phone calls Jeffries made to his romantic partner, lawyers and others while in custody.

“His presentation and responses in evaluations following his commitment to Butner and his phone calls show that he understands the structure of the criminal legal system, courtroom procedures, the functions of the various participants, the nature and purpose of the proceedings, and key legal concepts,” Choudhury wrote.

Jeffries’ lawyer declined to comment.

“We do not comment on the Judge’s rulings," Brian Bieber wrote in an email. “The case, and all related issues, will be tried inside the courtroom – not in the media.”

Jeffries, 82, is currently free on bond. He's slated to go on trial in late October, alongside two co-defendants, his partner Matthew Smith and staffer James Jacobson. A pretrial hearing is slated for next Thursday.

Jeffries’ lawyers had argued that he required around-the-clock care to deal with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and a traumatic brain injury. They had medical experts testify in court that Jeffries’ cognitive issues were “progressive and incurable” and that he would not “regain his competency.”

That prompted Choudhury to order Jeffries to be hospitalized to see if his mental condition would improve. After spending about four months at Butner, federal prison officials in December deemed Jeffries mentally fit to stand trial.

Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson have pleaded not guilty to federal charges, including sex trafficking and interstate prostitution.

Prosecutors say the three used the promise of modeling jobs to lure men to drug-fueled sex parties in New York City, the Hamptons and other locations. The criminal case echoes sexual misconduct accusations made in a civil case and in the media in recent years.

Jeffries left Abercrombie in 2014 after more than two decades. He's credited with transforming the New York retailer, originally founded to sell wilderness gear, into a mainstay of teen mall culture in the early 2000s with its preppy youth aesthetic and sexy marketing.

The Jacksonville Growth and Affordability Partnership Fund, known as Jax GAP, pairs private investors, philanthropic organizations and a nonprofit lender to fill financing gaps for multifamily projects.

Northern Trust is the lead investor; the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida and Pinnacle Financial Partners are also participating. Self-Help Ventures Fund will manage the lending vehicle.

Officials said the initial capital is designed to work alongside the 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and other sources to help unlock about $80 million for affordable multifamily development. Because the fund is revolving, loan repayments can be reused for new projects, officials said, stretching the impact of the original investment.

“This is a generational investment,” Council member Rahman Johnson said. “Twenty million dollars matters. But what matters even more is what those dollars can unlock, how many families they can serve and how many times that capital can be recycled and put back to work. We are not simply funding housing. We are building financial infrastructure for affordability.”

The launch comes as the City Council debates the fiscal 2026-27 budget and broader strategies for addressing housing needs. Johnson helped announce the fund with fellow Council member Michael Boylan and local housing and finance leaders.

“Budgets tell us what government is willing to fund. Investments tell us what a community believes is worth building,” Johnson added. “Today, Jacksonville invested in people, possibility and permanence. That isn’t just affordable housing. That is legacy.”

Officials said the fund intends to invest in Jacksonville’s long-term ability to create and sustain affordable housing.

The incident south of the coastal city of Cuxhaven came to an end as the animal's owner intervened to secure the animal, Cuxhaven police said in a statement.

Passersby noticed the donkey, whose name is Freddy, and a horse were running loose at a roundabout in the town of Holssel. The motorists tried to secure the donkey, which “became very aggressive” and jumped into the van.

The 33-year-old woman who tried to help required hospital treatment, while the motorists sustained minor injuries, the police statement said.

“The reason for the animal’s aggressive reaction is still unclear,” the statement said.

In a judgment Friday, Justice Matthew Nicklin said in a written statement that the payment to Associated Newspapers Ltd. will have to be made by Aug. 28. The payment is at the upper end of expectations and marks a vindication for the journalists at the Daily Mail and a defeat for the losing claimants and their lawyers.

The claimants lost a High Court case in London last month during which they had alleged malpractice, such as the illegal hacking of phones, on the part of Associated Newspapers.

In excoriating comments accompanying his award, Nicklin said “several features” were important in his decision, including the “speculative” nature of the claims and the failure of the claimants to “voluntarily" withdraw serious allegations that could no longer be backed up.

"The conduct was unreasonable to a high degree," he said.

Claimants face another 25 million pounds charge

The publisher has said it incurred more than 34 million pounds during the case. Should it pursue the claimants for the remainder of the costs, then Harry and the six others will be liable for a further 25 million pounds or so by a later date.

The claimants are insured for around half that total.

Though the judge said the costs appeared “excessive,” he said he would not impose a cap that would have limited the claimants' liabilities as it would have been “too broad brushed, would risk unfairness, and would be vulnerable to the charge that it was arbitrary.”

The other high-profile figures behind the case were Doreen Lawrence, the anti‑racism activist whose son Stephen was stabbed to death in 1993 as he waited for a bus; Elton John’s film producer husband David Furnish; actors Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley; and politician Simon Hughes. Lawrence’s costs are expected to be covered by the others.

Hughes, a former member of the centrist Liberal Democrats, said he was “disappointed and surprised” that Associated Newspapers’ recoverable costs were not limited.

None of the other claimants have yet commented on the judge's decision. They have until Oct. 2 to decide whether to appeal.

Harry and the rest had failed to even win one of 97 claims

The publisher had strongly denied the claims made during the 11-week trial in London, which ended on July 7 when Nicklin said there had been a shortage of evidence to support the 97 claims and found a possibility that the reporting came from legitimate sources.

In a statement following the decision, Associated Newspapers said the judgment is a “devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives."

“The truth is that these outrageous claims should never have been brought," it said. "That they were pursued raises disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession.”

Cost verdict comes days after Harry's bombshell UK return news

The judgment comes two days after it was made public that Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, are moving back to the U.K. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who are no longer working royals, decamped to California more than six years ago but will relocate back later this month to live in a nonroyal residence outside London.

Harry's defeat against Associated Newspapers brought an end to a trio of lawsuits accusing tabloid publishers of using unlawful tactics, such as phone hacking or hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on his life.

Harry won a judgment in 2023 that condemned the publishers of the Daily Mirror for “widespread and habitual” phone hacking. Last year, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship U.K. tabloid, The Sun, made an unprecedented apology for intruding on his life for years and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle his privacy invasion lawsuit.

Harry has said his litigation — in which he broke with royal family tradition to seek relief in the courts — was a primary source of his falling out with his father, King Charles III, and brother Prince William.

His grudge with the tabloids runs deep and his legal actions are part of his larger quest to reform the news media that he says damaged his relationships and made him “ paranoid beyond belief.”

He blames the press for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi in Paris, and for attacks on his wife, Meghan, that led the couple to abandon royal life and move to the United States in 2020.

Those losing coverage in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, include people who don't meet the tightening requirements to participate, and, advocates say, some who qualify for the help but are rejected because they miss deadlines or don't have the needed documentation handy. It's too early to tell exactly how many fall into each group.

It's also unclear how many have lost coverage because some state agencies that run the programs are overwhelmed trying to keep up with changes. That was the case in Arizona, which saw the nation's largest enrollment drop.

Tia Fields, who analyzes social safety net policies at the advocacy group Invest in Louisiana, said the main reason she's seeing people lose coverage is not failure to meet work requirements. “A lot of it is administrative paperwork,” she said.

Proponents of welfare reform hope the roll reductions are driven by people earning too much to keep qualifying — a sign that policy changes are behaving as intended for a program they assert is riddled with fraud.

“If there are people that are leaving the welfare rolls because they're working and they're moving forward,” said Rachel Sheffield, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which pushed for stricter requirements for SNAP, “that would be a step forward.”

Arizona has had the steepest decline so far, with a 12-month drop of more than 50%, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP. The decline was more than 20% in Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada — and in Florida, where the Department of Children and Families said in a statement that the decreasing number “is reflective of the state's strong focus on advancing opportunities for Floridians and their families to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”

Eligibility requirements are tightening

SNAP helps more than 1 in 10 people in the U.S. buy food. Most of the beneficiaries have incomes below the poverty line. The monthly benefit, which is delivered on debit cards that can be used only for groceries, is $344 per household on average.

Newly released federal data found SNAP enrollment fell from 42.2 million in May 2025 to 36.6 million in May, a drop of more than 13% in a year. The May data are preliminary and could be revised.

Since 2010, the average number of monthly beneficiaries has been below 40 million for only two years — 2019 and 2020. The rolls started dropping after a recent peak of 43.3 million in October 2024. They've fallen much faster since implementation began last year for Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” which cut taxes and overhauled social safety net programs.

The expanded SNAP work requirement has now kicked in for most of the country, but it won’t begin in some places until next year.

Many adults 54 and younger without minor children have long been required to work to get SNAP benefits. The new law requires most people who previously had been exempt from requirements to either work, volunteer or go to school to get benefits. It now includes those ages 55 to 64, and those with children ages 14 to 17. Those 65 and older or with children younger than 14 remain exempt, as do those with health limitations. Some other groups that had been exempted from the requirement — including homeless people — no longer are.

In February, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the new requirements and other factors would push SNAP enrollment down over the next decade, falling below 34 million by 2036. But the nonpartisan office did not expect the drop to be as fast as it's been. By May, the number of people receiving the benefits was about as low as it was forecast to go in 2030.

Experts expect another impact when states are required to pay part of the cost of benefits if their rate of payment errors — when recipients receive more or less than they should — is above 6%. Advocates for recipients say states may deny benefits to some people entirely rather than risk errors.

The cost-sharing is scheduled to start in October 2027, though Congress has considered a delay.

Changes have been hard to implement in Arizona

In Arizona, enrollment plummeted by 55% from April 2025 to April 2026 — the biggest drop in the country, with more than 400,000 fewer people getting benefits now.

The state said the drop was driven largely by the state's own struggles putting new federal requirements in place.

“Implementing the federally mandated changes triggered unprecedented call volumes and administrative hurdles, including additional verification requirements, creating real barriers for applicants,” said Brett Bezio, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

Bezio said that hiring more staff members and introducing ways for people to submit their documents online have stemmed the enrollment drop in recent months as the state has reduced the chance for people who qualify to lose benefits.

In Phoenix, LaDiamond Lopez lost her benefits in January, with officials telling her she needed more documentation about her income and household — something that's needed for officials to determine whether enrollees meet work requirements.

She’s been skipping meals and some bill payments to ensure her children have enough to eat.

In her quest to be reinstated, she had previous employers sign forms confirming she no longer worked for them and added her children — ages 3 and 9 — to her apartment lease. She expected payments to resume in August, but she doesn’t know if they’ll last.

“I was approved at the end of May, but now they’re asking me for more documents,” she said. “It’s a panic.”

Other factors could be driving down enrollment

The Heritage Foundation's Sheffield says that some of the drop in SNAP use is likely a natural decline after peaks in the coronavirus pandemic era.

Paco Velez, the president and CEO of Feeding South Florida, said the 22% one-year enrollment drop in Florida is driven partly by immigrants who are in the U.S. legally but fear being targeted by Trump's immigration crackdown if they're seeking government benefits.

Invest in Louisiana's Fields said SNAP enrollment declines have broader consequences. For instance, children in households that receive the benefit can be automatically enrolled in free school lunch programs or in the SNAP for Women, Infants and Children program for low-income mothers, young children and expectant parents if they meet the other criteria.

“What happens when that child can’t pay for lunch?” she asked.

Some food banks have ramped up donations to try to meet a demand that they say has risen as SNAP rolls have declined. But that isn't expected to bridge the gap fully.

“We’re very worried about it because we know that no other organization or program can replicate the scale and success of SNAP,” said Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst at the advocacy group Share Our Strength. “We know that schools can’t fill this gap. We know that food banks can’t fill this gap.”

___

Schuettler is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

___

Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Sinner beat Alexander Zverev last month for his second straight title at the All England Club, but then pulled out of the hard-court tournaments in Montreal and Cincinnati that serve as a warmup for the U.S. Open.

The 25-year-old Italian wrote Friday that he won't be ready when the main draw begins on Aug. 30.

“Even though I have been working hard with my team and my medical staff, we have now had to make the difficult decision that I will not be able to compete at the US Open this year,” Sinner wrote in a post on X.

“We have been back on court in Monte Carlo over the last couple of days and have realized that I still need more time to recover from my right knee issue. I’m obviously very sad and disappointed, as New York has a special place in my heart. I was very much looking forward to coming back and playing in the electric atmosphere in front of the great fans there.”

Sinner was the 2024 U.S. Open champion and lost to Carlos Alcaraz in last year's final.

Alcaraz posted on social media on Thursday that he would be ready to play in New York after he has been out of action since April because of a right wrist injury.

The rivalry between those two has dominated men's tennis in recent years, and they met in the last three Grand Slam finals in 2025. Alcaraz took the most recent one with his four-set victory in New York.

That ended Sinner's title reign after he beat Taylor Fritz in straight sets in the 2024 final.

Sinner is 44-3 with six titles this year. He had a stunning collapse at the French Open, blowing a two-set lead while struggling in the heat in his second-round match against Juan Manuel Cerundolo. He then sat out until Wimbledon, where his victory gave him five Grand Slam titles.

It will be the first time Sinner has missed a Grand Slam tournament since making his major debut at the U.S. Open in 2019.

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

WATCH LIVE: News4JAX is in the courtroom and will stream the trial live. Press play above to watch, starting at 9 a.m. WARNING: Testimony may include graphic and disturbing details

Fernandez is charged with first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony in the deadly February 2022 ambush shooting in Jacksonville Beach that investigators say was carried out by Tenon, who was a tenant at a rental property Fernandez owned on Potomac Avenue in Northwest Jacksonville.

BREAKING: Judge to hold hearing on whether Jared Bridegan’s widow should be held in contempt of court for not turning phone over

Prosecutors allege Fernandez hired Tenon to kill Bridegan, his wife Shanna Gardner’s ex-husband. Gardner and Bridegan divorced in 2015 and spent years in and out of court in contentious disputes over how to care for the twins they shared.

Prosecutors say Fernandez is Tenon’s only link to Bridegan, a man he had never met. But the defense has argued that the state cannot prove who solicited Tenon or that Fernandez was involved in the shooting.

Tracking cellphones

FBI Agent Bobby Blythe testified in detail about tracking the phones of Henry Tenon and Mario Fernandez on Feb. 16, 2022, the night Jared Bridegan was killed, and on other dates.

According to Blythe, Fernandez’s phone was at his home before and after the murder but showed no timing-advance or cell-site data from roughly 7:10 to 8:20 p.m.

The last gunshots that killed Bridegan in Jacksonville Beach were captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera shortly before 8 p.m.

Blythe testified that the gap could have resulted from the phone being powered off, inactive or disconnected from the cellular network, although he could not rule out a network-recording issue.

He also acknowledged that the T-Mobile records came with a warning that timing-advance data might not be available in every market, for every device or during every period. Blythe could not determine where Fernandez’s phone was during the gap.

During his cross-examination of Blythe, defense attorney Jesse Dreicer emphasized that the records were only snapshots in time and that Fernandez could have been connected to Wi-Fi, using the phone in ways not reflected in cellular data, or simply not generating records.

Blythe agreed that he did not know whether Fernandez had connected to Wi-Fi at his home and that the absence of records was not necessarily something Fernandez could control.

On the night of the murder, Tenon’s phone and Gmail location data showed him at or near the Potomac Avenue property until roughly 5:49–5:57 p.m., then moving south and east toward Jacksonville Beach.

Activity for both of Tenon’s devices stopped for a period afterward. Blythe said the devices could have been turned off or placed in airplane mode, but he could not state that with certainty.

Blythe said that Jan. 29, 2022, was of particular interest for Tenon’s phone because it followed an unusual path that prosecutors said appeared to be a practice run for the murder.

The phone traveled from the Potomac Avenue area toward Jacksonville Beach and the area near Bridegan’s home and the gymnastics facility where Bridegan’s oldest daughter took lessons. Prosecutors argue Tenon had no logical reason to be there because he had never met Bridegan.

During cross-examination, however, Dreicer challenged the conclusions drawn from the Jan. 29 data.

Blythe acknowledged that Fernandez’s phone remained near the Potomac property while Tenon’s phone moved away, and that the data did not establish Fernandez and Tenon were together.

Blythe also could not identify surveillance, eyewitness, financial or other evidence placing Fernandez with Tenon during that period.

Dreicer further pointed out that Fernandez owned the Potomac property and had leased it to another person before the murder, even though investigators had directed Blythe to label the location as Tenon’s residence.

Blythe said he relied on information provided by the investigative team and did not independently know the property’s ownership or occupancy details.

Blythe explained to the jury that cellphone records can show an approximate location, not an exact one. Tower-and-sector data identifies the general coverage area; timing-advance data can narrow it further, while Google location history is usually the most precise, sometimes within a few meters.

Most of the tracking data for Tenon used Google history from the Gmail account attached to his device.

On redirect, Blythe testified that GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth data stored on a phone could provide more precise location information.

Prosecutors have previously noted that Fernandez’s phone was factory reset before it was seized by authorities 11 months after the homicide.

“You’ll hear from a forensic expert what it means to wipe your phone, what you lose, all the apps, all of the passwords, financial records, banking records, every photograph someone has ever taken on their phone, gone,” Stifler said during her opening statement. “Right after his tenant, ex-tenant, is arrested on unrelated charges.”

That means Blythe did not have access to that potential device-level location data when conducting his analysis.

‘Planned ambush’

Prosecutors have described the deadly shooting of Bridegan as a planned ambush.

“The killer was a stranger to Jared Bridegan. The murder was personal,” Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler told jurors during opening statements.

RELATED | Who was Jared Bridegan? A father, a creative builder, a believer — and so much more | 4 years later: A timeline of the Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case

Bridegan, a 33-year-old Microsoft design manager and father of four, was killed Feb. 16, 2022, after stopping his Volkswagen Atlas SUV on that dark street to remove a tire that prosecutors say was left in the road to lure Bridegan out of the vehicle.

Bridegan, who was driving home to St. Augustine after dropping off the twins at Gardner’s Jacksonville Beach home, was shot twice as his 2-year-old daughter, Bexley, sat in the vehicle. Two other bullets struck the SUV, narrowly missing Bexley.

The first trial witness, Jonelle Cruz, testified about comforting Bexley after her boyfriend found the toddler in the SUV near her father’s body that night.

Prosecutors say Bexley had been alone for about 7 minutes before Cruz and her boyfriend arrived.

In a video shown to jurors, Bexley described to Cruz hearing a “Boom!”

RELATED: Jared Bridegan’s widow honored with Back the Blue award for ‘Bexley Boxes’ | 911 calls describe scene of confusion in Sanctuary neighborhood on night of Jared Bridegan’s ambush murder

“She was shaking. She was very worried about her dad,” Cruz testified.

Key evidence: Where is the gun?

Defense attorneys have questioned lead Jacksonville Beach Police Detective Chris Johns and other investigators about the missing 10mm Glock believed to have been used to kill Bridegan. (The type of weapon was identified because of shell casings left at the scene.)

Agent Kenneth Stengel, who has been an ATF agent since 2008 and a firearms instructor for about two years, testified that 10mm weapons are more rare and that this was the first 10mm firearm he had encountered in his investigations.

Under cross-examination, however, Stengel acknowledged that Glock has produced multiple 10mm models and that investigators found records of six 10mm purchases at one Jacksonville gun store.

But Stengel maintained that the weapon was “not very common” based on his personal experience.

Investigators say the 10mm is significant because John Biggerstaff, a longtime friend of Fernandez, owned a 10mm at one point but could not produce it for detectives after the murder.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Biggerstaff has never been charged with a crime in connection with Bridegan’s murder.)

The state has said Fernandez visited Biggerstaff on Jan. 25, 2022, weeks before the murder, and that investigators found evidence that Biggerstaff searched for information about 10mm firearms on the day of the visit.

But defense attorney Jesse Dreicer suggested Fernandez could have visited Biggerstaff’s home for reasons unrelated to the murder, including their longstanding personal relationship. (Fernandez attended Sandalwood High School with Biggerstaff’s daughter.)

RELATED: He’s the first to face trial in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case. What do we know about Mario Fernandez?

Dreicer also questioned Johns about a video found on Biggerstaff’s phone that showed Fernandez having sex with Biggerstaff’s wife. Johns agreed the Biggerstaffs practiced a consensual “swinger” lifestyle.

The defense argued that Fernandez’s visit to Biggerstaff’s home in January 2022 did not prove he obtained a weapon there.

“What you certainly have no evidence of is that Mr. Biggerstaff gave Mr. Fernandez a 10mm firearm,” Dreicer said in one of many tense exchanges with Johns.

“There is no physical evidence of that,” Johns replied.

“OK. When you say no physical evidence, there is no evidence of that. Correct?” Dreicer asked again.

“There is no physical evidence of that,” Johns repeated.

Stengel testified Thursday that federal records showed Biggerstaff purchased a Glock 10mm on June 8, 2016, but that he had to give up that gun and other weapons after he was convicted of a felony.

Stengel testified that agents interviewed Biggerstaff, his son Juan and another man, but none provided information that led investigators to the location of the 10mm Glock. Investigators have admitted that the murder weapon was never recovered.

But on re-direct, Stifler got Johns to confirm that despite having no physical evidence that Biggerstaff had a 10mm gun at the time of the murder, detectives did have witness statements recorded on wires that led them to continue investigating Biggerstaff as the source of the murder weapon.

Key evidence: How did they find the blue truck?

Stengel also testified about the discovery of the blue, two-tone Ford F-150 that investigators say was captured on video being used in the killing.

Investigators had scoured the area for months after the shooting, and on Oct. 14, 2022, Stengel and a fellow agent used Google location data from Henry Tenon’s device to locate the truck at the home of Jimmy Jones, who turned out to be a longtime family friend of Tenon.

The truck was visible from the street, and Stengel said Jones was cooperative. Stengel said the truck’s discovery was a major break in the investigation.

Stengel and Johns both admitted on cross-examination that investigators did not search Jones’ home or the rest of the property for the missing firearm.

No DNA sample was taken from Jones, and no additional testing was conducted at the property. Stengel testified that he had no knowledge of any connection between Jones and Fernandez and that Jones was not treated as a suspect.

Johns said the truck was the only evidence recovered there and that investigators had no reason to search the house because records showed the truck arrived months after the homicide and Jones was not considered a suspect.

Dreicer challenged that explanation, noting investigators had not recovered the firearm and had evidence that Tenon had been at the home.

“Other than the fact that the biggest break in the case was found at Jimmy Jones’s house. Other than that, there was no reason to search the house,” Dreicer said.

Stifler made a point of asking Johns on re-direct about not searching Jones’s home. Johns confirmed to her that investigators received information in 2023 that the gun involved in the murder had been destroyed shortly after the shooting, so it would not have been at Jones’s home even if they’d searched for it.

Key evidence: Who was driving the blue truck?

Video evidence shown in court traced the blue, two-tone Ford F-150 through Jacksonville Beach on the night of the killing.

Prosecutors say the truck carried the shooter to the scene of the murder, but that surveillance showed a person running from the area after the shooting while someone else drove away in the truck.

That means two people were there that night, the prosecutors and defense agree.

But they don’t agree on who that might be.

The defense has emphasized that Fernandez was not shown driving the truck or accompanying Tenon.

Investigators acknowledged they could not identify the truck’s driver and that there is a 32-minute gap in the footage when they don’t know where the truck was in Jacksonville Beach that night.

What surveillance video did capture, though, was an unsettling moment outside the Jacksonville Beach Police Department the night of the murder.

A man prosecutors believe was Tenon walked past the station just seconds before Kirsten Bridegan arrived in the family’s SUV after learning her husband had been shot.

Kirsten testified on Monday that she did not recognize the man, and it was unclear whether she had seen the footage before or knew how close she had come to him that night.

Interactive timeline

Potomac property

In his cross-examination of Johns, Dreicer also focused on cellphone and surveillance evidence involving Fernandez’s rental property on Potomac Avenue, where Tenon lived at one point.

Again, Fernandez’s phone was recorded at the property for several hours on Jan. 29, 2022, while Tenon’s phone traveled toward Jacksonville Beach and back in what prosecutors describe as a practice run for the night of the murder.

Dreicer made a point while questioning Johns that there was surveillance video evidence showing it was not unusual for Fernandez to be at the rental property when the renter was not at the home, and that by late January, another man had begun renting the property.

Dreicer pointed to surveillance footage showing Fernandez repeatedly visiting the Potomac property, meeting contractors and carrying construction materials.

He argued the video supported Fernandez’s explanation that he was overseeing legitimate repair and renovation work.

Detective Johns agreed the footage showed Fernandez performing or arranging property work but said it did not establish what happened on the specific day in question: Jan. 29, 2022.

Key evidence: Was there DNA?

Prosecutors presented evidence from a DNA analyst on Wednesday afternoon, who said that Tenon’s DNA was found on the tire used to stop Bridegan’s vehicle.

Investigators say Tenon’s boots, jacket and distinctive gait also matched evidence associated with the shooter.

Fernandez’s DNA was not found on any of the items tested by investigators, the analyst acknowledged.

Detective Johns also acknowledged there was no surveillance, fingerprint, hair or other physical evidence placing Fernandez in Tenon’s blue pickup truck or proving he accompanied Tenon to Jacksonville Beach.

Dreicer made a point of talking about how dirty the inside of the truck was when investigators found it months later, implying that the evidence was not missing because someone had “wiped” the truck.

Key evidence: What were the checks for?

The state has highlighted three checks totaling $10,000 that Fernandez wrote to Tenon after the killing.

Johns testified Tuesday that three business check stubs, which were later matched to three checks Fernandez wrote to Tenon, were found in the blue truck.

The checks were described as payment for landscaping, roof work and a Kickstarter project that the state says didn’t exist.

The checks from First Choice Home Rentals LLC — all signed by Fernandez — were for $2,000 and $3,000 dated March 28, 2022, and $5,000 dated April 4, 2022.

Prosecutors argue the payments were disguised compensation for the murder.

But the defense says Tenon performed work at Fernandez’s property and that the checks were legitimate.

“Henry Tenon is a worker. Mario Fernandez has hired him to do work, not murder, tree work, roof work, landscaping, tile work,” defense attorney James Hill said in his opening statement

Gene Nichols, an attorney not involved in the case, said the checks are the hinge point of the entire trial.

“I think when it’s all said and done, what does the jury believe about the checks? That’s going to rule a tremendous amount,” he said. “That, to me, is going to be where this hinges — will a jury believe that those checks were written in order to commit murder, or were those checks written for the work that Mr. Hill said they were written for?”

He added that the burden of proof remains high.

“If the jury believes that they were for work that was done, or they take the position that the state didn’t prove that the money was for murder, then that’s going to sway a jury,” Nichols said. “In order to convict him, it’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by all of those jurors.”

What’s the motive?

Prosecutors have pointed to the hostility between the two families as a possible motive for Bridegan’s murder.

Kirsten Bridegan, Jared’s widow, testified Monday that the co-parenting relationship between Jared and Gardner had deteriorated into constant conflict.

“It was pretty terrible,” Kirsten Bridegan said on the stand. “There was absolutely no trust so everything was in writing. Texts, email. We did not speak in person, like at school events. Didn’t do phone calls.”

In his initial interview with detectives, which was played in court on Tuesday for about 50 minutes, Fernandez discussed the ongoing conflicts over the twins, describing Jared Bridegan as difficult and “passive-aggressive” and calling him a “keyboard warrior.”

Fernandez also mentioned the family communication in that interview, saying the family was in a group text and had an arrangement to text when they arrived to pick up the kids for date night.

The custody agreement established alternating Wednesday “date nights” for both parents on the week when the children were in the other parent’s home.

Dreicer argued that the schedule for date night was public information and therefore could have been known by people outside the family.

“So the idea that (Wednesday date night) is some personal detail that only the Bridegans would know and only the Gardner-Fernandez residence would know is simply not true. It’s public information. Correct?” Dreicer asked.

“The docket is publicly available,” Johns acknowledged.

Friends testify

On Wednesday and Thursday, friends of Fernandez also testified.

Taylor Kutis described conversations involving Fernandez’s marriage, co-parenting disputes and an obscure “contract” involving his wife’s family.

Under cross-examination, Kutis acknowledged that her recollections were not verbatim, that she kept no notes and that some details came from media reports.

Victor Quiroz, a longtime online gaming friend, testified that Fernandez visited him in North Carolina in March 2022.

Quiroz said Fernandez acted normally and did not discuss the killing. Fernandez mentioned only later that his wife’s former husband had been shot.

Carlos Phuong, a friend of Fernandez since high school, testified on Thursday about Fernandez’s relationship with Gardner and about two phone calls he placed to Fernandez in January 2023, when neither man was aware they were being recorded.

The expletive-laced calls between the two friends were played for the jury.

In the calls, Phuong told Fernandez that media reports were linking Gardner to Jared Bridegan’s death and that Henry Tenon had been arrested. They discussed Tenon’s work on Fernandez’s rental property and possible motives, along with unrelated topics.

Phuong testified that Fernandez made no admission, did not seem evasive and said he had nothing to do with the killing.

Phuong also testified that he never heard Fernandez or Gardner threaten Jared Bridegan or discuss planning his killing.

What’s next?

Fernandez’s murder trial is scheduled to continue through Aug. 28.

Gardner, 39, faces a separate trial in September, while Tenon is scheduled to stand trial in 2027 after withdrawing an earlier guilty plea.

Gardner is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse.

Tenon is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse, possession of a firearm by a felon and accessory after the fact.

Neither Gardner nor Tenon will testify in Fernandez’s trial.

RELATED: Judge orders Jared Bridegan’s widow to turn over cellphone in Shanna Gardner murder case

The case has garnered national attention, and Judge London Kite has repeatedly explained to the 12 jurors and four alternates that they can not look up anything about the case or talk about it with anyone.

As part of the preparation for trial, Kite previously ordered that the seated jurors’ names be kept anonymous until 60 days after the trial, which is typical in high-profile cases. The jurors were referred to only by their numbers during jury selection to protect their identities.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Wesam Hamada said her daughter Hind Rajab’s final pleas still haunt her.

“All I remember is her voice pleading, ‘Mama, I’m scared. Mama, I’m hungry. Mama, I’m hurt,’" she said. “Her voice keeps repeating in my ears.”

The widely publicized recording of Hind's January 2024 phone call with her mother and emergency dispatchers made her one of the Israel-Hamas war’s most prominent casualties.

Israel’s military this week admitted to firing at the family’s car as it fled an Israeli invasion and firing toward an ambulance dispatched to help them.

It said it would launch a criminal investigation into its troops’ conduct. All six people in the car and two paramedics were killed. But both Rajab’s family and emergency responders from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society doubt the Israeli investigation can deliver justice.

“Why did the investigation and the acknowledgment of the shooting at Hind’s car and at the paramedics come only after more than two years?” Hamada said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s an attempt to distract from what’s happening in Gaza and improve the (Israeli) army’s image to the world. That’s it."

A call to paramedics heard around the world

The story of their deaths drew international outcry after the Palestinian Red Crescent Society released recordings of Hind and her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada calling for help. It was further amplified by “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a film that excerpted the recordings and was nominated for an Oscar.

On the recordings, as audible gunfire erupts around them, Hamada asks for help and tells Red Crescent dispatchers that her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots are heard, and Layan’s screaming stops.

Ambulance dispatchers called back and found Hind on the other end of the line. She told them Layan was dead and Israeli tanks were advancing. The Red Crescent sent an ambulance and stayed in contact with Hind until the call dropped.

Hind and five relatives were found dead in the family car 12 days later. The two medics sent to rescue her were also found dead nearby, their ambulance blackened and destroyed.

Israel initially said its troops were not in the area. A U.N. commission of inquiry and an investigation by the research group Forensic Architecture found evidence placing Israeli forces near the car and attributed the attack to them.

Rana Al Faqih, a dispatcher who was in contact with Hind for more than three hours, said the day remains seared in her memory. She tried to calm Hind and patched her mother onto the call to comfort her.

An impartial investigation is the only way to deliver justice to Hind's family and the families of emergency workers, she said in an interview at the Red Crescent headquarters in Ramallah, West Bank.

Advocates doubt Israeli investigation can bring accountability

The investigation is one of two criminal probes the military announced Wednesday after reviewing roughly 150 incidents.

Military investigators will now take up the probes and present their findings to military prosecutors. The military advocate general can then decide to keep investigating, indict any soldiers or decline to charge them.

Israeli officials say the country’s justice system can address any violations by its troops. But such investigations rarely lead to indictments. Just 0.17% of incidents reviewed from 2014 and 2022 led to prosecution, according to an analysis by Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

The Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation — which campaigns for the arrest of Israeli troops it accuses of war crimes — said in a statement on Wednesday that an Israeli military investigation “should not be mistaken for a genuine step toward justice.”

“Israel’s internal investigations into the criminal conduct of its own soldiers are fundamentally flawed and cannot be regarded as credible mechanisms of accountability,” it said.

Sorrow shared by mothers across Gaza

The Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and abducted 251 others. More than 73,400 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive since, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children constitute about half the deaths.

Hamada said her pain since the killing of Hind — who had wanted to become a doctor — was not unique.

“The pain is like the pain of every mother who has lost her child in Gaza,” she said. “You wish she were in front of you, growing up and fulfilling your dreams and her dreams, and then you lose her in the most horrific circumstances.”

__ Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem, and Haitham Hamed in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed reporting.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% and was on track for just its second gain in the six days since setting its all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 341 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Ross Stores helped lead the way and climbed 4.1% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Jim Conroy said it saw both an increase in new customers and more interest from existing customers, while the off-price retailer at the same time benefited from refunds on tariffs.

Most U.S. companies have reported bigger profits for the spring than analysts expected, which has helped drive the stock market’s run to records recently. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term.

The other big lever that helps set stock prices is interest rates, which have been much shakier.

After soaring through the summer and then hesitating earlier this week following a surprise announcement that the U.S. Treasury Department will repurchase more longer-term bonds, yields remained unsettled in the bond market on Friday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.72% from 4.69% late Thursday after yo-yoing repeatedly between that level and 4.68% in the overnight and early-morning hours. The moves, though, were less sharp than earlier in the week, like when the 10-year yield lost 0.06 percentage points and the 30-year yield dropped nearly 0.10 percentage points on Wednesday.

Contributing to Friday's moves was continued uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again. That caused oil prices to flip between gains and losses, which directly affected Treasury yields because higher prices raise worries about inflation.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil was most recently up 0.1% at $93.81.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move to increase the planned repurchases of Treasurys is bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies often rise when interest rates are lower and more money is flowing through the financial system.

Bitcoin has climbed above $77,000 from less than $63,000 a week ago. That helped stocks in the crypto industry lead Wall Street. Robinhood Markets jumped 11.9%, and Coinbase Global gained 9.2%.

The price of gold also climbed and topped $4,640 per ounce from less than $4,440 a week earlier. When Treasurys are no longer paying much more in yield, they get less of an advantage in investors’ eyes over gold, which pays its holders nothing.

That helped drive stocks of miners higher. Newmont climbed 2.4%, and Freeport-McMoRan jumped 5.6%.

They helped offset drop of 9.3% for OSI Systems, which sells security screening equipment to airports and other specialized electronic systems. It reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, and CEO Ajay Mehra said it was hurt by “the Middle East conflicts which shifted the timing of certain planned deliveries.”

Boston Beer sank 3.9% after the seller of Samuel Adams and Dogfish Head said its chief financial officer is leaving the company and announced an interim replacement.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in much of Asia and Europe. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.2%, and South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.9% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

___

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

Those that survived are doing well, fattening up in time not just for fall and hibernation season but … drumroll, please … the very first Fat Marmot Week.

Just like Fat Bear Week, an online contest to vote for Alaskan brown bears plumped up for winter, Fat Marmot Week — beginning Monday — is mostly just for fun, but it also has a serious side: Scientists need to drum up donations for their long-running research into the rodents to keep it going through federal funding cuts.

“In some sense, we’re going to be laughing our way down as the Titanic sinks,” said Dan Blumstein, leader of the project launched decades ago at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado. “Because what else are you going to do?”

But wait. What’s a marmot?

A marmot is a cat-sized, furry ground squirrel that lives in burrows in North America, Europe and Asia. The 15 or so species worldwide include groundhogs, which have their own special day, Feb. 2, in the U.S. and Canada.

In the Rocky Mountains, yellow-bellied marmots are plentiful. Hikers often spot these charismatic creatures perched on boulders or scurrying through wildflowers.

Marmots aren't shy near trails popular with people. Watch out: A bold one might swipe your snack.

Like people, marmots have personalities and are “flexibly social,” meaning some like to intermingle in colonies of up to 30 animals while others prefer solitude, according to Emily Renkey, a master’s program student at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“We kind of understand these marmots just by looking at them sometimes, because we can kind of tell who’s who just by how they behave and how they interact with one another,” said Katie Adler, a UCLA doctoral student.

Some marmots are difficult to study because they are wary of researchers' efforts to trap them using wire boxes baited with an enticing mixture of oats and peanut butter, Renkey said.

“Others, you could trap three or four times in the same morning,” she said.

Marmots are big-time snoozers

While hibernating bears snooze in a state called torpor, allowing them to wake up — or be woken up — every now and then, marmots slip into a far deeper form of hibernation. Their body temperature drops from about that of a human to as low as 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), not much warmer than their burrows in winter.

“You pick up a hibernating marmot and it’s this fuzzy ball and it feels like a cold rock with fur. It’s completely surreal,” Blumstein said. “They breathe once a minute or two.”

To prepare for winter, the animals do a tremendous amount of fattening. They double their weight to as much as 13 pounds (6 kilograms), then lose all of that bulk during half a year or more of hibernation.

“Marmots come out of the ground really skinny, relative to what they look like now, at least,” Adler said.

A poor snowpack affects more than the ski season

Last winter, scant snowfall and warm temperatures due to global warming deprived many Colorado marmots of an insulating blanket of snow over their burrows. Researchers believe their hibernation quarters got too chilly, causing many to die of cold.

“We had over 160 animals and we ended with 60 at the start of this season,” Blumstein said. “Most of them died because of the lack of snow cover.”

This year’s snowpack was the worst on record in the Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Human-caused climate change made the snow drought about 14 times more likely, a new study confirms.

Hundreds of researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory have observed changes including fewer bees and other pollinators, and sagebrush encroaching in valleys once dominated by wildflowers.

Precipitation changes, meanwhile, literally cascade downstream to where farmers and communities need water to survive.

“The snowmelt here impacts the Colorado River which impacts our drinking water," Renkey said. “What happens in these mountains doesn’t stay in these mountains. It impacts all of us.”

Mouseketeers, musketeers and marmoteers

The study in Gothic, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Aspen, is run by researchers from UCLA and the University of Ottawa in Ontario. It was launched in 1962, making it one of the world’s longest-running studies of individual mammals.

The marmot researchers affectionately call themselves “marmoteers.”

“It allows graduate students and other people to come in and suddenly capitalize on this knowledge and ask questions. Without doing all the grunt work,” Blumstein said.

Funding cuts have caused Blumstein’s UCLA department to lose one-third of its graduate students. Fat Marmot Week is one approach to attract interest — and hopefully donations — to keep the work going. Among the rodents on display: Stonehenge, who chirps at mountain bikers; and Citroen, whose mate is a leader of this matriarchal marmot motherland. Voting opens Monday.

The researchers have also been posting marmot videos to the OnlyFans adult content platform. To capitalize on the attention those posts have garnered, a "super fan" created a meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency, called $OnlyMarms, and donates transaction fees to the research program. That alone has raised around $100,000.

The team needs to bank three years of funding — over $200,000 — to ensure marmot research can continue next summer.

“People have to find funding in ways that we’ve never really thought of before,” Adler said. “Like reaching out to the broader community to get people engaged.”

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

Becovic Management Group paid $27 million for The Carling and 11 East apartments in sales that closed Aug. 14, according to deeds recorded Aug. 20 with the Duval County Clerk of Court.

One deed shows that through BMG 11 East LLC, Becovic paid $15.5 million for 11 East. It bought the property from The Vestcor Cos. through VCP-Lynch Building Ltd.

Two more deeds show that Vestcor sold The Carling to BMG Carling LLC in two sales at $5.75 million each, totaling $11.5 million.

These sales were made through VCP-Roosevelt Building Ltd. and VCP-Roosevelt Garage LLC.

“Adding The Carling and 11E to the Becovic Companies portfolio is another step in our commitment to Jacksonville and the revitalization of its key downtown corridor,” said founder and President Muhamed Becovic in an emailed statement Aug. 17.

“Alongside the recent acquisition of the Laura Street Trio, we’re building an ecosystem that brings these engaging buildings back to life while honoring their history.”

“These investments are a reflection of our family’s core values and the legacy we’ve worked to build, reinforcing our mission to invest in Jacksonville and create lasting impact for generations to come,” Becovic said.

Nathan Walter, vice president of strategic development, said it’s been a busy time at Becovic Cos. with the acquisitions.

“We truly understand the responsibility before us: to thoughtfully restore, activate and breathe new life into these historic buildings,” he said. “Our vision is to create a dynamic work, eat, play and live ecosystem that honors their legacy while generating new energy and excitement in downtown Jacksonville.”

Privately held Becovic, based in Indiana, already owns The Residences at Barnett and the Laura Street Trio in Downtown, also on the Downtown Northbank.

The 17-story 11 E. Forsyth St. property was built in 1926. Originally known as The Lynch Building, at one time it was the headquarters for American Heritage Life Insurance Co.

Click here to read the full story on the Jacksonville Daily Record website.

Also, Turkey announced it is asking for an international warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his role in stopping several boats trying to break a naval blockade of Gaza in May, and Lebanon's brief economic growth has ended due to the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Friday. Full coverage can be found here.

Palestinian teen killed by Israeli settlers after rock throwing incident

A 17-year-old Palestinian was killed and another man wounded by Israeli settler gunfire after rocks were thrown Friday in Sa’ir, north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The ministry identified the teenager as Karim Sanad Raja Shalaldeh. The teenager’s father told The Associated Press at the hospital that Israeli settlers had killed his son.

The Israeli military said soldiers were dispatched to Sa’ir after Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli civilians who were in the area without prior authorization. Some Israelis were injured and a security official opened fire.

Separately, the Palestinian General Authority for Civil Affairs informed the Health Ministry that 58-year-old Fathi Khazem was fatally shot by Israeli forces early Friday in Jenin.

An Israeli army official speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military rules said Khazem attempted to stab an Israeli soldier during an overnight operation. No Israeli soldiers were injured.

The Israeli official said Khazem was the father of Raed Khazem, who carried out a shooting attack in Tel Aviv in April 2022.

Violence has escalated in the West Bank where at least 87 Palestinians have been killed in almost 1,500 attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers this year, according to Palestinian officials.

— Koral Saeed in Herzliya, Israel.

Turkey seeks international warrant for Netanyahu over May blockade

Turkey is seeking an international warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s interception of an international flotilla that attempted to break a naval blockade of Gaza.

The Interpol red notice sought against Netanyahu and one other Israeli national was tied to an Istanbul court case trying 35 defendants in absentia for alleged “genocide,” other crimes against humanity, torture, unlawful detention and hijacking, Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said in a statement posted on X.

The charges stem from the Israeli navy’s interception in May of several vessels in international waters off Cyprus days after the flotilla departed from the Turkish port of Marmaris. Some detained activists reported mistreatment.

Turkey is among the most vocal critics of Israel’s government.

Netanyahu responded on social media, calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an antisemitic dictator who has “massacred Kurds, harbors Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him.”

“Erdogan’s pathetic attempt to intimidate the leaders and soldiers of Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, will go nowhere,” Netanyahu said Friday.

Economic woes return to Lebanon

Lebanon’s economy is projected to contract 6.4% this year because the latest Israel-Hezbollah war reversed the economic recovery of the previous year, the World Bank said Friday.

The destruction from the war that started in March and related sharp drop in tourism reversed a 4.2% growth seen in 2025 in Lebanon's economy, the organization said.

The World Bank also predicts a sharp increase in inflation driven by supply disruptions, higher shipping costs, and rising oil prices, which will further reduce purchasing power.

Lebanon's economy has been in crisis since a 2019 banking collapse.

The agency had chartered the plane, which crashed Thursday near its destination, the Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site Airport, approximately 450 miles (725 kilometers) west of Anchorage, Alaska. The two pilots and six passengers were not immediately identified.

The twin-engine Cessna 441 had taken off from the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.

“This is a devastating loss for our military family and the communities we serve,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and Eleventh Air Force, said in a statement.

The NTSB and the FAA are investigating the crash. It happened in foggy weather, according to information compiled by a service that's part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit.

The airport is a private military site. The radar site is managed by the Pacific Air Forces Regional Support Center. It’s part of a network of remote radar sites that tracks aircraft operating in Alaska’s airspace and along its borders, the statement from Alaskan Command said.

The statement did not provide details on the specific work the individuals were doing.

Davis described those on board as “dedicated professionals carrying out a vital mission in a demanding environment. Our absolute priority right now is providing unwavering support to their families, friends and teammates during this devastating time. We are profoundly grateful for the swift and tireless response of our search and recovery professionals.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska posted online that the flight was operated by Security Aviation, an airplane charter company based in Anchorage.

An email was sent to the company Friday morning seeking comment.

“I join Alaskans in offering condolences as we learn of the plane crash in Cape Newenham,” Murkowski posted Thursday night. “I’ve traveled extensively with Security Aviation throughout Alaska, and have met many of their experienced pilots. I appreciate the U.S. Coast Guard, NTSB, Alaska State Troopers, and the Rescue Coordination Center for responding to the site. Alaska is praying for those on board, their loved ones, and the team at Security Aviation.”

In 1950, a continental defense radar station was built at Cape Newenham as part of the Distant Early Warning Line to warn of a Soviet attack during the Cold War, according to Coastview, a science education nonprofit that promotes understanding of the Alaska coast. Little remains of the former station today.

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Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

This year, Collector’s Alley, is the new addition. It focuses on all things Geek and collectible while also hosting multiple Lorcana tournaments.

The convention is open to the whole family Friday through Sunday.

www.setattoo.com IG: @jacksonvilletattooconvention

Officials said there were no reports of any serious injuries.

The National Weather Service said a trained spotter reported a tornado in Dover, Delaware, during Thursday's storms. Photos and video on social media show the roof of a motel being blown off and damage to other buildings along Route 13 northeast of downtown.

In Atlantic Beach on Long Island, images posted on social media show a large funnel cloud over the water and small buildings torn apart at a beach club. The weather service confirmed a tornado touched down on the shore, saying it started as a waterspout over the Atlantic Ocean.

Weather service crews were going to view the Delaware and Long Island damage on Friday to determine the strengths and paths of the tornadoes.

Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen said a state of emergency was lifted Friday morning to allow residents and businesses to resume normal activities. Police urged residents to be patient and set aside extra time for travel.

“There is still debris throughout the city, and crews will be out working on cleanup, repairs, and restoring services. You may encounter blocked lanes, utility crews, emergency personnel, and other delays,” police said on social media.

On Long Island, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said first responders rescued people trapped in their vehicles during flooding.

In other parts of New York, flooding caused part of the Long Island Expressway in Queens to close in both directions, according to New York City Emergency Management. Photos on social media showed lines of stopped cars as emergency crews traversed the water.

In Jersey City, New Jersey, emergency crews rescued 69 people trapped in cars that were overtaken by flash flooding, said Mayor James Solomon. Emergency crews used small inflatable boats to reach people who were stranded.

Bridegan was told to turn over her phone to the court at 9 a.m. Friday so it could be reviewed and specific information could be turned over to Shanna Gardner’s defense team.

READ: Order to comply with subpoena

Gardner and Fernandez are both charged in the February 2022 ambush killing of Kirsten Bridegan’s late husband, Jared.

Kite’s order about Kirsten Bridegan’s phone followed a heated dispute over a motion from Gardner’s defense team seeking private messages and other material from Bridegan’s phone and social media accounts. They say the material could have evidentiary value in Gardner’s defense.

RELATED: Mario Fernandez’s attorneys question FBI analyst who tracked cellphones from night of Jared Bridegan’s murder

After Kite’s order, Kirsten Bridegan’s attorneys filed an emergency motion for a stay, and Gardner’s attorneys responded.

Kite denied the stay motion at 8:30 a.m. Friday, upholding her order for Bridegan to turn her phone over by the 9 a.m. deadline.

Despite Kite’s order, the phone was not turned over to the court, and a noticeably frustrated Kite stopped the Fernandez trial in the middle of testimony at 9:30 a.m. to hold an emergency hearing on the issue.

Gardner’s attorneys are asking for Bridegan to be held in contempt of court for refusing to comply with the order, and Kite agreed to hold a hearing at 12:30 p.m. Friday to allow Bridegan’s attorneys time to respond.

If Bridegan is held in contempt, she could be arrested on the spot.

Bridegan’s attorneys previously argued the request from Gardner’s attorneys was an overly broad “fishing expedition” and an improper attempt to examine the phone of the widow of a murder victim.

They said a reliable forensic extraction would require imaging the entire phone, potentially exposing private information unrelated to the case.

But Kite has already said in court that she believes imaging the entire phone is a violation of Bridegan’s privacy rights, which is why she narrowed the scope of what could be retrieved from her accounts.

The parties also disagreed over the vendor who would conduct the forensic examination. Bridegan’s attorneys objected to the first defense-selected vendor, arguing that the vendor appeared to be part of Gardner’s legal team and had made misleading statements about its independence.

Gardner’s attorneys on Thursday offered a different third-party vendor option to the court, not connected to the defense team, that they said will be able to extract only the more narrow information the court has allowed. Previous vendors had said that would not be possible.

Before Kite’s order, Kirsten Bridegan’s attorneys also argued that she is entitled to heightened protection under Florida’s victims’ rights law, commonly known as Marsy’s Law. They said the law protects her from harassment, intimidation and disclosure of information that could reveal confidential details or be used to locate or harass her or her family.

The attorneys asked Kite to reconsider her earlier order requiring Bridegan to provide phone data.

Alternatively, they asked to learn the specific reasons the defense considers the requested information material so they could properly challenge the intrusion into Bridegan’s privacy. Kite overruled their objection, saying Bridegan has no right to know defense strategy.

Kite said she previously reviewed a sealed submission from Gardner’s attorneys and determined that some of the requested information had evidentiary value.

Her order limits the scope of the material that may be shared and requires the court to review the communications first. Only substantive information is to be provided to the defense.

Gardner is slated to begin jury selection for her September trial after the Fernandez trial has ended.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under a China-imposed national security law that has effectively crushed the city’s previously thriving pro-democracy movement. They face a maximum prison term of 10 years. The alliance was also found guilty.

The three judges ruled that the alliance’s call to “end one-party dictatorship” aimed to end the ruling Communist Party’s leadership status under the constitution, and that the “end” in the phrase carried the meaning of “overthrowing” and “undermining.”

In the verdict, they wrote that the defendants persisted in the call after the law's introduction, neglecting that it was in breach of the constitution, which states the party's leadership is a defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. That falls within “other unlawful means” under the security law, the judges said.

The defendants “intentionally encouraged supporters of the alliance to wait for the right time to carry out the goal to ‘end one-party dictatorship’ by unlawful means,” they said.

“They did not genuinely believe their words and deeds had not violated the national security law. They just refused to pull back from the brink,” wrote the judges, who insisted they weren't tried because of political views.

Lee and Chow smiled and waved at the public gallery before they left the courtroom. They are expected to be sentenced at a later date. They will plead for lesser sentences next week, one of the judges said.

Observers say the trial is a barometer for Hong Kong’s civil rights

The verdict is among the latest involving Hong Kong’s once-vibrant pro-democracy movement, which has largely been dismantled after the security law's introduction in 2020.

For decades, Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigil was the only large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen crackdown in China, drawing tens of thousands of people annually. The crackdown remains a political taboo on the mainland, where authorities tightly censor discussion and prohibit public commemorations.

Hong Kong’s greater political freedoms, granted under Beijing’s “one country, two systems” governing framework, allowed the vigil to occur until authorities banned it during the coronavirus pandemic.

Observers said their trial symbolized the erosion of freedom of expression in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Eric Lai, a senior fellow with the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said every actor in Hong Kong civil society who assumed that renouncing violence and working within the law would be fine has to revise that assumption.

“Moderation of method offers no protection if the objective itself is held to be unconstitutional,” he said.

During the trial, Lee told the court that their call wasn't about ending the party’s leadership but about moving toward democracy, letting the people decide who leads them, and that the Communist Party shouldn't enforce “dictatorship.”

In a Patreon post Thursday, Chow recalled being shackled in handcuffs, and in waist and ankle chains, for trips to court from prison, saying she was walked by correctional service officers “like a dog.”

“Justice lives in the hearts of the people,” she said. “One verdict doesn’t matter much.”

When the trial began in January, codefendant Albert Ho pleaded guilty, which typically could result in a reduced sentence. He will also plead for a lesser sentence next week.

Supporters cast doubt on allegations

After the conviction, Lee’s wife, Elizabeth Tang, told reporters that she was disappointed and angry about the result.

“I feel it's unfair. I feel the judges did not consider our lawyers' opinions and materials,” she said, adding that they would decide whether to appeal later.

Chow's mother, Medina Chow Lau Wah-chun, said that she hoped the “environment can be a little healthier” and “flowers and plants of all colors can bloom.”

Dozens of people lined up outside the court under drizzling rain before the hearing.

Tang Ngok-kwan, a former alliance member, said police wouldn't let him join the line if he insisted on bringing along “sensitive” materials, including bookmarks printed with “vindicate June 4.” The date is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He decided not to go into the court.

Former vigil goer Margaret Chan, who joined the line at 6 a.m., said that the alliance’s name carried the word “patriotic.”

“Everyone is patriotic. How to incite? Incite others to be patriotic?” she said.

Hong Kong authorities defend the verdict

Hong Kong leader John Lee said the alliance has long deliberately planted seeds of hatred against the party and the central government in society, and their acts endangered national security.

Steve Li, chief superintendent of the police's national security department, said the case would help with future law enforcement.

“It also lets the public know that it is not that one cannot criticize,” he said. “It is simply that there must be no incitement, and no subversion of state power.”

Riley Barnes, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said on X that the U.S. condemns the guilty verdict, saying the peaceful vigils sought only to remember the past and honor the lives lost in that assault.

Rosie Winterton, the minister for the Indo-Pacific region at the U.K. Foreign Office, said that the verdict is a further demonstration that even peaceful acts of remembrance in Hong Kong are now treated by the authorities as threats to national security. The European Union said the convictions confirmed the ongoing deterioration of the city's freedom of expression.

Hundreds of people, possibly thousands, were killed in the 1989 crackdown as military tanks rolled into the center of Beijing. The Tiananmen Square crackdown was a pivotal moment in China’s modern history, showing that the market reform that transformed the country into the world’s second-largest economy wouldn't be coupled with political liberalization.

After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site in Hong Kong was occupied instead by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups.

Beijing said the security law was necessary for the city’s stability. Many leading activists have been jailed under the same law, including pro-democracy former media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Under the drastic political changes, the alliance was among dozens of civil society groups dissolved.

In an Instagram post Thursday, the 39-year-old Simpson said she was diagnosed with Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a condition that triggered “dangerous heart rhythms that ultimately caused my heart to stop.”

She said the diagnosis means it would be dangerous to return to running.

“That chapter has ended,” she said. “Thankfully, my story hasn't.”

Simpson was pacing a group of girls in a mile run at an event in Raleigh, North Carolina, when she collapsed. She underwent CPR at the track and an automated external defibrillator was also used before medics rushed her to the hospital.

“You might be wondering what would be the right thing to say to me after an event like this,” she wrote. “Please do not say that you're sorry or that you feel bad for me. If it is true in your heart, please tell me you're glad that I'm here. That's how I feel — so glad that I'm still here.”

For about a decade beginning in 2007, Simpson was America's most successful women's 1,500-meter runner. She won worlds in 2011, finished second there twice and won Olympic bronze in Rio in 2016.

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

But Consumer Reports tested popular bathroom cleaners and found that with the right tools, it can be faster, easier, and when you see the results, maybe even satisfying!

Consumer Reports takes bathroom cleaning seriously, even when the job gets gross.

To test toilet brush cleaners in the Consumer Reports Lab, engineer Larry Ciufo created a proprietary mixture that mimics the look and texture of, well... you know.

Then he handed it off to reporter Lisa Fogarty, who says, “It was definitely not pleasant to look at, but it helped us test seven toilet brush cleaners.”

Not glamorous work, but someone had to do it.

The four that performed best have sturdy bristles, reach under the rim with ease, and are comfortable to use.

The Simplehuman crescent-shaped toilet brush came out on top. The brush reaches all areas of the bowl, and its handle magnetically attaches to the holder, but it is pricey!

The Clorox Toilet Bowl Brush came in second in CR’s tests and cost $26 less. And if your grout looks dingy, Consumer Reports staffers tried seven grout cleaners at home to see how effective and easy they were to use.

CR staff found that products like the Goo Gone Grout & Tile Cleaner were effective, easy to use, and not overly smelly.

If scrubbing tubs, tiles, and shower doors feels like hard labor, consider a power scrubber. CR tests found the Leebin and Hoto Power Spin Scrubbers stood out for battery life and ease of use.

For general bathroom cleaning, Mr. Clean Clean Freak is Consumer Reports’ favorite multipurpose cleaner for tackling grime on a variety of surfaces. And for those days when a deep clean is just not happening, cleaning wipes can help for quick touchups.

Sebastian Harbor Marina will occupy the San Sebastian River basin next to the AC Hotel by Marriott St. Augustine and the city’s historic district. The inland facility will put boaters under 2 miles from the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and roughly 5 miles from the St. Augustine Inlet, with easy walking access to downtown restaurants, shops and attractions.

Work to complete the basin — originally dug in the early 2000s before the Great Recession halted the project — resumed this year under the property’s current owners, the same group behind the nearby hotel. They are investing millions to revitalize the waterfront and finish construction that stopped a generation ago.

John Valdes & Associates Inc. is overseeing the final phase, which includes dredging, upgrades to floating docks, new and reinforced pilings and other infrastructure improvements intended to strengthen the marina against future storms.

When finished, the marina will offer 64 wet slips for boats up to 55 feet and an expected controlling depth of about 7 feet mean low water after dredging. Planned amenities include shore power, potable water, Wi-Fi, gated access and around-the-clock camera monitoring. The facility will also provide modern restrooms and showers, laundry, pump-out stations and a harbormaster office. It will accept monthly and long-term slip tenants as well as transient visitors; live-aboard dockage will not be permitted. Two waterfront apartments adjacent to the docks will be available for short-term stays.

Safe Passage Marina Management LLC will run day-to-day operations. The management team is led by John Valdes, who brings decades of marina construction and operations experience, and Nico Recore, who will serve as general manager after several years working at local marina and waterfront businesses.

“We want Sebastian Harbor Marina to be more than simply a place to dock a boat,” Recore said. He added the marina’s location offers a protected harbor and a chance to introduce visiting boaters to the St. Augustine experience as soon as they step ashore.

Attracting cruising boaters is a key part of the plan. St. Augustine is a common stop along the Intracoastal and a favored port for Great Loop cruisers; the protected basin offers an alternative to exposed anchorages and brings visitors within walking distance of downtown.

Construction and final preparations are underway ahead of the anticipated October 2026 opening. Slip rates are still being set; prospective slip holders and transient guests can join an interest list at sebastianharbormarina.com.

But why the monikers each year? Or at all?

Humans have given names to the world around them for almost as long as language itself has existed, but formal naming practices for storms and other events of national and international importance are a relatively new phenomenon. Names of military operations (“Operation Epic Fury”), hurricanes (Hugo, Andrew, Katrina, etc.), diseases (COVID-19) and even companies need to serve purposes other than just differentiation. They need to tell stories.

“Look around in your home. Who or what has a name? Your family members, your pets. You may even have named certain objects of significance,” says Shannon Murphy, CEO of Nameistry, a firm that helps companies and entrepreneurs develop their brand identities. “If it’s got a name, it has meaning in some way, and it’s going to come up in conversation or other types of communication.”

The World Meteorological Organization, which manages the naming of tropical storms worldwide, says assigning a moniker is “proven to be the fastest way to communicate warnings and raise public awareness and preparedness,” as well as limit confusion when more than one cyclone is moving through. They can also help with research and record-keeping.

Tropical storms the world over are named on a set of pre-agreed alphabetical lists decided by five tropical cyclone regional bodies. Some of these are cyclical, returning to the same lists every few years, starting at "A" with the first storm of the given year; others start a new list every year. Those covering the Atlantic region skip names beginning with Q, U, X, Y and Z because examples are difficult to find.

Until 1979, the United States used only female names, but now it alternates. For example, Amanda’s successor in the Eastern North Pacific storm region is Boris, and residents of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic region have already seen Arthur and Bertha.

Military operation names have evolved (thanks to Churchill)

While storm names are designed to be memorable and simple, they are not necessarily trying to elicit feelings. Neither were military operation names, which functioned to maintain secrecy and to differentiate one from another until British Prime Minister Winston Churchill changed the nomenclature to suit the broader aims of the allies in World War II.

“In the Second World War, names such as Overlord, Torch or Husky were planning code-names,” says Ruben Stewart, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Churchill’s intervention in the naming of Operation Overlord,” Stewart said, referring to the Allied push that began with D-Day, “reflected a broader wartime realization that operation names mattered.”

In a 1943 memo to his wartime chief of staff discussing code words to be used during World War II, Churchill argued operation names should not imply a “boastful and overconfident sentiment” or be “frivolous.”

The prime minister added that effort should be made to identify names that “do not suggest the character of the operation or disparage it in any way and do not enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called ‘Bunnyhug’ or ‘Ballyhoo.’”

Subsequent conflicts morphed naming practices, with the U.S. military choosing two-word operation names and the United Kingdom sticking with one. Today, British military code names are automatically generated, but U.S. military operations remain evocative. This means joint operations can end up with different names: The military response to the 1991 Gulf War was famously dubbed “Operation Desert Storm” by the U.S. military, while the British opted for “Operation Granby."

Stewart says the post-Korea/Vietnam and post-Panama periods mattered for setting the tone in U.S. military monikers, with Operation Killer during the Korean War in 1951 causing “obvious public-affairs problems,” while the U.S. invasion of Panama being “Operation Just Cause” showed how an operation name could be "deliberately framed for legitimacy,” he said.

Recent years have brought more colorful monikers

When the U.S. war with Iran began in February, it was dubbed Operation Epic Fury, a name President Donald Trump said he selected from a list of 20. Some have criticized the rise of more bombastic names, including immigration raids titled Catahoula Crunch in Louisiana and Operation Dirtbag in Florida — and the naming of detention facilities like Florida's “Alligator Alcatraz.”

“A name can signal purpose, reassure domestic audiences, sustain coalition legitimacy, deter adversaries and give service personnel a shorthand identity for what they are doing,” Stewart says. “The best names are clear, sober, memorable, culturally safe and politically defensible.”

Getting a name's feel or connotation wrong can have huge consequences, despite it being only a sliver of an operation. The U.S. war on terror after 9/11 was originally Operation Infinite Justice, but it was changed to Operation Enduring Freedom after concerns that U.S. allies in the Middle East would be offended. Muslims believe only God can deliver the concept of infinite justice.

Not all names are designed to last. Twice in the last 25 years, the Atlantic weather region exhausted all the names on its annual list and had to resort to using the Greek alphabet to name storms. Now, Berg says, a supplementary list of names sits at the ready.

In the case of a particularly devastating storm, either by death toll or damage, names can be retired and replaced with new ones. Consideration is given to clarity.

“There have been names that are hard to pronounce, and I think people try to refrain from using those because we want them to roll off the tongue pretty easily,” said Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center.

The practice of naming major events is continually evolving

Infamous storms with retired names include Sandy, which struck Jamaica, Cuba and the east coast of the United States in 2012, killing 182 people; and Katrina, which struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, killing nearly 1,400. Both caused widespread property devastation. The names won't surface again; they were replaced by Katia and Sara.

Practices also change over time. Historically, diseases and medical conditions were often named after the people who identified them or places they were identified — think of Alzheimer's disease or Ebola — but the World Health Organization now advises against this practice.

“There is a deliberate move away from terms like ‘swine flu’ or ‘Spanish flu,’ which underscores how powerful a name and its associations can be,” Murphy said. “Once it sticks, it’s hard to unstick it.”

There is scant research into the exact impacts of naming. Andrew Charlton-Perez, a meteorologist and head of the School of Mathematical, Physical & Computational Sciences at the University of Reading, called for more studies in the field as the climate brings more frequent and extreme weather events.

“As our climate becomes more extreme,” he said, “there is always the need to think about how to better communicate to avoid harm.”

One possible alternative: crowdsourcing. In Britain and Ireland, people can submit ideas for storm names and try their hand. They might get lucky — depending on which way the wind blows.

The crash happened Tuesday at 10 p.m. at State Road 16 and Downs Corner Road, according to FHP. The victim’s body was not found until nearly 20 hours later, around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, prompting a road closure that lasted several hours Wednesday night.

What investigators say happened

FHP says an SUV traveling west struck the bumper of the motorized scooter, pushing the rider into the grass and a ditch along the right shoulder of State Road 16. The SUV did not stop and continued driving west.

The scooter rider was pronounced dead at the scene. FHP said he was not wearing a helmet.

The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office posted a public update Wednesday notifying residents of the road closure tied to the crash investigation.

Person of interest identified

FHP told News4Jax that investigators have a person of interest and a vehicle in their possession. The investigation is ongoing.

Community reaction

Several News4Jax readers responded to coverage of the crash. One commenter wrote in part:

“This poor man! I have passed him several times on the way home. I grew up on 16 and locals have always ridden their bikes on SR16, it’s just with the growth, and road construction, and new people — it has become a lot more dangerous.”

U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier abruptly ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise just before it began Monday. Trump cited what he described as a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

South Korea's military said the Ulchi Freedom Shield, a command post exercise with the U.S., ended on Friday.

This month's exercise was initially reportedly scheduled to be held in two phases for 11 days in simulation of North Korean attacks — the first part until Friday on defensive operations and the second part until Aug. 27 on counteroffensive operations. North Korea is extremely sensitive to the second phase.

South Korea and the U.S. had also planned to hold 14 joint field training exercises during the Ulchi Freedom Shield period. But they've agreed to halve them as well, according to South Korea's military.

North Korea shrugs off Trump's outreach

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, brushed aside Trump’s overture on Wednesday, saying that reducing the duration and size of the drills won't change their “provocative, aggressive nature.”

The next day, North Korea fired about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, apparently following through with its previous threat to respond to the U.S.-South Korean drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.

The U.S. Pacific Command said the events didn't pose an immediate threat to U.S. territory or its allies. The command said the U.S. remains committed to the defense of the U.S. homeland and its allies in the region.

Kim Yo Jong's statement dampened hopes for an early resumption of talks between Trump and Kim Jong Un, whose earlier nuclear diplomacy collapsed in 2019. Kim Jong Un has used the diplomatic stalemate to increase his leverage by modernizing his nuclear and missile arsenals and aligning with Russia over its war against Ukraine. Kim Jong Un suggested last year that he won't return to talks unless the U.S. drops its demand for North Korean denuclearization as a precondition for diplomacy.

Kim Yo Jong still used relatively measured language, avoided typical harsh North Korean rhetoric and touched upon what she called an “excellent” relationship between her brother and Trump. This suggests North Korea doesn't want to completely shut the door for future talks and may seek to win bigger U.S. concessions, such as international recognition as a nuclear state and broad sanctions relief.

More nuclear weapons, Russia ties give North Korea greater leverage

With its supply of ammunition and troops to Russia, North Korea is likely receiving economic and military assistance in return, and its expanding ties with Russia provides it with leverage to ask for greater support from China, its biggest trading partner.

“After this strategic play has run its course, Kim may seek further economic and reputational benefits from Washington,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “But that will probably be after the U.S. midterm elections when Trump is expected to be in a weaker domestic political position and in search of headline-grabbing foreign policies.”

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said that Kim Yo Jong's statement showed North Korea's position that a personal relationship between her brother and Trump “can't be a factor that moves current North Korean-U.S. relations.” He said Kim Yo Jong likely aimed to head off speculation that Trump's move can restore diplomacy so as not to fully take the blame when it doesn't happen.

Kim Yo Jong denied Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation. When asked by reporters Wednesday if he would be meeting with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.”

The Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of the main military exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea annually to enhance their ability to cope with potential North Korean aggression. Its downsizing has caused worries about joint U.S.-South Korean readiness.

Fernandez is charged with first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony in the February 2022 shooting that left Bridegan dead on a dark Jacksonville Beach street.

Prosecutors allege Fernandez hired Henry Tenon, who was a tenant at a rental property Fernandez owned, to kill Bridegan, his wife Shanna Gardner’s ex-husband. Gardner and Bridegan divorced in 2015, which was followed by years of contentious disputes over the twins they shared.

The defense has argued that prosecutors cannot prove who solicited Tenon or that Fernandez was involved in the shooting.

Prosecutors have described the killing as a planned ambush.

“The killer was a stranger to Jared Bridegan. The murder was personal,” Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler told jurors during opening statements.

RELATED | Who was Jared Bridegan? A father, a creative builder, a believer — and so much more | 4 years later: A timeline of the Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case

Bridegan, a 33-year-old Microsoft design manager and father of four, was killed Feb. 16, 2022, after stopping his Volkswagen Atlas SUV on that dark street to remove a tire that prosecutors say was left in the road to lure Bridegan out of the vehicle.

Bridegan, who was driving home to St. Augustine after dropping off the twins he shared with Gardner at her Jacksonville Beach home, was shot twice as his 2-year-old daughter, Bexley, sat in the vehicle. Two other bullets struck the SUV, narrowly missing Bexley.

The first trial witness, Jonelle Cruz, testified about comforting Bexley after her boyfriend found the toddler in the SUV near her father’s body that night.

Prosecutors say Bexley had been alone for about 7 minutes before Cruz and her boyfriend arrived.

In a video shown to jurors, Bexley described to Cruz hearing a “Boom!”

RELATED: Jared Bridegan’s widow honored with Back the Blue award for ‘Bexley Boxes’ | 911 calls describe scene of confusion in Sanctuary neighborhood on night of Jared Bridegan’s ambush murder

“She was shaking. She was very worried about her dad,” Cruz testified.

Key evidence: Where is the gun?

Defense attorneys have questioned lead Jacksonville Beach Police Detective Chris Johns and other investigators about the missing 10mm Glock believed to have been used to kill Bridegan. (The type of weapon was identified because of shell casings left at the scene.)

Agent Kenneth Stengel, who has been an ATF agent since 2008 and a firearms instructor for about two years, testified that 10mm weapons are more rare and that this was the first 10mm firearm he had encountered in his investigations.

Under cross-examination, however, Stengel acknowledged that Glock has produced multiple 10mm models and that investigators found records of six 10mm purchases at one Jacksonville gun store.

But Stengel maintained that the weapon was “not very common” based on his personal experience.

Investigators say the 10mm is significant because John Biggerstaff, a longtime friend of Fernandez, owned a 10mm at one point but could not produce it for detectives after the murder.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Biggerstaff has never been charged with a crime in connection with Bridegan’s murder.)

The state has said Fernandez visited Biggerstaff on Jan. 25, 2022, weeks before the murder, and that investigators found evidence that Biggerstaff searched for information about 10mm firearms on the day of the visit.

But defense attorney Jesse Dreicer suggested Fernandez could have visited Biggerstaff’s home for reasons unrelated to the murder, including their longstanding personal relationship. (Fernandez attended Sandalwood High School with Biggerstaff’s daughter.)

RELATED: He’s the first to face trial in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case. What do we know about Mario Fernandez?

Dreicer also questioned Johns about a video found on Biggerstaff’s phone that showed Fernandez having sex with Biggerstaff’s wife. Johns agreed the Biggerstaffs practiced a consensual “swinger” lifestyle.

The defense argued that Fernandez’s visit to Biggerstaff’s home in January 2022 did not prove he obtained a weapon there.

“What you certainly have no evidence of is that Mr. Biggerstaff gave Mr. Fernandez a 10mm firearm,” Dreicer said in one of many tense exchanges with Johns.

“There is no physical evidence of that,” Johns replied.

“OK. When you say no physical evidence, there is no evidence of that. Correct?” Dreicer asked again.

“There is no physical evidence of that,” Johns repeated.

Stengel testified Thursday that federal records showed Biggerstaff purchased a Glock 10mm on June 8, 2016, but that he had to give up that gun and other weapons after he was convicted of a felony.

Stengel testified that agents interviewed Biggerstaff, his son Juan and another man, but none provided information that led investigators to the location of the 10mm Glock. Investigators have admitted that the murder weapon was never recovered.

But on re-direct, Stifler got Johns to confirm that despite having no physical evidence that Biggerstaff had a 10mm gun at the time of the murder, detectives did have witness statements recorded on wires that led them to continue investigating Biggerstaff as the source of the murder weapon.

Key evidence: How did they find the blue truck?

Stengel also testified about the discovery of the blue, two-tone Ford F-150 that investigators say was captured on video being used in the killing.

Investigators had scoured the area for months after the shooting, and on Oct. 14, 2022, Stengel and a fellow agent used Google location data from Henry Tenon’s device to locate the truck at the home of Jimmy Jones, who turned out to be a longtime family friend of Tenon.

The truck was visible from the street, and Stengel said Jones was cooperative. Stengel said the truck’s discovery was a major break in the investigation.

Stengel and Johns both admitted on cross-examination that investigators did not search Jones’ home or the rest of the property for the missing firearm.

No DNA sample was taken from Jones, and no additional testing was conducted at the property. Stengel testified that he had no knowledge of any connection between Jones and Fernandez and that Jones was not treated as a suspect.

Johns said the truck was the only evidence recovered there and that investigators had no reason to search the house because records showed the truck arrived months after the homicide and Jones was not considered a suspect.

Dreicer challenged that explanation, noting investigators had not recovered the firearm and had evidence that Tenon had been at the home.

“Other than the fact that the biggest break in the case was found at Jimmy Jones’s house. Other than that, there was no reason to search the house,” Dreicer said.

Stifler made a point of asking Johns on re-direct about not searching Jones’s home. Johns confirmed to her that investigators received information in 2023 that the gun involved in the murder had been destroyed shortly after the shooting, so it would not have been at Jones’s home even if they’d searched for it.

Key evidence: Who was driving the blue truck?

Video evidence shown in court traced the blue, two-tone Ford F-150 through Jacksonville Beach on the night of the killing.

Prosecutors say the truck carried the shooter to the scene of the murder, but that surveillance showed a person running from the area after the shooting while someone else drove away in the truck.

That means two people were there that night, the prosecutors and defense agree.

But they don’t agree on who that might be.

The defense has emphasized that Fernandez was not shown driving the truck or accompanying Tenon.

Investigators acknowledged they could not identify the truck’s driver and that there is a 32-minute gap in the footage when they don’t know where the truck was in Jacksonville Beach that night.

What surveillance video did capture, though, was an unsettling moment outside the Jacksonville Beach Police Department the night of the murder.

A man prosecutors believe was Tenon walked past the station just seconds before Kirsten Bridegan arrived in the family’s SUV after learning her husband had been shot.

Kirsten testified on Monday that she did not recognize the man, and it was unclear whether she had seen the footage before or knew how close she had come to him that night.

Interactive timeline

Potomac property

In his cross-examination of Johns, Dreicer also focused on cellphone and surveillance evidence involving Fernandez’s rental property on Potomac Avenue, where Tenon lived at one point.

Fernandez’s phone was recorded at the property for several hours on Jan. 29, 2022, while Tenon’s phone traveled toward Jacksonville Beach and back in what prosecutors describe as a practice run for the night of the murder.

FBI Agent Bobby Blythe testified in detail on Thursday about the locations of Tenon’s device on Jan. 29, 2022, describing how it traveled south from the Potomac Avenue house to the area of Bridegan’s home and the gymnastics facility where Bridegan’s oldest daughter took lessons.

Blythe said from there, the phone traveled to Jacksonville Beach to the area where the murder would take place just over two weeks later.

Blythe explained to the jury that cellphone records can show an approximate location, not an exact one. Tower-and-sector data identifies the general coverage area; timing-advance data can narrow it further, while Google location history is usually the most precise, sometimes within a few meters.

Most of the tracking data for Tenon used Google history from the Gmail account attached to his device.

Blythe testified that on Jan. 29, 2022, when Tenon’s device was traveling to Jacksonville Beach and to the area of Bridegan’s home, Fernandez’s phone was at the Potomac home.

Earlier, Dreicer pointed to surveillance footage showing Fernandez repeatedly visiting the Potomac property, meeting contractors and carrying construction materials.

He argued the video supported Fernandez’s explanation that he was overseeing legitimate repair and renovation work.

Detective Johns agreed the footage showed Fernandez performing or arranging property work but said it did not establish what happened on the specific day in question.

Key evidence: Was there DNA?

Prosecutors presented evidence from a DNA analyst on Wednesday afternoon, who said that Tenon’s DNA was found on the tire used to stop Bridegan’s vehicle.

Investigators say Tenon’s boots, jacket and distinctive gait also matched evidence associated with the shooter.

Fernandez’s DNA was not found on any of the items tested by investigators, the analyst acknowledged.

Detective Johns also acknowledged there was no surveillance, fingerprint, hair or other physical evidence placing Fernandez in Tenon’s blue pickup truck or proving he accompanied Tenon to Jacksonville Beach.

Dreicer made a point of talking about how dirty the inside of the truck was when investigators found it months later, implying that the evidence was not missing because someone had “wiped” the truck.

Key evidence: What were the checks for?

The state has highlighted three checks totaling $10,000 that Fernandez wrote to Tenon after the killing.

Johns testified Tuesday that three business check stubs, which were later matched to three checks Fernandez wrote to Tenon, were found in the blue truck.

The checks were described as payment for landscaping, roof work and a Kickstarter project that the state says didn’t exist.

The checks from First Choice Home Rentals LLC — all signed by Fernandez — were for $2,000 and $3,000 dated March 28, 2022, and $5,000 dated April 4, 2022.

Prosecutors argue the payments were disguised compensation for the murder.

But the defense says Tenon performed work at Fernandez’s property and that the checks were legitimate.

“Henry Tenon is a worker. Mario Fernandez has hired him to do work, not murder, tree work, roof work, landscaping, tile work,” defense attorney James Hill said in his opening statement

Gene Nichols, an attorney not involved in the case, said the checks are the hinge point of the entire trial.

“I think when it’s all said and done, what does the jury believe about the checks? That’s going to rule a tremendous amount,” he said. “That, to me, is going to be where this hinges — will a jury believe that those checks were written in order to commit murder, or were those checks written for the work that Mr. Hill said they were written for?”

He added that the burden of proof remains high.

“If the jury believes that they were for work that was done, or they take the position that the state didn’t prove that the money was for murder, then that’s going to sway a jury,” Nichols said. “In order to convict him, it’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by all of those jurors.”

What’s the motive?

Prosecutors have pointed to the hostility between the two families as a possible motive for Bridegan’s murder.

Kirsten Bridegan, Jared’s widow, testified Monday that the co-parenting relationship between Jared and Gardner had deteriorated into constant conflict.

“It was pretty terrible,” Kirsten Bridegan said on the stand. “There was absolutely no trust so everything was in writing. Texts, email. We did not speak in person, like at school events. Didn’t do phone calls.”

In his initial interview with detectives, which was played in court on Tuesday for about 50 minutes, Fernandez discussed the ongoing conflicts over the twins, describing Jared Bridegan as difficult and “passive-aggressive” and calling him a “keyboard warrior.”

Fernandez also mentioned the family communication in that interview, saying the family was in a group text and had an arrangement to text when they arrived to pick up the kids for date night.

The custody agreement established alternating Wednesday “date nights” for both parents on the week when the children were in the other parent’s home.

Dreicer argued that the schedule for date night was public information and therefore could have been known by people outside the family.

“So the idea that (Wednesday date night) is some personal detail that only the Bridegans would know and only the Gardner-Fernandez residence would know is simply not true. It’s public information. Correct?” Dreicer asked.

“The docket is publicly available,” Johns acknowledged.

Friends testify

On Wednesday and Thursday, friends of Fernandez also testified.

Taylor Kutis described conversations involving Fernandez’s marriage, co-parenting disputes and an obscure “contract” involving his wife’s family.

Under cross-examination, Kutis acknowledged that her recollections were not verbatim, that she kept no notes and that some details came from media reports.

Victor Quiroz, a longtime online gaming friend, testified that Fernandez visited him in North Carolina in March 2022.

Quiroz said Fernandez acted normally and did not discuss the killing. Fernandez mentioned only later that his wife’s former husband had been shot.

Carlos Phuong, a friend of Fernandez since high school, testified on Thursday about Fernandez’s relationship with Gardner and about two phone calls he placed to Fernandez in January 2023, when neither man was aware they were being recorded.

The expletive-laced calls between the two friends were played for the jury.

In the calls, Phuong told Fernandez that media reports were linking Gardner to Jared Bridegan’s death and that Henry Tenon had been arrested. They discussed Tenon’s work on Fernandez’s rental property and possible motives, along with unrelated topics.

Phuong testified that Fernandez made no admission, did not seem evasive and said he had nothing to do with the killing.

Phuong also testified that he never heard Fernandez or Gardner threaten Jared Bridegan or discuss planning his killing.

What’s next?

Fernandez’s murder trial is scheduled to continue through Aug. 28.

Gardner, 39, faces a separate trial in September, while Tenon is scheduled to stand trial in 2027 after withdrawing an earlier guilty plea.

Gardner is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse.

Tenon is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse, possession of a firearm by a felon and accessory after the fact.

Neither Gardner nor Tenon will testify in Fernandez’s trial.

RELATED: Judge orders Jared Bridegan’s widow to turn over cellphone in Shanna Gardner murder case

The case has garnered national attention, and Judge London Kite has repeatedly explained to the 12 jurors and four alternates that they can not look up anything about the case or talk about it with anyone.

As part of the preparation for trial, Kite previously ordered that the seated jurors’ names be kept anonymous until 60 days after the trial, which is typical in high-profile cases. The jurors were referred to only by their numbers during jury selection to protect their identities.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The BackBlack initiative has directed more than $12 million toward Black-led nonprofits over the past three years, according to founder Floyd Jones. A GivingTuesday -style campaign that runs in August, the appeal invites online donation platforms to center typically underfunded, Black-led nonprofits. Last year's efforts drew more than 130,000 unique donors, according to Jones, with the majority of their gifts falling under $100.

This year, for the first time, organizers are also leveraging content creators to reach a new audience: Black Gen Zers. The goal is to show that philanthropy belongs to them, too — not just the historically wealthier and predominantly white charitable institutions that tend to dominate narratives about philanthropy.

“Our people have always taken care of our people," Jones said. “I want people to feel empowered.”

The campaign could bring a boost for smaller, Black-led organizations that, according to research released earlier this year, saw no significant changes to their funding after the racial reckoning of 2020. Only a subset of larger nonprofits got temporary increases in the years that followed, according to an analysis by Candid and ABFE.

BackBlack aims to flip that narrative from one of “deficit” to one of abundance. Jones is heartened by the example of Madam C.J. Walker, a Black beauty entrepreneur widely considered America's first female self-made millionaire. She supported Black educational efforts such as Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute and African American branches of the YMCA. She also contributed to the NAACP 's anti-lynching fund shortly before her death in 1919.

Jones doesn't care if today's donors have millions in their bank accounts, though. “It's about doing your best,” he said.

One of BackBlack's partnering creators pointed to the Free African Society. The nondenominational Philadelphia group, founded in 1787 by Black leaders Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, was one of the country's first mutual aid organizations.

“We've always had to pool our money and resources to help each other," said Ernest Crim III, a former schoolteacher who posts Black history videos for his 118,000 Instagram followers.

But, he added, allies must also pitch in — especially in communities that “might not have the sustainable market or income to consistently give.”

Crim is asking followers to support Black nonprofits that work on issues of youth employment. Other participating pages are focused on nonprofits providing sports access, improving health outcomes and ensuring civil rights.

Matching up to $6,000 in donations is For Good, a charitable giving platform that helps move money from more than 20,000 donor-advised funds to over a million nonprofits filtered by ZIP code. GivingTuesday manages BackBlack's data, Jones said. Other partners include online fundraising platforms GiveButter, Every.org, Bonterra and Fundraise Up.

For Good provides back end infrastructure for consumer-based campaigns including YouTube's fundraising pages and Patagonia's point-of-sale donations. The creator-driven donation strategy stemmed from the platform’s success with YouTubers who launch fundraisers for the issues they discuss in their videos.

Grassroots fundraisers face competing headwinds, according to For Good interim president Tamara Mahal. The concentration of wealth has increased the share of high net worth individuals in the donor pool. But, she said, there are more ways than ever to give locally from the bottom up.

She welcomes the BackBlack campaign's efforts to include more small-dollar givers so that nonprofits aren't overly beholden to any one individual benefactor.

“The cause is important in and of itself. Find a nonprofit that’s doing work in your community," she said. “And that will actually help us to diversify.”

Kaci Patterson is the founder of Social Good Solutions, a social impact consulting firm that works with funders to build support for Black-led organizations outside of “trend funding.” She finds that Black Philanthropy Month, celebrated in August, is a reminder that philanthropy is more than just “institutional” giving “held within the walls of wealth and power.”

It was fish fries and chicken dinners, she noted, that funded alternative transportation systems during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Growing up, her own family received groceries from their community during times of hardship.

“That was philanthropy. That was someone else looking at us and investing in us and wanting us to be whole and wanting us to be well," she said. “We've always had this kind of ‘we got us’ philanthropy. Let’s step into that role more confidently."

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

The fires are concentrated on Borneo, the world’s third-largest island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Indonesia occupies about three-quarters of the island, where more than 5,000 hot spots were recorded by the country's Forestry Ministry.

The blazes have blanketed parts of Kalimantan in choking haze, reducing visibility to just 1 meter to 10 meters (yards) in some areas, according to local media reports. The smoke has contributed to traffic accidents and delayed several flights.

Television footage showed roads, buildings and public facilities obscured by smoke, with motorists forced to drive with headlights on during daylight hours. Residents, including schoolchildren, were seen wearing masks while walking outside.

An intensifying El Nino pattern and a prolonged dry season have fueled the fires, generating dense smoke that crossed into Malaysia, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency.

Malaysia’s eastern state of Sarawak has been among the hardest hit. One district recorded “very unhealthy” air quality Friday, while eight others posted unhealthy readings, prompting the closure of nearly 600 schools and affecting about 200,000 students, the Sarawak government said.

On Borneo, Central Kalimantan Police Chief Iwan Kurniawan said investigators have detained 12 suspects linked to alleged arson and illegal land clearing in the past week.

“Every forest and land fire incident in Central Kalimantan is investigated,” Kurniawan said, adding that authorities were working to determine the causes of the fires and identify those responsible.

Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni, who visited fire-hit areas near the provincial capital of Palangka Raya on Wednesday, vowed strict action against offenders.

“Whoever they are, big or small, without exception, anyone who destroys nature and forests will face strict legal action,” Antoni said.

Social media was flooded with complaints from residents describing breathing difficulties and fears of illness.

In total, Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry detected 11,908 hot spots nationwide in the previous 24 hours, up from 6,352 a day earlier.

Forest-monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas said about 182,000 hectares (450,000 acres) burned in July alone, nearly double the area scorched during the first half of the year. The total area burned this year has reached about 285,000 hectares (704,000 acres).

Indonesia regularly experiences transboundary haze during severe fire seasons, particularly when peatlands on Sumatra and Kalimantan burn. Authorities say fires are often started illegally to clear land for plantations or agriculture, periodically blanketing parts of Southeast Asia in hazardous smoke.

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Associated Press writers Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

The crash happened near Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site Airport, approximately 450 miles (725 kilometers) west of Anchorage, Alaska.

“This is a devastating loss for our military family and the communities we serve,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and Eleventh Air Force, said in a statement.

The radar site is managed by the Pacific Air Forces Regional Support Center. It’s part of a network of remote radar sites that tracks aircraft operating in Alaska’s airspace and along its borders, the statement from Alaskan Command said.

The statement did not provide details on the specific work the individuals were doing. It referred to the plane involved as a “civilian-contracted aircraft.”

Davis described those on board as “dedicated professionals carrying out a vital mission in a demanding environment. Our absolute priority right now is providing unwavering support to their families, friends and teammates during this devastating time. We are profoundly grateful for the swift and tireless response of our search and recovery professionals.”

Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region chief, said earlier Thursday evening that two pilots and six passengers were on board.

The plane, a Cessna 441, had taken off from the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and was headed to Cape Newenham, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. The crash happened about 12:15 p.m. Thursday west of Cape Newenham.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska posted online that the flight was operated by Security Aviation, an airplane charter company based in Anchorage.

An email was sent to the company Friday morning seeking comment.

“I join Alaskans in offering condolences as we learn of the plane crash in Cape Newenham,” Murkowski posted Thursday night. “I’ve traveled extensively with Security Aviation throughout Alaska, and have met many of their experienced pilots. I appreciate the U.S. Coast Guard, NTSB, Alaska State Troopers, and the Rescue Coordination Center for responding to the site. Alaska is praying for those on board, their loved ones, and the team at Security Aviation.”

Officers responded around 3:31 a.m. to Mc Cowan Drive near Blanding Boulevard and Collins Road. The victim is being treated for injuries. The suspect remains unknown.

JSO said several shell casings were recovered, and detectives are processing the scene, interviewing witnesses, searching for surveillance video and following up on leads.

The scene remains active. JSO said the shooting appears isolated, with no current indication it was domestic- or gang-related. Anyone with information should call 904-630-0500, email JSOCRIMETIPS@JAXSHERIFF.ORG, or contact Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS.

Geis’ remains were found by a team made up of local volunteers, according to Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan. The expedition was Geis’ first attempt to climb an 8,000-meter (26,247-foot) peak in Pakistan.

Geis, 39, lived in San Antonio, Texas. She announced on social media earlier this year that she was closing her Pilates studio to take “a giant leap of faith into the unknown to see where life goes. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be lots of helmets, harnesses, and crampons involved.”

Her family remembered her in a statement earlier this month as “a bright light who was loved deeply by her family and friends.”

The recovery ended a search that began on July 31 after the expedition, led by renowned climber Nirmal Purja, was swept away by an avalanche on Broad Peak.

Purja, a Nepal-born former British Army soldier widely known as Nims Dai, climbed the world’s 14 highest peaks in a record 189 days in 2019, an achievement featured in the Netflix documentary “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible.” His record was broken in 2023.

Accidents are common on climbing expeditions in northern Pakistan because of avalanches, falling ice and rock, high altitude and rapidly changing weather.

Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, in an interview this week with The Associated Press, directed his question to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the main architect of the Trump administration’s Cuba policy:

“What are you afraid of? If you are so convinced that the Cuban government is an incompetent government, why do you need to implement almost every two weeks new sanctions?”

The U.S. State Department responded to a request for comment with a quote from Rubio saying new sanctions will continue to be announced every couple of weeks to close off “escape valves that they're trying to create in every mechanism.”

Then on Thursday, the U.S. imposed more economic penalties on Cuban industries, targeting state-owned mining, metal and construction companies.

Cuba has been pushed to the brink by an oil blockade imposed by the United States in January on top of a decades-old embargo, coupled with the escalating sanctions. The moves by President Donald Trump's administration, meant to put pressure on the government by depriving it of funding, have worsened already debilitating blackouts, cut workers off from public transport, crippled infrastructure and deepened shortages in medicine and food in the Caribbean island nation.

Guzmán said the sanctions are the main obstacle to Cuba opening up its economy. He said the impact of the U.S. measures — specifically the shortage of electricity and lack of fuel to run a business or travel — has turned off investors and tourists, a major source of Cuba’s income.

Some companies have pulled out of Cuba, including the Spanish hotel chain Meliá, which relied on tourist revenue and cited “significant operational, legal, economic and financial difficulties" in explaining its decision to leave.

”Literally, the United States has done everything imaginable to try to prevent foreign investors," said William LeoGrande, a professor at American University and a leading expert on U.S.-Cuba relations. ”When they say, `Well, we want to see Cuba open up to foreign investment,’ they’re being disingenuous. ... It's not possible for them to succeed without some kind of sanctions relief.”

The goal of Trump's Republican administration, he said, is "not just to open up Cuba economically but to overthrow the Cuban government — to change the nature of the Cuban political system.”

Cuba announces major economic shift

John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said Cuba had to make changes when it lost its economic lifeline with the U.S. ouster in January of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

“The result is the Cuban government in the last eight months made more commercial, economic and financial changes to the country than they have as a group since the revolution,” he said.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration keeps ratcheting up sanctions, putting more pressure on Cuba, which is responding by making more changes, Kavulich said.

“But from our standpoint, there are two parts missing: One is Cuba implementing by regulation everything that it’s announced, and secondly, the Trump administration allowing U.S. companies to have more access to the Cuban marketplace while these changes are underway,” he said.

The changes announced by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in June aim to significantly shift Cuba’s economy and industry, which have been strictly controlled by the socialist government since the 1959 revolution.

They include more space for private businesses, imports and exports without the state as an intermediary, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks, investment by Cubans abroad and opportunities for fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.

Guzmán said there are opportunities for investments in real estate, solar farms and energy to help ease the country’s electricity shortage, as well as in marinas and the tourism industry.

Christopher Hernandez-Roy, acting director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recalled that the last economic opening under President Barack Obama's Democratic administration “was later throttled by the Cubans themselves, who feared that the opening went too far and appeared to threaten political control.”

Today, he said, it appears the Cubans really do want economic reforms and outside investment. Díaz-Canel’s economic reforms are not impossible, but U.S. sanctions “significantly constrain their prospects for success," Hernandez-Roy said.

He noted the irony that U.S. pressure ”is helping push the Cubans toward greater economic liberalization out of necessity, while simultaneously limiting the resources and access necessary for those reforms to actually improve the economy.”

Rubio says Cuba's leaders ‘don’t know what they're doing'

In late June, after the reforms were announced, the U.S. slapped sanctions on five state companies, three linked to a business conglomerate run by Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces. Best known as GAESA, it is believed to command nearly 40% of Cuba's gross domestic product.

Rubio, a former U.S. senator from Florida whose parents were born in Cuba, did not appear to be impressed by the newly announced economic changes. He last month called Cuba “a failed state” with “a bad economic model.” He said Cuba’s leaders “don’t know what they’re doing” and “don’t know how to fix their economy.”

“I think the challenge that Cuba has faced for the last 15 years is they want to somewhat improve their economy, but they’re afraid that if they improve it too much they’ll lose political control over people,” he said.

The United States is prepared “to do what we can do to effectuate a positive change in Cuba because it directly impacts our national security” since it is only 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the U.S. mainland, Rubio said. “And we want Cuba to be prosperous. We want Cuba to be free.”

The Cuban ambassador said implementing the economic changes would be far easier without the sanctions, if American companies were involved in Cuba and if trade between the two countries was possible.

He said the good news is that talks are taking place between the United States and Cuba. He declined to give details of what he called “very sensitive conversations.”

“But the point here is that even when Cuba is changing a lot," Guzmán said, “the U.S. government keeps the same policy of aggression towards the Cuban people.”

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Follow the AP's coverage of Cuba at https://apnews.com/hub/cuba.

“The Disappearers,” Marlon James

Marlon James’ fantasy series “Dark Star” was a showcase for his extraordinary and boundless imagination. In “The Disappearers,” he returns to his native Jamaica and to the murderous reality of his Booker Prize-winning “A Brief History of Seven Killings.” The new novel, longlisted for the Booker, is framed around the horrifying beating in 1988 of eight gay men who had been rehearsing for a play. James weaves together humor, popular culture, compassion and some very hard experience. “I refuse to believe there is any lesson to be learned from suffering an atrocity,” James writes, “other than always be on guard for the ways people turn on you.” (Sept. 1)

“American Scoundrel,” Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark

Kai Bird is best known as the co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of “American Prometheus,” the biography of nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer that became the basis for Christopher Nolan’s Oscar winner “Oppenheimer.” In “American Scoundrel,” he and Susan Goldmark (his wife) trace the influence of the late political operator Roy Cohn, from his early years as the top aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy to his mentorship of a young Donald Trump. “American Scoundrel” draws upon government documents, archival material and dozens of interviews, including, to the authors’ surprise, Trump, who “answered our cold calls on his personal cell on several occasions,” Bird writes in the acknowledgments section. Trump was “gracious, if not exactly forthcoming about his memories” and declined to meet in person, because, he told them, “I’m the president. I’m very busy. I have China calling. I have Russia calling. I cannot do it.” (Sept. 1)

“Switzy,” Emma Cline

Emma Cline has well established her mastery of inhabiting the alienated mind, of dramatizing youthful transience, aspiration and deception, most famously in her celebrated debut, “The Girls.” In “Switzy,” longlisted for the Booker Prize, Cline gives us a retired businessman with failing mental capacity, en route to an assisted dying facility in Zurich. Cline breaks up the story into brief, affectless passages as a once-“Valuable Person” reckons with his memories and concludes that “He had always stayed on the surface. His whole life.” (Sept. 8)

“Music Against the Night,” Yiyun Li

“Music Against the Night” is Yiyun Li's sixth novel, and first book since last year's Pulitzer Prize-winning “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” her unsparing memoir about the suicides of her two sons. Li this time appears to have written a very different narrative — about a late 18th-century piano prodigy whose fame barely outlasted his lifetime and the orphaned wanderer-musician who makes the ill-fated decision to marry him. The novel is a story of music, but also a meditation on “the night,” death — parents, friends, children, everybody. “It is despair that one must not submit to,” Li writes late in the book, adding a dark, Shakespearean warning: “A child's death can never feel neutral to a parent; a child's death is a negation of time, which no longer has now and then, now and again, now and later, only now and now and now and now and now.” (Oct. 13)

“Promise Me, America,” former President Joe Biden

Memoirs are often presidents’ best chance to define their legacy, although readers and critics may have different priorities, whether Richard Nixon and Watergate or Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Joe Biden will understandably want to focus on his defeat of Donald Trump in 2020, the passage of landmark legislation on green energy and the appointment of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, among other achievements. But the public will likely be seeking answers to more unwanted questions, notably the state of Biden’s health while he was in the White House, the backstory to his disastrous debate against Trump and his decision soon after to call off his reelection campaign. (Nov. 17)

Former President Joe Biden’s “Promise Me, America” stands out not just as a White House memoir — presidential memoirs are events unto themselves — but as a rare high-profile political book over the next few months. Nonfiction sales have slumped in recent years and political books haven’t approached the peaks of President Donald Trump's first term.

“The energy in political books seems to be subdued. I think folks are just ranted out,” says Kristen McLean, an analyst and vice president for client insights at Circana, which tracks retail book sales.

“I think the (news) cycle is moving a bit too quickly for a lot of the very specific political books to catch on,” says Shannon DeVito, Barnes & Noble's senior director of books.

Michael Lewis' “Blockers,” a probe into Trump's second term through the eyes of government workers, may be the only new release to rival the impact of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's summer bestseller, “Regime Change.” This fall’s notable political offerings otherwise revisit the Biden years, from “Promise Me, America,” to former Middle East envoy Brett McGurk’s “Brink: Inside the Race to Free the Oct. 7 Hostages” to Akbar Shahid Ahmed’s study of Biden’s Gaza war policies, “Crossing the Red Line.”

Even Bob Woodward, who for decades released timely exposés of sitting presidents, is passing on current politics. In “Secrets: A Reporter’s Memoir,” he reflects on presidents and White House sources dating back to the Nixon administration and the Watergate scandal that made him famous..

“Because he's going more into his own life, I expect he'll have a different and broader audience than for his other books,” DeVito says.

A feast of fiction

Novelists Barbara Kingsolver and Hernan Diaz, co-winners three years ago of the Pulitzer Prize, will share honors again as two of the featured authors in a busy season. Kingsolver's “Partita,” about a onetime musical prodigy drawn again to her past, is the first since “Demon Copperhead,” her Pulitzer-winning retelling of Charles Dickens' “David Copperfield.” Meanwhile, Diaz has followed his Pulitzer-winning “Trust” with the dystopian, Dickensian “Ply,” about a young thief in a chaotic future society.

Diaz says he met Kingsolver at the Pulitzer ceremony, where the two drank bourbon and bonded over literature and other common interests.

“I don't think literature is a race or a tennis tournament,” Diaz says. “I think the more good books that are out there, the richer the conversation becomes and the more readers are engaged.”

Fiction sales have been solid in 2026 and will likely remain high if only because the two most prominent romantasy authors, Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas, have new books coming. Maas is releasing “A Court of Splintered Harmony,” the sixth volume of “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” with the seventh installment scheduled for early next year. Yarros' “Threshing Day” compiles 13 stories featuring characters from her Empyrean series, and her stand-alone “Peculiar Stars” finds protagonist Callista Moran stranded on an island after a sailing accident and discovering unexpected sides to herself.

The new fiction list also features Nobel laureate Jon Fosse's latest, “Vaim Hotel,” and three contenders for the Booker Prize — Marlon James' “The Disappearers,” Emma Cline's “Switzy” and Rebecca Perry's “May We Feed the King.” The book most primed for gossip is Rachel Cusk's “Life of M,” a meta-novel about a movie star who may or may not be based on Natalie Portman. The season's longest-awaited novel is likely Chad Harbach's “The Brightness”: The parallel and intertwining lives of two close friends in their 20s is his first novel since his acclaimed 2011 debut, “The Art of Fielding.”

Min Jin Lee's “American Hagwon” is her first novel since 2017 and her celebrated “Pachinko.” Emily St. John Mandel's “Exit Party” is a story of futuristic breakdown from the author of the futuristic classic “Station Eleven.” Yiyun Li, Edwidge Danticat, Kate Atkinson, Deesha Philyaw, Diane Williams, Laleh Khadivi, R.F. Kuang and Norah Labiner also have fiction coming out.

Fans of Stephen King (and the late Peter Straub) can look forward to “Other Worlds Than These,” the final “Talisman” novel. Alice Hoffman launches a new series with “The Witches of Cambridge” and Brandon Sanderson has begun “Blightfall,” written with Janci Patterson. “The French Illusion” is John Grisham's latest thriller. S.A. Cosby's “Truth to Power” is a Marvel Crime novel featuring superhero/sleuth Luke Cage.

Celebrities share their stories

A trio of Oscar-winning superstars will tell their stories this fall: Sylvester Stallone's “The Steps,” its title a reference to the actor's iconic upward run in “Rocky”; Michael Douglas' “One Helluva Ride,” which the actor and producer has called a corrective to the blurry legends of fame; and Dustin Hoffman's “Look at Me,” promoted by publisher Simon Six as “an intimate memoir about art, ambition, family, friendship, love, aging, and the mysteries of a creative life.”

Gloria Steinem looks back on her early years in “An Unexpected Life” and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick reflects on his activism in “The Perilous Fight.” Chuck Lorre's “Sitcom” is a memoir from the creator behind “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory.” Eric Dane’s “My Book of Days” comes out just months after the “Grey’s Anatomy” star died from ALS.

Poetry for all times

Ancient poetry seems new again thanks to Christopher Nolan's adaptation of “The Odyssey,” which has placed editions by Emily Wilson and the late Robert Fagles high on bestseller lists. Wilson has a new book out this fall, “Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea,” essays that cover everything from Greek tragedy to “slut-shaming” Helen of Troy to the “sly laughter” of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's “WAP.”

In “Cloud Runner,” former U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo tries to express what she acknowledges may be inexpressible, the death three years ago of her daughter, Rainy Ortiz: “I have lost my girl./Some things do not belong in words,” Harjo writes. Jennifer Franklin channels the mind of James Joyce’s gifted, ill-fated daughter Lucia in the collection “A Fire in Her Brain.”

New work is also expected from Layli Long Soldier, Tina Chang, Patricia Lockwood, Dalia Taha, Avis Blackbird and Hieu Minh Nguyen. The anthology “Other Legacies” features tributes from Rae Armantrout, Edward Hirsch and other prizewinners to such lesser-known poets as Rachel Loden, Julia de Burgos and Stephen Jonas.

Making history

Another writer enriched by a Nolan movie — Kai Bird, co-author of “American Prometheus,” the biography adapted into “Oppenheimer” — has co-written “American Scoundrel,” the story of lawyer/political fixer/Trump mentor Roy Cohn. In “The Rush,” award winner Nathaniel Philbrick revisits the 19th century quest for gold. The acclaimed science writer James Gleick examines the evolution of communication in “The Telephone: A New History.”

Two books, Timothy W. Ryback's “53 Days” and Victor Sebestyen’s “Weimar Germany,” examine the fall of democracy in 1930s Germany, while other releases warning of contemporary threats include Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s “End Times Fascism” and Pulitzer winner Jill Lepore's “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.”

Public radio host Celeste Headlee's “Freedom’s Daughters” is one of many works this fall that center on race and racism. Grandmaster Flash has collaborated with Robert “Scoop” Jackson on a history of rap and hip-hop, “Birth of a Culture,” and Stephanie Phillips' music history “We Were Here” highlights artists from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Living Colour.

Pulitzer winner Alan Taylor’s “Tower Hill” offers a fresh look at the 1831 rebellion led by the enslaved Nat Turner. In “Renaissance Men,” Harriet A. Washington honors three groundbreaking and overlooked Black physicians in a narrative spanning the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, and resonating today.

The two-time Olympic champion released “Gold” with World Athletics on Friday as the anthem of the upcoming meet that boasts a total prize fund of $10 million.

Ultimate Championship will be staged in Budapest from Sept. 11-13 showcasing Olympic, world and Diamond League champions over three evening sessions. Gold medalists in individual events will win $150,000.

The 26-year-old Duplantis has dabbled in music for several years and released his first single, “Bop,” in 2025.

Duplantis, the world-record holder, says he dreams of winning a Grammy.

“Gold” was written by Duplantis with Carl Silvergran and Oscar Chase, and was produced by Chase, the World Athletics announcement said.

“I wrote the song around representing something that’s a lot bigger than yourself,” Duplantis said in the announcement. “I think that’s what we all do when we’re on the track. We represent our family, our team, our coaches, and I love that concept. Music and sports are the two things that bring people together in the best way, and ‘Gold’ is an expression of that.”

The accompanying music video was filmed in the Hungarian capital and includes archival footage of Duplantis as a young athlete.

The Louisiana-born Duplantis told the Olympics channel last year he uses his music “as a way of therapy. I really love to have something else to be able to do, and to kind of take myself away from sports a little bit.”

At the Ultimate Championship, his new song “will be woven into the broadcast and live-event experience, connecting fans in-stadium with audiences around the world,” World Athletics said.

Duplantis is scheduled to perform “Gold” live in-stadium to close out the event.

“The Ultimate is purposefully designed to showcase the talents and passions of our sport’s biggest stars, on and off the track,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said. “Mondo is one of our most recognizable and accomplished athletes, and we could not be more excited that he is the one who created the Ultimate Anthem."

The championship will be a biennial event.

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See full AP coverage of European sports here

“We have virtually given up on many things,” said Ahmad Karimi, 52, a taxi driver and father of two who has been working 15-hour days to make ends meet. “We’re cutting out fruit, we’re cutting out protein, we’ve given up leisure, we even work on weekends."

Nearly six months into the war with the United States and Israel, the Iranian economy is taking a beating under the force of sanctions and a naval blockade that is making it extremely difficult for the country to export oil, its most valuable product.

Whether this intensifying economic pressure will translate anytime soon into military or political concessions from Iran remains to be seen — but some experts are skeptical. Since the war began, Iran has been attacking oil-rich neighbors and U.S. bases in the region, and disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, its biggest strategic advantage.

Iran is trying to use this retaliatory pressure — which is driving up energy prices globally — to bring the war to an end on the best terms possible. It is pressing for sanctions relief, and seeking enough control over the strait to demand payment from ships passing through to deliver energy and other goods.

The Trump administration — which is stuck fighting over a waterway in a war that was launched to curb Iran's nuclear program — is now promising to deliver even tougher sanctions to try to squeeze the Islamic Republic into submission. But experts say U.S. President Donald Trump may be underestimating how long Iran can hold out.

Iran has been subject to Western sanctions for years and has become deft at partially circumventing them. It has expanded domestic production, used informal cross-border trade networks, bought restricted goods through third countries, and used a shadow fleet to transport its oil.

“Iran’s resistance capacity not only avoids collapse, it also prevents the economic pain from translating into the political pressure and changes that the U.S. expects,” said Hadi Kahalzadeh, an expert on Iran’s economy at Brandeis University.

Iran's economic strains carry an ‘emotional toll’

Tehran’s sprawling Grand Bazaar is regularly packed with shoppers hoping to find more affordable staples than at the country’s grocery stores, where rice is 60% more expensive and beef is 150% more expensive than before the war.

A mother of two from northern Iran posted a photo on X this week after purchasing milk, eggs, toilet paper and a few other items, but no meat. She complained that it cost 89 million rials (about $65).

“Buying basic necessities has become our main priority, and our shopping basket has gotten smaller and more limited,” the 41-year-old told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

“The emotional toll and the pressure we’re under are another story," she said. "Every time we have to say no to our children, every time we have to go back and forth over a decision, whether it’s a class you’d love your children to take or something they really want you to buy for them, it’s genuinely exhausting.”

By the end of the year, inflation in Iran is expected to rise nearly 70%, according to the International Monetary Fund, and the country's economy — devastated by a decade of sanctions before the war — is forecast to shrink by more than 5%.

While gasoline has remained cheap thanks to government subsidies, even that might not last forever as supplies get tighter. A presidential aide told Iranian state television last week that the country is now using more gasoline each day than it produces and may need to raise prices — something that in the past has led to widespread protests.

Iranians turn some anger toward countries behind sanctions

Iran's theocratic leaders were already facing economic discontent before the U.S. and Israel started the war on Feb. 28. Protests had spread across the country at the beginning of the year before they were violently put down, with thousands killed and tens of thousands believed to have been arrested.

Many Iranians have now turned at least some of their economic frustrations toward the countries behind the sanctions and the attacks that have destroyed factories and critical infrastructure and killed scores of civilians, said Hassan Golmoradi, a Tehran-based economist.

“Despite the hardships and difficulties, they have shown considerable patience in putting up with the resulting economic pressures,” Golmoradi said.

Iran’s leaders have said it is a treasonous offense — punishable by death — to take part in anti-government protests.

“They do suffer, but they do not think that by joining violent protests they can achieve something for themselves and their families,” said Mohammad Farzanegan, a professor of Middle Eastern economics at the University of Marburg in Germany.

Trump is threatening tougher sanctions

On Wednesday, Trump vowed on social media to unleash against Iran the “most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country.” He also threatened secondary sanctions on nations and companies that continue to do business with Iran.

The United Arab Emirates, which for years had enabled Iran to circumvent sanctions and receive goods from other countries, announced this week it was suspending all trade with Tehran. Trump had called the leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the day before the announcement.

With the economic struggles, the elected government of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said it favors a negotiated end to the war. “What concerns us is people’s livelihoods and their economic situation, and we are doing everything we can to deal with it,” he told reporters last week.

But the most powerful force in Iran remains the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has only become stronger after withstanding U.S. and Israeli airstrikes that killed Iran’s top leaders during the war's opening salvos. The Guard is pressing for greater concessions from the U.S., including Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz and financial compensation for the war.

With negotiations to end the war stalled, Iran’s hard-liners believe their country can endure the conflict’s economic pressures longer than their adversaries.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, this month appointed a former Revolutionary Guard commander to head Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council, a sign that he favors the hard-line approach.

A taxi driver says something has to give

Official government statistics put Iran’s unemployment rate at 9.1%, though state-affiliated media outlets have said the real figure is most likely many times higher. A Labor Ministry official said last week that by late May, just three months into the war, more than 1 million jobs had been lost.

In a sign that Iran's leaders are at least somewhat concerned about public opinion, the government has refrained from enforcing mandatory hijab regulations as harshly as it had been — a social freedom that has long been sought by many.

But these days many Iranians are focused on how their lifestyles are restricted economically.

Karimi, the taxi driver, said Iran’s leaders will need to do something soon to alleviate the financial pressures he and others are feeling.

“The people won’t be able to continue living like this,” he said. “We’re simply breathing, surviving, and trying to make it from one day to the next.”

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Rising reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The 30-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, learned on Friday that prosecutors intend to try him for a second time on the charges.

Barrientos underwent an eight-day trial for the same alleged attack last month in the District Court of Western Australia state in Perth.

A jury found him guilty on two charges that he had assaulted the woman, then aged 20, occasioning bodily harm in a Perth hotel room in September 2024.

The jury also found him not guilty of choking her and not guilty of three of six charges of rape.

The jury could not reach majority verdicts of at least 10 out of 12 jurors on the remaining three rape charges.

Prosecutor Danielle Clarke told Judge Linda Black that the alleged victim, who cannot be identified, was willing to testify again at a retrial.

Black was the original trial judge. She told defense and prosecution lawyers on Friday to consider whether they want a new judge to hear the retrial and whether the proceedings should be heard by a jury or by a judge alone.

The Colombian-born entertainer will be sentenced for the assault convictions after his retrial. No date for the trial has been set.

Barrientos has been free on bail since he was charged and was allowed to return to Britain for several months.

He said nothing to reporters as he left the court on Friday.

Barrientos had been touring Australia and had already performed in Sydney and Melbourne before he encountered his victim in Perth. He was arrested several days later in the east coast city of Brisbane, where the tour was to end.

Prosecutors alleged the woman initially agreed to have sex but withdrew her consent because she feared for her safety.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Canada has leverage in the talks even as his province weighs restoring U.S. alcohol sales at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s urging to help secure a deal that would avert threatened 50% U.S. tariffs.

“Everybody knows the American president by now, he’s erratic, he’s irresponsible, and he’s not to be trusted. And this is the person that we were supposed to make a deal with, and we’re going to make additional concessions for it. That’s why I say you can't make a good deal with a bad person, because who’s to say it’s not going to be undone?" Kinew said.

Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said Thursday the two countries were close to finalizing an agreement after he returned to Washington to meet again with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

“We’re very close. We continue to make progress,” he said, adding that Canadian officials would remain in Washington to keep working on the deal. Trump has called the emerging agreement “very fair” to both sides, while tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian imports have been postponed until 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Neither side has released the full terms.

Despite his criticism of Trump, Kinew said Manitoba may go along with Carney’s request as part of a “Team Canada” approach. But he urged consumers to keep buying Canadian even if U.S. products return to provincial liquor stores. Other provincial leaders, including the premiers of Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, have publicly backed the direction of Carney’s negotiation.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham said all premiers agreed during Wednesday’s call with Carney to return U.S. alcohol to store shelves, although not every premier has publicly confirmed that position.

"I think we should fight. I think Donald Trump is very weak. I think America is weaker around the world today than it was a year ago. He’s about to get slaughtered in the midterms and the cost of living is the number one issue and he’s completely out of touch with the cost of living of Americans,” Kinew said.

“We’ve got the upper hand. They are back on their heels right now. They are coming to us for a deal right now."

Restoring alcohol sales a sticking point

Kinew said he understood Carney’s request to mean that restoring U.S. alcohol sales was effectively necessary to complete the deal. The provincial bans on U.S. alcohol have been a particular irritant for the Trump administration, which has pressed Canada to remove restrictions that sharply reduced American liquor sales.

Provincial governments do not have a veto over the overall Canada-U.S. agreement, but they control measures such as liquor sales and some procurement rules that have become part of the negotiations.

Eight of Canada’s 10 provinces restrict or ban U.S. alcohol — measures imposed in retaliation for Trump’s previous tariffs on Canadian goods and amid anger over his repeated talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state.

Kinew said Carney strongly pressed premiers to restore U.S. alcohol sales while other details of the agreement were still being finalized. “I wouldn’t say that he was begging us, but what is the step before begging?” Kinew said.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is especially important. Its government-run LCBO, one of the world’s largest alcohol purchasers, sold nearly 1 billion Canadian dollars ($723 million) worth of U.S. products annually before pulling them from shelves last year.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has clashed with Trump before, has not yet commented on the emerging deal.

Kinew said Canadians should not buy American products even if they return.

“When we put the American booze back on the Liquor Mart shelves, Canadians, leave it there. Spend your money on Canadian products that are going to employ people in our country and that have an administration that respects Canada," Kinew said.

Kinew also said Manitoba could agree to remove formal restrictions on U.S. companies and products, including procurement preferences, while continuing to favor Canadian suppliers in its own purchasing.

Kinew said he preferred to keep fighting, noting the U.S. Republican president’s tendency to levy extremely high import taxes and then retreat. He mentioned what’s known as the “TACO” trade, an acronym coined by The Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out."

“Do we expect that this is going to be the end of Donald Trump?," Kinew said.

Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette, meanwhile, said Carney had answered many of her questions about the emerging agreement but stopped short of endorsing it while the province assesses the economic impact. She said Quebec could restore U.S. alcohol to shelves at the SAQ, the Quebec government corporation that controls most wine and spirits sales in the province, but stressed that the decision would be Quebec’s.

Robert Bothwell, a professor emeritus of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said Kinew’s criticism reflects a broader Canadian view of Trump. “Kinew speaks for Canada,” Bothwell said. “The majority of the Canadian people hates Trump.”

Reese was 9-for-9 from the field, hitting two 3-pointers, for 20 points and had 10 rebounds and eight assists for her WNBA-leading 25th double-double of the season. She had 18 points in the first half.

Reese set a Dream record for field goals without a miss and became the third player in WNBA history with a 20-point double-double on 100% shooting. She's four shy of Alyssa Thomas’ WNBA double-double record of 28 set in 2023.

In addition, she had three offensive rebounds in the first half to break her own WNBA season record of 172 set in 2024.

Rhyne Howard added 26 points and five 3-pointers for Atlanta (23-13), which has won eight straight in the series with Los Angeles. Naz Hillmon had 14 points and Allisha Gray 13.

Cameron Brink scored 14 points off the bench for Los Angeles (12-24), which was eliminated from playoff contention. Rae Burrell added 12 and Nneka Ogwumike had 11.

The Dream led by 42 points and reached the 100-point mark with 8:10 left.

Play was briefly interrupted with 2:59 left in the third quarter after a sex toy was thrown on the court near where Jihyun Park was about to attempt a free throw for Los Angeles.

Up next

Dream: At Phoenix on Saturday.

Sparks: Host Connecticut on Saturday.

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See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Árpád Selmeci said navigating even a small fishing boat on Hungary's third-largest lake is becoming increasingly difficult as the water level has ebbed to around 20 centimeters (8 inches), well below the 150 centimeters (5 feet) optimal for August. Swimming beaches across the lake, once popular with tourists, have been closed.

Lake Velence’s decline is part of a broader water crisis confronting Hungary as increasingly prolonged droughts and climate change-driven heat waves have pummeled Europe.

“I've lived on Lake Velence since I was a child, and I've never seen the water so low," said Selmeci, 58. "It's terrible. My heart aches every single moment.”

This summer, wildfires scorched the continent from the United Kingdom to Greece, while in Hungary, drought has damaged crop yields, led to drinking water shortages and threatened to shut down the country's only nuclear power plant.

Yet the lack of rainfall linked to human-driven climate change is only part of Hungary's water problem. Experts say the country's long-standing practice of channeling water away from its landscape and draining natural wetlands has left it especially vulnerable as droughts become more frequent and severe.

A legacy of draining away water

Around 99% of Hungary’s lands are currently under severe or extreme drought conditions, according to the national meteorological service, and desertification, a process where vegetation recedes because of high heat and low rainfall, threatens much of the Great Hungarian Plain.

Yet more than a quarter of Hungary consists of low-lying land that naturally retains precipitation, and in past centuries its many rivers and streams made it rich in freshwater resources. However, a 2023 study published in the journal Nature estimated Hungary’s historical wetland loss at more than 80%.

Zsuzsanna Ujj, a biodiversity policy specialist and project coordinator with environmental group Friends of the Earth Hungary, said the country “has not been a good steward of its waters in the last 200 years.”

A major contributor is Hungary's network of more than 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) of drainage canals — a length that exceeds the circumference of the Earth — which drain accumulated precipitation from fields, wetlands and the soil to make room for agriculture and other enterprises.

The priority on draining land rather than allowing natural flooding cycles to occur has contributed to a consistent drop in the water table and the drying out of wetlands and topsoil. With less water available to evaporate, the air dries out, further reducing the chances of localized precipitation.

Ujj said that Hungary — which is among the most drought-exposed countries in Europe and ranks 16th globally, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — “needs to realign its water management practices, shifting from a drainage-based approach to one focused on water retention.”

Disappearing lakes

The drying out of Hungary isn't limited to streams and wetlands. Lake Garancsi, a small recreational lake around 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Budapest, was once a popular destination for fishing, swimming and ice skating, and was the setting of the 2001 cult Hungarian comedy “Üvegtigris” (“Glass Tiger").

But the lake, present since the Middle Ages, has shrunk so dramatically in recent years that none of the previous recreational activities are permitted, and most of the former lake bed is now exposed, cracked and dry.

What remains of the water is so shallow and warm that all of the fish and most of the other wildlife have disappeared, and authorities have predicted no water will be left by the end of summer.

Zoltán Mettner, who runs the Glass Tiger bar on the shores of the lake, said conditions have gotten worse every year. After spending years beside the lake, he said looking at it now is “terrible, there’s no other way to put it.”

“It’s sad enough that we’ve let things get this far, and that we couldn’t have taken gradual steps to prevent this lake from being completely destroyed,” he said.

Hungary's government plans a change of course

Hungary's new government has promised to begin taking those steps.

In late June, on the same day the country set a high temperature record of 42 Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit), Prime Minister Péter Magyar told lawmakers that his government would put water management policies “on new footing,” and launch a comprehensive water conservation program to mitigate the effects of drought.

"Many have said year after year that water shortage will be one of Hungary’s problems and one of the most important strategic issues to be solved. They were right,” Magyar said.

In addition to poor water retention practices, Magyar said that aging water utility infrastructure causes 20-25% of the country’s drinking water to leak out through damaged pipes, costing some 17 billion forints ($54.4 million) annually.

“For years, even the existence of the problem was denied and relativized,” Magyar said. Now, he added, “water retention will be the basic principle of Hungarian water management.”

Danube River at historic lows

Yet implementing such sweeping changes will be time consuming and costly, while Hungary's current water crisis threatens its ability to produce adequate energy.

The Danube, the European Union's longest river which runs through 10 countries from southwestern Germany to the Black Sea, has set successive records this summer for low water levels, threatening to shut down Hungary's only nuclear power plant, which uses water from the river to cool its reactors, for the first time in its 44-year history.

Hungary's government has taken emergency interventions to raise the water level at the Paks plant, including sinking two 80-meter (262-foot) barges just upriver and beginning to install a riverbed sill designed to divert more water toward the plant's pumps.

In such drought conditions, wetlands near rivers like the Danube normally act as a “natural reservoir” for retaining water when weather gets dry, said Ujj, the biodiversity specialist.

The extremely low level of the Danube — as well as the increased chances for more frequent and intense floods — are effects of human-driven climate change that can be partially mitigated through appropriate land use and restoration of wetlands and other natural habitats, she added.

“We do indeed expect water levels to fluctuate more, and we also expect precipitation patterns to become more extreme with drier summers,” she said. "However, restoring wetlands and increasing evaporation in certain areas could help boost precipitation during the summer months.”

Photos and video shared on social media show debris thrown in the air and pummeling rain as a possible tornado touched down at Atlantic Beach on Long Island’s outer barrier. It tore apart a major beach club, leaving broken beach chairs and wood beams littered across the shoreline.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said there were no reports of serious injuries or deaths, but there had been damage to property and a search team was making sure no one was trapped in the cabanas. He declared a state of emergency.

“There are reports of people trapped in their vehicles due to flooding in the south shore, and first responders are assisting in their rescue,” he said in a statement.

The Sun and Surf Beach Club said buildings had been significantly damaged and it temporarily closed that club and nearby Silver Point.

The National Weather Service had warned of waterspouts, tornado-like hazards that happen over water, in the area but wasn’t able to immediately confirm a tornado on the beach.

Bryan Ramsey, a meteorologist for the weather service in New York, said the storm was moving East offshore Thursday evening and was expected to taper over the next several hours.

In other parts of New York, flooding caused part of the Long Island Expressway in Queens to close in both directions, according to New York City Emergency Management. Photos on social media showed lines of stopped cars as emergency crews traversed the water.

In Jersey City, New Jersey, emergency crews rescued 69 people trapped in cars that had been overtaken by flash flooding Thursday, said Mayor James Solomon. Emergency crews waded through roads with knee-high water with small inflatable boats to help those stranded.

A likely tornado touched down in Dover, Delaware, and caused significant damage across the city, the police department reported. There were no reports of serious injuries, police said.

“Dover — please take this seriously. Stay home. Stay safe,” the department said on Facebook.

Photos and video online show fallen trees, downed power lines and flooded roads.

The Delaware Electric Cooperative said more than 1,000 customers didn’t have power in the northern part of its service area, but within a few hours most of the outages had been fixed.

Until now, Mexicans deported from the United States were sent almost exclusively back to their country by air and land. Only a handful arrived in other countries.

Some civil organizations believe this change reported in recent days is a way to increase pressure on Mexico, whose government has protested the deaths of 17 Mexicans in immigration custody or during enforcement operations. This also comes as Trump has expanded agreements with allied Latin American countries to conduct joint operations in the region against criminal groups and has increased its security demands to Mexico.

Sent to Central America by plane and Mexico by bus

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed Wednesday night that, so far this year, 2,284 Mexicans deported from the U.S. have arrived in the country as part of a “transit stopover” before being taken to Mexico as part of an “arrangement” with the Mexican government, and without these individuals being under any refugee or asylum status.

“They are arriving on planes carrying Guatemalan returnees, and what we have done is bring them in transit so that, in coordination with Mexican immigration authorities, we can return them to Mexican territory within 24 hours of their arrival in the country,” he explained at a press conference.

The costs of these operations are covered by the Mexican government or, in some cases, by U.S. funding, he added.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) confirmed to The Associated Press in a brief message that Mexicans have been deported by the Trump administration to Guatemala and Honduras, primarily since April, and are then transported by bus to southern Mexico.

“The reason is that the United States wants to prevent them from crossing back into its territory,” the institution said. The INM did not provide figures or further details.

Asked about why the Mexicans were sent to Central America and not their own country, and for more details, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said in an emailed statement that the administration “is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised.”

“The Mexican government has expressed its opposition to this practice to U.S. authorities and has reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country,” the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. It added that Mexico is coordinating with the countries involved to ensure the safe return of Mexican citizens.

Third-country deportations raise concerns for Mexican migrants

Historically, Mexico has always been willing to receive its deported citizens.

Since Trump’s first term, it has also accepted deportees from third countries, although the details of immigration agreements with Washington have usually been opaque. In 2025, Mexico received some 12,000 deported foreigners, mostly Cubans and Venezuelans, according to figures provided by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The government has not updated these figures since December although the practice has continued.

Authorities in Honduras also did not respond to requests for comment, but according to official documents from the country accessed by The Associated Press, 82 Mexicans deported from the United States arrived in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on two flights on August 13 and 15. An additional 35 arrived on Thursday.

Another 165 Mexicans were deported to Honduras between May and mid-July, according to the website Third Country Deportation Watch, run by the NGOs Human Rights First and Refugees International, which track U.S. deportation flights to third countries.

The website does not clarify the source of its nationality figures, but both organizations have expressed concern because these transfers could endanger migrants who possibly sought asylum in the U.S. or have few resources in an unknown country.

The deportation tactic “seems to be to put pressure on the Mexican government,” said Savitri Arvey of Human Rights First. “They really don’t want any Mexicans crossing the border.” Some of those deported arrived in Honduras on U.S. military flights, she added.

A recent change in the deportation pattern

At the beginning of his second term, with immigration control as one of his priorities, Trump reached agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama to act as “bridge” or destination countries for migrants from third countries expelled from U.S. territory. These agreements gradually expanded to more countries, including some African ones, most recently Liberia.

Until recently, only a handful of Mexicans had been expelled from the U.S. to countries other than Mexico.

Arévalo said on Wednesday that Guatemala received 15 Mexicans in 2025. As of February 2026, Honduras had officially reported the arrival of six. Costa Rica has received 11 Mexicans since Trump’s return to the White House, and according to local immigration authorities, they remain in the country. Presumably, these individuals may have requested not to be returned to Mexico out of fear.

Immigration lawyers believe that the Trump administration is using deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers to return to Mexico when the government cannot send them there because it would violate court orders from immigration judges that recognize the dangers. Organizations and politicians both inside and outside the U.S. have also questioned the use of force by U.S. immigration authorities.

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Verza reported from Mexico City and González from Tegucigalpa.

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

Khan was taken from Adiala prison to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad after midnight and examined by doctors before being returned to the prison, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said.

“A team of qualified doctors, including an ophthalmologist, a cardiologist and a physician, conducted a detailed examination of him and declared him medically fit,” Tarar said in a post on X.

Tarar said Khan’s sister, Azma Khan, was present throughout the examination and treatment.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, had earlier confirmed that he was transferred to the hospital following a Supreme Court order earlier this week.

Khan’s party and family had demanded that he be allowed to remain at the hospital for treatment.

Earlier, a senior Cabinet minister said the government would comply with the Supreme Court order and could consider treatment abroad if adequate care was unavailable at a government facility.

The latest development comes a day after Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said the government had approached the Supreme Court to seek clarification on whether the medical relief granted to Khan applied only to the former premier or could be extended to other prisoners.

Chaudhry's comments Thursday came two days after a three-judge Supreme Court panel ordered authorities to take Khan to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for a medical examination, following months of concerns from his family and personal physicians about his health and access to medical care. The court ordered that he be examined by a medical board that includes specialists and one of his personal physicians, Faisal Sultan.

Earlier Thursday, Chaudhry wrote on X that the government would fully comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling and that its request for clarification was not intended to defy or delay implementation of the decision. He later said all arrangements were in place to transfer Khan from prison to the hospital.

After midnight, local media reported that Khan — who has not been seen publicly since his imprisonment in 2023 in a graft case — was being examined at the hospital.

The government maintains that under existing rules, prisoners are provided medical treatment in prison and can be transferred to government hospitals when necessary.

Concerns about Khan’s health intensified in late January after his family said he had lost about 85% of the vision in his right eye, a claim the government disputed. Authorities later said Khan had regained about 70% of his vision in the eye and that his condition was improving.

The former cricket star turned politician was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022 and has been imprisoned since 2023 after being convicted in multiple cases.

Mendoza struggled in his second preseason game, throwing an interception that Houston returned for a touchdown before the Las Vegas Raiders rallied late for a 22-20 victory over the Texans on Thursday night.

Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner who led Indiana to a national title, played the first half and went 8 of 15 for 86 yards. The performance came after he threw a touchdown pass in his preseason debut last week against Arizona playing behind Kirk Cousins.

“I came away with there’s a lot more learning to do, and although that maybe you may have had a lot of success at another level, this level is a whole step further and that the margins are so small, and that one tiny mistake can lead to catastrophe,” Mendoza said.

On Thursday, Mendoza’s third pass was overthrown and intercepted by Wade Woodaz, who returned it 80 yards for a touchdown that made it 14-0. Mendoza chased him down, but Woodaz shoved him aside near the 15 and continued to the end zone.

“That’s what we are built for is attacking the football, so when we do that it puts us in a really good position,” Houston coach DeMeco Ryans said.

Mendoza was sacked once and took several other hits playing against Houston’s second-string defense. He played five series and led his team to just one field goal.

“I think there’s plenty to clean up, plenty to get better at,” Las Vegas coach Klint Kubiak said. “Plenty that we can do better for him as coaches. Plenty that he can learn from.”

Though Cousins is expected to start in Week 1, Kubiak wouldn't say that after the game.

“We got another week of playing. I don’t want anyone to be comfortable in their job,” he said. “It should always be that way from all positions, so let’s keep going forward.”

C.J. Stroud led the Texans (0-2) to a touchdown on his only series in his first action of the preseason. Stroud and the offensive line were among the few Texans starters who played.

Stroud was 4 of 6 for 27 yards, and a 20-yard scoring run by Woody Marks on the drive he led made it 7-0.

“C.J. made some really good decisions,” Ryans said. “Didn’t throw it around a ton but when he did throw it, it was good decisions with the football.”

The Raiders (1-1) also rested most of their starters, including Cousins, defensive end Maxx Crosby, running back Ashton Jeanty and tight end Brock Bowers.

A 4-yard run by Dylan Laube with about five minutes left in the third got the Raiders within 20-10.

Former Texan Dare Ogunbowale scored on a 19-yard run with less than eight minutes to go. Kansei Matsuzawa's extra point failed to make it 20-16.

Aidan O'Connell relieved Mendoza in the second half. He scored a 1-yard touchdown on a tush push with 14 seconds to go to put the Raiders ahead 22-20. Matsuzawa missed that extra point, too.

Kickers convert 3 from 50-plus

Houston’s Ka’imi Fairbairn made field goals of 51 and 57 yards in his first preseason action after sitting out last week. Matt Gay kicked a 52-yarder in the second quarter for the Raiders.

Clowney returns to Houston

Houston defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft, played the entire first half after sitting out last week. He rejoined the Texans on a one-year contract earlier this month after spending his first five seasons in Houston.

He had a tackle and a quarterback hurry Thursday night. Clowney spent last season with the Cowboys and had 8 1/2 sacks.

Injuries

Las Vegas linebacker Buddy Johnson left early in the third quarter with a shoulder injury but returned in the fourth. … Las Vegas CB Chigozie Anusiem was carted off the field in the third quarter with a knee injury.

Up next

Raiders: Host San Francisco next Thursday night in their final preseason game.

Texans: End the preseason with a visit to Carolina on Aug. 28.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, plan to return to the United Kingdom from California in a matter of weeks. They have already enrolled their children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, in British schools so they can start the autumn term with their classmates.

News of the surprise decision, which broke late Wednesday in stories published by the Telegraph and Sun newspapers, has sparked widespread discussion about where the couple will live, who will pay for their security and whether they will return to royal duties one day.

But perhaps the most difficult issue is whether Harry can repair his once-close relationship with Prince William, the heir to the throne, which was decimated by Harry’s very public complaints of mistreatment at the hands of Buckingham Palace staff, racism in the royal family and the failings of the monarchy. There are also concerns that Harry and Meghan could try to upstage William and his wife Catherine, when they once again share the British stage.

“That will be something for the palace to deal with …” Craig Prescott, an expert on the U.K. constitution and the monarchy at Royal Holloway University of London, told The Associated Press. “They wouldn’t want Meghan and Harry’s presence in the U.K. here to overshadow the work of the monarchy, and there will have to be some discussion and allowance for that.”

Harry and Meghan wanted their children to grow up British

The couple are expected to live at a private, nonroyal residence outside of London and they won’t resume their royal duties, which they gave up when they moved to the exclusive Southern California community of Montecito six years ago, British media reported late Wednesday.

Their return to the U.K. comes as King Charles III, Harry’s 77-year-old father, continues to undergo treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer that was discovered in 2024. The prince said last year that he didn’t know “how much time my father has left,” and has expressed a desire for his children to have a chance to get to know their grandfather.

While Harry and Meghan’s decision is a surprise to many, royal historian Ed Owens said recent events created a pathway for the couple's return.

First, Harry spoke of his desire for reconciliation, then there was the apparently successful meeting between the king, his younger son and daughter-in-law and their children last month at Charles’ Highgrove estate in western England. In addition, there is Harry’s stated desire for his children to grow up British and that the U.K. looks like a safer place to be right now, given the divisions in American society, said Owens, author of “After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself?”

Royal experts expect Charles to forgive Harry

Finally, Owens said he expects Charles to forgive Harry because as the supreme governor of the Church of England he has to demonstrate the teachings of Christianity, including the virtue of forgiveness.

William may find forgiving his brother more difficult, but someday he too will become head of the church, Owens said.

“It may be that privately William never fully forgives his younger brother for what he deems the betrayal of the family,” Owens told The AP. “But publicly,” he will, “because for traditional moralists, traditional Christian values, they demand that there is this public act of forgiveness, that there’s reconciliation between the brothers.”

Charles was informed of Harry and Meghan’s plans on Sunday and the matter wasn’t discussed during their recent visit to the U.K.

Relations have been strained in the House of Windsor

Relations between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the royal family have been strained since the couple gave up their royal duties and moved to California in 2020 to earn their own living. The couple later signed lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify.

The rift deepened after the couple gave a series of interviews and Harry published his explosive memoir “Spare,” in which he said they left Britain to escape the restrictions of royal life. The couple also criticized palace officials for being insensitive to Meghan’s mental health and alleged at least one member of the royal family had expressed racist views when she was pregnant with their first child. Meghan describes herself as biracial.

Oprah Winfrey asked Harry to summarize his reasons for leaving Britain in a 2021 interview that was broadcast around the world.

“Lack of support and lack of understanding,” he replied.

Strains are exacerbated by long-running battles with the newspapers

Those tensions were exacerbated by Harry’s long-running legal battle with Britain’s tabloid newspapers, which he alleges illegally hacked his phones and invaded his privacy when he was younger. The courtroom drama seemed to be nearing an end after Harry and other plaintiffs lost their lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail last month.

That case left Harry facing a potential bill for millions of pounds after the court ruled the plaintiffs were liable for the publisher’s legal fees. Associated Newspapers has filed documents showing that its costs amounted to 34.5 million pounds ($47 million).

Harry has also been embroiled in a legal wrangle with the British government after a government committee refused to authorize police protection for him and his family when they are in the U.K. The prince says they need armed police protection because they are at risk as members of the royal family, regardless of whether they are working royals.

The couple’s security arrangements are a “private matter” for Harry and Meghan to deal with, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said when asked about the issue on Thursday.

After Harry lost his court challenge of the committee’s decision in May 2025, the prince said he hoped to reconcile with his family while continuing to vent his anger at those in Britain he feels have mistreated him and his wife.

“I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point,” he told the BBC at the time. “And the things that they’re going to miss is, well, everything. You know, I love my country. I always have done, despite what some people in that country have done.”

Although much of the media attention on Harry and Meghan has focused on family tensions and recriminations in recent years, Owens suggested that the story may now shift to the royal’s efforts to rebuild family harmony.

“I think time is a great healer. It creates space in a social media-saturated world,” he said. “People are always looking for the next thing to talk about and, arguably, that will be reconciliation between first of all father and son, and then potentially the two brothers.”

The teachers and principals watched as an instructor prompted an AI tool to “create a map of the world.”

The result drew gasps of disbelief and laughter. Projected on a large screen was a map riddled with bizarre errors. Mali was spelled “Mail.” Egypt was identified as “Sopth.” In place of Libya was something simply called “Africa.” Dozens of other countries' names were misspelled or written in pure gibberish.

“If you ever want kids not to over trust these tools, try the map demo,” said the instructor, Amanda Bickerstaff, founder and CEO of AI For Education, an organization that helps schools draft AI policies and train teachers and students in what she calls safe, ethical and effective use of the technology.

After initially trying to ban AI use, a growing number of U.S. public schools are trying a new strategy: encouraging classroom experimentation, partly so students can see its shortcomings, including generative AI’s notorious tendency to “hallucinate,” or fabricate information.

AI literacy has become a buzzword of this back-to-school season as educators try to strike a balance between equipping students with the skills they need for an AI-driven future while preventing them from outsourcing their thinking to chatbots.

There is no single definition of what AI literacy means, or how it should be taught. Tech giants like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic offer schools training sessions in how to use their AI tools. But for educators, there is a growing consensus that AI literacy is about more than learning how to use generative AI and write good prompts.

“Good AI literacy,” said Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, “includes knowing when not to use it.”

Some districts build their own approaches on AI literacy

Thirty-seven states have now published official AI guidance that schools can use as a blueprint. South Carolina is not one of them.

So the state’s second-largest school district set out to do it on its own, said Lucas Clamp, deputy superintendent of the 50,000-student Charleston County School District. “It has been a huge endeavor.”

A year ago, the district contacted AI for Education, which helped draft guidance for Chicago Public Schools, Houston and dozens of other districts.

Phase 1 was laying the foundation. The district developed an AI policy, seeking input from teachers, students and parents.

The district organized student focus groups and learned that student AI use was ubiquitous but unguided. Teachers and students said they were navigating the technology on their own and wanted clear rules and instruction.

Studies show a majority of teenagers and teachers nationwide are using AI for schoolwork, but they're teaching themselves how to use it; very few say they have a technical understanding or have received formal training on how it works.

Schools and parents are eager to avoid mistakes made with social media, where kids were left to explore the online world without learning about addictive algorithms, comparison culture and other downsides that have been linked to a youth mental health crisis and dwindling attention spans.

As the school year begins in Charleston, Phase 2 kicks in: training. Teachers and middle and high schoolers will get a mix of online and in-person instruction on how AI tools work and how to use them effectively.

The student course walks through familiar scenarios — like asking a chatbot to help with a research paper — to show that generative AI might deliver wildly inaccurate information, including made-up studies, with unflinching authority. “Always verify any factual information you get from GenAI, especially for your classwork,” the course advises.

A section on data privacy cautions against sharing personal information with AI tools because conversations can be stored, used for data training and potentially leaked.

High school teacher Ray Knauer attended the summer training and left with “teachable moments” for his AP Research class. He plans to show examples of AI bias and hallucinations to fuel student discussions.

“We’re all trying to figure this out right now: What’s the right balance so we don’t scare students away from AI but don’t encourage them to run to it,” Knauer said. “We have to teach students: You can’t just get an answer and move on. You have to use analytical skills and dig deeper.”

Some states offer top-down guidance on AI in classrooms

Utah was an early pioneer in taking a statewide approach to AI in education.

In 2024, the board of education named Matt Winters as its AI education specialist, making Utah the first state to create a full-time position overseeing the technology in schools.

Over the past year, Winters led AI training for over 7,000 teachers, almost a third of Utah’s public school instructors. He is helping districts shape AI policies, which they are required by state law to have in place by July 2027.

“There is a clear method from the top in Utah,” said Chris Agnew, director of the Generative AI for Education Hub at Stanford University. “When you’re tackling big change, it’s easier to have coherence if everyone is singing from the same hymn book.”

A handful of other states have since replicated Winters’ post, including Maine, West Virginia and Georgia.

In other states, a patchwork of AI approaches has emerged, with variance from one school district to another. Extensive AI literacy training requires steep investment, raising concerns that kids in under-resourced districts might not get the same attention.

In Utah, training starts with the basics of how AI works to teach an understanding of AI bias, hallucinations, ethical concerns and data privacy needs, Winters said. Teachers can then pursue additional training on specific tools.

“If I had to give advice: Figure out how to make training accessible to everyone,” said Emma Moss, who oversees AI at the Canyons School District and also led an eight-person team that traveled the state doing over 150 AI literacy trainings. The training was funded by a $500,000 AI literacy grant from a local healthcare provider. “We said, ‘We will come to you.’ Whether you are in a rural area or urban, it didn’t matter.”

The state has also played a key role in procuring AI tools, Winters said. He negotiated data privacy agreements along with discounted prices, which has allowed rural and under-resourced districts to get access.

“Everyone needs to understand what this technology is and how it works,” said Winters, who cautions against blanket bans. “AI literacy is much larger than saying: ‘Don’t use AI.’ It’s about how we can prepare kids for the future.”

Changing adult mindsets is also key, said Kristina Yamada, the state Board of Education's digital technology specialist.

“I think teachers need to change their mentality about students using AI to cheat,” Yamada said. There has always been cheating, she said. It’s up to teachers to speak students’ language and convince them they can’t rely on AI for all the answers.

For younger kids it means starting to talk about AI early, with conversations like, “People can lie. A program can lie. A robot can lie,” Yamada said. “For older students it’s different: ‘Sure, you can use ChatGPT to write computer code. But when the program stops working, you need to be able to fix it.’”

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Gecker reported from San Francisco.

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

With sparse details, President Donald Trump announced this week that the U.S. would be imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to cave to demands to end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

It reflects the dire reality Trump faces with an increasingly unpopular war he can't seem to end just months before pivotal midterm elections that will decide whether his Republican Party keeps control of Congress. Whether out of desperation or strategy, the president is refocusing America's might on bringing Iran to its knees through an accelerated sanctions campaign against one of the most economically penalized countries in the world.

The immediate response from Iran hawks has been praise and a call for patience as it plays out, while other analysts warn that Trump is refusing to learn the lessons of his predecessors.

In an interview Thursday on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a small glimpse of what may be ahead, threatening secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran.

He did not say exactly whom would be targeted as part of this next phase of the administration’s “ Operation Economic Fury, ” which earlier had focused on entities and individuals that buy oil from or bank with Iran. China and India, however, are major buyers of Iranian oil.

“If you insist on doing business with them, then the U.S. Treasury and U.S. government will put its full might and force against you,” Bessent said. “It’s time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision."

Some experts see ‘uncharted waters’ that could force Iran's hand

Despite decades of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration is arguing that it’s only a matter of time and that striking the right economic target would get Tehran to its breaking point.

Richard Goldberg, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in Trump's first term, said the consequences of U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites last year, the war this year and the American naval blockade on Iranian ports have created the perfect storm for capitulation — one that didn't previously exist.

“I think we’re watching a strategy, whether it takes a short time or a long time, that is very much about fundamentally changing the future of the world by seeing the end of this regime," said Goldberg, who is now at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“I caution everyone — including myself, who has worked on sanctions, who’s worked on financial warfare — to have the humility to admit that we are in uncharted waters,” he said.

He said the decision this week by the United Arab Emirates — once one of Tehran's most important trading partners — to suspend trade with Iran over an alleged missile attack will only further isolate the government.

Beyond trade in domestically produced goods, the Emiratis had helped the country absorb some of the shocks caused by sanctions through its re-export hub.

Targeting allies and partners comes at a price

With nearly all of Iran's energy, financial and transportation sectors already covered by U.S. sanctions, Trump’s aim appears to be to apply secondary sanctions on countries, including allies and partners, that have not cut all ties with Iran to starve the country of any remaining income it may still be receiving.

In many ways, it is a redux of Trump’s first-term “maximum pressure” campaign, which he has ramped up during his second term to include military action.

But as Trump and his allies discovered during his first administration, it can be difficult to enforce secondary sanctions without harming U.S. interests and provoking reciprocal measures. There were numerous instances of the administration granting sanctions waivers to countries, particularly those that rely on Iranian oil for their energy needs.

“Trump’s strategy now rests on targeting Tehran directly by impeding its touch points and access to the formal financial system and international economy,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of FDD’s Iran program. “This will require making the Iran issue more important in U.S. bilateral relations with countries in Europe and Asia.”

Iran doesn't see an ‘open door’ at the end of the sanctions campaign

Iranian officials and analysts have accused the Republican president of flip-flopping with his latest pivot to economic pressure against Iran. Trump has long derided past leaders who used sanctions to limit Iran’s ability to pay for its military and nuclear development.

In a post last week on X, Esmail Baghaei, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, wrote that Washington's pattern of retreating to sanctions when it doesn't want to pursue diplomacy has proven to be futile.

“Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains,” he said. “The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.”

Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, said the Trump administration's decision to take its own “maximum pressure” policy to new heights with military action seems to ignore years of U.S. foreign policy lessons that show Iran does not respond well to pressure.

If anything, he says, the latest economic campaign has only “hardened Iran's position.”

“I think (Trump's) blind spot is the fact that the only thing that the Iranian regime views as more dangerous than suffering from U.S. sanctions is surrendering to U.S. terms," Vaez said.

Plus, the past year of start-stop diplomacy has only worsened the already fragile dynamic between the longtime adversaries, Vaez says, adding that Iranian officials' lack of trust in Trump and his mediators has created an untenable foundation.

“They believe that even if they capitulate to U.S. terms under economic duress, Trump would move the goalposts and ask for more,” he said. “And this is really the fundamental problem: Pressure without an open door is an exercise in futility.”

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

Voters will decide Tuesday whether Graham or Rep. Ralph Norman will be Republicans' nominee on the November ballot.

The Myrtle Beach rally is the sort of campaign trail occasion that Trump hasn’t done as much of this year, compared with past midterms, making it a signal of the importance Trump is placing on a win for his pick.

It's also an opportunity for the president to wade into friendly territory ahead of the midterm elections that leave his party’s control of Congress hanging in the balance. South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in decades, its House delegation has only one Democrat and Trump’s own victory in the 2016 presidential primary here helped propel him toward the nomination and ultimately the White House.

In the scramble of a special Republican primary election that was called after Lindsey Graham's sudden death last month, Darline Graham was picked by Gov. Henry McMaster — also a Trump ally — to serve as interim senator and entered the special primary at Trump's urging. The president had said he told McMaster that appointing her would be a “fabulous tribute to Lindsey,” although the governor pointed out that he asked Graham to serve “in the wee hours” after her brother's death, adding that Trump “thought it was a great idea” when he later told him of his pick.

The president pressed “RUN DARLINE, RUN” on social media, and gave her his “Complete and Total Endorsement” before she'd officially announced her campaign. And at every turn on the campaign trail, she's reminded voters of this anointing, as well as her commitment to advancing his priorities if elected. On the eve of the primary two weeks ago, he held a tele-rally for Graham.

Trump also considered Lindsey Graham a close ally and friend, though they ran against each other in 2016 and had their ups and downs, so part of the visit is personal for Trump. He eulogized his longtime golfing partner and wartime consigliere at Washington National Cathedral last month.

Like Trump, Darline Graham has portrayed herself as a political outsider

A political newcomer, Graham has stressed that she's “not a politician,” as she's hurriedly introduced herself to voters across the state. Regularly touting her support for Trump’s policies, as well as his endorsement, she has pointed to her years heading up a state agency, as well as her weeks on the job in the U.S. Senate, as evidence of her readiness.

Saying she’s “answering President Trump’s call to serve,” she has repeatedly said she wants “to fight for President Trump’s agenda” and cited his core goals of border security and passing the SAVE Act voting bill as among her top priorities.

Graham has said she's focused on kitchen table issues like gas prices and household spending rather than international affairs. Earlier this week, after stumbling on an elemental foreign policy question related to U.S. interests in Taiwan, Graham defended herself as “not a polished politician up here.”

Trump has made no comment on the gaffe, which garnered attention after Graham told moderators, "National security is not my thing.”

Trump's rally will be in Myrtle Beach, a conservative — and growing — area

By meeting voters in Myrtle Beach, both Trump and Darline Graham are aiming to capitalize on a growing part of the state that's known to be deeply conservative, loyal to Trump and full of new residents.

It's also the home district of Rep. Russell Fry, the House ally whose name Trump had floated as an “outstanding” possible replacement for Graham after the senator's death. Elected to the House in 2022 with Trump's help, Fry ousted a five-term GOP congressman who had voted to impeach Trump a year earlier.

Running in the Senate primary, Fry touted his support for and previous backing from the president, but was hampered by the absence of it in this race. Finishing third, he swiftly endorsed Graham, a calculated move for the 41-year-old, two-term congressman, who, dating to the origins of his 2022 election, has seen the ramifications for some Republicans who have crossed Trump.

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

Vance is set to speak at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works facility, which was known as Armco Steel when his grandfather James Vance worked there for nearly 40 years.

Vance has highlighted his Rust Belt rootswhile trying to boost GOP candidates ahead of the November midterm elections and to promote the Trump administration’s economic policies and efforts to try to expand U.S. manufacturing. The Middleton event comes as he’s expected to ramp up his travel schedule with more public events and fundraisers, according to a person familiar with the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly and discussed it on condition of anonymity.

In a radio interview Thursday on the “Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show,” Vance said Friday’s stop will be “personally very meaningful” because of his family connection. He said it was “an amazing opportunity for me to go talk about, frankly, plants like this wouldn’t exist were it not for some of the Trump administration’s economic policies.”

Vance, who will be joined by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, said he will also use the visit to stop by some Cincinnati chili restaurants.

In his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance described the steel plant as an economic savior for his family that brought his grandparents from Kentucky's hills into the American middle class. He described how his grandfather, known to his grandchildren as Papaw, would boast when he saw an old Ford or Chevy that its steel was made by his company.

His grandson's election as vice president of the United States spurred pride in the Midwestern city, though Vance has faced some pushback to his portrayal of it in the book. He said kids “derisively called it ‘Middletucky’” when he was a child because it had so many transplants like his family. He said they brought problems with them from Kentucky such as drug addiction, ”Mountain Dew mouth” and problematic fathers.

In the 2024 election, Trump and Vance won about 62% of the vote in the city's precincts. His mother, Beverly Aikins, and his sister still live in Middletown.

Ohio has lost its political bellwether status and turned red during the Trump era, but Democrats see a chance to win both the governor’s office and a U.S. Senate seat from Republican hands this year as anti-Trump sentiment buoys their party.

Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to replace Vance in the Senate, is trying to hold on to his seat against a challenge from former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a longtime Ohio politician with a pro-working class message who lost his reelection bid to Republican Bernie Moreno two years ago.

Brown has capitalized on public opposition to data centers in the campaign and aired ads calling Husted the “face of data centers in Ohio.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, warned in a memo this week that backlash to the centers has left Husted vulnerable.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a Vance ally, is the party’s nominee for governor in a race against Democrat Amy Acton. Democrats have not won the Ohio governor’s office in two decades.

Vance, whose family still keeps a home in Cincinnati where they sometimes spend weekends, is making his first public visit since his fourth child was born in July.

As part of his plans for ramping up his travel schedule, his office announced a trip Monday to Brewer, Maine, where former Republican Gov. Paul LePage is running against Democrat Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, in a competitive House district.

___

Price reported from Washington.

Attorney Jesse Dreicer was asking Jacksonville Beach Police Detective Chris Johns about the relationship between Fernandez and John Biggerstaff, the man investigators believe provided the gun for the ambush shooting that killed Bridegan in February 2022.

RELATED | Who was Jared Bridegan? A father, a creative builder, a believer — and so much more

Fernandez, 38, is currently on trial for first-degree murder and solicitation of murder, accused of orchestrating the murder by hiring the alleged gunman, Henry Tenon, who lived at a property on Potomac Avenue in Jacksonville that was owned by Fernandez and his wife, Shanna Gardner, who divorced Bridegan in 2015.

According to court documents, the state has said that Fernandez visited Biggerstaff on Jan. 25, 2022, weeks before the murder, and that there was evidence that before that visit, Biggerstaff had been looking up information on 10mm weapons, which was the type used to kill Bridegan.

RELATED: He’s the first to face trial in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case. What do we know about Mario Fernandez?

Biggerstaff owned a 10 mm gun at one point but had to give up that gun and other weapons after he was convicted of a felony. When police asked about the 10 mm gun, Biggerstaff said he didn’t have it.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Biggerstaff has never been charged with a crime in connection with Bridegan’s murder.)

But Dreicer said Fernandez had known Biggerstaff for “decades” and met him because Fernandez attended high school with Biggerstaff’s daughter.

Then Dreicer said, “Let’s just get it out in the open. Mr. Biggerstaff was a swinger, correct?”

Johns confirmed that he was, and Dreicer went on to ask Johns about a video that was found on Biggerstaff’s phone showing Fernandez having sex with Biggerstaff’s wife.

“That was a lifestyle that they chose to live?” Dreicer asked.

“Correct, according to Mr. Biggerstaff,” Johns replied.

Dreicer was trying to establish that, unlike the prosecution alleges, Fernandez could have been at Biggerstaff’s home on Jan. 25 for many reasons that had nothing to do with getting a gun from Biggerstaff.

“What you certainly have no evidence of is that Mr. Biggerstaff gave Mr. Fernandez a 10mm firearm. Do you?” Dreicer asked.

“There is no physical evidence of that,” Johns responded.

“OK. When you say no physical evidence, there is no evidence of that. Correct?” Dreicer asked again.

“There is no physical evidence of that,” Johns repeated.

Johns also acknowledged on the stand that the gun that killed Bridegan was never recovered.

Potomac property

Later in his cross-examination, Dreicer emphasized that cellphone data places Fernandez’s phone at his Potomac rental property from about 2:02 to 4:23 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2022, while Henry Tenon’s phone traveled from Potomac to the area of Jared Bridegan’s murder and back, in an alleged “dry run.”

Before Bridegan’s murder, cellphone data and video of his truck also put Tenon near Bridegan’s neighborhood, the twins’ school, and other Jacksonville Beach locations, but not with Fernandez.

Johns acknowledged there was no surveillance, receipt, DNA, fingerprints, hair or other physical evidence placing Fernandez in Tenon’s blue truck or proving he accompanied Tenon on the days he went to Jacksonville Beach.

Dreicer argued Fernandez had legitimate reasons to be at Potomac, noting he owned the property, routinely visited it, arranged repairs and delivered construction materials.

Footage from a pole camera investigators placed near the Potomac home after the murder showed Fernandez repeatedly visiting the property, meeting contractors and working with Tenon; Johns agreed the videos supported legitimate property work but cautioned they did not necessarily establish what occurred on Jan. 29.

Dreicer continued showing pole-camera footage of Fernandez repeatedly visiting the Potomac rental property in August and September 2022, often carrying buckets or construction materials and appearing to perform tile work. The footage showed visits on Sept. 3-8, and Johns agreed Fernandez returned on Sept. 11 and 13 — about 20 visits in 30 days.

Dreicer argued the videos supported Fernandez’s claim that he was completing legitimate construction work and had not distanced himself from Biggerstaff, who was also seen doing work at the property, or from Tenon after the homicide. Johns acknowledged the footage but did not concede what Fernandez’s activities proved.

More detective testimony

Dreicer began his cross-examination of Johns by getting the detective to admit that in his initial interview, Fernandez told investigators the truth about the animosity between Gardner and Bridegan over how to raise their twin children.

Dreicer also questioned Johns about the fact that Gardner and Fernandez were not threatening Jared Bridegan despite ongoing disputes about custody, and that anyone could have known about the “date night” Bridegan was having with the children the Wednesday night he was killed.

The regular “date nights” every other Wednesday were part of the former couple’s custody agreement, which is public record in Florida.

“It goes to codify or make Wednesday night the official date night. Correct?” Dreicer asked, showing Johns a court custody document.

Johns agreed, and Dreicer then made the point that the documents are publicly available.

“So the idea that (Wednesday date night) is some personal detail that only the Bridegans would know and only the Gardner-Fernandez residence would know is simply not true. It’s public information. Correct?” Dreicer asked.

“The docket is publicly available,” Johns acknowledged.

Fernandez’s interview

On Tuesday, Johns recounted on the stand the evidence his team collected during the investigation and how he said those pieces led them to Fernandez and Gardner, who is also charged in the murder.

During Johns’ testimony on Tuesday, prosecutors played a 50-minute video showing Fernandez’s interview with Johns and another detective after the murder, but before he was considered a suspect.

During the interview with investigators, which Johns was questioned about again by the defense on Wednesday, Fernandez accused Bridegan of being difficult to interact with when it came to the care of the twins, a boy and a girl, that Bridegan shared with Gardner. The twins were 9 years old when Bridegan was killed.

Fernandez said Bridegan was a passive-aggressive person and called him a “keyboard warrior.”

“I remember reaching out to Jared (after marrying Shanna). ‘Now that I will be in the kids’ life more, let’s have a chat.’ Nothing. I got nothing,” Fernandez said.

He told detectives that the night of Bridegan’s murder, he had taken pain medication for headaches.

Friends testify

A man and a woman who knew Fernandez separately both testified on Wednesday about conversations they had with him before and after Bridegan’s murder

Taylor Kutis described Fernandez’s prior relationship with her, his marital and co-parenting problems, and his reference to a vague “contract” involving his wife’s family.

Under cross-examination, she acknowledged her recollections were not verbatim, she kept no notes, learned additional details from media reports, and never contacted police herself to report anything about Fernandez.

Victor Quiroz testified that Fernandez, a longtime online gaming friend, visited him in Clinton, North Carolina, in March 2022.

Quiroz said Fernandez acted normally, did not discuss the homicide during the visit, and only later mentioned during a gaming session that his wife’s ex-husband had been shot.

Evidence of murder

Bridegan, a father of four, was killed on Feb. 16, 2022, when he got out of his vehicle to remove a tire that was placed in the road.

After spotting the tire, Bridegan, who was driving home to St. Augustine after dropping off the twins at Gardner’s Jacksonville Beach home, stopped his Volkswagen Atlas and put on warning lights to remove it.

But when he opened his door, he was shot twice.

Two other bullets (seen below in an evidence display) hit the SUV, with one missing his toddler daughter, Bexley, in the back seat by mere inches, investigators said.

RELATED: Murder of father of 4 in Jacksonville Beach inspires toy boxes for children caught in tragedy

Testimony on Tuesday morning included a minute-by-minute timeline of video evidence leading up to the deadly ambush shooting.

The video evidence follows the path of a blue two-tone F-150 pick-up truck through Jacksonville Beach. Investigators say it was the vehicle used to transport the shooter to the scene of Bridegan’s murder.

Bridegan’s widow, Kirsten, became emotional when an evidence technician testified about the scene.

The prosecutor showed video the evidence tech took walking up to the dark scene; you see the tire in the road, shell casings and Bridegan’s body on the ground.

Another video shown in court Tuesday morning, taken near the scene, included the sound of gunfire.

Members of law enforcement who collected that video evidence and also DNA, the tire and bullet casings from the scene also testified on Tuesday about the process of cataloguing that evidence.

On Wednesday, a DNA analyst testified about finding Tenon’s DNA on the tire that was found in the road the night of the murder. He also acknowledged on cross-examination that Fernandez’s DNA was not found on any of the items submitted to his lab for testing.

Johns testified Tuesday about what was found inside the blue F-150, including business check stubs that were later matched to three checks Fernandez wrote to Tenon.

Johns also testified that boots and a jacket that belong to Tenon appeared to match those worn by the shooter, who was captured on video leaving the scene of the murder on foot.

JSO body camera video of Tenon walking inside the jail was also shown, and Johns said it was taken to show that Tenon’s distinct gait matched the gait of the shooter in the surveillance video the night of the murder.

Johns explained how investigators tried to use the announcement of Tenon’s arrest to “tickle the wire” and see if Fernandez and Gardner would be caught on wire taps talking to each other about the murder.

“It’s an event that is basically prearranged by law enforcement. So it spurs conversation about the actual crime that we’re trying to record,” Johns said, admitting that the effort was not successful.

Johns said Fernandez and Gardner were under surveillance at the time and were living in separate states: Gardner was in Washington state and Fernandez was in Orlando.

‘Absolutely no trust’

Kirsten Bridegan testified on Monday, the first day of the trial, describing the ongoing co-parenting tension between the couples that prosecutors believe was at the heart of the murder-for-hire scheme.

In her opening statement and while questioning Kirsten Bridegan on the stand, Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler traced the bitter relationship between Bridegan and Gardner, who spent years after their divorce in contentious court battles over how to raise their twins, from disputes about religion to doctor’s appointments and even school conferences.

“It was pretty terrible,” Kirsten Bridegan said on the stand. “There was absolutely no trust so everything was in writing. Texts, email. We did not speak in person, like at school events. Didn’t do phone calls.”

Fernandez also mentioned the family communication in his interview with detectives that was played in court on Tuesday. He said the family was in a group text and had an arrangement to text when they arrived to pick up the kids.

Fernandez recounted in his interview what happened one time when he opted to knock instead of texting.

“I went to go pick the kids up like three years ago. I picked them up. The kids came running out. They are scared. ‘Dad said no one should knock on the door. You can’t knock.’ I can do what I want. I could see him; he refused to turn around,” Fernandez recalled. “I got a message (that) if I ever do it again there would be a restraining order.”

Prosecutors have pointed to the ongoing acrimony between the couples as a major motive behind Bridegan’s killing.

“When it was something where all four of us were at, it was very tense. You could just feel the tension,” Kirsten said. “Jared, he would kind of retreat into himself and be quiet and not want to make eye contact. So it was not a comfortable experience ever.”

When prosecutors went through the night of the murder with Kirsten, she choked up as she remembered the moment an officer -- and not Jared -- answered the phone she’d been calling repeatedly after Jared had not made it home.

She cried when the prosecutor showed her a photo of Jared and asked her to confirm it was her husband.

Prosecutors also showed Kirsten a video from surveillance cameras at the Jacksonville Beach Police Department headquarters.

A man is seen walking in front of the police station and then down the street. During opening statements, the defense indicated that man is believed to be Henry Tenon.

The prosecutor asked Kirsten if she recognized the man in the video, and she said no.

On that same video, just seconds after the man walks out of frame, Kirsten is seen arriving at the station in the family’s Suburban after speaking with the officer who answered Jared’s phone.

It was unclear if Kirsten had ever seen the video before or knew how close she’d come to the man police believe shot her husband that night.

‘Targeted ambush’

On day one, Stifler pointed to the tire in the road as proof of a planned attack against Bridegan.

“A targeted ambush, a planned tactical ambush with a tire in the road in a dark place where no one would see and no one would know and no one would trace it back to those responsible,” Stifler told the jury in her opening statement. “The architects of Jared Bridegan’s murder intended it to be the perfect crime, and it almost was.”

In her opening statement, Stifler told the jury that the fatal shooting of the 33-year-old Microsoft design manager on that dark Jacksonville Beach road was hatched by Gardner and Fernandez, after years of post-marriage strife over religion and how to raise the twins.

Gardner, 39, faces her own trial in September. The accused gunman, 65-year-old Henry Tenon, is slated to go to trial next year after backing out of a guilty plea.

Stifler said that while it took investigators time to put the pieces together after discovering the execution-style killing, those pieces now point to a murder-for-hire scheme.

“The killer was a stranger to Jared Bridegan. The murder was personal,” Stifler told the jury.

Stifler acknowledged there were no eyewitnesses to the crime but said surveillance video captured a man later identified as Tenon running from the scene -- and someone else driving away in Tenon’s truck.

Those videos were what law enforcement went over in detail during Tuesday’s testimony.

Defense attorney James Hill told the jury in his opening that the state can’t prove who was driving the truck.

“They don’t know who’s driving the truck. They don’t know who actually solicited Henry Tenon. There’ll be no evidence to suggest they do,” Hill said.

Defense attorney Jesse Dreicer reiterated that point during cross-examination of investigators on Tuesday, saying there was no proof that Fernandez was the driver of the truck, the person running from the scene, or the shooter. He also pointed out a gap of 32 minutes in the footage where investigators admitted they did not know where the truck was.

Hill also told jurors on Monday that Fernandez, an Army veteran, had no motive to get rid of Bridegan and his actions shortly after the killing, a road trip to Pennsylvania and back, didn’t resemble that of a criminal schemer “running from the law.”

“He had access to a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Hill acknowledged, referring to his wife Gardner’s trust fund. “He could have fled the country.”

Execution-style killing

Bridegan’s family was in court on Monday, and his siblings, sitting in the second row behind State Attorney Melissa Nelson, were visibly emotional during testimony from those who described the scene on the night Bridegan was killed.

The first trial witness, Jonelle Cruz, said that she comforted Bridegan’s daughter with a blanket in a separate vehicle while her boyfriend tried to figure out what had happened.

RELATED: 911 calls describe scene of confusion in Sanctuary neighborhood on night of Jared Bridegan’s ambush murder

“She was shaking. She was very worried about her dad,” Cruz testified.

Prosecutors showed a video Cruz had taken with Bexley that night. When she asks Bexley what happened, the toddler says she heard a “Boom!”

Cruz said Bexley asked about her daddy, saying he was hurt and wanting to know if the police would help him.

Cruz’s boyfriend, Shane Borja, described Bridegan being found face down in a pool of blood next to his SUV. Borja was the one who found Bexley in the SUV, took her out and handed her over to Cruz, who kept her until detectives took her to the police station.

That’s where she was reunited with her mother, who testified that she followed her “gut instinct” and urged police to investigate Gardner and Fernandez.

Stifler said Gardner, who was from a wealthy family, relocated to Washington state with her children after Bridegan’s death. Fernandez, meanwhile, moved to Orlando.

“Ms. Gardner got what she wanted: full control over her children and the freedom to move out of Jacksonville, Florida,” the prosecutor said.

The first day of the trial ended with testimony from the medical examiner who confirmed what no one had disputed: That Jared Bridegan died from gunshot wounds and that his death was a homicide.

Second tire found

Stifler said during her opening that police discovered a lead a few months into the investigation “that blew the case open.”

A tire at a rental property owned by Fernandez was very similar to the tire that had blocked Bridegan’s vehicle when he was shot.

An investigator testified on Tuesday to finding the tire at the Potomac Avenue home.

“I actually got onto Google and started looking at the DOT numbers that are on the tire, and according to Google, and ultimately later through Bridgestone itself, they matched or they appeared to match at least the same date and manufacture, manufacturer plan,” he said.

Police said they matched DNA on those two tires to Tenon, who had a criminal record and financial problems.

Tenon was charged with shooting Bridegan and at first pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and agreed to testify against Fernandez and Gardner. But he withdrew the plea earlier this year and will have his own trial in March 2027.

Tenon is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse, possession of a firearm by a felon and accessory after the fact.

Fernandez’s trial is scheduled to last through Aug. 28.

Gardner will go on trial after Fernandez, with jury selection from Aug. 31-Sept. 4, and the trial from Sept. 8-25.

Gardner is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony and child abuse.

Neither Gardner nor Tenon will testify in Fernandez’s trial.

The case has garnered national attention, and Judge London Kite has repeatedly explained to the 12 jurors and four alternates that they can not look up anything about the case or talk about it with anyone.

As part of the preparation for trial, Kite previously ordered that the seated jurors’ names be kept anonymous until 60 days after the trial, which is typical in high-profile cases. The jurors were referred to only by their numbers during jury selection to protect their identities.

The checks: A central piece of evidence

Prosecutors highlighted checks Fernandez allegedly wrote to Tenon as key evidence in their opening statement, framing the payments as money paid to hide a murder.

“These checks were a way to hide money for a murder hidden in plain sight to make it look legitimate with the hope that Henry Tenon would never be identified and no one would ever look that deep,” Stifler told the jury.

Fernandez is accused of paying Tenon at least $10,000 for fatally shooting Bridegan.

When police obtained Tenon’s bank records, they found three checks totaling $10,000 written from First Choice Home Rentals LLC — all signed by Fernandez. They were for $2,000 and $3,000 dated March 28, 2022, and $5,000 dated April 4, 2022. The memo lines described work such as landscaping, roof upkeep and “Kickstarter Good Luck!!,” according to copies released by prosecutors.

“There are no eyewitnesses; there’s no video footage that captures the individuals or individual in the truck clearly enough to make them out. These things are all true,” Stifler said. ”But it cannot change the fact that there is no connection between the shooter and Bridegan other than this defendant (Fernandez). It cannot change that this defendant paid a man $10,000 for work that didn’t happen and a Kickstarter that doesn’t exist."

But the defense pushed back, saying there is video evidence that Tenon did do work at the property.

“Man, Henry Tenon, he’s a workhorse. That guy tilled up the front yard, chopped down trees. You’ll actually see video of him unloading tile from the back of his truck at Potomac, doing work,” Hill said. “Henry Tenon is a worker. Mario Fernandez has hired him to do work, not murder, tree work, roof work, landscaping, tile work.”

Hill argued the payments were legitimate.

“Mario Fernandez, who had at the time access to hundreds and hundreds and thousands of dollars, gave money to a guy that had helped him around his own house and invest in his business that he wanted to start,” Hill said. “That’s what the checks say.”

Gene Nichols, an attorney not involved in the case, said the checks are the hinge point of the entire trial.

“I think when it’s all said and done, what does the jury believe about the checks? That’s going to rule a tremendous amount,” he said. “That, to me, is going to be where this hinges — will a jury believe that those checks were written in order to commit murder, or were those checks written for the work that Mr. Hill said they were written for?”

He added that the burden of proof remains high.

“If the jury believes that they were for work that was done, or they take the position that the state didn’t prove that the money was for murder, then that’s going to sway a jury,” Nichols said. “In order to convict him, it’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by all of those jurors.”

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 employee 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.

In previous interviews, Kirsten Bridegan said Bexley described the loud noise of the gunfire, calling it “the boom.”

“She says, ‘Boom! Boom! Boom! Daddy on the ground,’” Kirsten explained.

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

Neighbors’ surveillance cameras from the Sanctuary subdivision caught the sound of those gunshots just before 8 p.m.

Jared 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)

They said that the shooter ran off on foot and someone else drove away from the scene in a pick-up truck. Prosecutors also said they have Tenon’s DNA on the tire that was left in the road.

NEW INFORMATION: Prosecutor drops bombshell in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case: Accused gunman was not alone on night of shooting | RELATED: Defense attorneys for Mario Fernandez briefly discussed plea deal with state in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case

“When the victim was killed, there is a person that fled on foot and a person that fled in a vehicle. We know that Henry Tenon left his DNA behind on that tire. And we know that Henry Tenon was not driving the pick-up truck that fled the scene,” Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi said during a hearing before jury selection began. He was arguing that this was proof of a deeper conspiracy in the case.

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 second 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.

The state says it has evidence of communications between Tenon and Fernandez in the days, weeks and “on the day of the particular crime.”

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.

State prosecutors initially said they would be seeking the death penalty against Gardner and Fernandez 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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The plane landed in the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien because the main international airport in Port-au-Prince is considered too dangerous. The U.S. government currently has a ban on U.S. commercial flights to Haiti’s capital through early September because of ongoing gang violence.

The deportees were clad in white, and many covered their faces out of safety as journalists filmed their arrival. Nearly all declined to talk, with some fearing being targeted by gangs that control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and swaths of land beyond.

The deportees included TPS holders and Haitians who had served prison sentences, said Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration.

“It is not the Haitian state that asks for them to be sent back,” he said. “Our mission is to welcome migrants of forced return. … We welcome them with the aim of accompanying them to their home.”

Deported Haitians search for a home

Delva noted that some of the deportees were not born in Haiti, although they are of Haitian descent.

He said that several deportees planned to travel to Haiti’s southern region, a dangerous journey because gangs control the main routes leading to that area and are known to randomly open fire on vehicles passing through.

Others are going to Haiti's western region, he said.

“There is one migrant who knows nothing about Haiti because he said he was coming from the Dominican Republic; that’s where he was born,” Delva said.

He said the government would attempt to reunify him with any potential relatives in Haiti or the Dominican Republic, where his mother and father live.

Immigration officials in Haiti on Thursday offered deportees a maximum of $65 and something to drink and eat.

“Those who cannot reach their homes today, we will host them in secure spaces and the next day the process will continue until all migrants return home as they should,” Delva said.

Delva did not say how many of the 161 deportees were TPS holders who had been living and working legally in the U.S. since 2010.

In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the TPS program to end, affecting some 1 million people from more than a dozen countries.

The cases went back to the lower courts, but by late July, the government had not extended work permits for Haitians.

On Aug. 5, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., lifted an order preventing deportations of Haitians on Temporary Protected Status, which was effectively a formality after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Activists warn Haiti is too dangerous for deportees

Activists have warned that Haiti is currently too dangerous and doesn’t have enough resources to help those being deported to a country of nearly 12 million people, of which more than half need humanitarian assistance because of surging gang violence and deepening poverty, hunger and violence.

Gang violence already has displaced a record 1.5 million people across Haiti, where more than 3,100 people were reported killed from January to June and another 1,189 injured, according to U.N. statistics.

One deportee briefly spoke to The Associated Press as he arrived in Cap-Haitien. He identified himself as Jean Diane Louis and said he left Haiti when he was 5 years old. He said his family lives in New York City and that he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for an unspecified crime he asserted he did not commit.

“Then ICE came and took me without questioning me,” Louis said. “They just sent me here.”

As gang violence persists, Haitian migrants in the U.S. continue to be arrested and deported.

On Thursday, U.S. authorities arrested a popular Haitian pastor at a gas station in Springfield, Ohio, according to Springfield G92, a faith-based group supporting Haitian immigrants. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a second Haitian man who was with him.

The pastor, Gilbert Joubert Adrien, was being held by immigration authorities in Ohio, said Marjory Wentworth, a spokesperson for Springfield G92. She said ICE has been a heavy presence in recent days in Springfield, a city of about 60,000 people that gained attention when U.S. President Donald Trump said falsely during his 2024 campaign that Haitian residents there ate dogs.

Haiti’s Group Supporting Refugees and Returnees has decried the deportations.

“Haiti is not ready to receive this number of migrants who were in the TPS program,” it said in a statement Thursday.

The group noted that more than 140,000 Haitians have been deported from neighboring countries, including the Dominican Republic, in the first half of the year alone.

“We note that there are no government measures in place to adequately assist these migrants,” the group said.

It added that many of those deported “have seen their dreams go up in smoke; the bonds they had already made in their communities are broken. Many are experiencing family separation.”

The U.S. had conducted about one deportation flight to Haiti since December 2023, according to Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor, which tracks flight data. Since December 2025, flights have originated in Alexandria, Louisiana, a hub for ICE deportation flights, with a stop in Miami on the way to Cap-Haitien International Airport.

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Kristen Bridegan was ordered to produce certain material from her cellphone and social media accounts, and Gardner’s attorneys told the court Wednesday that she still has not produced it.

Gardner is the ex-wife of Bridegan’s late husband, Jared, who was killed in an ambush shooting in February 2022.

Gardner is one of three defendants charged with Jared Bridegan’s murder, and her attorneys want access to private messages Kirsten sent via Instagram and other apps.

Kirsten’s attorney is arguing that the defense request is a “fishing expedition,” but Gardner’s team claims she is just delaying what the court has already agreed to.

Judge London Kite already held a private hearing about Gardner’s motion for information from Kirsten Bridegan’s phone and determined there was evidentiary value in giving some of the information to Gardner’s team.

Kite said she tried to narrow the scope of what would be provided to the defense. Her order limits what can be shared from Kirsten Bridegan’s phone, saying the communications will be reviewed by the court and only what is “substantive” will be shared with the defense.

But Kirsten’s attorney is refusing to allow the vendor hired by the defense to perform the forensic analysis of her phone and is asking the court to come up with a different third-party vendor not connected to the defense team.

Judge Kite agreed to allow Kirsten’s attorney to find a different vendor who can extract the data that will be reviewed and given to the defense.

Gardner is one of three defendants charged in the February 2022 ambush killing of Kirsten Bridegan’s late husband, Jared. Gardner’s now-estranged husband, Mario Fernandez, is also accused in the murder-for-hire case and is currently on trial.

(Click here for ongoing coverage of Fernandez’s trial.)

Kite’s order followed a heated dispute over a motion from Gardner’s defense team seeking private messages and other material from Kirsten Bridegan’s phone and social media accounts. They say the material could have evidentiary value in Gardner’s defense.

Bridegan’s attorneys argued the request was an overly broad “fishing expedition” and an improper attempt to examine the phone of the widow of a murder victim.

They said a reliable forensic extraction would require imaging the entire phone, potentially exposing private information unrelated to the case.

But Kite has already said in court that she believes imaging the entire phone is a violation of Bridegan’s privacy rights, which is why she narrowed the scope of what could be retrieved from her accounts.

The parties also disagreed over the vendor who would conduct the forensic examination. Bridegan’s attorneys objected to the first defense-selected vendor, arguing that the vendor appeared to be part of Gardner’s legal team and had made misleading statements about its independence.

Gardner’s attorneys on Thursday offered a different third-party vendor option to the court, not connected to the defense team, that they said will be able to extract only the more narrow information the court has allowed. Previous vendors had said that would not be possible.

Before Kite’s order, Kirsten Bridegan’s attorneys also argued that she is entitled to heightened protection under Florida’s victims’ rights law, commonly known as Marsy’s Law. They said the law protects her from harassment, intimidation and disclosure of information that could reveal confidential details or be used to locate or harass her or her family.

The attorneys asked Kite to reconsider her earlier order requiring Bridegan to provide phone data.

Alternatively, they asked to learn the specific reasons the defense considers the requested information material so they could properly challenge the intrusion into Bridegan’s privacy. Kite overruled their objection, saying Bridegan has no right to know defense strategy.

Kite said she previously reviewed a sealed submission from Gardner’s attorneys and determined that some of the requested information had evidentiary value.

Her order limits the scope of the material that may be shared and requires the court to review the communications first. Only substantive information is to be provided to the defense.

Gardner is slated to begin jury selection for her September trial after the Fernandez trial has ended.

Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rocks and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned yet another tropical cyclone is likely to approach the islands soon.

“We’re worried about people going through this again,” said John Bravender, a warning coordinator meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu. “Normally we would say pay attention to the forecast just in case. Now we’re saying take action now.”

He said a tropical depression was just starting to become more organized, and while the system is not expected to take exactly the same track or even dump potentially as much rain as Lala, the ground is already saturated from the recent hurricane.

The depression moving west and northwest could become a tropical storm in the coming hours and pass near or south of Hawaii's Big Island over the weekend or early next week, the U.S. Central Pacific Hurricane Center said. That system could dump up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain on the Big Island and trigger life-threatening flooding, mudslides and rip currents, it added.

On Hawaii's Big Island, there's ‘tension in the air’

“There's definitely tension in the air'' at the thought of more rain in communities that floodwaters turned into rivers, said Tiffany Edwards Hunt, a teacher living in Keaau, on the east side of the Big Island. “There were some areas that were completely washed out.”

Some people paddled to safety on surfboards, she said.

Hunt went to the area's grocery store but hesitated to buy food in case the power goes out again. Her home was without electricity from Saturday to Monday, she said, but some neighborhoods were still in the dark days later.

The Hawaiian Electric utility said it expects nearly all affected customers on the Big Island to have power restored, except for certain remote and severely damaged areas.

Many families with limited resources are worried about spending more money to prepare for another storm, Hunt said Thursday.

“We’re at the beginning of the hurricane season,” she said. “We know how to pull it all off in our community. It’s just having to mentally and emotionally prepare for it.”

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and other state officials, held a news conference Thursday afternoon to update Lala recovery progress and urge people to prepare for the next storm.

“These hurricanes are very serious. There were many houses that were destroyed,” Green said. He said the next storm could be similar in strength but there's still a lot of uncertainty though “we're going to prepare.”

Officials urged people low on emergency supplies after Lala to restock up to 14 days of food, pet food, medicine and other essentials and closely monitor the storm's progress.

A 93-year-old beloved teacher died fleeing Lala's floods

Residents found the body of a man in his 60s in a pasture Tuesday, a day after the recovery of the body of May Doi, 93, whom neighbors said was trying to escape from floodwaters in her home. Doi was a beloved former kindergarten teacher who taught generations of residents in a small town on the Big Island.

“She taught grandkids of her students,” said ʻĀina Akamu, a former student of Doi who is now a vice principal at a local school. “She was a fixture in this community.''

The highest total rainfall from Lala, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), was recorded on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and about 13,200 customers on the Big Island remained without power Thursday.

Help from California to restore power

The Hawaiian Electric utility said that as of Thursday afternoon, there were still about 13,000 customers without power on the Big Island. The company expected that nearly all of them would have electricity restored by Friday, except for in certain remote and severely damaged areas.

The utility said crews from Southern California Edison arrived to help repair equipment and restore power.

Lala is the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific Ocean. Now well west of Hawaii’s main islands, Lala had top sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph) on Thursday and had begun pummeling the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — a remote area at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The impacts were being felt between Lisianski Island and Maro Reef, authorities said.

Forecasters said Lala would cross the waters of the marine national monument for a few days at hurricane strength despite some gradual weakening.

One charter boat heads far out to sea to avoid stormy weather

Even in that remote area, people were seeking safety. A charter boat carrying a 16-member crew dedicated to removing marine plastics and abandoned fishing nets from the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands got out of Lala’s projected path.

Kevin O’Brien, president of the nonprofit Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, said the vessel left Lisianski Island on Monday and headed hundreds of miles (kilometers) out to sea away from the storm.

“We were ready for it,” O’Brien said. “We keep on our toes out here during hurricane season.”

___

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.

The 20 deportees arrived at Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia.

Deportees will include African nationals as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, according to Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah. Liberian Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh has said they could seek asylum in the West African country if they wished.

The U.S. State Department declined to answer questions about the Liberia agreement, but said that implementing the Trump administration’s immigration policies was a “top priority.” It said it was “unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security.”

The U.S. Homeland Security Department declined to confirm Thursday's deportations “for operational security reasons” and referred additional questions to the State Department.

Third-country agreements are often shrouded in secrecy. Migrants have been deported to countries they have never been to or where they face safety risks and are left with little choice other than to return to the home countries they were fleeing from.

The Trump administration struck agreements with at least 35 countries to deport people who are from other countries, including Liberia and 13 others in Africa, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a partnership of Refugees International and Human Rights First that relies on public records requests, news reports and other sources. More than 23,000 people have been deported to 26 countries under the agreements.

The U.S. State Department previously announced that Liberia agreed to accept deportees who are not from Liberia. But a six-page agreement reached in September 2025 and posted on its website does not say how many or from which countries.

In October 2025, Liberia offered to accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador. Blocked from sending him to his native country, the Trump administration has vowed to send him to a third county, including Liberia.

Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said it will accept him. But the government has so far declined to send him there. Abrego Garcia is fighting deportation to Liberia in a federal lawsuit in Maryland.

For Cohen, who served prison time for his role in what he said was covering up Trump’s “dirty deeds,” it was the culmination of a behind-the-scenes detente that would have been impossible to imagine several years ago.

The interview, part of which aired on Cohen's 77 WABC radio program Thursday evening and which will air in full Sunday, was an exceptionally friendly affair, with only passing reference to the men's tumultuous history.

“They weaponized you like nobody's ever been weaponized, like few have been,” Trump told Cohen.

“I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said,” he went on. “That’s a big thing that you did."

In an interview with CNN shortly before the radio interview aired, Cohen said he had resubmitted a pardon application to the White House that had been denied by the previous administration, but had yet to receive any response and planned to follow up Friday.

The truce with Cohen makes him the latest in a long line of Trump loyalists who have had public falling-outs with the president but found themselves back in his good graces. Other recent examples include Elon Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But the split from Cohen was perhaps the most personal. Cohen once boasted that he would “take a bullet” for the president and was by Trump’s side during his political rise. After their public breakup, Cohen’s testimony in Trump’s 2024 criminal hush-money trial instead helped secure Trump’s criminal conviction just as he was trying to make his political comeback.

Cohen has since criticized prosecutors in the case — an admission that paved the way for their reconciliation.

‘Boss, remember when I was by your side,’ Cohen tells Trump

Cohen has said he and the president have had multiple conversations over the past year and introduced the interview by explaining his decision to move on.

“Forgiveness does not mean amnesia. It does not mean that the past did not happen. It does not mean the scars vanish, that the pain was fake or that I have forgotten a single second of what transpired, I have not. Forgiveness isn’t about erasing history," he said. “It is about having the courage to decide that yesterday will no longer dictate tomorrow.”

He sounded nostalgic about a time when he was one of Trump's most trusted aides.

“Boss, remember when I was by your side,” he said at one point.

The clip was introduced with the 1975 War song, “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” and closed with the lyrics, “Reunited and it feels so good,” from the 1978 Peaches & Herb song.

In a long post on his online newsletter Thursday promoting the interview, Cohen said that although his relationship with Trump became “political blood sport,” there were 15 years of close friendship between them.

“The good times don’t cease to have existed because the bad times came afterward,” Cohen wrote.

Simply, he said, “We forgave.”

Trump had made no warm public statements about Cohen before Thursday, but in a series of social media posts this year, he linked to some of his former lawyer’s comments saying he felt pressured by prosecutors to testify against Trump in the criminal hush money case and a civil fraud case.

Cohen was a key figure in Trump's prosecution in New York

In 2024, Cohen was the star witness in Trump's criminal hush money trial, which resulted in a 34-count felony conviction. He ended up facing no punishment.

But over days of probing questioning by prosecutors, followed by bruising cross-examination, Cohen placed the then-Republican candidate at the center of schemes during the 2016 presidential election to stifle accounts from an adult film actor and former Playboy model who said they had sexual encounters with Trump.

Cohen testified that Trump promised to reimburse the lawyer for the money he fronted and that he was constantly updated on behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.

“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified.

Cohen’s testimony at the time appeared to be the final breach in a once-close relationship between the lawyer and his client that was tested in dramatic fashion in 2018 when FBI agents searched Cohen’s office, home and hotel room.

Cohen later pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Russia as well as to campaign finance violations in which he implicated Trump in payments that went to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star, and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal. He was sentenced to three years in prison.

Since his trial testimony, though, Cohen has sung a different tune as he’s moved closer to Trump, insisting that he had testified under duress.

“I felt pressured and coerced to only provide information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump,” he wrote in a Substack post in January.

Cohen testified before Congress in 2019, alleging Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.

He gave similar testimony in a 2023 civil fraud trial in New York, which found that Trump and his companies had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. A New York appeals court later threw out a $550 million judgment against Trump in that case. Trump has asked a court to overturn the remaining parts of the case.

In his tell-all memoir in 2020, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” Cohen was unsparing, calling Trump an “organized crime don” and “master manipulator.”

But, foreshadowing their later rapprochement, Cohen also wrote that he still cared for Trump, writing, “I had and still have a lot of affection for him.”

___ Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Doctors Without Borders criticized the decision by Israel's military not to investigate two fatal attacks on the medical humanitarian organization's staff, and in Gaza City, a mass funeral was held for 50 people killed in Israeli airstrikes nearly three years ago but whose remains were just recovered.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Thursday. Full coverage can be found here.

Iran denounces Trump's economic threat

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has rejected the economic threats made against his country, saying that such “failed policies” will stir more hostility among Iranians and “bring more failures.”

Araghchi's comments came a few hours after Trump threatened “crushing economic measures” against Iran. The U.S. president promised “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” but provided few details.

In a social media post, Araghchi maintained that the threats aim to divert the attention of the U.S. public from domestic financial problems, saying that U.S. “economic terrorism threatens the global economy and the national sovereignty of countries around the world.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that Iran will face the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world."

In a CNBC interview, Bessent threatened secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran, saying it's time for U.S. allies to make a decision on where they stand.

China's government and India are major buyers of Iranian oil, though Bessent didn't call them out by name.

Doctors Without Borders condemns Israel's military

Doctors Without Borders said that the decision by Israel's military not to open a criminal investigation into two strikes that killed four people shows the country won't take responsibility for attacking civilians.

The international aid group now wants an impartial investigation into the deaths, but didn't specify who should lead the effort.

Doctors Without Borders asked Israel's military to investigate an attack on a Gaza City convoy in November 2023 and a strike on the organization's shelter in Khan Younis in February 2024. Israel’s announcement on Wednesday said that it wouldn't launch criminal investigations into the two cases, in which troops killed the organization's employees.

The decision by Israel's military shows “there is no prospect of accountability within the Israeli legal system for the killing of our staff, just as there has been no accountability for Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that cited 15 staff and 1,700 healthcare workers killed in Gaza since October 2023.

Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it's targeting Hamas after the militant group's attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because it operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded Gaza Strip.

UK and others rebuke planned West Bank settlement project

Six European countries along with Canada condemned the latest development in a contentious Israeli settlement project near Jerusalem that would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two.

Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing issued a tender for constructing several compounds with more than 1,200 homes in total in an open tract of land east of Jerusalem. It’s the latest step in a project under consideration for more than two decades, which critics say would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the territory.

The joint statement from the leaders of the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada said international law is clear the settlement is illegal and noted “unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians.”

“We urge the government of Israel to retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel's international standing,” the countries wrote.

Egypt and Jordan also condemned Israel’s move.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar responded on Thursday by defending “the historic right of the Jewish people to reestablish their national home in the Land of Israel — including in the area in question.” Saar criticized the U.K. government for “blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism.”

Gaza funeral for 50 killed in opening strikes of war

A mass funeral Thursday in Gaza City remembered 50 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the opening months of the Israel-Hamas war, but whose remains were only recently recovered from under rubble.

Dozens of mourners carried the remains, draped in Palestinian flags, through debris-strewn streets before lowering them into graves. Some held portraits and posters with photos of the deceased.

“We were able to recover them after three years of war, after three years of anguish, pain and torture. We were able to recover them, and dignify them in their final resting place. We were able to pray over them and bury them,” said Lina Karam, who lost her father and other members of her family.

The 50 bodies were from three families who were killed in airstrikes in November and December 2023.

The nearly three-year war has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which was part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of the toll.

US sanctions network supporting Hezbollah

The U.S. announced new sanctions Thursday against a network of people who allegedly funneled cash into Lebanon for the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The network run by Turkish businessman Yunus Alper Yilmaz uses couriers traveling on commercial flights between Lebanon, Turkey, the UAE and Iran “to move up to hundreds of millions of dollars between jurisdictions, providing an avenue outside the formal financial system” to move funds to Hezbollah, the U.S. Department of Treasury said in a statement.

The Treasury also redesignated Hezbollah — which was already sanctioned by the U.S. — as an Iranian proxy acting on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force rather than a stand-alone operation.

The redesignation aims to underscore that Hezbollah “operates with little to no regard for Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people or the Lebanese state,” the Treasury statement said.

Turkey denies delegation had visited air base in Syria

Turkey has denied that a Turkish military delegation had visited an air base in northern Syria that was hit by Israeli airstrikes, and vowed to continue supporting Syria in its efforts to rebuild its military.

The Israeli strikes targeted the Abu Duhur base early on Tuesday, causing damage but no casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was “on the verge of breaching” an agreed-upon “status quo in security matters” by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.

Syrian officials have said that a Turkish delegation visited the base before the Israeli strike to review rehabilitation work underway there.

Syria's top diplomat discusses Middle East in Pakistan

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani arrived in Islamabad for talks expected to focus on regional issues, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The visit comes days after Israeli airstrikes targeted an air base in northern Syria, causing damage but no casualties.

Pakistan's officials say the country's political and military leadership remains in contact with both Iran and the United States over efforts to de-escalate tensions and push for the resumption of talks, after a 60-day deadline under a June memorandum of understanding expired. The agreement was brokered by Pakistan with help from regional countries.

Bodies of Pakistani sailors returned after Houthi attack

The bodies of two Pakistanis killed in last week’s Houthi attack on a Tanzanian-flagged commercial vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have been repatriated to Pakistan.

Six Pakistani sailors who were wounded in the attack have also safely returned to the country, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on X.

Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men’s team, sued the Times in 2023 after it published a report, citing a person familiar with the investigation, that indicated he was a passenger in a car involved in the shooting. The Times reported that the person had spoken “on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.”

Days later, the Times acknowledged its error in an editor's note and corrected the story.

The eight-person jury delivered its verdict after a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Matt Glover, an attorney for Spears, said he was pleased with the decision and believes “this verdict will improve journalism throughout the country.”

The Times was reviewing its legal options after losing in court, spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said.

“We’re disappointed the jury found The Times liable for an honest mistake,” Stadtlander said in a statement Thursday. “We thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence."

Three other basketball players from the school were present at the January 2023 shooting, which killed a 23-year-old mother. In the lawsuit, Spears claimed the inaccurate reporting had caused him emotional distress and forever linked him with a murder.

A Times article reporting on the verdict Thursday said the newspaper “had not lost a defamation lawsuit brought in the United States over one of its articles in more than 50 years.”

Rain can push any team off the field, forcing the Mustangs indoors—an early reminder that in Florida, even the weather can test a program before the season officially begins.

“We always start the season with the weather plan,” head coach Toby Bullock said. “So you go to a lift, you go to meetings… Sometimes you try to turn the negative into a positive.”

Bullock said the message is simple: keep progressing, regardless of the disruption.

“Always got to get something done,” he said. “You got to be moving forward.”

RELATED: ‘Plus 2′: Inside Mandarin football’s mindset after last season’s playoff heartbreak

A schedule full of tests

Mandarin’s 2026 season opens on the road in South Florida against McArthur, then moves into a stretch that includes district games, familiar opponents—and two major measuring sticks.

Raines and Lake Mary, both defending state champions in their respective classes, are on the Mustangs’ schedule this fall.

Linebacker Jerel Stephens said the work to prepare for that kind of slate started long before kickoff.

“Day by day stacking days,” Stephens said. “We hold a very high standard. So every day we come on hold a standard—practice how you play.”

When asked who helps keep that standard from slipping, players didn’t hesitate.

“Shaunqueze Foster,” linebacker Kaden Bryant said.

“Shaunqueze Foster,” Stephens echoed.

Foster—known around the program as “Quez”—is a Class of 2027 running back who players describe as a steady source of accountability and energy.

“Hard work keeping everybody accountable,” Foster said. “When we go on the field it’s us versus them and nobody else.”

Foster said the daily tone matters.

“You could just feel the energy,” he said. “The energy that everybody wants to be here.”

Bullock said that’s what leadership looks like in practice—especially when teammates have to challenge each other.

“That’s what we look for in leaders,” Bullock said. “I don’t care if you can tell the freshman what to do. Can you tell your best friend that he’s doing wrong? That’s a leader.”

Bullock said the parts fans see on Friday nights are only a small piece of what it takes to get through a season.

“536 hours of football in a season,” Bullock said. “You only get 45 hours of actual playing time… So 88% of the time you are in preparation. So our motto is find joy in the preparation.”

Confidence heading into Week 1

Even with the difficult schedule ahead, players said the mood is confident entering Week 1.

“This is actually one of our best teams we’ve had in this program,” Bryant said. “Coming in as a team—we real confident.”

Stephens added: “Really tense schedule… we ready for everything.”

Wide receiver Jace Kemp said the Mustangs plan to set the tone early.

“We’re going to make statements all year,” Kemp said.

About the series

This story is Episode 2 of Varsity 4’s “Plus 2”—a season-long series following the Mandarin Mustangs week-to-week from the start of practice through the end of the season.

Ryan Daniels, 30, was found stabbed and bleeding on the front porch of a home on Davis Road in Oceanway on Saturday. Despite efforts to save his life, Daniels died at a local hospital.

The next day, his brother — 38-year-old Eric Mincey — was arrested and charged with murder.

RELATED: ‘Last shirt off his back’: Ryan Daniels remembered as devoted friend, father after his brother accused of fatal stabbing

Family Left With Questions

Daniels’s family and friends tell News4Jax they don’t believe anything dramatic led to a fight, but say they simply don’t know what happened — but they are heartbroken.

His cousin, Kenyonna Hill, struggled to make sense of the loss.

“Nothing should ever went that far for us to be sitting here having an interview about Ryan and his brother being the killer,” Hill said. “That should have never happened.”

Hill also reflected on the bond the two brothers once shared.

“That is his mother’s son. They bathed together. They fought together. They ate together. It doesn’t matter if they had prior altercations. It should never got this far. It should never went as far as it did.”

‘Loved by a Lot of People’

Those who knew Daniels described him as a quiet man with a warm presence. His sister, Tori Hill, remembered his smile.

“He was like a man of few words,” Hill said. “He only said a few things but every time he did his smile was like ‘ding.’”

Hill also wants people to know just how much her brother meant to those around him.

“If he didn’t think or if he didn’t know, like he’s really loved by a lot of people, a lot of people, and they all had wonderful things to say about him.”

Daniels leaves behind a daughter, who his family says was his pride and joy. His family is currently working on bringing his body back to New Jersey, where his relatives are based, for burial.

The family has started a GoFundMe page to cover the cost of transporting Daniels’s body back to New Jersey. As of Thursday night, the page had raised just over $13,000.

“Nothing I thought I’d ever have to go through,” Brad Darnold said. “But it’s pretty rough. I just hope you’ll be all right.”

Brad Darnold met Kadin Hanifen through high school football. He said Kadin became like a brother.

A GoFundMe fundraiser set up for Kadin says he was “seriously injured in an electric scooter accident” after losing control of the scooter while spending time with friends. The fundraiser says the crash led to “serious injuries” and “unexpected medical expenses” as his recovery begins.

As of Thursday, the GoFundMe had raised more than $14,000.

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it responded to an e-scooter incident last week on South Deer Ave.

“Last Friday, 8/14, we did respond to that location to assist public safety with an e-scooter incident,” CCSO said in a statement. “This was not considered a traffic crash.”

Friends gathered outside HCA Florida Orange Park to pray for Kadin and his family. With their heads bowed and their hands locked they prayed for strength and recovery for their friend. With each person Wearing red they looked up at the window of the hospital where Kadin and his family are. They waved and his family lit up their phones and waved back.

“My messaged to [Kadin] is brother, man I know you got this,” Darnold said. “I know it’s hard, and you’re fighting for everything you’ve got, but I know you can do it and we’ll get through it together man. I’m here. We’re all here with you. It’s going to be all right.”

Clay County District Schools provided a statement about Hanifen, who the district said graduated from Middleburg High School:

“Our thoughts and support are with Kadin, his family, and his loved ones as they navigate this difficult time. We understand the impact this news has on our school community, and counselors are available to support our students and staff.”

The GoFundMe organizer said, “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who gives, shares, prays, or simply takes a moment to think of Kadin and family.”

That agreement is at the center of whether a judge will order a retrial for Anthony, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison over the killing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf last year during a confrontation in the bleachers of a high school stadium near Dallas.

Anthony, 19, sat at the defense table as his attorney argued that the pact ultimately marred the June trial, which ended with jurors rejecting his claims of self-defense. Prosecutor Bill Wirskye defended the trial as fair.

The hearing was set to continue Friday, and it was not clear when the judge will rule on Anthony’s retrial request.

Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Among the details that jurors never heard, according to attorneys on both sides, were that Anthony once sent a text message fantasizing about stabbing someone and Metcalf had a history of fighting and using racist language.

During the trial lawyers on both sides told jurors the tragedy had nothing to do with race, but social media posts amplified the killing nationwide in racial terms.

“All of us wanted the temperature on this, so to say, to be turned down,” said Mike Howard, who was Anthony’s lead attorney.

Prosecutor says Anthony was angry before meet

In addition to citing the off-the-record agreement, defense attorney Russell Wilson also told the judge a new trial should be allowed because of errors that limited access to the proceedings.

Wilson said the case’s original judge allowed a “shadow docket” that shielded character information about both sides. “Everything was done off the record, at an astonishing clip,” said Wilson, who didn’t represent Anthony at the criminal trial.

Wirskye said Anthony's original attorneys agreed to everything done during the trial.

“Witness after witness came in” and said Anthony did it and it was not self-defense, Wirskye said.

The prosecutor said he agreed not to use evidence that showed Anthony had an obsession with guns and knives and that he was angry on the morning of the stabbing.

“He went there that day spoiling for a fight,” Wirskye said about the day of the track meet.

The defense team had information showing that Metcalf used racial slurs in the past and bullied Black classmates, according to Howard and documents shown during Thursday's hearing.

As Howard spoke in the court, Metcalf's parents sat quietly in the gallery. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from them through a court spokesperson.

Karmelo Anthony case spurred a wave of threats

As national attention intensified last year, the families of both Metcalf and Anthony said they had been targets of harassment.

The prosecutor said there were threats against a judge who granted Anthony bond, fake autopsy reports circulating online and attempts to intimidate witnesses.

“The lawyers on both sides were worried about their lives in this case,” Wirskye said.

New judge deciding whether Anthony will get a new trial

Anthony already won a legal victory on Wednesday when the judge who presided over his trial was removed from the case. Judge Michael Chitty was then assigned to consider the motion for a retrial.

Anthony's attorneys had asked for state District Judge John Roach to be removed in part because of a TV interview in which Roach said jurors “got it right” when they delivered a guilty verdict.

Students who took the stand described a heated exchange over Anthony’s refusal on a rainy spring day to leave a tent that belonged to Metcalf’s team.

Several schools were competing at the track event when Anthony sat under a tent in the bleachers. Metcalf and others repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to a confrontation.

Prosecutors said Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses testified that Anthony was the aggressor.

Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” according to a police report.

Metcalf pushed Anthony, according to witnesses, who said Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

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This story has been corrected to show that prosecutors said a judge who granted bond, not the trial judge, received threats.

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Associated Press writer John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

General manager Mike Hazen confirmed Thursday that Marte is headed to the injured list and will return once he's healthy, which The Arizona Republic and MLB.com first reported.

The three-time All-Star traveled back to Phoenix for tests on his left knee Tuesday. Manager Torey Lovullo said he has struggled to get information from the veteran slugger throughout the process.

Marte's absence and apparent injury come at a difficult time for the D-backs, who are fighting to make the playoffs for the first time since a run to the World Series in 2023. Arizona has a 67-61 record and is one game behind the San Diego Padres for the final National League wild-card spot.

Marte is hitting .249 with 21 homers and 67 RBIs so far this season.

This wasn’t the first time Marte had a strange disappearance.

Last season, he went on the restricted list when his home in Arizona was broken into during the All-Star break. He missed three games after flying back to his native Dominican Republic and later apologized for his absence.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman, the City of Jacksonville and community partners will host the 4th Annual Memorial Ceremony to honor the victims and survivors of the Dollar General shooting on Wednesday, Aug. 26, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Kings Road Memorial Park.

The ceremony will remember Angela Carr, Jerrald Gallion and A.J. Laguerre Jr., who were killed in the senseless shooting on Aug. 26, 2023. This year’s gathering carries the theme “We Remember. We Honor. We Unite.”

RELATED: JSO corrections officer rebuilds Dollar General shooting memorial with help from family

A special candlelight observance titled “Lighting the Way Forward” will serve as a centerpiece of the evening — a symbol of remembrance, healing, unity and hope.

“We continue this memorial because Angela, Jerrald and AJ must never be reduced to the tragedy that took their lives,” said Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman. “We remember who they were, we stand with their families and the survivors, and we come together as a community to demonstrate that hate will not have the final word in Jacksonville.”

The event will also recognize survivors and families whose lives were forever changed by the attack, while offering Jacksonville residents an opportunity to stand together against hate, racism and violence.

Faith leaders, civic leaders, community partners and residents are all expected to attend.

Fire crews responded to the fire at building 25 of The Square at 59 Caroline on Thursday afternoon, resulting in 11 people being displaced.

JFRD said the blaze was under control around 7 p.m. and reported no injuries.

The American Red Cross is helping assist those displaced.

The cause of the fire is unknown. The State Fire Marshal is investigating.

Cole (7-6) allowed four hits and a walk with eight strikeouts. A fifth-inning homer by Dylan Beavers produced the lone Baltimore run. The Yankees pulled within four games of AL East-leading Tampa Bay.

Ryan Yarbrough relieved Cole and pitched three perfect innings for his third save.

The Orioles have dropped four in a row after briefly taking sole possession of the lead in the race for the final American League wild card. Kyle Bradish (7-12) allowed three earned runs and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings, and Baltimore also permitted a pair of unearned runs in the third.

With men on first and third and nobody out that inning, second baseman Jackson Holliday fielded a tough grounder and threw to second, but shortstop Gunnar Henderson dropped the ball for an error and everyone was safe.

With a run already in, Bradish induced a double play, but Ben Rice followed with an RBI single and then Heliot Ramos brought in a run with a double that made it 3-0.

Beavers' drive to right made it 3-1, but García and Jones answered with solo shots to chase Bradish in the sixth. Jazz Chisholm Jr. tripled in a run in the eighth.

There was no controversy about this New York win, a night after Pete Alonso's deep fly ball against the Yankees was ruled foul with the game tied. Alonso did single twice Thursday to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 12 games.

Cole (1,015) moved one strikeout ahead of Roger Clemens for 12th place on the Yankees' career list.

Up next

The Yankees return home to face Toronto on Friday night. Cam Schlittler (10-6) takes the mound for New York.

Baltimore hosts Tampa Bay, with Trevor Rogers (8-8) starting for the Orioles.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb

The Trump-aligned board at the Kennedy Center voted earlier this month to inscribe the president's name on the venue’s facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” If the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million, another inscription would be added reading “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”

The plaza in front of the Kennedy Center would also be renamed to recognize Trump.

The Kennedy Center has said it wouldn’t attempt to engrave Trump’s name on the building before Sept. 8 to allow for legal arguments to unfold.

Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio member of the Kennedy Center, has led the effort to prevent Trump from memorializing himself there. In asking for the court’s intervention, her lawyers, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, wrote that the board's actions amounted to “clear violations” of an earlier court order.

A representative for the Kennedy Center didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The resolution approved by Trump’s allies on the board said the Kennedy Center “would be in financial ruin without President Trump’s unique stature as both an unparalleled fundraiser and world-class developer.”

Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that the Kennedy Center illegally added Trump’s name to the building, ordering it removed. The institution’s leaders complied in June but left a tarp and scaffolding in place where Trump’s name once stood.

Lawyers for the Kennedy Center wouldn’t commit this week to taking down the scaffolding, saying it’s needed as part of a broader system for “water testing and structural repairs to the roof overhang.”

Biya arrived at the international airport in the capital, Yaoundé, aboard a flight from Geneva, Switzerland, after more than 10 weeks away.

The world’s oldest president, who has led Cameroon since 1982, began his eighth term in office in November after winning a widely disputed election in October.

Biya had left the country on June 7 for what his office described as “a brief private stay in Europe,” but it became the longest recorded absence of his presidency.

The health of the president has long been a topic of speculation as he spends significant time in Europe, including France and Switzerland, where he often spends weeks while leaving governance to key party officials and family members.

Cameroon’s constitution does not specifically prohibit a president from leaving the country for months. But without a vice president, an appointment Biya has full control over, the opposition has described the country as being run on “autopilot.”

Biya’s close collaborators were at the airport on Thursday, but he was not shown descending from the plane and held no briefings. He was seen waving to supporters from his vehicle.

The results of Biya's nearly half-century in power have been mixed. Armed insurgencies by Boko Haram in the north and separatists in the west, along with a stagnant economy, have left many young people disillusioned with the leader.

The president’s reelection last year sparked widespread protests that left at least 16 people dead, according to government figures, signaling significant tensions between the mostly young population and its aging leader.

After a 2008 constitutional amendment abolished term limits, Biya has now led Cameroon longer than most of its citizens have been alive: More than 70% of the country’s population of nearly 30 million people is below the age of 35.

In April, Cameroon’s parliament reinstated the vice president’s post, a move criticized by the opposition as a power grab because Biya can appoint and dismiss the deputy at will and determine which powers the office can exercise.

A Heat Advisory will be in effect from 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. for areas of coastal northeast Florida on Friday.

Near record highs continue today with slightly cooler temperatures expected this weekend.

A record high temperature was set at Craig Municipal Airport yesterday, with the afternoon high reaching 97 degrees. This ties the previous record set in 2010.

Scattered showers and thunderstorms, fueled by the heat, will be possible across northeast Florida from late afternoon through late tonight. Locally heavy rain, gusty wind and lightning remain the main hazards.

In the tropics: We are watching a spot that could bring some wind and rain to Europe.

Tonight: Heat Advisory through 7 p.m. Scattered showers and thunderstorms through tonight.

Friday: Coastal Heat Advisory 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Scattered showers and thunderstorms for NE FL and SE GA, 40-60 percent. Morning lows in the 70s to low 80s. Afternoon highs in the 90s inland, upper 80s to low 90s along the beaches. Wind: SW/S 5-15 mph.

Weekend: Heat Advisories are not expected. It will still feel like the low 100s. Scattered afternoon showers and thunderstorms on Saturday, 50-70 percent. Partly cloudy with isolated afternoon showers and storms on Sunday. Morning lows in the 70s with highs in the low to mid 90s inland, upper 80s to 90s along the beaches. Wind: SSW 5 -10 mph.

Looking ahead: The summer pattern continues next week with near-seasonal temperatures.

Sunrise: 6:57 p.m.

Sunset: 8:02 p.m.

This system could separate from the fronts and acquire some subtropical or tropical characteristics later this weekend while it moves generally eastward or east-northeastward toward Portugal and northwestern Spain.

The formation chance through 48 hours has increased to 20 percent and the formation chance through 7 days remains at 20 percent.

Swalwell, a Democrat who was running for California governor, ended his campaign and resigned from Congress in April after he was accused of sexual assault and harassment, which he denies. Wahab will represent the state’s 14th Congressional District, which covers parts of Alameda County on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay, through Swalwell's term ending in January.

She will be the first Afghan American to serve in Congress. The progressive Democrat defeated Bay Area Rapid Transit Director Melissa Hernandez even after a swell of spending by outside groups opposing Wahab in the race's final stretch. She said her victory shows her district “cannot be bought.”

“I will fight for this district that raised me,” Wahab said in a statement. "From foster care to Congress, this journey shows the possibility of the American Dream.”

The conclusion of the race to replace Swalwell comes as criminal investigations continue into the sexual assault allegations he faces. Over the weekend, federal agents seized electronic devices from Swalwell at the San Francisco airport and later searched his home in Washington, D.C., according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Swalwell’s attorney did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.

Wahab became the first Afghan American elected to public office in the U.S. when she won a Hayward City Council seat in 2018.

She has championed housing affordability and access in her time in the Legislature and throughout her campaign. She also wrote a bill in 2023 to ban caste-based discrimination, which garnered national attention. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it, saying such discrimination is already outlawed by civil rights protections.

Wahab and Hernandez will face off again in a separate November election determining who will serve the next full two-year term.

Wahab won the June primary decisively, but outside spending in favor of her rival poured into the race ahead of the general election.. Groups affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, spent millions into supporting Hernandez, and thousands into opposing Wahab.

At a candidate forum in April, Wahab answered “yes” when asked if she considered “what is happening to the Palestinian people” to be a genocide.

Hernandez did not give a straight yes or no answer. She said Israel had a right to defend itself following the October 2023 attack by Hamas but that “the destruction into Gaza has gone too far.”

Hernandez, a moderate Democrat, said she was proud to put up a competitive fight after Wahab’s success in the primary.

“I’ve been a fighter my whole life, and when I promised the residents of CA-14 I would fight for them, I never gave up,” she said in a statement.

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Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Washington.

Davis, who said in the interview that he was also in the car with Anderson, is accused of orchestrating the 1996 killing of the 25-year-old hip-hop superstar in Las Vegas. At the time of the interview, his nephew had been dead for a decade.

Davis said the white Cadillac he and Anderson were riding in with two other men pulled up alongside a car with Shakur inside, along with hip-hop mogul and Death Row Records head Marion “Suge” Knight.

“If we would have been on my side, I would have blasted,” Davis said. Instead, Knight’s car was on the other side, so Davis passed his gun back to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith. But Smith didn’t want it, Davis said.

Anderson, who was also in the back seat, took the weapon and started firing, Davis said.

Jurors watched the screen as the transcript of the audio recording rolled. Some occasionally took notes. At the beginning of the audio interview, Davis and his attorney whispered to each other. Shakur’s family sat still, occasionally looking at the screen or looking down to the floor. The room was quiet as Davis described the shooting.

It was the first time Davis directly discussed his involvement in the killing with authorities. The interview is essential evidence in the state's case against the 63-year-old Davis. Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that they would lean heavily on Davis' own admissions in interviews with police and on podcasts, as well as the 2019 memoir he co-authored, “Compton Street Legend.”

He also previously told the FBI that his nephew was not involved in the 1996 shooting of Shakur, and speculated that Knight or Sean “Diddy” Combs were involved.

Davis has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer has called the prosecution’s narrative “fiction” and said Davis was “full of crap” when he told stories of his involvement, and that authorities knew it. He argued investigators failed to back up the statements his client made with evidence.

The Los Angeles police detectives had actually brought Davis in to talk about the 1997 shooting death of Shakur's archrival, the Notorious B.I.G.

Davis had briefly been one of the suspects in that still unsolved killing, but he was later discounted.

“Everybody was a suspect at that time,” Daryn Dupree, one of the detectives in the interview, said in court testimony Thursday.

The detectives tell Davis that their discussion is confidential.

“Nothing you say today can be used against you,” said Greg Kading, the other detective conducting the interview who described it in a book a few years later.

Some in the audience shook their heads when someone in the audio tells Davis that “nothing leaves this room.”

Dupree adds, “If you don’t say nothing, it’s cool, but if you go out there and start talking …”

Prosecutors say Davis did in fact “go out there and start talking” a decade later when he told stories about the shooting in interviews and the memoir. They said that nullifies any agreement he had with law enforcement over this and other recorded conversations.

Prosecutors allege Shakur was killed to avenge Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew Anderson a few hours earlier at the MGM Grand after a Mike Tyson fight. Davis was at the fight but not the brawl.

Later in the evening, they were in the Cadillac and saw Shakur hanging out of a black BMW with people calling out “Tupac!”

Davis said that after Lane fired the shots, he thought Knight was dead.

Decades after his death, Shakur remains a cultural icon, and one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time. He died as his popularity was peaking and his film career as an actor was taking off. His legend has only grown in the years since.

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Associated Press Writer Rebecca Boone contributed from Boise, Idaho and AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton contributed from Los Angeles.

The Treasury and State departments announced Thursday that they are leveling new penalties against nine state-owned mining, metal and construction companies along with the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the institute is responsible for sponsoring “a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing” Americans.

“Just days ago, the regime attempted to use Communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials,” Rubio said in a statement.

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms — none of which are afforded to its people — by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime’s raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world,” Rubio said.

Trump's Republican administration has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Havana, threatening it with potential military intervention even when mired in a conflict against Iran, while also boosting economic sanctions designed to cut off funding for the Cuban government. An oil blockade that the U.S. imposed on Cuba after the American military raid that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose country provided Cuba with subsidized oil, has plunged the already economically crippled island into full-blown crisis.

Cuba accuses the US of trying to hurt the country's economy

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez rejected the sanctions in a post on his official X account, asserting that the United States and Rubio are pursuing the “deliberate aim of harming” the economy “to prevent the provision of basic services to the population.”

“In his failed obsession with Cuba, he is now targeting executives and officials from ICAP — an institution that, for over six decades, has promoted friendship, international solidarity, justice, and peace — the exact opposite of what the Secretary of State has always championed in his corrupt policy,” Rodríguez wrote.

The latest sanctions follow an operation at the Miami airport last weekend in which several American citizens returning from Cuba after participating in events marking Castro’s birthday were briefly detained, according to U.S. officials. Some of them had their cellphones and other personal electronic devices seized for inspection, the officials said.

U.S. authorities had been prepared to detain dozens of returning activists for secondary screening, but far fewer were found to meet the criteria for the enhanced questioning by Customs and Border Protection agents, the officials said.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of the operation have not been made public, said those detained were eventually released and allowed to enter the U.S.

The officials said anyone detained and released could still face prosecution if it is found they violated U.S. sanctions, which prohibit all transactions with Cuban government-owned entities, including restaurants, hotels and shops. The status of seized cellphones, laptops and tablets, however, was unclear.

New sanctions are the latest pressure tactic as Cuba's economy falls into crisis

The new sanctions on the leadership of ICAP target the group’s president, Fernando González Llort, who had been among five Cuban intelligence officers arrested in the U.S. in 1998 but later released in 2014. They also target its first vice president, Noemí Ramona Rabaza Fernández, and its North America director, Leima Martínez Freire.

The metals, mining and construction sector sanctions target a nickel production company, two firms that specialize in the import of heavy industrial products, a mineral resources company, the Cuban Ministry of Construction, a company that provides Cuban workers to foreign entities on the island and two enterprises that import vehicles, automotive parts and construction materials.

The Trump administration also has stepped up a campaign that portrays Cuba as a grave national security threat to the U.S. In a report released last month, the State Department accused the Cuban government of sponsoring or otherwise supporting left-wing and anti-American activism in the United States for the past six decades.

While Cuba has been falling deeper into crisis for around five years, the oil blockade by the Trump administration has thrown the nation into freefall.

The lack of fuel to provide Cubans with electricity has plunged the island into all-out blackouts. Access to public transport has effectively disappeared, shortages of things like medicine have worsened, work hours have been slashed to adapt to the outages, and tourism, the island’s economic lifeline, has evaporated.

___

Associated Press writer Andrea Rodríguez in Havana contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show the sanctions are on nine, not 10, companies.

Bodeen died Monday after a struggle with cancer and complications from a stroke, his daughter, Ingrid, said Thursday by telephone from Taiwan.

Bodeen, who spoke fluent Mandarin with a proud Taiwan accent, spent much of his career detailing China's rise to an economic, political and military superpower — and the accompanying friction from what critics have long called Beijing’s heavy-handed efforts to establish dominance in Asia and beyond.

“Chris was a reporter who would go anywhere and do anything for the story,” said Charles Hutzler, AP's former bureau chief in Beijing. After a huge quake flattened a swath of Sichuan province in 2008, Bodeen composed his account from one devastated town sentence by sentence over text messages because of damaged telecommunications networks. "It was one of the first eyewitness reports the AP and the world received about one of the worst earthquakes in decades,” Hutzler recalled.

He was an expert on politics and Chinese military issues

From AP bureaus in Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei, Bodeen was for years the news agency's go-to person on Chinese politics and military issues, able to quickly determine the newsworthiness of the government's often abstruse statements.

“A chat with Chris would inevitably turn into a remarkable history lesson," said Emily Wang Fujiyama, former Greater China news director. “He had astounding knowledge of the region and would be writing about China’s military presence in the South China Sea, pivot to Taiwan’s intricate politics, and just as deftly write about the political sensitivities of Tibet, Mongolia and China.”

Bodeen was born in Missouri on Sept. 9, 1970, but he spent parts of his childhood in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. His father was a foreign service officer and his mother a former diplomat, his daughter, Ingrid, said. Friends and colleagues remembered his love of the Boston Red Sox, esoteric punk rock -- and his contagious enthusiasm for the job of journalism.

"He was the blondest, palest person you’ll ever meet” yet also spoke pitch-perfect Chinese, said Ted Anthony, AP’s former China news editor and news director for Asia. “So when the earthquake in Sichuan happened in 2008, he went out there, put on one of his ever-present ballcaps to cover his hair, and slouched down. He passed as Chinese, started interviewing people and sailed under the scrutiny of the authorities.”

He was 'always ready for adventure’

Bodeen joined the AP in 1996, in Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island China claims as its own, before working as an editor on the agency’s international desk in New York and then joining the AP bureau in Beijing as a correspondent, in 2000. He majored in history and Asian studies at Tufts University, graduating in 1993.

“Chris Bodeen was always ready for adventure. Hiding in the hills of Hainan Island, China, to try to report on the return of an American Air Force plane forced down in 2001, he was the best colleague to be with,” said Raf Wober, a video journalist in the AP's Hong Kong bureau.

In a 2017 story on efforts to burnish the image of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Bodeen described state broadcaster China Central Television leading its evening national news bulletin “with more than four minutes of uninterrupted clapping for Xi as he met with adoring citizens,” and a Russian translator who “was so engrossed with reading a recent speech by Xi, Xinhua (the official news agency) said, that he skipped lunch and dinner just to finish studying it.”

While much of this might have seemed amusing to outsiders, Bodeen was careful to note that “the domination of (Xi’s) image in official propaganda evokes, for some, the painful memories of the upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, when Mao (Zedong) was accorded the status of a near deity.”

Julie Pace, AP's executive editor, remembered Bodeen as not only an effective China correspondent but as a fellow journalist whose knowledge elevated those around him.

“Chris cared deeply about his work and the value of on-the-ground reporting in such an important region of the world," she said. "His expertise informed AP’s audiences for so many years, but also helped lift up so many colleagues.”

Passion for family and work was his hallmark

Bodeen was deeply proud of his two daughters and loved showing off their artwork and achievements — and creative Halloween costumes — to colleagues. “Every parent thinks their kids are the best, but, hand to God, these girls are both adorable and seriously tough cookies,” he wrote of his children.

“He truly, passionately loved what he did, as much as he loved being a dad," Ingrid Bodeen said. She recalled that when her father spent long stints reporting from Afghanistan during her childhood, “he would always have my mom fax over my spelling lists and homework so we could work on them together. He never missed a spelling test week.”

Bodeen was also beloved by colleagues for his sharp sense of humor, his knowledge of good local food and an encyclopedic knowledge of movie and TV comedies from the ’70s and ’80s.

Kanis Leung, an AP reporter in Hong Kong, said that Bodeen once told her about an old correspondent's description of news reporting as “the art of shoving 50 pounds of oatmeal into a 10-pound sack."

“Except,” Bodeen told Leung, "he didn’t say oatmeal.”

Bodeen is survived by his wife, Yen Ling, daughters Ingrid, 26, and Naomi, 22, his parents and a sister.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public on Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026. The emails were first reported by The Intercept.

The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.

“Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases," one unnamed ICE official wrote in late August, a month before the first deportation flight in September. Just over a week later, someone with the same job title moved to make another, unspecified change to the deportation list after they said they met with the “Director at the Iranian Embassy.”

“Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process,” the official wrote.

In a Sept. 26 email, just three days before the deportation flight left U.S. soil, an ICE official said in an email that the Iranian Embassy was still making requests for three additional Iranians on the flight. It's not clear who ended up on the flight, which ended up being much smaller than initially planned. Iranian officials were still making requests the day the flight departed, although one official wrote that those requests were denied.

Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The deportation of Iranians to a country whose government has a pattern of violent persecution against women, religious minorities and political dissidents has drawn significant criticism from human rights activists.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in an email Thursday evening, “The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised,” and the people deported included “terrorists, human smugglers, and suspected foreign agents."

Some deportees were handpicked by Iranian officials, emails show

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump administration. They said most of the Iranians had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

It is not clear from the emails how frequently U.S. immigration officials had direct contact with the Iranian government. Sometimes messages were conveyed through Qatari officials, who helped charter the deportation flights through Doha, but other times officials reference regular meetings with the “Iranian delegation," the “Director at the Iranian Embassy” and other unnamed Iranian officials.

It is not clear whether the people Iran put on the list had volunteered to repatriate or if they were forced. Previous reporting from The New York Times revealed that asylum-seekers were among those deported to Iran, while others said they were deported against their will.

At least one person was deported who wasn't supposed to be, emails showed.

“An Iranian not included on the final manifest we sent to the Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” an unnamed U.S. official wrote.

In response, another unnamed U.S. official wrote, “I have no idea how the case/person got through on the plane.”

A spokesperson for DHS said in a statement that all asylum-seekers receive due process and “have their fear claims heard.” The statement also pushed back on the idea that there was a person who was mistakenly deported — and instead said he was deported because he was a “possible national security risk” who "illegally entered the United States."

"It is total fabrication that ICE inadvertently removed an illegal alien to Iran," the spokesperson said in an email.

US prioritized deportation efforts during war

Emails suggest that pressure to carry out the Iranian deportations came from the highest levels of the Trump administration, even when U.S. and Israel were exchanging strikes with Iran in a 12-day conflict between June 13 and June 24, 2025.

Just days after Trump's June 16 warning on social media that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” the former acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, called the repatriation of Iranian immigrants a “priority" in an email sent to the agency’s head of removal operations Marcos Charles and a number of unnamed staff.

Shortly after Lyon's email, Charles forwarded the message to a group of officials whose names are redacted. An unnamed ICE official responded, warning that “removal will prove difficult” amid the ongoing conflict because Iran wasn't issuing the travel documents for Iranians eligible for deportation. On top of that, the Iranian airspace was closed to all flights during the bombings and Iranians were fleeing the country.

Charles was unfazed, telling staff in a subsequent email to make a plan to deport 58 Iranians with final removal orders in ICE custody at the time.

“We need a plan forward ASAP,” Charles wrote. Another official, who name was redacted, urged colleagues to “identify a solution for this White House priority.”

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said the emails undermine Trump’s assertions that the U.S. is at war with Iran to save ordinary Iranians from a repressive regime.

“It demonstrates that the top priority here was to kick out as many people as possible by whatever means necessary,” Abdi said.

Iranian officials had access to immigration detainees

On several occasions, the emails show ICE officials arranging for Iranian officials to meet for unspecified reasons with people detained in the U.S., echoing testimony from Iranian asylum-seekers in an unrelated lawsuit filed by an unaffiliated Iranian interest group in July.

Eleven Iranians in immigration detention said they were forced to meet with Iranian government officials while in ICE detention. Those Iranian authorities knew intimate details about their asylum claims, according to the sworn declarations filed in a Washington, D.C., court in July.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration agencies have been illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum-seekers with the Iranian government.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the person getting deported applied for asylum.

DHS vehemently disputed the lawsuit's allegations.

“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE. ICE works with every country to get travel documents for detainees,” a DHS statement read.

Video from a nearby traffic camera showed the flames and thick black smoke.

St. Johns County Fire Rescue tells News4JAX the driver got out of the burning vehicle and no injuries have been reported.

The hauler was carrying crushed vehicles.

Firefighters worked to quickly extinguish the flames.

As of 6:10 p.m., the right and center lane of I-95 were blocked near the scene.

By 8 p.m., the right lane was blocked.

This is a developing story.

Four days brought a big change for Scottie Scheffler, too. The world's No. 1 player went from an eight-shot victory in the postseason opener to feeling under the weather and having to rally for a 72, his highest opening round since the U.S. Open in June.

Scheffler's voice was hoarse when he said he didn't want to stop to talk, saying only that he was sick as he headed for the locker room.

McIlroy returned from a four-week break after the British Open with plenty of rust and very little golf and failed to break par in any of the four rounds for the first time in more than five years at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

He went home to Florida and worked with swing coach Michael Bannon.

“I went home and I worked on a few things and at least got myself back in a frame of mind where like I felt like I’m at least back on the right path of what I’m doing with my game and with my swing,” McIlroy said. “It’s certainly a work in progress. Days like this are encouraging, obviously. There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

McIlroy is fond of saying players never remember what it's like to play bad when they're going well and they think they'll never play good again when the game is going poorly. It's never that far away, and Thursday was a reminder of that.

Bellerive originally was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. and later updated by his son, Rees, who had the reputation as the “Open Doctor” for trying to modernize and toughen courses. While soft conditions contributed to a bunched leaderboard, it was hard to look past so many U.S. Open champions at the top.

Gary Woodland, a Kansas native getting plenty of support in Missouri as he continues to recover from brain surgery and make it to the FedEx Cup finale, holed out for eagle on the 11th fairway and didn’t miss a green until the 18th, his lone bogey. He won the U.S. Open in 2019 at Pebble Beach.

Wyndham Clark, who birdied five of his last six holes, is a two-time U.S. Open champion, including this year at Shinnecock Hills. J.J. Spaun went back to the putter he used when he won the U.S. Open at Oakmont two years ago and had seven birdies until a bogey on the final hole.

Among those a shot behind was 2022 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick.

“Coincidence,” Clark said about five of seven U.S. Open champions at 65 or better.

Woodland is the only one at 64 who really needed a start like this. The triple-digit heat last week in Memphis, Tennessee, made it difficult for him to slow his heart rate, which is key for him to prevent his brain from being overly engaged.

He is at No. 31 in the FedEx Cup — only the top 30 reach the Tour Championship next week in Atlanta, which would guarantee him starts in all four majors next year, along with giving him a chance to play for the FedEx Cup and its $10 million prize.

“I can promise you East Lake wasn’t on my mind to start the year,” Woodland said. "It’s a goal, I think you write it down, but it seemed like far, far away. I’ve had up-and-down days. I’ve had some rough days lately. But we’ve built this together, Randy (Smith) and I, to get to a point where I feel very comfortable over the golf ball.

“If I can find a way to get through 18 holes mentally, my game’s in a pretty good spot where I can compete out here at a level I haven’t been able to compete in a while.”

Woodland kept the excitement down when the crowd erupted in cheers to see his sand wedge from 99 yards spin back and roll into the cup for eagle on the 11th hole. He smiled and raised his arm and gave high-fives to Adam Scott and the caddies.

Most impressive was his 2-iron from 286 yards on the par-5 17th that rolled out to 12 feet on the fringe. He narrowly missed that and settle for birdie.

Woodland occasionally places his hand on the left side of his chest before putting. It looked like a reminder to keep his shoulders in place. Turns out it has a much deeper purpose.

“When I’m struggling I put my hand on my heart to just to remind myself that I’m alive, and if I can feel my heart beat I know I’m breathing,” he said. “And I’ve done that this year just to try to slow my heart down, tell myself I’m safe and I’ll be all right.”

___

See AP’s full golf coverage here

The United States' debt surpassed a record $40 trillion Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending.

The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

The Latest:

Democrats introduce legislation to stop trades from early access to Trump’s Truth Social posts

The bill seeks to bar social media platforms from selling preferential access to posts from government officials including the president, Congress and the judiciary.

It comes in response to Truth Social’s launch of a subscription-based service that provides advance access to posts from Trump and other influential accounts.

The legislation would also make it illegal for people to trade securities or other instruments off the information obtained through the preferential access.

Introduced by Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut and other Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, the bill is the House version of similar legislation from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

Himes said “auctioning off advance access to government announcements on Truth Social is one of the most brazen attempts at self-enrichment yet.”

Vance says the debt is too high but puts blame on Biden administration

“Even though we inherited this debt bomb from the Biden Administration, we actually do have a plan to get the economy growing faster than the debt, and that’s the most important thing,” Vance said in an interview on Newsmax.

The debt has exploded over several presidential administrations as the government spent more than it collected in taxes, including during Trump’s first term, under former President Joe Biden and in Trump’s second term, when the president signed tax cut and spending legislation into law last year.

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Trump praised Cohen for ‘recanting everything you said’

In the roughly 15-minute friendly exchange on the radio show between Trump and Cohen that aired Thursday evening, the president told his former lawyer that he respects “the fact that you recanted everything you said.”

“That’s a big thing that you did. That’s a very big thing,” Trump told him.

Much of their conversation focused on Trump’s second term and the Iran war, with Cohen slipping back into a role of adviser and at one point telling Trump, “Maybe what we should do is then have a press conference and literally put out all of the accomplishments.”

More than 750 US troops have been wounded during operations against Iran, Pentagon data shows

Of the 757 service members who have been wounded since the war began in February, more than 580 are Army soldiers. The total injured also include 86 sailors, 64 airmen and 19 Marines.

While many of the casualties are categorized as having occurred during “Operation Epic Fury,” the formal name for the conflict, the Pentagon created a new category for wounded troops called “Overseas Operations” in the Defense Casualty Analysis System in late July. The Pentagon said that was because Operation Epic Fury has concluded and the military has decided to classify casualties tied to the latest strikes in the new category.

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command have offered almost no details on how the injuries have occurred or the amount of damage that U.S. bases have sustained. However, officials have said the vast majority of the injuries are traumatic brain injuries.

Michael Cohen says he sent a pardon application to Trump after first submitting it to Biden

Trump’s former fixer told CNN on Thursday that he applied for a pardon to former President Joe Biden, but it was denied. Cohen served prison time for his role in what he said was covering up Trump’s “dirty deeds.”

“What I did is I took that same application, with the same documentation, and I just rewrote the cover letter removing the name of President Joe Biden and inserting the name President Donald Trump,” Cohen said.

Cohen said he has not received any acknowledgment from the Trump White House of the application but he said it’s on his to-do list for Friday.

Canadian premier says Trump is a ‘bad person’ as Canada weighs concessions for trade deal

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Canada has leverage in the talks even as his province weighs restoring U.S. alcohol sales at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s urging to help secure a deal that would avert threatened 50% U.S. tariffs.

“Everybody knows the American president by now, he’s erratic, he’s irresponsible, and he’s not to be trusted. And this is the person that we were supposed to make a deal with, and we’re going to make additional concessions for it. That’s why I say you can’t make a good deal with a bad person, because who’s to say it’s not going to be undone?” Kinew said.

Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-U. S. trade, said Thursday the two countries were close to finalizing an agreement after he returned to Washington to meet again with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

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Army is shutting down unit in Europe focused on drones

The Army’s top general has directed a Europe-based unit specializing in drone warfare to revert to traditional infantry roles.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade has spent over a year experimenting with drones, influenced by tactics from the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Last November, 600 soldiers formed a battalion that specialized in drone warfare and was set up to deploy anywhere drones were required.

Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s acting chief of staff, has ordered the battalion to refocus on its core mission of being an airborne infantry unit, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal Army deliberations. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the change.

The move is part of broader Army changes under LaNeve, who took over after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ousted his predecessor, Gen. Randy George, in April.

Melania Trump accepts $2 million gift to provide college scholarships

The $2 million donation from IndyCar and Fox Corp. will pay for scholarships at Indiana University and Purdue University through the first lady’s Fostering the Future program for youngsters in foster care.

The Indiana schools are the latest to join a network of more than two dozen colleges and universities nationwide that participate in her program, she said during an event in the White House Rose Garden to announce the gift. The program, she said, give foster care youth the opportunity to get a college education, launch a career and achieve financial independence

“America’s greatest competitive advantage remains in its own people,” she said.

IndyCar is sponsoring Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix through the streets of downtown Washington in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary.

Treasury extends Lukoil license

The U.S. Treasury has extended a general license that grants permission for certain transactions connected to the potential sale of the foreign assets of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil.

The latest license, which has been renewed several times, expires Sept. 19.

Last October, the Trump administration announced “massive sanctions” against Russia’s oil industry that were aimed at moving Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and bring an end to Moscow’s brutal war on Ukraine. Those sanctions included punishing measures on Lukoil.

Trump meets Vance’s baby

The vice president said in an interview on a radio show on Thursday that he took his youngest son, Alec Neel Vance, who was born July 19, to meet Trump.

Vance, speaking on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, said the president loves children and gave his son a challenge coin.

“The baby doesn’t understand that, but he will someday,” Vance said.

Vance said the meeting happened after he and his wife, Usha, had lunch with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and country music star Luke Bryan, who is in town for a show.

Trump keeps embracing data centers even as they become toxic in midterm races

The president has voiced strong support for AI and data centers, emphasizing their economic benefits and importance in the global AI race.

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.”

Candidates in competitive midterm elections, however, are far less accepting.

Data centers have become a contentious issue, with concerns about energy costs and environmental impact. In Ohio, Republican Jon Husted faces attacks over his support for data centers. In Nevada, Democrat Aaron Ford accused Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo of aligning with Trump on the issue.

The debate reflects broader tensions over technology and local impact.

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US ramps up Cuba sanctions and detentions of Americans returning from the island

The Trump administration is imposing new sanctions on Cuba targeting its mining and metals sectors and broadening restrictions on Americans’ transactions with government-owned or affiliated businesses. It also accused Havana of using cultural and educational exchanges to radicalize U.S. citizens.

The Treasury and State departments announced sanctions on Thursday against 10 state-owned mining, metals, and construction companies and the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ICAP is responsible for sponsoring a “subversive network” to “cultivate” Americans, most recently with educational and cultural exchanges around the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth earlier this month.

The sanctions follow an operation at the Miami airport last weekend in which several American citizens returning to the U.S. from events marking Castro’s birthday in Cuba were briefly detained, some of whom had their cellphones and other personal electronic devices seized for inspection.

Federal agents seize devices from ex-Rep. Eric Swalwell in sexual misconduct probe, AP source says

Federal agents have seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, and federal agents searched his home a day later.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied. The AP source wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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Bessent says bond buyback operation could be more than $4 billion

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a CNBC interview on Thursday that an accelerated buyback of government debt “could be more than $4 billion per issue.”

His comments followed the Treasury’s Wednesday announcement that it would dramatically expand the amount of U.S. government bonds it will buy back. When asked about the motivation for the move, Bessent said: “We’re trying to signal that this is a thinly traded area of the market, we’re in August and there’s been a lot of corporate issuances.”

“We’re trying to keep the market in equilibrium.”

Melania Trump is set to announce new scholarships for foster children

The first lady is partnering with IndyCar, the sanctioning body for U.S. auto racing, and Indiana and Purdue universities to fund the scholarships, her office says.

Both Indiana-based schools are joining about two dozen other institutions of higher learning to offer scholarships through Melania Trump’s “Fostering the Future” initiative benefiting young people in foster care.

A formal announcement is set for Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden. The first lady will be joined by her husband and representatives from IndyCar and the universities.

The announcement comes just before Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix race in downtown Washington, which was organized by the president to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

US approves $4.5 billion sale of military aerial refueling planes to Qatar as Iran conflict lingers

The State Department said Thursday that it had given the green light for Qatar, a key U.S. partner in the Gulf, to buy four KC-46A aircraft along with assorted equipment, including turbofan engines, radar warning devices and countermeasure systems. The sale will also include trucks, training and assorted logistics services.

The sale “will increase Qatar’s capability to meet current and future threats by enhancing its defense capabilities and interoperability with U.S. and allied forces and reinforcing Qatar’s strategic role in regional security,” the department said.

Qatar, which hosts a major U.S. military base, has been a critical part of the war with Iran, including by trying to mediate an end to the conflict.

North Korea fires missile barrage toward the sea after dismissing overture from Trump

The launches come a day after North Korea shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.

South Korea’s military said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region Thursday evening. The military said the missiles flew about 300 kilometers each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.

Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises just before they began Monday. The president cited what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

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White House legislative affairs director James Braid is leaving his post

Braid was in charge of helping to shepherd Trump’s legislative agenda through a Congress where his Republican Party controlled both chambers.

Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that Braid “played a critical role in all of the administration’s achievements in Congress,” including the sweeping tax and spending legislation approved last summer.

Vance described Braid as “brilliant” and “one of the hardest workers you will ever meet.”

The vice president didn’t provide details of Braid’s next job, saying only that he was “very excited to see what he does next.”

Fresh US aircraft carrier arrives in Middle East

The Asia-based USS George Washington aircraft carrier is now operating in the Middle East, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The Washington is relieving the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln after reports that sailors were facing mental health challenges and supply shortages while supporting the Iran war.

The Lincoln’s deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea. Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said were “completely misrepresented.”

The deployment of the Washington to the Middle East has left Asia without an American carrier strike group at a time when China shows more signs of aggression.

Democrats narrow their list of 2028 presidential convention sites

Democrats on Thursday narrowed the list of potential host cities for their 2028 presidential convention to Boston, Denver and Philadelphia as their party looks ahead to a wide-open primary to succeed President Trump.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids,” and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party’s future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn’t specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

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Trump plays White House tour guide to show off work on his helipad and ballroom

Trump played White House tour guide on Wednesday, showing off the helipad he is building on the lawn before leaning over to autograph a piece of it and bragging about the ballroom he’s rushing to complete despite legal challenges.

Trump gushed for several uninterrupted minutes about granite being laid and said the chopper landing area would leave visiting foreign leaders “very impressed” — including Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is coming next month.

At times, he sounded almost like a construction manager, singing the praises of granite over asphalt in painstaking detail and noting for reporters he brought out for the show that the stone could withstand 35,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.

The president also revealed for the first time that he has replaced the walkway from the White House’s diplomatic entrance along with a portion of the asphalt driveway around the South Lawn with white granite.

▶ Read more

The US national debt now stands at $40 trillion

The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending.

The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

The unprecedented $40 trillion figure highlights competing administration priorities, from boosting defense spending that the U.S. relies on to carry out President Donald Trump’s almost 6-month-old war in Iran to lowering the cost of gas and groceries.

Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the Trump administration “has been focused on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending while accelerating economic growth to get America’s debt-to-GDP ratio trending in the right direction.”

However, experts say the exploding debt and the latest record milestone are already affecting Americans’ pocketbooks by raising borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lowering wages from businesses that have less money available to invest, and creating more expensive goods and services.

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The problem came to a head Wednesday morning when smoke from a broken air-handler motor forced an early evacuation at Crown Point Elementary School. About 20 students who had already been dropped off were safely relocated to Mandarin Middle School, according to Tatyana Wimberly, DCPS Chief Communications Officer.

But parents say the problem is much bigger than one school.

One Crown Point parent told News4JAX her fourth-grade son has been without air conditioning since the first day of school — last Monday.

“He’s been very uncomfortable. He’s breathing more heavily. He has asthma,” she said. “And it’s been, apparently, in the 90s in their classroom.”

News4JAX has received multiple tips, calls, and emails from parents reporting AC failures across the district — including at Stanton College Prep, Westview K-8, and Riverside High School.

Jacaelah Magee, a junior at Riverside High School, described what it feels like inside her classroom.

“Considering it’s like 100 degrees on a daily basis, I would say like 110, 111,” she said. “It’s like sweating in class. If there’s a bunch of people with fans — electric and folding — it’s really hot to the point it’s unbearable.”

News4JAX asked DCPS about the AC situation at three of the schools parents flagged. The answers were different for each one.

• Westview K-8: A chiller malfunctioned Monday, knocking out air conditioning in several classrooms. District maintenance crews resolved the issue Monday afternoon. ESE and CSS classrooms were not affected.
• Riverside High School: An electrical issue caused the outage. The school says all AC units are now back online and functioning normally. As a proactive measure this past summer, the school replaced the chiller in the impacted building.
• Stanton College Prep: The situation is less resolved. In a letter to families this week, Principal Majova-Seane wrote: “We have been informed that the maintenance team will be making its way to our school to inspect and address our chillers.” As of this week, families were still waiting for that visit.

Even at schools where the district says repairs have been made, some parents say they are not convinced the problem is fully behind them.

“They should be safe. The environment should be comfortable,” said parent Shavon Good. “How are they supposed to concentrate when they’re worried about sweating and being hot?”

Good said she was prepared to keep her daughter home until the issue is fixed.

“She would be missing school until the problem would be fixed, which means she’s missing her education and her ability to learn,” she said.

News4JAX asked DCPS Deputy Superintendent Corey Wright what the district’s long-term plan is to address the ongoing AC failures, particularly during the current heat wave.

“I would say that our chief operations officer would be the right person to address the long-term plan. I know there is one. I don’t have the specifics of that at the moment,” Wright said. “But to our families — our priority is to have an educational learning environment that’s appropriate for students, which includes air conditioning.”

What’s next

Thursday afternoon, the district said following a thorough inspection of the Crown Point Elementary building, an independent external vendor confirmed that the school is safe to reopen beginning Friday.

Below is the follow-up communication that the principal shared with her families:

“Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support today. I know this morning’s events were unexpected, and I am grateful for the calm and cooperation you showed as we worked to ensure the safety of our students and staff.

I want to reassure you that Crown Point Elementary has been thoroughly inspected by our district maintenance teams and an independent external vendor, and the building has been determined to be safe.

The inspection confirmed that there was no fire. The smoke resulted from a malfunction involving an air fan, and the appropriate repairs have been completed.

I am also pleased to confirm that school is scheduled to operate as normal tomorrow, Friday, at Crown Point Elementary.

Thank you again for your patience and for entrusting us with your children. The safety and well-being of our students and staff will always be our highest priority."

Katie O’Connell Principal, Crown Point Elementary

DCPS is expected to hold a press conference Thursday afternoon, where officials say they plan to provide more details on their long-term solution to the district-wide AC problems.

News4JAX will be there and will update this story as more information becomes available.

Click here for more Addressing A4dability coverage.

The proposal would allow public housing authorities to require work-eligible adults, generally those ages 18 to 61, to work up to 40 hours a week as a condition of receiving housing assistance.

There are exemptions for certain residents, including people with qualifying disabilities and adults age 62 and older.

The proposal is not yet final, and local housing authorities would have the choice of whether and how to implement the requirements.

In Jacksonville, Housing Authority CEO Cheron Corbett said the agency is already preparing for the possibility.

“Because the Jacksonville Housing Authority is federally funded by HUD, you know, we must follow those rules and regulations,” Corbett said. “So it could actually go into effect as early as the end of this year, or potentially the first quarter of 2027.”

The proposal also would allow housing authorities to establish time limits on housing assistance, with limits of no less than two years.

Corbett said Jacksonville would favor work requirements over time limits.

“Term limits is too harsh,” she said. “Two-year max and you would be out, which would create an extensive amount of homelessness.”

How many Jacksonville residents could be affected?

Corbett said about 45% of Jacksonville Housing Authority residents who are between the ages of 18 and 61 are currently working.

That means a majority of residents in that age group are not working, although the number who would actually be subject to a work requirement would depend on the final federal rules and individual exemptions.

Corbett said the housing authority wants to address barriers that can make it difficult for residents to work, including transportation and child care.

“We need to have more wraparound services to promote upward mobility and self-sufficiency,” Corbett said.

While HUD’s proposal would allow requirements of up to 40 hours a week, Corbett said Jacksonville is considering a 30-hour requirement if it adopts a policy.

“We recognize when we look at statistical data, it’s difficult for mothers with children and then others to achieve full-time work,” she said.

The goal, Corbett said, would be to help residents move toward financial independence rather than simply remove them from housing assistance.

Potential impact on housing waitlist

Corbett said if residents increase their income and eventually leave subsidized housing, their vouchers or units could become available to families waiting for assistance.

She said the agency is working to prepare residents well in advance of any potential policy change. Residents have received notices and JHA has held public hearing to answer questions about the possible change to work requirements.

“We’ve had a magnitude of meetings for months,” Corbett said. “We put this information out with these proposed HUD rules in all of our resident surveys. And so, we’re actively engaging in the community because this could actually happen.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center has said previous experiences with housing work requirements have produced mixed results. Some housing authorities have discontinued or changed their policies because of administrative burdens and employment barriers faced by residents.

HUD’s proposal would require housing authorities that adopt work requirements or time limits to provide supportive services, including job counseling, transportation and child care.

Corbett said Jacksonville’s approach would be designed to prevent residents from suddenly losing their housing.

“The misconception is that, you know, people are going to go instantly homeless,” she said. “The reality of it is, is that because we’re planning so far in advance, if this was to come as a public housing authority, we’re already preparing you.”

HUD has not said when it will issue a final rule, or whether it will finalize the proposal.

If the rule is approved, Jacksonville Housing Authority would have to decide whether to adopt a work requirement or time limit and how to structure the policy, including how many hours residents would need to work and which activities would count toward the requirement.

On Feb. 23, District 6 Patrol officers responded to a laundromat off Soutel Drive after receiving reports of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found 61-year-old Roderick Crawford with multiple gunshot wounds.

JSO said surveillance video showed Crawford loading clothing into a dryer when a young man wearing a mask shot him in the back of the head.

The alleged shooter was identified as Crawford’s nephew, La’Darius Purdy.

On Wednesday, Purdy was arrested on an active warrant for domestic battery, stemming from an incident in January.

While he was in jail on Thursday, detectives interviewed Purdy about his uncle’s murder. Following the interview, Purdy was arrested on murder and tampering with evidence charges.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and agents executed a search warrant at his home a day later, said the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell, who has denied allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The Daily Mail first reported the seizure of Swalwell's devices on Thursday.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following allegations that Swalwell had sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him. The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

The seven-term lawmaker had been seen as one of the leading candidates in California’s gubernatorial race before dropping out after the allegations surfaced.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed in April that it was investigating Swalwell after a former staffer told CNN and the Chronicle that Swalwell raped her at a hotel while he was in New York City for a charity gala in 2024. In a statement, Bragg’s office encouraged “survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations to contact our Special Victims Division.”

A lawyer representing Lonna Drewes, a California woman who in April said she had been raped in 2018 by Swalwell, said his team was cooperating with all law enforcement agencies investigating the former congressman.

“We are encouraged to learn about the escalation of the FBI’s investigation into the allegations against Eric Swalwell,” attorney Arick Fudali said in a statement.

Drewes spoke of the assault at a news conference days after Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race. She said it occurred at a hotel in Southern California. Swalwell denied that assault.

Swalwell, an Iowa native, was elected in 2012 and represented a House district east of San Francisco. He launched a presidential run in April 2019 but ended it a few months later after failing to catch on with voters.

He was one of Republican President Donald Trump’s top Democratic antagonists in Congress. He was a prominent member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees during Trump's first term and served as one of several Democratic prosecutors for Trump’s second impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Swalwell was removed from the Intelligence Committee by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in 2023 based on Swalwell's contact with a suspected Chinese spy, Christine Fang.

Fang was reported to have come into contact with Swalwell’s campaign as he was first running for Congress in 2012 and to have participated in fundraising for his 2014 campaign.

Federal investigators alerted Swalwell to their concerns and briefed Congress about Fang in 2015, at which point Swalwell says he cut off contact with her. He was not accused of wrongdoing and a House Ethics Committee investigation that was opened in 2021 closed two years later without any action.

California lawmaker Aisha Wahab secured victory Thursday in a special election to serve the rest of Swalwell’s House term, which ends in January. She will run again in the November election to represent the district for a full two-year term. ___

Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisak in New York and Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this report.

The Atlanta right-hander was getting outs in a hurry Thursday. The few times White Sox batters made solid contact — flies to the warning track or infield liners — his fielders were in position.

Holmes didn’t allow a hit until Andrew Benintendi lined a single to left with no outs in the seventh. That turned out to be Chicago’s only hit in the contest, and followed a walk to Miguel Vargas that put two runners on.

Holmes was relieved by Didier Fuentes, who struck out the side. Dylan Lee and Raisel Iglesias each followed with a perfect inning as the Braves' bullpen fanned seven of nine batters to complete the one-hitter in a 2-0 victory.

“It was nice to have the slider kind of come back there for a little bit,” said Holmes, who felt good after warming up before the contest. “Went into the game knowing it’s working and just trusted it, and it came out on the good side.”

Holmes improved to 8-5 and lowered his ERA to 3.64 with a 94-pitch outing, throwing 51 sliders. He walked three and struck out three in a six-plus innings to help the Braves prevail in a meeting of division leaders that was a makeup game for a June 11 rainout.

The 30-year-old was aware during the game he hadn't allowed a hit.

“Absolutely, I looked every inning,” Holmes said. “And how the day was going, I felt like I could throw it anywhere and they were going to get hit at somebody. So I was just keeping that mindset and filling up the zone as quick as possible and getting the outs as quick as possible.”

Holmes rebounded after allowing six runs in his last start against Arizona on Saturday. In the two outings before that, however, he tossed scoreless ball through six innings.

He revived his slider by watching video and tweaking his wrist positioning.

“Opposing teams, they game-plan for (the slider) and they know it's coming, but it's a really good pitch,” manager Walt Weiss said. “It's just goes to show you if you execute pitches, even if they are sitting on it and you put it in a good spot, it's still tough to hit.”

Weiss said he wanted to let Holmes go as deep in the game as possible. Had Holmes walked Benintendi to put two runners on, Weiss would have faced a tougher decision. The single made it easier.

“He gave up the hit and the point is moot,” Weiss said. “I was going to give him as a long a leash as I should because that's a special thing, chasing that stuff.”

Holmes retired 18 of the first 20 White Sox hitters. Colson Montgomery walked with two outs in the second and Drew Romo walked with one out in the fifth for Chicago's first two baserunners.

There's been only one no-hitter in the majors this season, a combined effort by three Houston pitchers in a 9-0 win over Texas on May 25. The Braves' last no-hitter was by Kent Mercker in a 6-0 win over the Dodgers at Los Angeles on April 8, 1994.

Holmes has never pitched a complete game in the majors. His longest effort was 7 2/3 innings on April 14, 2025, in an 8-4 win over Toronto.

Holmes spent 10 years in the minors before making his major league debut on June 16, 2024, with the Braves.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

From that distance and that angle, however, it was hard to be too certain.

Alonso's deep fly was ruled foul, and the call stood after a review in Baltimore's 5-3 loss to the New York Yankees on Wednesday night. That led to plenty of outcry — and calls for baseball to use technology to evaluate possible home runs near the foul pole.

It doesn't sound like that is imminent.

If baseball were to start using additional technology on fly balls like these, it would have to be developed, tested and installed by MLB, according to a person with knowledge of the issue. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Unlike with the Automated Ball/Strike system, Hawk-Eye data above the foul pole is unlikely to be accurate that far from the field. It’s based on data from the first part of the ball’s flight, with the rest of the path estimated — meaning factors like wind aren’t fully accounted for.

Before Thursday's game, Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said the front office had communicated with Major League Baseball about the call.

“Just said that there wasn't enough video evidence to overturn the call on the field,” Albernaz said.

One angle showed the ball on the right side of the pole and another showed it on the left side. Neither provided much clarity on where the ball was at the moment it passed the pole and the wall in left, which was the key question.

If the ball were lower, the camera angles might've shown it passing in front of or behind the pole, but when a hit sails higher than the top of the pole, it's not easy to find a definitive view.

The difference between a home run and a foul ball is substantial, so it's understandable players would want to feel confident those calls are correct.

“Obviously, this is a big game in division, so obviously this one’s going to be a little bit more amplified. But this happens quite a few times throughout the season, more than you would think,” Alonso said after the game. “I think having a camera or laser shooting straight up, we have all the technology, analytics and whatever and funds. I don’t see why we can’t do it.”

The ABS system launched in the majors this year, and MLB has been experimenting in the minors with technology allowing challenges to checked swing calls.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

In Gary, Indiana, schools remained closed after the deadly Aug. 11 storm downed trees and power lines. Residents turned to social media to find open laundromats and working Wi-Fi, while others sought food, diapers and cleaning wipes for low-income neighbors.

Meanwhile, heavy rains in central Ohio brought flash flooding that covered roadways Thursday morning in Columbus, the state capital, where emergency crews rescued motorists from stranded cars and saved a 12-year-old boy who was swept off a bridge.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said 68,000 customers were still without power as of Thursday morning, the majority of them in Lake County beside the Illinois border. The utility said it has restored power to 306,500 others since Aug. 11. But power is not expected to be fully restored until Tuesday in some places, including Gary.

Courtney Page-Tan, an Indiana University Indianapolis professor who studies community resilience, said health concerns grow each day of a prolonged outage. With many people using generators, poor ventilation can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning. In addition, those reliant on medical devices risk having them lose their charge, while refrigerated food once safe to eat could pose health risks as it spoils.

“Nine days is a long time for a community to be without power,” Page-Tan said.

Residents are exhausted from days without power

Shatiya Hardin, a hair stylist in Gary for 25 years, has been unable to open her salon since the storm. She said residents in her lower-income neighborhood initially took the outages in stride. But now patience is wearing thin.

“We’re always in survival mode in Gary. And I think that’s probably why it wasn’t so much of an uproar because the first few days, it was like, ‘OK, we’re used to this .... but this is the second week now," Hardin said. "It’s not OK for us to continually be in survival mode, doing the best that we can.”

More than a week after the initial storm, many residents in East Chicago, Indiana, who lost power regained it, but then lost it again. Kevin Mejia, who has a community Facebook page, was in that category Thursday.

“If I make one post, I get 500 comments,” Mejia, 30, said. “A lot of people have been reaching out to me for food: ‘Hey, I threw out hundreds of dollars in groceries.’ Elderly people don’t know who to turn to.”

He’s been sleeping on the floor because his mattress is too warm. With no power, his window air conditioners are silent.

Raydia Martin, assistant director of the Flourish Community Hub at Flourish Church in Gary, said the “silver lining” has been the response from volunteers and community groups.

“We thrive best, you know, as humans on certainty and predictability,” Martin said. “So for something so devastating to happen so quickly, it definitely takes a toll on people mentally. Just not knowing what’s coming next, where the next meal is going to come from, and when this is all going to be over. We need to have a light at the end of the tunnel."

The utility, NIPSCO, has called the destruction “unprecedented and widespread,” and said crews from around the country have arrived to help repair downed wires, broken poles and damaged equipment.

Illinois, which is served by a different utility, recovered sooner from the same storm, but Melody Birmingham, an executive at NIPSCO’s parent company, said that part of Illinois had fewer trees and different infrastructure, including some power lines that may have been buried.

“No storm is created equal,” she said. "No service territory is the same.”

Schools across northwest Indiana are still closed

The power outages have also disrupted the start of the school year for thousands of children.

Gary's school district, with about 4,300 students, started its school year in early August but has been closed since Aug. 13 and will remain closed through at least Friday, officials said.

Portage Township Schools had to cancel its Aug. 12 start of classes because of the storm and now is planning an Aug. 25 launch of the academic year. Officials this week said there are “existing safety concerns regarding trees down across several properties and damage that needs to be repaired.”

Page-Tan said school closures can have significant consequences for vulnerable families.

“For a lot of households that live paycheck to paycheck, if they are missing work because they’re unable to find childcare, it can be detrimental to the stability of a family,” she said.

Flash flooding brings new woes to central Ohio

About 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Gary, heavy rains drenched Columbus, Ohio, with more than 3 inches (7 centimeters) of rain in 12 hours, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said.

Two women who were on foot and trapped in a flooded creek were rescued, Fire Division Lt. Nick Davis said. He also reported that first responders saved the life of a 12-year-old bicyclist who was swept off a bridge in high water.

The city was still cleaning up from severe weekend thunderstorms when the heavy rains struck midweek.

“We’ve been all hands on deck supporting residents since last week,” Ginther said Thursday morning at a news conference. “We’re going to be focused on recovery, even with this curveball from Mother Nature.”

___

Rico reported from Atlanta and White from Detroit. Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed.

Theresa Roushey says she was waiting outside the John E. Goode Pretrial Detention Facility in downtown Jacksonville to pick up a close friend she refers to as a brother, who was being released after months behind bars.

While sitting outside the facility, Theresa received a call from someone identifying himself as Captain Richardson with the jail.

The caller told her that nearly $1,800 would need to be paid before her friend could be released on an ankle monitor.

What made him seem convincing was that he knew details that only someone on the inside would know, including the color of her shirt, her name and her friend’s probation officer by name.

Roushey made the payment. But the caller wasn’t done.

He then told her an additional $3,200 in court costs would need to be paid, and she paid that too, all through a Cash App account.

It wasn’t until her friend’s probation officer told them the whole thing was a scam that she realized what had happened.

In total, Roushey lost more than $5,000.

“My brother didn’t deserve that. And the people that helped contribute to that didn’t deserve that. And anybody else that’s been affected by it doesn’t deserve that,” Roushey said.

“Because no matter what happens to someone, for them to end up in jail, certain people, they don’t deserve for things like that to happen to them. It’s not fair.”

The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office says it has recently dealt with the same problem, warning that scammers call shortly after a loved one is arrested, providing what they describe as “legitimate sounding instructions” on how to complete the release process.

Investigators say the Cash App account the money was sent to has since been blocked and a complaint has been filed.

Officials say legitimate jail and court officials will never ask for payment through Cash App, Zelle or any other peer-to-peer payment app.

If you receive a suspicious call asking for money related to a jail release, hang up and contact the facility directly using a publicly listed phone number.

If you believe you have been targeted by a similar scam, contact your local sheriff’s office immediately.

Harvard Medical School Deans George Q. Daley and Bernard S. Chang announced the development in a letter to the community on Tuesday, calling the actions of former morgue manager Cedric Lodge “despicable, abhorrent, and a flagrant betrayal of our values as a medical community.”

Pending court approval, Harvard said that two class action settlement funds totaling $53 million will be established to resolve the lawsuits. A Harvard Medical School spokesperson on Thursday referred to the letter when asked for comment and said they had no additional information to share.

The lawsuits were brought by 47 relatives of people whose remains were potentially mishandled and sold. The remains were donated for research and education.

Harvard has said it cannot determine precisely which donors’ remains Lodge stole. After he was charged in 2023, the school said it reviewed information from federal investigators along with records showing when donors’ remains were sent for cremation and when Lodge was on campus to determine which donors may have been affected. The settlement covers relatives or designees of people who donated their remains to Harvard Medical School between Jan. 1, 2018, and March 31, 2023.

Last year, Lodge was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts “as if they were baubles.” Authorities said Lodge was at the center of a ghoulish scheme in which he shipped brains, skin, hands and faces from cadavers to buyers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

His wife, Denise Lodge, was sentenced to just over a year in prison for assisting him. Six other people who bought remains from Cedric Lodge also pleaded guilty and have been sentenced, according to Harvard.

In one example, Cedric Lodge provided skin to a buyer so it could be tanned into leather and bound into a book, a “deeply horrifying reality,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alisan Martin said in a court filing.

After Harvard finishes using a donated body for research or teaching, the body typically is returned to the family or cremated. Lodge acknowledged removing body parts before cremation. Harvard has said he acted without the school’s knowledge or permission.

In their letter, Daley and Chang said Lodge’s actions “do not reflect the reverence we hold for the altruistic individuals who selflessly donate their bodies” to the school’s Anatomical Gift Program.

“We reaffirm our deep sorrow and empathy for the families of donors who may have been impacted,” they said.

In addition to the payments, Harvard Medical School agreed to provide families with a statement condemning Lodge’s actions and summarizing improvements made to the Anatomical Gift Program. The school also plans to establish an annual financial aid scholarship for medical students beginning in the 2027-28 academic year to honor anatomical donors.

Harvard said it has enacted recommendations from a panel of outside experts appointed in 2023 to review the program after Lodge was charged.

Four games to watch

(8) Columbia at (2) Bolles

One of the Week 1 headliners against teams who have had a recent history of blowouts or shootouts. Bolles routed Columbia the last two seasons (31-0 last year and 42-17 in 2024). Bolles is 4-3 against the Tigers over the last decade. The Bulldogs have the area’s top RB in Xander Edwards. The big change this season is the line blocking for Edwards. There may be a bit of a learning curve as some of the younger players settle in, but Edwards is legit. Bolles has a defense that is going to make things difficult on Columbia. Edge Asher Ghioto (pictured below) is the big name to watch but LB Christian Hayes is going to terrorize teams this season. The Tigers have historically fielded good defensive teams. Jae’quan Wilson had s acoop-and-score in the kickoff classic against Oakleaf. Offensively is where Columbia will need to show improvement. WR Kyren Caldwell is one of the area’s top recruits, and the Tigers need to get him the ball in space as much as possible.

(1) Raines at (9) Oakleaf

Just the third meeting between these programs, with Raines romping to easy wins in 2017 (41-3) and ’18 (40-27). That was before either head coach was with the program. Raines alum Donovan Masline is 27-1 over the past two seasons leading the Vikings. They are coming off a 14-0 season that ended with the Class 3A state championship. Raines graduated a boatload of talent but does have a its share of impact players returning. LB Johdeem Jones and edge Troy Butler are the top defensive players back for the Vikings. Butler is a wrecking machine (25 TFL, 10 sacks). QB Samon Ellison-Morgan looked sharp in limited action last year, completing 63% of his passes for 7 TDs and no INTs. RB TJ Williamson is with the Vikings this year and has immense upside. As pass catchers, Kiran Jackson and Zion Green will see a much larger workload. Can Oakleaf’s offense find success? QB Jaidan Delaune has plenty of football experience from his time at Riverside, and he’s got a legitimate No. 1 target in four-year player Mike Conner. Defense is where Oakleaf should be able to match up well. DL Mason Thomas (96 tackles, 16 TFL) is one of the top players in Clay County.

(7) Trinity Christian at (6) Ed White, 6:30 p.m.

Rematch of a quality Week 1 game last year, won by the Commanders (45-28). That win was their best of a season where they racked up a state-record 537 points in the regular season. The reason why Ed White didn’t receive as much statewide love for the mark is that the competition was lean. They beat Westside (0-9), Englewood (0-10), Sandalwood (1-9), Parker (2-8) and Riverside (2-8) in that regular season. So, what did head coach Lawrence Johnson do? He ditched the lower tier Gateway competition and got teams like Bradford, Raines and Camden County on the schedule. The ultimate goal for the Commanders is to shine in the playoffs, and they got taken apart by battle-tested St. Augustine in the second round last year. QB King Boylston is one of the area’s top dual-threat players and he’s coming off a 38-TD season. RB Rontrez Loyd returns and he had 12 TDs last year. Top pass catcher King Mercer (835 yards, 7 TDs) is also back. The Commanders had the offense to keep pace last year but they must improve on the defensive side. In their three losses, they gave up 52, 45 and 44 points. The Conquerors are on the short list of state title contenders in Class 1A. Head coach Verlon Dorminey is already a coaching legend, racking up nine state championships and a 343-94 career record. Trinity has fielded an extremely young team the last two seasons and that youth is coming of age. QB Terel Dallas is a capable runner and passer. RB Micah Anderson showcased last season that he can be the No. 1 back. Chris Grissett and Arryon Brookins combined for six TD catches last season. The Conquerors should be better on defense, too. Adrian Williams is back to anchor the defensive line, while ATH Terrell Pinkney and DB Za’khari Greene are both future big-time college players.

(10) University Christian at Ponte Vedra

The schools are a size mismatch (Ponte Vedra is Class 5A and UC is 1A), but this should be one of the week’s best matchups. The Sharks reached the state semifinals last year but graduated a truckload of impact players. They have Noah Ash, one of the best place kickers in the country, as a serious special teams weapon. WR Trent Player is another Ponte Vedra player who could be a matchup nightmare for opposing defenses. RB Alex Winkles also returns for the Sharks. UC has state aspirations of its own in Class 1A. DL Julius LaRosa III (pictured below) is a pocket buster and will be a challenge for the Ponte Vedra offensive line. On offense, TE Connor Winn is a Florida State commit and RB Kyree Wilson has home run ability and closing in on 4,000 career rushing yards (he enters with 3,807).

Next four

Fletcher at Sandalwood, 6:30 p.m.: The Senators have won the last four games by eight points or more, and 11 of the last 18 over the last 22 seasons. Could the Saints turn things around under new head coach Malik Reaves, a former player and assistant at Fletcher?

(3) Mandarin at McArthur (Broward County Showcase): Really challenging matchup for the Mustangs. McArthur is coming off a 10-3 season where its only losses were to St. Thomas Aquinas (twice) and Chaminade-Madonna. Mandarin ATH Brysen Wright gets the expected and deserved headlines, but two other playmakers to watch are RB Shaunqueze Foster and DL Kindrid Outland. Those guys are legit.

Matanzas at Flagler Palm Coast: Potato Bowl has been dominated by the Bulldogs. Matanzas won back-to-back games in 2015-16 and hasn’t won on the field again since. The 15-3 FPC series lead includes one loss by forfeit.

St. Augustine at Palatka: Twelve consecutive wins in this series for the Yellow Jackets. It’s the longest winning streak in a series that began in 1922. Palatka’s longest winning streak is nine on two occasions (1988-96 and 1963-71)

Florida Week 1

Friday, Aug. 21 (all games 7 p.m. unless noted)

Atlantic at Crescent City (0-1)

Baker County at Clay

Beachside at KIPP Bold City, 6:30 p.m.

Bishop Kenny at NFEI

Charlton County at West Nassau

Columbia at Bolles

Cornerstone Classical at Bishop McLaughlin, 6 p.m.

Duval Charter (0-1) at Old Plank Christian (1-0), 7:30 p.m.

Eagle’s View (0-1) at Branford, 7:30 p.m.

Eastside at Fort White, 7:30 p.m.

Englewood at Bishop Snyder (0-1)

Episcopal (1-0) at Providence

Fernandina Beach (1-0) at Tallahassee Leon

First Coast at Ribault, 6:30 p.m.

First Coast Christian (0-1) at Christ’s Church Academy (1-0)

Fleming Island at Atlantic Coast, 6:30 p.m.

Fletcher at Sandalwood, 6:30 p.m.

Harvest Community (1-0) at Stanton (1-0), 6:30 p.m.

Hilliard at All Saints Academy

Impact Christian at Chiles

Jackson at Orange Park

Keystone Heights (0-1) at Interlachen, 7:30 p.m.

Mandarin at McArthur (Broward County Showcase)

Matanzas at Flagler Palm Coast

Menendez at Middleburg

Nease at Creekside

Parker at Riverside, 6:30 p.m.

Paxon (0-1) at Wolfson, 6:30 p.m.

Raines at Oakleaf

St. Augustine at Palatka

Suwannee at Crystal River

Tocoi Creek at Bartram Trail

Trinity Christian at Ed White, 6:30 p.m.

Union County (1-0) at Rutherford, 7:30 p.m.

University Christian at Ponte Vedra

West Port at Bradford, 7:30 p.m.

Westside at Ridgeview

Young Kids in Motion at Joshua Christian

Yulee at Baldwin, 6:30 p.m.

Zarephath Academy at IMG Academy White

OFF: St. Joseph.

Georgia Week 1

Thursday, Aug. 20

Calvary Day at Glynn Academy, 7 p.m.

Friday, Aug. 21

Brantley County at Bacon County, 7:30 p.m.

Camden County at Brunswick, 7:30 p.m.

Charlton County at West Nassau

Frederica Academy at Pinewood Christian, 7:30 p.m.

Pierce County at Coosa Christian, Alabama

Ware County at Bainbridge, 7:30 p.m.

The decision affecting most Omaha middle and high schools came after The Associated Press first revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers the gloves, which are known as G.L.O.V.E.s or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters. The devices have also been used in recent years by some jails.

Omaha Superintendent Matthew Ray requested that police working in the schools, known as school resource officers, stop using the gloves. Omaha Police agreed.

However, the suburban Bellevue police department that patrols two Omaha schools and the large Bellevue district said its officers will continue carrying the gloves. Three other large school districts in the metro area that have Omaha school resource officers assigned to their buildings have not taken action to stop police from using the devices.

The AP left messages seeking comment Thursday from the Millard, Elkhorn and Westside districts that are also patrolled by Omaha officers.

Bellevue schools spokeswoman Amanda Oliver said the district has a great relationship with Bellevue police and doesn't see a need to alter anything.

“We’ve got a great communication and dialogue that we have with them consistently. And so for us right now, no changes are being made,” Oliver said.

Ray said in a school board meeting Monday and in a letter to the public schools community that he’d only learned about the gloves the previous week. But local television station KETV found emails from 2023 when Omaha police notified the districts that the department planned to equip officers with the gloves, and an official with the Omaha district said they were already familiar with them because Bellevue police had them at two Omaha schools.

Students in all the Omaha area districts have gone back to class over the past two weeks.

The Omaha Police Department held a news conference last week in which an officer demonstrated the gloves to show how they can help an officer quickly get control of someone who is refusing commands.

Omaha police used the gloves twice during the 2025-2026 school year, and Bellevue police have also used them twice in previous years.

Residents and school board members speak out against the gloves

At last week's school board meeting, about 30 people spoke out against police using the gloves. Residents and board members alike said they were appalled at the practice. No one spoke in favor of it.

“I can't even imagine walking down the hallway and seeing a peer of mine being electrocuted in a place that is supposed to be a safe space for students,” said Nora Wessel, a senior at Omaha Central High School. “Yet, this is now a very real possibility. These are adults we are supposed to be able to trust, but these weapons create a barrier for our students to turn to resource officers when needed.”

Ken Trump, president of the consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, said before schools allow police to bring in technology like shock gloves, there should be a careful discussion of questions like how school resource officers will respond to students with disabilities or special medical needs, how parents will be informed, and under what circumstances the gloves can be used.

“Less than lethal doesn’t mean low risk,” said Trump.

Ray said the district recognized long-standing relationships with law enforcement partners and the important role school resource officers have in promoting school safety. Continued use of the gloves “would be counterproductive to our work together,” Ray said.

Mayor John Ewing Jr., who helped oversee creating the school resource officer program when he was on the police force, said the department has honored the school district's decision to “opt out.” The Omaha Police Department said officers will continue to carry tasers, batons, OC spray and firearms.

Most school resource officers were trained to use the gloves

Most of the Omaha Police Department's 34 school resource officers had been trained and were allowed to use the gloves, the mayor and Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said in a statement.

“We believe it is the safest use-of-force option in the rare times when it is used,” the statement said.

In 2025, Omaha police agreed to pay Compliant Technologies LLC, which manufactures the gloves, about $66,000 for 40 gloves, according to the contract.

Officers were expected to give warning before using the gloves and then touch the person for up to 15 seconds while the electric shock was delivered, the statement said.

Bellevue Police Chief Ken Clary said his officers will continue carrying the gloves, which they have had for more than three years.

“I am not comfortable having our officers give up a tool that has repeatedly proven to be safe, effective, and less harmful than the alternatives,” Clary said in a statement.

The devices activate when an officer presses a button. The gloves must touch someone’s skin directly to produce voltage that causes pain, which is intended to make people stop resisting officers. Unlike Tasers, they do not leave burn or contact marks.

In the 2025-2026 school year, an Omaha officer used the glove in one case to stop a high school student from another school from trying to escape after fighting with a security guard, according to the statement. In a second case, the glove was used on a student at the Omaha district's Integrated Learning Center for special education students. Police said that student made verbal threats and threw a chair at a school security guard, striking the guard in the head. The student also punched the guard in the head, according to the statement.

Bellevue police didn't immediately have details about when its officers have used the gloves. Clary said the devices have been an extremely effective tool that sometimes make students cooperate on sight even without shocking a student.

Omaha Public Schools is the largest district in Nebraska and serves more than 50,000 students, according to its website. The other districts in the metro area are also among the biggest in the state. ___ Associated Press Writers Ryan J. Foley, in Iowa City, Iowa; Hallie Golden in Seattle; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Sharon Lurye in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

It’s all about the depth and roster position battles for the Jaguars as they look to firm up decisions on their 53-man roster choices. Fans hoping to see the big names like Trevor Lawrence and Travis Hunter may not have that opportunity. Preseason games are often short on the headliners and long on names that only hard-core fans will recognize.

That probably won’t change when the Jaguars take the field at 7:30 p.m.

Head coach Liam Coen said on Wednesday that he was still uncertain if he was going to play the starters in Friday’s game after the teams had a spirited joint practice at the Miller Electric Center.

Get there early

Construction in and around EverBank Stadium is going to make this season an exercise in patience for fans. Stadium capacity is down to 42,507 as the upper decks have been off limits due to construction. That shouldn’t be much of an issue in the preseason, but it will be something to watch in the regular season. The team will play home games in 2027 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando.

Watch and listen to the game

The game will be televised on CBS 47 or on Fubo where fans can watch with a free trial. On the radio, the game will be available on 1010AM and 92.5 FM.

Last game

The Jaguars beat the Saints 24-20 in Week 1 of the preseason. The Panthers lost to the Cardinals in the Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 6, 33-30.

Offensive line shuffling

The Jaguars have been shuffling things along the offensive line, including a trade for Giants offensive lineman Daniel Faalele on Wednesday and signing another for that unit Thursday in Timothy McKay. Jacksonville did activate Cole Van Lanen from the physically unable to perform list on Thursday. He’s been out since injuring his knee (and eventually having surgery) in Week 18 last season.

The Jaguars have had some tough injury situations across the line during training camp, including projected starter Patrick Mekari undergoing back surgery this week. His availability for the season remains a question. Those musical chairs along the line have allowed rookie Emmanuel Pregnon and second-year player Jonah Monheim to see the field more.

Room for rookie at RB?

Undrafted free agent J’Mari Taylor led the team in rushing in a 24-20 preseason opening win against the Saints. Taylor was likely on the outside of the roster looking in to start training camp but could find a path to the 53-man roster. Second-year running back LeQuint Allen Jr. will miss the rest of the preseason with a soft tissue injury, so that may create an opportunity for Taylor to make the team. He’s also competing with veterans Deejay Dallas and Ameer Abdullah for a spot.

What’s the status at backup QB?

Backup Nick Mullens had a miserable preseason opener before leaving with an injury. Carter Bradley played better in relief, but that came against second- and third-teamers. At this point, Mullens is probably safe as Trevor Lawrence’s backup. But continued poor play may force Coen and general manager James Gladstone to explore alternatives.

Biggest roster battles

In terms of starting positions, the biggest competition comes at linebacker where Ventrell Miller and Branson Combs are vying to replace Devin Lloyd. Miller has more experience and is better against the run. Combs, who played receiver early in college before switching to linebacker, is much better in pass coverage. Miller likely has a small edge at this point but hasn’t locked up anything yet.

Rookies who have shined in camp

Receivers CJ Williams and Josh Cameron have turned in more than a few highlight plays. Pregnon started slow but had a solid preseason debut against New Orleans. Cameron has an avenue to more playing time since he is in the conversation for a role as a punt returner. Tight ends Tanner Koziol and Nate Boerkircher have also flashed at points in camp.

The league announced the fines Thursday after requesting video of the tumultuous workout at the Cowboys ' training camp base in Oxnard, California.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said his team will appeal the “pretty stiff” fine, even though he understood why the NFL issued such a hefty penalty. The Cowboys also plan to fine their own players who were involved in the fracases.

“The Competition Committee has made sportsmanship — including at joint practices — a point of emphasis over the past several years,” the league said in a statement. “All clubs were remined by memo prior to training camp of their responsibility in preventing unsportsmanlike behavior at joint practices that has the potential to result in injury.”

Players from the Cowboys and the Saints threw punches during several skirmishes throughout the joint practice, which was conducted in uncommonly hot, humid weather in the coastal town.

A lowlight of the brouhaha was Saints tight end Brock Rechsteiner’s body slam of Cowboys safety Jalen Thompson in a move worthy of Rechsteiner’s father, pro wrestler Scott Steiner. Saints center Erik McCoy threw a Cowboys helmet high in the air during one scrap, while McCoy and Cowboys linebacker Donovan Ezeiruaku threw punches at each other in an ugly sequence that ended with Ezeiruaku getting thrown out of practice for the second time in camp.

“All of that makes it a real focal point of the league to stay within good sport, and the taking of helmets off and swinging and hitting and that type of thing is not good for anybody, and it’s certainly not what we want to represent to our fans as a league or as a team,” Jones said Thursday in Oxnard. “And so it’s understandable how they’re coming with real severe fines.”

Jones said the size of the NFL's financial penalty “does make the point that it’s a serious matter. … It really emphasizes the league’s intent to control it from the very top, which when they start dealing out those kinds of fines, they get your attention.”

Saints coach Kellen Moore and Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer nearly called off the practice early after repeated post-whistle scuffles. Schottenheimer called the workout “a little chippy. Not the way we like to do business.”

“Obviously there was non-football stuff in that joint practice, unfortunately,” Moore said Thursday before the fines were announced.

Jones indicated Ezeiruaku, who started nine games and had two sacks last season as a rookie, is one of the Cowboys players who will be fined.

“Well, I think that you have to have consequences, and that needs to register,” Jones said. “In other words, whether you’re playing a game or out here in society, if you aren’t sensitive about consequences of your behavior, then you’ll be brought to your knees pretty quick.”

The Saints have left Louisiana for California this week, conducting a few practices on the coast before a preseason game against the Los Angeles Rams on Saturday at SoFi Stadium.

New Orleans had no scuffles or disciplinary issues Thursday during another joint practice with the Rams at Los Angeles' training complex in Woodland Hills. The teams still wrapped up their workout earlier than scheduled because the Saints had already done extensive work this week before a handful of players left this practice early with injuries that currently appear minor.

Moore said he spoke to his players about professionalism before they visited the Rams. New Orleans also had no issues last week when it hosted the Jacksonville Jaguars for a joint practice.

“We acknowledged some of the things that happened on Tuesday,” Moore said. “Thought our guys were focused, Rams were focused, and it was a really good, clean practice.”

___

AP freelance reporter Dan Greenspan in Oxnard, California, contributed to this report.

___

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

It’s all about the depth and roster position battles for the Jaguars as they look to firm up decisions on their 53-man roster choices. Fans hoping to see the big names like Trevor Lawrence and Travis Hunter may not have that opportunity. Preseason games are often short on the headliners and long on names that only hard-core fans will recognize.

That probably won’t change when the Jaguars take the field at 7:30 p.m.

Head coach Liam Coen said on Wednesday that he was still uncertain if he was going to play the starters in Friday’s game after the teams had a spirited joint practice at the Miller Electric Center.

Get there early

Construction in and around EverBank Stadium is going to make this season an exercise in patience for fans. Stadium capacity is down to 42,507 as the upper decks have been off limits due to construction. That shouldn’t be much of an issue in the preseason, but it will be something to watch in the regular season. The team will play home games in 2027 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando.

Watch and listen to the game

The game will be televised on CBS 47 or on Fubo where fans can watch with a free trial. On the radio, the game will be available on 1010AM and 92.5 FM.

Last game

The Jaguars beat the Saints 24-20 in Week 1 of the preseason. The Panthers lost to the Cardinals in the Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 6, 33-30.

Offensive line shuffling

The Jaguars have been shuffling things along the offensive line, including a trade for Giants offensive lineman Daniel Faalele on Wednesday and signing another for that unit Thursday in Timothy McKay. Jacksonville did activate Cole Van Lanen from the physically unable to perform list on Thursday. He’s been out since injuring his knee (and eventually having surgery) in Week 18 last season.

The Jaguars have had some tough injury situations across the line during training camp, including projected starter Patrick Mekari undergoing back surgery this week. His availability for the season remains a question. Those musical chairs along the line have allowed rookie Emmanuel Pregnon and second-year player Jonah Monheim to see the field more.

Room for rookie at RB?

Undrafted free agent J’Mari Taylor led the team in rushing in a 24-20 preseason opening win against the Saints. Taylor was likely on the outside of the roster looking in to start training camp but could find a path to the 53-man roster. Second-year running back LeQuint Allen Jr. will miss the rest of the preseason with a soft tissue injury, so that may create an opportunity for Taylor to make the team. He’s also competing with veterans Deejay Dallas and Ameer Abdullah for a spot.

What’s the status at backup QB?

Backup Nick Mullens had a miserable preseason opener before leaving with an injury. Carter Bradley played better in relief, but that came against second- and third-teamers. At this point, Mullens is probably safe as Trevor Lawrence’s backup. But continued poor play may force Coen and general manager James Gladstone to explore alternatives.

Biggest roster battles

In terms of starting positions, the biggest competition comes at linebacker where Ventrell Miller and Branson Combs are vying to replace Devin Lloyd. Miller has more experience and is better against the run. Combs, who played receiver early in college before switching to linebacker, is much better in pass coverage. Miller likely has a small edge at this point but hasn’t locked up anything yet.

Rookies who have shined in camp

Receivers CJ Williams and Josh Cameron have turned in more than a few highlight plays. Pregnon started slow but had a solid preseason debut against New Orleans. Cameron has an avenue to more playing time since he is in the conversation for a role as a punt returner. Tight ends Tanner Koziol and Nate Boerkircher have also flashed at points in camp.