The overall electric rate is going up 6.2%, although the changes are different for residential, commercial and other services. For water and sewer, the overall change is 8%.

So what does that mean for the average residential user’s bill?

Based on data presented to the Board, the average residential customer will pay $2.41 more for electric and $5.75 more for water & sewer service each month, depending on usage. That’s a little more than $8 a month for your combined bill.

The changes take effect Oct. 1.

Back in March, JEA projected a budget shortfall of more than $107 million across its electric, water, and sewer systems. The rate increases are aimed at closing those financial gaps, the utility said.

During public comment before the Board’s vote, customers urged board members to find alternatives to raising rates.

“The true question we should be asking today is not whether we need to raise rates again, it’s how can we work to meet our city’s energy needs in the challenging moment we find ourselves in,” Jacksonville resident Leah Ferrel said. “The answer is that JEA needs to deepen solar investments by deploying solar on both the utility side and residential side.”

But JEA says the additional revenue generated by the rate increases will help cover rising costs of infrastructure and reliability as Jacksonville’s population continues to grow.

The utility also says it wants customers to know that they understand an increase like this can be difficult, and are offering bill assistance programs for those who may need help with their monthly expenses.

Learn more at JEA.com.

Eight other children were also injured and were being treated at a hospital, senior police official Faisal Kamran said, adding that the owner of the tutoring center and another person have been arrested.

Kamran said rescuers were continuing to search through the rubble after receiving reports that more children could be trapped beneath the debris. He said the tutoring center was housed in an aging building and that the roof of an unfinished second floor apparently collapsed because of poor-quality construction.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari expressed grief over the collapse of the roof of an evening school building in Lahore. In a statement, he offered condolences to the families of the victims, prayed for the speedy recovery of those injured, and said effective safety measures were needed to prevent similar tragedies.

Building collapses are common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often poorly enforced. Many structures are built with substandard materials, and safety regulations are frequently ignored to reduce costs.

The court’s six-justice conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution. The court unanimously agreed that barring transgender girls and women also doesn't run afoul of the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court that, “states may maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females" to address safety and competitive fairness concerns. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America."

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying from the bench that the majority opinion was wrong to reject an equal-protection claim from 16-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson.

With the science still evolving, transgender students shouldn't automatically be shut out of team sports, she said. “We just simply do not know scientifically that transgender students pose dangers,” she said, reading from a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues.

Pepper-Jackson, a high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to statewide champion in the shot put. She beat the second-place finisher by two feet in last month's West Virginia championship meet.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state’s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn’t make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court during arguments in January, but she competed in club-level soccer and running.

Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings are supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.

Kavanaugh, who has coached girls' basketball, underlined the importance of women's sports and athletes' dedication. “No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified,” he wrote.

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, finding that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.

But last year, the six conservative justices on the nine-member court declined to apply the same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argued there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace discrimination to Title IX.

Idaho’s law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst said, is “necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.”

Republican President Donald Trump applauded Tuesday's decision, calling it a “BIG WIN” in a social-media post.

Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argued that such distinctions generally make sense but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In Hecox’s case, her lawyers wanted the court to dismiss the case because she had forsworn trying to play on women’s teams.

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than half a million students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance.

Baker’s NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women’s sports after President Donald Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to compete only on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

Like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to increase defense spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States. But its Defense Investment Plan has been repeatedly delayed as military leaders and Treasury officials wrangled over the cost.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the plan reflects a world of conflicts transformed by technology and will keep Britain safe in “a more dangerous and volatile world."

“When the world is arming and aggression is rising, the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it," he said.

But the blueprint does not commit to spending 3% of U.K. GDP on defense by 2030, one of the factors that spurred John Healey to resign as U.K. defense secretary on June 11. Healey accused the government of underspending on the military at a time of “rising threats," citing a British intelligence assessment that Russia could attack a NATO member country by 2030.

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, Healey said that “with European security at stake,” Britain needs "to develop a clear, credible funding plan that will hit 3% and that will meet our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035."

Starmer said Healey’s successor, Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis, had worked to “sharpen and strengthen" the plan. Its 15 billion pounds in new spending is more than the 13.5 billion pounds ($18 billion) Healey was offered by the Treasury, but far less than the 28 billion pounds ($37 billion) that defense officials had called for.

UK faces pressure to hit NATO target

Under the plan, defense spending will hit 2.7% of GDP by 2029. Starmer said the 3% target will be reached “in the next Parliament,” a period that could extend to 2034. The U.K. remains committed to hitting NATO’s 3.5% target by 2035, though it's unclear how it will get there.

The government said the new funding will boost spending on defense to almost 300 billion pounds ($400 billion) over the next four years. Big-ticket items include 5 billion pounds ($6.6 billion) for drone technology, 8 billion pounds ($10.6 billion) to build new stealth fighter jets alongside Japan and Italy, and 11 billion pounds ($14.5 billion) to increase weapons stockpiles. The U.K. will also spend 64 billion pounds ($85 billion) modernizing its nuclear weapons.

Starmer said some road and energy projects would be scrapped to help pay for the military.

The U.K. military is seeking to reverse years of decline in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia, which invaded its neighbor Ukraine in 2022 and increasingly tests the defenses of European nations with overt and covert activity.

The U.K. has watched how drones have transformed war in Ukraine, which uses 200,000 of them a month to defend against Russian forces. Britain plans to invest billions in drone systems across all branches of the military. Instead of a planned fleet of new destroyers, the Royal Navy will get hybrid vessels that will act as command hubs for drones.

“The very nature of conflict is changing before our eyes,” Starmer said during a speech at a drone manufacturer near London. He said that, armed with cutting-edge technology, Ukrainian forces have destroyed Russia’s Black Sea fleet, “struck deep into Russian territory and stopped the advance of one of the biggest armies in the world.”

Critics say more money is needed

Britain and other NATO member nations have faced pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to increase military spending. Trump has long questioned the value of the military alliance and complained that the United States provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.

The resignations of Healey and junior Defense Minister Al Carns were among a series of blows that prompted Starmer to announce last week that he will resign. A NATO summit in Turkey on July 7 and 8 may be his final overseas trip as prime minister.

His replacement, likely the former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, will be under pressure to stick to the commitments in the defense plan.

“It is a platform on which I know my successor will build," Starmer said.

Opposition Conservative Party defense spokesperson James Cartlidge said the plan was “too little, too late.”

And retired Gen. Richard Barrons, who helped lead a defense review in preparation for the investment plan, said “we have to find more money for defense sooner.”

“We’re not keeping up with our allies, we’re certainly not keeping up with our enemies, and we know that the U.S. is no longer going to come and save European security in the face of a Russian threat,” he told the BBC.

The decision, in line with the longstanding judicial interpretation of the 14th Amendment, comes on the final day of a Supreme Court term that has centered on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power — and largely ruled in his favor.

In its other Tuesday rulings, the court upheld laws in roughly half the states that prohibit transgender girls and women from playing on their public school and college sport teams and struck down limits on party spending in federal elections.

Here's the latest:

Trump says Republicans won ‘big’ on Supreme Court’s party spending ruling

The president applauded a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a federal election law and made it easier for major donors to avoid caps on individual contributions to candidates by going through the party.

“A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!” Trump posted on social media.

House Speaker Mike Johnson ‘very disappointed’ over birthright citizenship ruling

The Republican leader’s news conference was interrupted by the ruling as reporters instantly sought a real-time reaction.

“Oh dear,” Johnson said as a reporter read out the decision.

Johnson said he believes it will subject the country to “serious challenges going forward and we’ll have to deal with that.”

Johnson, who has worked as a constitutional lawyer primarily on religious issues, said the 14th Amendment is being abused by people who are coming to the U.S. to have children in a “birthing tourism trend.” It’s not illegal but is a practice the Trump administration has tried to reduce.

Republican senator calls for constitutional amendment restricting birthright citizenship

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri called the Supreme Court’s decision “wrong, dangerous, and disastrous for American sovereignty and the American people.” He denounced the decision’s majority, including “squish conservatives,” in a post on X.

Schmitt added that Congress may need to act to restrict birthright citizenship following the court’s ruling.

“I will be announcing a forthcoming constitutional amendment to restore the sacred bond between American citizens and their government,” Schmitt wrote.

He said the amendment “will ensure that citizenship once again reflects allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation.”

Nation’s largest Latino civil rights group touts victory in birthright citizenship case

“This decision confirms a truth that generations of Americans have lived by: a child born on this soil is a citizen of this nation,” Roman Palomares, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said in a statement. “The Court has made clear that no president can override the Constitution by decree.”

LULAC was one of the plaintiffs in the birthright citizenship case. The organization sued the Trump administration last year over the president’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.

In transgender sports dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says details matter

In her dissent on the West Virginia transgender athlete case, Sotomayor emphasized that Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, identified as a girl at a young age and started hormone therapy before going through puberty as a male.

That matters, Sotomayor said.

The justice did not argue that West Virginia could not set policies that set restrictions on transgender participation in girls’ sports to ensure safety and fairness. Such a policy, Sotomayor argued, could conceivably allow Pepper-Jackson to compete as she wishes. Meanwhile, the justice wrote, an absolute ban could violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

But the immediate issue, Sotomayor said, is that courts haven’t resolved the factual question of whether Pepper-Jackson’s circumstances put her on the same competitive level with other female athletes. Sotomayor said justices should have returned the case to lower courts to settle that question.

Opposing reactions to the Supreme Court’s trans athlete decision

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, hailed Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports, while the American Civil Liberties Union senior lawyer Joshua Block called it “heartbreaking.”

Morrisey said the decision “will be remembered as one of the most important victories for women’s athletics since the enactment of Title IX itself…We defended a simple principle most Americans instinctively understand: that women’s sports exist to provide women and girls a fair opportunity to compete and succeed.”

Block said: “The reality is that the equality of transgender women and girls takes nothing away from, and in fact promotes, the equality of all women and girls. We will continue to advance the fundamental principle that all young people deserve equal opportunity to thrive and succeed.”

The trans teenager at the center of the Supreme Court’s decision on sports

Becky Pepper-Jackson is at the center of Supreme Court decision upholding states’ ban on transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

The teenager from Bridgeport, West Virginia, is a state-qualifying track and field athlete who placed third in the 2025 discus competition.

Six years ago, at age 11, Pepper-Jackson challenged a then-new state law banning trans athletes from competing in female sports in middle school, high school and college.

Now, in high school, Pepper-Jackson is the only trans person who’s sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Tuesday’s ruling means Pepper-Jackson’s recently completed track season will be her last in the state.

Divides over political party spending have mostly split along partisan lines

After President Trump took office for his second term, the Federal Election Commission dropped its defense of the law limiting party spending and joined with Republicans in urging that it be overturned.

Democrats had called on the court to uphold the law, even though there’s wide agreement that the spending limits have hurt political parties in an era of unlimited spending by other organizations.

Entrenched divisions between liberal and conservative justices over campaign finance restrictions were on display when the court heard arguments in December.

“Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dissenter in Citizens United and the court’s other campaign money cases.

By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the Citizens United majority, described the decision as “much maligned, I think unfairly maligned.” The effect of the decision was to ”level the playing field,” Alito said, by expanding the right to spend freely that had previously belonged only to media companies.

Group supporting tough restrictions on immigration says Supreme Court ruling is a mistake

“Birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens will continue to be a ballooning negative consequence of the failure to enforce our immigration laws,” said Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “But that very fact makes it all the more urgent to step up enforcement to the maximum possible extent and end illegal immigration.”

Trump says Supreme Court ruling on transgender athletes is a ‘big win’

The president has made his opposition to transgender athletes a key feature of his speeches and he embraced the Supreme Court decision that states can ban the athletes from girls and women’s teams.

“BIG WIN,” Trump said on social media. “Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!”

Immigrant advocacy group welcomes birthright citizenship ruling

“The Justices rightly recognized that the U.S. Constitution is clear and unambiguous: if you are born in this country and subject to its jurisdiction, you are a citizen of this country,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the head of Global Refuge, a nonprofit that works with immigrants, said in a statement. “Birthright citizenship survived the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and today, it survived an executive order that would have essentially turned the maternity ward into a customs checkpoint.”

Latino civil rights leaders praise birthright citizenship decision

“Today, the Supreme Court defended the soul of this country and the very definition of what it means to be an American,” Voto Latino President Maria Teresa Kumar said in a statement.

She added: “By reaffirming that every child born on American soil is a citizen, the court chose to embrace our multiracial and multicultural reality, rather than succumb to a political agenda rooted in the fear of it.”

Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion upholding birthright citizenship

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

How colonial history helped shape birthright citizenship

Unlike much of the world, birthright citizenship is common across North, Central and South America. Many legal historians believe the roots of that geographic divide reach back more than 500 years, when European nations began sending settlers to their American colonies.

Europe’s aristocrat rulers wanted to encourage people to move to the colonies, but those colonists wanted their children — even if born overseas — to hold on to their European citizenship.

The practice remained in place as independence movements began to take shape and as independent nations began to emerge.

“By then, their legal traditions had already started to form,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. “So by and large they continued some of the key legal practices of the colonial European governments that they had just severed ties with.”

NAACP president praises Supreme Court decision protecting birthright citizenship

“Trump’s attempted assault on the 14th Amendment was dealt a major blow today. This decision is a powerful affirmation of the Constitution and the enduring promise of equality it represents,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. “For over 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has guaranteed citizenship to everyone born in this country. Today, the court rightly rejected efforts to undermine that core protection and instead upheld a principle that is essential to our democracy.”

Birthright citizenship opinion is literally weighty, with a printed version that’s especially thick

Many of those pages are from the dissent penned by Justice Thomas and joined by Gorsuch. The majority opinion is 26 pages long, Thomas’s dissent runs to 91 pages.

Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits

In upholding a broad conception of birthright citizenship, the court rejected President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

The Republican president’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.

During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

▶ Read more

Advocates for LGBTQ+ youth condemn the transgender athletes ruling

“Today’s news has nothing to do with safety or fairness in sports,” Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black said in a statement. “These rulings only serve to send a message to transgender and nonbinary young people that says, ‘you don’t belong.’”

Supreme Court strikes down limits on party spending in federal elections

The Supreme Court on Tuesday erased limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president, striking down a federal election law that’s more than 50 years old.

Prodded by a Republican-led lawsuit that includes Vice President JD Vance, the court’s conservative justices were again in the majority of the latest decision that upended congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

The limits on party spending stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.

The Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits in 2001.

▶ Read more

One advocate for transgender rights says Tuesday’s ruling will resonate in areas beyond sports

“The Supreme Court gave cover to a campaign whose stated goal is to deny constitutional projections to trans people,” Imara Jones, CEO of TransLash Media, said in a statement. “The ultimate objective is to establish the cocktail of laws and systemic marginalization that will allow those in power to exclude larger and larger groups of Americans.”

From Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the transgender athletes ruling

“Sports are generally zero sum,” Kavanaugh said in the majority opinion. “Every biological male who makes the team takes a roster spot from a female athlete. Every biological male who earns playing time reduces the playing time of a female athlete. Every biological male who starts takes a starting position from a female athlete. Every biological male who wins a race takes the gold medal away from a female athlete.”

Supreme Court upholds state laws banning transgender girls and women from school athletic teams

The ruling is another setback for transgender people.

The court’s conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

▶ Read more

Several courts have blocked the citizenship restrictions

The justices are weighing Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them.

Trump signed the birthright citizenship order on the first day of his second term, but the restrictions have not taken effect anywhere in the country.

Dueling views on birthright citizenship

In oral arguments, Sauer, the lawyer for Trump’s administration, said that birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and “rewards illegal aliens who not only violate the immigration laws but also jump in front of those who follow the rules.”

The practice “demeans the priceless and profound gift of American citizenship,” he told the court.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging Trump’s order, sees it very differently.

“It’s one of the clearest statements of who we are as a country,” the ACLU said in a statement. “No matter who your parents are, if you’re born here, you belong here.”

America’s views on birthright citizenship

Most Americans say they believe in birthright citizenship, though many are conflicted about exactly who it should apply to.

An April survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research of more than 2,500 U.S. adults found that about two-thirds say children born in the U.S. should get automatic citizenship. That number drops to 44% for Republicans.

But the poll also showed ambivalence when it came to specifics.

For example, 75% of U.S. adults support automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents in the country on work visas. Only about half, though, believe in it for children born to parents who are illegally in the country.

The court ruled Monday that states can count late-arriving mailed ballots

The 5-4 decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day.

The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

In just over half of those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.

The government has faced judicial skepticism

During oral arguments, even many conservative justices appeared unconvinced by the government’s case.

“I can imagine it being messy in some applications,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, asking Solicitor General D. John Sauer about the issue of abandoned infants.

“What if you don’t know who the parents are?” she asked.

Sauer started to say that question was addressed in the U.S. code, but Barrett quickly interrupted him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about the Constitution?” she asked.

How do most countries decide a child’s citizenship?

Outside of the Americas, most countries follow the legal principle of jus sanguinis, or “right of blood,” with a child’s citizenship inherited from its parents, no matter the place of birth.

In the European Union, for example, no member states grant automatic, unconditional citizenship to children born to foreigners.

But American legal practice is descended in many ways from English common law, which had long provided for citizenship based on a child’s place of birth, the legal concept of jus soli, or “right of soil.”

The UK, though, abandoned jus soli with the British Nationality Act of 1981.

Under the new rules, people born in the UK get citizenship only if at least one parent is a British citizen or has “settled status” under the law.

The justices will read summaries of their opinions

The court will dive right into the remaining decisions when the justices take the bench at 10 a.m. ET.

The opinions are typically read in ascending order of seniority so that the most junior justice with an opinion goes first. Chief Justice John Roberts, who may well have the decision in the birthright citizenship case, would go last.

Monday’s ruling on federal agencies dramatically expanded presidential power

Other than at the Federal Reserve, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority.

The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights Trump’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

With the six conservative justices in the majority, the nine-member court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey’s Executor that had limited when presidents can fire agencies’ board members — in part to try to ensure decision-making free of political influence.

“We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

The court will also rule on trans athletes and campaign finances

In separate cases, the court will also decide:

Whether states can prohibit transgender athletes from playing on girls’ and women’s public school and college teams.

Whether to uphold a federal law more than 50 years old limiting how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and the president.

The court seemed poised to reject Trump’s birthright citizenship limits during arguments in April

Oral arguments for the case lasted more than two hours in a crowded courtroom that included Trump, the first sitting president to attend arguments at the nation’s highest court, and, in seats reserved for the justices’ guests, actor Robert De Niro.

Trump heard his administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, face one skeptical question after another. Justices asked about the legal basis for the order and voiced more practical concerns.

“Is this happening in the delivery room?” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, drilling down into the logistics of how the government would actually figure out who is entitled to citizenship and who is not.

Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that Sauer was relying on quirky exceptions to citizenship to make a broad argument about people who are in the country illegally. “I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” Roberts said.

Justice Clarence Thomas sounded the most likely among the nine justices to side with Trump.

Lively's lawyers disclosed the amount, covering nearly $7.5 million in attorney’s fees from two law firms that represented her and about $500,000 in other expenses, in a court filing Tuesday.

Lively and Baldoni settled last month just before a trial was to start in federal court in Manhattan on Lively’s claims that he engineered an effort to damage her public reputation and credibility after she accused him of sexually harassing her while shooting the movie.

Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied her claims.

Lively received no money in the settlement, but a judge subsequently ruled that she is entitled to recover some legal costs she incurred after Baldoni filed a countersuit against her. The judge must still approve the amount she is seeking.

One of Lively’s lawyers, Michael Gottlieb, wrote in a court declaration that he charged her an average hourly rate of $2,187 — a discount from his usual $2,795 per hour. He said he billed 224 hours for work on her defense to Baldoni’s countersuit, totaling $457,000 in fees.

Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios LLC, “employed scorched-earth litigation tactics designed to drain Lively’s resources,” her lawyers wrote in their filing.

“They could have ended it (and offered to reimburse Lively) at any time. Having refused to do so, they should be ordered to reimburse Lively for all of the costs, attorney’s fees, and expenses they improperly forced her to incur,” they wrote.

A message seeking comment was left for Baldoni’s lawyer.

Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and Wayfarer Studios in December 2024, accusing them of conspiring with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation after she privately accused him of sexual harassment on the “It Ends With Us" set.

Weeks later, Baldoni sued Lively, accusing her, her husband — “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds — and their publicist of defamation and extortion.

Baldoni denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed the complaints about his behavior were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie.

Judge Lewis J. Liman threw out Baldoni’s countersuit last year and then dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims, saying she could not bring them because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set.

In allowing Lively to recover legal costs, the judge cited a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits meant to intimidate and silence victims.

Liman said the law requires that the plaintiff must pay the defendant’s legal fees and costs if a defamation claim made in response to a lawsuit is dismissed, even if the facts of the case have not been developed through the gathering of evidence.

Liman said an exception would be if Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, could prove malice fueled Lively’s claims, but that they had produced no evidence to show that.

In their court filing, Lively's lawyers said $4.5 million should be paid to Gottlieb’s firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and about $3 million should go to the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.

The judge rejected Lively's claims to triple any damages and pursue punitive damages as well under the California law, saying that they did not fall within “carefully crafted federal procedural rules designed to protect the rights of the parties.”

“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel about a relationship devolving into domestic violence, was released in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations.

Lively appeared in the 2005 film “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and the TV series “Gossip Girl” from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including “The Town” and “The Shallows.”

Baldoni starred in the TV comedy “Jane the Virgin,” directed the 2019 film “Five Feet Apart” and wrote “Man Enough,” a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

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

Three conservative justices would have allowed the restrictions to take effect.

“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 91-page dissent, more than three times as long as Roberts' opinion. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

The Republican president's restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.

During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

The case framed another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power that has largely ruled in his favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He also seemed to recognize the court was likely to rule against him on birthright citizenship, too, using his Truth Social platform to criticize “dumb judges and justices” and wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere who come to the U.S. to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.

Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump's executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court’s 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

Roberts, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberal justices, said the amendment's language, the historical context and the 1898 case make clear that children born to parents illegally or temporarily in the U.S. “are citizens at birth.”

But there was only a bare majority of five justices on the constitutional question.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the majority, but only because of a federal law that makes those children citizens.

Kavanaugh joined the dissenters in finding that Trump's order does not violate the Constitution. His view would enable a future Congress to change the law to restrict birthright citizenship.

The Trump administration had argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

The visit by Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special Mideast envoy, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, comes after a weekend of crossfire in the Persian Gulf over efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic.

The envoys won’t be having direct negotiations with Iranian diplomats while in Qatar’s capital, Doha, said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry. Instead, mediators are working for the time being as go-betweens for the talks, which won’t include any high-level officials, he added.

The U.S. and Iran have held indirect negotiations before. However, the two previous rounds collapsed and preceded the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in 2025 and this year's war, launched jointly by the U.S. and Iran on Feb. 28.

Iran is also sending a delegation to Qatar this week. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Tuesday that Iran has had no plans for a meeting with the American side at any level in the coming days.

“What will take place in Doha tomorrow is a discussion with the Qatari side about implementing parts of the memorandum of understanding, including the release of Iran’s blocked assets,” Baghaei told journalists at his own briefing.

It is possible the two sides could exchange messages through the Qatari mediators.

The U.S. and Iran agreed to an interim deal earlier this month that calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of enriched uranium. It also waives U.S.-backed oil sanctions on the country, calls for free traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and gives each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that Qatar plans to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive negotiations, confirmed the release amount, saying it would be used to buy U.S. food products for the Iranian people.

A fifth of the world's oil was shipped through the Strait of Hormuz before the war began. Iran’s attacks and threats stopped cargo ships and tankers from moving through the strait, creating a global energy crisis.

The strait has long been considered an international waterway despite being in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.

Both sides traded strikes amid efforts last week to open Oman’s territorial waters in the strait to both inbound and outbound ship traffic from the Persian Gulf. That raised concerns that negotiations to formally end the war could be disrupted.

Iran twice attacked vessels in the strait — including a tanker filled with Qatari crude — and drew retaliatory American airstrikes. Iran also launched drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday.

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AP reporter Josh Boak in Washington contributed.

“It is physical, it is emotional, and until you experience it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be," he said on the House floor.

Kean’s reappearance comes after he won an uncontested primary on June 2 and months since he last voted in the House.

“Today I stand before you healthier, stronger and excited to return to the work that I love," Kean said.

A second-term lawmaker and scion of a New Jersey political family, Kean represents a battleground district that includes President Donald Trump's Bedminster golf club. He's missed more than 100 votes in Congress this year and hadn't been seen publicly in Washington or his district despite winning the Republican nomination to serve another term.

The mystery over Kean's absence carries potential political implications, given the competitive district he represents and the Republican Party's narrow control of the House. His office has said he is still running for reelection and is set to face Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, in New Jersey's most high-profile contest in November.

Democrats have targeted the district as a prime pick-up opportunity, given that the seat has changed hands in the last two midterm elections. Kean won in 2022 by defeating Democrat Tom Malinowski, who had defeated Republican Leonard Lance in 2018.

Kean's last vote was months ago

Kean last voted in the House on March 5, but his absence wasn’t explained.

In April, his social media account said he had been dealing with a personal medical issue and his doctors expected him to recover.

Kean’s absence has also complicated matters for House Republican leaders, who are struggling every day to pass bills with their razor-thin majority, 218-212. Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders repeatedly told reporters they were in touch with Kean, but said he would have to address the circumstances himself.

Trump has endorsed Kean’s reelection, without mentioning his absence.

Kean comes from a long line of public servants, stretching 250 years to the country’s founding when one of his ancestors became New Jersey’s first leader since independence.

His great-grandfather was a senator, his grandfather was a congressman and his father is the former two-term governor, Tom Kean Sr.

www.thepicoprincess.com IG: @thepicoprincess

Founded in 2016, Good Lad Soccer has grown into one of North Florida’s leading private soccer training organizations, providing camps, training programs, tournaments, and international travel opportunities that help young athletes develop both on and off the field.

The segment will highlight how the Ireland experience goes beyond soccer by teaching leadership, confidence, teamwork, and cultural awareness while allowing local players to represent their community on an international stage.

To learn more about Good Lad Soccer’s programs, camps, tournaments, and international travel opportunities, visit GoodLadSoccer.com or follow Good Lad Soccer on Facebook and Instagram.

Defending women's champion Iga Swiatek opened play on the main court — and had to come through a tough three-setter against Taylor Townsend — but the 44-year-old Williams was certainly the main attraction on Day 2. She's going up against an opponent less than half her age in the 20-year-old Joint.

After returning to play doubles at Queen's Club this month, Williams accepted wild cards to play in both the singles and doubles tournament — with her older sister Venus — at Wimbledon.

Her return has certainly created a buzz around the All England Club, which is without some of its usual star power after two-time men's champion Carlos Alcaraz and home favorite Emma Raducanu both withdrew with injuries.

Williams practiced for about 50 minutes a few hours before her match, with good friend Caroline Wozniacki — another former No. 1 — looking on.

“I’m very excited, it’s always good to have the GOAT back,” Wozniacki told The Associated Press. “She is fun to watch, not only as a friend but also as a tennis fan. Anytime you can have her back and playing, I think it’s exciting for the game.”

After the opening day featured wins for No. 1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, along with Novak Djokovic, this year's French Open winner Alexander Zverev is also set to play on Centre Court on Tuesday.

Swiatek, who had her father and sister watching on in the Royal Box on Centre Court, struggled with her serve and committed nine double-faults before overcoming Townsend 6-1, 2-6, 6-3.

Fifth-seeded Alex de Minaur and No. 6 Taylor Fritz were among the early winners in the men's bracket. Fritz beat Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 on No. 1 Court, having originally been set to face Jack Draper on Centre Court before the British player withdrew with an injury.

Women's No. 6 Amanda Anisimova also advanced, along with former Wimbledon finalist Jasmine Paolini.

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

A search was underway for a suspect who fled on foot after the blast late Monday, Prosecutor Stéphane Thibault said, adding that the motive was unclear.

Media reports identified Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev as being among the injured. He has said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship nearly a decade ago, and he was targeted by Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 for ties to Russia. A woman and a child were also hurt.

“It appears that the family was specifically targeted,” said Christophe Mirmand, the minister of state for Monaco. He said the suspect “had walked around the area several times while waiting for the victims,” according to surveillance footage.

It was not clear why the family was targeted or by whom.

Russia has a long history of targeting its enemies abroad, and Western intelligence officials have recently said that a campaign of targeted killings has ramped up since President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is also believed to have carried out attacks and targeted killings of Russian figures in the course of the war, although those attacks have largely been confined to Ukrainian or Russian territory.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said its embassy in France, which is also responsible for Monaco, was in touch with local authorities. Ukrainian diplomats were at the scene providing assistance, it said.

Attack shocks glamorous Monaco

The attack shocked the country on the Mediterranean coast, one of the world’s smallest sovereign states known for its high concentration of wealthy residents. Monaco’s Prince Albert II described it as “an odious act” and said all public services were mobilized to ensure security.

Monaco police opened an attempted murder investigation into the attack, but they did not describe it as a terrorism investigation, Thibault told reporters.

The family members are “regular” residents of Monaco, and authorities did not yet know whether they had been threatened in the past, Mirmand said.

The blast occurred around 9 p.m. Monday at the entrance of a residence near the French border.

The woman who was wounded was in life-threatening condition, Thibault said. He did not provide the identities of the people who were hurt.

The woman was being treated at a hospital in Nice, Mirmand told French news broadcaster LCI. Her partner and the 13-year-old child suffered less severe injuries but were still hospitalized Tuesday, he added.

The suspect got away via steps to a small street to the neighboring French town of Beausoleil, according to surveillance footage.

In a picture captured by surveillance cameras and published by French media, the suspect could be seen in a street wearing a black jacket, light-colored pants, white shoes and a black bucket hat that partly concealed his face.

The three people were “apparently returning home peacefully,” Mirmand said, citing surveillance footage. “They were caught in the explosion as they crossed the threshold of their apartment building."

Ukrainian tycoon is a well-known real estate developer

Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born businessman originally from the city of Dnipro, built his fortune through the Alef Group, a diversified business that includes commercial real estate, manufacturing and agriculture. He became one of the country’s best-known property developers, leading projects that reshaped parts of Dnipro’s city center. He has regularly appeared in rankings of Ukraine’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.

In an interview with Forbes Ukraine, Yermolaiev said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and became a Cypriot citizen in 2017.

In December 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Yermolaiev as part of a broader package targeting individuals and companies Kyiv said had business links to Russia or Russian-occupied territories.

The Cyprus Registrar of Companies lists a man called Vadym Iermolaiev as the director of Vespano Ltd., a company in the Cypriot city of Limassol first registered in January 2019. Cyprus’ Interior Ministry told The Associated Press it could not provide information about the man’s citizenship status due to confidentiality rules.

A coastal playground for the rich and famous, Monaco is renowned as much for its tax-friendly incentives and Formula 1 Grand Prix as its glamorous royal family. The small principality is widely regarded as one of the safest places in the world, in part because of its network of thousands of surveillance cameras covering most public spaces.

Monaco’s population of 38,000 is multinational, with only a fifth of the population actually citizens of the principality.

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Associated Press journalists Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine; Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus; and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose 0.6 point to 91.2 in June, a figure that is still below its year-ago reading of 95.2. Consumer attitudes worsened after the Iran war caused oil and gas prices to spike, accelerating inflation and causing Americans' inflation-adjusted incomes to decline. Before the pandemic, the index regularly topped 120.

The report suggests that consumer confidence is recovering only slowly from the hit caused by the Iran war. Even so, Americans have continued to spend despite their dour outlook, which has kept the economy growing even as inflation accelerated. Measures of consumer sentiment have been less predictive of how Americans actually shop since the pandemic.

“Consumer confidence inched up in June as falling oil prices in recent weeks provided some relief to consumer inflation fears,” Dana Peterson, the Conference Board's chief economists said in a statement. “Consumer appraisals of current business conditions were slightly more positive compared to last month. However, perceptions of the current labor market softened measurably."

Earlier this month, a government report showed that consumers stepped up their spending in May despite higher gas prices. Analysts expect the steady consumer outlays kept the economy growing at about a 2.5% annual rate in the April-June quarter.

Falling gas prices may also help boost Americans' outlook in the coming months. On average nationwide, gas prices spiked above $4.50 after the U.S.-Iran conflict began Feb. 28. They have since fallen back to $3.85 a gallon, according to AAA.

The survey also found that consumers had a dimmer view of hiring and the job market this month. The proportion of Americans who said jobs are “hard to get” rose to 22.5% from 19.8% the previous month, a noticeable increase.

But on Wednesday the government released a report showing that the number of open jobs remained at a solid 7.6 million in May, indicating that companies are showing more interest in recruiting workers.

The Labor Department will release its monthly jobs report for June on Thursday, and economists forecast it will show that employers added 100,000 jobs, a solid gain. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at a low 4.3%, according to data provider FactSet.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially begun its cosmic survey, meant to capture swathes of the sky in more depth and detail. Perched on a Chilean mountaintop, the telescope will point its eye at the southern sky for the next 10 years, taking hundreds of images per night.

Researchers hope Rubin's observations will help them take a better census of the universe, mapping billions of stars in the Milky Way and billions more galaxies beyond it. It takes pictures quickly and will grab images of the same areas of sky multiple times, allowing scientists to glimpse fainter objects that previously eluded detection.

“We’re going to see large numbers of scientists across the world working with this data set, studying the universe in a way that they haven’t been able to before,” said Phil Marshall, the observatory's deputy director of operations.

Rubin released its first images last year, including colorful shots of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).

Since then, researchers have tuned up the equipment so it's ready to take pictures at the depth and accuracy required for the decade-long survey. The images may help scientists discern how galaxies form and cluster over billions of years, and how the universe came to be.

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, the observatory is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who offered the first tantalizing evidence that a mysterious material called dark matter might be lurking in the universe. Researchers hope the effort may yield clues about dark matter as well as an equally puzzling force known as dark energy.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Forecasters had expected employers to post just 7 million openings in May.

The job market is sturdy but not exactly booming. Layoffs rose in May, and the number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects — ticked up only slightly. That's according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.

Employers are advertising openings, but they aren't actually doing much hiring. Gross hiring — before counting people who lost or quit their jobs — dipped to 5.17 million in May from 5.26 million in April. When the job market was booming from mid-2021 to mid-2023 after COVID-19 lockdowns, gross monthly hiring regularly topped 6 million.

“The hiring switch needs to fully turn on for the labor market to feel alive again,” ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud said in a commentary.

After the United States and Israel attacked Feb. 28, Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas passes. Energy prices soared, squeezing Americans already frustrated by the high cost of living.

But the American job market has chugged along, continuing to rebound from a miserable 2025. In the first five months of the year, U.S. employers have added an average of nearly 114,000 net jobs a month. That is up from just 9,700 a month in 2025, the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002.

High interest rates and President Donald Trump's unpredictable economic policies discouraged employers from making hiring decisions last year. Trump's tax cuts and the fact that the United States is an energy producer have limited the economic damage from the war this year.

When the Labor Department releases its jobs report for June on Thursday, it is expected to show that companies, nonprofits and government agencies added another 100,000 jobs and that unemployment stayed at a low 4.3%.

Because of baby boomer retirements and Trump's immigration crackdown, fewer people are competing for work, and the United States doesn't need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate stable. Economists say the so-called "break-even'' rate of hiring could be as low as zero jobs a month, down from perhaps 150,000 a year or so ago.

News4JAX found that about a dozen people were booked into the Duval County jail over the weekend on charges tied to street racing after a video circulating online appeared to show a large car gathering at Tinseltown with a heavy law enforcement response.

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters and FHP Capt. Kenneth Boatright will announce the results of the operation during a news conference at 12:05 p.m. Tuesday.

When News4JAX reviewed the JSO inmate search, we found at least a dozen bookings between Saturday and Sunday for charges including violating Florida’s street racing/stunt driving law, operating a motor vehicle in a “street takeover,” racing on a highway (including passenger/spectator charges), and fleeing or eluding.

Meanwhile, News4JAX crews on Saturday night observed a law enforcement presence near the movie theater in the Tinseltown area off Southside Boulevard. Crews also saw vehicles being towed, including luxury cars. At the time, News4JAX did not receive details on what prompted the response.

On Monday, an Instagram reel using News4JAX video gained tens of thousands of views. The reel appears to show cars gathered in a Tinseltown parking lot, burnouts and then a large law enforcement response.

A worker at a nearby business said he watched it happen.

Seth Ouk, a sous chef at Soupa Noodle Bar in Tinseltown, told News4JAX he saw a large group of cars arrive and said drivers were showing off their cars when police moved in.

“Normally, I’ll see the cars in the Riverside area or something, but there were a bunch of dudes they come over here, and this particular section, and they meet up do burnouts,” Ouk said.

Ouk said the law enforcement response appeared coordinated. He said he saw about 20 police cars and a helicopter in the sky.

“This time it was like really quiet like clockwork — a bunch of cops came around and stopped all the exits,” Ouk said. “There were people coming out of the movie theater and they were siphoning them out of this little plaza that we have over here.”

“I’ve never seen a sting like that. It was actually pretty crazy,” he added.

The viral video and the police activity at Tinseltown follow News4JAX reporting last week on a separate social media post promoting what it called a “car meetup afterparty” in Downtown Jacksonville.

That now-deleted Instagram flyer listed E. Bay Street and advertised a Saturday night start time. When asked about that Downtown post last week, JSO told News4JAX it was aware and said it would monitor if an event occurred. A spokesperson also said the agency would take enforcement action if violations of municipal ordinances or state law were reported or observed.

News4JAX asked JSO on Monday morning for details about what happened at Tinseltown, including:

• Whether JSO was aware of any planned gathering at Tinseltown Saturday night
• Whether any arrests were made at or connected to the Tinseltown location
• How many officers responded
• Whether any crashes were reported in connection with the incident

It’s possible these questions will now be answered in Tuesday’s news conference.

Street racing and reckless driving are illegal in Florida and can lead to arrest, fines and license suspensions, and in some cases felony charges for repeat offenders.

If you see street racing or reckless driving happening in real time, call 911. For non-emergencies in Jacksonville, call 904-630-0500.

A new AP-NORC poll shows Republicans and older, white adults are especially likely to say they fly the American flag, while younger Democrats and Black adults are more likely to say they don’t fly it, reflecting deeply divided views on what patriotism means.

And on this final day of a Supreme Court term centering on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power, the justices have upheld the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump's effort to deny the right to the children of noncitizen parents. Follow live updates on the rulings.

Here's the Latest:

Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits

The Court ’s ruling released Tuesday upholds a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

▶ Read more about Tuesday’s Supreme Court rulings

US job monthly openings hold at a surprising 7.6 million despite Iran war shock

May’s job openings were surprisingly strong in the data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing American labor market resilience to the war’s economic shock. Forecasters had expected employers to post just 7 million openings in May.

Rebounding from a miserable 2025, U.S. employers have added nearly 114,000 net jobs a month on average this year, up from just 9,700 in 2025, the weakest outside a recession since 2002.

Because of baby boomer retirements and Trump’s immigration crackdown, fewer people are competing for work, and the United States doesn’t need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate stable. Economists say the so-called “break-even’’ rate of hiring could be as low as zero jobs a month, down from perhaps 150,000 a year or so ago.

▶ Read more

Supreme Court backs state laws banning transgender girls from sports

The Court ’s conservative majority added to its repeated rulings against transgender Americans by deciding that bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

The ruling seems certain to extend to the dozens of other Republican-led states that have banned female transgender athletes. Left unresolved are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

▶ Read more about Tuesday’s Supreme Court rulings

US envoys arrive in Qatar for meetings on Iran, with tensions high over Hormuz

Trump’s special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner plan meetings with mediators about the implementation of an initial deal to end the war in Iran, following more crossfire in the Persian Gulf.

They won’t directly negotiate with Iranian diplomats, instead using mediators as go-betweens, said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.

Iran was also sending a delegation to Qatar, but has no plans to meet with the American side at any level, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said. His statement left open the possibility of messages being passed through the Qataris.

▶ Read more

Who flies the American flag for holidays — and who never flies one, according to an AP-NORC poll

American views of “Old Glory” are divided by politics, age and race, according to a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebration.

Whether people see it as a unifying or divisive symbol tracks with other deep divisions among Americans, who see their country’s history and accomplishments very differently. About 7 in 10 Republicans and about 6 in 10 Americans ages 60 and older fly the flag at least during holidays. About 6 in 10 Democrats and independents, on the other hand, say they “never” fly the U.S. flag. That includes the vast majority, 75%, of Democrats under 45.

Only about 3 in 10 Black adults say they ever display the American flag, compared with about half of white and Hispanic adults.

The survey of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20.

▶ Read more

What the Supreme Court’s Cook ruling means for Federal Reserve independence

The Supreme Court on Monday said the Federal Reserve, unlike any other agency in Washington, has a measure of independence from the presidency and day-to-day politics. But the court didn’t define to what extent.

The case is the latest round in an unprecedented fight between the Fed and Trump. More political interference at the Fed could upend financial markets around the world, which closely follow its interest rate moves.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that the central bank cut its key interest rate to lower borrowing costs for homeowners, businesses, and even the government itself. Trump sought to fire a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, last August after accusing her of mortgage fraud — a charge she denies.

In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the president cannot fire the seven members of the Fed’s board of governors without a clear cause. The decision endorses the Fed’s independent structure even as the court eliminated such protections for leaders of other agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, whom the president can fire at-will.

▶ Read more

Trump nominates acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling as permanent chief

Trump said Monday he will nominate Keith Sonderling to be the secretary of labor, elevating him from the agency’s acting director two months after Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid abuse-of-power allegations.

Sonderling, a lawyer who has held a variety of acting positions and leadership roles across Trump’s government, was previously the deputy labor secretary and a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“Throughout his career, Keith has proven his dedication to delivering strong results for the Hardworking People of our Country, and I know he will do an incredible job in his new role,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing Sonderling’s nomination.

Sonderling’s nomination is subject to Senate confirmation.

During Trump’s second term, in addition to his Labor Department post, Sonderling has been the acting director of U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, one of several agencies Trump targeted for closure in an executive order last year.

▶ Read more

The Supreme Court it issue momentous rulings on Trump’s power

The Supreme Court is wrapping up a term that has focused on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power.

Trump’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship, fire the heads of most independent agencies at will and remove a sitting Federal Reserve governor are among the remaining eight cases the justices are expected to decide this week, beginning Monday.

The court also is weighing, in cases from West Virginia and Idaho, whether to uphold laws in roughly half the states that prohibit transgender girls and women from playing on their public school and college sports.

Two election-related cases remain, over state laws that allow a grace period for the receipt of mailed ballots, provided they are sent by Election Day, and limits on political party spending in support of candidates for Congress and president.

Also outstanding is a dispute over geofence warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users to find people near crime scenes. Critics say the practice is a fishing expedition that violates civil liberties.

▶ Read more

The scores of international and domestic teams across Venezuela remain focused on the search for survivors, with the government death toll surpassing 1,700 and new bodies still being hauled out from the rubble.

But a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding among the living. United Nations agencies expressed concern about the health effects of thousands of displaced people sleeping for days in the open or in crowded, unsanitary shelters.

Venezuelan officials say that more than 15,800 people have been affected by the earthquakes — a figure that reflects the official number of displaced people, U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Carlotta Wolf said on Tuesday. Suddenly homeless Venezuelans are sleeping in cars, parks and elsewhere without adequate emergency shelter available.

Wolf said that number would continue to rise. Many of those displaced in the hardest-hit state of La Guaira are suffering from widespread food shortages, she said.

At a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that displaced Venezuelans have become increasingly vulnerable to the outbreak of preventable diseases like measles, given the population's low vaccination rates, as well as waterborne illnesses like dengue, yellow fever and malaria now flaring the disaster's wake.

The Venezuelan healthcare system, strained by decades of underinvestment and years of economic crisis is “under extreme pressure now, with facilities operating beyond the capacity of the surge of the trauma cases,” Lindmeier said.

According to the government, last week's earthquakes damaged or otherwise compromised 38 hospitals nationwide. WHO said it so far has evaluated 21 of those facilities, three of which are no longer operating. Another six have sustained damage and the rest are now buckling under a surge of trauma cases.

Many specialist doctors are missing in the ruins, including officials in charge of maternity care in La Guaira, WHO said, adding to the strain.

“Findings reveal chaotic service delivery and patient flow, marked by overcrowding, growing surgical backlogs ... and a breakdown in biosafety measures,” Lindmeier said, adding that the mayhem has caused “the collapse of forensic and morgue services and inadequate casualty registration.”

The government has offered daily casualty updates, reporting on Monday that the death toll stood at 1,719 people killed and 5,000 injured. But experts say that's likely a significant undercount, as many more people remain missing and hopes for finding survivors diminish with each passing day.

Authorities have not offered any official count of missing people, and the earthquake's damage to phone networks and other infrastructure has complicated even informal efforts to gauge the toll of those still buried under the rubble.

More than 50,000 people were reported missing on one non-governmental digital database, though it's unclear how many of them have been found.

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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

The ceremony is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 30, in the Naomi T. Glover Conference Room on the fourth floor of City Hall, 117 W. Duval St. A media availability will follow the signing.

Attendees are expected to include Mayor Donna Deegan; Councilwoman Ju’Cuby Pittman; Tiffany Cobb, deputy regional administrator for HUD; Joseph DeFelice, assistant secretary for field policy and management at HUD; Joseph Gormerly, assistant secretary for the Federal Housing Commissioner at HUD; Alesia Scott-Ford, HUD field office director; Paul Olin, general deputy assistant, FHA; and Thomas Waters, director of the city’s Neighborhoods Department.

HUD will also host a home ownership forum at 11:15 a.m. in the Ed Ball Building to outline how agency partners are working to house residents through innovative approaches.

But before you put on that new sweater, shirt, or baby outfit straight from the store, Consumer Reports says you should wash it first.

Here’s why and how to do it without ruining your latest purchase.

Before Yvanna Cajina wears anything new, it goes straight into the wash!

“I’ve had issues with clothes in the past. That’s why I’m really careful about the clothes that I buy and making sure that I wash them beforehand,” she said.

And that’s exactly what experts recommend. Even if new clothes look clean, Consumer Reports says they should always be washed before you wear them.

Consumer Reports Home & Trends writer Jodhaira Rodriguez says that includes everything, especially delicate items like underwear!

It might seem unnecessary to wash all the new clothes you buy, but there are really good reasons to do it.

For example, chemicals from the manufacturing and finishing process can still be on the fabric, and for someone with sensitive skin, that can cause irritation.

And babies can be even more vulnerable. Their skin is thinner and more absorbent than adults’, making them more sensitive to chemicals that may still be lingering in brand-new clothing.

So, you’re not just wearing a new outfit, you’re wearing everything it picked up along the way.

Many clothes travel thousands of miles before reaching you! From factories, warehouses, shipping containers, and store shelves, where they are unpacked, handled, and even tried on by other shoppers.

Along the way, your “new clothing” may collect dust, dirt, bacteria, and even insects before ending up in your closet.

So, what’s the safest way to wash new clothes?

Consumer Reports laundry expert Richard Handel has a few key tips.

“Wash clothes with similar colors together. Some brightly colored garments can bleed or fade during the first wash,” Handel warned. “Washing in cold or cool water on a gentle cycle can help minimize that and reduce the risk of shrinking.”

“I also use a special detergent to make sure that I’m not having a reaction,” Cajina added.

The two top-tested gentle detergent picks from Consumer Reports are Persil Free & Sensitive and Costco’s Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean Free & Clear.

And before tossing anything in the washer, check the care label. Following those instructions can help your clothes last longer and continue looking their best.

Consumer Reports also recommends skipping fabric softener. It can irritate sensitive skin, leave residue inside your washing machine, encourage mold growth, and, over time, may even make some fabrics more flammable.

Prodded by a Republican-led lawsuit that includes Vice President JD Vance, the court's conservative justices were again in the majority of the latest decision that upended congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

The limits on party spending stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.

The Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits, in 2001.

The Republican committees for House and Senate candidates filed the lawsuit in Ohio in 2022, joined by Vance, then a senator from Ohio, and then-Rep. Steve Chabot.

After President Donald Trump took office for his second term, the Federal Election Commission dropped its defense of the law and joined with Republicans in urging that it be overturned.

Democrats had called on the court to uphold the law, even though there is wide agreement that the spending limits have hurt political parties in an era of unlimited spending by other organizations.

Last year, the coordinated party spending for Senate races ranged from $127,200 in several states with small populations to nearly $4 million in California, the most populous state. For House races, the limits were $127,200 in states with only one representative and $63,600 everywhere else.

Entrenched divisions between liberal and conservative justices over campaign finance restrictions were on display when the court heard arguments in December.

“Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dissenter in Citizens United and the court’s other campaign money cases.

By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the Citizens United majority, described the decision as “much maligned, I think unfairly maligned.” The effect of the decision was to ”level the playing field,” Alito said, by expanding the right to spend freely that had previously belonged only to media companies.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, though it's still heading toward its first losing month following two fabulous ones. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 49 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher.

The main reason for this month’s rockiness has been weakness for stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry. After roaring to tremendous heights in the frenzy around AI, such stocks have come under pressure because of worries that they shot too high. That’s a big deal for all investors because AI stocks have grown into some of Wall Street’s largest and most influential, pulling indexes behind them.

AI stocks were a bit calmer on Tuesday, with Nvidia rising 1%. It was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

Outside of AI, the economy seems to be rumbling along, even though U.S. households are still feeling sour about it. A report released in the morning said that U.S. employers were advertising many more job openings at the end of May than economists expected, the latest signal that the job market remains resilient.

But a second report said that confidence among U.S. consumers improved by less than economists expected. More Americans are saying it's hard to get a job, despite the data suggesting continued hiring.

Tuesday's relatively quiet trading came as companies close their books for the quarter running from April through June. Investors will want to see strong growth in profits to justify the big gains stocks made early in the quarter. Even with June’s drop, the S&P 500 is still on track for its best quarter since six years ago, when stocks rocketed out of the crash caused by the COVID pandemic.

Concentrix tumbled 17.7% after the technology company reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that were just shy of analysts’ expectations.

In the oil market, prices edged higher as two U.S. envoys arrived in Qatar for talks with mediators about the implementation of an initial deal to end the war in Iran. The Americans will not be having direct negotiations with Iranian diplomats while in Doha.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 0.5% to $74.27. The hope is that an end to the war will restore full access to the Strait of Hormuz, allowing oil tankers to move more crude and lower its price.

Expensive oil has already sent inflation jumping around the world, which in turn has raised worries that the Federal Reserve and other central banks may have to raise interest rates. Higher rates would keep a lid on inflation, but they would also slow economic growth and hurt prices for investments.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.39% from 4.38% late Monday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.

Germany’s DAX returned 1.3%, and South Korea’s Kospi climbed 1% for two of the bigger gains.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9% as the value of the Japanese yen dropped near its lowest level against the U.S. dollar in 40 years.

U.S. government bonds are paying much higher yields than their Japanese counterparts, and the possibility of rate hikes by the Fed is putting more pressure on the yen. Speculation is rising that Japan’s government may try to prop up the yen’s value, but Japan’s finance minister said only that the government was ready to “respond appropriately whenever necessary.”

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Traffic Homicide Unit says that so far this year, there have been 92 traffic fatalities, and 25 of those involved a pedestrian.

Now, city officials are responding to what they describe as an ongoing safety issue on Jacksonville’s busiest roadways.

City transportation leaders say the focus is on reducing deadly crashes through its Vision Zero initiative, which targets the intersections and corridors where serious crashes happen most often.

Matt Fall, the city’s Bicycle-Pedestrian Coordinator, told News4JAX reporter Briana Brownlee and photojournalist Jesse Hanson that pedestrians and cyclists remain among the most vulnerable road users.

“Crashes are actually going down around the whole country, but the percentage of those involving vulnerable road users like cyclists is actually going up,” Fall said.

Fall says corridors like Philips Highway are especially difficult because they serve as both major commuter routes and access points for businesses, bus stops and neighborhoods, where pedestrians often have to navigate wide roadways between signalized crossings.

“So what we are seeing is our vehicles are getting safer; we have airbags everywhere, we have this detection, but vulnerable users don’t have that three tons of armor around them to protect them,” Fall said. “So, what is happening, these big SUVs are coming into contact with these vulnerable users.”

The city’s Vision Zero plan focuses on what officials call a “High Injury Network,” identifying roads and intersections where severe and fatal crashes are most common.

Safety measures include HAWK pedestrian crossings, road diets that reduce or reconfigure lanes to slow traffic, and leading pedestrian intervals that give walkers a head start before vehicles get a green light.

Officials say visibility and nighttime conditions remain key factors in many pedestrian deaths.

“We found out that over 60% of our pedestrian fatalities are happening in dark lighting conditions. So, it may look cool to be wearing dark clothing, but when riding around at night, try to wear something bright,” Fall said.

A deadly pedestrian crash on Philips Highway came amid a recent stretch of deadly pedestrian incidents across Jacksonville.

In a separate case earlier this month, a woman in her early 50s was found dead in the roadway on West 8th Street after what investigators described as a hit-and-run. The Florida Highway Patrol also investigated another fatal pedestrian crash during the same period.

One Jacksonville man who walks in the area regularly says the danger is constant.

“I’m walking all of the time around here, trying to go to places, and people are trying to run into me; we are just here trying to exist,” he said.

As investigators continue to look into recent crashes, officials are again urging drivers and pedestrians to use caution along high-speed corridors like Philips Highway and West 8th Street.

Anyone with information about hit-and-run crashes is asked to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or CrimeStoppers at 866-845-TIPS, where tips can remain anonymous.

Go to jaxhumane.org for more information.

Protocols designed to protect tennis from doping are in the spotlight as players open up about their experiences navigating the system in the aftermath of a four-year ban handed to 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova — not for testing positive but for refusing to take a test.

Players are required to provide a 60-minute time slot each day to be available for testing, plus the International Tennis Integrity Agency says that if a doping control officer "locates and notifies a player outside of that hour, they must complete the test.”

Naturally, there's a need for communication between players and testers.

“I’m not going to lie, some of them can be pushy, make you feel like you’re doing something wrong,” Gauff, the No. 7 seed, said after her first-round victory at Wimbledon.

“One time she came outside my time slot. But the way she was speaking to me on the phone, it literally made me cry afterwards," the 22-year-old American said. "I found out I was in the right, and I didn’t have to do anything.”

Ahead of her first-round match Tuesday, Ajla Tomljanovic described her close calls.

“I’m very scared of the system because it feels broken," she said. "I’ve had a few experiences of my own where it was about technicalities and when I speak to people in charge they’re not helpful — I don’t want to say they don’t care — but they weren’t very helpful at all to explain things or just show some sort of compassion when I was nowhere near missing a test or testing positive.”

The Australian player said she was seeking help about how the app works.

“I was new to the whole system. And I was at two fails for a month and I knew if I get a third one accidentally I would be out for at least two, three years,” she said. “It’s in a way, I won’t say no fault of my own but it’s not to the degree of being banned and smearing your name. In that sense, I think there’s so much to improve on.”

Williams, who makes her Wimbledon return on Tuesday, said the testing system was “a big reason why I didn’t want to come back either, because it’s just so hard."

The Vondrousova case

The 27-year-old Czech player, who became Wimbledon’s first unseeded female champion when she beat Ons Jabeur in the 2023 final, refused to take a test in early December 2025 after a doping control officer rang her apartment's intercom at 8 p.m.

This month, following a hearing by an independent tribunal, Vondrousova received the maximum four-year ban for a first offense.

ITIA published a video explainer of the case, saying Vondrousova on the night in question challenged the timing of the test because it was outside her designated time slot.

The agency noted: “If a Doping Control Officer, or DCO, locates and notifies a player outside of that hour, they must complete the test.”

Vondrousova had described the tester as “aggressive” and said the frequent ringing of the intercom “triggered a state of distress," the ITIA video says.

The tribunal's June 22 decision confirmed that Vondrousova refused the test and that the evidence “provided no compelling justification for doing so.”

The ITIA added that under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, “test refusals can be sanctioned as severely as positive tests." One rationale is an athlete who is doping could simply refuse a test and seek a lighter punishment.

Last year, the ITIA said it conducted over 8,000 tests both in and out of competition “and received a handful of complaints. We take all feedback on board and encourage players to share their views with us.” Other organizations, such as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, also conduct player testing.

On possible changes to the system, the ITIA noted that tennis follows WADA rules and processes, which "will be refreshed in 2027. As part of this process, WADA consults with athletes from across global sport.”

“We understand the system can seem challenging," the ITIA said, “but it is there to protect players, not to trip them up. If players are ever unsure about a test, have questions, or would like to provide feedback on their experience, we want to hear about it.”

Some players say a 4-year ban is harsh

Jessica Pegula, the No. 4 seed, said she didn't know the full details of Vondrousova's case but that “I feel, like, for Marketa.”

“For something like that, for four years, you’re ruining someone’s career over something that could have really just been a complete misunderstanding, and I just don’t think that’s fair. I think the sentencing is so harsh," Pegula said.

“I don’t quite understand the difference between that and then obviously what happened with (Jannik) Sinner and Iga (Swiatek),” she said. “They justified what the rules were and why it was the way it was.”

Top-ranked Sinner, the defending men's champion at Wimbledon, accepted a three-month ban in a settlement with WADA in early 2025 following his two positive doping tests from the prior year. WADA had challenged ITIA's decision not to suspend Sinner for what it judged was accidental contamination — entering his system through a massage — by a banned anabolic steroid.

Swiatek, Wimbledon's defending women's champion, accepted a one-month suspension in 2024 after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, a heart medication. The ITIA accepted her explanation that the result was unintentional and caused by the contamination of a nonprescription medication, melatonin, that Swiatek was taking for issues with jet lag.

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

The decision announced over the weekend came as the outbreak of a type of Ebola with no approved treatment or vaccine continues to grow, with 1,307 people infected and 377 dead across three provinces in eastern Congo. It could be the worst Ebola outbreak yet.

Congo’s ministry of interior on Saturday said gatherings and demonstrations were forbidden in the provinces of Kinshasa, Tshopo, Haut-Uele and Bas-Uele as fears grow about the outbreak spilling into new areas. None of the provinces have any confirmed cases.

Separately, the mayor of ​Goma, eastern Congo’s largest city and now under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, also banned public gatherings and demonstrations, including celebrations linked to sport events, on Monday. Congo is in its first World Cup in over half a century.

Congo’s political opposition has denounced the ban as unconstitutional. Prince Epenge, the spokesperson for the Lamuka coalition, has said the ban aims to prevent a planned demonstration in the capital, Kinshasa, early next month. The protest is against proposed constitutional changes that would allow Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi to run for a third term.

Civil society organizations also condemned the ban in a statement on Monday, citing freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

In a televised address on Monday evening, Tshisekedi announced a $319 million response plan to the Ebola outbreak, and called on people to respect health guidelines, report suspected cases and not give in to misinformation. He did not directly address the bans.

“Ebola is neither a rumor nor a source of shame,” Tshisekedi said. “It is a health emergency that demands responsibility, solidarity, and truth.”

Health workers have reported some skepticism and attacks over Ebola from residents in the affected areas of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

Cases also have been confirmed in neighboring Uganda, as well as one in France in a doctor who returned from Congo.

The United Nations ​warned in a report on Tuesday that if the virus spreads into other neighboring countries including Rwanda and Angola, it could cost Africa up to $3.6 billion and result in 328,000 job losses.

More than a month into the outbreak, officials believe it continues to outpace response efforts and no one knows its true scale. They are yet to identify patient zero and struggle to trace contact cases.

The World Health Organization has warned that violence from rebels in eastern Congo is complicating the response to the outbreak. In Ituri, attacks by the Islamic State group-backed Allied Democratic Force have cut off access to many villages and forced people to flee their homes, adding to already overcrowded camps of people displaced by years of conflict.

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Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Janvier Barhahiga in Bukavu, Congo, contributed to this report.

The largest U.S. oil company and its consortium partner, QatarEnergy, consider the most likely option for getting the gas to market would be conveying it through a pipeline to existing processing facilities in Egypt where it can be liquefied for export, ExxonMobil's Vice President of Global Exploration John Ardill said.

Other options including building onshore facilities in Cyprus or a floating one in waters over the deposits are considered too costly at this point.

“Everything you’ve seen between the government of Cyprus and the government of Egypt gives us a lot of confidence that there’s good government to government coordination, the agreements in place to leverage that eastern Mediterranean energy hub concept,” Ardill said.

He was speaking after ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy signed a deal with Cyprus declaring the two deposits commercially viable.

The deposits — dubbed Glaucus and Pegasus — are located in Block 10 of Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and are estimated to hold together roughly 7 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Ardill said the consortium is looking to expand its presence off Cyprus, expressing interest in exploring an area, or block, on the southwestern corner of the EEZ that is adjacent to an area where it already holds drilling licenses.

The consortium will carry out additional drilling at the Pegasus deposit around the end of this year to collect more key data for its development, he added.

“So what we should tell ordinary people is we have been working very diligently together between government and investor to make these discoveries and we’re working very diligently to get the gas flowing for the people of Cyprus,” Ardill said.

Cyprus is trying to position itself as a new energy source for Europe and beyond following the initial discovery of natural gas off its southern shore in 2011.

Apart from ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy, two other consortiums hold exploration licenses in the Cypriot EEZ.

A consortium composed of Italy’s Eni and French TOTAL holds licenses for four blocks where two deposits hold an estimated 5.6 trillion cubic feet of gas combined, while a partnership between Chevron, Dutch Shell and Israeli NewMed is licensed for one bloc where the oldest discovery — Aphrodite — holds approximately 5.6 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Earlier this year, Eni’s Chief Operating Officer Guido Brusco said the company was close to making a final decision on developing the Cronos gas field that could deliver the hydrocarbon to European markets by late 2027 or early 2028.

Foundation President Dame Louise Richardson said the awards, launched in 2005, have never been meant to be political. Earlier this month, the foundation changed its name from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to emphasize its nonprofit status and connection to famed industrialist Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant.

“We’re not articulating it in response to this moment,” Richardson told The Associated Press. “But it seems especially important at this moment that we celebrate immigrants and their contributions and also that we present a view of immigrants different from the ones so often portrayed in the media.”

The immigration debate continues at the highest levels of power, as President Donald Trump’s administration executes his agenda to increase immigration enforcement and reduce the numbers of legal immigrants and asylum seekers in the country. On the other side, Pope Leo XIV said, “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border,” as he visited a once-notorious epicenter of the European migration debate in Spain earlier this month.

Richardson — a naturalized American citizen, born in Ireland — said the entire issue has “become so fraught, especially with the movement against legal immigration and, in particular, the visas for highly skilled people.”

“That just strikes me as an act of self-harm on a national level,” she added, “because so many of these people are the engines of the economy.”

CEO Iman Abuzeid wants to inspire other immigrants

Honoree Dr. Iman Abuzeid, co-founder and CEO of the artificial intelligence-driven healthcare career platform Incredible Health, sees the award as recognition not just for her accomplishments, but for everyone who helped her along the way.

“And if my story makes it feel like it’s more possible for someone else, then that’s probably the part that I care about the most,” added the native of Sudan, who now lives in San Francisco.

Abuzeid said she specifically chose to emigrate to the United States after living in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and completing medical school in England.

“It is the best country for what I’m trying to do,” she said. “I think if you’re ambitious and you’re willing to work hard and you’ve got some skills, it is probably the best country in the world for you.”

Being an immigrant, Abuzeid said, has given her the drive to take on risk and bet on her own abilities. It has also influenced her to build Incredible Health in a way that balances the needs of employers looking to hire health care workers with the career needs of the workers, about 20% of whom are immigrants.

“I think being from Sudan does make me a little bit more attuned to topics like bias and diversity,” she said. “Because we’re operating a marketplace at scale, we can see these patterns in our data where workers of certain last names were seeing bias against them. … So when we removed that, we were able to improve that part of the marketplace.”

Conductor Cristian Măcelaru sees immigration as ‘opportunity’

Honoree Cristian Măcelaru, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, said immigration offers both the immigrant and their new home country a chance to improve their lives.

“This is an opportunity we should hold dear,” the native of Romania said. “It really makes for a unique kind of country.”

It also creates a unique artistic point of view, said Măcelaru, who moved to Michigan to study music at Interlochen Arts Academy when he was 16.

“I’ve met so many incredible people that were supportive of my arrival to the United States and embracing of who I was,” he said. “But, at the same time, there is that nostalgia for what you’ve left behind that accompanies you on a daily basis. … The immigrant experience never leaves you.”

Măcelaru, who conducted the Orchestre National de France during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony viewed by more than a billion people in 2024, said culture becomes stronger when it appreciates the strengths of others.

“I think all of us actually love the cultures of different places,” said Măcelaru, who makes a point of diversifying the music presented by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. “It doesn’t matter where we are on the planet, you end up loving music that is from a different place. You end up loving food that is from a different country.”

Harvard's Gregory Nagy ‘awestruck’ by influx of new cultures

Honoree Gregory Nagy, Harvard University’s Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and a professor of Comparative Literature, takes it a step further.

“To have an influx of new cultures and new ways of looking at things — that variety is the human fabric,” said the native of Hungary who emigrated with his family as a boy following World War II. They first went to Canada, and then to the United States when his father was invited to become a professor of classical piano at Indiana University. “I’m just awestruck by how important the melting pot is.”

Nagy, who prides himself on being “a friendly Midwesterner” after spending his formative years in Bloomington, Indiana, uses the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s thoughts on repetition — how a person changes an idea even if they only repeat it — to back up that belief.

But he also supports it with his ongoing teaching. Nagy’s class on “The Ancient Greek Hero,” which he has taught for more than 50 years and is currently the longest-running class at Harvard, continues to change with the times, while remaining true to its subject matter.

He has studied how “The Oath of the Ephebes,” from more than 2,400 years ago, connects the importance of environmentalism to being a good citizen. He says the ancient Greek idea of heroism is closer to modern comic book heroes than to the idealized, perfect versions many Americans hold dear.

That evolution is driven by young people, as reflected in the election of Péter Magyar as prime minister of Nagy’s beloved Hungary in April, the social changes that followed, and the new perspectives brought by immigration, Nagy said.

“I was very fortunate to become an immigrant,” he said. “And I was lucky enough to achieve puberty in Indiana, so that Americanizes you very well.”

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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.

“JSO is not the fun police. But JSO will crack down on bars and restaurants breaking the law. It’s not to stop the party but to keep everyone safe,” the release said.

The Sheriff’s Office said it was conducting a crackdown at Tipsy, off Edgewood Avenue, after receiving multiple complaints about after hours service, violence and serving alcohol to minors.

Officers have responded to two shootings as well as numerous other disturbances at the bar in recent months, JSO said.

Overnight Saturday into Sunday morning, investigators watched as three people sold alcohol past the 2 a.m. legal cutoff with hundreds of patrons still in the bar. They were issued criminal citations.

The JSO Vice Unit, Narcotics and Community Problem Response Units, Code Enforcement, the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, and the Fire Marshal all took part in the raid.

“Our agency will continue to work with our partnering agencies to ensure businesses in Jacksonville are doing everything they can to operate within the law and keep patrons safe,” the JSO release said.

According to a woman who said she was inside celebrating her birthday weekend, officers entered the bar around 3 a.m. Sunday. The woman asked not to be identified.

“Everything was nice vibe, nice chill setting, and we were just enjoying life — and then next thing you know we have these police officers, and they just like bum rush the scene,” she said. “We were scared. We didn’t know what was going on.”

She described officers pushing patrons toward the exits. “They just came in, pushing everyone and telling them get out, get out — everyone gets out, it’s a raid, get out.”

A building violation adds to the bar’s troubles

When News4JAX arrived at the bar Monday, a stop-work order was posted on the door. It was issued after city inspectors said a recent building addition lacked proper permits.

News4JAX reached out to the owner of Tipsy for comment on both the weekend raid and the building notice. As of this report, we had not received a response.

A history of incidents at the nightclub

This is not the first time Tipsy has drawn attention from law enforcement.

Months ago, three people — including a security guard — were shot during a fight inside the bar.

Investigators later arrested Khamari Graham on attempted murder charges in connection with that case.

‘Limited options’ in Jacksonville’s urban neighborhoods

The woman who spoke with News4JAX said she is frustrated — not just with the bar’s troubles, but with what she described as a lack of entertainment options in Jacksonville’s urban communities.

“It’s hardly anything for us to do in Jacksonville, especially in the urban neighborhoods,” she said. “We have limited options. We try to go to the park, they shut down the park. You have a little meetup, they try to shut that down — so it’s really nothing to do here. The little entertainment that we do have, we try to take advantage of that and enjoy it.”

For now, the stop-work order remains posted on the front door of Tipsy Bar and Grill, and it is unclear when or whether the business will reopen.

A stop-work order, issued after city inspectors said a recent building addition lacked proper permits, was posted on the entrance.

What happened during the early-morning raid

Officers entered the bar around 3 a.m. Sunday, according to a woman who said she was inside celebrating her birthday weekend. She asked not to be identified.

“Everything was nice vibe, nice chill setting, and we were just enjoying life — and then next thing you know we have these police officers, and they just like bum rush the scene,” she said. “We were scared. We didn’t know what was going on.”

She described officers pushing patrons toward the exits. “They just came in, pushing everyone and telling them get out, get out — everyone gets out, it’s a raid, get out.”

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office confirmed its Vice Unit responded to the bar and issued Notices To Appear to several employees for their role in the “sale or dispensing of alcoholic beverages after hours.” News4JAX has requested the incident report to determine how many employees were cited.

A building violation adds to the bar’s troubles

Beyond the after-hours alcohol allegations, city inspectors flagged an unpermitted building addition at the property. The resulting stop-work order was posted on the front door when News4JAX visited Monday.

News4JAX reached out to the owner of Tipsy for comment on both the weekend raid and the building notice. As of this report, we had not received a response.

A history of incidents at the nightclub

This is not the first time Tipsy has drawn attention from law enforcement.

Months ago, three people — including a security guard — were shot during a fight inside the bar.

Investigators later arrested Khamari Graham on attempted murder charges in connection with that case.

‘Limited options’ in Jacksonville’s urban neighborhoods

The woman who spoke with News4JAX said she is frustrated — not just with the bar’s troubles, but with what she described as a lack of entertainment options in Jacksonville’s urban communities.

“It’s hardly anything for us to do in Jacksonville, especially in the urban neighborhoods,” she said. “We have limited options. We try to go to the park, they shut down the park. You have a little meetup, they try to shut that down — so it’s really nothing to do here. The little entertainment that we do have, we try to take advantage of that and enjoy it.”

For now, the stop-work order remains posted on the front door of Tipsy Bar and Grill, and it is unclear when or whether the business will reopen.

Both are Black.

For Esters, the flag represents the opportunities that allowed the great-great-grandson of slaves to find success and flourish. Pistochini, 79, simply says the America identified by the flag is not the same country she saw growing up.

Americans' views of “Old Glory” are divided by politics, age and race, according to a new survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ahead of the nation's 250th birthday celebration.

Republicans and older, white adults are especially likely to say they fly the American flag, while younger Democrats and Black adults are more likely to say they don't fly it. Views of the flag — and whether it's a unifying or divisive symbol — track with other deep divisions among Americans, who see their country's history and accomplishments very differently.

“A lot of Black Americans see the flag as a symbol of both inclusion and exclusion,” said Matthew Delmont, professor of American history at Dartmouth College. “Black Americans, more so than white Americans, also understand the flag can be used to justify a version of patriotism that is rooted in exclusion, with the flag being used to say ‘you don’t belong here.’”

The survey of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20. It suggests that older white Americans, especially Republicans, are more likely to see the flag as unifying.

About half of U.S. adults said they display the flag at home throughout most of the year, or during holidays. About 7 in 10 Republicans and about 6 in 10 Americans ages 60 and older fly the flag at least during holidays.

About 6 in 10 Democrats and independents, on the other hand, say they “never” fly the U.S. flag. That includes the vast majority, 75%, of Democrats under 45.

Opportunities worth fighting for

Esters, a 64-year-old retired clay sculptor for a Detroit automaker, flies three American flags at his Sherwood Forest home on the city’s west side.

“When these homes were built, Black men like me, my mother and my family ... we couldn’t even buy these homes,” he said. “To me, that’s one reason I fly the flag. We went through a lot to be able to own nice homes, and this is what we fought for.”

The other reason is Moriah Martin, Esters’ great-great-grandmother, who was born into slavery.

“I’m kind of living out her dreams — what I did for a living, having a business, having a nice home,” he said. “I think that’s the American way, but we got to fight for it and we, as Blacks, fought for it.”

He's in the minority among Black adults, according to the survey, which found that only about 3 in 10 Black adults say they ever display the American flag, compared with about half of white and Hispanic adults.

Pistochini says current divisions over political leanings and perspectives, and inequality of opportunities for the poor and people of color are not what she believes the flag should stand for. People confuse flying it with being patriotic, she added.

“Just because you fly a flag doesn't make you a patriot,” Pistochini said. “If there was patriotism, we would not have all this. We can't look at (what's going on) and say this is America.”

For country and freedom

Ben Gaskins, chair of political science at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, says the flag is an important symbol of patriotism for many Americans.

“It is those who are older people, who are white and people who are more conservative,” Gaskins said. “They take it as more central to their identity.”

Nancy Hansen, a 73-year-old retired Customs and Border Protection clerk in Culvertson, Montana, believes “you have to be for the country, no matter what” and that the flag means “freedom.”

“Freedom to live where we want to live, travel where we want to travel, raise our kids where we want to raise our kids,” said Hansen, who is white and identifies as Republican.

Each year around July 4, the American Legion posts flags outside businesses and homes in Culvertson, including Hansen’s home.

Linda and Greg Cunningham also equate the flag with freedom.

The white, conservative Pontiac, Michigan, couple are going all out this summer. The exterior of their home northwest of Detroit is awash in red, white and blue. The flag sits atop a flagpole just feet from their door.

“It's no political thing, at all," said Linda Cunningham, 63. “It's our freedom. I love the American flag. I love the whole concept of it. I love America. I know there’s so much going on in the world, right now, and I know everyone has their own views, and I'm just sad that politics have to be brought into the flag.”

Flag as a ‘painful reminder’

Of those who took the survey, 47% see the flag as a “more unifying” symbol. About 16% call it a “more divisive” icon, while 36% say it's neither divisive nor unifying.

Only 22% of Black adults see the flag as a unifying symbol, compared with 55% of white adults and 42% of Hispanic adults.

“It’s a painful symbol. It’s a reminder of what we could be and how it’s failed to live up to that for Black people, for Indigenous people and people of color,” said Allison Wiltz, a Black author and founder of Writers and Editors of Color.

Paul Walthour, 71, occasionally flies the flag outside his Minneapolis-area home on special occasions and some holidays. Walthour says that when he’s away from home and at his cabin, the flag goes up each morning and is taken down at the end of the day.

“This is antiquated, perhaps,” said Walthour, who is white and a retired advertising agency creative director. “I feel it’s a symbol that you’re proud to be an American.”

“Unfortunately, I kind of think it’s kind of a symbol of dividing more than uniting,” added Walthour, who identifies as a Democrat. “The people who fly it on the far right have one kind of feeling about it, and the people who fly it on the left have a different kind of feeling about it.”

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Williams is a member of AP's Race & Ethnicity team. Sanders and Parwani reported from Washington.

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The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

According to an arrest report, the bus driver told police that the man came up to the bus at the Kings Avenue Transit Station on Riverplace Boulevard around 9 a.m. Monday.

The driver said the man knocked on the bus door, and when she opened it, he tried to get on without paying the fare, sparking an argument with some of the passengers already on the bus.

The driver said the man eventually got off the bus, and she drove out of the terminal onto Prudential Drive, headed toward Kings Avenue. She said when she turned onto Kings Avenue, she saw the man on the sidewalk, and when she drove by him, she heard three gunshots.

She called the incident into dispatch and drove the bus to a safe spot before stopping, police said.

Investigators said the bus did not appear to have been struck by gunfire, but a “Buses Only” sign was listed as damaged or vandalized in the arrest report.

Officers said they did not find any shell casings in the area.

They said they were able to track the man down in the area based on a description provided by the driver and passengers.

The man was charged with two third-degree felony counts: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill and tampering with evidence.

Nadiem Anwar Makarim was convicted of pushing his ministry to buy Google Chromebook laptops for schools during the COVID-19 pandemic as the American tech giant was considering an investment in Gojek's parent company. Makarim denied wrongdoing.

A panel of five judges at Jakarta’s Corruption Court ordered Makarim to repay 809 billion rupiah (about $45.2 million) — a figure prosecutors said represented the value to him of Google's investment in PT Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa — and imposed a fine of 1 billion rupiah (about $55,870). Prosectors said the purchasing decision also caused $125 million in state losses.

“The defendant, as a minister who should serve as a role model, abused his authority. His actions were deliberate, structured and systematic,” said presiding Judge Purwanto S. Abdullah, “As a high-ranking official, the defendant exacerbated the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the education sector was already in crisis.”

The court didn't find that Makarim's push to buy Chromebooks actually influenced Google. Three former Google executives testified during the trial that Google’s investment in GoTo was unrelated to the Indonesian government’s decision.

Following the verdict Makarim, 41, criticized what he called an excessive punishment and said he would appeal because “there is not a single part of the accusation by the prosecution that has not been refuted, that has not been proven otherwise, no form of bribery, no conflict of interest, there is no state lost.”

Speaking to The Associated Press in a brief interview after the hearing, he said the policy to select the cheapest laptop based on an operating system that is free has saved at least 3.6 trillion rupiah (about $201 million).

“It’s very disappointing decision today and was shocking because the judges in their decision didn’t mention anything about enriching myself,” he said.

“So, I believe that this trial is about the picture of justice in Indonesia and about how every honest person who wants to serve their country are not save in this country,” Makarim added.

The 10-year sentence was far below the 18 years sought by the prosecution, which had told the court that Makarim had abused his position to influence policy decisions and corporate dealings.

The three-judge panel said they reduced the penalty because Makarim is still in his productive age and the sentence imposed should not deny the defendant the opportunity for rehabilitation and a return to contributing to society. They also ordered the time he has served since he was arrested in September to be deducted from the sentence.

Makarim was detained with two former education ministry officials and a former tech consultant who were sentenced up to four-and-half years in the case, while another staff member is wanted by authorities but remains at large.

The trial, which started in January, has drawn significant public attention, often attended by hundreds of motorcycle taxi drivers showing support for the man who helped create their industry.

The judges said Makarim’s decision to use ChromeOS and Chrome Education Upgrades — products licensed exclusively by Google — was driven by a conflict of interest, disregarding advice from the ministry’s legal bureau and policies that required to prioritizing domestic products.

“The defendant maintained the Chromebook policy by systematically removing officials who opposed it during his tenure as education and culture minister,” Abdullah said.

In a dissenting opinion, a member of the panel, Andi Saputra, argued that there was not enough evidence and Marakim should be acquitted.

At the Tower Center of Hope, the Salvation Army is focused on long-term results — not short-term fixes.

Jesse York knows that cycle all too well. After losing his property and then his home with his mother-in-law following her death, York found himself back on the streets — uncertain where he would sleep from one night to the next.

“My property was taken from me, and I struggled for a long, long time, and I moved in with my mother-in-law. She passed away, so that put me back in the streets. You never know from one day to the next where I was gonna have to leave or where I’m gonna be able to spend the night,” York said.

Today, York is a resident at the Tower Center of Hope — and his outlook has changed dramatically.

“I love it here,” he said.

The Tower Center of Hope’s transitional housing program pairs residents with a dedicated case worker who helps them build life skills — from resume writing to financial planning — designed to set them up for lasting independence.

Dr. Minerva Torres, Social Services Director, says financial readiness is at the heart of their approach.

“When they come in, we wanna make sure that they’re financially ready to get back in society and pay rent, and then they won’t have to be back in the streets again. And we have an excellent relationship with the city, as well as JFRD, to make sure that we’re helping the single men that come here,” Torres said.

The facility can house up to 100 men at a time, and Torres says the mission is rooted in a deeper calling.

“Christ shows us that we help our brothers and sisters, and that’s exactly what we are doing at this facility,” she said.

For York, the simple act of having a safe place to rest has been life-changing.

“Being able to go in my room and go to sleep at night without somebody telling me that I gotta get up and go,” he said.

York says he is grateful for the opportunity to rebuild.

“I would like to thank God that I was put here and it’s a blessing,” he said.

Principal Michael Townsend, who was reassigned during the internal personnel investigation in early June, faces a third-degree felony.

The school district did not provide any further details and directed all questions to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

JSO and the State Attorney’s Office said they determined there was sufficient evidence to issue an arrest warrant for Townsend, who bonded out of jail on Tuesday morning.

In Florida, everyone is considered a “mandatory reporter” for suspected child abuse, but school principals also fall under the category of professional mandated reporters, who are legally obligated to report known abuse and must identify themselves when reporting.

LEARN MORE: Who needs to report child abuse, what should be reported & how do you report it?

According to DCPS, the following message was sent to parents and guardians:

Dear Baldwin families,

This is Regional Superintendent Tim Simmons with a very important update regarding Mr. Townsend.

This morning, we were made aware that Mr. Townsend was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on the charge of failure to report child abuse, which is a third-degree felony.

While news like this is difficult to share, especially when it involves a former school leader, it is important that we remain transparent with our school communities. Please know the safety of our students and staff is always our top priority. If you have any questions about the criminal investigation, you may contact JSO directly.

Thank you for your continued support of the Baldwin community.

Tim Simmons, High School Regional Superintendent

We’ve reached out to JSO for more information about the events that led to the arrest.

It comes about a month after teacher James Mulvey was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on a felony charge involving a student.

Detectives say in that case, emails were exchanged between Mulvey and a juvenile victim through their school email accounts.

The district did not say whether the cases were related.

Those brightly colored engagement tactics long ago jumped from smartphone games to everything from online shopping to sports betting and classrooms. So it should come as no surprise that many nutrition-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom also use gaming features to keep users coming back.

But as nutrition apps proliferate, some researchers are raising alarms that gamification features may do more harm than good for some people.

Isabella Anderberg, a psychologist researching digital dieting behavior at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, said calorie tracking can reinforce behaviors associated with body dysmorphia and disordered eating.

“We do know that not everyone’s going to experience harm from using the apps, but there are certainly factors that might increase risk,” Anderberg said. “Approach with caution.”

The case for nutrition tracking apps

Anderberg said there is certainly a place for the apps. Health professionals she interviewed during her research reported that apps can be especially helpful as meal-planning tools for people managing chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. And physical activity apps remind people to move their bodies.

Many users report enjoying them, finding tactics like streak notifications to be motivating.

Angela Drury, an English professor in Woodstock, Georgia, began using MyFitnessPal more than 10 years ago to track protein, fat, carbohydrate and calorie intake when she started CrossFit. She has since cycled through several other apps, including Weight Watchers, Lose It and now Nourish, which is paid for by her insurance and includes blood work and weekly meetings with a dietitian.

Drury said the apps have helped her stay on track with fitness goals and have sometimes steered her away from high-calorie foods when she uploaded photos of meals she was considering eating. She feels a little boost when she gets a badge for continuing a streak for logging meals, but a notification that says she hasn’t entered lunch has the opposite effect.

“Then it felt like it was scolding me,” she said.

Be wary of what the app tells you

The way most apps work, users enter height, weight, age and other information and then set a goal. The app says how many calories or macronutrients are needed to reach that goal, using gamelike elements such as badges, streaks, rewards, points and notifications to encourage user engagement.

Many nutrition tracking apps are free but offer premium versions that users must pay for.

The Centers for Disease Control and others say that how many calories you need depends on factors including your age, sex and level of physical activity. The CDC provides a tool to calculate how many calories an individual needs.

Critics warn that food databases are often inaccurate, with estimated portion sizes and calorie counts that vary widely.

Courtney Simpson, a behavioral psychologist and director of eating disorders at the Evidence-Based Treatment Centers of Seattle, said some apps encourage people to set calorie goals that are far too low for any adult. That's not only unhealthy but can set people up for failure.

The gaming features keep people coming back to unrealistic goals, creating shame that may contribute to binge eating or other behaviors people are trying to change, Simpson said.

“It’s not that gamification itself is bad. It’s about what it is promoting,” she said. “Is that actually going to be beneficial?”

MyFitnessPal and Noom did not respond to several requests for comment.

Listen to your body

Anderberg said people who already believe that thinner is better are more likely to misuse the apps. Calorie and macronutrient tracking can then become obsessional, which creates more negative feelings when daily goals aren’t met.

She urged users to be skeptical of what the apps tell them to do and instead rely on their own intuition. If you feel the need to rest, nurse an injury or treat yourself to something delicious, do so.

“We are sort of losing that ability to read our body cues,” she said.

Simpson noted that focusing on weight as a measure of overall health, besides being inaccurate, makes it more likely to lose and regain weight. Such cycling is linked to worse health outcomes over time.

“If you really want lasting change, then you need to be doing behaviors that are feasible and sustainable for you over time,” she said.

Drury could see how the apps could be harmful for people predisposed to disordered eating, but she said the most important consideration for her is to set realistic goals and listen to your body.

“I’ve ultimately learned that you cannot starve yourself into being in the shape you want to be in,” she said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Leo wrote in a letter to the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X.

Leo issued the last-ditch appeal a day before the society plans to consecrate four new bishops at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland. Under church law, the consecrations constitute a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church, and incur automatic excommunication for the four bishops and the bishop administering the consecration.

In response to the pope’s letter, Marc-André Mabillard, media manager for the society, expressed “great sadness to not be understood by our leader,” and added: “We are changing absolutely nothing in our plans.”

Asked by phone about the prospect of excommunication, Mabillard said: “We don’t fear it. It pains us immensely, but we believe that the good we seek is greater than the pain that will be inflicted upon us.”

The ceremony poses the first major crisis for the American pope, who has stressed the need for church unity since the start of his pontificate. He has worked especially hard to heal tensions with traditionalist Catholics who prefer the old Latin Mass, that worsened in some ways during the Pope Francis pontificate.

The society was founded in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the council revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other religions and the laity, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages rather than Latin.

Its members celebrate the ancient Latin Mass and have accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors. The society insists that only the SSPX is upholding the true faith of Christ and has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

In 1988, SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the church.

The Vatican in 2009 lifted those original excommunications as part of its outreach to try to bring the group back under its wing. But the Vatican has warned that a similar fate awaits the new bishops if Wednesday's consecrations go ahead.

In his letter, Leo repeated the Vatican's offer of dialogue and said that going through with the consecrations would be counterproductive for the SSPX faithful.

“I urge you to consider carefully the spiritual good of the faithful, because the schismatic act you are about to undertake would deprive them of the licit, and in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments,” he wrote.

Despite the original 1988 schismatic act, the group has continued to grow and today poses a threat to the Holy See as a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church. The SSPX counts two bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

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Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

___

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

In all, there are 131 laws that will kick off next month.

You can find the full list of laws taking effect in July below. The list has been updated as of June 29 by our sister station WKMG in Orlando.

HB 33 — New Road Names

House Bill 33 renames the following roadways in Florida:

• Charlie Kirk Memorial Avenue — The portion of State Road 985 between Southwest 24th Street and State Road 90 in Miami-Dade County
• President Donald J. Trump Boulevard — The portion of State Road 870 between West Tradewinds Avenue and the eastern end of Commercial Boulevard in Broward County

Under this law, the FDOT must erect suitable markers for these new designations.

HB 35 — Traffic Offenders

House Bill 35 revises the term “habitual traffic offender” to add the offense of driving without a valid license.

This crime will be added to the list of offenses for which a certain number of convictions in a five-year period requires the state to designate the person as a habitual traffic offender.

Once a person is designated as a habitual traffic offender, he/she can generally be prosecuted for a third-degree felony for driving a motor vehicle thereafter.

HB 47 — Medical Diagnoses

House Bill 47 lets parents whose child is removed from their home by the DCF ask for a second medical evaluation (or a compilation of differential diagnoses) within five days of an initial examination.

The healthcare practitioner who performs the second evaluation must submit a written report to both the DCF and the parents within 10 days.

Furthermore, the law allows the DCF to delay forwarding allegations of criminal conduct to law enforcement pending the outcome of the child protection investigation if the parent alleges the child has a certain preexisting condition or asks for a second evaluation.

SB 52 — Security Services

Senate Bill 52 refers to a state statute that regulates private investigative and security services.

More specifically, the law expresses that this statute doesn’t apply to volunteers who provide armed security services at churches, mosques, synagogues or other places of worship.

HB 89 — Veterinary Prescriptions

House Bill 89 requires licensed veterinarians to clearly inform clients of their right to receive a written prescription for medication that can be filled at the pharmacy of a client’s choice.

The law also mandates that if the veterinary clinic is able to fill the prescription, the vet should disclose that option to the client, as well.

SB 124 — Florida Virtual Schools

Senate Bill 124 amends state statutes regarding the Florida Virtual School, which was founded in 1997 to provide students in the state with tech-based educational opportunities.

More specifically, the law makes several technical changes, such as including all full-time and part-time FLVS students for the purposes of full-time equivalent student calculations.

HB 131 — Estate Curators

House Bill 131 amends the state’s Probation Code, which outlines how estates may be administrated.

More specifically, the law modifies provisions like curator bond requirements and when courts may appoint curators.

HB 167 — Phosphate Mining

House Bill 167 establishes a defense from strict liability in lawsuits related to environmental pollution brought under the WQAA.

More specifically, the defense kicks in if the lawsuit is related to pollution caused by a former phosphate mine and certain requirements are met.

SB 168 — Public Nuisances

Senate Bill 168 declares any place that has been used as a gambling house at least twice within a 12-month period a “public nuisance.

The law also increases maximum fines if nuisance activity persists beyond one year from $250 per day to $500 per day.

HB 177 — Conflict of Interest

House Bill 177 refers to capital cases in which the CCCRC represents an indigent defendant but determines that it can’t continue to provide representation due to conflicts of interest or similar reasons.

In these scenarios, a judge may appoint a CCCRC from a different region to represent the defendant rather than a private attorney under certain conditions.

HB 178 — School Athletics

House Bill 178 requires that head coaches of sports teams be allowed to use personal funds to support the welfare of students under the FHSAA.

Under this law, coaches may provide help in the form of food, transportation and recovery services.

That said, coaches are limited to using $15,000 in personal funds per athletic team per year.

SB 182 — Teacher Mentors

Senate Bill 182 establishes the School Teacher Training and Mentoring Program, aimed at improving teacher effectiveness in public schools.

Under this program, qualified teachers can be placed as mentors in schools that have a “D” or “F” grade, thereby improving the performance of these schools.

SB 192 — Patient Funds

Senate Bill 192 deletes the $1,500 cap on advances a chiropractic physician may collect for examination or treatment.

HB 199 — Veterans Affairs

House Bill 199 amends existing requirements for admission to a veterans treatment court program at any stage of a criminal proceeding.

More specifically, the law repeals requirements for the state attorney to approve placement into such a program, as well as an application from a defendant for participation.

SB 212 — Sex Offenders

Senate Bill 212 amends state statutes regarding sexual offenders and predators in the state.

Under this law, those convicted of certain sex offenses against children 16 years of age or younger may not live within 1,000 feet of a public swimming pool.

Current law already prohibits these sorts of sex offenders from living near schools, childcare facilities, parks and playgrounds, though this bill cracks down even harder via the following rules:

• Contacting Children: Such offenders may be arrested without a warrant if they knowingly contact a minor at any park, playground or public swimming pool.
• School Grounds: Such offenders may be arrested without a warrant if they’re purposefully present in any pre-K-12 school while the school is still in operation, with few exceptions.
• Prowling Offenders: The bill increases the restricted distance for loitering and prowling by such sex offenders from 300 feet to 500 feet of places where children congregate.

HB 245 — Child Pornography

House Bill 245 replaces the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” under state law.

This shift does not change any other elements of the law, including offenses related to child pornography.

HB 249 — State Flagship

House Bill 249 redesignates the official state flagship.

More specifically, the law replaces the current state flagship (the schooner Western Union) with the S.S. American Victory.

HB 253 — Dental Care

House Bill 253 expands eligibility for the Veterans Dental Care Grant Program.

The law accomplishes this by providing explicit statutory authorization for the program to provide services to veterans with incomes of up to 400% of the federal poverty level.

HB 271 — Bail Bonds

House Bill 271 subjects foreign and alien bail bond insurers doing business in Florida to the same reporting requirements as domestic bail bond insurers.

HB 273 — Special Districts

House Bill 273 requires that when state or federal money is used to help special districts in rural areas, the agreement must allow those districts to get paid for approved work they finish.

HB 277 — Domestic Violence

House Bill 277 enhances domestic violence penalties if the suspect has already been convicted of that crime in the past.

The bill also increases the funding amount for relocation assistance claims for victims of domestic violence from $1,500 to $2,500 for a single claim (lifetime maximum bumped from $3,000 to $5,000).

Furthermore, the bill adds threatening to kill/injure a family pet and the existence of a military protective order to the list of factors that judges can consider when determining whether to grant a domestic violence injunction.

SB 288 — Electric Cooperatives

Senate Bill 288 revises a state statute that prohibits certain bylaws, tariffs and policies from being used by rural electric cooperatives.

Under this law, the statute is limited to only those cooperatives that sell electricity at retail.

SB 290 — FDACS

Senate Bill 290 makes a number of changes to state law related to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS).

Some of these changes include a prohibition on local governments from banning gas-powered landscape equipment, and criminal penalties for those receiving unauthorized help on a CDL exam.

You can read a list of more changes here.

SB 296 — Domestic Violence

Senate Bill 296 requires the Division of Telecommunications to investigate the feasibility of a domestic and dating violence 911 alert system.

The results of the study must be reported to the Senate President and House Speaker by Jan. 31, 2027.

SB 298 — Public Records (Domestic Violence)

Senate Bill 298 expands two existing public record exemptions for victims of domestic violence who participate in the state’s confidentiality program.

SB 302 — Coastal Resiliency

Senate Bill 302 prohibits any dredging or filling of submerged lands at the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, with some exceptions provided for public safety and environmental protection.

This law is also expected to streamline the permitting process for nature-based methods aimed at improving coastal resiliency, helping to accelerate restoration timelines.

SB 340 — Human Trafficking

Senate Bill 340 requires graduates of professional and practical nursing programs to complete a two-hour course on human trafficking to be eligible to sit for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX).

The NCLEX is a prerequisite for full licensure. Furthermore, this requirement applies to students who apply to take the NCLEX on or after July 1, 2027.

HB 355 — Patient Protection

House Bill 355 requires the AHCA to establish minimum standards for pediatric patient care in hospital emergency departments.

Furthermore, the bill requires all hospitals with emergency departments to develop and implement policies and procedures for pediatric patient care in the department.

HB 359 – Search Warrants

The bill amends multiple sections of law relating to obtaining search warrants. Specifically, the bill:

• Provides that a judge may authorize a law enforcement officer to appear remotely using audio-video communication technology when seeking a search warrant from the judge.
• Specifies that law enforcement may obtain a search warrant to search an area or areas, using a drone, where evidence that a crime was committed might reasonably be found.
• Expands the circumstances in which a judge may issue a search warrant to authorize this issuance of a warrant to recover a dead body.

Generally, a law enforcement agency must return a search warrant to the issuing court within 10 days, not including the date of issuance. The bill increases the number of days certain search warrants must be returned by to within:

• Twenty days if a search warrant issued to an out-of-state provider for electronic communications data.
• Thirty days if a search warrant is issued to search for and seize specimens from a specific person for DNA analysis and comparison, including blood and saliva samples, or to seize specimens for entry into the DNA database.
• Three hundred sixty five days if a search warrant is issued for a computer, a computer system, or an electronic device, and any data or information contained in such computer, computer system, or electronic device.

The bill specifies a search warrant issued to search for and seize data or information contained in a computer, computer system, or electronic device, the warrant is considered timely executed if the computer, computer system, or electronic device is seized by a law enforcement agency within 10 days of the issuance of the search warrant, not including the date of issuance. A law enforcement agency is not required to complete the analysis or review of data or information contained in a computer, computer system, or electronic device within any specific time if such computer, computer system, or electronic device was timely seized by a law enforcement agency.

SB 386 — Farm Equipment

Senate Bill 386 sets up a process for consumers and manufacturers to remedy defective farm equipment.

If farm equipment is defective, this law lets buyers report the defect to the manufacturer during the warranty period or the one-year period after the original delivery date of the farm equipment.

The law also requires the manufacturer to either replace or refund any defective farm equipment.

SB 394 — Reinsurance Managers

Senate Bill 394 exempts an underwriting manager who manages assumed facultative risks for a reinsurer from reinsurance intermediary manager licensing requirements.

This applies if the facultative reinsurance business managed by the underwriting manager is less than 10% of the assumed annual gross written premium of the insurer.

SB 418 — Blue Envelope Program

Senate Bill 418 creates the “Blue Envelope Program” to improve communication between autistic people and law enforcement officers during motor-vehicle related interactions.

Under the program, individuals may be identified as having Autism Spectrum Disorder, with blue envelopes including communication guidelines for officers to keep in mind about specific individuals.

These blue enveloped will be available upon request from the FLHSMV or the local tax collector starting on Jan. 1, 2027.

SB 422 — Airport Broadcasts

Senate Bill 422 prohibits airports from using information derived from automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) systems emitted from certain aircraft as a means of collecting fees from owners.

This rule is limited to aircraft with a gross weight of 12,499 pounds or less operating under FAA rules and applies under the following two scenarios:

• The operation for which a fee would be assessed is a departure or a landing, including touch-and-go landings
• The fee would be assessed based on an aircraft entering into the airspace of the airport where the fee is assessed

HB 425 — Historic Cemeteries

House Bill 425 provides that if a recorded historic African-American cemetery sells excess vacant land to fund the cemetery’s long-term upkeep, the local government must administratively approve an application to rezone the excess land to allow for development consistent with adjacent land uses.

Furthermore, the law lets local governments use reasonable discretion to determine the new zoning, provided that it’s consistent with the surrounding area.

SB 428 — Drowning Prevention

Senate Bill 428 amends the Swimming Lesson Voucher Program, raising the age limit to include children between 1 and 7 years of age.

SB 436 — Felony Battery

Senate Bill 436 expands the list of qualifying prior offenses that allow for misdemeanor battery to be upgraded to a third-degree felony.

More specifically, if someone has a prior conviction of resisting an officer with violence, any subsequent battery charges may be bumped up to a third-degree felony.

HB 441 — Conservation Lands

House Bill 441 requires that when a water management district considers selling conservation lands, the governing board publish the following information at least 30 days before meeting:

• The district-owned parcels of land for sale or proposed for exchange
• The privately owned parcels proposed for exchange
• The portions of those parcels that will be preserved in a permanent conservation easement
• A statement from the district explaining why those lands are no longer needed for conservation purposes

HB 445 — Dangerous Crimes

House Bill 445 adds certain offenses dealing with child exploitation and certain kinds of computer porn to the list of dangerous crimes under Florida law.

This means that someone arrested for one of these offenses can’t be given nonmonetary pretrial release at a first appearance hearing.

HB 453 — High School Diplomas

House Bill 453 allows student with disabilities to substitute one school year of participation in the Special Olympics for the P.E. requirement for a standard high school diploma.

Furthermore, the law specifies that two years of marching band satisfies both the one-credit requirement in P.E. and the one-credit requirement in performing arts.

SB 474 — Military Affairs

Senate Bill 474 revises laws relating to military service leave for public employees.

For example, the law expands eligibility for certain leave protections to include public officials who are also members of the U.S. Coast Guard or Florida State Guard.

SB 474 also expands the eligibility requirements for financial assistance from the Soldiers and Airmen Assistance Program.

HB 477 — Drug Paraphernalia

House Bill 477 expands the type of narcotic-drug testing products excluded from the definition of “drug paraphernalia.”

More specifically, the law excludes products that are used solely to determine whether a controlled substance contains xylazine.

SB 484 — Data Centers

Senate Bill 484 prohibits utilities from passing data center costs — including electricity costs — onto residential and small business customers.

Furthermore, the law prohibits utilities from serving data centers controlled by foreign countries of concern, and it allows local communities to set stricter standards on such centers.

HB 491 — Faith-Based Content (BIPs)

House Bill 491 allows Batterers’ Intervention Programs (BIPs) to offer supplemental faith-based activities as a voluntary service to participants referred to a BIP by court order or by consent for acts of domestic violence.

That said, the law also preserves current rules, which require all mandatory BIP curricula to be based on a psychoeducational or cognitive behavioral therapy intervention model.

SB 504 — Body Cameras

Senate Bill 504 requires governmental agencies that allow code inspectors to wear body cameras to set up policies addressing proper use and storage of these cameras, as well as the recorded data.

SB 506 — Public Records (Body Cameras)

Senate Bill 506 creates a public records exemption for code inspectors’ body camera recordings if the footage is recorded:

• Inside a private residence
• Inside a facility that offers health care, mental health care, or social services
• In a place that a reasonable person would expect to be private

HB 538 — Extracurricular Activities

House Bill 538 revises student eligibility and participation requirements for extracurricular activities, including athletics. It makes a variety of changes, including:

• Allowing districts to use funds raised through high school booster clubs for activities to pay the coaches of those activities
• Authorizing districts to classify athletic coaches and activity sponsors of extracurricular activities as administrative personnel and thusly negotiate salary compensation
• Permitting students who wish to participate in a sport that their current school doesn’t offer to participate in that sport through another school in the same district

HB 561 — Educator Preparation

House Bill 561 makes it easier for teachers whose licenses expired to get back into the classroom, but without having to retake subject area exams that have already been passed.

The bill also gives these educators a temporary license so that they can work and earn the classes or training hours they need, and it sets up free training to help them renew or fix their license.

HB 565 — Persons With Disabilities

House Bill 565 requires the Agency for Persons with Disabilities to recognize Tatton-Brown-Rahman syndrome as a qualifying condition for APD services.

The law also requires all employees — not just managers and supervisors — of APD-licensed adult day training and residential facilities to undergo a level 2 background screening.

HB 569 — Forensic Client Services

House Bill 569 allows the Agency for Persons with Disabilities to house non-forensic clients and forensic clients within the same wards in secure APD facilities.

SB 578 — Alzheimer’s Awareness

Senate Bill 578 requires the DOEA to contract for the development of a statewide Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Initiative.

The initiative must provide Florida residents affected by Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias with greater support and access to helpful information.

SB 584 — Commercial Driving Schools

Senate Bill 584 allows for county tax collectors to enforce statutory provisions related to commercial driving schools.

More specifically, the law allows these agencies to enter into agreements with the DHSMV to better crack down on fraudulent or deceitful business practices by these sorts of schools.

SB 590 — Statute of Limitations

Senate Bill 590 extends the window to prosecute someone who willfully fails to make a required report of suspected child abuse, abandonment, neglect or sexual abuse.

This is done by pausing the statute of limitations until a law enforcement agency becomes aware of the reporting violation.

SB 594 – Local Housing Assistance Plans

The bill requires each county and municipality local housing assistance plan under the State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) Program to include a strategy for providing program funds to mobile home owners, including assistance with lot rental payments. The bill specifies that lot rental assistance is an approved home ownership activity for which local governments may award SHIP funds, but such assistance may not exceed the equivalent of six months’ rent. The bill also authorizes funds reserved for the construction, rehabilitation, or emergency repair of eligible housing to be used for the rehabilitation or emergency repairs of mobile homes.

Finally, the bill removes the current law restriction that limits the use of SHIP funds for manufactured housing to 20 percent of the total funds made available in each county and municipality.

SB 598 — Funeral Services

Senate Bill 598 makes several revisions to a state statute that regulates funeral and cemetery services.

For example, the law prohibits licensees from contracting to become the sole provider of funeral services for any firm that provides medical or end-of-life care to the public.

Furthermore, SB 598 allows licensees to dispose of human remains that have been in their lawful possession for at least 90 days if the legally authorized person of the decedent fails to direct the disposition.

HB 625 — JAC Members

House Bill 625 increases the number of the Justice Administrative Commission from four to seven.

SB 628 — Trump Highway

Senate Bill 628 renames over a dozen roadways across the state.

The bill also designates the Tallahassee airport at 3300 Capital Circle SW as the “Bobby Bowden-Tallahassee International Airport.”

Furthermore, SB 628 designates 124 miles of SR-80 stretching from SR-A1A in Palm Beach County to US-41 in Lee County as the “President Donald J. Trump Highway.”

HB 655 — Public Records (Attorney Meetings)

House Bill 655 creates a public meeting exemption for state and local agencies to meet privately with their attorneys under the Bert Harris Act.

More specifically, the law exempts the meeting’s transcripts from public disclosure until the relevant property-rights claim is settled (or when the statute of limitations ends, if there’s no litigation).

SB 656 — Crimes Against Children

Senate Bill 656 renames the “Online Sting Operations Grant Program” to the “Internet Crimes Against Children Grant Program.”

Under this program, grants may be awarded to local law enforcement agencies to help them combat online child exploitation and to target those preying on children online.

HB 679 — Trademark Registration

House Bill 679 mandate that the Florida Department of State use the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s schedule of classes of goods and services as the state’s classification for trademark purposes, rather than the general classes for trademarks for goods and services set in statute.

Furthermore, the bill requires that agency to set up a website where applicants can apply for a trademark or renew a trademark and provides that the website must safeguard the applicant’s information to ensure data integrity.

SB 686 — Agricultural Enclaves

Senate Bill 686 deals with agricultural enclaves: pockets of agricultural land that are mainly surrounded by development.

Under this bill, enclave owners may submit development plans for single-family housing.

Local governments won’t be allowed to enact regulation for one of these enclaves that is more burdensome than for other types of applications for comparable uses, either.

HB 697 — Drug Prices

House Bill 697 makes it unlawful for a PBM to force a pharmacy to take a loss when dispensing a drug or to reimburse a nonaffiliated pharmacy less than an affiliated pharmacy.

Furthermore, the law requires PBMs to allow in-network pharmacies to submit consolidated appeals comprised of multiple adjudicated claims featuring identical drugs, day supplies, and dates of service.

HB 753 — School Counselors

House Bill 753 exempts prospective school counselors from certain professional preparation and educational competence requirements otherwise imposed on classroom teachers by state law.

However, the bill clarifies that individual school districts may still require these requirements as a condition of employment for school counselors.

SB 772 — Eyewear Insurance

Senate Bill 772 expands Florida’s limited-license portable electronics insurance agent license to also cover eyewear insurance, including smart glasses and non-electronic eyewear.

HB 797— Nonprofits

House Bill 797 revises the Florida Not For Profit Corporation Act to conform with the Model Nonprofit Corporation Act and the Florida Business Corporation Act.

SB 800 — Engineering Violations

Senate Bill 800 provides an escalating fine schedule for subsequent violations of engaging in the unlicensed practice of engineering. These fees are as follows:

• $10,000 for a second violation
• $15,000 for a third violation
• $20,000 for a fourth violation
• $25,000 for a fifth and subsequent violation

HB 803 — Building Permits

House Bill 803 limits local government regulation of glazing requirements on commercial buildings, and provides for lower fees when a private provider is retained for commercial construction projects.

The law also mandates that certain building permits expire after one year after issuance or on the effective date of the next edition of the Florida Building Code — whichever is later.

SB 816 — Diabetes Research

Senate Bill 816 codifies the University of Florida Diabetes Institute as a statewide resource for diabetes research, prevention, treatment and education.

SB 820 — Problem-Solving Court Reports

Senate Bill 820 specifies additional data that must be presented in the annual problem-solving court reports prepared by the Office of the State Courts Administrator.

The law creates data reporting requirements for early childhood court and veterans treatment court programs, and amends reporting requirements for mental health and drug courts.

SB 824 — School Property

Senate Bill 824 requires each school district to submit an annual inventory of unimproved real property owned as of June 30 each year.

This information will be compiled into a report for state leaders, along with possible recommendations for how to best use the land.

SB 844 — Sickle Cell Disease

Senate Bill 844 requires that the standard continuing education course on prescribing controlled substances include information regarding the treatment of pain for patients with sickle cell disease.

SB 848 — Stormwater Treatment

Senate Bill 848 allows ERP applicants to use compensating stormwater treatment as a mitigation measure when existing ambient water quality prevents compliance with water quality standards.

Furthermore, ERP applicants for regional stormwater managements systems must provide documentation of adequate financial responsibility, along with a graphic depicting the drainage area served by the system.

HB 851 — Autism Learning

House Bill 851 requires each school district to provide at least one annual autism-specific professional learning opportunity for instructional personnel and school-based administrators.

HB 867 — Dry Needling

House Bill 867 allows occupational therapists to perform dry needling, and establishes minimum experience, education, and training requirements to do so.

HB 883 — Insurance Companies

House Bill 883 allows protected cell captive insurance companies to operate and be domiciled in Florida, thus creating a regulatory framework for such companies.

HB 905 — Foreign Influence

House Bill 905 aims to limit influence in the state from “foreign countries of concern,” including places like Iran, North Korea, Cuba, China and Russia.

The law accomplishes this by prohibiting charities from accepting contributions from these countries, restricting preplanned adoption/surrogacy agreements with citizens of these nations, and setting up harsher penalties for crimes committed to benefit such groups.

HB 913 — Inmate Services

House Bill 913 requires money in the Contractor-Operated Institutions Welfare Trust Fund to be used exclusively for programs to help inmates reintegrate back into society, as well as environmental/health upgrades in contractor-operated institutions.

HB 919 — Donald Trump Airport

House Bill 919 preempts to the state the ability to name major commercial service airports.

More specifically, the law renames the Palm Beach International Airport as the “President Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

All other major airports, including the Orlando International Airport, may keep their current names for now.

HB 925 — Court Clerks

House Bill 925 increases funding to the Clerks of the Court.

However, the law doesn’t raise any existing service charges or fees, or create any new service charges or fees that the Clerks may assess.

HB 927 — Local Land Planning

House Bill 927 requires certain local governments to create a registry of qualified contractors to conduct pre-application reviews of plans, permits or plats submitted in line with local land development rules.

HB 929 — Chickee Regulation

House Bill 929 prohibits local governments from enacting an ordinance that prevents a member of the Miccosukee or Seminole tribes from constructing a chickee under certain conditions.

HB 961 — Electronic Signatures

House Bill 961 requires that insurance companies implement secure control processes and procedures for electronic signatures that are acceptable to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

SB 984 — Firefighter Benefits

Senate Bill 984 expands the eligibility for disability and death benefits available to firefighters after a cancer diagnosis.

Current law provides a $25,000 one-time payout as a disability benefit resulting from an initial diagnosis.

However, the bill would make that available to a former firefighter regardless of whether he/she elects to continue coverage in an employer-sponsored health plan or group health insurance trust fund.

SB 1004 — Pet Sales

Senate Bill 1004 implements several new consumer protections related to pet sales in Florida.

The new provisions include the following:

• Requiring pet dealers to disclose financing terms before a sale is finalized
• Allowing consumers to terminate financing agreements without penalty if an animal is later found unfit for purchase due to illness or disease
• Requiring pet dealers to provide veterinary medical records documenting examinations, medications, and treatments provided to the animal
• Requiring written notice informing consumers of their rights under Florida law, including the ability to return or exchange a sick animal and seek reimbursement of veterinary costs
• Making violations enforceable under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act

HB 1019 — Firefighting Foam

House Bill phases out the use of firefighting foam that contains intentionally added perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

SB 1022 — Children’s Initiatives

Senate Bill 1022 provides for the creation of the Bay County 32401 Children’s Initiative in Bay County, and the Pompano RYZE Children’s Initiative in Broward County.

These sorts of initiatives are community-based service networks located in disadvantaged areas of the state to improve education, economic and health outcomes for local residents.

SB 1030 — Recovery Residences

Senate Bill 1030 changes rules for licensing of substance-abuse treatment providers, which is regulated by the DCF.

Under this law, already-licensed providers with a clean record over the prior year may add new services without being forced to take clients during a “probationary” license period just to prove they can operate.

HB 1031 — Callback Queues

House Bill 1031 sets up a pilot program to implement callback queues at two state agencies: the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Children and Families.

HB 1069 — Background Screenings

House Bill 1069 makes several changes to background screenings in the state, including:

• Prohibits a person from acting as an athletic coach if he/she doesn’t pass specified background screening qualifications
• Specifies that volunteers required to undergo such background screenings are limited to volunteer coach, assistance coach, manager, or referee for a youth athletic team
• Prohibits a person from denying or failing to acknowledge arrests covered by expunged or sealed criminal records if he/she is screened through the Clearinghouse by a qualified entity

HB 1073 — School Board Bill of Rights

House Bill 1073 establishes a District School Board Members’ Bill of Rights, which does the following:

• Provides members with access to school district documents necessary to fulfill the duties required under the State Constitution and Florida
• Allows members to consult with the district’s CFO on budget information
• Lets members request documents or information from school staff, subject to legal restrictions and administrative approval
• Grants members the ability to publicly comment on district school board business, except for student/employee disciplinary matters or other issues prohibited by law

HB 1081 — Cybersecurity Experiential Learning

The bill requires the Florida Center for Cybersecurity (Cyber Florida) at the University of South Florida to develop a Cybersecurity Experiential Learning Program and:

• Identify specific cybersecurity internship and experiential learning opportunities;
• Consult with employers in the state with openings in cybersecurity roles;
• Review best practices for cybersecurity learning opportunities at other National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity-designated educational institutions;
• Establish minimum qualifications that a student should possess prior to enrolling in the Cybersecurity Experiential Learning program; and
• Identify educational institutions seeking to participate in the program and the projected number of students to be served at each participating institution.

Implementation of the bill is subject to appropriation. Additionally, Cyber Florida must publish a report annually on its website, beginning July 1, 2028, containing specified data on the program and recommendations for program improvements.

HB 1085 — Cyber Security

House Bill 1085 creates the Local Government Cybersecurity Protection Program within the University of South Florida, to be administered by Cyber Florida.

The program must help eligible local governments with developing cybersecurity risk management programs to defend against cybersecurity threats.

HB 1093 — Vertiports

House Bill 1093 includes vertiports and charging systems as qualifying projects for funding under public-private partnerships between state and private entities.

In addition, the law allows the FDOT to fund all of the project costs of a public vertiport if federal funds aren’t available.

HB 1103 — Vessel Restrictions

House Bill 1103 allows local governments to administer provisions of law concerning vessels at risk of becoming derelict and long-term anchoring permits.

Furthermore, the law lets cities and counties regulate vessel speed and operation within 300 feet of a confluence of water bodies presenting a blind corner (up to 1,000 feet) if the extended area is necessary to ensure safe navigation and visibility for approaching vessels.

HB 1113 — Vessel Restrictions

House Bill 1103 allows local governments to authorize a code enforcement officer to administer the provision of law concerning vessels at risk of becoming derelict on state waters.

This can be done by way of local ordinances.

HB 1115 — Genetic Counseling

House Bill 1115 creates the Genetic Counseling Education Enhancement Grant Program to support graduate genetic counseling programs at state universities.

HB 1121 — Disability Services

House Bill 1121 revises aging and disability services provided by the Department of Elder Affairs.

More specifically, the law adds food and nutritional supplements as allowable uses of subsidy payments under the Home Care for the Elderly Program.

HB 1159 — Sexual Offenses

House Bill 1159 sets up harsher penalties for various sexual offenses. These changes include:

• CSAM: Replacing the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” in Florida statutes
• Harsher Penalties: Increases penalties for use of a child in a sexual performance; possession and transmission of child porn; creation of generated child porn; possession of a child-like doll; and certain sex acts involving animals
• Mandatory Sentencing: Adults must receive a mandatory minimum sentence for certain offenses related to using children in sexual performances and transmitting child porn
• Repeat Offenders: Raises mandatory minimum sentences for certain repeat sex offenders
• Life Felony: Creates a life felony for aggravated use of a child under 12 years old in a sexual performance
• Generated Child Porn: Creates a second-degree felony for transmitting generated child pornography
• No Pets: Prohibits anyone convicted of certain sex offenses involving animals from owning or working with animals for at least five years

HB 1175 — Office Surgery Suites

House Bill 1175 requires new safety design standards for office surgical suites.

More specifically, the law dictates that such standards allow up to six patients on an outpatient basis.

This is in lieu of the current limit of four patients who, due to treatment, illness or injury, are unable to act in self-preservation during an emergency.

SB 1180 — Community Development Districts

Senate Bill 1180 revises rules for Community Development Districts (CDDs).

More specifically, the law sets up a recall election process for members of a CDD’s board of supervisors, which largely mirrors that of recall procedures for local governments.

HB 1201 — Student Health

House Bill 1201 updates statutory provisions regarding the care of students with epilepsy or seizure disorders and expands the definition of schools to include charter schools.

The law also requires schools to display a poster identifying the basic steps of responding to someone having a seizure.

Lastly, the law requires the FDOH to include required education and training for schools in its epilepsy education program.

HB 1217 — Greenhouse Gases

House Bill 1217 prohibits the state and local governments from adopting or enforcing net-zero greenhouse gas emissions policies, including carbon taxes.

HB 1219 — Spoil Island

House Bill 1219 designates a mangrove island within Jupiter Sound as the “Andrew ‘Red’ Harris Spoil Island.”

The island will be named for Andrew “Red” Harris, a native of Jupiter who started his own insurance brokerage agency in 2011 and was killed in a boating accident roughly three years later.

SB 1246 — Nursing Education Fund

Senate Bill 1246 expands the scope of the Linking Industry to Nursing Education Fund to address workforce shortages in health science education programs, in addition to nursing education programs.

HB 1279 — Teacher Funding

House Bill 1279 lets school districts provide immediate pay incentives to high-performing teachers who choose to teach in lower-performing schools, even without collective bargaining.

The law also allows bonuses for districts and teachers who offer Florida Advanced Courses (FACTs), in line with bonuses offered for other advanced courses like AP, AICE and IB.

SB 1296 — Union Crackdown

Senate Bill 1296 provides for the decertification of partisan school unions, fast-tracking salary increases that some unions have stalled.

The law requires at least 50% participation in union certification elections, meaning that unions can no longer be recertified through elections with just a handful of voters.

Furthermore, SB 1296 increases penalties for illegal strikes, raising the maximum fine from $20,000 per day to $40,000 per day for such organizations.

HB 1337 — Estate Authority

House Bill 1337 amends several provisions of Florida law to reduce the necessity for court involvement or formal proceedings in the distribution of a decedent.

More specifically, this bill does the following:

• Gives a personal representative more authority with respect to a decedent’s safe deposit box
• Expressly allows a personal representative to institute a proceeding to enforce his/her authority as personal representative
• Increases the amounts of what Florida law considers “small estates,” such that procedures other than formal probate proceedings may be instituted to dispose of the subject property under certain conditions

HB 1343 — Insurance Qualifications

House Bill 1343 provides that anyone who’s earned a high school diploma in Florida satisfies the education requirement for an insurance customer representative’s license.

This applies if the person in question completed a course in insurance and personal finance as part of his/her curriculum.

That said, the law also directs the development of a 0.5-credit course in insurance and personal finance, which school districts may use starting in the 2027-2028 school year.

HB 1347 — Lab Personnel

House Bill 1347 revises current requirements for performing moderate- or high-complexity laboratory testing.

To do so, the law adopts federal qualifications as the minimum licensure requirements for clinical lab technologists and technicians to perform such testing.

HB 1389 – Affordable Housing

The bill makes a variety of changes regarding the Live Local Act, passed during the 2023 Regular Session, to require the authorization of certain affordable housing developments by local governments under certain conditions. The bill:

• Provides that the preemptions of the Live Local Act permitting the development of affordable housing apply on any property owned by a county, municipality, or school district;
• Provides that the preemptions of the Live Local Act permitting the development of affordable housing apply on a property which is more than 3 acres in size, owned by a religious institution, and has contained a house of public worship for 10 years;
• Provides that, through July 1, 2030, a multifamily or mixed-use development using the preemptions of the Live Local Act may consist of an assemblage of parcels under common ownership or control which are separated by no more than 15 feet of land and limited public pedestrian access;
• Provides that the preemptions of the Live Local Act do not apply in an area subject to a land development regulation intended to retain the open character of land, any area of critical state concern, or any portion of property under a conservation easement;
• Provides that a local government may not utilize other dimensional means such as setbacks or stepbacks to constructively restrict the height of a project authorized by the Live Local Act;
• Provides that farming and farm operations, including the packaging and sale of those products raised on the premises, are excluded from the definitions of commercial, industrial, or mixed-use zoning which would require the local government to approve affordable housing developments; and
• Provides that the Live Local Act may apply if the development is approved by the governing body of an airport where the proposed development is near an airport runway or noise zone.

An applicant for a proposed development authorized under ss. 125.01055(7) or 166.04151(7), F.S., who submitted documentation before July 1, 2026, may proceed under the provisions of law as they existed at the time of submission, or notify the local government of their intent to revise their submission to account for the changes made by the bill.

Related to the Florida Fair Housing Act, the bill clarifies that it is unlawful to discriminate in land use decisions or in the permitting of development based on the financing of a development or proposed development that is for affordable housing, and waives sovereign immunity in cases based on such discrimination.

Related to the missing middle property tax exemption created in the Live Local Act, the bill makes the following changes, applicable to the 2027 tax rolls:

• Defines a multifamily project to include multiple parcels held under common ownership or control developed as one plan, excluding single-family residences and parcels separated by more than 200 feet of land;
• Requires the taxing authority to find that the local availability of affordable units has exceeded the demand for each of the previous 3 years, rather than the most recent year, prior to opting out of the exemption; and
• Allows a development which received a building permit within 4 years before a local government opted out of the exemption to apply for the exemption.

The bill also provides that local governments may provide density bonus incentives to landowners who donate real estate for the purpose of assisting local governments in providing affordable housing to military families that receive the basic allowance for housing.

Finally, the bill directs the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability to evaluate the efficacy of using mezzanine finance, or second position short-term debt, to stimulate the construction of owner-occupied affordable housing and evaluate potential for tiny homes to meet affordable housing needs. The report is due by December 31, 2027.

HB 1405 — Missing Persons

House Bill 1405 reestablishes the Missing Persons with Special Needs Statewide Project.

The project would be implemented through centers for autism and related disabilities (CARD), each of which must provide personal search-and-rescue devices for distribution to project participants.

HB 1407 — Civil Actions

House Bill 1407 sets clear time limits for people who claim to have been illegally discriminated against at work to file a lawsuit after they complain to the state.

HB 1417 — Department of Environmental Protection

House Bill 1417 repeals the Environmental Regulation Commission, which is expected to streamline rulemaking for environmental protection.

This law also requires erosion and sediment control plans for the construction of solar facilities to include stormwater best management practices.

HB 1443 — Parkinson’s Disease Registry

House Bill 1443 requires the Florida Institute for Parkinson’s Disease at USF to set up a statewide Parkinson’s disease registry.

Under this legislation, physicians who diagnose a patient with Parkinson’s disease must report nationally recognized performance measures to the registry beginning on Jan. 1, 2027.

HB 1445 — Public Records (Parkinson’s Disease Registry)

House Bill 1445 creates a public record exemption for patient-identifying information held in the Parkinson’s disease registry set up by HB 1443.

The exemption will be repealed on Oct. 2, 2031, unless reenacted by lawmakers.

HB 1471 — Terrorist Organizations

House Bill 1471 makes several changes to state law regarding terrorist organizations. Many of those revisions are as follows:

• Terrorist Designations: Creates a process by which the state may designate groups as domestic or foreign terrorist organization if certain conditions are met
• Religious Laws: Courts and tribunals are prohibited from enforcing religious or foreign laws against someone if such application would violate his/her constitutional rights
• Private Schools: Prohibits private schools participating in state scholarship programs from being owned or funded by terrorist groups, terrorist supporters, or criminal gangs
• State Universities: Prevents institutions in the Florida College System from using state funds to support programs that advocate for terrorist organizations
• Visa Students: Public colleges must report information about the current status of students who are attending on a visa if they promote terrorist organizations
• Student Expulsions: If a student promotes a terrorist organization while enrolled at a public university, the student must be immediately expelled and assessed an out-of-state fee

HB 1473 — Public Records (Terrorism)

House Bill 1473 creates a public record exemption tied to HB 1471 for certain information that would require Florida’s Chief of Domestic Security to provide to the governor and cabinet in certain situations.

HB 1509 — Veterinarian Licensure

House Bill 1509 revises requirements for veterinarian licensure by endorsement.

More specifically, the law removes the requirement that such applicants have held a valid, active out-of-state license for the three years immediately preceding their application.

Instead, such an applicant’s valid, active out-of-state license be “in good standing.”

HB 1515 — Public Records (Uterine Fibroid Research)

House Bill 1515 creates a public record exemption for patient-identifying information submitted to the FDOH for inclusion in the Uterine Fibroid Research Database.

SB 1602 — Veteran Housing

Senate Bill 1602 creates the “Homes for Veterans Property Management Incentive Pilot Program.”

The pilot program provides that landlords may apply to receive funding from a trust fund to hold a vacant dwelling for a veteran for up to 45 days, and to cover property loss at the dwelling caused by the veteran that may extend beyond the deposit of up to $2,000.

SB 1614 — Florida Building Code

Senate Bill 1614 removes a current provision of law that allows a local government to use excess funds from enforcing the Florida Building Code to build a structure that houses a local government’s code enforcement agency.

SB 1690 — Early Learning Services

Senate Bill 1690 makes several statutory changes relating to early childhood education and childcare regulation.

For example, the law requires the DCF and local licensing agencies to disseminate electronically certain information regarding all childcare facilities to the community.

SB 2506-E — Fuel Taxes

Senate Bill 2506-E amends state statutes relating to distributions from the fuel sales tax.

The law provides an increase to the Agricultural Emergency Eradication Trust Fund; the Marine Resources Conservation Trust Fund; the State Game Trust Fund; and the Invasive Plant Trust Fund.

This aims to conform the law to the most recent budget act.

HB 4085 — Okeechobee County

House Bill 4085 grants over 400 acres of state lands to the Okeechobee Utility Authority. These lands are the site of a wastewater treatment plant operated by the authority.

HB 5001-E — Budget Act

House Bill 5001-E is the budget act for the 2026-2027 fiscal year.

This time around, the state budget amounts to roughly $117.6 billion — a total figure after the governor vetoed nearly $810 million line items.

HB 5003-E — Budget Implementation

House Bill 5003-E helps implements the state’s budget act for the 2026-2027 fiscal year by making a variety of statutory changes.

The statutory changes provided by this law will remain in effect until next year.

HB 5201-E — Collective Bargaining

House Bill 5201-E provides that the resolution of collective bargaining issues at an impasse for FY 2026-2027 regarding state employees will ultimately be resolved based on spending decisions included in the budget act.

HB 5205-E — Retirement Contributions

House Bill 5205-E conforms state law to the budget act, as retirement contributions are included in the budget act.

The law revises employer contribution rates for the normal costs and the unfunded actuarial liability of the Florida Retirement System based on the annual actuarial study for FY 2026-2027 and the following FRS changes:

• Authorization of an elected officer (other than a lawmaker) who has completed his/her Deferred Retirement Option Program participation to receive his/her accumulated funds after reaching 59.5 years of age without terminating from office
• Establishment of an alternative cost-of-living adjustment for eligible Special Risk Class members of 1.5%

HB 5301-E — Health Care

House Bill 5301-E conforms several statutes to the budget act, including:

• Makes changes to the FDOH’s revolving loan program, new newborn screening testing, infant nutritional needs, and trauma centers
• Establishes a formula to allocate funds related to the Slots for Doctors Program
• Makes the Step into Success Workforce Education and Internship Program permanent
• Establishes the Foster and Family Support Grant Program
• Establishes the Eligibility Assistance Program to provide Medicaid eligibility information, referral, and navigation services for people with disabilities

HB 5401 — State Court System

House Bill 5401 terminates the Mediation and Arbitration Trust Fund within the State Courts System.

All current balances and revenues of the fund will instead be transferred to the State Courts Revenue Trust Fund.

HB 5403-E — Correctional Facilities

House Bill 5403-E conforms current law to the budget act, establishing Legislative intent to provide funding to address critical fixed capital outlay needs of the Department of Corrections (FDC). Changes include:

• Requires $50 million in recurring funds from the General Revenue Fund over the next 30 years
• Requires FDC to use funding to develop a capital improvement plan for new and existing correctional facilities
• Directs FDC to begin planning a new 600-bed correctional hospital unit starting on July 1

HB 5701-E — Petroleum Cleanup

House Bill 5701-E conforms current law to the budget act, amending the Petroleum Cleanup Participation Program and the Florida Petroleum Liability and Restoration Insurance Program.

This law removes program deductibles, copayments, and monetary caps for eligible parties and has the costs absorbed by the Inland Protection Trust Fund.

Troopers said the driver ran from the scene on foot.

According to the crash report, the bicyclist, who is from Gainesville, was on St. Johns Avenue, just west of West Larson Boulevard, around 9:45 p.m. when a 2020 Kia Forte swerved into the left side of the two-lane road and hit her.

Troopers said the bicyclist was not wearing a helmet and died at the scene.

The report lists the driver as a 35-year-old man from East Palatka, but also says the driver ran off and left the car at the scene.

Troopers are asking anyone with information about the driver or the crash to call *FHP.

Corum and her wife have made it a priority to teach financial lessons to their three children, using engaging activities to encourage their interest in topics like saving and budgeting.

“My goal is for them to have a healthy relationship with money and not have insecurities,” said Corum, an Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity professional.

Not everyone feels as confident. Money can be a difficult conversation, especially if parents don’t feel totally comfortable with the topic themselves. But Jennifer Seitz, director of education at Greenlight, a family personal finance app, said that's starting to change.

“This generation is really committed to doing better for their kids even though a majority of parents don’t feel equipped,” Seitz said.

There are more banking products available to help parents think about their children's financial futures, including debit cards for kids that can be used under parental supervision and apps that gamify money to make it approachable for kids.

Some people actually start learning while they are parenting, like Naseema McElroy, a nurse who became a money content creator. When McElroy's oldest daughter was a year old, she felt inspired to learn more about personal finance to pay off debt. As she learned more, she started to share her knowledge with friends and then a wider audience online.

“I started just from wanting to share the lessons that I was learning about money with my friends because I felt like we learn so late in life and then we all had daughters,” McElroy said.

Many parents want to start talking about finances with their children because they didn't have financial education growing up, Seitz said.

Here are some expert recommendations if you want to start talking about money with your kids:

Talk about money openly and often

Money conversations can feel uncomfortable, especially if your family didn’t encourage them. But if you want your children to engage with money in a healthy way, it’s best to talk about it, said Carrie Joy Grimes, a personal finance expert and founder of WorkMoney, a personal finance nonprofit.

“Have conversations about money in front of your kid to normalize it,” Grimes said.

In Corum’s family, the topic of money has become part of their daily lives.

“We talk about how we have a budget for the house, that everything that their mom and I bring into the house has an assignment, a job,” Corum said.

A great way to start is by talking about the cost of things, said Courtney Pettway, CEO and founder of KidVestors, a financial literacy platform for children. Pettway recommends asking questions like: What does this item cost? Why do you want this item? Is it a need or a want? And if they're getting an allowance, you could ask: How long would it take for you to save up for this item?

At the dinner table, while you’re at the grocery store, when you travel or shop for clothes, take day-to-day situations and turn them into money lessons.

Teach children how to make money decisions

A key aspect of personal finance is knowing how to make choices with money. This can be taught by giving kids small amounts of money and allowing them to choose how to spend it, Grimes said.

“I gave (my daughter) enough money that she could make choices with it. So she learned early on that she had enough she could save up for something, so she could say no to things and say yes to other things,” said Grimes. “Learning to say no, learning to hold money to yourself for long enough to get the thing you want, it’s a really hard skill.”

When giving children the opportunity to choose, it's crucial parents don't impart judgment on their decisions, said Bobbi Rebell, consumer finance expert at BadCredit.org, a personal finance website. Framing choices as personal preferences rather than right or wrong answers will build children's confidence in their decision-making process, she said.

Parents can find free financial literacy worksheets for children from Hands on Banking, a free financial education service by Wells Fargo.

Teach how to set financial goals

For many children, their first access to money is through an allowance. Whether it’s saving for a new video game or a bicycle, setting a goal for their money can be a good way to teach children the value of saving.

“Recognizing the progress, seeing how close they’re getting to the goal, visualizing the end goal, and then really celebrating when they achieve that goal can help them learn that when they can make small financial goals a reality,” Seitz said.

Tip jars can be an analog way to track progress, Pettway said. Encourage your child to add a portion of the money they receive to a “savings” jar, an “investing” jar and a “giving” jar. As children see their jars getting full, they begin to be motivated to continue adding money.

It can also be beneficial to make children active participants in future plans, recommended Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, financial therapist and founder of Mind Money Balance, a financial wellness service. If, for example, your child wants to go to an expensive sports summer camp, encourage them to save a portion of the cost from their allowance or summer job.

Allow them to make mistakes

It's inevitable that kids will make mistakes while learning about money. These can be approached as opportunities to learn important money lessons that will be useful for their future, Rebell says. However, it’s important that you let your children make the mistakes rather than solve issues for them.

“If you constantly bail them out, they’re not gonna learn to manage it,” Rebell said.

Bryan-Podvin also recommends that you avoid responding to mistakes in a negative way. Showing intense frustration or anger can hurt children's trust and make them feel like they cannot turn to their parents when they make normal mistakes.

“Help them learn how to manage their emotions, help them think about how they might do things differently,” she added.

Get creative

Money can often seem boring, so making it fun, engaging, and entertaining can be the key to keeping your children’s interest alive.

For example, when shopping for things like school supplies, Corum chooses an appropriate amount from her own budget for her daughter to decide which items she wants. However, when shopping for toys or other non-essential items, Corum gives her daughter a portion of her allowance or other extra money she might have from special chores.

Corum gave her children debit cards and uses a family personal finance app connected to the cards to distribute their allowances and monitor their spending. Her children have access to their debit cards through their own app portal where they can see their spending, save, invest and learn more about personal finance topics.

Apps like Acorns Early, Greenlight and BusyKid are among the most popular family personal finance apps.

——

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

Expect a warm, humid start with temperatures climbing into the lower 90s this afternoon, while heat index values push into the low 100s.

We’ll see a mix of sun and clouds through much of the day before the sea breeze helps spark scattered afternoon and early evening thunderstorms.

Not everyone will see rain, but any storm that develops could produce heavy downpours, frequent lightning, and gusty winds before tapering off around sunset.

Keep the umbrella handy if you’ll be out later today, and be sure to stay hydrated in the summer heat.

Showers and storms will be strongest along the I-75 corridor from about 1 p.m.-7 p.m.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the 6-3 court that people don’t forfeit expectations of privacy even when they opt into Google’s location history.

“A cellphone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cellphone users do,” Kagan wrote.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in dissent that Okello Chatrie had no expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turned over to Google.

The decision is the court’s latest effort to apply a constitutional provision ratified in 1791 to technology the nation’s founders could not have envisioned.

Police obtained a geofence warrant after a bank robbery in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, and used it to locate cellphones that were near the bank around the time it was robbed in May 2019.

One of those phones belonged to Chatrie, who had eluded the police until they turned to the powerful technological tool.

The warrant kick-started the investigation. After determining that Chatrie was among those near the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian at the time, police obtained a search warrant for his home. They found nearly $100,000 in cash, including bills wrapped in bands signed by the bank teller.

Chatrie pleaded guilty to robbing the bank and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison. His lawyers argued on appeal that none of the evidence should have been used against him.

They challenged the warrant as a violation of his privacy because it allowed authorities to gather the location history of people near the bank without having any evidence they had anything to do with the robbery. Prosecutors argued that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy because he voluntarily opted into Google’s location history.

The Supreme Court did not decide Monday whether the search complied with the Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures. It sent the case back to a lower court for more work.

A federal judge had ruled that the search violated Chatrie’s rights, but allowed the evidence to be used because the officer who applied for the warrant reasonably believed he was acting properly.

The federal appeals court in Richmond upheld the conviction in a fractured ruling. In a separate case, the federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that geofence warrants “are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.”

CS/HB 453 updates Florida’s standard high school diploma requirements, allowing students to satisfy both physical education and performing arts credits through marching band participation. It also opens a new option for students with disabilities, letting them fulfill their PE requirement through Special Olympics.

Marching band now counts for 2 credits

Under the new law, students who complete two years of marching band will satisfy both the one-credit physical education requirement and the one-credit performing arts requirement for a standard high school diploma.

Students who complete just one semester of marching band — earning a grade of “C” or better — can receive one-half credit toward either physical education or performing arts.

The law specifies that marching band credit cannot be used to satisfy the personal fitness requirement or any adaptive physical education requirement outlined in a student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or 504 plan.

Special Olympics path for students with disabilities

The new law also expands options for students with disabilities, allowing them to participate in Special Olympics as a course substitution for the physical education graduation requirement.

To use this option, a student must participate in Special Olympics for one full school year, as determined by the student’s IEP team.

What stays the same

Other existing pathways for earning physical education credit remain in place. Students can still satisfy the PE requirement by participating in a junior varsity or varsity interscholastic sport for two full seasons.

Completion of two years in a Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) program — with a significant drill component — also continues to satisfy both the physical education and performing arts requirements.

Law takes effect July 1

The legislation, passed during the 2026 Florida Legislative Session, takes effect July 1, 2026. The State Board of Education is directed to adopt rules to implement the law’s provisions.

By viewing retirement savings as a five-stage life cycle, investors can minimize the IRS’ take and maximize what stays in their pocket.

1. The seedling stage: The working advantage

The most powerful tool in the tax code is time. If a child has earned income—perhaps from a family business or a summer job—they are eligible to jump-start their future immediately.

The Strategy: Parents should encourage their teens to find a job or even employ them on their own for legitimate work. In 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100. Most teens likely will earn less than that, so they’ll pay 0% in income tax. Furthermore, if they are working for a parent’s unincorporated business, they are typically exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes until age 18.

The Benefit: The child can contribute up to the amount of their earned income or $7,500, whichever is less, into a Roth IRA. Because they are in a 0% bracket, the “cost” of the Roth is zero, but the reward is massive: decades of compounding where both the principal and the interest are tax-free forever.

2. The early career: Roth renaissance

When a young adult first enters the professional workforce, their tax bracket is usually at its lifetime low. This is the optimal time to prioritize Roth contributions over current tax deductions.

The Strategy: Early-career workers should contribute to a Roth IRA or a Roth 401(k). At a minimum, they should contribute enough to their company’s plan to capture the full employer match—that’s free money!

The Benefit: Paying a 10% or 12% tax rate now (which, for a married couple in 2026, covers taxable income up to $100,800) to secure tax-free withdrawals 40 years from now is a bargain. Investors are effectively “buying” a tax-free future while their “tax price” is at a discount.

3. The peak earnings years: pivot to deduction

As workers hit their 40s and 50s, they typically enter their highest-earning years. Now, the math flips. Their goal shifts from paying taxes now to deferring taxes while they are in a top-tier bracket.

The Strategy: Highly paid workers should shift their focus to traditional IRAs and deductible 401(k)s. In 2026, investors can defer up to $24,500 ($32,500 if over 50) into a 401(k). Every dollar contributed reduces their taxable income today at what is likely their highest marginal rate.

The Benefit: Earners are betting that their tax bracket in retirement—when they no longer have a salary—will be lower than it is today. They save 37 cents on the dollar now and aim to pay it back at a much lower rate down the road.

4. The ‘gap years’: The Roth conversion window

The period between retirement and the start of required minimum distributions, which now begin at age 73 for most, is the golden age of tax planning. Often, investors’ income drops significantly, putting them in an artificially low tax bracket.

The Strategy: Retirees should use this low-income window to enact Roth conversions and move money from their traditional IRA to their Roth IRA, paying the tax at today’s low rates.

The Benefit: This strategy “shrinks” the size of future forced RMDs and builds two distinct pools of capital: one taxable and one tax-free. This flexibility is retirees’ greatest defense against future tax law changes.

5. Late retirement: The legacy and distribution phase

In the final stage, the goal is to maintain the lowest possible average tax bracket while fulfilling charitable and familial goals.

The Strategy: Retirees should draw strategically between their two pools, using the traditional IRA for their taxable floor and the Roth for a spike in expenses (such as a new car or a big trip) to avoid being pushed into a higher bracket.

There’s also a charitable/legacy play retirees can use: Qualified charitable distributions satisfy RMDs tax-free once retirees hit age 70½.

The Benefit: For their heirs, retirees can leave their Roth IRA to their kids (giving them 10 years of tax-free growth) and leave the traditional IRA to charity, which pays zero tax on the distribution.

The bottom line

Retirement planning is a living life cycle. By matching your account type to your current tax reality, you aren’t just saving for the future, you’re outmaneuvering the IRS at every stage of the game.

______

This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.

Sheryl Rowling, CPA, is an editorial director, financial adviser for Morningstar.

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Guo Wengui, who fled China a decade ago and reinvented himself as a U.S.-based Communist Party critic, was sentenced in a Manhattan courtroom packed with his supporters by Judge Analisa Torres. She said he “preyed on those seeking to bring Democracy to China,” taking their money so he could live lavishly.

Before he was sentenced, Guo protested his treatment in jail, saying he was taken to the hospital early Monday. He disputed a prosecutor's portrayal of him as a malingerer faking illness, saying he repeatedly vomited as he was returned to jail before being brought to court.

“When I came here, I said: ‘I have a tummy ache, I need to go to the bathroom, I don’t feel well,’” Guo said through an interpreter of his courthouse arrival. Later, Guo wiped his mouth repeatedly with a tissue.

He only briefly addressed the criminal case, defending his intentions by saying in reference to the Chinese Communist Party: “The reason I came to the U.S. was to destroy the CCP."

The judge, in sentencing him, read snippets of letters she received from victims who described losing their life savings and feeling severely anxious and shamed and having family members turn on them for their poor investment choice.

Torres said Guo “takes no responsibility for his actions and instead insists incredibly his conduct caused no loss and harmed no one.” She said he “has called upon supporters to harass and intimidate those who dare to speak out against him.”

The judge ordered Guo to forfeit $889 million in restitution.

Wei Chen, a victim who testified at trial, told Torres that Guo's fraud "destroyed my life" and that of her family.

As Guo left the courtroom after the sentencing, supporters applauded and shouted toward him.

Before his arrest and detention without bail three years ago, Guo grew so close to conservative political strategist Steve Bannon that they announced a joint initiative to overthrow the Chinese government in 2020. He lived in a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park and had joined President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida golf club.

Prosecutors had requested he serve at least 30 years in prison, saying his "astonishing" fraud from 2018 to 2023 “destroyed hundreds of lives” and left “a wreckage of victims and families who have been devastated financially, emotionally, and psychologically.”

Prosecutors said in court papers that his ill-gotten riches fueled “a lifestyle of extraordinary excess and indulgence, a gilded life of mansions, yachts, race cars, designer clothes and luxury furnishings.”

Guo was convicted of nine of 12 criminal charges during a seven-week trial that prosecutors said showcased his deception of thousands of investors in bogus deals that enabled Guo's lavish lifestyle.

In a court filing, Guo's lawyers wrote that he was the victim of the Chinese Communist Party's “grand, pervasive, and life threatening” pursuit of him. They alleged that the party recruited elites in U.S. business, entertainment and politics to conspire against him.

They said in presentence court papers that a lengthy prison term would only validate China's smear campaign and “embolden further efforts to eliminate Chinese dissidents from public life” while defendants in similar cases received prison terms of two-to-four years.

The lawyers noted that a court probation officer wrote to the sentencing judge that Guo, also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, had scars and disfigurements from physical torture he endured in China and subsequent surgeries he underwent from 1993 to 2022 to repair the injuries.

Defense lawyers said Guo's wealth grew as his family became the largest shareholder of China's largest publicly traded securities company, but he became a target of Chinese government officials as he exposed them as corrupt. Eventually, the lawyers wrote, Guo moved to Hong Kong, London and then New York in 2017.

Chinese authorities accused him of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other crimes, but Guo said those allegations were false.

On Monday, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they had noted the sentencing, and that Guo is wanted by the Chinese government and has an Interpol “Red Notice” on him. The notice is a request to police forces around the world to arrest a suspect, pending extradition.

Prosecutors say Guo convinced hundreds of thousands of people to invest more than $1 billion total in entities he controlled, including his media company, GTV Media Group Inc., and his so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange.

Guo, the government alleged in presentence court papers, was “entirely unrepentant” for his crimes after he took advantage of lax U.S. asylum laws to flourish in America.

Bruised around his left eye and across much of his body, 46-year-old Serrano is recovering from the ordeal he endured with his son and mother Wednesday.

The three were buried beneath rubble and twisted steel when their eight-story apartment building collapsed in the city of Caraballeda in La Guaira, the state hardest hit by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

“It is a miracle from God,” Serrano said as he recalled how, in total darkness, he clawed through debris with his bare hands before rescuing his 8-year-old son and 69-year-old mother with the help of two passersby.

The two earthquakes have killed more than 1,700 people and injured more than 5,000, according to the government. Hundreds of buildings collapsed or were damaged, primarily in La Guaira. Significant damage was also reported in the capital, Caracas, and in the states of Carabobo, Miranda, Aragua and Yaracuy.

La Guaira — known as Vargas until 2019 — is Venezuela’s second-smallest state but one of its most strategically important. About 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Caracas, it is home to the country’s main international airport and second-largest seaport.

Its roughly 440,000 residents are largely low-income and depend on tourism, commerce and jobs tied to the airport and seaport.

Speaking from his brother's home in Caracas, Serrano recalled the terror he felt last week, his thoughts inevitably returning to Dec. 15, 1999, when he was jolted awake by the screams of their household employee, who had seen a nearby river overflow after days of heavy rain.

From his window, he watched the swollen river sweep away trees, massive boulders and vehicles with people trapped inside, banging on the windows and pleading for help.

Driven by instinct, Serrano fled his fourth-floor apartment with his mother, sister and nanny, climbing to the roof. From there, they watched floodwaters engulf the building’s lower floors as massive trees slammed into its columns, fearing it would collapse like others nearby.

Their fears eased at dawn as the rain stopped and the floodwaters began to recede. After waiting in vain for rescue, the family made their way through mud, rocks, debris and fallen trees to his grandparents’ home in a nearby neighborhood.

The 1999 floods and landslides known as the “Vargas Tragedy” killed 782 people, another 2,000 were reported missing and about 250,000 residents were affected, according to Ángel Rangel, who led rescue operations as director of Venezuela’s Civil Protection agency.

Still shaken by the devastation left by the earthquakes, Serrano believes La Guaira — bordered by the Caribbean Sea and the Ávila mountain range — is under a curse.

“It isn’t normal for such horrible things to happen in the same place,” he said.

Rangel, a disaster specialist, sees it differently. The engineer said the buildings that collapsed in La Guaira were built on terrain formed over centuries by sediment carried down from the surrounding mountains.

“That type of terrain is particularly risky for construction,” Rangel said, adding that building in such areas requires “strict adherence to seismic-resistant engineering standards” adopted after the powerful 1967 earthquake that struck Caracas.

Many of the buildings that collapsed in La Guaira were built in the 1970s, and it remains unclear whether they met those standards.

After losing his home and all his belongings, Serrano said he does not know what comes next. But one thing is certain: He will never live in La Guaira again.

“That’s twice now,” he said. “Sometimes I think if there’s a third time, it’s going to win the battle.”

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

Born in Lebanon to Palestinian refugees, Kabouli had never seen her parents’ homeland. But more than just making pretty designs, the threads in her needle were stitching a connection to her heritage.

It's known as “tatreez,” and Kabouli, 48, started doing the traditional form of Palestinian embroidery in her teens to make money. Besides an economic lifeline, tatreez has provided her with a bridge to the land her parents fled during the 1948 mass displacement that Palestinians call their Nakba, or catastrophe.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes in present day Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israel refused their return.

Kabouli's work allows her to send a message of resilience, of survival.

“We’re still here,” she said. “All what has been happening in Gaza … and we’re still standing and we’ll not forget the cause.”

From refugee camps to stitching circles and from museum halls to online classes, many in the Palestinian diaspora communities worldwide engage with tatreez as far more than a decorative aesthetic.

They're finding in it a celebration of cultural heritage, a bridge to their homeland and dispersed communities and — with its myriad embroidered symbols — a visual language of storytelling. To many, refugees or not, it's become a symbol of Palestinian identity and pride, a vehicle for documenting history and a form of resistance.

With the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, some have also used it to raise funds for people there or stitched designs to focus attention on Palestinian suffering in the enclave.

“We had a lot of people who came and they’re like, ‘OK, we want to do a T-shirt with a Gaza chest or we want to do a scarf with the Gaza motif,’” said Ali Jaafar, general manager of Inaash Association, where Kabouli works. The Lebanese organization provides Palestinian women in refugee camps in Lebanon with much-needed income through tatreez, while also aiming to help preserve and promote the heritage. It sells embroidered fashion, home decor and art pieces, and showcases the art form in exhibitions and museums.

Protecting heritage and ‘struggling through culture’

Efforts to preserve and raise awareness about tatreez in Palestinian communities at home and abroad are part of a larger push to safeguard a heritage and connections to a history and a place that many fear are at risk of being erased.

“Palestinian tatreez is an identity and a document of our presence in every Palestinian village and town," said Maha Saca, founder and director of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, adding that old embroidered thobes, or dresses, show the presence of Palestinians in particular locations before the dispersal of many.

“The Palestinian woman has written the story of her village through motifs from her surrounding environment and her beliefs,” Saca said. “We’re struggling through culture and saying we have roots.”

The Palestinian embroidery art form was added in 2021 to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

In New York, Lina Barkawi, whose small business teaches tatreez, said the “constant fight for liberation and having a Palestinian identity that’s recognized globally is really what has been driving a lot of this documentation.”

A generational practice and window into history

In Arabic, tatreez refers to embroidery in general as well as the specific Palestinian form, which is often a social practice taught through generations by grandmothers and mothers. Some seek formal training.

With motifs that Palestinian women had historically adopted from their surroundings, the old embroidered thobes can offer clues through stitched patterns, design and color about facets of a woman's personal story, her environment and regional identity, Saca said.

In the Palestinian context, such connections to time and place, including areas now in Israel, gain added importance as testament to what was, she said. “How do we have a Jaffa thobe if we hadn’t been in Jaffa?" she said. "We write history on our thobes.”

There's also an element of continuity. Saca said her grandmother’s embroidered wedding thobe bears the hallmarks of Bethlehem dresses, and that her own granddaughter’s baptism dress included embroideries copied from that dress.

Tatreez also can be political, both through preservation and creation.

“Just being able to have some of the dresses from pre-1948 is a political act,” Barkawi said.

There's also the making of the so-called “intifada thobe” that included embroidered political and Palestinian symbols, such as the flag. It's linked to the “first intifada,” or uprising, which erupted in 1987 against Israel’s occupation and was met with a fierce Israeli response.

Stitching, mourning and documenting

After the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, fashion designer Hama Hinnawi expressed grief through tatreez work. Tatreez is usually colorful, she said. But that was no moment for color.

The result? Black embroidery on black fabric, a statement of mourning for the killings, destruction and displacement in Gaza. She's also experimented with turning some iconic scenes from the war into new embroidery motifs.

“We have a big responsibility on our shoulders to tell this story, not to be buried for the next generations … through tatreez, through art, through speaking.”

Born in Jordan to Palestinian parents, Hinnawi wanted to bring awareness to heritage through her fashion brand by marrying tatreez with contemporary fashion.

To her, tatreez simply means home. It’s “identity, pride, storytelling,” said Hinnawi, who shuttles between Chicago and Jordan.

She's provided embroidery work opportunities to Palestinian women in refugee camps in Jordan and talked in the U.S. about tatreez. Before the war, she also worked with women in Gaza.

Barkawi runs an online community of Palestinian and non-Palestinian embroiderers, some of whom have created designs sold to raise funds for Gaza families. One incorporates a “water and seeds” motif with an embroidered message to “Feed Gaza Now.”

Members in different countries recreated a tapestry that once hung in a bombed Gaza home, each stitching a part and mailing it to another.

Born in the U.S. to a Palestinian father and Panamanian mother, Barkawi said learning about tatreez deepened her Palestinian identity.

New dresses with woven stories

Embroidering her first thobe took two years. Barkawi incorporated motifs with personal meanings, such as palm trees that represent her name in Arabic. She added orchids, the national flower of Panama, for her mom.

Technically imperfect, it was the perfect dress for her Islamic marriage ceremony.

“I embedded my story as a Palestinian in the diaspora into this dress.”

In Lebanon, Kabouli, too, once dreamed of owning a tatreez piece for her wedding trousseau. She couldn’t afford one.

After their parents died, an older sister had turned to tatreez with Inaash to help support the large family. Kabouli learned from her.

Now a production supervisor at Inaash in Beirut, Kabouli sees her younger self in the women working in refugee camps in Lebanon, many in the south, which was hard hit by the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. The vibrancy of tatreez often contrasts with harsh living conditions in camps amid employment and other restrictions the refugees face. Contending with power cuts, women, eager to finish a piece and get paid, may work on rooftops to grasp the last ray of sunlight, Jaafar said.

Besides the income, Kabouli said doing tatreez can be grounding, almost meditative.

She has another yearning: to see her parents’ homeland. They came from an area in what’s now Israel.

For now, tatreez provides her with hope.

“I don’t feel like I am far away. I keep working on Palestinian heritage, following the cause,” she said. “It connects me to my homeland, especially since we’re deprived of it.”

___

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

With the shootout tied at 2-all after four rounds, Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou made a strong save of Crysencio Summerville's attempt, batting it away with his left hand. Saibari then sent the winner into the low left corner as goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen went the other direction. The midfielder tore off his shirt and screamed with joy as he was mobbed by teammates.

Earlier in the shootout with Morocco trailing 1-0, Verbruggen appeared to have stopped an attempt by Soufiane Rahimi, but the goalkeeper couldn’t secure the ball and deflected it over the line with the back of his leg.

“We know when we do everything on the pitch, it’s God that gives something back to us as well,” Morocco head coach Mohamed Ouahbi said. “We give all the energy that we have on the field. Rahimi’s goal could have not been a goal, but it went in thankfully.”

The Netherlands had reached at least the Round of 16 in 11 previous World Cups, including a quarterfinal appearance four years ago in Qatar, when Morocco made a breakthrough run to become the first team from Africa to reach the semifinals. In this year's expanded tournament, 32 teams reached the knockout stage for the first time.

Morocco moves on to face co-host Canada in the Round of 16 on Saturday in Houston. The Atlas Lions previously beat Canada 2-1 in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup.

Morocco was on the front-foot for major stretches of the game Monday. The Netherlands instead focused on counterattacking.

“I think Morocco has gained everybody’s respect now,” said Ouahbi, who took over as head coach in March. “I saw (the Netherlands’ style of play) as a form of respect.”

Cody Gakpo scored in the 72nd minute for Netherlands. After the goal, which was assisted by Summerville, the Dutch bench ran onto the field to embrace the 27-year-old Gakpo, who broke down in tears. Gakpo and his partner, Noa van der Bij, recently announced that they lost their unborn child.

Morocco’s Issa Diop tied it in the 91st. Chemsdine Talbi sent a looping cross into the box from about 28 yards out on the left side and connected with Diop for a clean header that Verbruggen had no chance to stop.

Neither team had a strong scoring opportunity in 30 minutes of extra time at Estadio BBVA.

In the second half of extra time, Netherlands head coach Ronald Koeman used one of his substitutions to bring on Justin Kluivert. Kluivert was one of three Dutch players to miss his penalty.

“The last substitution I made was to bring in Justin (Kluivert) because he’s one of the best at penalty shootouts,” Koeman said. “But he missed his penalty and that’s even more bitter for him and for us.”

It was the third consecutive time the Netherlands has been eliminated from the World Cup in a penalty shootout.

It was the second game of this tournament to conclude with a shootout. Paraguay beat Germany on penalties earlier Monday.

The teams entered with the highest combined ranking of any Round of 32 match. Morocco was sixth in the world and the Netherlands was seventh.

“We need to be telling ourselves that no one can stop us,” Ouahbi said. “Nobody is unbeatable. If we get things wrong, we’ll go home.”

___

Ethan Wilcox is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

At one fountain, a folk band dipped their toes in the water on Saturday, as festivalgoers clapped along or cooled their hands under the flowing stream.

From Friday to Sunday, singers and alphorn players filled the streets and spontaneous bursts of yodeling echoed through restaurants, where diners initially reacted with surprise before joining in.

In Petersplatz, in central Basel, seamstresses remained on call throughout the festival to repair the traditional Alpine folk costumes worn by participants in case of emergency.

This year, however, it was the fountain rehearsals that became the festival’s defining image, as the city battled record temperatures of around 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit).

Around 12,000 performers and nearly 200,000 visitors traveled to Basel for the Eidgenössisches Jodlerfest, Switzerland’s national yodeling festival. It was the first time the northwestern Swiss city hosted the event since 1924.

Swiss yodeling was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2025, making this the first national festival since the tradition received international recognition. It is a distinction many Swiss take great pride in.

Unlike the brighter, more melodic style often associated with Austria and the Tyrol region, Swiss yodeling is slower and more melancholic — an emotionally nuanced tradition rooted in distinct regional dialects.

"I’ve always loved music, and I left here as a child. When I moved back to New Zealand, I wanted to stay connected to Swiss culture, so I joined a New Zealand-Swiss-Kiwi yodeling club,” said Freddie Conquer, a member of Jodlerclub Echo Basel, one of the clubs hosting the festival.

The participants competed in three disciplines: yodeling, alphorn playing and flag-throwing.

The alphorn is a long wooden instrument traditionally used by herdsmen in the Alps. It can stretch to more than 3 meters (10 feet) in length, with its sound carrying across valleys — or, during the festival, through Basel’s streets. It produces all of its pitches using natural harmonics alone, with no valves or keys.

“Everything is down to the mouthpiece, hearing the note in your head, and then using your lips to shape the pitch. The higher the note, the harder you have to blow,” said Pierre-André Karlen, who was rehearsing on a school lawn.

On Sunday morning, participants gathered outside the town hall, eagerly awaiting the competition results. Members of Jodlerklub Balfrin, from the town of Visp in the canton of Valais, were nervously examining the lists and later celebrated loudly after receiving a perfect score of one, one of several such teams.

As flags were carried through the old town during the festival’s closing parade, members of Jodlerklub Muttenz rode past on a tractor to cheers from the crowd. Alphorn players followed — their instruments and costumes almost certainly a burden in the heavy heat, but the smiles remained.

It followed back-to-back rulings last week that barred his two sweeping executive orders seeking to change national election rules, more court rulings preventing his Department of Justice from obtaining detailed state voter data and his stalled attempts to get the Senate to pass the SAVE Act. That measure would eliminate nearly all absentee voting, require citizenship documents to register to vote and impose photo identification requirements nationwide right before the midterm elections.

“It’s been a mixed bag for Republicans,” said University of Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller. But the president, he added, “has come up mostly empty-handed.”

Trump's efforts have not been entirely fruitless. Republican-run states have satisfied his demands to redraw congressional district lines, efforts buoyed by the Supreme Court striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, and he has been directing his Department of Justice to investigate voting and election operations, which Democrats see as a possible prelude to their involvement in November.

All the activity around how the nation votes and runs its elections is a reflection of the Republican president's long fixation on his false claim that his 2020 election defeat was rigged. He has been so frustrated by the inability of the Senate to pass the SAVE Act that he has refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill.

He weighed in again Monday after the Supreme Court's decision in the mail ballot deadline case, saying on his social media account that he is trying to “save America from crooked elections.” Voting rights groups and Democrats see him abusing power and attempting to suppress legal voters to gain an advantage in the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.

Regardless, Muller said Trump faces legal and political realities: The Constitution gives the states and Congress authority over elections while providing no such role for the president.

“That’s how federalism works,” Muller said.

Here’s a look at Trump’s efforts to reshape election rules and what options he might have left for the November midterms.

Focus on noncitizens and voter data has met roadblocks

The president has repeatedly said U.S. elections are riddled with fraud in part because of noncitizen voting. Research shows the problem to be rare, accounting for a minuscule percentage of fraud cases. Convictions are measured in the hundreds over periods in which tens of millions of ballots are cast.

Trump’s view resulted in a multiagency push to nationalize voter data and use federal resources to help states remove voters from the rolls. The Department of Justice has sought detailed voter files from multiple states, data that would include dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers. Democratic and some Republican secretaries of state balked, and federal lawsuits followed. The administration has lost every case so far.

Homeland Security citizenship check rejected in court

Trump's Department of Homeland Security, with help from the DOGE effort led by Elon Musk, revamped a government tool called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements). The program has been a key pillar of his efforts to cull potentially ineligible voters from state rolls.

Last week, a federal judge blocked its use as a mass citizenship check.

The administration, according to its own news releases, had allowed local election administrators to search users by the thousands, using a wider range of metrics rather than DHS-issued identification numbers. At least 67 million registrations, primarily in Republican-controlled states, were analyzed. Tens of thousands were flagged as potential noncitizens or people who have died, but some voters were wrongly identified as ineligible.

U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ruled that Trump’s changes aggregated Americans’ sensitive personal data in a way that could result in voters being wrongly purged from the rolls.

“All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan said in her order.

Executive orders used in place of legislation

As presidents before him, Trump signed executive orders when Congress would not enact his policy preferences.

Trump’s first order reflected his emphasis on noncitizens. Like the SAVE Act pending on Capitol Hill, it sought to require would-be voters to document their citizenship to be able to register to vote.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper put a temporary block on the order last year as she considered the case and last week made her decision permanent. The Constitution, Casper wrote, “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”

Trump issued a second order in March, as the SAVE Act’s rough path in Congress became obvious. He called for a national voter list using data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration. Further, the order would have empowered the U.S. Postal Service to determine who gets an absentee ballot and threatened local elections officials with prosecution.

Absentee voting is a staple of U.S. elections, but Trump describes the practice, incorrectly, as allowing fraud — even as he has used it himself. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast.

Democratic secretaries of state sued, and U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani made the same legal assessment as Casper. The provisions, she wrote last week, “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”

The White House has indicated it will appeal.

Even Trump says the SAVE Act has long odds

Trump on Monday called the Senate logjam “crazy” and one of the holdouts, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, “Trump-deranged.”

It’s the latest legislative tussle that prompted Trump to demand Republicans scrap the filibuster, which requires most major legislation to get support from 60 of the 100 senators. But that likely wouldn’t matter in this case, with four of the Senate’s 53 Republicans declaring their opposition to the bill itself: Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

The president acknowledged Monday that the SAVE Act is “probably not going to happen.”

Trump still has options for the November elections

Both major parties have national operations to monitor elections, including legal teams ready to file challenges.

Despite the Republican National Committee losing the mail ballot case, Chairman Joe Gruters on Monday alluded to those efforts: “We are not going to be deterred by this decision, and the RNC will keep fighting to have elections end on Election Day,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump has been developing a possible roadmap for more aggressive actions.

His U.S. attorney in Los Angeles said in June that he had opened multiple election fraud investigations, and he sent a prosecutor to the county's vote-tabulation center after California's June primary. Six months earlier, FBI agents executed a warrant and seized ballots and other records from the 2020 election in Georgia's Fulton County, which includes Atlanta.

Muller, the law professor, said local elections officials “already are having conversations about chain of custody disputes” for ballots as they are cast, collected, counted and stored.

He and UCLA law professor Rick Hasen noted that judicial warrants are required for the kinds of actions that happened in Fulton County. Muller predicted “the bar would be even higher” for any warrant the administration requests during a live election.

Hasen added that he's working to educate judges around the country on the importance of chain of custody for ballots.

“Republicans believe him when he says the election is rigged. And then when Republicans try to change voting rules to tighten things up, that causes Democrats to also think that the election system is being rigged,” Hasen said. “So, if what he’s trying to achieve is undermine voters’ confidence in the election process, he seems to have succeeded spectacularly.”

___

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

"Well for a long time, before the civil rights movement, it meant to be more inclined toward states' rights and limited government," says Meacham, the National Constitution Center's Semiquincentennial Scholar. He then pauses, and asks to start over, recalling how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt evoked Jefferson as an “apostle of liberty” who would have supported the U.S. fighting the Nazis in World War II.

You could define it in so many ways. Historians may argue over the “greatness” of individual founders, but as the country's 250th anniversary approaches many agree that no one's life and work resonates like Jefferson's. He embodied the “very best and the very worst” of the United States, Meacham says.

And a great deal in between.

America’s birth is rooted in his most profound contradiction — the man who proclaimed that “all men are created equal” while being a slaveholder to the end of his life. But Jefferson advanced and explored both sides of so many issues and world views that have defined the country's path: agrarian self-sufficiency and worldly innovation, pluralism and separatism, limited government and dreams of an “empire of liberty.”

“There is no more malleable figure in early America than Jefferson,” says Andrew Burstein, a professor of history at Louisiana State University who has summed up Jefferson's legacy in a book he published a decade ago: “Democracy’s Muse: How Thomas Jefferson became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead.”

“There have been times in American history when just about everyone would have considered themselves ‘Jeffersonian,’" says historian Peter S. Onuf, author of numerous works on Jefferson. “Yet even at those moments, he was a controversial figure.”

It's an argument without end

Jefferson's legacy is debated even in settings that owe their existence to him.

On the campus of the University of Virginia, the college he founded and regarded as a signature achievement, stands a memorial to thousands of enslaved people who lived and worked there.

At Monticello, the mountaintop estate and plantation outside of Charlottesville where Jefferson lived when not in public office, a banner near the entrance features the Declaration and the caption, “After all, our guy wrote it.” But once on the grounds, reminders of his enslavement of hundreds are found throughout, from its “Burial Ground for Enslaved People” that includes dozens of graves to an exhibit dedicated to Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman with whom Jefferson is widely believed to have had six children.

Monticello's director of historic interpretation and audience engagement, Brandon Dillard, cites the staff's mission “to tell unflinching stories of America’s complex origins and fitful progress toward the ideals Jefferson articulated in the Declaration of Independence."

Jefferson regarded Monticello as a refuge from the times, but the times inevitably find their way here. A guide on the gardens and grounds tour points out that a foldable plant Jefferson tried and failed to grow — the “Mimosa Pudica,” or “sensitive plant” — now thrives because of climate change. The visitors' center is LEED Gold-certified for green energy, Dillard says, and geothermal systems have been installed in other buildings for temperature control.

Monticello raises questions old and new about race. Virtually all of the guides are white, an issue Dillard notes is prevalent nationwide. A recent survey released by the American Association for State and Local History found that around just 10% of workers at museums, historic sites and historical societies were nonwhite and that many “Latino/a/x, and multiracial respondents reported higher rates of discrimination and harassment.” (Dillard declined to answer in detail the experience of guides of color at Monticello.)

There is a Jefferson for every occasion

Jefferson’s contradictions date back through much of American history; he was claimed by both sides of the Civil War and both sides of the civil rights movement.

Nineteenth-century Confederates and 20th-century segregationists cited his defense of states' rights, while Abraham Lincoln and civil rights leaders emphasized Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence. In the space of a few months in 1963, he would be invoked in the inaugural speech of Alabama Gov. George Wallace as he vowed defiance of federal efforts to integrate the state’s schools and by the Rev. Martin Luther King as he delivered his “I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington.

Roosevelt enlisted Jefferson as an ideological ally for the New Deal (the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., began as a New Deal project) and a former New Dealer-turned conservative, President Ronald Reagan, held up Jefferson decades later as a foe of wasteful spending. Jefferson has been cited often by free-speech advocates for his crucial support for the Bill of Rights, while President Donald Trump has quoted Jefferson's 1807 lament that “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper” as an implicit endorsement of his modern war against “fake news.”

Jefferson has also been placed on either side of today's divide over immigration. Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” cites his well-documented belief in colonization for Black people as inspiration for contemporary scapegoating and xenophobia. Meanwhile, at a time when the Trump administration is aggressively trying to restrict immigration and even denaturalize some citizens, Monticello continues its decades-old July 4 naturalization ceremonies, with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger scheduled as this year's keynote speaker.

“As new citizens share their personal stories every Fourth of July," Dillard says, “we are reminded that the values uplifted in that Declaration are values toward which people from all backgrounds aspire.”

Many Monticello visitors, many reasons to visit

Monticello attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. They come for many reasons.

Erin Porter is a Virginia native in her 40s who until recently had never been to Monticello and wanted to cross it off her bucket list, while Nathan Jaycox of Connecticut is a former nuclear engineer now seeking to absorb history for a class he hopes to teach. Duane Cromwell, a longtime resident of Vancouver, was here on a very personal mission.

Cromwell, 70, grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, where she was taught that slavery was “an economic necessity” and learned nothing about Jefferson's history of enslavement. In town last month for a family reunion, she arrived at Monticello anxious to get past the “whitewashed Southern version” and the myths of evil “yankees” and the victimized rebels who defied them.

“Did you (ever) notice kudzu growing up over trees and buildings while in the South? It is an invasive plant brought to the region to control erosion. Well, it is like racism. It is pervasive, part of the horizon, always there but soon you don’t notice it,” she says.

“Having said that, I do think that people do go along better, there is more interactions, relationships than when I was growing up. Everyone needs each other and in the South, there is a great sense of humor and friendliness that help people navigate the awkward moments.”

For Cromwell, Monticello was a chance to educate herself, to become a better person — and, like countless others before her, using Thomas Jefferson as a prism.

“Isn’t that what it’s all about?”

___

AP National Writer Hillel Italie frequently writes about American history.

The pull to return home to help is real. That isn't an option for Contreras at the moment, so on Monday night against Washington, he did what he could to show that what's happening back home isn't far from his mind.

Contreras unleashed a massive bat flip after ripping a 421-foot homer in what became a 6-3 Boston victory. He then broke down in tears in the dugout, the anguish that's been a constant since portions of his homeland were turned into rubble last week pouring out of him.

“Everything that’s going on in Venezuela, it’s not easy to hide,” Contreras told reporters after the game. "It’s not easy just to show up and play with everything that is going on in my country.”

The urge to do something, anything, to help is real. Contreras looked toward the Boston dugout and shouted “Venezuela” before making the trip around the bases following a three-run shot that marked his 18th homer of the season.

“I feel like I could be there helping people and I can’t do that,” Contreras said. “And the homer just represents something that I pray to God for it to happen, because that’s the only thing I can do for Venezuela right now physically. And that’s why I was emotional.”

The 34-year-old Contreras was born in Puerto Cabello, about three hours west of the capital of Caracas. He described frustration over reports of volunteers and aid packages having trouble getting through to those who need it.

“It sucks seeing so many bad things going on in Venezuela,” he said. “I don’t think we deserve all of this. We’re a good people. Good country. We are good people.”

Contreras' night on the field ended a bit early. First base umpire Nic Lentz ejected him in the second inning after Lentz ruled Contreras failed to check his swing on a Miles Mikolas pitch that ended up being a strikeout.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

News4JAX reviewed the JSO inmate search and found at least a dozen bookings between Saturday and Sunday for charges including violating Florida’s street racing/stunt driving law, operating a motor vehicle in a “street takeover,” racing on a highway (including passenger/spectator charges), and fleeing or eluding.

Meanwhile, News4JAX crews on Saturday night observed a law enforcement presence near the movie theater in the Tinseltown area off Southside Boulevard. Crews also saw vehicles being towed, including luxury cars. At the time, News4JAX did not receive details on what prompted the response.

On Monday, an Instagram reel using News4JAX video gained tens of thousands of views. The reel appears to show cars gathered in a Tinseltown parking lot, burnouts and then a large law enforcement response.

A worker at a nearby business said he watched it happen.

Seth Ouk, a sous chef at Soupa Noodle Bar in Tinseltown, told News4JAX he saw a large group of cars arrive and said drivers were showing off their cars when police moved in.

“Normally, I’ll see the cars in the Riverside area or something, but there were a bunch of dudes they come over here, and this particular section, and they meet up do burnouts,” Ouk said.

Ouk said the law enforcement response appeared coordinated. He said he saw about 20 police cars and a helicopter in the sky.

“This time it was like really quiet like clockwork — a bunch of cops came around and stopped all the exits,” Ouk said. “There were people coming out of the movie theater and they were siphoning them out of this little plaza that we have over here.”

“I’ve never seen a sting like that. It was actually pretty crazy,” he added.

The viral video and the police activity at Tinseltown follow News4JAX reporting last week on a separate social media post promoting what it called a “car meetup afterparty” in Downtown Jacksonville.

That now-deleted Instagram flyer listed E. Bay St. and advertised a Saturday night start time. When asked about that Downtown post last week, JSO told News4JAX it was aware and said it would monitor if an event occurred. A spokesperson also said the agency would take enforcement action if violations of municipal ordinances or state law were reported or observed.

News4JAX has asked JSO Monday morning for details about what happened at Tinseltown, including:

• Whether JSO was aware of any planned gathering at Tinseltown Saturday night
• Whether any arrests were made at or connected to the Tinseltown location
• How many officers responded
• Whether any crashes were reported in connection with the incident

As of Monday night, JSO had not responded.

Street racing and reckless driving are illegal in Florida and can lead to arrest, fines and license suspensions, and in some cases felony charges for repeat offenders.

If you see street racing or reckless driving happening in real time, call 911. For non-emergencies in Jacksonville, call 904-630-0500.

It’s your favorite cousin Darrin that works in news, and I’ve got everything worth stepping out for this weekend. Whether you’re chasing live music, food festivals, outdoor markets, or just looking for a good excuse to get out of the house, there’s something happening that’ll fit your vibe.

Stick with me, and I’ll point you toward the spots, sounds, and scenes that’ll make your weekend feel like time well spent.

Got something happening that’s not on the guide? Add your event to our community calendar and let the city show up! Here’s how.

Now, let’s check out all the happenings around Jacksonville from July 2 - 5👇

(Emoji Key: 💰 = Paid/ticketed event 🆓 = Free event 🎶 = Live music 🔞 Event is 18 and up or 21 and up)

As always, be sure to check the organization’s website and social media accounts for any last-minute event changes or cancellations.

Events Happening This Week... 📅

Monthly Happenings:

📌 These are recurring events that happen within the month.

• 🆓 Zumba at Friendship Fountain every Tuesday from 6 to 7 p.m.
• 🆓 Riverside Arts Market every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• 🆓 Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) - Visitors receive free admission on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• 🆓 Yoga at Artist Square - Every Tuesday under the Fuller Warren Bridge for a weekly all-levels yoga class from 6 to 7 p.m.
• 🆓 Jacksonville Run Club meets every Saturday at 7 a.m. and Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Friendship Fountain
• 🆓 904 Walk Club meets every Wednesday at Friendship Fountain at 6:30 p.m.
• Friday Night at The Underground is weekly fun with delicious eats and fun for all
• 🆓 Silent Disco at Friendship Fountain is every last Saturday of the month from 6 to 9 p.m. Approximately 300 headphones will be given out at a time, first come, first served. This is a free, family-friendly event.

Wednesday, July 1

• Downtown First Wednesday Art Walk - Bring your family, friends and coworkers to Downtown Jax on the first Wednesday of every month, rain or shine. 📅Wednesday, July 1 ⏰5:00 p.m.📍James Weldon Johnson Park - 135 W Monroe St. Jacksonville, Florida 32202

Thursday, July 2

• Earthquake at Comedy Zone - Legendary Comedian Earthquake brings his beloved comedy to Jacksonville this weekend Thursday through Saturday. Make sure you go grab your tickets. 📅Thursday, July 2 - Sunday, July 5 ⏰VARIOUS TIMES📍3130 Hartley Rd Jacksonville, FL 32257

Friday, July 3

• Freedom Fest - Enjoy a patriotic light and music show with live bands, food trucks and free apple pies to the first 1,000 people. 📅Friday, July 3 ⏰5:30 p.m.📍Friendship Fountain - 1015 Museum Cir Jacksonville, FL 32207
• Tunes and Blooms: Red, White and Boots - Take a leisurely stroll through the Zoo and Botanical Gardens as the sun sets and the cooler evening air takes over. Experience the Zoo like never before with curated live music performances throughout the grounds. From nostalgic throwbacks to cultural rhythms, each night features a new theme. 📅Friday, July 3 ⏰6:00 p.m.📍370 Zoo Parkway Jacksonville, FL 32218
• Charlotte Crown vs. Jacksonville Waves - The Jacksonville Waves are one of the inaugural franchises of the Upshot League, a women’s professional basketball league. Come see them play at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena! 📅Friday, July 3 ⏰7:00 p.m.📍300 A Philip Randolph Blvd Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Close Friends (Causa Comigo) at Decca Live - Close Friends (Causa Comigo) is back at Decca Live - kick off your 4th of July weekend with a night you won’t want to miss! 📅Friday, July 3 ⏰10:00 p.m.📍323 E Bay St. Jacksonville, FL 32202

Saturday, July 4

• Fourth of July Celebration-Friendship Fountain - Enjoy an evening of live music from Scott Halls and Caribe Groove, plus a hot dog eating contest and cornhole tournament. Food and beverages will be available for purchase throughout the event. 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰3:00 p.m.📍1015 Museum Cir Jacksonville, FL 32207
• Fourth of July Celebration - Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary and the Fourth of July at Riverfront Plaza in Downtown Jacksonville for an unforgettable evening of live music, family fun, local art, delicious food, and the largest Fourth of July fireworks show in Jacksonville history. 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰4:00 p.m.📍2 W Independent Dr Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Fourth of July Fireworks Viewing Party - Come on out to the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront for a spectacular Fourth of July Fireworks show with the best viewing spot in town as we celebrate America’s 250 anniversary! 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰6:00 p.m.📍225 East Coastline Drive Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Riverside Arts Market July Fourth Celebration - The traditional market, featuring more than 150 local artists, makers, farmers, and businesses will operate during its normal timeframe from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The market will then condense to select food trucks and vendors that will operate until later in the evening. The festivities will conclude with the City of Jacksonville’s annual Fourth of July fireworks over the St. Johns River, the most substantial fireworks display in the region. 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰10:00 a.m.📍715 Riverside Ave. Jacksonville, Florida 32204
• USS Orleck 4th of July 250th American Celebration - Celebrate aboard the USS Orleck with live music from DJ Rantz, food trucks, drinks, fireworks and waterfront views during this festive celebration. 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰6:00 p.m.📍610 E Bay St Jacksonville, FL 32202
• 4th of July at SIP Rooftop & Cocktail Bar - Celebrate the 4th of July in style at SIP Rooftop in the heart of downtown Jacksonville - with the perfect view of the fireworks lighting up! 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰7:00 p.m.📍323 E Bay St Jacksonville, FL 32202
• YDG at Decca Live - Celebrate July 4th with a high-energy live set from YDG at Decca Live. 📅Saturday, July 4 ⏰10:00 p.m.📍323 E Bay St Jacksonville, FL 32202

Sunday, July 5

• Charlotte Crown vs. Jacksonville Waves - The Jacksonville Waves are one of the inaugural franchises of the UpShot League, a women’s professional basketball league. Come see them play at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena! Sunday, July 5 ⏰2:00 p.m.📍300 A Philip Randolph Blvd Jacksonville, FL 32202
• Purgatory Wrestling at Decca Live - Step into the chaos at PURGATORY WRESTLING @ DECCA LIVE — where bone-crushing matches, wild energy, and nonstop mayhem! 📅Sunday, July 5 ⏰6:00 p.m.📍323 E Bay St Jacksonville, FL 32202

We’re constantly updating this page, so be sure to check it periodically throughout the week for any additions.

Upcoming Events... 📅

📌 These are future events that aren’t happening this week, but coming up soon

• Zack Fox - Check out comedian, rapper, actor, and DJ Zack Fox bring his eclectic style of house, techno, club, and ghetto tech to Jacksonville. 📅Friday, September 4📍Decca Live - 323 East Bay Street Jacksonville, FL 32202
• First Coast Comic Con - Regardless of your fandom or collecting focus, there is a little bit of everything for everyone. 📅Saturday, July 11 ⏰10:30 a.m.📍Duval Hall - 13601 Normandy Blvd. Jacksonville, FL 32221
• BossMan Dlow & Yung Miami - A live performance at FIVE. 📅 Friday, July 17 ⏰ 8 p.m. 📍FIVE - 1028 Park Street
• CosCon Cosplay Con - Meet cosplayers and cosplay groups along with artists, vendors, and panels! 📅Saturday, July 18 ⏰12 - 6 p.m. 📍841 Prudential Drive
• Elmiene - Sounds for Someone Tour - It’s hard to believe that his voice wasn’t always destined for this path but, a poet-turned-accidental-artist initially, it was Elmiene’s very first song attempt that sparked the whirlwind start of his career. 📅Tuesday, July 21 ⏰ 8 p.m. 📍FIVE: 1028 Park Street

For more ideas for fun weekend activities, take a look at our Events Calendar 👇

Portland sent forwards Jerami Grant and Kris Murray to the Grizzlies as part of the deal.

It’s a big swing by the Trail Blazers and could suggest Portland — with new owner Tom Dundon, whose Carolina Hurricanes just won the Stanley Cup — might not be done making moves. Morant adds to a logjam at point guard right now for Portland, with Jrue Holiday, Damian Lillard and Scoot Henderson also on the current roster.

Morant has averaged 22.4 points for his career but has played only 79 games over the last three seasons because of injuries and suspensions — including a 25-game banishment after he was seen on a livestream holding a gun while he was in the passenger seat of a vehicle. That came not long after an eight-game suspension for flashing a gun in a Denver-area nightclub, also captured on social media.

The suspensions, combined, cost Morant — who was Rookie of the Year after being the No. 2 selection in the 2019 draft, as well as the league's Most Improved Player in 2021-22 when he appeared to be on a path toward superstardom — about $9 million in lost salary. He said in April 2025 that he's made his peace with being a lightning rod for constant criticism.

“I’m kind of used to it,” Morant said at that time. “I was pretty much a villain for two years now. Every little thing, if somebody can say something negative about me, it’s going to be out there. So, yeah. I don’t care no more.”

Grant averaged 18.6 points last season for Portland and will be joining his sixth team by going to Memphis. Murray averaged 5.8 points this past season for the Trail Blazers.

Morant's MIP-award year in 2021-22 saw Memphis win 56 games, tying a franchise record. That team was built around a young core four of Morant, Dillon Brooks, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane.

And now, they're all gone. Brooks played only one more season with the Grizzlies after that and has changed teams twice since, Bane went to Orlando last summer and Jackson was traded to Utah in February.

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AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

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

He made his first start a memorable one.

Canale scored on the first sudden-death penalty kick, Orlando Gill made two key saves in the shootout, and Paraguay beat Germany 4-3 on penalties Monday to earn the biggest upset of the 2026 World Cup.

It was a major triumph for the landlocked South American country of 7 million people that's surrounded by soccer giants like Argentina and Brazil. And it was the latest surprising exit by Germany, a four-time champion that has struggled at the World Cup since it last lifted the trophy in 2014.

“I think we deserved one more game and to be honest, considering everything that was said, everything we went through,” Canale said. “What I want to highlight from our team is how united we are. ... Today was a game we really needed to show our true colors.”

Paraguayans celebrated in the streets of the capital, Asunción, screaming, jumping and hugging when the match ended. Some cried and dropped to their knees in disbelief, with the familiar beat of the team’s song “Soy Albirrojo” reverberating through the crowd.

Paraguay became the first team to defeat Germany in a penalty shootout at the World Cup. The Germans missed three of six penalty tries, the last by Jonathan Tah, who blasted his attempt high over the crossbar in the first sudden-death round, setting up Canale for the winner. Tah's miss followed a save by German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer of Fabian Balbuena's attempt that would have won it for Paraguay.

Tah also thought he had the go-ahead goal in extra time. He headed in a corner kick by Nathaniel Brown in the 102nd minute, but officials concluded after a video review that Waldemar Anton has pushed Gill to the ground before the shot and the goal was disallowed.

The Round of 32 match ended 1-1 after extra time. Paraguay took the lead when Julio Enciso scored on a header late in the first half, but Kai Havertz equalized in the 52nd minute for Germany.

“We had to analyze every player, every detail. Thanks to that I was able to only miss two penalties,” Gill said. “This is for all the people of Paraguay.”

Paraguay, which entered the match ranked 41st by FIFA, became the deepest betting long shot to win a match in this World Cup. Germany came in as the 10th-ranked team in the world.

The Paraguayans will face the winner of Tuesday’s match between France and Sweden in the Round of 16 on Saturday in Philadelphia. A win on the 250th anniversary of the United States' founding would send Paraguay back to Foxborough for the quarterfinals on July 9.

Germany had won six of seven penalty shootouts in major tournaments, including six straight since losing to Czechoslovakia in the 1976 European Championship final.

“It’s not enough for German football,” coach Julian Nagelsmann said.

In the only previous World Cup match between the teams, Germany beat Paraguay 1-0 in the round of 16 at the 2002 tournament. Nearly a quarter-century later, Paraguay got its revenge.

Paraguay had appeared in five previous knockout games but failed to score in each. It had advanced only once, winning on penalty kicks against Japan in the round of 16 at the 2010 tournament in South Africa. It fell that year to eventual champion Spain in the quarterfinals.

Monday was Germany’s first knockout game since the 2014 final in Brazil, when the Germans beat Argentina 1-0. The Germans were eliminated in the group stage at the last two tournaments.

“We had very big plans for this World Cup. It’s very difficult to disappoint again,” Havertz said. “It was difficult to create chances and keep the pace.”

Paraguay broke the early stalemate in the 42nd minute Monday with some perfect ball movement to set up Enciso.

Miguel Almiron split Germany’s Aleksandar Pavlovic and Nathaniel Brown with a left-footed pass to Matias Galarza. Galarza sent a cross to Enciso, who was unmarked by Germany’s defenders and easily headed it past Neuer.

In the second half, Havertz took a cross from Florian Wirtz, which he got just enough head on to redirect it past Gill.

Germany, whose 10 goals in the group stage was tied for the most of any team, struggled to find a way through Paraguay’s 4-5-1 setup. The Germans had 78% of the possession in the first half.

Paraguay was without defender Omar Alderete, who left with an injury in the second half of its 0-0 draw against Australia. Canale started in his place.

Paraguay opened the World Cup with a 4-1 loss to the United States, then beat Turkey 1-0 while playing the entire second half with 10 men. A scoreless draw against Australia was good enough for Paraguay to reach the knockout stage as the third-place finisher from Group D.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The firefighters were part of a specialized crew that goes into remote areas by helicopter to quickly put out new and rapidly escalating wildfires, federal officials said Monday.

Their deaths Saturday came almost 13 years to the day since an elite crew of 19 wildland firefighters died when they were trapped in a steep canyon in Yarnell, Arizona.

Like this weekend's victims, the men in Arizona tried to deploy emergency shelters that are a “last resort” for firefighters when there's no other way out. Investigators didn't blame anyone for the deaths in 2013, but cited radio communication problems that contributed to the Granite Mountain Hotshots becoming trapped. Arizona's workplace safety commission also fined the state's forestry division for not pulling them out.

Wildfires have erupted over the past week all across the West, fueled by months of dry weather and a record lack of snow in some places this past winter. Wildfire experts have warned for months that extreme fire dangers are likely this summer.

U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy said he would not speculate about whether the crew overrun by the weekend fire in Colorado should have been where they were.

“I will say the fact that they were there was, I’m 100% sure, based on good decision-making,” Fennessy said during a news conference Monday. “The fires in this region over the decades, you know, killed many firefighters. They weren’t being foolish. They weren’t being careless. They were there because they thought they could do what needed to be done to suppress that fire. And many times the weather changes.”

With more than two dozen large fires burning, almost 8,000 wildland firefighters and dozens of firefighting helicopters have been deployed. About half the largest blazes are in Alaska while the rest are mostly in Western states.

Even as firefighting resources were increasingly strained, evacuations were ordered near seven fires, including in Arizona, Washington state, New Mexico and Utah. About 800 people living in and around the small town of Beulah in eastern Colorado were told to evacuate as a wildfire threatened the area on Monday afternoon, Gov. Jared Polis said.

“We're really at the mercy of the winds,” Polis said.

Firefighters were part of a specialized crew

The U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department identified the firefighters killed as Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan; Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona; and Sydney Watson, 26, of Warrior, Alabama.

Two others who were with them sustained burn injuries. They were in stable condition but remained hospitalized in the Denver area, officials said at Monday's news conference.

“The loss we experience here is not felt by just one agency. It is felt by an entire wildland fire community,” Fennessy said. “We grieve together, we support one another and we continue the mission together.”

A long line of fire trucks and vehicles from a wide array of emergency response agencies made their way slowly through Grand Junction, Colorado, Monday with their lights flashing. A scattering of people, some with their hands on their hearts, watched silently from the sidewalk as they passed.

The procession ended at a cemetery, and the bodies of two of the firefighters draped in American flags were taken into a funeral home as officials from fire agencies saluted.

The three killed were assigned to a Helitack crew that can be dropped into remote areas by helicopters and whose mission is to prevent new fires from growing into out-of-control blazes. But it can be extremely dangerous, often taking place in areas where fires are rapidly expanding.

Watson worked for the Wildland Fire Service and the other two firefighters who died were assigned to the Forest Service. All were part of an interagency response to fires just west of Grand Junction.

The Snyder Fire in the area has burned about 44 square miles (114 square kilometers), authorities said.

Watson's death was the first within the the new Wildland Fire Service, which was created within the Department of Interior earlier this year to coordinate firefighting on public lands.

The deaths are being investigated by the Forest and Wildland Fire services, a process that typically results in recommendations for how to prevent or reduce the risk of a similar accident. Agencies can also convene an accident review board to suggest any further actions.

High wildfire threat for much of this week

More hot, dry and windy weather across the Southwest will elevate the fire threat at least until the weekend, according to the national Storm Prediction Center.

Among the concerns were high winds in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, in the Black Hills of South Dakota and across portions of the High Plains.

Utah already has restricted firework usage going into the July Fourth holiday.

The national “preparedness level” for wildfires was increased to a 4, on a scale of 1 to 5, the National Interagency Fire Center said Monday. That’s a sign resources are beginning to be strained, and officials warned of a high potential for new, large fires in multiple parts of the country in coming days.

There are enough firefighting resources for now across the Rocky Mountains to deal with the blazes, said Mike Morgan, director of Colorado’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control. But that could change quickly if conditions worsen in other parts of the country, Morgan said, adding that crews that battle fires on the ground already are in short supply.

“We know hand crews are always a hot commodity. We're getting a little short on those, so that would be one I would say we're a little concerned with,” Morgan said. “At the moment, I would say I feel pretty good about where we're at, but I'm very concerned about where we go.”

So far this year, wildfires have burned more than 4,800 square miles (12,400 square kilometers) — the most by this point in the year since 2022 and significantly above the 10-year average.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the Islamic Republic had requested a meeting with U.S. counterparts and that they planned to convene Tuesday in Doha, Qatar.

But one of Iran's senior negotiators denied talks had been scheduled. And the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry said Tehran was sending its delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in the negotiations, to discuss terms of the interim deal without involving the U.S.

Hostilities mounted in recent days in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil had been shipped before war began. After four days of trading strikes, both sides appeared to pause their attacks Monday.

The U.S. and Iran agreed to an interim deal earlier this month that calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of enriched uranium. It also waives U.S.-backed oil sanctions on the country, calls for free traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and gives each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements.

Confusion mounts over next round of Iran-US talks

After Trump said Monday morning on social media that the U.S. and Iran planned to meet, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, were flying to Qatar.

Pakistan, also a key mediator, had said talks between Iran and the U.S. would resume Tuesday.

But Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior negotiator for Iran, said in comments published by Iranian state media that no talks had been confirmed. And Esmail Baghaei, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said that its delegation was traveling to Qatar this week to discuss the planned release of frozen Iranian assets and other issues related to the deal.

“There are no negotiation meetings with the U.S. side at any level scheduled in the coming days,” Baghaei said.

However, that left open the possibility messages being passed to the Qataris between the two sides.

Increased tension in waterway vital to world energy supplies

During the war that began Feb. 28, Iran’s attacks and threats stopped cargo ships and tankers from moving through the Strait of Hormuz, creating a global energy crisis.

In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels in the strait — including a tanker filled with Qatari crude — following efforts to open Oman’s territorial waters to both inbound and outbound traffic from the Persian Gulf.

The attacks drew retaliatory American airstrikes and raised concerns that negotiations to reach a formal end to the war could be disrupted. Iran launched drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday.

The strait has long been considered an international waterway despite being in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters.

The Trump administration was operating Monday on the understanding that the U.S. and Iran are standing down after the recent back-and-forth strikes and that vessels can move freely through the Strait of Hormuz, said a U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

Iran's president, U.S. official say $6 billion coming to Iran

The U.S. official also said that Qatar planned to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets that would be used to purchase U.S. food products for the Iranian people.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had announced the expected release of funds earlier Monday in comments published by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Pezeshkian, a reformist within Iran's theocracy, is the highest-ranking official within Iran to reference the release of the funds held by Qatar.

Oman, Iran discuss possible fees for ships transiting the strait

Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said Monday that Oman and Iran are considering charging service-related fees for commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Al-Busaidi said services could include water safety measures, pollution prevention, navigational assistance and preparedness for incidents such as fires. He told Radio Monte Carlo that Oman does not support imposing transit fees on ships.

“This is internationally forbidden," he said, "and we are abiding by these rules."

But there had never been any fees charged in the strait — and other Gulf Arab states and the U.S. firmly oppose the imposition of any costs for transit.

Iran and France clash over clearing mines from strait

An Iranian official warned France against “provocations” Monday after French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X that France and others were coordinating efforts to clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz.

Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian deputy foreign minister, said on X that under the interim deal “demining is carried out solely by Iran and by no other country.”

Macron's post came after he greeted Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman ahead of high-level diplomatic talks in Paris.

Lebanon's president says it will deploy troops as part of deal with Israel

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun separately said Monday that Lebanon is determined to deploy troops along its entire southern border as part of a framework agreement with Israel signed Friday. He made the remark while meeting with Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East.

The deal was rejected by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, which triggered the latest war with Israel on March 2 when it fired rockets across Lebanon's southern border and into northern Israel.

The Israel-Lebanon deal calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed before Israel will withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon. Israel agreed to withdraw initially from a couple of “pilot zones” where the Lebanese army would then deploy, but no details have been shared about how that will work in practice.

Hezbollah officials have warned that attempts to implement the plan could lead to civil war.

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Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Bassem Mroue and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut; Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

Dong had been locked up in China several times, including for his activities commemorating the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and past efforts to flee.

“It’s like living in a cage. Very suffocating,” he said in an online video interview with The Associated Press from Toronto, referring to the lack of freedom of expression in China.

After his release from prison, the 68-year-old dissident said he was unable to receive retirement benefits or renew his passport and was under constant police monitoring.

China's Foreign Ministry said the government handles the entry and exit of its citizens in accordance with the law and that Chinese citizens must abide by the Constitution and the law.

Dong attempted to flee at least three previous times: in 2015 to Thailand, where authorities deported him back to China; in 2019 when he tried to swim to a Taiwanese island off China's east coast; and in 2020, when he reached Vietnam, only to be deported back again.

Last month, he tried again.

Dong says he shook off the fear of death

In the early hours of May 24, he set off in a gray rubber dinghy fitted with an engine from Weihai, a coastal city in eastern China’s Shandong province, under fine weather. He was eyeing Japan, confident that the government there would not send him back to China.

But the next day brought fog. When he noticed his phone, which he relied on for GPS navigation, was on its last bar, he became terrified. His power bank also died. He quickly switched to his contingency plan — South Korea.

Dong recalled that dread ran deep because his tiny boat might capsize if the winds and waves picked up. But he had no way to return and shook off the fear of death.

“Living conditions back in the country are so terrible that being alive is little different than being dead. So there is no point fearing death,” he said. “If you move forward, there’s a chance at life.”

In the evening, he saw lights in the distance and moved toward them. The first vessel could not hear his cries for help and left. Later, he encountered a fishing boat that agreed to pull him on board. He asked the fishers to call the police to help him.

The South Korean coast guard detained him for allegedly violating the country’s immigration law. They sought a warrant to formally arrest him, but a court refused, saying it’s “difficult to recognize sufficient grounds and necessity” for his arrest.

From refugee center to Canada

Dong was later sent to a refugee center in Incheon, a port city near Seoul. Earlier this month, the U.N. refugee agency contacted him via video call, he said.

A refugee center manager later asked about his height, weight and his eye color. He was worried at first but it turned out to be a good sign. His lawyer told him it was at the request of the Canadian diplomatic mission, he said.

About a week later, Dong boarded a flight and he arrived in Toronto Friday. He was still unclear what legal procedures were involved in his move, but guessed it was based on cooperation between the South Korean and Canadian governments and the U.N. agency.

“I feel very surprised, extremely surprised. It's like still in a dream. It's very fast,” he said.

He believed the resettlement status in Canada that his family secured in 2015, before Thai authorities deported him back to China, was still valid.

The Canadian Embassy in South Korea declined to comment on Dong's case. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the country handled the case “in accordance with law and principle,” but did not specify Seoul’s role in arranging Dong’s transfer to Canada. The U.N. refugee agency declined to comment on individual cases for reasons of confidentiality and protection.

Dong vows to press on with his activism

Dong said he feels at home after arriving in Toronto, saying he finally tasted freedom for the first time in over a decade.

“There’s not even a hint of fear,” he said.

He hopes to make a living, possibly by being a truck driver or an Uber driver.

But the joy doesn't help Dong let go of the deportations by the Thai and Vietnamese authorities.

In 2015, Dong and his family went to Thailand to seek refugee status from the U.N. refugee agency, but Thai authorities later arrested him and returned him to China, according to Amnesty International. His ex-wife and daughter managed to settle in Canada.

The activist fled to Vietnam in 2020, but was sent back in 2022. He was jailed each time he was returned to China. He said he plans to consult a lawyer to see if he can sue both Thailand and Vietnam.

For Dong, the fight is far from over. He also plans to press on in his call for China's democratization.

In the late 1990s, the former police officer distributed leaflets with his articles on topics such as the Tiananmen crackdown. He was imprisoned for three years in 2001 for inciting subversion of state power.

He also spent more than eight months behind bars over his participation in a memorial for victims of the crackdown after being arrested in 2014, he said.

“My ultimate goal is for China to achieve constitutional democracy,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

But all is not perfect in one of South Asia’s best-known lakes. Pollution from local buildings, invasive plant species that threaten biodiversity and declining water levels, in part due to climate-driven heat, are threatening the long-term existence of Dal Lake and hundreds of other lakes in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

It takes constant effort by workers employed by the local government to keep Dal Lake's weeds at bay, and they must take precautions to avoid skin irritation from the polluted water. Yet it could be worse for the lake, which is located in Kashmir's most populous city, Srinagar. It's one of the few lakes in the region to receive sustained restoration work.

“We are afraid to touch the water with bare hands. Whenever we need to clean something by hand, we wear gloves, because without them our hands quickly develop allergies,” Ghulam Rasool, a weed cleaner employed by the local government, said on a recent afternoon.

Rasool said that sometimes it feels impossible to keep the lake clean.

“Sewage drains flow directly into the lake, and water streams coming from the mountains are bringing waste such as diapers and other garbage,” he said.

A combination of climate-driven changes, pollution and unplanned development is accelerating a decline in Indian lakes, with consequences rippling from fragile ecosystems to fishing communities and the tourism economy.

An Indian government report last year found that of the region’s 697 natural lakes, 315 have disappeared and 203 have shrunk since 1967. Hundreds recorded in earlier decades have been reduced to shallow marshes, seasonal wetlands or, in some cases, replaced by farmland and other development.

Homes and farms encroach upon lakes

Lakes in Kashmir have always been centers of activity, including Dal Lake’s famous floating markets where locals sell everything from vegetables to souvenirs. However, recent decades have seen the lakes’ boundaries shrink due to unpredictable rainfall, increased sediment from rivers and encroachment by farmland and houses. Small islands of farmland or long wooden bridges leading to illegal homes are becoming an increasingly common sight.

Farmland and homes creeping into what was once lake land is apparent in an aerial view of Dal Lake. Cattle graze freely on newly formed farmland even as the traditional fishers try to make their daily quota nearby.

Untreated sewage flowing into the lakes results in the growth of weeds, which feed off nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrients in the waste. Plastics and other garbage dirty the lake. Dozens of weed cleaners try to clear Dal Lake every day, and small mounds of cleared weeds can be seen at various spots across the lake. Excavators and other heavy machinery are also used to pull weeds and garbage from the lake.

While acknowledging that more funds and work are needed, local government officials said they are trying their best. A government-run lake authority started in 1997 includes civil engineers, scientists, forest officials and local police officials.

While more than 75% of Srinagar’s population is connected to sewage treatment systems, sewage from the unconnected houses is a major contributor to lake pollution, said Muzamil Ahmad Rafiqui, superintending engineer for Kashmir’s Lake Conservation and Management Authority.

Climate change worsens lake depletion

Some of the world’s warmest years have meant that the Himalayan region is warming faster than the global average. Earlier snowmelt, reduced snowfall and more intense rainfall events are disrupting the timing and volume of water that feeds rivers and lakes.

Sher Muhammad, a glaciologist with the Kathmandu-headquartered International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, said the shifting, unpredictable patterns mean lakes now face periods of sudden inflow followed by prolonged stress during drier months.

The melting of the region's glaciers has also increased the amount of sediment carried downstream into the lakes. While the melting of glaciers can spur an initial boost in water flow, over time it will reduce the natural water storage that sustains rivers and lakes during dry periods, experts said.

Climate change has been devastating for Kashmir, said Irfan Rashid, an environmental scientist at the Srinagar-based University of Kashmir. “It has impacted every sector of our economy,” he said. Rashid said hydropower-generating capacity, tourism and highly valued apple and saffron farms have all been hit by erratic, extreme weather in recent years.

Fishing communities feel the brunt

Fishers at Wular Lake, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Srinagar, said the lake has become shallower, its surface fragmented by new patches of vegetation. Parts of its catchment area have been taken over by tree plantations. Navigation has become harder, and fewer fish remain.

Abdul Rasheed, a 45-year-old fisherman, said he used to earn around 1,000 rupees ($11) a day. Now it's only 100 to 200 rupees ($1 to $2) for an entire night of fishing.

“There are a lot of changes since my childhood,” said Rasheed.

As is the case with many other lakes in Kashmir, agricultural and residential development has encroached on the lake, while untreated sewage and farm runoff have hurt its water quality. Indeed, the surface in several areas is a green gunk. The most recent detailed study of Wular Lake, conducted by the conservation group Wetlands International in 2007, found that the lake had shrunk by 45% over the preceding century. The report also emphasized that the degradation of the lake increases flood risks in the Kashmir valley because it was traditionally the biggest buffer for overflows from the Jhelum River.

Many fishers at Wular Lake said they don't believe future generations will be able to live off fishing.

Bashir Ahmed, a 55-year-old who has fished in the lake for decades, said in the past a young person with no fishing experience could return home with 4 kilograms (nearly 9 pounds) of fish.

“Now even a skilled fisherman comes home with no more than 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds),” he said.

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Arasu reported from Bengaluru, India, and can be followed on X at @sibi123. Follow Dar Yasin on Instagram at @daryasinap

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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.

Near-seasonal temperatures Tuesday through Friday, with a slight chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms. The onshore wind returns as well, starting from the northeast and then turning southerly late this week and weekend. Temperatures will climb back to the mid to upper 90s for the 4^th of July weekend.

In the tropics, a weak area of low pressure will try to develop along a trough stretching across the Atlantic along the southeast coast. The low will be absorbed by a stronger cold front later this week. The chance of development is down to 10 percent.

Tonight: Hot with isolated showers and thunderstorms, some locally heavy through 8 - 10 p.m.

Tuesday: Hot and humid with afternoon showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2 p.m. Morning lows in the 70s to near 80 degrees. Afternoon high in the 90s inland, 80s to low 90s along the beaches. Rain chance: 20-30 percent. Wind: NE 10-15, gusting to 20 mph.

Wednesday - Friday: Hot and humid conditions continue with Feels Like temperatures around 100-105 degrees. Rain chances will average 20-30 percent. The onshore wind will switch to a southerly flow starting Friday and this weekend.

Looking ahead: 4^th of July weekend: Slight chance of sea breeze showers and storms. Most of the activity will develop after 2 p.m. and linger through around 8 p.m.

Sunrise: 6:28 p.m.

Sunset: 8:33 p.m.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham vowed to take her outrage “right to the White House and Congress” to seek assurances the DEA is no longer using the risky law enforcement strategy in New Mexico — and that it is not being replicated elsewhere. Overdoses have surged in New Mexico, even as fentanyl deaths declined in other states.

“This is a stunning failure by the federal government,” the governor told reporters at a news conference in the state medical examiner's office in Albuquerque, joining a host of state and local law enforcers and officials demanding answers. “It’s disgusting and despicable.”

The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson noted that President Donald Trump has classified fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” and signed into law legislation cracking down on the synthetic opioid.

“Sadly, the United States is still recovering from Biden’s border crisis and the damage it caused,” Jackson wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “President Trump has totally secured the border and has taken bold actions to combat the scourge of fentanyl in American society.”

Lujan Grisham's remarks came a week after AP reported that DEA agents repeatedly monitored — but did not seize — shipments of fentanyl as part of an effort to build bigger criminal cases between 2023 and 2025.

Current and former DEA agents, including whistleblower David Howell, told AP the strategy amounted to a gamble with public safety and may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules intended to safeguard the public.

The DEA initially denied Howell’s allegations in a statement to AP. But the agency later called upon the Justice Department’s independent watchdog to conduct its own investigation.

The fentanyl went unseized amid the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history and as the DEA led a public awareness campaign — “One Pill Can Kill” — emphasizing that even a few milligrams of the substance can be lethal.

New Mexico has responded swiftly to the revelations. Last week, the state's attorney general announced a criminal investigation to determine whether any federal officials broke state law by knowingly exposing New Mexico residents to the synthetic opioid.

“We’re going to protect the rest of the United States from this kind of foul, ‘I need a big case' effort no matter what the consequences,” Lujan Grisham said. “We’re angry because it’s immoral.”

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said fentanyl represents his city's “No. 1 challenge,” driving crime and homelessness and straining health care resources.

“Using us in some sort of uninformed, undisciplined experiment that’s literally killing our people — that’s what this is,” he said. “This should outrage every single New Mexican.”

Trump last week shared a link on his Truth Social page to an article attributing the scandal to the “Biden-run Justice Department.” In a statement to AP last week, the Justice Department similarly said “the alleged conduct occurred under the Biden Administration’s disastrous open border policies.”

Howell first came forward during the Biden administration in 2023 — and was sidelined for doing so — but he continued to flag unseized fentanyl shipments as recently as last year, and the largest he documented happened two months into Trump's second term, a 1.8-million pill haul DEA learned about but did not intercept in March 2025.

Howell also revealed that the Justice Department in 2024 changed internal guidelines that had urged agents to seize fentanyl whenever “practicable,” affording them more discretion to preserve longer-term investigations. Empower Oversight, the whistleblower advocacy group representing Howell, called on the Justice Department Monday to reinstate those earlier protocols so authorities “try to seize fentanyl whenever there is probable cause.”

Lujan Grisham has criticized both administrations as not doing enough to stem the tide of fentanyl in New Mexico, and pointed to the death last year of a 15-month-old girl who reportedly swallowed some of her mother's drugs in Española, a town ravaged by grinding poverty and addiction.

It is not clear whether any fatal overdoses in the state can be directly attributed to the DEA strategy. While overdose deaths nationwide fell 14% last year, government data show New Mexico tallied a 21% spike.

“Somebody must pay for the damage to the state, the public safety risks that will be shared by everyone here for a decade or more, and pay to try to right the wrongs and put people’s lives back together,” she said.

Lujan Grisham, who will leave office at year's end after two terms as governor, said the worst part of being an elected leader is having to face the victims of what she called “senseless” devastation and loss.

“There are no words that can take away that pain,” she said, adding their experiences cannot be dismissed by politics as usual. “Whatever we can do to prevent the next loss for the next family, is the work that we’re all collectively doing.”

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Mustian and Goodman reported from Miami.

Sonderling, a lawyer who has held a variety of acting positions and leadership roles across Trump's government, was previously the deputy labor secretary and a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“Throughout his career, Keith has proven his dedication to delivering strong results for the Hardworking People of our Country, and I know he will do an incredible job in his new role,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing Sonderling's nomination.

Sonderling's nomination is subject to Senate confirmation.

During Trump's second term, in addition to his Labor Department post, Sonderling has been the acting director of U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, one of several agencies Trump targeted for closure in an executive order last year.

At the library agency, Sonderling placed many agency staff members on administrative leave, sent termination notices to most of them, began canceling grants and contracts and fired all members of the National Museum and Library Services Board. Those actions were later blocked by a judge, and the case remains on appeal.

Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April following reports that she was under a series of investigations.

A New York Times report revealed that the Labor Department’s inspector general was reviewing material showing Chavez-DeRemer and her top aides and family members routinely sent personal messages and requests to young staff members.

She also faced allegations that she drank alcohol on the job and that she tasked aides to plan official trips for primarily personal reasons.

Chavez De-Remer has denied wrongdoing.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement.

The settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms, including creating a list of clergy accused of abuse, said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims.

The settlement comes three years after the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy and will cover approximately 530 survivors of child sexual abuse, Anderson said. It is the latest agreement over clergy sexual abuse claims. In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a record $880 million settlement.

Several archdioceses in California filed for bankruptcy after facing hundreds of lawsuits brought under a California law approved in 2019 that allowed decades-old claims to be filed by Dec. 31, 2022.

Cordileone, the archbishop, said in a statement that he believes the settlement provides “a path toward fair compensation for survivors who have borne the weight of this abuse for a lifetime.”

“The hope is that this proposal will allow us collectively to move forward,” he said.

“We accept full responsibility for what happened, and I sincerely apologize to all those who have been harmed,” Cordileone added.

Margie O’Driscoll sued the archdiocese alleging she was sexually abused almost 50 years ago by a priest while she was a student at Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield, a community north of the Golden Gate Bridge. She said the settlement was hard-fought and puts the responsibility on church officials, not survivors.

“I, like every survivor, have carried this pain and shame along like a ball and chain for a very, very long time,” O'Driscoll said during a news conference. “Ashamed and confused about what happened, scorned by the archdiocese, and sometimes not even believed by family and friends, and I think today shame is gonna change sides.”

The San Francisco Archdiocese serves about 440,000 Catholics in the counties of San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo.

Anderson said a committee of survivors who spent thousands of hours over the last three years negotiating with Cordileone is empowered with establishing protocols on how to distribute the funds. He said every survivor will be given an opportunity to submit their story of abuse to an allocator hired by the committee to receive what Anderson said would be “an equitable distribution based on the unique circumstances of that survival.”

Besides the funds, the archdiocese will be required to follow 14 child protection and transparency demands that include maintaining and making public a comprehensive, up-to-date list of all accused clergy that details allegations and the outcomes of investigations. The archdiocese will also be banned from imposing confidentiality agreements that silence survivors.

“I’ve been working with survivors for decades and I’ve never heard of anything quite as significant, as rigorous, as robust as what is being required of the Archdiocese of San Francisco," Anderson said.

Forty-seven million people across big chunks of the Midwest and parts of the Ohio Valley are under an extreme heat warning through at least Tuesday. Temperatures are forecast to reach the 90s, with heat index values, or “feels-like” temperatures, expected to top 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) in the region, according to the National Weather Service.

Visiting Des Moines with family, Rachel Washburn searched for things to do with kids during a heat wave. They landed at a water sprayground before lunch Monday, where her children played tag in the cool water.

“My kids were quite shocked at the heat and humidity,” said Washburn of her seven children ages 18 months to 17 who had been used to more temperate weather farther north in Bemidji, Minnesota. “We were hoping for some good weather, but we'll make do.”

About 56 million Americans are under an extreme heat watch as hot and humid weather is expected to move farther east later in the week, with some of the worst conditions expected by Thursday and Friday in the Ohio Valley, the Mid-Atlantic and into the Northeast. Some areas could experience record-high temperatures, said Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

On Monday, cities and event planners were already announcing adjustments for or calling off events later in the week, including a farmer's market scheduled for Tuesday in DeWitt, Michigan; a movie screening Wednesday in Fairfield, Ohio; and Thursday’s food truck festival in Warwick, New York.

The heat wave will also likely coincide with the Fourth of July holiday weekend, providing additional risk as more people have cookouts or watch fireworks outside for the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Kleebauer said the center recommends people stay hydrated and ensure access to shady areas and air conditioning.

Emergency workers were out in Nashville on Monday to offer water and check on people during the hottest time of the day.

Mike Russell, a captain at the Nashville Office of Emergency Management, said he saw many empty areas where people typically sleep outside, which he said was a good sign that they found someplace cool to escape the heat for a while.

Logan King, 29, brought a cart to fill up on cold water and snacks when the emergency workers came out to a patch of woods behind a Walmart where he and others sleep outside. The trees where people have pitched tents offer some cover from the direct sun, but not much relief.

“It’s just miserable honestly, but this helps so much,” King said. “Even with the shade and a tent ... it gets hot."

Extreme heat has also taken its toll in Europe, where temperature records were set and many heat-related deaths were reported in France.

People can be caught off guard by the first heat wave of the year, said Dr. Roy Elrod, chief of staff at DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital.

“You’re happy winter’s gone, you’re ready to enjoy the summer, you’ve just been aching for it,” Elrod said. “And so, I think we slip into kind of a position where we think it’s got to be OK.”

Heat-related injuries can happen in a matter of minutes, he said, especially to those who don’t prepare for the weather by hydrating, wearing light clothing, avoiding the hottest times of the day and minimizing exposure to the sun.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison said it was closing 23 buildings to the public starting Tuesday, allowing only limited access to 11 others. It was relocating some summer classes after a broken water line at its cooling plant earlier this month severely reduced the ability to provide air conditioning across campus.

Temperatures approaching 90 degrees and high humidity didn’t stop Toni Kreutzer, 28, from taking a walk Monday along the shores of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, with her 13-year-old dog Chester.

“I like it hot,” Kreutzer said. "I just don’t like the humidity."

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McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press reporters Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and Haya Panjwani in Washington, D.C., contributed.

The world's most popular sporting event is being played in North America, so U.S. audiences can see the games live while the sun is out or in the early evening. The U.S. also has a team that may be its most talented in history.

And then the U.S. went out and won its first two matches to capture its group.

“I think it has exceeded our expectations,” said Mark Bickerdike, Caesars Sportsbook's head of soccer trading, said of the money being bet.

DraftKings Sportsbook director Johnny Avello said the wagering on the 48-team World Cup, which opened the knockout stage on Sunday, is putting itself in the same company as the always popular NCAA Tournament in college basketball.

“It could be the biggest event of the year when it's all said and done,” Avello said. “March Madness takes place over the course of three weeks, and it rakes quite a bit of money. This is getting there.

“It blows the Super Bowl away. One game, one day. This thing here is way bigger than that.”

Christian Cipollini, BetMGM Sportsbook's trading manager, said the enormous interest in the U.S. team has only grown. The Americans open the single-elimination phase of the tournament on Wednesday night against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Santa Clara, California.

“I expect that to be BetMGM's most bet-on soccer game of all time,” Cipollini said. “In this World Cup, all three of our most bet-on games have been the three USA games. This game is leading up to be a perfect storm where the USA looks very good. There's a lot of hype around the team.”

France and Argentina on a collision course?

The three sportsbooks list Kylian Mbappé-led France as the favorite to win it all, with Lionel Messi and defending champion Argentina not far behind. They are on opposite sides of the bracket, so if they face each other, it would be in the final, a rematch of four years ago.

At BetMGM, 15.3% of tickets have been on France, the most of any country, and it has received 20.4% of the money. That is slightly below Spain, which has taken in 20.5% of the handle, much if not most of it before the tournament.

Longtime handicapper Bruce Marshall cautioned against assuming France and Argentina would meet in the final.

“I could see seven or eight teams winning this thing,” Marshall said. “So any favorite at this stage, I don't know that there's great value there.”

Bettors look for long shots

Americans like a good underdog story, and wagers are coming in on some teams with exceptionally long odds.

“Bettors like to take a shot for a small amount of money and put it on those teams,” Avello said. “Of course, that risk is high for us because it doesn't take much. A $5 bet on Congo, it's $5,000 (in a payout). You take quite a few of those and the liability gets up pretty high on them.”

Marshall said it would make sense to take a look at Colombia (33-1 at BetMGM) or Switzerland (66-1) as teams with great value.

“Colombia looks really dangerous, and they're getting a lot of support,” Marshall said. “They played their first couple of games in Mexico, which were like home games for them.

“The one nobody's talking about is Switzerland, and they're one of these teams that remind me a of a club side. I say that in positive terms because they're very familiar with one another. A lot of these World Cup teams are sort of thrown together and haven't played much with each other. Switzerland's got guys who've played, 80, 100 games together.”

Sportsbooks aren't necessarily hoping for a US win

Should the Americans pull off the nearly unthinkable and win the World Cup, the sportsbooks would be feeling financial pain.

The U.S. has gone from a 50-1 long shot to 25-1 at BetMGM, and the Americans are 30-1 at Caesars and 33-1 at DraftKings.

“If the U.S. would’ve limped into the knockout round, our liability probably wouldn’t be as high as it is,” Cipollini said. “But the fact that they’ve looked good, there’s a lot of people that are, ‘They do have a chance.’ It’s on home soil. It’s easy to talk yourself into something we all kind of want to happen.”

‘The Simpsons’ drives some betting

A 1997 episode of “The Simpsons” featuring a match between Mexico and Portugal is causing some fans to believe the long-running TV show forecast that meeting in this year’s World Cup.

That’s not the case. Neither the World Cup nor the year 2026 were mentioned.

But those details apparently doesn’t matter to some bettors, causing a notable uptick in wagering on that matchup taking place.

“We have got a liability on that,” Bickerdike said.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Relief organizations say the first 72 hours after a natural disaster is the most crucial time period for rescues, though survival can be extended if people have access to food and water. Five days after the twin quakes, questions loomed about whether the cash-strapped government will be able to coordinate the effort needed to care for thousands of people who have been left homeless.

In other developments, a 4.6 magnitude aftershock rumbled through the disaster zone in the northern state of La Guaira.

The death toll stood at more than 1,700 people, according to the government, which has long retained tight control over news media.

Venezuelan government promotes its efforts

Facing criticism that authorities have done too little, too slowly, government officials aggressively promoted their recovery and rescue efforts. Police and military officers on Monday handed out cans of tuna and crackers to hungry displaced people in La Guaira.

In a speech, Jorge Rodríguez, the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly and brother of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, said electricity had been restored to 90% of the hardest-hit state of La Guaira. He said authorities were racing to evaluate damaged buildings that still posed a danger and had set up 15 temporary displacement camps.

Many Venezuelan news reports have avoided politically delicate questions related to the earthquake, such as the widespread collapse of buildings, sticking instead to safer stories about heroic rescues. Delcy Rodríguez, who came to power in January after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration seized former President Nicolás Maduro, shared footage Monday of emergency workers lifting a man out of the ruins to applause after a 43-hour search effort.

“Each life saved is a victory for hope,” she wrote on X.

Such bright spots are rare at the quake's epicenter, where families keep vigil at search sites.

“We have to stay strong, even without food, without sleep,” said Ana Rada, watching as civil defense workers looked for her brother. “Until I see the body, I still have hope.”

Aftershock rattles rescuers

After what the government said were more than 600 aftershocks since Wednesday's quakes, a moderate temblor on Monday struck 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Caraballeda on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and measured 4.6 magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Jorge Rodríguez said there were no reports of damage, but the shock sent residents in the capital of Caracas screaming into the streets.

“Here we are again, back in the street. I don’t know when we’ll have a moment of true peace,” said Concepción Hernández, 51, evacuating her apartment in the Chacao municipality of Caracas.

Questions over extent of US help

Dozens of countries have offered assistance. But the disaster has raised expectations for the Trump administration after its takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry earlier this year.

In a briefing with reporters, a senior State Department official said 300 first responders sent from the U.S. are working on the ground and two dozen C-17 military transport planes arrive every day with supplies. Financial support from the U.S. now exceeds $300 million.

The U.S. military is also assisting with repairs at the port in La Guaira to allow an influx of relief supplies by sea and manage air traffic after the quakes destroyed part of the control tower at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

It seemed unlikely, however, that the Trump administration would grant temporary humanitarian protections to Venezuelans as previous administrations have done for people from disaster-stricken countries already in the U.S. Such action was taken after earthquakes in 2010 in Haiti and 2001 in El Salvador.

Venezuelans have been a major focus of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. More than 100 Venezuelans recently deported from the U.S. were being held at a hotel in the country when the quake hit, and many are now missing, survivors say.

Rescuers included a miner deported from the US

Among the rescuers digging through the rubble Monday was 31-year-old miner Jean Sosa, who said he was deported from the U.S. in January over a missed immigration court hearing and returned to Caracas last month, dazed by an odyssey that began in shackles at an Arizona immigration detention center.

He had built a new life in New York City over the past four years, he said, working at a taco stand near Penn Station, before Department of Homeland Security officials detained him. They ultimately shuttled him between immigration detention centers across the U.S. before leaving him and a busload of other deportees in southern Mexico without his passport, phone or wallet. He then paid his way back to Venezuela.

Since arriving Wednesday in La Guaira, Sosa has scrambled to pull people from the rubble with his old mining pickaxe in the absence of national rescue teams.

“Many people could have been saved if there had been equipment and support from top authorities from the very beginning,” he told The Associated Press, wearing a helmet and a black T-shirt splotched with dust in the port city where he said he had already rescued 20 people alive.

Those rescues heartened him, he said, despite the lack of supplies. “We’re working without gloves, without equipment, borrowing supplies, improvising bandages and whatever else we can.”

The full scale of damage remains unclear

Experts are struggling to assess the scope of damage, but they generally agree that the government's figures are a vast undercount.

Many Venezuelans are skeptical of official pronouncements, particularly since Maduro's government claimed victory in the 2024 presidential election despite a vote count showing he had lost to the opposition movement led by María Corina Machado.

The now-exiled opposition leader has criticized the government response to the earthquake and on Monday accused it of temporarily closing the airspace to prevent her from returning to the country. She did not offer evidence.

Jorge Rodríguez said that as of Monday, the earthquake had affected a total of 15,866 people. The United Nations, meanwhile, says that up to 6.8 million of Venezuela’s nearly 30 million residents may be affected — which could mean being displaced or losing access to electricity and water. The Venezuelan Red Cross said it expected to address the needs of at least 300,000 people for the next two years.

While Rodríguez said the number of damaged or collapsed buildings had reached 855, a preliminary assessment by NASA put that number at 58,870 buildings. The assessment relied on radar imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, which can detect changes to infrastructure.

The updates to government figures are given in brief televised announcements where journalists have no opportunity to ask questions or request more details. In another obstacle to coverage, the Venezuelan press union said Monday that the Ministry of Communication was blocking access to La Guaira for at least some foreign reporters for 48 hours.

It said the ministry cited the need “to reduce noise during rescue operations." The union urged the government to drop the restriction: “As hours pass, the health situation may worsen, and the country needs verified and timely information.”

Because of the chaos and poor phone service, many Venezuelans have turned to non-governmental digital databases to report their loved ones as missing. More than 50,000 people were reported missing on one such database, though it is unclear how many have been found.

Firefighter Kleider Carrillo said nothing prepared him for the destruction in La Guaira.

“When you study for this profession, you’re trained for situations like this," he said. “But what's in textbooks is one thing. Reality is another.”

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in Tijuana, Mexico, contributed to this report.

The U.S. Education Department issued a revised rule on Monday designed to follow the judge's order from last week, officials told The Associated Press. Agency officials called it a temporary change while they fight in court to keep the original rule, which defined medicine, law and other fields as “professional programs” but excluded fields such as nursing.

The department disagrees with the judge's order but will comply, even as officials plan to prevail in the case over which degrees are defined as “professional,” Undersecretary Nicholas Kent said in a statement. “We will continue to make the case that the definition is both lawful and appropriate,” he said.

The change represents a short-term win for groups that sued to stop the rule. Eight groups challenged the department's definition in court, representing nurse practitioners, therapists, speech language pathologists and more.

But in strictly applying the judge's order, the department is now striking some degrees from the list of professional programs, meaning those students will face lower loan limits. Theology studies programs are among the biggest to shift from professional to non-professional degrees in the shuffle, subjecting theology students to a lower student loan limit. The master of divinity degree — a common degree for pastors and ministers — remains on the professional list, with a more generous student loan limit.

The new rule, which takes effect Wednesday, comes from a student loan overhaul passed in President Donald Trump's tax bill last year. Programs designated as professional degrees face federal loan caps of $200,000, while other graduate programs are capped at $100,000.

Previously, graduate students had been able to take out federal loans up to the full cost of their degree. Trump officials pushed for new loan caps to rein in student debt and lower tuition prices that they said had grown out of control.

The groups that brought the lawsuit said the rule would require students to forgo their studies or take out riskier private loans. Although many graduate nursing degrees fall within the lower loan limits, some can cost more than $100,000, including in high-demand fields like nurse anesthesia.

In a notification to universities on Monday, the Education Department said it's confident the Trump administration's initial rule will ultimately be upheld in court. The amended rule is expected to remain in effect during the judge's preliminary stay, but the department warned that it “may change as litigation in the case proceeds.”

The original rule included about a dozen programs that were deemed professional, which Trump officials had said was not a judgment on their importance but part of a technical definition dating to the 1960s. Along with law and medicine, that list also included theology, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, clinical psychology and more.

The temporary rule expands that list to 29 specific degree programs, including master of science in nursing, doctor of nursing practice, and doctor of nurse anesthesia practice. Others newly added to the professional list include degrees for physical therapy, athletic training, speech-language pathology, physician associates and anesthesiologist assistants.

The department's communication listed about 25 programs that are now considered non-professional degrees. Along with theology, that list now includes applied psychology, pharmaceutical sciences and others. (The doctor of pharmacy degree remains professional.)

Last week's court ruling blocked parts of the Education Department's definition that were added in a federal rulemaking process. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington called it a “misguided” interpretation that strayed from a longstanding definition created by Congress.

The department's definition laid out several criteria used to weigh if degrees count as professional programs. It said those degrees generally take six years to complete and require licenses to begin practicing, among other requirements.

It also said professional degrees cannot lead to employment that must be "be supervised by another professional" with “more education, training, and qualifications.”

A separate lawsuit filed by a coalition of Democratic-led states challenging the loan caps is still pending.

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Associated Press Writer Heather Hollingsworth contributed to this report from Kansas City.

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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.

Five people – four women and one man – died at the scene of the shooting in Stade, police said. A sixth, also an adult, died later at a hospital. All six were employees of the youth center or its affiliates, they said.

"The police are investigating the motive and the exact course of events under high pressure," Daniela Behrens, interior minister for the Lower Saxony region, told a news conference, adding that it was an extremely violent crime in cold blood, “apparently in a custody dispute.”

Police said several people were wounded, some of them seriously, German news agency dpa reported, but they did not give a specific figure or information on the victims’ identity.

Police said the shooting took place in the facility on Dankersstrasse, a street south of the town center. The facility includes temporary accommodation for pregnant women or young mothers with children.

A main suspect was arrested, while another two people were subject to “police measures” on suspicion of involvement, police said in a statement. They didn't elaborate.

Video footage after the shooting showed a large police presence, along with other emergency service personnel and several ambulances on a residential street.

Germany’s gun laws are more restrictive than those in the United States, and mass shootings are rare but not unheard of.

Vitali Mertens, who lives across the street from the scene, said he heard gunshots and “the whole area was cordoned off right away.”

Stade has about 50,000 inhabitants and is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Hamburg.

Rinsch, best known for the 2013 samurai fantasy film “47 Ronin,” was convicted in December of federal wire fraud and other charges. According to prosecutors and trial testimony, he told Netflix he needed $11 million to finish a show called “White Horse” but diverted the money into a personal account and ultimately spent whopping sums on luxury cars, watches, clothes and household goods, including $638,000 on two mattresses.

Rinsch, 48, and his lawyers told the court Monday that his behavior was fueled by mental health struggles and medication problems, which they said he is now addressing with a new care provider.

“This process has forced me to confront things about my health, my judgment and my life,” Rinsch said. He apologized for his behavior, acknowledged that “real harm was caused,” and explained: “I failed to recognize the danger of the state I was in.”

His psychological troubles weren't described in court, and he and his lawyers declined to detail them afterward.

Prosecutors argued that Rinsch —- who also owes about $11 million in restitution — should serve five years in prison.

“Mr. Rinsch had every possible advantage,” including family money, an elite education, famous friends and a high-flying career, prosecutor David Markewitz told the court. Rinsch's motive, the prosecutor said, “was naked greed.”

Rinsch, who also has used the name Carl Erik Rinsch professionally, hails from the Los Angeles area and began making short films as a teenager. He later directed commercials, then got attention for “47 Ronin,” which stars Reeves. His character leads outcast samurai seeking to avenge their master's killing.

Rinsch “bring exceptional joy and warmth to the people around him” and “creative inspiration to others through his creativity and vision,” Reeves told the court in a letter ahead of Rinsch's sentencing.

The “Matrix” star said he didn't know the details of the case, but he acknowledged that Rinsch “can self-sabotage by amplifying the scale, scope and landscape of what had been negotiated.” He said he hoped the director’s sentence “might be tempered with measures of leniency and mercy as well as justice.”

Prosecutors said Netflix initially paid Rinsch about $44 million for “White Horse” in 2018 and 2019, then provided another $11 million in 2020 after he said he needed more money to wrap up production.

But instead of putting that money toward the show, Rinsch steered the cash to a personal account and made a series of failed investments, losing around half the $11 million in a couple of months, according to prosecutors and witnesses' testimony.

They said he put the remaining funds into the cryptocurrency market, netting some profit, which Rinsch deposited into his own bank account.

Then came the lavish purchases, prosecutors said, with Rinsch buying five Rolls-Royces, a red Ferrari, $652,000 worth of watches and clothes, and the pricey mattresses, plus another $295,000 on luxury bedding and linens. In addition, he used some of the money to pay off about $1.8 million in credit card bills, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said Rinsch's mental health difficulties “may explain some of the excesses” but don't “detract from the court's conclusion that he was determined to lie to get substantial monies from Netflix, lie to cover it up.”

As Rakoff announced the prison term, Rinsch wrote on a piece of paper on a table in front of him. One of his lawyers, Benjamin Zeman, patted the director's back.

After court, Rinsch — who's due to report to prison in September — hugged several people who had come to support him. He and his lawyers declined to comment as they left, except that attorney Daniel McGuinness said they looked forward to appealing the case.

Netflix declined to comment on his sentence.

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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed.

The Yarnell Hill Fire that killed 19 firefighters on June 30, 2013, remains the deadliest event on record for U.S. firefighters since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the deadliest for U.S. wildland firefighters in over a century.

The firefighters died 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Prescott, Arizona, after trying to escape flames fanned by shifting winds. They were deploying fire shelters — small, heat-resistant tents that can offer a chance at survival — when flames reached them in a brushy box canyon.

Temperatures reached 2,000 degrees (1,100 Celsius).

On Saturday, a wildfire west of Grand Junction, Colorado, killed three firefighters and injured two others. That fire has burned 44 square miles (114 square kilometers). The five firefighters were members of a Helitack crew who are dropped by helicopter into remote areas to saw and dig away vegetation and create fire-resistant barriers ahead of advancing flames.

As at the Yarnell Hill Fire, the firefighters decided to stop fleeing and use fire shelters to try to survive.

A complete investigation could take several months. Full knowledge of what happened could be elusive.

Investigators of the Yarnell Hill Fire could not verify radio communications from the firefighters for a half-hour period that may have shed light on their decision-making process.

The final investigation report ultimately did not fault the firefighters, saying they were fully qualified, staffed and trained and “followed all standards and guidelines.” Their commanders likewise made reasonable judgments and decisions in rapidly worsening conditions, according to the report.

“Complexity can outpace organizational attempts to respond,” the report concluded.

Fire shelters are a last resort, offering roll-of-the-dice odds under otherwise impossible circumstances. In a 2015 wildfire in Washington state, two firefighters who used such tents survived, while three who were in a truck died.

How much the protection the tents provide depends on the conditions in which they are deployed. They are not designed to withstand direct flame, Riva Duncan, president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a firefighter advocacy group, said Monday.

“It’s your last-ditch effort to try to survive,” Duncan said.

Announcing the plan on Monday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited an urgent need to combat a “chronic disease epidemic” in America, including high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

On one floor of the state’s Department of Human Services, “our state has been approving food stamp purchases for soft drinks and candy, while on another floor, our state’s Medicaid program is paying to treat the chronic diseases those products can help create,” she said.

Food stamps is an older name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The federally funded and state-run program provides a monthly stipend for low-income families to buy groceries. It is used by nearly 42 million Americans, or about one in eight.

In a news release, the Arkansas governor's office cited Stanford University research that found restricting the purchase of sugary drinks with food stamps could reduce rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes. However, overall research remains mixed about whether restricting SNAP purchases improves diet quality and health.

Debates over SNAP benefits are common

Lawmakers at the state and federal level have long debated which foods should be eligible for purchase with SNAP. Currently, benefits cannot be used to buy hot prepared foods, but a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced a bill that would allow SNAP to be used to buy rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.

Arkansas is one of 23 states to receive a waiver allowing it to restrict the purchase of some sugary foods and drinks. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have pushed for the ban as part of the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign.

While the goals of the state restrictions are similar, the exact rules vary. Some states want to ban the purchase of both sugary drinks and candy using SNAP and others want to prohibit only the purchase of sugary beverages.

The USDA acted illegally in approving waivers, judge finds

Last week, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington vacated USDA approval of the pilot projects that allowed new SNAP restrictions in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia.

The judge said the ruling was not a reflection on the merits of the program, but said the projects were not permitted under the statute the USDA was citing. The agency also failed to follow its own regulations for implementing a pilot project, she ruled.

The Arkansas program is being implemented under the same regulations as the programs that were vacated. David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said that after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year, federal district courts generally no longer issue nationwide injunctions. Still, Arkansas’ decision to go forward with the program is “putting that to the extreme test.”

Sanders noted the ruling in her announcement on Monday but said, "Arkansas is moving full speed ahead, because we won’t wait around while our people get less and less healthy and we spend more and more taxpayer dollars trying to fix the problem.”

Grocery stores are responsible for enforcing the SNAP restrictions

Steve Goode, executive director of the Arkansas Grocers and Retail Merchants Association, said that he “wouldn’t want to guess” at how prepared the state’s businesses are to implement the benefits changes this week.

“SNAP benefits in retail have been the same for years,” he said, noting that this is going to be a “big change.”

“Some of our members that have stores in other states have done this already and the results have been OK,” he said. Arkansas has helped by hiring a third-party vendor to create a list of banned items for the stores to reference, which hasn’t been the case in some other states.

Meanwhile, the state has also created an app for SNAP beneficiaries to use that will help them determine which items are eligible for purchase and which aren’t.

NBA free agency in 2026: Everyone is waiting again for James to make a decision.

James was the biggest domino to fall in the NBA's offseason player movement period 16 years ago when he decided to join Miami, and he may be the biggest domino to fall — at least in free agency — this summer as well. Free agency opens in the NBA on Tuesday evening, with James' future atop the list of most intriguing storylines that will be solved over the coming days and weeks.

The one thing that seems clear when it comes to James: It seems like retirement isn't happening yet, which would mean the NBA's career leader in points scored, minutes played and games played coming back for a record-extending 24th season and potentially — when including playoff contests — appearing in his 2,000th game.

The question is where.

His options would figure to include staying with the Los Angeles Lakers, returning to Miami or Cleveland (both would have interest for obvious reasons) or even thinking about moving elsewhere like Golden State and teaming up with longtime friends — and rivals, considering they've gone head to head in the NBA Finals on four occasions — Stephen Curry and Draymond Green to chase one more title.

Green — who is not expected to leave Golden State — on Monday declined his $27.6 million option for next season, doing so to give the Warriors more maneuverability to add players in the coming days, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because that detail was not revealed publicly by the team, and it raises the possibility that the Warriors might now have more of a selling point to pitch to James.

“When the time comes, you guys will know what I decide to do,” James said when the Lakers were eliminated this spring by Oklahoma City in a 4-0 sweep.

The time is coming.

The window opens Tuesday at 6 p.m. Eastern

The window when teams can begin officially talking with free agents — other than the ones on their own team, those talks could begin when the NBA Finals ended — opens at 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and deals could be flying not long afterward.

In most cases, any new deals cannot be executed until at least the end of the NBA's offseason moratorium on July 6.

“This period we’re in right now, kind of from mid-May to mid-July, it’s a two-month sprint through the draft, combine, free agency, Summer League, all that,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said earlier this month. “We’re super busy right now. But it’s a fun time of year. This is where we get to make decisions, shape the roster, do all that stuff.”

The NBA finalists — champion New York and runner-up San Antonio — both will have moves to make in the coming days, though they are expected to keep their cores largely intact. The Knicks were keeping Landry Shamet on a four-year deal, a person with knowledge of the details said Monday. And the Spurs announced Monday that sharpshooter Julian Champagnie, who came up big time and time again for San Antonio in the playoffs, signed a new deal with the club; a person with knowledge of the terms told AP it was a three-year deal for up to $45 million.

Plenty of other decisions and roster-shaping already has happened around the league, either by trades (such as the Giannis Antetokounmpo blockbuster by Miami last week or the Ja Morant deal between Memphis and Portland that went down Monday) or teams re-signing or extending their own players (such as Trae Young's $212 million deal with Washington and Austin Reaves' $185 million deal with the Lakers).

Detroit has agreed with guard Kevin Huerter on a three-year, $27 million deal that keeps him with the Pistons, a person familiar with those terms told AP; the third year is an option. Sacramento traded former lottery pick Devin Carter and a future second-round pick to Atlanta in a salary dump, and Kings guard Zach LaVine picked up his $49 million player option, a person familiar with those moves said on condition of anonymity because they haven’t been finalized.

Many moves still awaiting completion

Miami will land Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis in a trade that sends Tyler Herro, other players and draft capital to Milwaukee, but that won't be finalized until that moratorium date passes. But in the interim, the Heat will be looking to add shooters — Tim Hardaway Jr., whose father's number is retired in Miami, and longtime Antetokounmpo favorite Khris Middleton make a lot of sense.

The Heat will be keeping Andrew Wiggins, who on Monday exercised his $30 million option for this coming season and, according to a person familiar with the talks between the sides, has agreed in principle on a $34 million deal for the following two seasons — with 2028-29 at his option.

More trades could be coming, with a person familiar with the negotiations confirming to the AP that Toronto has spoken with the Los Angeles Clippers on the possibility of Kawhi Leonard — who led the Raptors to the 2019 NBA title — returning to Ontario next season. And Boston is still believed to be holding talks about the possibility of trading 2024 NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown, who was the centerpiece of the Celtics' ultimately futile offer to land Antetokounmpo in trade discussions with Milwaukee.

“Nobody has won more combined regular-season and playoff games since I entered the league 10 years ago,” Brown posted on social media over the weekend. He's right: The Celtics have won 523 games with Brown in the lineup, including playoff contests, which is six more than Denver has won with Nikola Jokic over that span.

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AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in New York and AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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

The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights the Republican president’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

But other than at the nation’s central bank, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority.

With the six conservative justices in the majority, the nine-member court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey’s Executor that had limited when presidents can fire agencies’ board members — in part to try to ensure decision-making free of political influence.

“We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Support for Trump’s position

The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause despite a provision of federal law that requires a reason. The logic of the decision extends to other agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump also has fired board members.

Trump voiced his approval in a Truth Social post. “It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers,” he wrote.

The court already had signaled its support for the Trump administration’s position, over the liberals’ objection, by allowing Slaughter and the board members of other agencies to be removed from their jobs even as their legal challenges continued.

No president before Trump had sought to wrest control of the agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life, including nuclear energy, product safety and labor relations. But at arguments in Slaughter's case in December, the six conservatives, including three appointed by Trump, seemed more concerned about issuing a ruling that would endure than handing too much power to Trump.

Their rhetoric was reminiscent of the presidential immunity case in 2024 that allowed Trump to avoid prosecution for his efforts to undo his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The court is writing a decision “for the ages,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said then.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent she summarized aloud in the courtroom, said the ruling could lead to “submission, instability, and even oppression.”

“The president, to be sure, emerges with more power than ever before. That power was given to him by six justices on this court, not the people or the Constitution,” Sotomayor said.

Fed governor Cook's case

In Cook’s case, the court voted 5-4 to reject the Trump administration’s effort to get Cook out of her job now. Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the three liberal justices were in the majority.

Allowing Cook to be ousted now, Roberts wrote, “would allow the President to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after. That would turn for-cause protection into little more than at-will employment.”

Roberts did include a footnote in his opinion noting that nothing forbids Trump from “trying again” to fire her, provided she is given proper notice and a chance to contest it.

Trump suggested he would take Roberts up on the offer, saying on Truth Social that “we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”

Cook, who was nominated to the Fed’s Board of Governors by Biden, can continue in her post at least as long as her lawsuit challenging her firing goes on, the court said. The Trump administration is appealing a lower-court ruling in her favor.

Besides trying to fire Cook, Trump had threatened to fire former Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell if he didn’t leave the board when his term as chairman ended in mid-May. Powell has remained as a governor, even as Kevin Warsh has replaced him as chairman.

Judges on lower courts have allowed Cook to remain in her post as one of seven central bank governors.

The true motivation for trying to fire Cook, Trump’s critics say, is the Republican president’s desire to exert control over U.S. interest rate policy. If Trump succeeds in removing Cook, the first Black woman to be a Federal Reserve governor, he could replace her with his own appointee and gain a majority on the Fed’s board. The case is being closely watched by Wall Street investors and could have broad impacts on the financial markets and the U.S. economy.

Cook said her case was “never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor.”

"It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure and continued to set interest rates based only on what would best serve the American people. That is the most fundamental obligation of a Federal Reserve governor,” Cook said in a statement.

Trump's confrontation with the Fed

Trump has been dismissive of worries that cutting rates too quickly could trigger higher inflation. He wants dramatic reductions so the government can borrow more cheaply and Americans can pay lower borrowing costs for new homes, cars or other large purchases, as worries about high costs have soured some voters on his economic management.

The Fed has left its key rate unchanged this year, but a growing chorus of policymakers is expressing concern about persistently high inflation and suggesting the central bank could raise its benchmark rate by the end of this year or leave it unchanged.

While Cook’s case was under review at the high court, Trump dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Fed. The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of Powell and served the central bank with subpoenas.

The investigation ended in late April, the department said. The announcement cleared a major roadblock to the confirmation of Warsh as Powell’s successor.

The case against Cook stems from allegations she claimed two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as “primary residences” in June and July 2021, before she joined the Fed board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home.

Those applications, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in January, are evidence of “gross negligence at best” and give Trump reason to fire her. In any event, he argued, courts shouldn’t be reviewing his decision and Cook has no right to a hearing.

Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

The state Supreme Court on Monday struck down a series of proposed ballot initiatives that would have sidestepped the state's independent redistricting commission and authorized new U.S. House districts for the 2028 and 2030 elections. The court said the measures addressed multiple subjects in violation of the state constitution.

The rulings marked another setback for Democrats in a nationwide redistricting battle that could affect control of Congress. Earlier this year, courts also invalidated Democratic redistricting efforts in Virginia and New York that were aimed at the midterm elections, though Democrats could try again in those states before the 2028 elections. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for people of color, opening a pathway for Republicans in several Southern states to redraw majority-Black districts that had elected Democrats.

Redistricting is typically done immediately after a census at the start of each decade.

President Donald Trump kick-started an unusual mid-decade redistricting fight last year when he called on Republicans in Texas to redraw congressional districts in a bid to win several additional seats in the midterms and hold on to control of the closely divided chamber. Other Republican-led states followed, and several Democratic-led states tried to counter. Republicans prevailed in more states with new districts that they hope could net as many as 10 additional seats in November.

Colorado’s U.S. House delegation is evenly split between four Democrats and four Republicans under a map drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census. A constitutional amendment would be needed to draw different districts before the next census.

A Democratic-backed amendment would have authorized mid-decade redistricting and created new districts that could have helped Democrats gain up to three seats. Supporters offered two options: a single amendment combining both proposals, and a pair of initiatives separating redistricting authorization from the new map that would take effect only if both passed. The Colorado Supreme Court said both versions violated the multi-subject prohibition.

The court cited the same grounds while also invalidating identical Republican-backed ballot initiatives submitted to counter the Democratic ones.

Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, which backed the Democratic redistricting initiatives, said it was disappointed the court thwarted its efforts.

“While Trump and his MAGA allies regularly sidestep the law and ignore voters, efforts to respond have once again been dealt a legal setback over a technicality,” said Curtis Hubbard, a spokesperson for the group.

Colorado voters approved a constitutional amendment creating an independent redistricting commission in 2018. A group that backed that ballot measure praised the Supreme Court on Monday for not gutting the commission.

“While other states stumble into the partisan abyss via gerrymandering warfare, Colorado is defending its reputation as a beacon for fairness and good government," said Frank McNulty, chair of Fair Maps Colorado.

A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday's earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

“We walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried … there was no communication,” Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.

“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” said Portillo. “I am traumatized,” she said after a pause, weeping.

The Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed.

They survived the earthquake the same day that were deported from the U.S.

Portillo was caught up in the Trump administration's drive for mass deportations. In May, ICE Flight Monitor tracked 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile and the Ivory Coast.

The U.S. ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela in May, operating three days a week, according to ICE Flight Monitor. Deportation flights to Venezuela resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause.

Portillo said the government took them to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they underwent medical exams and got identification documents. They were told they would go home the next day.

Portillo was staying in a second floor room with 16 other women. She stepped onto a balcony to look at the sea and saw that the sky was black; it was very hot. She returned to the room, laid on a bed, and began to feel herself being shaken.

“I started hearing ‘papa, papa papapa,’, and I saw the women next to me start to fall,” she said, describing the sounds from the earthquake. “They were all screaming for help.”

And almost immediately, the second earthquake.

"I fall and end up buried and covered by a beam, but the shaking shifted everything where I was buried and I was able to get out,” said Portillo, who has bruises all over her body.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for information from the AP.

A video from the Venezuelan government posted on social media showed images of the deportees being received by Venezuelan authorities upon their arrival at the Caracas airport on Wednesday.

Jenny Rodriguez, 24, told the Telemundo network that she was on the flight and taken to the hotel.

“I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help”, she said. “Thanks to God — and to him — I was able to get out of there.”

Liliana Rojas told Telemundo that she has been trying to locate her 33-year-old partner. The detention center where he was held in El Paso, Texas, says only told that he was deported.

“No one is giving an answer about anything,” Rojas said.

Woman says she feels ‘born again’ after surviving

Portillo, who crossed the U.S. border with Mexico in November 2021 and said had an pending asylum claim, couldn't remember her children's phone number. She called her husband in the United States.

“I said to him, ‘Cesar, I’m alive. Help me.’ And my husband kept saying, ‘It can’t be,’” she said. “‘I’m alive, I made it out of the rubble, I’m alive,’ I told him.”

Her husband called their children, who picked her up and were able to reunite with their mother the following night.

“I was born that day; on the 24th, I was born again,” said Portillo, who lived in South Florida for more than four years.

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This version corrects the headline to say the hotel was in La Guaira.

“Clearly the parents were feeding the child improperly, to say the least,” Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said Monday. “He wasn’t getting the nutrition he needed.”

Casper O'Brien died last November after first responders were called to the family's home in Flint because he'd stopped breathing, prosecutors said. His parents — Damien O’Brien, 40, and Jessica O’Brien, 41 — have each been charged with second-degree murder, torture and three counts of second-degree child abuse.

The couple were arraigned last week and are being held on no bond in jail in Genesee County, about an hour's drive northwest of Detroit. A probable cause hearing is set for Thursday.

The child, who was 4 feet, 2.5 inches (128 centimeters) tall, was medically classified as obese, according to the Genesee County Medical Examiner’s report. His cause of death was listed as dilated cardiomyopathy, with his weight being a contributing condition. Dilated cardiomyopathy happens when the heart becomes enlarged and weakened and can’t efficiently pump blood, which can affect other body systems including the lungs.

According to the criminal complaints, the parents failed to take Casper for treatment even though the family had health care.

Elias Fanous, an attorney representing Damien O’Brien, said in a statement that he wouldn’t speculate on the case’s circumstances and had no comment beyond saying that his client was “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.” An attorney for Jessica O’Brien did not immediately return a request for comment Monday.

Leyton said authorities believe Casper just consumed “a steady diet of snack foods.” He said Casper, who was nonverbal and bedridden, had severe bed sores and various rashes.

The autopsy report said law enforcement and Child Protective Services reported there were piles of trash in the home, and Casper was not enrolled in school. Leyton said the hoarding in the home was “terrible.”

One of the child abuse charges relates to the couple's 5-year-old daughter, who was placed in foster care.

Casper last saw his primary care provider in February 2024, according to the autopsy report, when he was diagnosed with a cough, congestion and metabolic disease. At that visit, he weighed 104 pounds (47 kilograms), and his mother was given information on a healthy diet and exercise, according to the report, which said he was referred to a pediatric endocrinologist but never saw one. The report said the metabolic disease wasn't specified in available medical records.

“It’s a very, very sad and tragic situation,” Leyton said. “I’ve been the prosecuting attorney for 22 years and I thought I’d seen it all but I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

News4JAX viewers said unwanted spam calls have become a daily frustration, with many reporting they continue despite registering their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry and filing complaints with federal regulators.

Consumer investigative reporter Tiffany Salameh found her own phone has become a target.

“You qualify for a loan up to $80,000,” one recorded message said. Salameh noted she had never applied for such a loan and said she now receives five or six spam calls a day.

After sharing the issue on social media, hundreds of viewers responded with similar experiences.

One viewer, Leandrofedz, commented that the calls come “everyday at every time.”

Another, Marsattack22, said, “I’ve reported it to the FCC and am registered on the do-not-call list but calls still come through.”

Jason Belcher, president of the Better Business Bureau of Northeast Florida, said consumer frustration is understandable.

“We wish there was a button we could push or a switch we could flip that would just make them stop,” Belcher said. “I’m with you on that.”

While many consumers wonder why the calls haven’t been stopped, Belcher said creating or changing laws is up to lawmakers, not consumer protection organizations.

Instead, he said the focus should be on preventing people from becoming victims.

“The number one thing is don’t give out personal identifying information,” Belcher said. “That includes your Social Security number, address and birthday.”

Belcher said many spam calls are fueled by massive data breaches, where criminals obtain large databases containing thousands or even millions of phone numbers. Using automated dialing technology, scammers can contact huge numbers of people in a short amount of time.

Although there’s no guaranteed way to eliminate the calls, Belcher recommends several steps consumers can take to reduce their risk:

• Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers when possible.
• Never provide personal or financial information over the phone to unsolicited callers.
• Block spam numbers on your phone.
• Register your number with the National Do Not Call Registry.
• Report unwanted calls to the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Communications Commission.

Belcher said reporting spam calls is important because the BBB tracks scam trends nationwide and shares that information with law enforcement agencies when patterns emerge.

“If we see scams that are affecting large numbers of people across a certain region or state, we can report that to the local authorities and let them take action from a legal perspective,” he said.

While unwanted calls may continue, consumer advocates say staying cautious and refusing to engage with callers remains the best defense against becoming the next scam victim.

Click here to report spam calls to the BBB.

Click here to report spam calls to the FCC.

Click here to put yourself on the Do Not Call Registry.

A decision favoring the state of Mississippi over the Republican National Committee delivered an immediate reprieve to the 14 states with grace periods for regular mail ballots, as well as heading off what was expected to be a scramble to alter the practice and inform voters just months ahead of the midterm elections.

At least one state, Ohio, had preemptively changed its law in anticipation of a different result from the high court, and 15 other states have such grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the ruling means "the thousands of voters whose ballots are postmarked on time but received after Election Day still have their voices heard.”

Mail ballots, also called absentee ballots, have been the source of conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump, who groundlessly blames them for his loss in the 2020 election. The RNC and Libertarian Party had sued to overturn a Mississippi law that permits the counting of mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive up to five days later, on grounds that it violated federal law.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, wrote for the majority that the practice is legal.

"Nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by Election Day,” she wrote, adding that the court considered that very narrow question without wading into more sweeping declarations about absentee voting in general or the authority of Congress versus states over election law.

In Illinois, where mail-in ballots accounted for up to a quarter of this year's primary vote, the state elections board had budgeted $300,000 for a television and radio ad campaign to educate voters about potential changes to the mail ballot deadline. Spokesman Matt Dietrich said that campaign will be called off after the court's ruling. Illinois allows mail ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within 14 days.

“Anytime you have a change in the administration of elections that affects voters, it is a big challenge to us to make sure that voters understand what that change is,” he said.

California, which has a seven-day grace period, has been a regular target of Trump and other Republicans who criticize the state's slow-counting of late-arriving ballots and have used the gap to spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber called Monday's ruling "a win for voters, for the rule of law, and for the future of our democracy.”

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson called the decision a victory for states' rights, including the ability to set election rules as long as they don't conflict with federal law.

In addition to California, Illinois and Mississippi, the other states that count regular mail ballots received after Election Day are Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.

Data shows that mail ballots are popular options across all 50 states for both Republican and Democratic voters.

Although the RNC was party to the case and not the Trump administration itself, national party committees of a sitting president’s party typically operate in concert with the president’s political strategies. Trump also has effectively taken over operations of the RNC, the GOP's main fundraising and political operation.

Calling Monday's ruling “a tremendous loss,” Trump used it as a way to push his sweeping election law bill that has stalled on Capitol Hill despite Republican control in both chambers of Congress.

In a Truth Social post, the president declared it “more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” his name for legislation that would require voters nationally to document their U.S. citizenship to register to vote, show certain photo identification to cast ballots and limit who can vote with a mail ballot. RNC Chairman Joe Gruters issued a statement aligning with Trump, saying Monday's ruling was justification to pass the congressional proposal.

Lower federal courts have issued rulings blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to impose new restrictions on mail ballots and to create a national voter list, among other proposed changes. Judges in those cases have consistently said the Constitution vests authority for setting election rules with Congress and the states, not the president.

While Barrett framed Monday’s opinion on the narrower question of the mail ballot deadline, the decision could bolster hopes among Democrats that the high court will look skeptically on the president’s assertion of power over elections if other cases land before it.

Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin said he was relieved because the ruling was a potential sign that other cases could go Democrats' way. But he accused the president and RNC of trying to disenfranchise voters and said he was alarmed by the narrow 5-4 decision in the case.

“What’s troubling was that so many of the other justices were willing to sacrifice the rights of voters,” said Galvin, a Democrat.

Perhaps nowhere was the case being watched more closely than Alaska, where Native and rural communities dotted across a vast landscape rely on the state's grace period to ensure their ballots get counted. Planes are often the only way ballots can get from polling locations to counting locations.

Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, was among the attorneys who filed a brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Alaska Native and Native American groups. The brief highlighted the challenges they face, in particular where many communities are accessible only by air or water and rely on air service for mail.

“For many Native communities, voting by mail is shaped by long distances to election offices, no home mail delivery, unreliable postal service, lack of access to transportation, and the realities of living in rural and remote areas,” she said. “Ballots cast by election deadlines should not be discarded simply because substandard service or weather delays cause them to arrive after Election Day.”

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Associated Press writers Bill Barrow and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, Josh Kelety in Phoenix, Ali Swenson in New York and graphic artist Kevin Vineys in Washington contributed to this report.

The findings follow allegations made by Councilman Rory Diamond, who publicly questioned whether the program was involved in Medicare fraud and wasting taxpayer money. Reviews by the city administration, the City Council auditor and independent evaluators found those allegations were not substantiated.

“There’s no evidence of misconduct,” Telescope Health CEO Matthew Thompson said, adding that the reviews consistently reached the same conclusion. Thompson said HealthLink JAX has generated an estimated $16 million in financial impact for the Jacksonville community.

HealthLink JAX serves more than 100,000 uninsured Jacksonville residents by providing free virtual visits with board-certified physicians. The program also connects patients with primary care providers, specialists, prescription assistance and community paramedics who can conduct in-home health screenings when needed.

Thompson said the months-long investigation required the company to repeatedly defend its reputation but also reinforced the program’s commitment to transparency. He noted that HealthLink JAX was created with City Council support and funded through the city’s budget.

While auditors found no evidence of fraud or illegal activity, the Duval DOGE Committee questioned whether the city is receiving enough measurable value from its nearly $2 million annual contract. Auditors said some projected savings could not be independently verified, and that one cost-saving component of the program was used infrequently.

Thompson disputed those conclusions and encouraged uninsured residents who need medical care to take advantage of the service by calling 904-925-CARE.

Councilman Matt Carlucci said the investigation confirmed there was no fraud, misuse of public funds or illegal conduct and cautioned against allowing unsupported allegations to drive expensive investigations.

Diamond, in a statement, pointed to auditors’ conclusion that the program provides “no tangible financial benefit to taxpayers” but did not dispute the findings that uncovered no fraud or criminal wrongdoing that he alleged.

Councilman Ron Salem did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Incoming City Council President Nick Howland has since merged the Duval DOGE Committee into a new audit and oversight committee and says the new city council will move away from so many investigations and focus on oversight.

Florida law requires a person to be at least 14 years old to operate a personal watercraft. Allowing someone under that age to do so is a second-degree misdemeanor.

Officers with the Sarasota Police Marine Patrol Unit spotted the boy riding the watercraft during a busy weekend with rough currents — conditions that made the situation even more dangerous.

What Florida law says about personal watercraft

Florida Statute 327.39 outlines several rules that govern the operation of personal watercraft on state waters. Here’s what riders — and their parents — need to know:

Life jackets are required. Every person riding on or being towed behind a personal watercraft must wear a U.S. Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device. Inflatable devices do not meet this requirement.

Engine cutoff switches must be used. If a personal watercraft is equipped with a lanyard-type engine cutoff switch, the operator must attach it to their person, clothing, or life jacket at all times.

No nighttime riding. Personal watercraft cannot be operated between one-half hour after sunset and one-half hour before sunrise. Emergency rescue and fire service personnel are exempt while performing official duties.

Safe operation is the law. Personal watercraft must be operated in a reasonable and prudent manner at all times. Reckless behavior — including weaving through congested boat traffic, jumping another vessel’s wake in close proximity, or swerving at the last moment to avoid a collision — is considered reckless operation under Florida Statute 327.33.

Minimum age is 14. No person under the age of 14 may operate a personal watercraft on Florida waters. It is also unlawful for any owner or person in control of a personal watercraft to knowingly allow someone under 14 to operate it.

Rental operators must complete safety instruction. Anyone operating a leased, hired, or rented personal watercraft must receive instruction in safe handling, as required by rules established by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A written statement confirming that instruction must be provided to the owner or person in charge of the vessel.

Johnson, 40, spent 10 seasons in the league and last played in 2017 for the Arizona Cardinals. He said on ABC's “ Good Morning America ” that he was diagnosed with the fatal nervous system disease last year.

“Honestly, I don’t know if you really fully process it,” he said, using his eyes to communicate through a computerized speech-generating device during the interview with Michael Strahan. “At first you’re in shock. Then you realize you have two choices: You can give up or you can fight. I chose to fight.”

Johnson, a first-round draft pick out of East Carolina in 2008, rushed for 7,965 yards over six seasons with the Titans. The native of Orlando, Florida, had 2,006 yards in 2009 to earn the nickname “CJ2K” and ingratiate himself with the Tennessee fan base.

Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk, in a statement released Monday, said the organization is holding Johnson, his wife and four children close.

“Some people leave a mark on an organization that you just can’t put into words. Chris Johnson is one of those people for us. His leadership on the field, in addition to his impact in the locker room and Nashville community have written him permanently into the story of this franchise," Adams Strunk said. “Learning this news is extremely difficult, and we will support Chris every step of the way throughout his journey."

ALS, which is an acronym for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and is commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurodegenerative condition that affects nerve cell communication with muscles throughout the body. The disease leads to muscle weakness and can cause deterioration of the ability to move, speak and breathe.

Tim Shaw, who had a six-year career as a linebacker in the NFL and was a teammate of Johnson's with the Titans from 2010-12, was diagnosed in 2014 at age 30 with ALS and is still alive.

Johnson, who also played one season for the New York Jets, first noticed weakness in his right hand and trouble with his grip. He was still working out daily a year ago. Now he can't hold a cup or speak on his own.

“Your mind stays sharp. People sometimes look at a person with a physical disability and assume you’re not still the same person inside,” Johnson said. “I still think the same. I still dream. I still love my family. My body just doesn’t cooperate.”

Johnson was joined for the interview by his wife, Brittany, who has become his primary caregiver.

“She hasn’t left my side through any of this. My kids are also a huge part of why I keep going,” Johnson said. “Every day I wake up wanting more time with them to make more memories and just be their dad. They give me a reason to keep fighting.”

Johnson has been participating in experimental treatments with the goal of extending his life and helping the medical field move closer to a cure for the disease.

“If it helps even one person get diagnosed sooner, inspires more research or gives another family hope,” he said, “then it's worth it.”

Johnson didn’t discuss his playing career in the interview. In a later post on his Instagram account he acknowledged the unknown about how he developed the disease but referenced research that has linked repetitive head trauma to ALS. That includes a 2021 study that found NFL players were nearly four times more likely to develop the disease than the general male population.

“I hope the NFL steps up, invests in research, and continues working to protect players — both now and for generations to come,” Johnson said. “Together, we can push toward better treatments and, one day, a cure.”

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

The 44-year-old Williams is scheduled to play an opponent less than half her age, 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia, in the third match Tuesday on Centre Court — the patch of grass where the American standout won seven of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles.

“I think everyone’s feeling the same way: Cannot wait to be watching Serena back on Centre Court again,” Sally Bolton, the chief executive of the All England Club, said Monday.

Wimbledon organizers took the unusual step of holding up an eighth and final wild card spot for Williams until she accepted the invitation at almost the last possible moment the weekend before qualifying began.

“We were all sitting there sort of quietly keeping our fingers crossed that that’s what would happen,” Bolton said when asked by The Associated Press how anxious the club was while Williams pondered her decision.

“She is such an icon of the sport and particularly here at the championship she’s one of our most special champions,” Bolton added. “So it really will be the ticket to have tomorrow when she walks back on Centre Court.”

Whether it was related to Williams or not, the queue (line) of would-be-spectators camping out overnight for the daily batches of Wimbledon tickets on offer had reached 10,000 people by Monday morning.

“We are advising people if they haven’t already set off to travel, not to travel because the queue is effectively full,” Bolton said. “By comparison to last year, it is really busy.”

Williams will also play doubles with older sister Venus Williams later in the week.

Since Serena last won Wimbledon a decade ago, eight different women have won the title.

“It was needed a wee bit to kind of reinvent the women’s game,” said Lauren Byrne, a 26-year-old spectator at Wimbledon from near Dublin. “She’s definitely going to bring a bit more excitement back.”

Added Byrne’s father, Anthony: “It’s just great to see her. She still has the appetite, hasn’t she, to play at this level? … Age isn’t a barrier.”

Gibran Chenia, a London resident who described himself as “50-plus,” called Williams “a legend.

“And if she’s half as good as she was, she is going to be great for tennis,” Chenia said. “It’s great to have legends back.”

___

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

Sotomayor’s disclosure form says she and unidentified guests attended the concert last August while she was on a private trip to Puerto Rico. The paperwork does not identify the performer, but Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny is known to have performed a series of shows on the island that month and the $4,333 gift she disclosed was provided by Rimas Entertainment, Bad Bunny's record label.

The justices' ethical practices away from the court have received additional scrutiny in recent years because of media coverage, including by The Associated Press, that has highlighted their lucrative book deals, gifts they have received and travel they have taken. Among the revelations was a series of stories by ProPublica that revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to report luxury travel paid for by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.

The forms underscore the extent to which book-writing remains a lucrative source of income for members of the court.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in 2024 released a memoir titled “Lovely One,” disclosed $1.81 million in book advances, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett reported more than $849,000 in royalties. They both reported more than a dozen events or discussions, including for their books, at which a combination of food, travel or lodging was provided. Justice Neil Gorsuch also disclosed receiving $300,000 in royalty income.

Several justices also reported paid teaching assignments. Chief Justice John Roberts, for instance, reported $25,000 in teaching income for a brief course at New England Law School, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh received $33,285 for teaching at Notre Dame. Gorsuch taught for roughly two weeks last July at a George Mason University campus in Prague, records show.

Kavanaugh also delivered a speech last September — his meals, transportation and lodging were provided — at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, which the AP earlier reported had invited Thomas to headline a 2017 event.

The court released disclosure forms for eight of the nine sitting justices. Justice Samuel Alito, as he has previously done, requested a 90-day extension, the court said.

An early Sunday morning shooting on West 11th Street killed one man and sent another to the hospital, police said.

On late Sunday evening, a man believed by JSO to be 20 to 25 years old was found shot to death near a playground at Victory Pointe Apartments off Lane Avenue; some neighbors said the victim appeared to be a teen.

Residents at the apartment complex described feeling shaken.

“To be honest with you, we usually don’t have things like that,” Bonita Stewart said, who has lived in the neighborhood for 21 years. “You very seldom see this. We don’t have that in Victory Pointe.”

A neighbor who declined to be named said the shooting made her feel unsafe in her own home.

“For that to happen where my kids are, this is awful,” she said.

Several residents said people are reluctant to speak to police. Stewart said there is a local “code” against talking about crimes, but added, “If the shoe is on the other foot, you would want someone to tell about who did it to your family member.”

JSO said investigators have encountered similar unwillingness to cooperate at the West 11th Street scene.

Anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers, noting tips there are anonymous and can lead to a reward if they result in an arrest.

“JSO’s not going to show up at my door, are they? No, sir — you’re completely anonymous,” Hancock said.

He warned that contacting the sheriff’s office directly by email or phone could constitute a public record.

Anyone with information about either case is asked to call 904-630-0500, by email at JSOCRIMETIPS@JAXSHERIFF.ORG, or anonymously Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.

The River City’s music background dips into a plethora of genres: the southern rock anthems of Lynyrd Skynyrd, to the soulful tunes of Ray Charles, to the pop-punk hits of Yellowcard.

Jacksonville’s music heritage runs deeper than many people realize. The city’s newest tribute to that legacy can be found at the Riverfront Music Garden and Walk of Fame in downtown Jacksonville.

Jill Enz, chief of Natural and Marine Resources for the City of Jacksonville, oversaw the project from start to finish, with an end goal that goes beyond honoring the past.

“The vision was really the history of Jacksonville musicians and celebrating that history, so that along with kind of playful interactive elements for people to use and explore music on their own,” Enz said.

The Walk of Fame features a roster of musicians whose influence stretches far beyond Florida’s borders — including the Johnson Brothers, Ma Rainey and Tim McGraw.

Lisa Thomas, marketing director for Duval Hall, said those names represent something bigger than music.

“They’re everything,” Thomas said. “It’s not just our music history. It’s Jacksonville as a whole.”

Thomas pointed out that Jacksonville’s musical identity predates many of the city’s other cultural touchstones.

“Before the Jags were here, we had our music,” Thomas said.

The Walk of Fame spans multiple genres, reflecting the breadth of Jacksonville’s contributions to American music, with some surprising names along the way.

“You even have Mae Axton, who wrote ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ for Elvis Presley,” Thomas said. “I mean, she’s on this walk, as she should be.”

Not every Jacksonville music legend has their name on the Walk of Fame — but their stories are no less significant. Historic Mt. Zion AME Church is one of the places where that history lives.

A month after his French Open meltdown, the top-ranked Sinner produced a 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-2, 6-3 win that lasted 3 hours and 30 minutes in the opening match on Centre Court, which by custom is reserved for the past year’s men’s singles champion.

Sinner said he was “a little tight in the beginning,” noting that it was his first grass-court match of the season.

“I’m happy that I turned it around,” Sinner said.

Lleyton Hewitt, the 2002 champion, remains the only Wimbledon men’s singles winner in the professional era (since 1968) to lose in the first round the following year. The Australian was defeated by Ivo Karlovic in his 2003 opener.

In another Centre Court match, seven-time champion Novak Djokovic had Bad Bunny cheering him on during a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 victory over 102nd-ranked Wu Yibing that ended with the retractable roof closed and the lights turned on due to darkness. Djokovic improved to a perfect 21-0 in the opening round at Wimbledon.

Serena Williams will play her opening match on Tuesday against 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia — marking the first time she competes in singles in nearly four years.

Ideal conditions

Sinner hadn’t played an official match since he struggled with dizziness during a heat wave at Roland Garros, where after being within one game of concluding his second-round match in straight sets, he was beaten by Juan Manuel Cerundolo in five.

The match with Kecmanovic was played in ideal conditions, with sunny skies and the temperature 24 degrees Celsius (75 Fahrenheit).

Sinner is a big favorite to repeat as Wimbledon champion since his main rival Carlos Alcaraz, who he beat in last year’s final, is missing the championships due to a right wrist injury.

Sinner felt the pressure from the honors reserved for the defending champion.

“It was a very, very different feeling," he said. "There’s a lot of nerves when you go down the stairs behind the court. Also mentally knowing it’s such a prestige court and such a historical court.”

Bloody shoe

Early in the third set, Sinner drew a loud applause when he executed a sliced stop-volley drop shot that was so good Kecmanovic didn’t even run for it. But in the same game, Sinner then fell hard to the grass when he lost his footing trying to change directions. He went down on his knees and fell backwards grimacing in pain as he grasped what appeared to be his left hip area. But he quickly got up and resumed playing.

As the match wore on, Sinner appeared to be bleeding through his right shoe.

“I’m good,” Sinner said. “It just seems much worse than it is. … It’s just a nail.”

Kecmanovic saved a set point in the third-set tiebreaker with a wild point that ended with Sinner down on the ground again after he first retrieved a short ball and then retreated to run down a ball over his shoulder into the corner. It evened the tiebreaker at 6-6 and Sinner and Kecmanovic slapped hands on the ensuing change of ends as the players appeared to appreciate each other’s effort.

Two points later, a backhand from Sinner sailed long and Kecmanovic had a two-sets-to-one lead.

“The third set," Sinner said, "was a very tough one to swallow.”

But Sinner cleaned up his game in the final two sets to earn his first five-set victory since he came back from two sets down to beat Daniil Medvedev for his first Grand Slam trophy in the 2024 Australian Open final.

Beckham does the wave

When Sinner held for a 5-2 lead in the fifth, David Beckham in the Royal Box was among the spectators taking part in a Centre Court wave.

Sinner has now won all five of his career meetings with Kecmanovic but this one was nothing like a straight-sets victory in the third round at Wimbledon in 2024 and the players shared a friendly embrace at the net when it was over.

Sinner produced 72 winners to Kecmanovic's 20 but also had many more unforced errors: 52 to 33. The serve was a weapon for Sinner, cranking out 31 aces to Kecmanovic's one.

“We will try to aim for a couple of improvements for the next match,” Sinner said.

Kecmanovic had to regroup recently after Viktor Troicki left him to coach another Serbian — someone by the name of Novak Djokovic.

Osaka's kimono

In other matches, Medvedev defeated Marin Cilic 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 in a matchup of Grand Slam champions; 12th-seeded Andrey Rublev was beaten by Roman Safiullin 6-4, 6-7 (6), 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (12); and rising Spanish teenager Rafael Jodar, in his Wimbledon debut, beat Felix Gill 6-3, 6-3, 7-5.

In women's action, Naomi Osaka made another fashion statement by wearing a flowing kimono for her walk-on before a 6-1, 7-5 victory over Elsa Jacquemot; top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka beat Teodora Kostovic 6-2, 6-3; Coco Gauff beat Tamara Korpatsch 6-2, 6-1 in 54 minutes; and French Open champion Mirra Andreeva beat Magda Linette 7-5, 6-4.

French Open finalist Maja Chwalinska, who needed a wild-card entry, was beaten 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 by Mananchaya Sawangkaew.

___

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

Officials said at about 2:14 p.m., a man in his mid-20s riding a micro-mobility device or motorized skateboard eastbound at San Juan at the same time a Chevy Silverado was northbound and struck the rider in the inside lane.

JSO said according to a witness, the rider did not have right of way because he was crossing against the flow of traffic and the northbound Roosevelt light was green.

Jacksonville Fire and Rescue said the man died at the scene. This is the 99th traffic fatality in Duval County in 2026.

Akron

Position, Player, Overall rating, Hometown, High school

WR Miles Burris, 75, Jacksonville, Trinity Christian

QB Cibastian Broughton, 62, Orange Park, Fleming Island

App State

HB Treyaun Webb, 76, Jacksonville, Trinity Christian

WILL Carson Sloan, 72, Blackshear, Pierce County

Arizona State

SS Antoine Belgrave-Shorter, 72, , Jacksonville, Mandarin

Arkansas

MIKE Ben Bogle, 76, Ponte Vedra Beach, Nease

Army

LEDG Christian Yousefzadeh, 70, Jacksonville, Creekside

CB Julian Porter, 67, St. Johns, Bartram Trail

Auburn

LG Deryc Plazz, 72, Jacksonville, Jackson

QB Locklan Hewlett, 68, St. Augustine, St. Augustine

Baylor

WR Chase Collier, 74, Jacksonville, Bolles

Boise State

FS Samuel Brooks, 66, Duval County, Baldwin

Bowling Green

FS Julian Holt, 67, Jacksonville, Ed White

DT Timothy Taylor Jr., 63, Starke, Williston

Charlotte

REDG Shaku Sangarie, 70, Jacksonville, Atlantic Coast

Cincinnati

RG Zach Taylor, 69, Kingsland, Camden County

Clemson

FS Jerome Carter III, 83, Lake City, Columbia

WR Naeem Burroughs, 82, Jacksonville, Bolles

Delaware

LEDG Carson Shockley, 69, Jacksonville, Bolles

CB Jalen Ross, 67, Delaware, Jacksonville, Bolles

Delaware State

QB Riley Trujillo, 68, St. Johns, Bartram Trail

ECU

DT Torin Brazell, 69, Starke, Bradford

Florida Atlantic

WR Dominique Henry, 82, St. Augustine, Nease

C Braden Cunningham, 69, Orange Park, Fleming Island

FS Tyson Rooks, 64, FAU, St. Simons Island, Glynn Academy

Florida International

HB Devonte Lyons, 74, St. Augustine, St. Augustine

LG Akeem Neal, 68, Orange Park, Oakleaf

C TK Muex, 62, Jacksonville, Fletcher

Florida

LG Roderick Kearney, 77, Jacksonville, Orange Park

MIKE Jaden Robinson, 76, Lake City, Columbia

QB Tramell Jones Jr., 75, Jacksonville, Mandarin

SS Drake Stubbs, 74, Jacksonville, Mandarin

Florida State

CB Nehemiah Chandler, 82, Jacksonville, Wakulla

DT Deante McCray, 81, Jacksonville, Sandalwood

HB Samuel Singleton Jr., 81, Charleston, SC, Fleming Island

TE Desirrio Riles, 80, Jacksonville, University Christian

FS KJ Kirkland, 75, Jacksonville, Raines

WR Tae’Shaun Gelsey, 74, Jacksonville, Riverside

Georgia Southern

WR Taylor Bradshaw, 76, Jacksonville, Oakleaf

RG Ethan Williams, 67, Palatka, Fleming Island

LB CJ Allen Jr., 62, Jacksonville, Sandalwood

Georgia

SS Ja’Marley Riddle, 87, Kingsland, Camden County

DT Jordan Hall, 83, Jacksonville, Westside HS

TE Elyiss Williams, 77, Kingsland, Camden County

Georgia Tech

CB Jon Mitchell, 75, Jacksonville, Mandarin

Hawaii

DT Luther McCoy, 73, St. Johns, Creekside

Indiana

FS Amare Ferrell, 90, Lake City, Columbia

Iowa State

CB Jaheim Singletary, 84, Jacksonville, Riverside

James Madison

WR Trace Burney, 68, Orange Park, Oakleaf

WR Corey Scott, 67, Jacksonville, Episcopal

Jacksonville State

LEDG Kyten Davis, 69, Lake City, Columbia

Kennesaw State

HB Boogie Woods III, 74, Jacksonville, University Christian

CB Tay’vion Lawson, 72, Jacksonville, Jackson

CB Ethan Tookes, 67, Jacksonville, Riverside

Kentucky

MIKE Devin Smith, 67, Brunswick, Brunswick

Liberty

LEDG Aaron Hester, 76, Jacksonville, Fletcher

WILL Micah Pollard, 70, Jacksonville, Bartram Trail

Louisiana Lafayette

C Cooper Fordham, 76, Jacksonville, Bolles

Louisville

WILL Trent Carter, 68, Jacksonville, Bolles

Marshall

LB Chason Clark, 62, Starke, Bradford

Memphis

HB Manny Covey, 77, Starke, Bradford

QB Marcus Stokes, 73, St. Augustine, Nease

Miami

RT Matthew McCoy, 83, St. Johns, Creekside

WR Somourian Wingo, 79 St. Augustine, St. Augustine

RG Jamal Meriweather, 77 Brunswick, Brunswick

Miami (Ohio)

WR Carl Jenkins, 75, St. Augustine, St. Augustine

Michigan

QB Colin Hurley, 68, Miami, Trinity Christian

C Jake Guarnera, 87, Ponte Vedra Beach, Ponte Vedra

WR Jaime Ffrench Jr., 81, Jacksonville, Mandarin

WR Jamar Browder, 73, Jacksonville, Santaluces Community

Middle Tennessee

CB Ethan Sherman, 67, Jacksonville, Raines

LEDG Darnell Malpress, 65, Jacksonville, Atlantic Coast

Mississippi State

CB Kaylib Singleton, 73, Jacksonville, Oakleaf

Nebraska

RG Brendan Black, 78, Yulee, Bolles

Oklahoma State

LEDG Rashod Bradley, 74, Lake City, Columbia

Old Dominion

LB Talan Babin, 59, Ponte Vedra Beach, Ponte Vedra

Ole Miss

SAM Keaton Thomas, 89, Jacksonville, Trinity Christian

CB Sharif Denson, 78, Jacksonville, Bartram Trail

Purdue

REDG Elo Modozie, 81, St. Augustine, Bartram Trail

WILL Abram Wright, 74, Jacksonville, Fleming Island

Rutgers

SS DK Gilley, 70, Jacksonville, University Christian

QB Sean Ashenfelder, 70, St. Johns, Creekside

REDG Jyon Simon, 69, Jacksonville, Raines

San Jose State

CB Runye Norton, 72, Jacksonville, Sandalwood

SMU

CB Jarvis Lee, 78 Jacksonville, IMG Academy

South Alabama

REDG Dylan Chiedo, 69, Jacksonville, Bartram Trail

LT Jaylen Booker, 67, Jacksonville, Trinity Christian

Southern Miss

LEDG A’mari Wilson, 70, Jacksonville, Fletcher

CB Malakai Murphy, 62, Starke, Bradford

Syracuse

REDG Jarius Rodgers, 69, Fleming Island, Fleming Island

TCU

LEDG Koron Hayward, 76, Jacksonville, Sandalwood

Temple

SS Orel Gray, 66, Jacksonville, University Christian

Toledo

WR Trenton Jones, 70, Hastings, St. Augustine

WR Kalvin Gilbert Jr., 69, Jacksonville, Ribault

Troy

P Evan Crenshaw, 85, Troy, Ponte Vedra Beach, Nease

RG Sharvon Pierre, 71, Troy, Waycross, Ware County

Tulsa

K Owen Carey, 72, Jacksonville, Beachside

UCF

HB Arthur Lewis IV, 72, Palatka, Bartram Trail

LT Kasiyah Charlton, 72, Brunswick, Brunswick

SS Kahmel Johnson, 70, Jacksonville, Riverside

USC

CB Jontez Williams, 91, Starke, Bradford

USF

RG Caleb Cook, 87, Brunswick, Brunswick

MIKE Grayson Howard, 78, Jacksonville, Jackson

Utah

SS Rabbit Evans, 79, Jacksonville, Jersey Village

Vanderbilt

DT Bradley Mann, 75, Jacksonville, Bolles

REDG Mason Carter, 70, Jacksonville, Baldwin

Virginia

TE Connor Cox, 72, Jacksonville, Bolles

SS Christian Ellis, 82, Jacksonville, Ed White

Virginia Tech

CB Jaques White, 88, Blackshear, Pierce County

Wake Forest

SS Davaughn Patterson, 84, Jacksonville, Ed White

REDG Langston Hardy, 84, Jacksonville, Sandalwood

REDG Camden Hardy, 71, Jacksonville, Atlantic Coast

FS Josh Patterson, 67, Jacksonville, Ed White

Western Kentucky

QB Rodney Tisdale Jr., 73, Jacksonville, First Coast

WR Quincy Burroughs, 71, Jacksonville, Raines

Wisconsin

DT DeNigel Cooper, 71, Kingsland, Camden County

The justices said Monday that Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies with one exception, ruling that central banker Lisa Cook can keep her job at the Federal Reserve for now. Trump said he would still seek to remove her.

The court said states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting a Trump-led challenge. It declined to consider Trump’s push to toss a $5 million jury verdict that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll. And it turned away Trump defender Alan Dershowitz ’s effort to rewrite the U.S. libel law standards.

Here's the Latest:

More than 100 Venezuelans deported from the US hours before earthquakes are missing after their hotel collapses

The people were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.

A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Caracas hours before Wednesday’s earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

Portillo was caught up in the Trump administration’s drive for mass deportations. In May, ICE Flight Monitor tracked 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile and the Ivory Coast.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for information from the AP.

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Alaska senators support Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski applauded the Supreme Court’s decision allowing states to continue counting late arriving mail ballots, saying it “recognizes that states face unique circumstances in administering their elections.”

“In Alaska, voting is not as simple as driving down the road to a neighborhood polling place. Many Alaskans live in remote communities that are not connected to the road system, requiring ballots to travel by bush plane or boat, which means volatile weather conditions and limited infrastructure can determine whether those ballots arrive on time,” she said in a statement.

In Alaska, ballots are counted if postmarked by Election Day and received within 10 days — or 15 days for overseas voters in general elections.

The office of Alaska GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, who faces reelection this year, says he has a record of defending voting rights and believes “every eligible vote cast before or on Election Day should be counted.”

Feds to buy back North Carolina offshore wind lease from Duke Energy

Duke Energy is the latest utility to bow to pressure from the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind leases in return for money.

The $129 million deal by the Interior Department brings the total amount spent on these agreements to about $2.7 billion. The Trump administration has been buying back the leases as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of more traditional energy sources such as natural gas, coal and nuclear power.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke said the deal will allow it “refocus” the money in range of ways, including new nuclear or natural gas generation, or grid enhancements to strengthen reliability.

French energy giant TotalEnergies, which had partnered with Duke on the North Carolina project, took a similar deal in March.

Mississippi official sued over mail ballots says Supreme Court ruling was win for states’ rights

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said the Supreme Court Monday confirmed the right of states to administer elections.

Watson, a Republican running for lieutenant governor in Mississippi, was sued by the Republican National Committee in 2024 over Mississippi’s policy of counting absentee ballots received after Election Day. The justices in a 5-4 ruling sided with Watson.

Watson said in a statement after the decision that he opposed the practice of counting ballots received after Election Day, but deeply valued the rights of states to “govern themselves, including the administration of elections.”

He said the Supreme Court ruling confirms election policy is a “decision to be made by Congress or, in its absence, state legislatures.”

Trump equivocates on importance of Qatar talks

He said U.S. delegates had either just left or were getting ready to leave for negotiations to end the war with Iran. But he offered a lukewarm view of the talks.

“The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not — we’re going to find out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

Trump calls bill aimed at addressing housing affordability ‘a yawn’ and says he doesn’t know if he’ll sign it

Trump last week abruptly canceled a ceremony to sign the bill, saying he would not approve the bipartisan legislation aimed at lowering the cost of housing until Congress acts on legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said over the weekend he would send Trump the bill on Monday anyway. When asked by reporters about whether he’d sign it, Trump gave an exasperated response and drew out his words, saying, “I don’t knooow.”

He proclaimed to have more knowledge about housing than anyone in the history of the presidency, but said the bill was “so unimportant” compared to the voting legislation.

“When I look at that bill, it’s a bill,” Trump said. “But when I look at the Save America Act, it’s about saving America.”

Rubio meets with son of Libyan military strongman as signs of a potential unification deal emerge

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has met with the son of a powerful Libyan warlord as signs grow that the U.S. is intensifying efforts to broker a unity agreement between the Libya’s fractured eastern and western factions.

Rubio met on Monday with Saddam Hifter, the deputy general commander of the self-styled Libyan national army, based in the east of the country. Hifter is the son of Khalifa Hifter, widely seen as the most powerful figure in eastern and southern Libya.

The two men “discussed ongoing Libyan-led efforts to unify the country’s military, economic, and political institutions” and “possible avenues for cooperation to advance unity and peace in Libya,” the State Department said.

The U.S. is reportedly pushing an initiative under which Saddam Hifter would head a presidential council in a new unified administration that would also include Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who runs the government in western Libya.

Monday’s meeting came after a senior official from Dbeibah’s defense ministry met with U.S. officials in Washington last week.

Trump signs memo telling EPA that people can fix their autos as they see fit

The U.S. president said he signed a memo to allow Americans to fix their own vehicles, saying that people had been arrested for trying to do so.

“It came to my attention because they noticed they were arresting people for fixing their car,” Trump said.

The president appeared to be referencing a diesel mechanic, Troy Lake, who violated the Clean Air Act by disabling emissions monitoring systems on trucks. Trump pardoned Lake last November.

The memo also addresses the use of aftermarket auto parts. It would supersede the ability of the California Air Resources Board to evaluate parts that affect vehicle emissions.

Schumer blasts Supreme Court decision on independent federal agencies

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says the Supreme Court’s decision giving presidents free rein to fire agency heads at will gives Trump a “permission slip to turn independent federal agencies into members-only clubs for his golf buddies and cronies.”

The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause despite a provision of federal law that requires a reason. The logic of the court’s decision extends to other agencies where Trump has fired board members.

Slaughter once served as Schumer’s chief counsel. Schumer says she was fired for no other reason than doing a good of a job protecting consumers.

“Instead of preserving independence intended to keep markets fair and protect consumers, Trump’s instead catering to fraudsters and monopolists. And the Supreme Court is giving him a green light to do it,” Schumer said.

Top California election official says mail-in ballot ruling is a win for democracy

California’s Secretary of State hailed Monday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court as a win for voters, the rule of law and democracy.

Shirley Weber, California’s first Black secretary of state, said in a statement the court “protected an important safeguard” that helps make sure voters are not disenfranchised by mail delays.

“This ruling makes one thing clear,” the Democrat said in a statement. “Our elections belong to the people, not to partisan agendas.”

Under California law, ballots received within seven days of an election are counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

FCC’s sole Democrat warns of Supreme Court ruling’s impact

Anna Gomez is one of the few Democrats who have held onto their seats at federal agencies after Trump fired most of them, partly because her presence allows for a quorum that allows Chairman Brendan Carr to enact his agenda.

She warned the Supreme Court’s ruling “puts at risk how Congress intended independent agencies to function in American democracy.”

“Those who argue these agencies are unaccountable misunderstand how they were designed, as the FCC answers to Congress, the democratically elected body that created it, through oversight, appropriations, and legislation,” she said in a statement following the Court’s ruling. “When commissioners can be removed for their policy views rather than for cause, the inevitable result is an agency that pulls its punches and defers to political winds rather than the record before it.”

She said consumers “will pay the price” in higher costs, fewer choices and slower progress toward connectivity.

Republican chairman follows Trump’s lead on mail-in ballot ruling

RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said the court’s decision upholding state practices of accepting all ballots postmarked by Election Day is a reason to pass the president’s proposed elections bill that is stalled on Capitol Hill.

“If we want fair and secure elections, Election Day should mean exactly what it says, which is why this decision makes it even more imperative that Congress pass the SAVE America Act,” Gruters said.

RNC aides distributed the statement after Trump made the same argument Monday morning. Trump’s proposal would virtually eliminate absentee voting nationally, require voters to provide citizenship documentation to register and then present certain photo identification at polling places.

Gruters said Democrats “are inviting chaos at the ballot box by allowing elections to drag on.” He did not offer any examples of such chaos, and it was the original plaintiffs who wanted the court to overturn long-established rules months before November’s elections.

America 250 celebrations bring extraordinary security challenge to Washington

Federal law enforcement is preparing for one of the capital’s largest and most complex security operations as hundreds of thousands of people visit Washington for the 250th anniversary of the nation’s freedom.

The security challenge comes amid rising political violence, including recent incidents near the White House, and a president who enjoys being at the center of public pomp yet has repeatedly faced attempts on his life.

The nation’s capital “is a target-rich environment” on a normal day, said Darren B. Cox, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “We are prepared for any threats.”

The throngs will be joined by thousands of law enforcement officers and agents and 5,000 National Guard troops, along with military-style vehicles and other hardware not often seen on American streets.

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Trump says he will keep fighting Carroll case after court declines to take it up

The president said in a social media post that it was “a Fake Case” brought against him by a woman he claims he never met.

“I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength,” Trump wrote.

He also said the case, in which a jury found that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in New York City in the 1990s and later defamed her, is “really against the United States of America, and all it stands for.”

In a statement Monday, Carroll said the decision affirms the jury’s verdict will stand. “His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions,” she said.

Trump says he'll seek to remove Cook despite court rejection of his initial attempt

Trump said he lost his effort to remove the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook “on a strictly procedural basis” and would still seek to remove the central bank governor.

The court ruled 5-4 that the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook can remain on the Fed board as she challenges the administration’s attempts to fire her over claims of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

Trump said in a social media post that “we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”

In light of Supreme Court rejection, Trump renews push for his voter ID bill

Trump called a Supreme Court ruling that ballots postmarked by Election Day can be counted days after an election a “tremendous loss.”

Trump posted on social media that the decision makes it more important for his SAVE America Act to pass. The measure would require proof of citizenship and include a ban on mail-in ballots unless that person is sick, disabled, traveling or deployed by the military, Trump noted.

“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump said.

The president then called out Republican senators who have objected to the measure: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Cook says her attempted firing was about ‘political pressure’ on the Fed

The firing attempt “was never about mortgage documents signed years ago” but rather “was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure” from Trump, who has long sought lower interest rates from the central bank, Cook said in a written statement reacting to the court’s ruling.

Trump fired Cook last August, citing allegations that she had committed fraud in mortgage documents she signed in June and July of 2021. The Biden appointee sued to keep her job, and lower courts ruled she could remain while the case is litigated. The Supreme Court Monday upheld those rulings.

“Today’s ruling affirms a principle that has underpinned sound economic stewardship for generations: that the Federal Reserve must make all its policy decisions guided by evidence and independent judgment, free from political interference,” Cook’s statement said.

Trump applauds ruling empowering him to fire independent agency leaders

A majority of the justices ruled presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a previous court ruling from 91 years ago.

“It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers,” Trump posted on social media.

The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. The decision’s logic extends to National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Trump did not acknowledge that the court recognized some limits on his authorities by also ruling 5-4 that Lisa Cook can remain a central bank governor while challenging unproven mortgage fraud allegations, which she has denied.

Supreme Court says Fed’s Cook can keep her job for now

The Supreme Court on Monday dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding Trump’s firings of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception, the Federal Reserve.

The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights the Republican president’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

But other than at the nation’s central bank, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority. That decision, Humphrey’s Executor, was overturned.

Witkoff and Kushner going to Qatar for talks with Iran

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Steve Witkoff, who is the special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, are flying to Qatar to meet with the Iranians.

Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that those talks would be “high level” and that technical negotiations would occur on the sidelines. Iran has denied that the talks are happening.

Trump accused Iran of violating the ceasefire by attacking a ship last week in Strait of Hormuz, but so far the interim deal for negotiations to take place appears to have held.

Court rules states can count late-arriving mailed ballots

The Court said states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of Trump.

The decision Monday rejects a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

In just over half those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.

Trump has claimed most mail balloting breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience. He keeps repeating that fraud caused his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.

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This story has been corrected to show Trump saying hosing bill was “unimportant.”

William Hennessey — known locally as “Boat Ramp Billy” — has been raising concerns at St. Johns County Commission meetings for years, arguing that neighboring property owners have encroached on the public right of way surrounding the Palmetto Road Boat Ramp, making it harder for the public to use it. Hennessey took us out to the spot and measured from one end of the road to another outside the ramp and said it doesn’t add up.

“You can immediately see the problem from the crown of the road, our public right of way,” Hennessey said. “We have 30 ft — 30 ft right here. So that would make it 30 ft. Where that fence is.”

During our time speaking with Hennessey, John Durant, the neighboring homeowner, and a large part of Hennessey’s complaints came outside and joined the conversation saying the issue is not quite what Hennessey says it is.

“This ramp gets used maybe once a month,” Durant said.

“Well, you can’t get to it,” Hennessey replied.

“Anybody who wants to use this ramp is more than welcome there,” Durant said.

Part of the dispute centers on Durant’s driveway and mailbox, which Hennessey argues sit on public right of way. Durant says his driveway got the proper approvals. But he did tell News4Jax part of the grass where a no parking sign sits is in public right of way as is his mailbox which he says he upkeeps.

“What am I supposed to do when I build a house and everybody approves the driveway? Where do I go from there?” Durant said.

News4Jax did reach out to the county asking about the approval process for the driveway and if the county is doing anything to improve it. We also asked about the concerns Hennessey raised about limited space to use the boat ramp.

A county spokesperson sent us a statement, which we read out loud to both Hennessey and Durant:

With regards to the Palmetto Road Boat Ramp: For specifically the residential properties, driveway locations are an administrative approval only and requires that the driveway meet Land Development Code Article 6.04.05.C, which the properties meet. No variances were required and no easements were needed.

The one home at 379 Palmetto meets the Code and there was no requirement for it to access Sunset Landing Circle. Prior to approval, staff consulted with Parks and Recreation to determine if there was any object to a driveway in the vicinity of the ramp. The Director of Parks and Recreation at that time, back in 2015, had no objection.

Both men were asked what they ultimately want. Durant said he has no issue with the public using the ramp — he just wants to be left alone.

News4Jax asked Durant if there is any confusion with people driving and getting confused with the public right of way and his yard.

He said, “No, nobody has a problem turning around here because they know if they go too far, there’s a sign there they’ll back up and just go out.”

Hennessey was equally direct about what he wants.

“I want to see the land given back to us,” he said.

It is worth noting that Hennessey himself has previously been banned from accessing the ramp for a period of time.

Beasley has been out of the NBA since playing with the Detroit Pistons in 2024-25. Another former NBA player, Ed Davis, was also charged in the indictment unsealed in Brooklyn federal court against six people.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said they “turned professional basketball into a criminal betting operation.”

The schemes, he added, “erode the integrity of American sports and victimize the sports-watching public.”

Nocella said hundreds of thousands of dollars were wagered through popular gambling sites. The indictment says Beasley had financial woes, including millions of dollars in gambling losses, and had relied on Davis, a former teammate, for help.

“Malik maintains his presumption of innocence throughout this two-year investigation,” Beasley’s attorney, Steve Haney, said. “We ask that people reserve judgment until all the facts are known.”

Feds say Beasley tipped others about his play

In return for fixing his performance, Beasley got paid by his money-winning co-conspirators and his debts to Davis were reduced or eliminated, the indictment alleges.

In one example, according to the court filing, Beasley informed Davis that he would try to outperform the 3.5 prop line bet for rebounds in Milwaukee's game against the Los Angeles Clippers on March 10, 2024.

With a second left, and the Bucks ahead by seven points, any shot by the Clippers would not have affected the outcome. But Beasley challenged the shot and then dashed past four players to grab the rebound as the horn sounded.

Beasley finished with four rebounds that night — an overperformance and a winning prop bet, the indictment states.

“What's funny is after he got it he had a big sigh of relief,” a co-conspirator said in a text message, according to the indictment.

In other games, Beasley told Davis that he would underperform certain statistics, the government alleges.

The NBA said it would continue to cooperate with authorities.

“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” spokesperson Mike Bass said.

Investigation has kept Beasley on sidelines

Beasley last played in the NBA for the Pistons in 2025, averaging 16 points per game. He is one of five players in NBA history with more than 300 3-pointers in a season, but he did not play in the league last season because of the investigation.

Beasley's financial problems have been widely reported, including disputes with a Detroit landlord, a Milwaukee barber and a Minnesota dentist. In 2025, when the Pistons were in New York for a playoff game, he was served with a lawsuit from a local sports marketing agency, which subsequently got a $1 million default judgment against Beasley.

Davis' attorney did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. He was an NBA journeyman who was primarily a backup in a 12-year career that got him roughly $48 million in gross salary. Davis and Beasley were teammates in Minnesota in 2020-21.

Paolo Zamorano, a sports agent who formerly represented Davis, was also charged with placing bets based on Beasley's information. Defense attorney Ken Breen said Zamorano denies wrongdoing and “looks forward to his day in court.”

Other NBA figures arrested in 2025

Authorities last fall announced a gambling sweep that led to the arrests of more than 30 people, including reputed mobsters and well-known basketball figures such as Chauncey Billups, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers at the time.

Billups is accused of conspiring to fix high-stakes card games tied to La Cosa Nostra organized crime families that cheated unsuspecting gamblers out of at least $7 million. He has pleaded not guilty.

In April, former NBA player Damon Jones, 49, became the first person to plead guilty. He was accused of defrauding major sportsbooks, including DraftKings and FanDuel, and filching millions of dollars from unwitting poker players.

Jones was charged with selling or attempting to sell insider information to bettors based on his relationships in the NBA.

Terry Rozier is accused of conspiring with friends to help them win bets on his performance during a 2023 game when he played for the Charlotte Hornets. He, too, has pleaded not guilty. He was on the Miami Heat when he was charged in 2025.

In 2024, former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter pleaded guilty in a separate gambling case. Porter, who had gambling debts, said he took himself out of games early so co-conspirators could win bets on his performance.

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Associated Press writers Tim Reynolds in Miami and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report.

Martinelli entered the game as a second-half substitute and put an end to Japan’s near-upset on Monday, scoring the winning goal late in injury time to give five-time champion Brazil a 2-1 victory and a spot in the round of 16.

The result was a showcase of Brazil’s Italian connections. Martinelli holds dual citizenship in Italy and Brazil, and the man who made the decision to change the team’s makeup was Carlo Ancelotti, an Italian who is the first European to coach the South American country’s national team.

“Above all else we wanted to freshen up the field because Martinelli has a lot of intensity as a player,” Ancelotti said through a translator. “When he goes in the match he’s always on his top game.”

Brazil will next face either the Ivory Coast or Norway on Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the round of 16.

“We can never be content with what we’re doing,” Ancelotti said. “We’re doing a good job. We are performing. But you can never be content because we want to play better. We want to play at the highest level.”

Casemiro had earlier equalized for Brazil on a header in the 56th minute off an assist from Gabriel Magalhães after just missing another chance two minutes earlier. The shot sailed just out of the reach of the outstretched hand of Japan goalkeeper Zion Suzuki and into the net.

Kaishu Sano stole a misplaced pass at midfield and took it down the field before a right-footed shot from above the half circle put Japan ahead in the 29th minute.

“There is not not making mistakes because nobody is perfect,” Ancelotti said. “But you have to overcome it and you have to push it forward. The team did a good job of that in the second half.”

Vinícius Júnior, who has scored four goals so far in this year's tournament, had a chance to put Brazil on top in the 58th minute but his shot from the left box was deflected by Suzuki and went off the far post.

Casemiro left in the first minute of second-half stoppage time with what appeared to be a leg injury.

Brazil had two chances to even the score early in the second half before breaking through. On the first one, Suzuki blocked a header from Bruno Guimarães in the 52nd minute. Soon after, Casemiro’s header bounced off a defender’s head and Suzuki’s face. Suzuki finished with four saves.

Brazil great Neymar didn’t play Monday after making his first appearance for the team since 2023 in the last game against Scotland. He played only 14 minutes in that 3-0 win after missing the first two group matches at the World Cup with a right calf injury.

“I was seriously considering putting him on the pitch,” Ancelotti said. “In the end, we did not need him.”

Japan has never won a knockout match at the World Cup, going 0-4 in the round of 16 — including also taking the lead the last two times in 2018 and 2022 before losing.

The win was Brazil’s 12th in 15 games against Japan. The teams have also played to two draws while Japan got its first win in the series in a friendly in Tokyo in October.

“The gap between us is closing now,” Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu said through a translator. “Brazil is a top-tier team and we’re definitely approaching that level.”

Then he mentioned the loss in Qatar four years ago before adding: “We have to up our game.”

This was a matchup between two countries with deep ties, with Brazil being home to about 2.7 million Japanese descendants, which is the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.

Those ties extend to soccer where Brazil superstar Zico moved to Japan in 1991 to play for Kashima Antlers and help build Japan’s professional soccer network. He coached the Japan national team from 2002-06, leading the team to the World Cup in 2006.

That team lost to Brazil 4-1 in the only previous meeting between the teams at the World Cup.

Brazil won Group C after a draw with Morocco and victories over Haiti and Scotland. Monday’s victory came on the anniversary of their first World Cup championship in Sweden in 1958, when a 17-year-old Pele scored two goals in the final against the host country.

Japan reached the round of 32 as runner-up in Group F after a draws with the Netherlands and Sweden and a win over Tunisia. The loss snaps a 10-game unbeaten streak dating back to a 2-0 loss to the United States in September.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

John Yoo confirmed in an email to The Associated Press on Monday that he would be assisting Joe diGenova in an ongoing investigation into whether officials who over the last decade scrutinized Trump participated in a criminal conspiracy against the Republican president.

“He’s a lawyer. He's going to be helping us,” diGenova said in a brief telephone interview about Yoo. diGenova served as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia between 1983 and 1988 and was enlisted in April to return to government as a counselor to the attorney general.

A law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Yoo was a senior Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration who served as an author of the so-called “torture memos” that government officials used to justify using “enhanced interrogation” techniques on potential terror suspects. The Justice Department later rescinded the memos.

In the years since, he's remained a prominent proponent of broad executive authority, telling the AP in 2020 that he had told Trump administration officials that a Supreme Court ruling that rejected Trump’s effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, opened the door to enormous new presidential power.

The conspiracy investigation is being conducted in Florida, but the scope is unclear, as is whether any criminal charges will be brought.

Prosecutors have centered at least part of the probe on the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Investigators have issued a broad swath of subpoenas to former officials for records and conducted interviews related to the creation of an intelligence community assessment, released in January 2017, that found that Russia engaged in wide-ranging election interference to boost Trump over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

A 2019 report by special counsel Robert Mueller affirmed that Russia interfered on Trump's behalf and that the Trump campaign repeatedly welcomed the assistance, but it did not find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the campaign.

Several subsequent investigations into the Russia probe have identified multiple errors into how it was conducted, and a former FBI lawyer pleaded guilty in 2020 to doctoring an email during the course of the inquiry. But none of the reviews have identified criminal misconduct by any senior law enforcement or intelligence official involved in the investigation.

Trump has nonetheless continued to demand retribution and has sought to punish top officials from that time at the FBI and CIA.

Asked in a Fox News Channel interview in May what the Justice Department had done to address claims of a long-running conspiracy to bring down Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “That's exactly what we're investigating right now.”

Yoo's involvement in the investigation was earlier reported by Politico and CNN.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday released its list of participants for an upcoming meeting to reconsider the safety and effectiveness of several popular peptide injections, including some that have been praised by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Previous FDA panels on the topic have been composed of academics and researchers. The agency’s new group mainly includes health professionals who prescribe, produce or promote peptides, which have become a wellness trend among athletes, influencers and celebrities.

The two-day meeting is the latest example of how Kennedy and his deputies are trying to reshape U.S. health policy in the mold of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Some of the biggest supporters of the movement sell peptide formulas, though many pharmaceutical industry experts consider them illegal, unapproved drugs.

The substances are sold online and promoted by wellness clinics as a means to build muscle, heal injuries and look younger, though there’s little evidence behind those claims. Peptide sellers often skirt U.S. regulations by labeling their products as "for research use only,” since the FDA doesn’t regulate research chemicals.

FDA has raised safety concerns about peptides

Many of the injectable peptides sold in the U.S. are produced by compounding pharmacies, which mix custom medications that aren’t available from traditional drug manufacturers.

For several years, the FDA has warned Americans about the risks of injecting chemicals with names like BPC-157 and TB-500, which have not been extensively studied in humans. Both drugs are considered doping substances by international sports authorities. They are among seven peptides set for review in July.

Previous versions of the FDA’s panel on drug compounding — the group that will meet next month — have voted against a string of peptide ingredients brought forward by compounding pharmacies, declaring all of them too risky to be offered to patients. Those panels were mostly composed of experts from universities including Duke, Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

New FDA panel includes peptide proponents

The FDA's new group includes more than a half-dozen panelists who run clinics, online businesses or pharmacies specializing in peptides, which are often given alongside other unapproved therapies, including vitamin infusions.

For example, panel member Dr. Haleem Mohammed runs clinics in Florida that sell injections of peptides, vitamins, testosterone and weight loss medications. The business is part of a national chain of clinics dubbed Gameday Men's Health. The company's website states, "compounded medications offered through our services are not FDA-approved, and the FDA does not verify their safety."

Another panelist, Dr. Gabriel Alizaidy, charges $500 for “peptide and hormone” consultations, including advice on “where to safely get each peptide or compound.” Alizaidy promotes BPC-157, GHK-Cu and other peptides to thousands of followers through his accounts on Instagram and TikTok.

His website contains the disclaimer that each consultation “is educational in nature and does not constitute medical care, diagnosis, or treatment.”

Another member is Bobby Harshbarger, a Tennessee state senator who has multiple connections to the industry. Harshbarger is a pharmacist at his family's business, Premiere Pharmacy, which sells compounded medications for weight loss, longevity, pain and other conditions.

His mother, Rep. Diana Harshbarger, is also a pharmacist and a Republican member of U.S. Congress from Tennessee. Last year she sent a letter to Kennedy calling on him to relax FDA restrictions on a half-dozen peptides.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Harshbarger's support of his “Make America Great Again” agenda. Last year, the president pardoned her husband, Robert Harshbarger Jr., who pleaded guilty more than a decade ago to substituting an unapproved drug from China for one used by patients on kidney dialysis. He was stripped of his pharmacy license and sentenced to four years in prison, which he served.

Mohammed and Alizaidy did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press Monday afternoon. A spokesperson for Harshbarger could not immediately provide comment when reached by phone.

Kennedy and his allies previously criticized government panels

The FDA has more than 30 panels of experts who advise the agency on various drugs, vaccines, food ingredients and other products.

Advisory meetings are subject to strict government transparency rules in terms of panel composition and financial disclosures. Experts who have a financial stake in a company or industry are permitted to serve on the panels, but the relationship must be disclosed and regulators are supposed to explain why the person's expertise outweighs their potential conflict of interest.

Kennedy and his allies have been highly critical of federal expert panels, often alleging that they are riven with conflicts of interest, despite federal data showing otherwise.

Last year, Kennedy fired the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's entire 17-member vaccine panel and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices. A federal judge later said that action likely violated federal rules.

Kennedy told podcast host Joe Rogan earlier this year that he is “a big fan of peptides,” and described using them to recover from injuries.

Former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary — who resigned in May — was also highly critical of FDA advisory panels, complaining that they were expensive, time-consuming and subject to too many financial conflicts.

The number of such meetings plummeted during Makary's tenure. Instead, the FDA held a number of ad hoc meetings with handpicked experts on topics favored by Kennedy, including the risks of talc powder and antidepressants.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The attorneys general and governors who filed the lawsuit allege that an interim final rule released earlier this month by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services oversteps the text of the law last summer that set in motion the changes to Medicaid.

They claim the Republican administration’s narrow interpretation of parts of the statute, including new limits to a medical frailty exemption, will create harmful coverage barriers and chaos in states that have been rushing to implement new systems by the January deadline.

“Added administrative burdens will cause individuals who are eligible for Medicaid to lose or be denied coverage,” the plaintiffs write. “People with disabilities, patients in the middle of cancer treatment, or those struggling with another serious or complex health condition, shouldn’t be at risk of losing the care that helps maintain their health.”

Spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and CMS, the agencies named in the lawsuit, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has promoted the new rules as commonsense measures to eliminate government freeloading and preserve benefits for those who need them most.

The new Medicaid restrictions, which Democrats have criticized, were part of Trump’s big tax and policy law in 2025. The change affects those covered through an expansion in most states that gave more lower-income people access to the government’s safety net healthcare program.

Starting Jan. 1, expansion enrollees age 19 to 64 will have to show that they work or do community service at least 80 hours a month or are in school at least half the time. There are exceptions for those considered medically frail or in addiction treatment programs, among others.

This month’s announcement from CMS caught states off guard with a new definition of medical frailty. The law had said medically frail people include those who have substance use disorders, disabilities or serious medical conditions. But the CMS rule went further, saying someone’s condition must “significantly impair” their ability to work, volunteer or attend school at the rates required in the law for them to be granted an exemption.

In 2027 and once in 2028, the patient can attest that they meet this definition. But when they try to renew coverage in 2028, they’ll need to prove it. Health analysts and state Medicaid directors have said they aren’t clear on what existing documentation could prove that point.

In the lawsuit, states allege that this change came “contrary to months of regular communications with CMS and preliminary guidance materials upon which Plaintiff States based their implementation plans.” They say CMS has still not provided states with enough clarity on how they can update their systems appropriately.

Kinda Serafi, a partner at the legal and consulting firm Manatt Health who is working with states to make the changes, said the administration “moved the goalposts” with its rule on medical frailty.

“By going beyond the clear language of the statute, CMS opened the door to this court challenge,” she said.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the Democrats suing the administration, said the new rule puts thousands of her state's residents at risk.

“New Yorkers who are battling cancer, living with a disability, managing a serious mental health condition, or recovering from addiction should be able to get the health care they need without being buried in paperwork,” she said in a statement.

Three guards and 88 inmates were inside the Bertie-Martin Regional Detention Center in Windsor when the takeover began at about 5 a.m., prompting an immediate response from local, state and federal authorities, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said in a statement posted on social media.

By early afternoon, the Bureau of Investigation and the FBI had “cleared the facility,” the state bureau said in a statement. ”All inmates and staff are safe and accounted for, and those who sustained injuries have received treatment.”

Inmates have been transferred to other facilities and the jail will remain secured while the damage is assessed, the Bureau of Investigation said. The 90-bed jail located about 120 miles (190 kilometers) east of Raleigh houses pretrial detainees and short-term inmates for Bertie and Martin counties.

Inmates took two guards captive and the third guard escaped. Negotiations led to the release of the two guards along with 80 inmates, leaving only eight inmates inside, Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin said at a news conference.

Ruffin said the two guards who were released were undergoing medical treatment but he had no details about their injuries.

Most of the remaining inmates “complied and exited the facility as soon as entry was made,” said Chad Flowers, a spokesperson for the State Bureau of Investigation.

It wasn’t immediately known whether officers fired any lethal or non-lethal rounds upon entering the jail. In a telephone interview, Flowers said law enforcement officials were in a meeting about the incident and unavailable late Monday afternoon.

Flowers also referred questions about the facility's security to a jail administrator, who did not immediately return a telephone message. Authorities have not addressed why there were three guards overseeing the jail at the time of the takeover.

“The perpetrators must be held accountable for this horrifying action," Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said on the social platform X. "We also must do everything in our power to ensure this doesn’t happen again — and that includes doing more to recruit, retain, and compensate the county and state officials who are charged with keeping our jails and prisons safe.”

Ruffin did not indicate what caused the takeover.

“Right now we have a lot going on that we're trying to get under control," he said. "I will release that information to the public as soon as I can.”

Yet instead of feeling amplified pressure under the raised expectations created by their strong group round and a groundswell of national support, these Americans appeared to be energized by the opportunity to make history as they broke camp Monday at their training base in Orange County.

“Would it be weird if I told you I don't really feel too much pressure at this minute?” Ream said with a grin.

“I think we felt more pressure for that first game against Paraguay than anything, and that's coming from ourselves, not from anything on the outside," Ream added, referring to the Americans' impressive 4-1 win in their World Cup opener on June 12. "We just have to put in a performance the way we have in the group stage, and then we see where that takes us.”

The U.S. faces Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round of 32 in Santa Clara, California, on Wednesday night. The Americans are significantly favored — which is sort of an achievement in itself, given that this team has won exactly one knockout-round match in its entire World Cup history.

But these Americans are on the international stage with more optimism and likely more talent than nearly all previous editions of this team. Whether that translates into a deep run is still to be decided, but the Americans' confidence and excitement is undeniable.

“The game is going to be about us and what we're prepared to do, and what we have to do to advance,” U.S. striker Folarin Balogun said. “It’s crunch time. This is the business end, and this is the stage where, in my opinion, the big players step forward and the big players carry the pressure and make things happen.”

Although the Americans reached the semifinals at the inaugural World Cup in 1930 by winning their group, their only knockout victory came at the 2002 tournament when they beat Mexico in the round of 16.

Tim Ream says the US team felt more pressure at the last World Cup in Qatar

The 38-year-old Ream believes the Americans felt more pressure four years ago in Qatar, when they muddled through group play before getting blasted 3-1 by the Netherlands in the first knockout round.

Those Americans weren't led by accomplished Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino, who has made strong tactical advancements and clearly instilled many of his players with a new kind of confidence after previous U.S. cycles were spent under more parochial coaching.

They also didn't have Balogun, the elite goal-scorer who made a major impact on the Americans' victories over Paraguay and Australia by a combined 6-1, clinching their group in style and rendering their third match meaningless.

Folarin Balogun taking in American culture during the World Cup

Balogun's impact is undeniable on the field, but the Brooklyn-born, London-raised forward is also a focal point away from the field. This World Cup cycle has been his first significant exposure to U.S. culture, and that's an endless source of amusement and insight for his teammates.

“He says America is a simulation quite often,” defender Mark McKenzie said with a laugh. “We’ll be driving down the road and he’ll see something and be like, ‘What is that? Why is an individual dressed like that, or why are they throwing a sign up in the air on the corner? What is Bojangles?’ It’s stuff like that, where he’s like, ‘Bro! America! What is going on?’”

Many of the top Americans now play their club soccer internationally — another obvious factor in this team's improved competitiveness in this World Cup. Defender Chris Richards, an Alabama native who plays in London for Crystal Palace, says his team is more mature and more tested than most previous editions of the U.S. roster because of its experience at all levels of the sport.

And count Richards among those who find Balogun's culture shock to be a hilarious distraction during the down time on international breaks and this World Cup cycle.

“I think (Balogun) still has this notion that he says Americans aren’t real,” Richards said. “There’s some stuff that we do that doesn’t fly back in London. It's a lot to learn and especially when you’re only here for a few weeks at a time. It’s been cool (for Balogun) being able to see different pockets of America.”

Cristian Roldan and Auston Trusty do modified training ahead of round of 32

NOTES: Injured players Cristian Roldan (quadriceps strain) and Auston Trusty (ankle) did modified training while their teammates went through a full workout Monday, but McKenzie (foot irritation) remained sidelined for a second straight day. Roldan hasn't played at this World Cup, while Trusty scored in the Americans' 3-2 loss to Turkey before he rolled his ankle late in the match. Roldan was on the field doing drills for the second straight day. McKenzie is getting treatment away from practice. None of the three injured Americans was expected to play a major role in the knockout rounds.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The S&P 500 climbed 1.2% and broke a five-day losing streak. It was coming off just its second losing week in the last 13. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 306 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 2.1%.

Several stocks boosted by the artificial-intelligence boom rose after Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix said they will invest roughly $518 billion in a new chipmaking hub in South Korea, as its president hopes to capitalize on surging AI demand.

Applied Materials, whose equipment helps make semiconductors, rallied 10.8% to vault its gain for the year so far above 170%.

AI stocks have been on a roller-coaster ride recently after soaring to tremendous heights. They’re under pressure because of worries that their profits can’t possibly keep pace with the huge gains for their stock prices. And the moves have an outsized effect on investors because AI stocks have become some of Wall Street’s largest and most influential, giving them more weight on indexes than others.

Nvidia was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500, for example, after its stock rose 1.3%. That’s because it’s Wall Street’s biggest stock with a total value of more than $4.7 trillion.

SpaceX, which owns the xAI business along with rockets, has already become worth more than $2 trillion after its stock's ballyhooed debut on the Nasdaq earlier this month, with sharp rises and falls along the way. It’s become big enough that Nasdaq said Elon Musk’s company will join the Nasdaq 100 index before trading begins on July 7, which will force funds tracking the index to buy the stock.

SpaceX climbed 7.2%.

Outside of AI, Comcast rose 4.5% after saying it will split off its NBCUniversal media business and Sky from its broadband and wireless business. Its stock came into the day with a loss of 17.3% for the year so far.

That helped offset a 5.2% drop for Verizon Communications, which said it’s paying $625 million as part of a deal to combine its international wireline connectivity and managed network services business with some of London-based BT Group’s subsidiaries in a joint venture.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 86.41 points to 7,440.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 306.63 to 52,182.74, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 522.53 to 25,820.14.

The gains for the stock market came even though oil prices rose. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.8% to $73.91, pulling back above where it was before the war with Iran began. Benchmark U.S. crude for August delivery rose 2.2% to settle at $70.75 per barrel.

Following attacks across the Persian Gulf over the weekend, the United States and Iran on Monday separately announced they will send delegations to Qatar this week, though Tehran insisted it has not agreed to meet with the United States “at any level.”

The hope is that an end to the war with Iran will give oil tankers full access again to the Strait of Hormuz, allowing them to exit the Persian Gulf and deliver crude to customers worldwide. That would help lower the price of oil, whose jumps because of the war have sent a punishing wave of inflation around the world.

If oil prices do recede and stay low enough, it could keep enough pressure off inflation to allow the Federal Reserve and other central banks to keep interest rates steady or even cut them instead of hiking them.

Higher interest rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments. High yields worldwide have been rattling investors after oil prices burst above $100 per barrel because of the war.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.37% from 4.38% late Friday and from 4.56% early this month.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped modestly in Europe following mixed performances in Asia.

Stocks jumped 1.6% in Hong Kong and 1.2% in Shanghai for two of the world’s biggest gains, while South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.2%.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.