While it is an exhibition game, it marks another milestone for the venerated wide receiver on his homecoming tour. Coach John Harbaugh expects Beckham to play in the team's preseason opener against Minnesota at home on Saturday.

"I’m looking forward to seeing him play," Harbaugh said Wednesday. “He’s looked good. He’s in shape. He’s taking every rep he’s supposed to take in practice. He’s getting stronger. I feel like he’s getting stronger every day. He’s in a good place.”

Beckham at 33 is in a very different place than he was in December 2018, nearing the end of his rookie contract after surpassing 1,000 yards receiving in four of his first five NFL seasons.

Now, after serving a six-game suspension for failing a performance-enhancing drug test and not playing at all in 2025, he is attempting to show he still belongs in the league. His last game was Dec. 8, 2024, with Miami.

“I kind of had two years off,” Beckham told reporters in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, earlier this month. “Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically — whatever it was — I got time to heal, so, I feel good.”

Beckham has shown flashes of his younger self at training camp, including a catch in the back of the end zone from Jameis Winston during the opening week. Behind Malik Nabers ( when healthy ), Darius Slayton and others on the depth chart and with plenty of competition from fellow free agent additions Calvin Austin and Darnell Mooney and rookie Malachi Fields, there is no guarantee Beckham makes the initial 53-man roster.

Games and practices provide an opportunity for him to earn a spot. It is not clear yet who might be throwing him the ball, as Harbaugh dodged a question about whether franchise quarterback Jaxson Dart and the rest of the expected starters will play against the Vikings.

No matter who he's catching passes from, Beckham has the chance to steal the summer spotlight as a returning crowd favorite.

“I can’t wait to hear the fans yell when he run out there and catch a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in MetLife Stadium,” Winston said. “I think that is going to be one of the loudest roars. ... I just cannot even imagine just the anticipation that our fans have.”

Harbaugh explains the Giants bringing in Terrion Arnold for a visit

After Terrion Arnold worked out with the Giants, Harbaugh did not rule out them signing the free agent cornerback, who is facing eight felony charges, before the legal process runs its course.

“The legal process could take years, so then his career is gone,” Harbaugh said. “I think you have to decide: ‘Where does the legal process stand? What are we really talking about here? What does it look like?’ And you have to make a judgment along those lines.”

Arnold, 23, was charged in June with counts of kidnapping, armed robbery and conspiracy after allegations he orchestrated the abduction and beating of three men in February. He became when Detroit Lions released him a few days after the charges were levied.

New York is the third team to bring in Arnold for a visit this week alone, after New Orleans and defending champion Seattle. Harbaugh explained the reasoning as wanting to be aggressive, while acknowledging there's a risk-reward proposition to the possibility.

“There’s things to be gained and things to be lost, and you just kind of got to balance it out and try to make a decision that’s two-fold,” Harbaugh said. “One aspect is what’s best for your football team. The other aspect is what’s best for your organization and your people and doing the right thing.”

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The Rays swept three-game series at Colorado and Seattle before scoring 30 runs in their three wins over the Athletics. Tampa Bay joins the Boston Red Sox, who did it in 1977, as the only teams to go 9-0 out West. The Rays became the 13th team since 1900 to go 9-0 on any trip, and they matched the longest road winning streak in franchise history.

The Red Sox also had an unbeaten nine-game trip this year that began with a series at the Los Angeles Angels.

Rasmussen (12-5) saw his scoreless streak end at 22 2/3 innings when he gave up a two-run double to Carlos Cortes in the third, but he completed an efficient five innings to win his fifth straight start.

Hicks went 3 for 5. His 16th homer capped a four-run fourth against Athletics rookie Jack Perkins (2-9).

Jonny DeLuca also had three hits as Tampa Bay (74-46) improved to 33-28 on the road.

Zack Gelof hit his 13th homer and Lawrence Butler added his ninth for the Athletics, who have lost three straight and 9 of 11.

Richie Palacios had an RBI single in the Rays' two-run second. Cedric Mullins made it 3-0 in the third with a two-out RBI double.

Yandy Díaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero had consecutive two-out singles in the fourth to make it 4-2. Díaz added an RBI single in the eighth.

Perkins gave up seven runs — six earned — on 12 hits in five innings. The right-hander is 0-7 in 11 starts.

Up nex

t

The Rays open a four-game series against visiting Baltimore beginning Friday, while the Athletics host Texas for three games starting Friday.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Leavitt, 28, called it a “bittersweet decision" in a social media post Wednesday shortly after President Donald Trump announced she would be stepping down. She recently returned to the White House podium after the birth of her second child, a daughter named Viviana, in May. She also has a 2-year-old son.

“The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life,” Leavitt wrote.

Trump did not outline plans for who might replace her in the high-profile role. He said in a social media post of his own that her decision to leave is one “I totally understand and respect!” and indicated she would continue to play a role in his orbit.

“Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections,” the president wrote.

Leavitt worked as a spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump, before joining his 2024 campaign. In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning a 10-way Republican primary before losing the general election to incumbent Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas.

During Trump’s first term in office, Leavitt worked as an aide in the White House press office. She then became communications director for New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Leavitt briefed from the White House press room less frequently than some of her recent predecessors. Trump, who regularly engages with reporters during White House events and during his travels, primarily deployed Leavitt to Fox News and other conservative news outlets to trumpet his agenda and take shots at Democrats and the mainstream media.

Trump’s first-term press secretaries included Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who were known for quarreling with reporters. Another, Stephanie Grisham, never held a briefing. Her successor, Kayleigh McEnany, often lectured the news media during her appearances in the press briefing room.

Leavitt, 28, is the youngest person to hold the role. She was a press aide during Trump's first term and has been one of the most visible advocates of his “Make America Great Again” movement. Trump did not outline any plans for who might replace her.

Meanwhile, Trump said he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat he insisted did not scare him.

He downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge involved in his flight, which saw him stow away in an airport catering container to sneak onto another plane while Air Force One was sent into the sky, essentially as a decoy.

Here's the latest:

Republicans see Minnesota fraud scandal as a chance to go on offense in a blue state

It has been 20 years since a Republican won a statewide race there. But some in the party think a fraud scandal that has engulfed state government will be their ticket back to relevance.

Their enthusiasm was buoyed by Tuesday’s primary, which saw former sportscaster Michele Tafoya win the Senate nomination and state House speaker Lisa Demuth win the primary for governor. Both women defeated rivals seen by some GOP strategists as too extreme for Minnesota’s left-of-center electorate.

Republicans are mostly playing defense as they look to hold on to their narrow congressional majorities. President Donald Trump is unpopular, and voters have a negative view of the state of the economy and the country’s direction.

Most of the competitive Senate seats on the ballot this fall are held by Republicans and in states Trump won by healthy margins in 2024, such as Texas and Iowa. Minnesota presents one of the GOP’s few opportunities to go on offense.

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Law firm with ties to Trump administration declines offer to represent migrant children

A small Texas law firm with ties to the Trump administration declined a $150 million federal contract it was offered to represent migrant children traveling alone to the U.S., authorities said, raising long-term questions about who would represent them.

The administration announced plans last week to award the contract to Houston-based Burke Law Group, which has little experience in immigration. The contract offer came as the administration ramps up its mass deportation campaign and after it let a key contract with nearly 100 providers working with immigrant children around the country expire at the end of July with no replacement.

Unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody are being temporarily represented by another group, but it is unclear how things will shake out after its contract expires in December. A Wednesday statement from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the contracts, offered no insight into why Burke declined the offer.

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US critical of Israeli defense minister’s comments on keeping troops in southern Lebanon

The Trump administration says Israel Katz’s comments that Israel will not withdraw from certain areas are inconsistent with a framework deal agreed to by Israel and Lebanon.

A State Department official reaffirmed Wednesday that the U.S. “expects all parties to act in a manner consistent with the framework they agreed to,” which does not include a long-term or permanent Israeli presence in the south.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said a permanent Israeli “military presence in South Lebanon is not consistent with the commitments made in the framework or the long-term peace and security of both states.”

Earlier Wednesday Katz said Israel would not withdraw from certain of its current positions: “Under no circumstances do we retreat.”

2 people died in military helicopter crash near Fort Hood, officials say

An Army Apache helicopter crashed in a central Texas field on Wednesday, killing both people on board and sparking a wildfire that forced several homes to be evacuated, officials said.

Officials from nearby Fort Hood announced that the AH-64 Apache helicopter had crashed. Cliff Coleman, spokesperson for the Bell County Sheriff’s office confirmed that both occupants died.

No cause of the crash was immediately announced. Fort Hood’s criminal investigation division was leading the investigation, Coleman said.

The helicopter did not hit any homes or other structures when it crashed, Coleman said.

“Our immediate priority is securing the site and supporting the initial response efforts,” said Brig. Gen. Ethan Diven, acting commanding general. “Our thoughts are with the crew and their families as we await further information.”

Interior Department holds third oil lease sale in Gulf of Mexico

The Trump administration conducted another lease sale Wednesday for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Sixteen companies submitted 69 bids totaling nearly $100 million.

The sale was the third in the past year under Trump’s big tax and spending law adopted by congressional Republicans.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the sale underscores the administration’s commitment to “an active offshore energy strategy” and continues a tradition of offshore drilling helping to power transportation, manufacturing and small businesses.

An oil industry lobbying group hailed the sale as a “vote of confidence in American energy.”

Environmental groups denounced it as a giveaway to the oil and gas industry, which is already pulling in windfall profits due to the war in Iran.

US strikes targeting Houthis killed 153 civilians in Yemen last year, Pentagon review says

A Pentagon review has found that U.S. airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last year killed more than 150 civilians.

The unclassified assessment was sent to Congress as part of an annual report on civilian casualties and was obtained by The Associated Press.

The Pentagon review focused on three airstrikes in April 2025 that were launched during the U.S. campaign against the Houthis. The militants were attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea as well as Israel. A total of 153 civilians were killed and 243 were injured.

The report comes as concerns rise over civilian casualties by military campaigns under the Trump administration, including a strike on an Iranian primary school in the opening days of this year’s war that killed up to 168 people.

Hegseth pushes Latin American nations to leave ICC

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is urging Latin American countries not to recognize the International Criminal Court as the U.S. military targets alleged drug traffickers in the region.

Speaking at a gathering in Panama of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, Hegseth argued that those efforts “are 100% lawful under the laws of armed conflict.” He faces questions at home about the legality of carrying out deadly strikes on small boats accused of trafficking drugs.

It’s not clear from Hegseth’s remarks what, if anything, the ICC has done to stymie U.S. operations in the region. He encouraged the nearly 20 countries assembled “to leave the ICC and reject their attempts to rob your governments and your courts of your sovereignty.”

The Trump administration is pushing a campaign to “dismantle” the world tribunal in retaliation for warrants the court has issued for top Israeli officials over the war in Gaza and investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Leavitt calls the decision to depart the White House ‘bittersweet’

Leavitt recently returned to work after taking a short leave following the birth in May of her second child, Viviana.

She also has a 2-year-old son.

“The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life,” Leavitt said in a social media post.

Leavitt leaving job as White House press secretary

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave the administration at the end of the month, Trump announced Wednesday.

Leavitt, who served Trump as a press aide during his first term in the White House, has been one of the most visible advocates of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. The Republican president described her as one of his “most trusted aides” in a social media post announcing her departure.

He said Leavitt “will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect! Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections.”

Lawsuit seeks to stop Trump from making money off early access to his posts on US policy

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court alleges that Trump’s deal with his media company to post first on his Truth Social platform violates the Constitution.

The suit brought by two media groups comes after Truth Social started charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month for a new service allowing early access to the president’s posts so they can trade off them.

Truth Social says the lawsuit is an attempt by left wing activists to silence the president.

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The duel over the National Guard in DC has entered its second year

The latest volley was a letter coming from the Justice Department to the district council challenging their view that the use of the military is unnecessary because crime was already falling.

That letter counters letters the council sent last month to governors who have troops in town supporting Trump’s 2025 surge. The June letter asked governors to bring their people home, citing $3 million a day costs and the lack of a crime emergency.

Wednesday’s missive disputed that: “D.C. is a much safer place no matter what you say.”

The president activated the guard and pulled in federal law enforcement with a crime emergency declaration on Aug. 11, 2025. The deployment was recently extended until January 2029 and will cost an estimated $1.4 billion.

Trump-supporting pastor warns immigration enforcement risks Latino vote

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is warning Republicans that deporting vulnerable people who don’t have a criminal record could lose them the Latino vote in the midterm elections.

Rodriguez is a conservative pastor from California and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

In an op-ed for the Christian Post on Wednesday, he said that not everyone the administration is arresting and deporting is a criminal. Many, he said, are “construction workers, healthcare professionals and Sunday school teachers who have been rooted in this country for 20 years or more.”

“This does not mean open borders,” he said. “It means the mechanisms of enforcement must be proportional, just, and morally defensible.”

Rodriguez said there is “still time to course correct.”

“When indiscriminate enforcement becomes the story, it hands the moral high ground to the progressive Left and confirms their most damaging narrative about the Right.”

Forget left vs. center

Primary results in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Connecticut have reiterated that Democratic voters are hungry for change, even as they remain divided over the party’s ideological future.

Progressives secured a major victory in Minnesota but fell short in Wisconsin, while a longtime Connecticut congressman was ousted by a younger challenger.

The results followed similar outcomes this year in places such as Michigan that showed an appetite for turnover that cuts across the party’s ideological divisions.

They also highlighted the growing influence of younger voters, who have been particularly drawn to progressive candidates.

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US resumes leadership role in anti-abortion group abandoned during Biden administration

The Trump administration says it will resume a leadership role in an international bloc opposed to abortion that had been established in Trump’s first term but then abandoned by President Joe Biden.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday the U.S. would serve as the “secretariat” for the Geneva Consensus Declaration. The Geneva consensus was created in 2020 with great fanfare from then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “to secure meaningful health and development gains for women; to protect life at all stages; to defend the family as the fundamental unit of society.”

Critics, however, saw it as a way for the U.S. to further push Trump administration goals to limit family planning initiatives and ban abortion.

Participation in Geneva Consensus was one of the first Trump administration actions rescinded by Biden when he took office in early 2021.

Wisconsin gubernatorial primary winner David Crowley ties opponent to Trump

The winner of Wisconsin’s Democratic primary race for governor immediately tied his Republican opponent to President Trump in his first public comments since his razor-thin victory.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley told supporters Wednesday he intends to build a broad coalition to defeat Republican Tom Tiffany, who’s voted 100% in line with Trump.

“The biggest difference between me and the congressman is I’m loyal to the people of Wisconsin. I’m not loyal to MAGA,” Crowley said referring to Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

Tiffany began the general election campaign with a message connecting Crowley to Francesca Hong, a the democratic socialist Crowley narrowly defeated.

“I’ve said all along that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between these Democrat candidates,” Tiffany said in a statement.

Sen. Tim Scott says he voted for Sen. Darline Graham and endorses her in runoff

Scott, who also serves as chair of the chamber’s political arm, said on social media Wednesday morning that he’d voted for Darline Graham in Tuesday’s special Republican Senate primary.

Graham has been serving in an interim role since her brother Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death last month. Scott called his fellow South Carolinian “a conservative stalwart” who “represents our beloved state with class, humility, and dignity.”

Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman will go head to head in an Aug. 25 GOP runoff. The winner of that contest faces Democrat Annie Andrews in November.

Rubio sets up task force to combat ‘birth tourism’ as Trump fights birthright citizenship

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the creation of a State Department task force to combat “birth tourism,” a Trump administration phrase for foreign women coming to the United States with the intention of giving birth to a child on U.S. soil in order to secure their child’s American citizenship.

Trump and his administration have fought unsuccessfully in courts to end “birthright citizenship,” which gives U.S. citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. Despite those legal setbacks, Trump has continued the fight to end the practice.

In a social media post Wednesday, Rubio said the new task force would “review the activity of visa holders, dismantle illegal birth tourism networks, and put an end to this heinous abuse of our nation’s laws.”

He said that since the task force was created last month, it had already taken action to revoke the visas of more than 600 people suspected of being involved in birth tourism schemes.

Many details about what happened remain unknown

Presidents have regularly tested the confines of their office, pushing their security advisers to visit war zones as a show of American presence and their own leadership. Usually, this happens in the form of trips that aren’t announced until the president is deemed to be out of harm’s way.

What’s different this time is that Trump was covertly separated from the rest of his travelers — including the press pool meant to provide independent coverage of the president — and, instead of informing the public about what occurred once the risk had passed, the White House still hasn’t fully revealed what took place.

Presidents often take secret trips — but not like this

Commanders in chief have sometimes kept overseas trips covert for security reasons, with schedules and logistics kept classified until after for safety reasons. But the fact that Trump’s whereabouts were concealed at the time and for weeks afterward is believed to be unprecedented.

“We have absolutely seen the president fly on unmarked or decoy planes before, into Iraq, Afghanistan, other war-zone-like places,” said Garrett M. Graff, author of “Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die.”

“But this was an ongoing secret that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.”

After hiding in the catering vehicle and being moved to the other plane, Trump stopped in Britain, sneaked back aboard the presidential plane undetected, and even later scoffed when asked about potential danger.

“If I go, you go. Right?” he told reporters then — gliding past the fact that if the plane had been shot down, the president wouldn’t have been aboard.

Inflation paused, but higher costs remain an issue for Americans

U.S. inflation slowed last month and a measure of underlying price pressures also cooled, suggesting higher oil and gas prices from the Iran war are only having a limited impact on broader costs in the economy.

Consumer prices rose 3.4% in July from a year ago, down slightly from 3.5% in June, the Labor Department said Wednesday. But inflation is still higher than before the Iran war began in February, when it was 2.4%. On a monthly basis, prices rose just 0.1% from June to July.

Inflation has been pushed higher by a series of shocks to the economy, including President Trump’s tariffs imposed last spring, higher gas prices stemming from the Iran war, and a surge in investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure that has boosted computer chip prices. The key question for the inflation-fighters at the Fed — not to mention for consumers struggling with high gas and grocery prices — is how quickly those one-time effects will fade.

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Trump’s vaccine order hands some MAHA voters a win. It also gives Democrats an attack line

President Trump pivoted the nation’s attention back to vaccines this week with an executive order that aims to scale back the childhood immunization schedule and space out shots into separate visits.

After acting to overhaul the nation’s vaccine policy and guidance, the Trump administration had recently largely stepped back from additional changes to focus on less controversial subjects, raising questions over the political impetus behind and implications of the Republican president’s renewed focus on vaccines.

For well over a decade, Trump has expressed his view — against medical groups’ guidance — that childhood vaccines should be administered in smaller doses over a long period of time. The executive order sought to bear out that discredited theory.

While the move could endear Trump to some “Make America Healthy Again” voters who want more flexibility on immunizations, it’s also already attracting attacks designed to hurt Trump’s aligned candidates in November’s midterm elections.

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Progressive Democrats get another win in Minnesota US Senate primary

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Minnesota Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday in the latest victory for an insurgent progressive over the party’s establishment.

Flanagan defeated centrist U.S. Rep. Angie Craig with a pledge to fight the influence of corporations and confront Trump.

“For months now, I have been telling you that this campaign was about the many versus the money,” Flanagan said as she celebrated her victory in Minneapolis. “Well guess what? The many just won.”

The outcome was another sign of progressive energy among Democratic primary voters. It comes a week after Abdul El-Sayed won a bitter and divisive primary in Michigan that fired up the left and fueled anxiety among party leaders that Democrats will alienate moderate swing voters.

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Trump says Secret Service and the military wanted him off Air Force One in Turkey due to threat

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat he insisted didn’t scare him.

Trump downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge involved in his flight, which saw him stow away in an airport catering container to sneak onto another plane while Air Force One was sent into the sky, essentially as a decoy.

He also downplayed the risk to the people — White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters — he left on the plane.

“They wanted me to go on a different flight, different plane,” Trump told reporters after returning from an event in Ohio, saying he had little choice in the matter.

“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it,” he said. “I get a lot of threats.”

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Jamal Oakes, owner of Trap House Chicken, said a driver accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake, sending the vehicle through the front of the business. Oakes was not on-site when it happened, but his employees were.

“Somebody was parking and accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake and it drove through our whole business over here,” Oakes said.

Oakes said no one was injured — a detail he called the most important part of the story.

“No one got hurt, luckily. That’s the best thing about everything,” he said. “I mean, we can replace all of this, the car, but it was a young teen driver. So I’m just glad that he was OK.”

Business goes on

Despite the damage, Oakes said Trap House Chicken remains open and ready to serve customers.

“We’re still open. We’ll still be able to serve the public and serve everybody’s food,” he said. “So come get those ribs, come get that chicken from us.”

Oakes acknowledged the incident will have a long-term impact on operations. Much of the equipment used for daily operations was damaged in the crash. He said the timeline for a full recovery could stretch anywhere from three to nine months, depending on how the insurance process unfolds.

“This is going to be a process depending on how long our management company, as far as the insurance company goes,” Oakes said. “They were insured, so that’s good.”

‘Mentality of a fireman’

For Oakes, the crash is just the latest chapter in a story he’s already writing — literally. He recently published a book titled My Life as a Fireman: A Restaurant Owner’s Battle for Survival, which he said speaks directly to moments like this one.

“It goes back to what I’m saying — you got to have a mentality of a fireman out here,” Oakes said. “If you’re a business owner or a restaurant owner, you gotta expect problems. And when problems happen, you’ve got to have faith.”

Oakes said his faith carried him through the moment.

“For me, it’s God. And I know we’re going to get through this like we get through every other fire that we have to deal with,” he said. “I can’t ask for a better outcome to a bad situation.”

ICE plans to spend between $10 million and $20 million to outfit officers and agents with “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices,” according to a notice published Monday and revealed first by The Associated Press.

The devices known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, are normal patrol gloves until an officer presses a button to activate its electrical mode. They must be applied directly to someone’s skin to produce a voltage that causes pain, which is intended to gain compliance from people who are resisting. Unlike Tasers, they do not leave burn or contact marks.

New York AG says she is ‘outraged' by plan

The size of the purchase suggests ICE plans to give the device to most or all of its officers. The gloves have been used by local departments more often in jails than in the streets, where ICE officers have increasingly used force to extract people from cars and faced protests over their actions carrying out President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.

“We are outraged,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said at a news conference Wednesday, where she warned that ICE officers who misuse the gloves in her state could face criminal and civil consequences.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, issued a statement that did not mention the product specifically or explain why it had been chosen.

“ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country,” the statement said. “Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards.”

Lawsuit alleges shocks from gloves contributed to man's death

While the devices are marketed as nonlethal and safe for the heart, a pending lawsuit alleges a 43-year-old man died in 2024 after he was shocked 27 times with the gloves and 13 more times by a Taser at a jail in Richmond, Kentucky. An internal investigation found two of the glove shocks lasted 45 and 99 seconds apiece — far more than the manufacturer’s recommended 15-second limit.

“These actions not only inflicted unnecessary pain but also heightened the risk of serious health complications,” the investigation by the Madison County Detention Center found, according to court documents.

An Associated Press review found two other lawsuits alleging injuries from the gloves, including a man with heart problems who was shocked at a Las Vegas trade show and a defendant who said he was laughed at after he was unnecessarily shocked in court. Both cases have been dismissed.

Several Democrats in Congress, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Maxwell Frost and Delia Ramirez, said on social media that ICE did not need another weapon.

“This won’t make anyone safer and in fact just gives ICE another dangerous tool to target citizens and immigrants alike,” Jayapal wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

Former ICE leader, law professor worry gloves will be misused

The manufacturer warns the devices should not be used against some populations that ICE agents routinely encounter: the elderly, small children, pregnant women and the severely handicapped. The device's user manual also warns it should not be used in response to verbal defiance, or for punishment, torture or horseplay.

“It's too easy for this to get misused, against a population that doesn't pose a threat," former ICE acting director John Sandweg said Wednesday in an interview on MS NOW.

The maker of the Taser recently phased out its drive-stun feature, a similar pain compliance tool that had been misused by some officers.

Michael Mannheimer, a law professor at Northern Kentucky University who has written about police use-of-force and issues in federal law enforcement operations, agreed the gloves raised concerns about officers using disproportionate force.

“One concern I would have is if ICE agents have this at their immediate disposal, will they use it more than they should? Will they jump over lesser force that could be appropriate and successful to attain compliance and instead use this first?" he said.

The notice published in a DHS database indicated the solicitation for a no-bid contract to purchase the gloves could be released as early as Friday, and the contract would last through March 31, 2027. The founder of Compliant Technologies LLC, which manufactures the gloves, declined comment.

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Associated Press writer Claudia Lauer contributed to this report.

The polarizing quarterback will start Cleveland's exhibition opener at Chicago on Saturday — his first game action since 2024 — and Shedeur Sanders will play in the second half as the Browns' QB competition creeps toward a conclusion.

First-year coach Todd Monken informed Watson and Sanders of his plans for the first two preseason games following Wednesday's practice.

The QBs have been battling for Cleveland's starting job throughout training camp, with every throw, incompletion and interception scrutinized by media and fans — both in person and online.

Monken intends to play his starter for the first half against the Bears and hopefully get him a two-minute drill. The second QB will play the third quarter.

The roles will be flipped against Buffalo on Aug. 22 in Cleveland.

“We’re going to see both of them,” said Monken, who disclosed his plans for the Chicago matchup without offering any explanations behind his rationale for them. "One’s going to start this week and one’s going to start next week.”

The Browns will practice against the Bills on Aug. 20 before their preseason game.

Cleveland opens the regular season against Jacksonville on Sept. 13. Monken hopes to have his No. 1 QB in place well in advance of Week 1. Time is running out.

Watson and Sanders are at different ends of their respective career spectrums.

The 30-year-old Watson's tenure with the Browns has been mired by injuries and turmoil. Cleveland acquired him in 2022 and signed him to a fully guaranteed $230 million contract, He suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in 2023 and came back the next season only to twice rupture his Achilles tendon.

He was also suspended 11 games by the NFL in 2022 after being accused of sexual assault and misconduct by two dozen massage therapists while playing in Houston.

When he goes behind center Saturday, it will be Watson's first snaps in a game since Oct. 20, 2024, a span of 22 months.

“I’m super excited,” Watson said before practice. “All the hard work that I put in with the training staff, with my team, my personal team, to get to this stage has been tremendous. I’m super excited for those opportunities and can’t wait for it.”

After a terrible start in this camp, Watson has made steady improvement. He's been more decisive, accurate and shown glimpses of the Pro Bowl-level player he was with the Texans — the one who enticed the Browns to make a monumental investment.

Watson knows he can't retrieve lost time. He'll never be the same QB. The guy from his days in Houston is long gone.

“I’m different, man,” he said. “Ever since I’ve been here early on, bringing up Houston was cool. But I’m 30 now. I had some injuries and things like that. So my game has definitely changed, but the mentality in how I play and how I approach it doesn’t.”

While others have varying expectations about Watson can do, he's realistic about his current abilities. He's also proud of his resiliency.

“I have a clear vision,” he said. “I have a clear mind. The world knows what I went through."

Monken has seen enough positives from Watson to believe he might be able to recapture his old form. The only way to find out is on the field.

Monken believes Watson can be special again. He wants him to feel that way, too.

“I would never put limitations on a player,” he said. “I’d hate that he would do that. Why can’t he play like that? I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet. I’m not going to say he can’t until I see it, until we see it. I’ve seen a lot of really good things over the course of the four or five months I’ve been here. I’m not going to put that on him. If he thinks he can’t play like that, that’s on him.”

Sanders showed promise while starting seven games as a rookie in 2025. The immensely popular fifth-round pick said he's made strides in Monken's offense, but knows he's an unfinished product.

He needs to improve in everything.

“It’s like a chart within myself and seeing, OK, if I got 10 different areas to improve, let’s improve each area every day until it gets to max threshold," he said. "Max threshold, that’ll take some time. That’s going to take a couple years, max threshold. But I think I’m improving in every area overall.”

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

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Heidi Beirich, a political extremism expert who left the law center about six years ago, was named in an indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Beirich, 59, of Palm Springs, California, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. She was charged in the government’s existing case against the SPLC in Montgomery, Alabama.

In ankle cuffs and wearing a red T-shirt, Beirich made her initial court appearance for a bond hearing in Riverside, California, Wednesday afternoon. She did not enter a plea and U.S. Magistrate Judge David T. Bristow ordered her to surrender her passport and appear in court in Alabama within two weeks.

The judge released Beirich on her own recognizance after prosecutors declined to file a request for detention. Her lawyer, Michael Proctor, said in court that Beirich is a “highly, highly responsible, pro-social and trustworthy” member of society with no criminal history.

Earlier in the day, Proctor said his client is innocent of the charges and described the case as politically motivated. He accused prosecutors of trying to punish his client for her “decades-long record of success dismantling hate groups.”

“A free and fair society does not use the justice system to silence its political opponents,” Proctor said in a statement.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the new charges at a news briefing in Washington, but did not name Beirich. CNN was first to report on the charges against Beirich.

“This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this,” Blanche said. “Our investigators and the U.S. Attorneys and the agents working the case will keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

An SPLC spokesperson said the case against it and Beirich “will not shake our resolve.”

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do," the spokesperson said in a statement. "We are confident in our position and look forward to presenting the evidence and making our case in court.”

Beirich led the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, which incurred the anger of conservatives with its annual report on organizations that it classified as hate groups. Critics accused the law center of unfairly tarnishing right-wing groups with the same label that it applied to white supremacists.

Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in 2020 after leaving the SPLC. She has testified before Congress about far-right extremism and is frequently interviewed about the subject by news outlets. Her current organization did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday.

A superseding indictment filed in June appears to refer to Beirich as “Employee-2” and by her former title as director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

The indictment alleges that between 2007 and 2023, more than $4 million in donated funds were secretly funneled to people who infiltrated or were associated with violent extremist groups. Prosecutors said some of the money was used for recruiting new members and purchasing Ku Klux Klan robes and materials for cross-burning ceremonies.

The indictment says “Employee-2” oversaw the payment of donor money to SPLC informants or “field sources," including KKK members and white nationalists who initially approached the SPLC for help leaving the extremist organizations. The SPLC employee was in a romantic relationship with a source who infiltrated a neo-Nazi group at the direction of the law center, the indictment alleges

Proctor said Beirich “won’t be silenced or intimidated by the government’s false and politicized allegations.”

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Kunzelman reported from Washington and Chandler from Montgomery, Ala. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer and Collin Binkley in Washington and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

The grand jury, which had been meeting in secret, returned the indictment on July 20, and it was unsealed Wednesday, when 32-year-old Nick Reiner entered a not guilty plea.

Rob Reiner, a director, actor and Hollywood luminary, and his wife, a photographer and producer, were stabbed to death in their home in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles on Dec. 14. Nick Reiner was arrested within hours and charged two days later.

The grand jury indictment is a major step toward trial and allows prosecutors to skip California’s preliminary hearing process, where evidence is publicly aired.

Lying in wait means a suspect waited for or hid from victims in order to ambush them, and as an allegation it's meant to show premeditation. A finding that he was lying in wait along with a murder conviction would make Reiner eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors said they haven't decided whether to seek it.

“This was a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “We hope that by having a grand jury return an indictment in this case it will bring us one step closer to a trial and achieving justice.”

Unsealed indictment gives few new details in secrecy-shrouded case

The unsealed indictment reveals few new details in a case that has been shrouded in secrecy. It does not explain how or why Reiner was lying in wait. It also includes an allegation that he used a knife in the killing, but authorities have said previously that the couple was stabbed.

Prosecutors have said nothing about possible motives, and leaks in the case have been virtually nonexistent on both sides.

The Los Angeles County chief medical examiner told The Associated Press he would like to make their autopsy reports public, but a court order has prevented him from doing so.

Indictment released as Nick Reiner seeks trust funds

The indictment comes as Reiner is seeking unpaid money from a trust his parents established for him, saying he needs it to help in his defense.

Reiner said in a court petition that the trustees who oversee the funds have denied them to him without legal justification. The money was to have gone to Nick Reiner even if his parents were alive, legal filings say. The petition says the trust has at least $1.5 million in assets, but trustees would not share the exact amount.

“Nick loved his parents, and he is devastated by their deaths. But the facts about what did and did not happen to them are not at issue,” the petition says.

He is seeking to hire back high-profile criminal defense attorney Alan Jackson, who initially represented him before Reiner’s siblings would no longer agree to fund his defense and a public defender took over.

A hearing on the petition is set for next week.

The LA County Public Defender’s Office, which is representing Reiner, declined to comment on the indictment.

Grand jury process happens in secret

California prosecutors can charge a defendant and take the case through a preliminary hearing — a sort of trial in miniature where evidence is publicly aired and a judge decides whether it should be sent to trial — as recently happened with singer D4vd.

Or they can use a grand jury to go through the process in secret. They can also publicly file charges and later seek a secret grand jury indictment, essentially creating a new version of the case, as happened here and in the Los Angeles prosecution of Harvey Weinstein.

Rob Reiner had prolific career as actor and director

Rob Reiner began as an actor, starring in the TV sitcom, “All in the Family,” as Michael “Meathead” Stivic, the liberal son-in-law to a much more conservative and bigoted Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor. Reiner won two Emmy Awards for the role, and last month got a posthumous Emmy nomination for his work as a guest star on “The Bear.”

He became a prolific director whose work included some of the most memorable and endlessly watchable movies of the 1980s and ’90s. His credits included “This is Spinal Tap,” “Stand By Me,” “A Few Good Men,” and “When Harry Met Sally…” during the production of which he met photographer Michele Singer. They wed soon after and were married for 36 years.

Nick Reiner was the second of the three children they had together. He and his father co-wrote the script for the 2015 film “Being Charlie,” which was partly based on the son’s teenage struggles with addiction and homelessness.

His older brother Jake Reiner wrote in April that the experience of losing his parents and having his brother at the center of it was “a living nightmare” that is “too devastating to comprehend.”

News4JAX is not naming the driver because he is charged with a misdemeanor.

Investigators say the 42-year-old driver was turning right from St. Johns Avenue onto Palm Avenue when he hit the crossing guard, who was in the crosswalk helping students safely across Palm Avenue. According to authorities, the driver ignored the crossing guard’s sign and her presence in the walkway before driving away without stopping or checking on her.

Several bystanders witnessed the incident and stopped to help the crossing guard. One witness provided Palatka Police officers with the vehicle’s license plate number, allowing officers to quickly locate and arrest him.

The driver was charged with hit-and-run, a misdemeanor, and was taken to the Putnam County Jail. He was released on $150 bond.

Despite the incident, the crossing guard refused to leave her post and completed her crossing duties Wednesday morning.

“This situation could have ended tragically, and we are very fortunate that our crossing guard was able to walk away from this incident with what appears to be bruises,” authorities said in a release.

Officials also thanked those who stopped to assist and provided information on the vehicle and license tag.

Palatka Police want to remind all drivers that school is back in session, bringing increased traffic — particularly around Palatka schools.

Discussion

At 900 PM GMT (2100 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Cristobal was located near latitude 37.2 North, longitude 41.0 West. Cristobal is moving toward the east near 21 mph (33 km/h). A turn toward the east-northeast and a slower forward motion is expected tonight.

Maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph (75 km/h) with higher gusts. Slow weakening is forecast, and Cristobal is forecast to dissipate on Thursday.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 80 miles (130 km) from the center.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 1008 mb (29.77 inches).

Watches and Warnings

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

Land Hazards

None.

Cristobal formed Wednesday in the Atlantic Ocean.

There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said, and the storm was forecast to dissipate on Thursday.

Cristobal was located about 765 miles (1,235 kilometers) west of the Azores with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (72 kph). It was moving east.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Ocean, the National Hurricane Center initiated advisories on Potential Tropical Cyclone One-C, which was located about 935 miles (1,504 kilometers) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii and packed winds of 35 mph (56 kph).

The center said the system was moving west and was expected to strengthen into a tropical storm Thursday before nearing the Hawaiian Islands. A hurricane watch or tropical storm watch will likely be needed for the islands by early Thursday, forecasters said.

The system could bring rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters) in the island chain, with up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) possible, forecasters said. That could produce flooding and mudslides, the National Hurricane Center said.

It is possible it could make landfall on the southern part of the Big Island as a tropical storm on Saturday, said Laura Farris, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu.

“We want people to be aware and preparing for some kind of tropical cyclone moving close to the islands,” she said.

The Severe Thunderstorm Warning has since been canceled for Duval County.

A Severe Thunderstorm warning was later issued for St. Johns and Flagler Counties until 4:15 p.m.

A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was also issued for Columbia and Alachua counties until 6 p.m.

A Flood Advisory has been issued for Duval and St. Johns Counties until 5 p.m.

Click on the player above to view the live radar.

New charges filed

While investigating a domestic violence case involving Corrections Division Sgt. Michael Clark, 54, and civilian employee Paige Madancy, detectives say they reviewed multiple electronic devices voluntarily provided by both. The review uncovered text conversations referencing drug use and the theft of medication.

Based on that evidence, both Clark and Madancy are charged with Theft of a Controlled Substance and Possession of a Controlled Substance. Clark faces an additional charge of Delivery of a Controlled Substance.

Madancy has since separated from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation remains active.

[RELATED: Fired St. Johns County Sheriff’s sergeant sent photo of his injured arm in violation of dating violence injunction]

Background: Clark’s arrest

The new charges stem from an investigation that began July 23, 2026, when the SJSO Special Victims Unit opened a criminal domestic violence case involving Clark and Madancy.

The following day, a temporary injunction for protection against dating violence — filed by a woman against Clark — was granted. Clark was placed on emergency suspension while the investigation continued.

Clark’s suspension lasted less than 24 hours. On July 25, 2026, around 12:30 p.m., he allegedly sent the woman a text message that included a photo of his injured arm — a direct violation of the injunction. Clark told investigators he sent the photo by accident.

The SJSO Special Victims Unit arrested Clark, who was booked into the SJSO Detention Center before being transferred to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. He has since bonded out with GPS monitoring and was terminated from the sheriff’s office following the arrest.

Clark had worked for SJSO since 2006 and most recently led the agency’s reentry and outreach program, helping people incarcerated in the detention center transition back into society.

A 4-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell on a home in Geneva, Indiana, during Tuesday's storms, the Jennings County Sheriff's Office said. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine said a resident of Roseville died during a health emergency when first responders, faced with flooded roads, couldn’t reach them. Officials in Portage, Indiana, were investigating whether the severe weather played a role in a reported house explosion that killed a person.

Lightning struck a prison complex southwest of Cleveland on Tuesday, injuring 16 incarcerated people who were hospitalized, according to the Ohio Department of Corrections. DeWine said four remained hospitalized as of Wednesday, including one with severe injuries.

Storm damage was reported from the Chicago area all the way to western Pennsylvania. Three tornadoes in counties south of Chicago were confirmed by the National Weather Service.

Flood warnings on Wednesday stretched from northern Illinois to eastern Indiana, and there were flash flood watches from Indiana to parts of Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, the weather service said.

“Severe thunderstorm and heavy rainfall threats continue across the Plains, Midwest, Ohio Valley, and central Appalachians the next couple of days,” it said.

People had to be rescued from rising floodwaters

Authorities in Ohio and western Pennsylvania reported numerous water rescues. DeWine sent 40 Ohio Army National Guard members to help in two counties east of Columbus and he said dozens of local departments also responded to help, including from West Virginia.

Floodwaters barged into Kaitlyn Rodgers’ home in Crooksville, Ohio, early Tuesday morning, reaching knee deep as it stranded her and her husband and four children. With the currents too strong to make it out themselves, they were rescued by firefighters in a boat in the predawn darkness.

“Water just started pouring into the house,” she said. “Because of my house being very old, when the water was coming up I was very worried about the electric outlets that were on the floor, because there was water literally coming out of them, so I was afraid that my children were going to get shocked.”

In Athens County, Ohio, nearly 300 people called 911 for help on Tuesday, including 42 involving vehicles stuck in floods, with more calls Wednesday as high waters flowed toward the Ohio River, said the emergency management director, Teresa Fouts-Imler.

DeWine surveyed the hardest hit areas by helicopter on Wednesday and called the extent of the flooding “stunning.”

“These communities have been hit exceedingly hard in an historic way,” DeWine said during an afternoon news conference from Perry County. “They’ve been hit before with water challenges, but this is certainly the worst.”

The storms pummeled a wide swath of the Midwest

More than 650,000 customers were without power Wednesday afternoon in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, according to poweroutage.us.

Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power was still surveying the damage but had already identified more than 100 broken poles, some 650 downed wire spans and another 85 entangled with trees. About 76,000 of its customers remained without power, even after crews had restored electricity for 135,000, it said Wednesday.

To give Ohio's capital city time to grapple with power outages and cleanup, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther declared an emergency Wednesday.

Heavy rains and high winds damaged homes and inundated neighborhoods

Photos posted on social media from the Chicago area and across the state line in Indiana showed flooded roads, trees tangled in power lines and homes with gashes in their roofs.

“No power. It was very scary. We were down in the basement,” said Javid Jenkins of Homewood, a Chicago suburb. “We’re built for snow. We’re built for cold. We’re not built for this.”

Jenkins, 54, was driving around for gas to fire up a generator to preserve food in his refrigerator.

Forecasters said a wind gust of 99 mph (159 kph) was recorded in Gary, Indiana. Elsewhere there were numerous reports of gusts of 80 mph (128 kph) or more at personal weather stations.

Preliminary information indicated that the intense system that swept from Iowa into Indiana over several hours qualified as a derecho, the weather service's Storm Prediction Center said Tuesday evening. Derechos are prolonged straight-line wind events that unleash heavy rainfall and travel far. The damage they cause is sometimes comparable to the destructive forces of tornadoes or hurricanes.

“Total devastation. No roof,” said Kerry Hourigan, standing outside her home of 25 years in Tinley Park, another Chicago suburb. “Stupid thing, but my focus was I just bought a new barbecue grill, and I have no idea where that is. It’s disappeared.”

Dayton, Ohio, set a daily rainfall record with 2.07 inches (5.25 cm), shattering a mark set in 1915, the weather service said.

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Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press writers Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.

The crowds brought lawn chairs and umbrellas as they eagerly awaited the celestial spectacle, which began early in the evening. As the sky darkened, gradually at first and then quickly, people broke into applause and cheered. It was the country's first total solar eclipse in more than a century.

“It’s simply impossible to imagine,” Rosa Celiberti, a language teacher who watched from Medinaceli, a Roman-era hilltop town in northeast Spain, said with tears in her eyes. “No matter how many photos or videos you’ve seen, nothing comes even close to what it actually feels like."

Across a wide band of northern and central Spain and Portugal, millions of people enjoyed some of mainland Europe's best views of the eclipse. It also passed over slivers of Greenland and Iceland.

Totality — when the moon completely covers the sun’s light — was expected to last less than 2½ minutes, reaching its maximum duration off Iceland’s west coast. By the time it got to a small patch of Portugal and then to Spain, just before sunset, totality dwindled to a minute or so. The total eclipse then ended over the Mediterranean.

The eclipse was expected to draw at least a half-million additional visitors, Spanish authorities said. Demand for hotel rooms along the path of totality, including in the northern cities of A Coruña, Bilbao and Santiago de Compostela, soared.

Rural areas prepared for an influx of visitors

The event unfolded against the backdrop of scorching summer temperatures and wildfires, and Spanish officials rolled out a large public safety campaign.

Temperatures across much of Spain climbed above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) in many areas where the eclipse was observed. Some 350 official viewing sites were set up across the sparsely populated interior, and more than 33,500 law enforcement officers were deployed to observation areas and access points, the Interior Ministry said.

Only weeks ago, the most destructive wildfire in Spanish history devoured 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in Ávila, in central Spain. Several smaller wildfires remain active elsewhere in southern and central parts of the country.

Despite clouds, sky watchers in Iceland witnessed darkness

In Reykjavik, clouds did not prevent hundreds of people from gathering in bright raincoats in front of the landmark Hallgrímskirkja church as the skies darkened.

With rain falling, the disk of the sun was barely perceptible and then, suddenly, the lights went out. Only the glow of phones held aloft could be seen.

The crowd cheered the darkness as it rained harder and roared even louder when the first light returned. They did not wait to watch the remainder of the partial eclipse and quickly cleared out of the square.

Eclipse glasses sold fast

Special eclipse glasses were essential for safe viewing, even if only a sliver of the sun remained visible. The glasses are made with special filters that block solar radiation that can damage the eyes.

For months, supermarkets, department stores, museums and planetariums across Spain had sold or distributed the glasses, with many pharmacies running out of stock ahead of Wednesday.

On Tuesday evening in downtown Madrid, a long line formed outside a photo shop where a sign read, “We carry eclipse glasses.”

One woman emerged triumphantly and reassured those waiting: “He has boxes and boxes of them!”

A ship circles waters near Greenland hoping to catch a glimpse

Sverre Rud, captain of the MS Spitsbergen, was circling the waters of Rypefjord in eastern Greenland trying to make sure he was perfectly positioned for his 126 passengers to view the spectacle. All day, people came up to Rud to ask if he had nailed the right spot, with no clouds.

“I will do my best," Rud said. “I will pull out my superman powers."

The eclipse may have been startling for the passengers, who had been experiencing 24 hours of daylight on a 17-day cruise in locations mostly north of the Arctic Circle.

Suddenly, for two minutes it was dark.

Even so, the mood on the polar ship had been pure anticipation.

“Everyone is very enthusiastic,” Rud said. “When we were down for breakfast earlier, it was almost like a little bit of a Christmas Eve feeling here."

Hotel costs skyrocketed in Spain and Iceland

Rooms in Reykjavík, Iceland's capital, averaged more than $1,000 for Wednesday night as Icelanders prepared for their first total solar eclipse since 1954 and the first visible from the capital since 1433.

Prices were roughly double 2025 rates, according to data group Lighthouse Intelligence. Many tourists made bookings years in advance. But cloudy skies prevailed across much of the island.

Authorities expected up to 20,000 additional overseas visitors during an already busy peak tourist period. Iceland is home to fewer than 400,000 people.

The 70-room Hotel Keflavík in the Reykjanesbaer municipality was fully booked, with guests hoping to see around one minute and 45 seconds of totality.

“Eclipse time, of course, has been very demanding, and many people came to us early, like last year,” said Steinþór Jónsson, the hotel's owner and manager.

Jónsson said he had seen nothing like it since 1986, the year the hotel opened, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev held a summit in Reykjavík.

“When I opened the hotel, we had Reagan and Gorbachev meeting. It was very hectic here,” he said with a smile. “Besides Reagan and Gorbachev, the eclipse is the biggest.”

Sun mostly obscured in Britain

Across Britain, where the sun was more than 90% obscured, people flocked to hilltop parks and anywhere with an open view of the sky to see the best eclipse since 1999.

In Greenwich Park, with views of the River Thames and central London, the sky turned an eerie gray as a sliver of light sat atop the moon like a hat.

Veronica Orozco popped open a bottle of champagne to share with neighbors as she witnessed the second eclipse of her life.

“I was in Venezuela and I was young and I thought that the sun would not come back. My dad said, ‘It is science, of course it will come back,’” she recalled. “Now sitting here at the age of 41, it is still magical.”

Aja Lilit, who turned 24 on Tuesday, said the eclipse was like a “birthday present from the universe.”

She said the rare event made her think of how small she was at a “cosmic level.”

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Associated Press journalists Teresa Medrano in Madrid; Danica Kirka and Brian Melley in London; Marco Di Marco in Reykjavik, Iceland; and James Brooks in Snæfellsnes, Iceland, contributed.

The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence detained the two staffers in the western city of Herat on Sunday, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told U.N. reporters. He said the U.N. mission has not been informed of the charges against the two men or been able to visit them.

The mission has called on the Taliban "to ensure compliance with the privileges and immunities of the United Nations and its officials,” Haq said.

The Taliban seized power on Aug. 15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country after two decades of war.

Shortly after, it barred girls from secondary schools and later extended the restrictions to higher education, employment and other sectors, effectively excluding women and girls from public life.

The U.N. mission's mandate from the U.N. Security Council includes promoting and supporting humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, promoting human rights, equality for women and girls, inclusive governance and economic stability.

The two men were detained as a humanitarian crisis in the poverty-stricken Asian nation is worsening and as Taliban forces are engaged in cross-border fighting with Pakistani forces. Clashes escalated sharply in February when Afghan forces launched a raid into Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan. Islamabad later declared it was in “open war.”

Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said their detention “seriously threatens the U.N.’s work throughout Afghanistan and its ability to deliver lifesaving aid.”

“Taliban authorities should immediately release those held and ensure all aid agencies can work without intimidation or interference,” she said.

The 41-year-old man fatally shot himself after stabbing his wife and child at the in-home daycare she operates in Hopkins, a suburb of Minneapolis, police said.

All six other children who were at the daycare were not physically harmed, authorities said. Another parent called police after witnessing the attack while dropping off a child Wednesday morning, Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson said.

“There’s no worse scenario than this, where you drop off your child somewhere you think is safe, and you get that phone call,” Johnson said at a news conference.

“This is a tragic day and horrific scene for little children to witness, if they did witness this,” Johnson later added.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — In the U.S., the national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

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More than three hours after the killings, Burnsville Chief Matt Smith said officers were called to a home in his community, 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Hopkins, where they found the dead woman. He said investigators believe the two tragedies are linked, and that the man had been living at the home in Burnsville.

No names were released. Johnson said there was no history of police calls to the Hopkins address.

Amanda Marx, a nurse who lives across the street, didn’t realize anything was wrong until she noticed police officers trying to break down the home’s front door.

She said officers moved behind the home before reappearing and calling for crime scene tape. Later, several young children emerged — one being carried by an officer.

The brown, two-story house has a mural on the garage door of a tree-lined lake and a moose. Photos on the daycare’s Facebook page show kids playing with toys inside and in the backyard, with colorful decorations and artwork on the walls.

Marx said she and her 7-year-old son always referred to it as the “garage house” due to the colorful mural. The longtime resident said she’d never met the home’s owners and was unaware they were running Brown Bear Childcare out of the home. She didn’t recall any prior disturbances.

“I’m just trying to figure out how to explain to my 7-year-old why there’s crime scene tape on our deck,” she said.

Records show the daycare has been licensed by the state since 2019 and has a capacity of 10 children. It was found to be in compliance during visits in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Johnson said killings are a “rarity” in Hopkins and that his officers were shaken by the scene they found inside the home.

“I could see on the look on their faces that this was one of those ones that you’ll remember for your entire career, if not life,” Johnson said.

___

Rico reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.

Doué’s 61st-minute strike after running onto Ousmane Dembélé's pass was initially ruled out for offside, only for the goal to be awarded following a video review.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s powerfully struck opener in the 20th was canceled out by a volley from Brian Madjo, a 17-year-old striker making his competitive debut for Villa days after getting approval to play following a dispute with FIFA over his registration.

It’s the first of a possible six trophies this season for PSG, which became the first team to win back-to-back Super Cup titles since Real Madrid (2016 and ’17).

The Super Cup is an annual early-season match between the most recent winners of the Champions League (PSG) and Europa League (Villa).

Referee was the Somali official barred from World Cup

The game in Salzburg, Austria, was refereed by Omar Artan, the Somali who was barred by the United States from officiating at the World Cup days before the start of FIFA’s tournament because of vetting concerns. U.S. officials claimed Artan had connections to terror organizations, though without providing proof.

UEFA responded by picking Artan — a referee judged the best in Africa last season — to take charge of the Super Cup in a powerplay by European soccer’s governing body amid its increasing disconnect with FIFA.

That disharmony has increased since, with UEFA leading the campaign to oust Gianni Infantino from the FIFA presidency over his recent — aborted — plan to sell an interest in the World Cup.

Artan was the first non-European referee to take charge of the Super Cup.

Another season, another trophy for PSG

After winning five titles last season, PSG is back on the trophy trail already — and could pick up a second in the 2026-27 campaign when it takes on Lens in the Trophée des Champions on Sunday. That's a match between last season's league and cup winners in France.

Doué was one of the PSG players who only returned to training on Monday following the World Cup, but he was handed a start by coach Luis Enrique and proved to be the matchwinner.

The 21-year-old forward ran through unchallenged after latching onto Dembélé's pass behind the Villa defense and curled a left-foot shot into the far corner. The offside flag was then raised but a check by the VAR showed that Villa right back Matty Cash was keeping Doué onside.

Artan awarded the goal after the review and Doué punched the air in delight.

Kvaratskhelia was PSG's standout player of the first half and his goal was mesmeric as he cut in from the left and lashed a fierce, rising shot inside the near post.

Teenager Madjo causes havoc

Remember the name: Brian Madjo.

It was quite the debut by the powerfully built teenager who was born in north London, has played three friendly matches for Luxembourg, and now has decided to represent England.

Madjo joined Villa from French club Metz in January but FIFA blocked his registration because its transfer rules limit international moves by players under the age of 18. Villa appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and it was upheld last week, allowing him to make his club debut as the youngest player to feature in a Super Cup.

He caused havoc at times for PSG's elite center-half duo of Willian Pacho and Marquinhos and could have scored two or three goals before finally getting on the scoresheet by meeting John McGinn's cross with a volley into the roof of the net.

Moments earlier, Madjo had bundled past Pacho and hit the post with a shot.

It was a fourth straight loss in the Super Cup for Villa manager Unai Emery, whose other losses came with Sevilla (twice) and Villarreal.

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

The devastation has tested Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, and his government as it scrambles to respond to the disaster and civil society as it pushes to provide aid to the most affected communities.

Colombian forensics authorities said Wednesday that more than 227 people died in the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck the country's west on Monday. The government has been slow to provide updated tolls, and the true number is likely higher.

De la Espriella said Tuesday that at least 181 people died and 2,595 more were injured. Local and federal authorities have reported hundreds missing, while civilian-run databases put that number at more than 4,100.

Teams continued to pick through the rubble in the hardest-hit cities of Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdo, as time ticked away for victims to be found — and rescued — alive. Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours crucial for retrieving survivors, though that threshold can be extended if those trapped have access to food and water.

On Wednesday afternoon, Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Cali, told reporters that rescue teams continue to find signs of people alive under the rubble and are racing to save them.

“The next 20 hours are the most critical to find and rescue people alive,” he said. “Every minute is vital.”

Survival takes many forms in hard-hit areas

In Pereira, rescuers pulled Daniela Largo alive from the rubble late Tuesday, capping a complex 12-hour rescue in which crews carved a small opening in the debris to free her pinned arm and a doctor administered IV fluids to stabilize her. Wrapped in a blue blanket, the young woman was carried to an ambulance as firefighters embraced and onlookers cheered.

Another moment was marked by mourning, as a man was pulled from a building in the same city, lifeless and covered in a white blanket.

Across the coffee-growing region, among the areas worst affected by the quake, authorities have converted sports arenas, schools and other public buildings into shelters for thousands of displaced Colombians. In Pereira and Cali, families have been sleeping in parks — some fearing aftershocks or the collapse of their damaged homes, others without homes to return to.

Colombia’s geological service has documented 130 aftershocks since the quake.

“We have the most important things: a roof over our heads, food, water and, in my case, medical care,” said Edith Penagos, 48, who was staying with her teenage son in one of the white tents set up in a Pereira park.

Rodrigo León Loya, a seismologist and geosciences professor at the University of the Andes, said the probability of an earthquake of a similar magnitude occurring in the same area is low but he would not rule out more seismic activity.

“Let’s remember that Colombia is full of active fault lines,” he said. “The question isn’t whether it can happen again. The question is rather when an earthquake of similar magnitude will occur at another of Colombia’s seismic sources.”

Aid groups provide humanitarian relief

In many areas, including the epicenter of the quake Choco, the official response to the disaster has been complicated by the ongoing crises of deep poverty and civil warfare that has created waves of forced displacement for decades. The true impact of the earthquake in the jungled northwest remained largely unknown because cell service has been lost and many of the likely affected communities are remote, accessible only by river.

“This earthquake compounds an already severe humanitarian situation, and there is a need for increased support for the humanitarian response,” said Giovanni Rizzo, Colombia director for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Many aid organizations were already on the ground in Choco supporting a 2016 peace accord between the government and leftist rebels, and responding to violence in the region involving other armed groups that has persisted since then.

Those humanitarian workers were able to quickly pivot to disaster relief, said María José Torres, the U.N. resident coordinator in Colombia.

“We have a presence on the ground. Therefore, our ability to be there, present with the people, I think, has increased exponentially,” Torres said in a statement Tuesday.

Regional partners promise to help

At the same time, aid from other countries and nonprofits abroad continued to roll in.

The State Department posted on its website that disaster response teams started to arrive in Colombia on Monday. The U.S. has also offered over $15 million in aid.

Mexico meanwhile said it had sent two military aircraft carrying 19.5 tons of nonperishable food and 19 members of Mexican security forces to Pereira, and it plans to send another 39 tons of aid in the coming days. A further 255 military specialists and 20 dogs are on standby to be sent to Colombia if needed.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele offered to send two planes loaded with 100 tons of aid.

On Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV thanked those contributing to recovery efforts, and said he is praying for those killed, injured or otherwise affected by the earthquake.

“I want to express my solidarity with my Colombian sisters and brothers who have suffered the effects of the recent earthquake,” he said.

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Suarez reported from Bogota, Colombia, and Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Gabriela Aoun in San Diego and Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed.

Gross, a former MMA fighter, runs what some call a video vigilante group called Operation 17:2 — named after the Bible verse Luke 17:2: “It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the depths of the sea than for him to cause a little child to stumble.”

How the operation works

Gross uses decoys who create social media profiles and manipulate their image on Face App to look like a teenager.

The decoy sets up a profile on a dating app and waits for an adult to initiate contact. Once contact is made, the two will move to a texting app. Gross says that’s when the decoy will disclose they are 14 years old.

“We don’t solicit anything. We don’t initiate any conversation. They message, and we respond,” Gross said.

Gross says some adults will turn down contact once the decoy discloses they are a minor, but most don’t. The decoy will then suggest an in-person meetup. Instead of a teenager, the suspect encounters Gross.

That is what happened to Caleb Roberts, 26, in March. Gross traveled from his home base in Illinois to Palatka to confront Roberts on camera after Gross says Roberts messaged one of his decoys.

Roberts was a former youth pastor at the time of the confrontation. His father was the pastor of Victory Church in Palatka. Shortly after the video was released, his father stepped down from that role.

Roberts now faces four felony counts, including traveling to meet a minor and soliciting a child or a person believed to be a child. He is out on a $10,000 bond. His next court hearing is Sept. 10.

Law enforcement pushback

Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Director Edwin Cayenne says he understands the intent behind these operations, but he warns they create real obstacles for investigators.

“What we have to do is something called build probable cause to be able to present that to a state attorney,” Cayenne said. “What they don’t work within, a lot of times, is state law. We put guardrails in place, policy and procedures for our specially trained investigators to do the job so that when we apprehend these individuals, we can send them to prison.”

Cayenne’s position: Notify law enforcement and let trained investigators handle it.

Those concerns played out publicly in Jacksonville last year. Video vigilante Alex Rosen confronted David Binz, a previously convicted sex offender, on camera.

Officers with JSO were criticized for not arresting Binz on the spot. The next day, after conducting their own investigation, officers arrested Binz. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to comply with sexual offender requirements and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The money question

Cayenne also suggested many video vigilantes are motivated by fame and money. Gross does not deny making money from the videos, but says it is not why he does it.

“I make some money from Facebook. Not a lot. A couple grand,” Gross said. “I would do it if I made nothing.”

Gross acknowledged some in the vigilante community cross lines he will not.

“There’s guys that I know that do it for the wrong reasons. Their confrontation is slapping guys and things like that. And they get way more views than I do,” he said. “I don’t agree with their method and how they do things, but they’re catching people. So they’re preventing some kid....that could have been a real person.”

As for why he keeps going, Gross puts it plainly: “I don’t think that our kids are protected enough. People talk, and they want these things stopped, but they don’t do anything about it. I think I’m just built for jobs like this.”

The exact number of vigilante groups operating across the country is not tracked in any central database. Previous reporting suggests there may be more than 150 such groups active online.

In January, major grain traders withdrew from the soy moratorium, which helped slash deforestation over its nearly two decades in effect, after top soy-producing states passed bills revoking tax benefits for participating companies.

Brazil is the world’s largest soybean producer, accounting for about 40% of global output. Much of the crop is grown in central and northern states that include parts of the Amazon biome, such as Mato Grosso, Para and Rondonia.

The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, plays a critical role in regulating the climate far beyond South America. Scientists warn that forest loss could accelerate global warming and disrupt agriculture as far away as the U.S. Midwest and parts of Europe.

The South American country produced 171.5 million metric tons of soybeans in the 2024-25 season, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. China was the top destination for exports, according to Brazil’s official trade data.

Launched in 2006 as a response to pressure from environmental groups and international buyers, the moratorium was a voluntary commitment rather than law. Major soy traders agreed — and the Brazilian government later endorsed — a ban on purchasing soy grown on Amazon land cleared after July 2008.

But soy producers long argued that the moratorium hurt business because it was stricter than Brazilian environmental law. Under national rules, farmers in the Amazon must preserve 80% of their land and may legally clear the remaining 20%, while the moratorium bans any deforestation, even when permitted by law.

The soy moratorium helped reduce deforestation in risk areas by 35% in the first decade since it became effective in 2006 without hurting productivity, according to a study published July in the journal Science. The end of the pact could drive up to 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) of deforestation in the next decade and leave an area the size of Portugal vulnerable to legal deforestation, the study said.

After reaching record levels in the 1990s and 2000s, deforestation declined until former President Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019–2022 term, widely criticized for weakening environmental protections. Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration, deforestation has fallen again, reaching its lowest levels in a decade.

Greenpeace Brazil legal coordinator Angela Barbarulo called the court’s recognition of the moratorium’s constitutionality “enormously important,” but said the ruling was undercut by its endorsement of state laws that penalize farmers and companies that adopt environmental standards beyond those required by law.

“There is an apparent contradiction between recognizing the environmental importance of the soy moratorium while simultaneously validating state laws that can weaken its effectiveness,” she said. “When it comes to protecting the Amazon, we should not allow state legislation to create loopholes or incentives that undermine environmental commitments built collectively.”

The Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, or ABIOVE, said the Supreme Court ruling ends years of legal uncertainty and validates voluntary sustainability commitments adopted by traders. However, the group referred to the moratorium in the past tense, suggesting Wednesday’s decision is unlikely to revive the pact.

ABIOVE also said it hoped the ruling would “open a new phase of dialogue among different parts of the supply chain, with a focus on legal certainty, competitiveness and sustainability.”

The Mato Grosso Soy Producers Association, which opposed the moratorium, said in a statement that the ruling reinforced the authority of state governments to push back against private-sector measures that impose environmental restrictions beyond those required by law. It also pledged to continue fighting any future agreements that recreate the moratorium’s restrictions.

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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.

District 1 incumbent Beverly Slough made the comments while answering a parent’s question at a recent candidate forum. In a video of the exchange circulating on social media, Slough says a PAC that supported the 2024 millage referendum had access to parents’ email addresses.

A parent, Ami Demii, said she has wanted answers since receiving an email during the 2024 campaign that included voter registration information and the referendum’s ballot language. The email did not explicitly tell recipients how to vote, but Demii said she questioned how her email address was obtained and why she felt it was a one-sided political message.

In the forum exchange, Slough told the parent, “There was a PAC that ran that campaign, that’s how those emails were sent,” prompting questions from some parents about whether private information was provided to an outside political group.

Slough responded to News4JAX by email, saying she misspoke.

“I misspoke at the event. We do not sell the contact information of our parents. I apologize for my misstatement,” Slough wrote.

The St. Johns County School District also issued a statement denying that parent information was provided to a PAC.

“We emphatically deny parents’ information was provided to a Political Action Committee,” the district said.

A district spokesperson told News4JAX that public records searches confirm parental information was never shared.

Some parents said they were unconvinced by Slough’s explanation, including Rachel Hand, who questioned how a board member with decades of experience could be mistaken about a matter involving parent privacy.

Slough’s opponent, Kevin Allen, also weighed in in the final days of the campaign. In a news release, Allen criticized the possibility of PAC involvement in school communications and Slough’s initial statement, saying he would protect parents’ privacy.

The email obtained from 2024 did not explicitly instruct parents how to vote, and it remains unclear who sent it.

Slough and Allen face voters in the District 1 School Board primary next Tuesday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% for its first gain since setting its all-time high on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 21 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.

Stocks in the artificial-intelligence technology business helped lead the way after strong profit reports bolstered hopes they can continue to deliver big-enough growth to justify the huge gains their prices have made.

Super Micro Computer, which sells servers and other equipment, jumped 19% after reporting earnings per share for the latest quarter that were 84% higher than analysts expected. It also gave forecasts for upcoming profit and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations.

CoreWeave, which offers AI computing power to customers over the cloud, leaped 19.3% after reporting better revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, along with a milder loss. CEO Michael Intrator said demand is accelerating from customers as big businesses adopt AI.

CoreWeave gives its customers access to AI chips from Nvidia, and Nvidia climbed 3%. It was the single strongest force lifting the S&P 500.

It’s a return to strength for AI stocks, which have been veering on a roller-coaster ride. After surging to records, AI stocks came under pressure on worries that they shot too high. Investors wanted to see big spenders on AI prove their investments are yielding enough in profits and productivity to make them worth it. That in turn could lead to continued demand for chips and other AI infrastructure.

Wall Street also got some support from easing yields in the bond market. Treasury yields fell after a report showed that U.S. consumers paid prices for gasoline, groceries and other costs of living last month that were 3.4% higher than a year earlier.

That’s higher than anyone would like, but it’s not as bad as June’s 3.5% inflation rate.

The deceleration could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to hold off on hikes to interest rates. Higher rates would help keep a lid on inflation, but they would do so by making it more expensive for U.S. households and companies to borrow and forcing a slowdown in the economy. Higher interest rates also would undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

The Fed’s members are notably split about whether they should have already begun hiking interest rates. But Wednesday’s update on inflation pushed traders to pull back on bets the Fed will hike its main interest rate at its next meeting in September.

Traders are betting on a 40% chance of it, down from the coin flip’s chance seen the day before, according to data from CME Group.

That helped pull the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 4.68% from 4.70% late Tuesday. It, though, still remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran, which sent oil prices and worries about inflation spiking.

Oil prices swung between modest gains and losses Wednesday, and the price for a barrel of Brent crude added 0.1% to $88.98.

Higher yields have already pulled long-term mortgage rates to their highest levels in a year. That’s hurting the housing industry, and losses for homebuilders on Wednesday helped keep the market in check.

D.R. Horton fell 3.3%, and PulteGroup lost 2.5%. Builders FirstSource, which sells countertops and other building materials, dropped 3.6%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 20.30 points to 7,748.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 21.58 to 53,770.27, and the Nasdaq composite gained 143.04 to 26,588.49.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following a mixed showing in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 3.7% for one of the world’s bigger gains. It’s been at the center of the jarring swings for AI stocks because it’s dominated by two tech giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

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AP Business Writers Michelle Chapman and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

The lawsuit alleges the service offering paying customers sneak peeks of his posts about U.S. policy on war, tariffs and other issues violates the Constitution and that official announcements should be made available to everyone at the same time. The new subscription service rolled out earlier this month is charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month to trade off the market-moving posts before others.

“A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a plaintiff in the case along with news outlet The Intercept.

Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology, said selling fast access to traders is common in its industry, and that the plaintiffs are just trying to silence the president.

“Information from President Trump is disseminated by countless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs," it said in a statement, using the acronym for the fast access service. "Now, left wing activists are trying to wrongfully weaponize the courts to censor him again and harm our shareholders.”

The early access service comes as the publicly traded Trump Media loses hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter and its stock has dropped below $10 from $62 shortly after going public two years ago.

The plaintiffs allege the service violates two parts of the Constitution — the First Amendment right to access a president's comments on equal terms with other members of the press and public and the Fifth Amendment prohibitions on charging unreasonable conditions for government benefits.

The lawsuit asks that Trump Media be forced to end the new paid service, called Truth API, which offers access milliseconds faster.

Trump Media also benefits separately from a deal with Trump that gives its Truth Social six hours of exclusive access to his posts before he can distribute them elsewhere. The plaintiffs appeared to take aim at that, too, asking the court to stop him from “posting official government information exclusively” on his own site.

Trump is the largest shareholder of Trump Media, owning more than 40% of its shares through a trust.

Even before the new API service was started earlier this month, ethics watchdogs criticized Trump's posting on Truth Social as a brash attempt to profit off the presidency, similar to other money-making venture s, including ones related to cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, the president filed a required annual financial disclosure report that showed he took in more than a $1 billion last year from new crypto businesses that his administration regulates.

Among other moves since he was reelected, Trump's digital finance company, World Liberty Financial, got a $500 million investment from a company tied to the government of the United Arab Emirates and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of special souvenir Trump meme coins to his fans and possible federal favor seekers, including a billionaire fighting a federal lawsuit that was later paused, then settled.

In addition to the president, the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York names his deputy chief of staff Daniel Scavino and his executive assistant Natalie J. Harp as defendants.

The arena said the collapse happened at the new rodeo arena facility that’s currently under construction. Officials say no injuries have been reported.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation.

This is a developing story. News4JAX is working to learn more information.

Principal Latasha Clark sent a message to families informing them of the incident, which occurred just before dismissal.

“While we had a wonderful first day of school, I want to inform you of a security incident that occurred just before dismissal,” Clark said.

According to Clark, security personnel identified an individual outside the building who was not a parent or staff member. When searched, a knife was found in the individual’s possession.

“Our School Police Department responded quickly and placed the individual under arrest without incident,” Clark said. “At no time did this person have any interaction with students or gain access to the school.”

Clark credited locked doors and controlled access points for keeping students and staff safe.

“I am grateful for the swift actions of our security personnel and for the safety measures we have in place, including locked doors and controlled access points, which helped keep our students and staff safe,” Clark said.

Despite the unsettling nature of the incident, Clark emphasized the importance of transparency with families.

“While this is not the type of message we want to send on the first day of school, I believe it is important to keep our families informed about any potential threats to student and staff safety,” Clark said.

The Republican president has struggled to connect with voters on the economy as elevated inflation and Americans' feelings of uncertainty have overshadowed the stock market gains he often cites along with a low national unemployment rate.

Just before Trump arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday to speak at a Republican National Committee fundraising dinner at a golf club his family owns in Rancho Palos Verdes, authorities revealed that a California man who was carrying ammunition and had a gun in his car had been arrested Sunday at the golf course. The man appeared to have been monitoring security preparations.

On Wednesday, Trump will discuss the economy during an event at Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas. Only 32% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy in an AP-NORC poll conducted in late July. In the same poll, most Americans, 69%, characterized the state of the economy as “poor,” and many said the cost of everyday essentials like groceries and gas was a “major” source of stress in their lives.

Trump’s overall approval rating is at 33%, slightly below where he stood at this point in his first term.

Trump is likely to take aim at Democratic Gov. Newsom

During the trip, Trump is likely to throw barbs at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat eyed as a likely candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028. Newsom has become one of the president’s highest-profile opponents.

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said the president plans to “draw a sharp contrast between his commonsense agenda and the radical policies of Democrats like Gavin Newsom," touting his own efforts to cut taxes, reduce fraud in government programs, and crack down on immigration and crime.

California was one of Trump's first domestic stops after returning to office in January 2025. He surveyed the aftermath of wildfires that had wiped out whole neighborhoods of Los Angeles County, left thousands of people homeless and killed more than two dozen.

Newsom greeted Trump at the airport on that trip, and they chatted amiably and gestured toward cooperation despite a bitter history. But the comity did not last. Six months later, Newsom argued in a speech that “democracy is under assault” by Trump after the president sent National Guard troops and U.S. Marines into Los Angeles without Newsom's consent. This came after protests following a series of immigration raids by federal authorities.

Trump routinely mocks Newsom and refers to the governor using a derogatory nickname, while Newsom taunts the president with frequent social media posts.

The Democrat's press office put out a statement Tuesday saying that Trump was traveling to California not to help survivors of the wildfires but to raise money and attack the state with lies.

“More than anything, we’d like the President to keep the promise he made on January 24, 2025: to 'take care of Los Angeles,'" Newsom said. “18 months later, survivors are still waiting. And while you’re here, Mr. President, welcome to the world’s fourth-largest economy — growing faster than Texas and Florida combined. Enjoy your stay.”

“Trump treats California like his personal political punching bag — right up until he needs someone to write a check,” California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement. “He may hit up a few billionaire donors who bankroll his political operation, but the people of California have already made it clear: they want nothing to do with his chaos and corruption.”

Housing prices are a big issue at Trump's second stop: Nevada

Nevada, where Trump will be on Wednesday, is led by a Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, who faces Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford in a battle for reelection in November. The contest is considered one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country.

The Nevada State Democratic Party is putting up billboard signs about Trump’s visit that tie him to Lombardo and higher costs. The state is grappling with a shortage of affordable housing, exploding energy demand from artificial intelligence data centers and federal cuts to key state programs.

Trump has tried for several months to sell voters on his income tax cuts and claims of a manufacturing renaissance. But interest rates are high, a gallon of gasoline costs more because of the Iran war, tariffs are still reshaping the economy and, by the White House’s own estimates, there is a national shortage of housing.

The president called his own housing bill a “yawn,” and past speeches advertised by the White House as being about the economy, including one he delivered at a General Motors facility in Michigan last week, gave way to Trumpian weaves about his political enemies and construction projects in the nation's capital.

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington, Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles and Jessica Hill in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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Eds: This story first moved Aug. 4, 2026. It was retransmitted Aug. 12, 2026, to delete a duplicated ‘to’ in the headline.

Varsity 4 top 25 player countdown

3. Xander Edwards

Position/school: RB/Bolles.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-2, 220.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: A consensus four-star prospect by the major recruiting services and a top 145 national recruit across the board. Worked on shedding weight before his sophomore season and became a far more explosive back rather than a jackhammer. Erupted onto the scene last year when he led the state in rushing (2,629 yards, 44 TDs) en route to All-News4JAX offensive player of the year honors. Set the Florida single-game record of 522 rushing yards in a win over Baldwin. Scored eight rushing TDs in that game. Helped lead Bolles to the Class 2A state championship game and finished as runner-up in voting for Mr. Football. His father, Marc, starred at fullback for Notre Dame before going on to a second-round draft selection (Niners) and playing in the league for nine seasons.

4. Jacquari Parks

Position/school: CB/Ed White.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 5-11, 160.

Recruiting: Committed to Wake Forest.

Why he’s here: A three-star recruit by ESPN and 247 Sports and a four-star by Rivals, Parks comes in rated between 30th and 117th player in Florida in the Class of 2027. Coming off an excellent junior season. Had five interceptions and took one back for a touchdown. Had 30 tackles and broke up seven passes. Physical in coverage and can land a hit.

5. Kyren Caldwell

Position/school: WR/Columbia.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-2, 180.

Recruiting: Committed to Maryland.

Why he’s here: Consensus three-star prospect who is rated between the No. 39 (Rivals) and No. 75 (ESPN) player in the state. Holds offers from numerous Power Four programs including a trip over the summer to Alabama. Had 48 catches for 701 yards and eight TDs in junior season for Tigers. Boosted numbers from solid sophomore season (32 catches, 547 yards, 5 TDs). Quick and good hands. Poised for another major step in his progression this season.

6. Clayton Lee

Position/school: OL/West Nassau.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-7, 315.

Recruiting: Committed to South Carolina.

Why he’s here: Consensus three-star prospect by the four major recruiting services. Lee is positioned to be West Nassau’s biggest college OL prospect since Clay Hartley in 1998. Hartley signed with Georgia Tech. Lee is a mountain of a player who helped set the tone for the wicked rushing attack of the Warriors, who have emerged as a power in the Sunshine State Athletic Association. West Nassau averaged 9 yards per carry last year, often running right behind Lee. He averaged 10 pancakes a game for 12-2 West Nassau, earning second team All-News4JAX honors. Lee may play for a smaller independent program, but he’s got SEC/Big Ten size.

7. Adrian Williams

Position/school: OL/DL/Trinity Christian.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-3, 295.

Recruiting: Committed to Georgia Tech.

Why he’s here: A consensus three-star prospect by the four major recruiting services. All-News4JAX first-team selection last year at offensive line. Played significant amount on both offensive line and defensive line for the Conquerors during their run to the state semifinals. Williams fits the Trinity mold to a T. He’s a player with positional versatility. On defense, he had 28 tackles, eight for loss and three sacks. But his future at the next level is as an offensive lineman.

8. Desmond Malpress

Position/school: Edge/Atlantic Coast.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-3, 205.

Recruiting: Committed to Clemson.

Why he’s here: A consensus four-star recruit, Malpress is the top local player by industry rankings in the Class of 2027. He’s a top 155 player nationally by ESPN, On 3 and Rivals and will thrive once he gets into the system at Death Valley. He may have the highest college ceiling among local 2027 players. Malpress is very effective off the edge and gets into the backfield to change plays better than many edges locally. He had 10 tackles for loss last season. Malpress is poised for a far greater statistical output this year for the Stingrays, especially while being coached up by former Jaguars players Reggie Hayward and Tony Gilbert at Atlantic Coast.

9. Za’khari Greene

Position/school: CB/Trinity Christian.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-0, 160.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: A consensus three-star recruit, he’s ranked No. 274 nationally in a blockbuster Class of 2028. Greene is sticky in coverage and a true lockdown player in the secondary. He led Trinity with four interceptions and seven passes defensed during the team’s run to the state semifinals. Added 20 tackles. Expect a greater presence in the secondary this year from Greene and the young and hungry Conquerors. They’ve reached the state semifinals the last three seasons, two of those with very young teams. This could be the payoff season.

10. Caleb Mattison

Position/school: RB/Bishop Kenny.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 5-10, 200.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: A three-star recruit by two of the four major recruiting outlets (247 Sports, Rivals), Mattison has produced from the moment he set foot on Bishop Kenny’s campus. Has rushed for 3,863 yards, 51 TDs in three seasons. Should be able to reach the 5,000-yard career rushing mark, a level reserved for the best backs in area history. Has nearly doubled rushing TD total by the season (from 7 to 16 to 28). Added 225 receiving yards, three TDs. First-team All-News4JAX selection last year and a third-teamer as a sophomore. Kenny will use his skills on defense this year, too.

11. Troy Butler

Position/school: Edge/Raines.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-2, 250.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: A Rivals three-star prospect who comes in ranked as the state’s No. 119 overall player. Had 69 tackles and 25 tackles for loss during the Vikings 14-0 season. Had five tackles, two for loss and a sack in that championship game win, 23-22 over Miami Northwestern. That sack was his 10th of the season. Forced five fumbles and recovered one to earn All-News4JAX first-team honors. Early commitment to Liberty but decommitted.

12. JC Wessel

Position/school: TE/Bolles.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-6, 227.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: A bit of a projection here. Wessel transferred to Bolles from Frederica Academy in Saint Simons Island. Had 18 catches for 338 yards, three touchdowns last year. Made 16 tackles on defense and picked up a sack. Consensus four-star prospect by the major recruiting services. In top seven consensus of national tight end rankings. As Bolles breaks in a largely new offensive line, Wessel will lend some much-needed size and blocking in the ground game. Former first-round pick Hayden Hurst is coaching tight ends at Bolles now, so expect Wessel to take a major step forward at the position.

13. Terrell Pinkney II

Position/school: ATH/Trinity Christian.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-4, 196.

Recruiting: Committed to USF.

Why he’s here: A three-star prospect by Rivals and 247 Sports, Pinkney’s recruiting picked up major steam after the 2025 season. He’s a safety/linebacker/corner hybrid for the Conquerors but can line up anywhere, even on offense, if needed. Pinkney showcased in a playoff win over University Christian last year that he can play corner very well, too. Pinkney intercepted a pass in the end zone to thwart a UC drive and added a pick-six in that game as well.

14. Zion Green

Position/school: ATH/Raines.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-4, 170.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: A major recruit in the Class of 2028 who has excellent size for a player in the secondary. Likely a cornerback or safety at the next level. He’s an On3 and 247 Sports four-star recruit and a three-star by ESPN and Rivals. Green is a top 160 national recruit by 247 Sports. He was a spot receiver last year and produced. Had just 12 catches for 269 yards and turned four of those grabs into TDs. Had four tackles last year. Really picked up recruiting steam after the Vikings’ 14-0 season that ended with a Class 3A state championship. Will be counted on to deliver far greater on both sides of the ball as a junior.

15. Knox Annis

Position/school: QB/Mandarin.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-3/210.

Recruiting: Committed to Miami.

Why he’s here: Annis was thrown to the fire as he unexpectedly began his varsity career just six quarters into his freshman season due to an injury to starter Tramell Jones Jr. The results were difficult. But Annis took a greater step forward last season, boosting his completion percentage by nearly 20 points. He’s coming off a 22-TD passing season. This is a huge growing season for Annis. He committed to Miami, and a school like that creates its own set of expectations. But he is poised to take another step in his journey.

16. Marcus Small

Position/school: OL/First Coast.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-7, 290.

Recruiting: Committed to Syracuse.

Why he’s here: A consensus three-star recruit, Small is ranked between the 51st (ESPN) and 120th (Rivals/On3) player in Florida this year. He’s not only big but he’s very versatile for the Buccaneers and head coach Jarvis Parker. Small can flip to left or right tackle and earned All-Gateway and first-team All-News4JAX honors last year. As Small goes, so will the First Coast offense.

17. Omari Lawson

Position/school: Zarephath Academy.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-6, 260.

Recruiting: Committed to Syracuse.

Why he’s here: Zarephath is a younger program, so seeing a player listed may be a bit of a shock. But Lawson is a talent who can’t be looked over just because of school size. Power Four programs across the country have zeroed in on Lawson. He’s a four-star prospect at tackle and may wind up being the area’s fifth-best recruit in a blockbuster 2028 class. Come next year, this ranking could seem laughably low.

18. Camden Tietze

Position/school: WR/Bolles.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-1, 180.

Recruiting: Committed to Marshall.

Why he’s here: A Rivals/On3 three-star prospect who came on strong during his first season with the Bulldogs. Had 35 catches for 689 yards and 11 TDs playing alongside electric playmaker Naeem Burroughs. Will open this season as the No. 1 target for QB Luke Toland. As a sophomore at Ponte Vedra, had 599 yards receiving and seven TDs.

19. Aiden Phifer

Position/school: QB/Nease.

Class: Jr.

Height/weight: 6-0, 190.

Recruiting: Committed to Northwestern.

Why he’s here: Phifer burst on the scene last year by passing for 2,003 yards and 20 TDs. He was a threat to break off a run, too. Phifer scored nine rushing TDs. He did it by going 9-3 against a tough schedule that included powerhouse Buchholz (twice), St. Augustine and Oakleaf. A Rivals/On3 three-star recruit, Phifer should continue to ascend as a dual-threat QB.

19. Julius LaRosa III

Position/school: DL/ University Christian.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-2, 260.

Recruiting: Committed to NC State.

Why he’s here: A multiyear force on the defensive line for the Christians, he’s got 24 career sacks and 43.5 tackles for loss. Recovered two fumbles and blocked a punt last year. Had 59 tackles last season and is up to 171 for his career. A consensus three-star recruit by the four major recruiting services and a top 140 player in Florida by those outlets.

21. Kindrid Outland

Position/school: DL/Mandarin.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-2, 270.

Recruiting: Committed to USF.

Why he’s here: He was all over the field last year for the Mustangs, earning a second-team All-News4JAX selection after racking up 62 tackles, 21 for loss, and 5.5 sacks. A three-star recruit by 247 Sports and Rivals/On3, Outland has serious muscle and pocket-busting interior presence.

22. Kyree Wilson

Position/school: ATH/University Christian.

Class: Senior.

Height/weight: 6-0, 190.

Recruiting: Committed to Toledo.

Why he’s here: Wilson has thrived as the No. 1 player at a small school (Christ’s Church) where he racked up 3,019 rushing yards and 32 TDs and added 74 combined tackles during his freshman and sophomore seasons. Wilson, a Rivals three-star prospect, spent his junior year at Mandarin in a two-back system and absolutely scorched teams when given the opportunity (9.1 yards per carry). He’s got 3,807 career rushing yards and 38 rushing TDs, and could join the exclusive 5,000-yard rushing club with a strong season. Factor in his work on defense in the secondary and he’s going to put up numbers all over the field for the Christians.

23. Kash Kolbow

Position/school: S/WR/Nease.

Class: Senior.

Height/weight: 6-1, 180.

Recruiting: Committed to UCF.

Why he’s here: He was a little bit of a do-it-all player on Nease’s defense in 2025. Kolbow had 68 total tackles and a couple of interceptions. He was sticky in coverage (23 passes defensed) and forced two fumbles. With as big graduation losses as the Panthers had on defense, Kolbow’s production is no doubt bound to keep ticking up.

24. King Boylston

Position/school: QB/Ed White.

Class: Sr.

Height/weight: 6-1, 195.

Recruiting: Uncommitted.

Why he’s here: Boylston isn’t rated by any of the major recruiting services, but he’s a player who should see his stock rise over the course of the year. He accounted for 38 TDs last season, passing for 25 and scampering for 13 more. Boylston passed for 2,091 yards and rushed for 712 more to help lead the Commanders to the mantle as the highest-scoring regular season team in state history.

25. Noah Ash

Position/school: Kicker, Ponte Vedra.

Class: Senior.

Height/weight: 5-11, 190.

Recruiting: Committed to Auburn.

Why he’s here: A placekicker among the area’s top players? You got that right. Ash is the area’s best player at his position, and one of the top recruits in the nation. He booted 11 field goals for the state semifinalist Sharks last year and had 74 touchbacks in 85 chances. Depending on the recruiting outlet, Ash ranks between fourth (247 Sports Composite) to sixth (Rivals/On3).

Their enthusiasm was buoyed by Tuesday’s primary, which saw former sportscaster Michele Tafoya win the Senate nomination and state House speaker Lisa Demuth win the primary for governor. Both women defeated rivals seen by some GOP strategists as too extreme for Minnesota’s left-of-center electorate.

And the newly minted GOP ticket wasted no time before hammering Democrats over the fraud. Dozens of people have been convicted of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars meant to provide food, shelter, healthcare and childcare to people in need.

“We have seen now what all of these years of single-party rule has done to this state,” Tafoya said Wednesday. “And it is mobilizing voters in a way that I think is new and refreshing and exciting. And that’s what we’re going to tap into.”

Republicans are mostly playing defense as they look to hold onto their narrow House and Senate majorities. President Donald Trump is unpopular, and voters have a negative view of the state of the economy and the country’s direction.

In the fight for Senate control, most of the competitive seats on the ballot this fall are held by Republicans and in states that Trump won by healthy margins in 2024, such as Texas and Iowa. Minnesota presents one of the GOP's few opportunities to go on offense.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee, is emerging from a contentious and expensive primary, and as the state’s No. 2 Democrat, Republicans think she’s uniquely vulnerable to attacks over fraud. Demuth faces Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has easily won other statewide races.

Republicans see an opening in Minnesota

Minnesota isn’t as blue as the GOP’s two-decade losing streak suggests.

Republicans have come close to winning in the recent past — Trump lost the state by just 1.5 points in 2016. The Legislature is nearly evenly divided, with 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans; the state House is tied and has a Republican speaker under a power-sharing agreement between the parties.

“The Republican party has just really struggled to field good candidates, to run strong campaigns, and as a result, it’s withered,” Amy Frederiksen, a Republican strategist and former minority leader in the state Senate, said in an interview before the primary.

Frederiksen said backlash to the fraud scandal gives Republican candidates a chance to reach new people. Republicans say the state's Democratic leaders should have caught the fraud, which unfolded over years as organizations with state contracts to provide social services stole hundreds of millions of dollars through various means, including faking clients and billing for services that were never provided.

Amid the outcry, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz dropped his reelection campaign.

“There’s an opening for Republicans to make the case that even though Tim Walz isn’t running for re-election, it's not enough to just replace Tim Walz with another Democrat,” said Brian McClung, who was deputy chief of staff for former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the last Republican to win a statewide race in Minnesota.

Still, winning GOP converts will be hard. On top of the headwinds Republicans face nationally, in Minnesota they will also face Democrats galvanized by last winter's immigration operation in the Minneapolis metro area. Citing fraud, Trump surged federal agents into the city for an aggressive enforcement push that led to tense and deadly confrontations.

The GOP is pinning its hopes on Michele Tafoya

Tafoya has caught the attention of Republicans in Washington, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee supported her early.

A well known sportscaster who reported from the sidelines of NFL games for years, she has a profile separate from politics and doesn’t have a lengthy voting record that Democrats can mine for ammunition to use against her.

She supports abortion rights up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, a position that put her out of step with many GOP primary voters but could help neutralize a potent Democratic line of attack.

Democrats immediately previewed their plan to beat her — they will link her to Trump.

“We are not about to give Donald Trump another loyal soldier like Michele Tafoya to take his orders and do his bidding,” Flanagan said in her victory speech Tuesday night.

Flanagan has suggested Republicans are disingenuous to focus on fraud in Minnesota when she says Trump has used the presidency to enrich himself.

“They’re going to have to answer for that corruption,” she told reporters at a campaign event last weekend.

Proceeds from online donations and ticket sales collected during the “Unidos por Los Nuestros,” or “United for Our Own,” concert will address both immediate and longterm needs, including rebuilding homes, repairing schools and community spaces, supporting children and providing mental health support, among other initiatives.

“Uniting for a common cause — taking action and helping fellow human beings facing hardship — is a duty we all share,” said Anthony, a multiple Grammy Award winner whose nonprofit Maestro Cares Foundation will administer the funds along with the Univision Foundation.

Proceeds from the concert will support the nonprofit groups All Hands and Hearts, CARE, Global Empowerment Mission, Techo and World Central Kitchen.

The concert was expanded after Monday's disaster in Colombia

The event was initially created to benefit Venezuela after 7.2- and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes rocked northern areas of the country just 39 seconds apart on June 24, killing at least 6,300 people. Those plans changed Monday, when western parts of Colombia also experienced a deadly 7.4-magnitude earthquake, spurring event organizers to include the neighboring country.

Authorities and residents are just beginning to understand the devastation in Colombia, where at least 181 people were killed and more than 2,500 injured, but researchers there have called it the country's worst quake this century.

For Venezuela, the fundraiser comes at a crucial time as public and media attention fades on a humanitarian crisis that will last years, said Rodner Figueroa, co-founder and vice president of the I Love Venezuela Foundation, which channels resources to nonprofits working in Venezuela and is a Global Empowerment Mission partner.

“The biggest challenge right now is to keep the moment alive,” said Figueroa. “The need in Venezuela continues to be at a scale that is unbelievable.”

Tens of thousands of displaced survivors there need housing, clean water and sanitation, and ongoing medical attention. More than six weeks later, people are still searching for missing friends and relatives, often without any official help.

Performers from across Latin America rally to the cause

The benefit concert will take place Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. ET at Miami’s Kaseya Center and will be shown live on Univision, ViX, WAPA and TelevisaUnivision radio stations, iHeartLatino and Venevision Play in Venezuela.

Viewers can donate by scanning on-screen QR codes, texting UNIDOS to 707070 or visiting univision.org during the broadcast.

Additional music acts include Piso 21, Gente de Zona, Elena Rose, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Ricardo Montaner, Mau y Ricky, Olga Tañón and others. The performers span Latin genres, from salsa and reggaeton to pop, and join from across Latin America, including Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Dozens of Latin television personalities, journalists and other celebrities will help host the event, including Don Francisco, longtime host of the TV show “ Sábado Gigante ” and former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres.

“We have all witnessed the devastation that has affected our communities at some point — we have seen it happen time and again in many of our countries and across the globe,” said Anthony, who also advocated and raised funds after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. “The need is immense."

Some Colombian artists committed to the fundraiser well before they knew an earthquake would soon affect their own homeland. The Urbano Latino musician Feid, born in Medellín, has been reaching out to his more than 14 million Instagram followers this week to support aid groups there.

Latin music also shares a special connection with Cali, Colombia, one of the hardest-hit cities and a globally recognized hub for Salsa music and dance.

“Unidos por Los Nuestros” is being organized by Cárdenas Marketing Network, Maestro Cares Foundation, TelevisaUnivision and PIMIENTO Entertainment.

Additional benefits are also planned

Other musicians are also mobilizing relief efforts. The Venezuelan band Rawayana founded Fundación El After shortly following the disaster to support impacted young people. Shakira and other Colombian musicians, including Karol G, Ryan Castro and J. Balvin, rallied support for Colombia on Monday through social media. Metallica’s foundation donated $100,000 for Venezuela to humanitarian organization Direct Relief.

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel will host a benefit concert for earthquake recovery Aug. 23 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, his last performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic before he joins the New York Philharmonic.

Proceeds from Dudamel's “A Concert for Venezuela” will benefit recovery funds of the United Nations Development Programme and the CAF Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. Beck, Natalia Lafourcade, and Carlos Vives will join Dudamel.

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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.

Crowley overcame Francesca Hong in dramatic fashion in Tuesday's primary, stunning pundits and pollsters who had long placed Hong as the front-runner. That means Crowley's challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, must pivot to face a Democrat known for working across the aisle with Republicans as the county executive in Milwaukee, the state’s largest source of Democratic voters.

Crowley immediately leans into Tiffany's ties to Trump

After a unity event with Hong and others on Wednesday, Crowley pledged to build a broad coalition — including Hong's progressive backers — to take on Tiffany by zeroing in on the Republican's support for the Make America Great Again movement.

“This isn’t establishment versus progressive. This isn’t insider versus outsider,” Crowley said. “This is Democrats defeating a MAGA extremist in Congressman Tom Tiffany and that’s what we should be focusing on moving forward.”

It will be easier for Tiffany to pivot away from his ties with Trump and unpopular federal policies because he’s running for governor and not Congress, said former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a Trump supporter.

“He’s got to be on point, on message every time that comes up, and say, ‘That’s not what’s on the ballot,’” Walker told The Associated Press. “What’s on the ballot is who’s going to be governor the next four years.”

But former Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, who opposes Trump, said Crowley makes the path “way harder for Tiffany.”

“It's going to force the campaign back to the issues that people care about like affordability, the war in Iran and the cost of healthcare,” Schultz said.

Tiffany represents a broad swath of Wisconsin’s rural, conservative north woods. Trump won the state in 2024 and 2016, but lost in 2020. All three elections were decided by less than a percentage point. Crowley’s win on Tuesday was even more narrow — about half a point, further cementing Wisconsin’s reputation for close elections.

Democrats look for a trifecta in Wisconsin

Democrats savored the shift in focus from their chaotic primary to the general election against Tiffany, an opponent they’ve long seen as vulnerable. They hope to capitalize on Trump’s low approval ratings to retain control of the governor’s office and flip both chambers of the Legislature to earn full control of Wisconsin state government for the first time since 2010.

Just as Crowley highlighted his Republican opponent's ties to Trump, Tiffany began the general election campaign with a message connecting Crowley to Hong.

“I’ve said all along that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between these Democrat candidates,” Tiffany said in a statement Wednesday. “His record in Milwaukee County shows exactly what Wisconsin would get: mismanage the government, run up the bill, and raise your taxes to pay for it.”

And it may be tough for Crowley to connect with the young people who were among the nearly 40% of primary voters who supported Hong, Republican strategist Rusty Schultz predicted.

“Making sure they come out in November will be no small feat,” he said.

Crowley's surprise win came after he had dropped out of the race

Crowley, 40, often notes on the campaign trail that he grew up in poverty in the poorest ZIP code in Wisconsin on Milwaukee’s north side, his parents struggled with drug abuse and mental health issues, and his family was evicted multiple times.

Elected to the state Assembly in 2016 at the age of 30, Crowley served just over three years before being elected as Milwaukee County executive. In 2023, Crowley worked closely with the Republican-controlled Legislature to pass a bipartisan deal that sent more state aid to Milwaukee and local communities.

Crowley launched his bid for governor 11 months ago. But he dropped out of the race on July 8, saying he didn’t see a path to victory. He rejoined it on July 18, less than a month before Tuesday’s primary. With the backing of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a fellow moderate who crisscrossed the state with him in the final week, Crowley made a case that he was the better matchup against Tiffany.

“Obviously Hong was the never-ending gift in terms of one gaffe after another, wasn’t really ready for primetime,” Walker said. “But Crowley didn’t get any real scrutiny either.”

Crowley shared a meal with Hong, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and others at a unity event outside Madison before embarking on a statewide tour. Evers, who is not seeking a third term as governor, had another commitment and did not attend.

Crowley became the first Black person to win a major party nomination for Wisconsin governor. Now he's vying to become the first Black governor of the state and just the fourth Black governor elected in the country's history.

“This historic moment is not lost on me. But I'm not even thinking about that because we've still got work to do,” Crowley said. “The job is not done. The job is not finished. My job is not to become the first, and if I do become the first, my job is to make sure I'm not the last.”

Florida Highway Patrol said a pickup truck was traveling north on I-95 around 7 p.m. when it left the roadway, traveled down an embankment and onto Lem Turner Road.

The truck then struck a man who was walking on the sidewalk, according to FHP. The pedestrian died at the scene.

Witness Reanna Jackson said the crash happened right in front of her as she was driving with her son.

“I was scared. I was seconds from it,” Jackson said. “I had actually, like, really pressed down on my brakes. It was so much debris. It was so heavy...It was very terrifying.”

Jackson said the crash has stayed with both her and her son in the days since.

She said her son has had trouble sleeping and continues asking what happened to the man who was killed.

“For sure, the pedestrian,” Jackson said when asked what has stayed with her the most. “How he died. How he passed. It was literally, he just blinked. He didn’t see it coming.”

Jackson also said the crash has raised concerns for her about pedestrians who regularly walk along Lem Turner Road.

“They definitely need to put higher walls for the pedestrians, Jackson said. “Like it could have been a woman and her child walking, you know. Anything like that. Now it just feels like nobody’s safe.”

FHP said the 45-year-old pickup truck driver, who is from Fernandina Beach, suffered minor injuries.

FHP did not identify the man who died.

Troopers have not said what caused the driver to leave I-95.

The crash remains under investigation.

The Knicks will travel to Philadelphia to face the 76ers on Oct. 30 on the opening night of NBA Cup games, the league announced Wednesday.

The teams already are scheduled to meet in the Oct. 20 season opener at Madison Square Garden, when the Knicks will get their NBA championship rings before James plays his first game since signing with the 76ers last month.

The NBA revealed the schedule for opening night and Christmas on Tuesday, and along with the NBA Cup schedule on Wednesday also announced the national TV schedules for games on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents Day. It will release the entire 2026-27 schedule on Thursday at 3 p.m. EDT.

This is the fourth season of the NBA Cup, the league's in-season tournament. Games in the group stage will be played Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Nov. 13, Nov. 20, Nov. 24, Nov. 25 and Nov. 27, when the Knicks will host Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Miami Heat.

The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs in the title game last year, then became the first NBA Cup champions to refuse to hang a banner to acknowledge the achievement. They will hang the banner they really wanted — their first since 1973 — on opening night after beating the Spurs again for the NBA championship in June.

The Knicks-76ers matchup in East Group B will open a Prime Video doubleheader, followed by the Lakers at Golden State in West Group C.

Quarterfinal play will be Dec. 4 and 5, with the semifinals on Dec. 8 and/or Dec. 9, all at team sites. The championship game will be Dec. 11 at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, the first time it has been staged outside Las Vegas.

Holiday Hoops

The two holiday schedules revealed Wednesday, both to be televised as NBC Sports quadruple-headers, were highlighted by LaMelo Ball's return to Charlotte on Feb. 15. The Hornets traded their point guard to Minnesota in the offseason.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 18) games: Detroit at Cleveland, Philadelphia at Atlanta, Minnesota at New York, and Houston at Memphis.

The Presidents Day (Feb. 15) games: Minnesota at Charlotte, Philadelphia at Dallas, San Antonio at Miami, and Indiana at Golden State.

Going global

San Antonio and New Orleans will play two games in Europe in January. Victor Wembanyama returns to France for the Paris game on Jan. 14, and the teams will meet again Jan. 17 in Manchester, England.

___

See AP’s full NBA coverage here

That’s the reality for Travis Antienowicz, who graduated from Middleburg High School a year ago and joined a paid apprenticeship with Carlton Construction soon after.

He said he started work a week after graduation and, within three months, he and his then-fiancée (now his wife) bought a house.

“I started a week after I had graduated and then three months later my wife and I … own a house,” Travis said. He is 19 years old.

Travis said he chose the trade route because college didn’t feel like the right fit.

“I kind of thought it wasn’t for me,” he said. “I’d rather learn looking at something. I’m more of a visual person, so it kind of allowed me to amplify that.”

The apprenticeship is part of a partnership between the Northeast Florida Builders Association and Clay County Schools that helps students secure paid positions with local employers.

Travis said the program has him taking classes two nights a week, and “they’ve literally paid for everything. I’ve just showed up and learned.”

Students apply classroom lessons directly on the job during the day and can earn certifications while getting paid.

Employers say programs like this help address a widespread shortage of skilled trade workers.

Matt Carlton, owner of Carlton Construction Inc., said the gap extends across multiple trades and called the need “very critical.”

Carlton, who got his start in high school building portable classrooms for the district, said hiring graduates who are ready to work removes a major hurdle for contractors.

Savannah Sterling, human resources manager for Carlton Construction, said since the company partners with the Clay County School District, CCI is able to meet students through events such as mock interviews.

“Last summer we had a huge success in the graduation class from our local school districts. We brought on five new employees,” she said, noting that many graduates are ready to start work the Monday after graduation.

Travis said the work is hard and often done in the heat, but seeing a finished project gives him a sense of satisfaction.

“It’s rewarding at the end of the day being able to step back and look at what you’ve done with your hands,” he said.

In marquee Senate primaries in Michigan and Minnesota, progressive candidates defeated two members of Congress with significant backing from party leaders. Wisconsin voters narrowly rejected a democratic socialist but still chose a 40-year-old county executive who is seeking to become the state’s first Black governor. And in Connecticut, voters ousted one of the longest-serving Democrats in Congress for a challenger who campaigned on generational change.

The results so far this month deliver no clear ideological mandate. Instead, they add to mounting evidence from this year’s primaries of a Democratic appetite for turnover that is cutting across the party’s traditional divisions.

“The through line between these races isn't ideology. It's impatience with this political system that feels disconnected from the urgency voters feel,” said Lis Smith, a national Democratic strategist. "The demand for change is much broader than the demand for socialism.”

The immediate challenge for Democrats is whether they can harness the frustration fueling revolts against their own party and turn it against Republicans in November. Beyond that looms the 2028 presidential race, when a new generation of leaders will compete to shape a changing Democratic Party.

“If leaders in our party don’t recognize that we need to make changes, then the changes are going to come from the ground up,” Luke Bronin, a former mayor who defeated 14-term Connecticut Rep. John Larson in Tuesday’s primary, said in his victory speech. “That’s a message our party needs to hear.”

Progressives are ascendant, but Wisconsin shows their limits

Progressive leaders touted Tuesday’s results as further proof that their message is working after victories in Minnesota and Michigan.

“What we are seeing is that people are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment policies,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told The Associated Press on Wednesday, pointing to a string of progressive victories around the country.

In Wisconsin, Democratic socialist Francesca Hong had hoped to also ride the wave of recent progressive victories to the Democratic nomination for governor. Instead, she narrowly lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a more moderate Democrat who had the backing of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers.

Hong’s defeat also came after a number of her past comments resurfaced, including support for defunding the police and a call to cancel Thanksgiving, which she said was a joke. Unlike El-Sayed, Hong didn't receive the backing of some of the nation’s most prominent progressive leaders, including Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Sanders said Wednesday that he didn’t endorse Hong because his team lacks the resources to “get involved in every single race. Period. And that’s about it.” He nevertheless praised her “very strong grassroots campaign” for getting “a whole lot of people excited.”

The result illustrates a tension for the party’s ascendant left flank. Candidates running on populist economic messages have found growing success with Democratic voters. But some positions associated with the progressive movement’s recent past remain vulnerabilities — particularly among voters worried about electability in November.

“A lot of Democrats are traditionalists on things like culture issues. This is not about culture, it's about economics. It's about corruption,” said David Axelrod, who was an adviser to President Barack Obama. “The closer that candidates hew to those issues, the larger the base they're going to be able to accumulate.”

That tension was evident Tuesday for Sarah Atkins Hoggatt, 61, who said she agreed with Hong on some issues but worried that Hong’s deeply progressive politics and the democratic socialist label would make it harder for her to defeat Republican Tom Tiffany. She voted for Crowley.

“I didn’t vote my heart,” Atkins Hoggatt said.

Progressives scored a much clearer victory in Minnesota, where Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan resoundingly defeated centrist Rep. Angie Craig. Craig had the backing of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other prominent Democrats, while Flanagan was supported by Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Flanagan, similar to El-Sayed in Michigan, highlighted her opponent's support from wealthy donors while also attacking her vote for a Trump-backed immigration bill that became a liability after immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

As in Michigan, the winning progressive candidate was significantly outspent.

“Super PACs spent over $80 million trying to defeat El-Sayed and Peggy Flanagan," Sanders said. "They lost both elections. I think what people are saying is, we’re sick and tired of billionaires and their super PACs buying elections.”

Democrats are hungry for change

Flanagan is 46 years old. Crowley is 40. And El-Sayed is 41. But nowhere was the demand for generational change more explicit Tuesday than in Connecticut.

Bronin, 47, defeated the 78-year-old Larson — who was first elected to Congress in 1998. A central theme of Bronin’s campaign was the need for a new generation of leadership in Washington.

Larson became the seventh Democratic House incumbent to lose a primary this year, many of them to younger challengers. The defeated incumbents and the Democrats replacing them span ideological lines, making the wave of losses difficult to explain simply as a shift to the left.

The push for generational turnover has taken on greater urgency since 2024, when concerns about President Joe Biden’s age ended his reelection campaign and forced Democrats into a reckoning over aging leadership.

That sentiment was evident among voters in Larson’s district. Dan Schnaidt, a 73-year-old Democrat, said he appreciated Larson’s service but believed it was time to move on.

“It’s time for new blood, for new ideas,” Schnaidt said.

The generational divide extends to the electorate

While Hong fell just short in Wisconsin, the strength of her insurgent campaign highlighted another force reshaping Democratic politics: younger voters.

Cody Chandler, a 35-year-old software engineer, voted for Hong and called her “probably the most exciting candidate I’ve seen.” Unlike in elections past, Chandler said, he voted for the candidate he most wanted to win rather than the one he considered most electable.

That support showed up geographically. Hong won Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus, by nearly 7 percentage points, though it wasn't a big enough of a margin to help her win the nomination.

A similar pattern helped propel El-Sayed to victory a week earlier in Michigan.

El-Sayed won Washtenaw County, home to the University of Michigan, by nearly 25 percentage points and Ingham County, home to Michigan State University, by 23 points. He also won Grand Rapids, with its large population of younger, college-educated voters, by nearly 26 points.

Jordan Snyder, a 20-year-old Michigan voter who supported El-Sayed, said she backed him because of his progressive positions and because she viewed him as someone she could trust, rather than “someone who I feel could be bought and sold.”

“People are feeling like a lot of the people that they’ve trusted that have been in government haven’t really been living up to expectations,” Snyder said.

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Associated Press reporters Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Tim Sullivan in Hudson, Wisconsin and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

Judge London Kite said someone who asked to remain anonymous called the court to say that Juror No. 110 had been bragging at work about being on the Jared Bridegan case and was looking up details about the case.

Kite had previously explained to the potential jurors that they could not look up anything about the case or talk about it with anyone.

The judge offered to question the juror about the accusations, but both the defense and prosecution opted to just excuse her for cause and move on with the remaining jurors who returned for Phase 2.

Three of the jurors never showed up, and the rest were sworn in at 10:35 am.

Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi spent the morning and afternoon sessions asking deeper questions of the remaining jurors, focusing on their personal backgrounds, any experiences they’ve had with police or the courts, personal beliefs that might be considered controversial, and any issues that might affect their ability to be impartial.

He also asked if they’d ever had to fire an employee, if they or a family member or friend had experienced a bitter divorce involving children, and whether they understand the difference between free speech and someone asking them to commit a crime.

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

Mizrahi finished around 3 p.m., and Kite dismissed most of the jurors until Thursday morning, when the defense will begin asking its questions, as both sides select the panel that will hear the case against Fernandez.

A handful of jurors were questioned separately because of specific concerns they wanted to raise with the court, including one juror who ended up being dismissed for financial hardship reasons.

Fernandez, along with his now-estranged wife, Shanna Gardner, is accused of hiring Henry Tenon, a former tenant of Fernandez, to shoot and kill Bridegan in Jacksonville Beach in February 2022.

Bridegan, a 33-year-old father of four, was Gardner’s ex-husband. They were in ongoing custody disputes over their twin children.

RELATED | Who was Jared Bridegan? A father, a creative builder, a believer — and so much more

Gardner, Fernandez and Tenon are all under indictment for first-degree murder and other charges and have each pleaded not guilty.

Fernandez is the first of the three to go on trial, and jury selection began on Monday as the court weeded through the first batch of 100 potential jurors.

Of that group, 49 were retained.

Another 50 possible jurors were brought in on Tuesday morning, and 32 of them were retained, giving attorneys a pool of 82 potential jurors moving on to Phase 2, beginning Wednesday.

Along with individual conversations with Judge London Kite about potential hardships or knowledge about the case or the people involved, juror candidates were asked to fill out a questionnaire to narrow the jury pool.

Despite initially being indicted on four charges, Fernandez will now be tried only on first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony in the case that has garnered national attention.

Prosecutors announced during a recent hearing that the other two charges Fernandez had been indicted on -- conspiracy to commit murder and child abuse -- had been dropped.

NEW INFORMATION: Prosecutor drops bombshell in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case: Accused gunman was not alone on night of shooting | RELATED: Defense attorneys for Mario Fernandez briefly discussed plea deal with state in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case

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

Fernandez will go on trial first, with jury selection slated to continue through Friday. His trial is scheduled for Aug. 17-28.

Gardner will go on trial after Fernandez, with jury selection from Aug. 31-Sept. 4, and the trial from Sept. 8-25.

Tenon will go on trial in March 2027.

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

Prosecution bombshell

While arguing a motion at a recent hearing, Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi revealed information about the case that was new to the public.

Speaking for the prosecution, Mizrahi said the state has evidence that multiple people were involved in the ambush shooting that killed Bridegan in February 2022 in Jacksonville Beach.

Previously, the state had only said that Tenon, the alleged hired gunman, was at the scene and fired the fatal shots after leaving a tire in the road to force Bridegan to get out of his SUV.

Now, the state has indicated that Tenon was not alone at the shooting scene.

“When the victim was killed, there is a person that fled on foot and a person that fled in a vehicle. We know that Henry Tenon left his DNA behind on that tire. And we know that Henry Tenon was not driving the pick-up truck that fled the scene,” Mizrahi said, arguing that this was proof of a deeper conspiracy in the case.

It’s unclear if the state is implying that Fernandez was driving the truck that night or if it was someone else.

“If we go back to the time that Jared Bridegan was murdered, we know there were so many questions about who could’ve done this,” Schott said. “We know there are months and months and probably pages of data that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was able to gather about why and how Jared Bridegan was murdered.”

During the hearing, Mizrahi pointed to the landlord-tenant relationship between Fernandez and Tenon as evidence that the two were connected, but said the state also has evidence of communications between the two in the days, weeks and “on the day of the particular crime.”

Timeline: How we got here

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

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

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

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

A tire was in the road.

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

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

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

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

The state has since said that the shooter ran off on foot and someone else drove away from the scene in a pick-up truck.

Prosecutors also said they have Tenon’s DNA on the tire that was left in the road.

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

Eventually, detectives tracked down the man they say pulled the trigger.

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

Interactive Timeline

Alleged murder-for-hire scheme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, Tenon initially pleaded guilty, but has since withdrawn his guilty plea.

He is now under indictment for some of the same charges as Gardner and Fernandez.

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

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

State prosecutors initially said they would be seeking the death penalty against Gardner and Fernandez if they were convicted, but they have since taken the death penalty off the table, with the support of Bridegan’s widow, Kirsten, and his family.

American citizens were paid as much as $30,000 to enter into bogus marriages with immigrants seeking lawful permanent resident status as part of the scheme orchestrated from New York, according to court papers. The defendants charged up to $100,000 per green card, bringing in tens of millions of dollars over the course of the decade-long scheme, according to officials.

Authorities say they believe the group arranged more than 1,000 sham weddings, describing it as one of the largest marriage fraud prosecutions in U.S. history.

“This scheme was not a quick, fly-by-night operation but rather a yearslong, multibillion dollar cottage industry to criminally assist people who would not, or legally could not, otherwise become citizens of the United States,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters.

The charges come against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration that have sought to crack down on who is able to enter the country or become a citizen.

After recruiting U.S. citizens, the defendants would arrange fake weddings and in some cases stage photos of families at places such as restaurants afterward to make them look legitimate, according to officials. The defendants would then help the immigrants through the lawful permanent status application process.

“These schemes have real cost. They rob our country of its ability to know who should be and who should not be allowed in America,” Blanche said.

The 11 defendants, including people accused of officiating the sham weddings, are charged in an indictment filed in New York. It was not immediately clear Wednesday whether they had lawyers to speak on their behalf.

The administration last week announced plans to award the contract to the Burke Law Group, a Houston-based firm with little experience in immigration. The contract offer came as the administration ramps up its mass deportation campaign and after it let a key contract with nearly 100 providers working with immigrant children around the country expire at the end of July with no replacement.

Unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody are being temporarily represented by another group, but it is unclear how things will shake out after its contract expires in December. A Wednesday statement from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the contracts, offered no insight into why Burke declined the offer.

“Burke Law Group has declined to apply and has not been awarded any grant," the agency, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement in response to a query about the contract.

Burke Law Group published a short statement on social media Tuesday night saying it had considered applying for a “small portion” of the contract. It did not explain why it decided against it.

Burke Law Group's founder, Marcella Burke, served in President Donald Trump’s first administration as a lawyer with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior.

Others on its roster include Justin Shubow, a supporter of Trump’s efforts to require federal buildings to adhere to classical and traditional architectural styles, and a former Trump appointee to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Prominent conservative legal scholar Ilya Shapiro is listed as senior counsel.

Migrant children who are detained after entering the U.S. without their parents are usually entrusted to federal government care. Congress created various legal protections for them, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which requires the government to provide legal representation for children put into deportation proceedings.

About 1,800 children were living in shelters and roughly 22,000 facing deportation were living with outside sponsors such as family members, according to the legal service providers whose contract expired.

The Burke Law Group, with fewer than 30 lawyers and only two with relevant immigration experience listed on its website, was one of two groups tapped by the government to fill in the gap.

A temporary contract for $20 million was awarded through the end of the year to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a legal aid group whose previous work with the government involved helping resettle Afrikaners.

Attorneys with USCRI started showing up in immigration court last week, unannounced, claiming to represent children they had not yet met and sparking confusion among judges and lawyers from the expired contract still providing representation.

Some legal aid providers whose contracts expired sued the administration after they went without payment since last year. On Aug. 6, a California federal judge ordered the federal government to pay the providers.

“These half-baked plans are not sufficient to comply with this court’s order,” Caelin Moriarity Miltko, an attorney representing the providers, told the judge last week, referring to the interim contracts the government is trying to set up.

“Plaintiffs have ethical obligations to the children they represent today, to continue providing that representation to the best of their abilities, and that representation cannot transfer instantaneously to a new group simply because defendants have changed the contract,” Miltko said.

Bilal Askaryar, director of communications at Acacia Center for Justice, the organization that handled the expired contract with the government, confirmed on Wednesday that the groups started to receive payments covering six out of nine months owed, with the rest in progress.

Cadillac said the move was part of a “planned leadership transition as the organization evolves from its initial build phase into the next stage of racing performance," though it hadn't previously signaled it intended to move on from Lowdon, who played a key role setting up the General Motors-backed team.

It comes a week before the F1 season resumes with the Dutch Grand Prix after the mid-season break.

“It was my decision. It wasn't a mutual decision,” chief executive Dan Towriss said. He added that he and Lowdon had talked about a transition happening “at some point” but that Lowdon was only informed of the decision on Wednesday morning.

“There’s no easy way to make this transition within Formula 1,” Towriss said, citing the risk of leaks or undermining an existing leader. “It makes it feel more abrupt than it would be otherwise. But it’s the nature of Formula 1 and it’s the way it had to happen.”

Cadillac has yet to score a point in F1, with a best finish of 13th, and had been expected to struggle as a new team. The cars' brakes have repeatedly overheated in recent races, forcing retirements.

Towriss said the decision to replace Lowdon wasn't down to the recent reliability problems and that Budkowski would be tasked with a longer-term vision for the team.

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

“At its current pace, it's on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. That outbreak horrified the world and jolted efforts to develop a vaccine.

The outbreak in eastern Congo, considered the fastest-growing one yet, has killed over 2,000 people out of more than 4,300 cases. The outbreak was declared on May 15, but health authorities now say sequencing showed it began months earlier, in February.

It is unlike recent Ebola outbreaks because the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for it has no approved vaccines or treatments, though efforts to address that are underway.

WHO says this outbreak ‘had a big head start’

Experts say this outbreak is moving faster than efforts to track and manage it in a remote part of eastern Congo facing ongoing conflict, near the borders with South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda.

Most new cases and deaths are being reported in communities outside the reach of health workers in a region of poor infrastructure and ill-equipped health centers. Some workers have gone on strike over lack of pay. Misinformation about the virus circulates in communities where some are wary of outsiders, keeping some people from clinics.

“The outbreak had a big head start, still way ahead of us, and we’re playing catch-up,” Tedros said.

Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, WHO's director for health emergency alert and response operations, said the agency expects the peak of the outbreak to be reached in six months.

“But ... that’s the moderate scenario,” Mahamud said. “There is a one-case scenario where this outbreak may last nine months to 12 months.”

This Ebola outbreak has killed more people at a faster rate than any other, including the 2014-2016 outbreak that had at least 28,000 cases. That one took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

Two vaccines for this type are being tested

Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted from bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen, and from contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.

Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri, the most affected of the five provinces in Congo where cases have been reported.

Two vaccines developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus are now being tested in people for the first time, Tedros said Wednesday.

WHO also plans to test whether an existing Ebola vaccine could protect people against the virus after studies in animals showed promising results.

The origins of the outbreak are becoming increasingly clear.

A study published in Nature Medicine on Monday added evidence that the outbreak began when the virus jumped from an infected animal to a person, rather than stemming from earlier outbreaks. Researchers found the virus is genetically different from versions seen in Bundibugyo Ebola outbreaks in 2007 and 2012.

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Dazio reported from Berlin and Banchereau from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

The two-time scoring champion shared his decision on social media in a post featuring a video narrated by actor Michael B. Jordan where the guard never says a word.

“Sometimes you don’t even know when you’ve already watched the end,” Westbrook wrote. “You had to be there. And now it’s over.”

Westbrook was the No. 4 pick in 2008 out of UCLA by the Seattle SuperSonics, just before they moved to Oklahoma City. He played his first 11 seasons with the Thunder and spent this past season with the Sacramento Kings.

Westbrook led the NBA in assists three times and was a two-time MVP of the All-Star Game. He won an Olympic gold medal in the 2012 London Games.

Westbrook leaves with 209 triple-doubles, the last on March 15. Nikola Jokic ranks second in that category with 198 going into this season. Westbrook also holds the NBA mark for most triple-doubles in a season with 42 in 2016-17, when he earned his only MVP award.

He averaged double figures for points and assists in five of six seasons starting in the 2015-16 season.

Westbrook also played for Houston, Washington, the Lakers and Clippers — splitting the 2022-23 season between the Los Angeles teams and Denver.

Last season, Westbrook started 58 of the 64 games he played for Sacramento. He averaged 15.2 points and 6.7 assists.

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

Priority Evac is a membership service that offers customers a pre-secured seat on a flight out of Florida before certain hurricanes, with membership starting at $1,250.

The company says the service is designed to help people avoid the packed highways, airport closures and last-minute scramble that can come with evacuating ahead of a major storm.

“We want to make sure that people have a plan prior to the storm, so you’re not thinking about it when it’s too late,” Priority Evac CEO Tim Houston told News4JAX.

Under the program, members work with a case manager who helps coordinate the evacuation. The company says customers are told which airport to use, where to meet the aircraft and are flown to Atlanta.

Priority Evac says it has not yet flown its first evacuation. The service is launching in South Florida, and the company says it has received interest from people concerned about evacuating elderly parents, college students, pets and those with medical needs.

Houston said the idea came from seeing people begin thinking about evacuation only after a storm is already approaching.

“People experience the storms and then that’s when they start thinking about evacuation,” he said.

The concept has also drawn some criticism online, with some questioning whether evacuation should be something people have to pay for.

One TikTok creator compared the service to the Titanic, saying first-class passengers were being prioritized over working-class passengers. The video was viewed over 1 million times. Another commenter called the concept “dystopian.”

Houston said the service is not intended to be an option for everyone.

“It’s a first-of-its-kind service, so it’s a new concept, but really it’s about being prepared,” he said. “It’s an option. It may not be for everybody, but I think there’s a lot of people in Florida that want this service.”

The company says its evacuation triggers are based on criteria from the National Hurricane Center.

Priority Evac is not currently offering flights out of Jacksonville.

Houston said the service is not intended to replace official hurricane evacuation orders or emergency management guidance. Instead, the company says it is designed to give members another option to leave before traditional evacuation routes become overwhelmed.

For Floridians who choose to evacuate, emergency officials continue to recommend having an evacuation plan in place before a storm threatens the area.

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

Israel says it struck a Hamas commander, but unclear if he was killed

An Israeli drone strike hit a man in the city of Beit Lahiya who was described by Israel’s military as a Hamas commander. It was the first targeted strike Israel has announced since Aug. 3.

Targeted strikes have come under closer scrutiny since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a deal aimed at advancing peace efforts in Gaza that would include halting such strikes.

Though Hamas accepted the plan to decommission its weapons, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected it earlier this week, saying Hamas must fully disarm before Israel accepts the terms. Board of Peace officials have urged Israel to stop the strikes as a way of moving the deal forward.

The Israeli military did not provide details about the man targeted or say whether he was killed. Officials at Shifa and Nasser hospitals said four injured people were brought in Wednesday.

The Health Ministry in Gaza has reported 45 people killed since Aug. 1.

Three Pakistanis among the dead in Houthi attack on ship

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday condemned an attack by Houthi rebels on a ship in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, saying three Pakistanis were killed and another wounded. The attack Tuesday killed six people total.

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut down by Iran and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, there has been a renewed focus on the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb strait at Yemen’s southern tip, which is an alternate route for Saudi Arabia to ship its oil.

The attack came as part of a growing number of Houthi strikes against government forces in Yemen and oil facilities in neighboring Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government, and the kingdom’s shipping in the Red Sea.

Trump insists blockade gives US control of Strait of Hormuz

Claiming the U.S. has “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump said Wednesday: “I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT!”

Trump’s social media post referred to the U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports. A vital route for one-fifth of the world's traded oil before the war, the strait has been largely closed to other traffic since the start of the war because of Iran’s attacks on shipping.

Those attacks have continued despite the blockade and U.S. strikes.

Iran has said the strait will only reopen if the U.S. meets a list of demands, including lifting the blockade.

Pakistan presses to defuse tensions between US and Iran

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met Iranian Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam in Islamabad on Wednesday as Pakistan seeks to resume peace negotiations between Iran and the U.S.

Their meeting came a day after Pakistan sent Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi to Tehran for talks with Iran’s top leaders.

An interim deal to end the fighting reached in mid-June is set to expire Monday. The ceasefire collapsed last month as the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes over more than two weeks before pausing.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told reporters Wednesday the June deal remains valid and the deadline could be extended.

“We are not closing the chapter,” Andrabi said.

Turkey condemns Colombia's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights

Turkey condemned the decision by Colombia's new government to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, calling it a move to “legitimize Israel’s occupation” of the territory.

Colombia, shortly after the swearing-in of conservative Abelardo de la Espriella as president on Friday, became just the second country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory, which Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981.

The United States was the first during Trump's first term, reversing a longstanding U.S. policy.

The United Nations recognizes the territory as part of Syria.

Kuwaiti authorities thwart plot against unnamed facility

Kuwait's Interior Ministry said a “terrorist plot” against an unspecified facility was thwarted Wednesday when a Kuwaiti citizen affiliated with the Islamic State group was detained shortly before carrying out his plan.

The ministry said the man had received training on making explosives and activating drones to be used in the planned attack.

The ministry said a vital facility had been targeted but gave no further details.

Now-retired Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn said in her lawsuit that the raid violated press freedoms and protections from unreasonable law enforcement searches guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. She also said it almost immediately led to health problems, causing the return of potentially life-threatening seizures that had been controlled for years with medication.

Zorn's attorney, Randy Rathbun, and an attorney for the city Marion, Jennifer Hill, filed a joint statement Tuesday — the third anniversary of the raid on the newspaper's offices — that Zorn's lawsuit was being dismissed. It was among the lawsuits filed in federal court against local officials over the raids of the newspaper's offices, the home of Publisher Eric Meyer and the home of a former City Council member.

Rathbun did not immediately return a phone message Wednesday seeking comment. Another attorney for the city, Scott Ufford, declined to comment about the settlement but confirmed the amount.

Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody said he was investigating whether the paper had committed identity theft or other crimes in accessing a local restaurant owner's state driving record, but authorities who examined the raids said they were not legally justified. Meyer, Zorn and others saw the raids as retaliation for hard-hitting local coverage and efforts to gather information about Cody's past in law enforcement.

The raids put a national spotlight on Marion, a town of about 1,900 residents about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, and Cody later resigned. Meyer's 98-year-old-mother, also the paper's co-owner, who lived with him, died the day after the raids, and he blames stress from the raid at their home for her death.

Marion County agreed in November to pay a little more than $3 million to parties in the five lawsuits, including $600,000 to Zorn, to settle claims against its officials. While some of the remaining legal claims against the city and past and present officials have been settled or dismissed, some still remain, and a pretrial Zoom hearing is scheduled for Oct. 15.

Questions about Cody's conduct after the state launched an investigation of the raid led two special prosecutors to file a felony obstruction of justice charge against him in state district court, alleging that he persuaded a witness, the local restaurant owner, to withhold information from authorities. He pleaded not guilty, and a trial set for the end of this month has been postponed.

Troopers said the man was headed east on 35th around 7 a.m. Wednesday, when, for reasons still under investigation, he didn’t stop at the stop sign.

They said he kept going and lost control in the intersection, ending up on the grass shoulder.

The motorcyclist, who was wearing a helmet, died at the scene.

The unclassified assessment, obtained by The Associated Press, was sent to Congress as part of an annual report on civilian casualties and reported earlier by NBC News. A Pentagon official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department will submit the report in the coming months but had nothing more to announce.

Civilian casualties from U.S. military operations have drawn concerns, including from lawmakers in Congress, after a U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school in the opening days of this year’s war, killing up to 168 people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is said to have slashed the size of an office focused on reducing civilian harm, the AP has reported.

The Pentagon review focused on three airstrikes in April 2025 that were launched during the U.S. campaign against the Houthis. The militants were attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route that leads to the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, as well as Israel.

Those strikes targeted hostile forces in or near Yemen’s rebel-held capital city of Sanaa as well as the Ras Isa port, the report said. A total of 153 civilians were killed and 243 were injured.

The strike on the port was the most deadly, killing 80 people and injuring 171 others. It sent massive fireballs billowing skyward and turned tanker trucks into burning wrecks. The Houthis aired graphic footage of the aftermath on their al-Masirah satellite news channel, showing corpses strewn about the port.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said at the time that the "strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen.”

“U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years,” U.S. Central Command said in its statement in April 2025.

The command determined that the three strikes “more likely than not” resulted in civilian harm, the review said. The information was based on U.S. intelligence sources, imagery and open-source reporting.

It was determined that condolence payments were not appropriate for the three strikes, according to the Pentagon’s review, which did not explain why that was the case.

Such payments may be one of several responses when U.S. military operations injure or kill a civilian, the review stated, adding that they’re not required by law and not an admission of wrongdoing.

Such payments are not unheard of. Following an errant drone strike in Afghanistan that killed 10 people, seven of them children, in 2021, the Pentagon said it was committed to offering condolence payments to relatives.

The U.S. military first launched attacks against the Houthis in 2023, during the Biden administration, after the militants started launching drones and missiles at commercial ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at stopping Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and supporting the Palestinians, though they occurred as the Houthis tried to strengthen their position in Yemen.

The U.S.-led campaign against the Houthi rebels turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy had faced since World War II, U.S. military leaders and experts told the AP in 2024. American fighter jets and Navy destroyers shot down Houthi drones and missiles that were launched at commercial vessels and U.S. warships.

The Houthis now are carrying out a growing number of strikes against government forces in Yemen and oil facilities in neighboring Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government, and the kingdom’s shipping in the Red Sea.

Fears are growing that the renewed violence could reignite Yemen’s civil war following a 2022 truce and open a new front in the Middle East war.

The NFL announced the headliners for the halftime show Wednesday. The game will air on Netflix in the U.S. on Sept. 10. The Jonas Brothers will be part of the entertainment lineup for the league's international schedule this season involving seven countries and four contents.

“We couldn’t be more excited to perform at halftime during the NFL’s first-ever regular season game in Australia,” the Jonas Brothers said in a statement. “Playing at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of such passionate Australian fans is an incredible honor.”

The Jonas Brothers — featuring Nick, Joe and Kevin — have sold more than 20 million albums and recently landed a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tim Tubito, the NFL's senior director of global game presentation and entertainment, said the league's first regular season game in Australia is a landmark for the NFL.

“The Jonas Brothers are global entertainers whose music connects across generations, making them the ideal artists to help us celebrate this historic game in Melbourne," Tubito said. "We look forward to delivering a memorable halftime performance for our fans in Australia and those watching around the world.”

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

The 30-year-old Walls, whose homers were his first of the season, went 4 for 5 in his second two-homer game. He last went deep as a righty and lefty on April 18, 2023, against the Cincinnati Reds.

Walls hit his first homer of the season, a two-run shot to right-center, in the fourth. He added a solo shot in the sixth inning. The homers ended a 105-game regular-season drought dating to July 27, 2025.

Walls is the fifth player this season to homer from both sides of the plate, joining the White Sox’s Drew Romo, Colorado’s Willi Castro, Pittsburgh’s Bryan Reynolds, and Minnesota’s Josh Bell.

Martinez (12-3) struck out five, and allowed four runs on eight hits with a 101-pitch effort for his second career complete game. He previously worked an eight-inning complete-game with the Reds in 2024, but took the loss.

The AL East-leading Rays jumped out to an early lead off Junior Caminero’s 412-foot, two-run shot to center field in the first inning.

Caminero also scored in the third on Chandler Simpson’s sac-fly, but Liam Hicks was thrown out attempting to tag from first for a double play that ended the inning.

Yandy Diaz had a solo homer, Carson Williams had a three-run blast and Victor Mesa Jr. has a two-run shot for Tampa Bay, which banged out 11 hits in the win.

Lawrence Butler had a two-run homer for the Athletics in the fifth inning. Mason Barnett (1-3) took the loss, allowing six runs on five hits in four innings.

The Athletics' Jacob Wilson had his MLB-record 113-game errorless streak extended by a postgame scoring change. Wilson was initially charged with a throwing error in the eighth inning, but the ruling was changed to a fielder's choice.

Up next

RHP Drew Rasmussen (11-5, 2.75 ERA) goes for Tampa Bay in the finale of the three-game series Wednesday. The A's have not announced a starter.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Met Park Marina is now open next to EverBank Stadium on the St. Johns River.

The marina offers 78 slips with power and water hookups. It also offers fuel, Wi-Fi, and other amenities for boaters.

City leaders want this riverfront stretch to become a destination.

“We’ve said it’s our goal to make the riverfront Jacksonville’s front porch, and it certainly is becoming that every single weekend,” Mayor Donna Deegan said.

They’re aiming for more sports, entertainment, dining, and public space.

Well-known Freedom Boat Club Jacksonville owner Lisa “The Boatanista” Almeida is beyond excited about the changes.

“My heart is about to overflow with excitement for this new marina. Not only for myself and all my boater friends but all of my members,” Almeida said. “To be able to come down and dock and go to the city and go to dinner and go to a life, it’s just like we’re finally invigorating our river.”

Reservations opened on Wednesday, with overnight stays starting Wednesday night.

Slips are first-come, first-served, but some dates are already booked. Project managers say Jaguars game weekends are filling up fast.

But this isn’t just about a place to dock; it’s about what’s happening around it.

The stretch of downtown is becoming a major focus of redevelopment, connecting the riverfront with sports, entertainment, restaurants, hotels and public spaces.

Project managers say they are grateful to be involved in the city’s journey.

“I’m just glad to be part of bringing it back to life and being able to make this area useful for the public, making everyone happy,” Eric Jackson, a project manager with Vecellio and Grogan Inc., said.

Next door, the future Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Jacksonville are under construction and are expected to be completed in February 2027.

The development will also include five public restaurants, bringing more dining and activity directly to the riverfront.

And just down the road, the Jacksonville Jaguars are transforming their home, with the new renovation costing $1.4 billion. It is expected to be complete by the 2028 NFL season.

But redevelopment isn’t stopping at sports and hotels.

Shipyard West Park is currently in the design phase, and it’s hoping to bring a riverfront park, giving a place for people to explore nature and Jacksonville’s history.

Just a short walk away, the Museum of Science and History is also relocating and expanding.

MOSH is expected to cost around $131 million and will become another major destination on the riverfront.

And there’s still more to come, including the redevelopment of the Metropolitan Park and other projects that city leaders hope will create one active downtown.

To keep up with ongoing construction downtown and its timelines, click here.

A line of showers and thunderstorms will move across northeast Florida and southeast Georgia through around 8 p.m. Thunderstorms will weaken after sunset with showers ending around 10 p.m.

Locally heavy rainfall, damaging wind and lightning will be the main hazards. Thunderstorm wind gusts have reached 52 mph near Fort Caroline.

The Heat Advisory continues through 7 p.m. A Heat Advisory will be in effect from 12 p.m. - 7 p.m. Thursday.

In the tropics: Tropical Storm Cristobal will be short-lived. The other two areas that we are watching could also be short-lived storms as the approach the Lesser Antilles. www.news4jax.com/weather/2026/08/12/tracking-the-tropics-national-hurricane-center-continues-to-watch-three-spot-for-development/

Tonight: Heat Advisory, Showers and thunderstorms through 8 p.m.

Thursday: Hot and humid. Heat Advisory noon - 7 p.m. Heat indices up to 110 degrees. Isolated showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2 p.m., 20-30 percent. Morning lows in the 70s to low 80s. Afternoon highs in the 90s inland, upper 80s to low 90s along the beaches. Wind: W/SW 5-10 mph.

Friday - Weekend: The heat continues with possible heat advisories. Lows in the 70s, highs in the mid to upper 90s inland, upper 80s to 90s along the beaches. Wind: WSW 5 -10 mph.

Looking ahead: The heat and humidity linger with temperatures hovering near advisory levels next week.

Sunrise: 6:52 p.m.

Sunset: 8:11 p.m.

Crissy Duncan said she got a call from someone with the State Attorney’s Office just before 4 a.m. Wednesday. They asked if she knows an Asia Bennett.

“I said, ‘I’m her mother. What did she do?’ She goes, ‘No, she had a domestic dispute.’ I said, ‘Is she ok?’ They’re like, ‘No, she’s not OK. Miss Duncan, your... your daughter’s dead. Asia Bennett’s dead. She died.’”

Duncan said she is outraged by the shooting, saying her daughter was not violent or dangerous and only weighed 110 pounds.

“I would have never thought JSO would have killed my kid. She is so tiny… she’s the sweetest. You would never hear nothing from Asia,“ said Duncan. ”They killed my kid. In vain."

According to JSO, officers were called to a home on Westdale Drive near Pine Bluff Drive on Tuesday around 10:45 p.m. for a report of a battery with injuries.

Investigators said a man approached an officer as she arrived and told her he had argued with his girlfriend (Bennett), who was still inside the home and armed with a knife.

As the officer turned toward the home, JSO said, Bennett came outside carrying multiple items.

JSO said the officer told her to drop everything in her hands. The woman put some items down, but still held a large kitchen knife, according to the JSO.

JSO said the officer gave loud, verbal commands for Bennett to drop the knife, but she moved toward the officer. The officer then fired one shot, JSO said.

Bennett fell to the ground but did not drop the knife, and then tried to get up and again moved toward the officer, prompting a second shot, according to JSO.

A backup officer arrived and also gave loud, verbal commands to drop the knife.

Investigators said Bennett eventually dropped the knife, and she was taken into custody. Jacksonville Fire and Rescue treated her at the scene before she was taken to a hospital, where she died.

JSO said five other people were inside the home at the time. The boyfriend was treated for minor injuries.

This is the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s 13th officer-involved shooting of the year, JSO said.

The State Attorney’s Office is conducting an independent investigation, and JSO said it will conduct its own use-of-force investigation after that is complete.

Domestic violence resources

Free, confidential support is available 24/7 through Hubbard House’s Hotline at 904-354-3114 and Text line at 904-210-3698.

If you or someone you know is or has been a victim of domestic violence or abuse, here’s a list of other resources available:

• The Florida Domestic Violence Hotline, which will direct you to the nearest shelter, is 1-800-500-1119.
• The National Domestic Violence Hotline is open 24 hours a day. The number is 1-800-799-SAFE.
• The Micah’s Place (Nassau County) Domestic Violence Help Hotline is 904-225-9979.
• The Quigley House (Clay County) hotline is 904-284-0061.
• The Betty Griffin Center (St. Johns County) can be reached at 904-824-1555.

He would have preferred Thursday’s matchup with the Packers take place in Green Bay rather than Pittsburgh. Rodgers wanted to have one final moment in the place where he spent his first 18 seasons and won four MVP awards and a Super Bowl.

“I was really hoping this one was going to be in Green Bay, not just to get back at Lambeau one more time, but to head out to Chives for a dinner and maybe head out to Green Bay Country Club for a quick nine or something,” Rodgers said Wednesday in a Zoom session with Packers reporters. “I was really hoping it was going to be in Green Bay, for a lot of reasons.”

This will be the second time Rodgers has faced his former team since leaving the Packers in 2023, though there’s no indication yet on whether he will play Thursday. Both games were in Pittsburgh, so Rodgers will head into retirement after this season having never played against the Packers at Lambeau Field.

“It would have been strange, being in that locker room and stuff,” Rodgers said. “But I would have found my way over, like many former players have over the years, found my way over to Flea’s (Packers head athletic trainer Bryan Engel’s) office and hang out back there and see some of the guys and see some of the trainers and equipment staff and all the people I really care about that still work there.

"Yeah, I was definitely bummed out that we weren’t in Lambeau for this one.”

Rodgers’ Steelers lost 35-25 to the Packers last October. Jordan Love, the quarterback Green Bay selected in the first round of the 2020 draft to become Rodgers’ eventual successor, threw for 360 yards and three touchdowns that night.

When he was asked what he missed the most about Wisconsin aside from football and the fans, Rodgers talked about the house he owned during his Packers years, the meals he enjoyed at Chives and the rounds of golf he played. Then he turned the subject back toward football.

“The falls there are just awesome, when the weather gets that cool little nip,” Rodgers said. “I loved the night games at Lambeau, especially the Sunday nights, Monday nights and occasional Thursday nights. Just so much fun. There’s nothing like that crowd. I’ve been other places, I knew that when I was in Green Bay, but there’s nothing like that fan base and the way they travel and the crowds at home.

“Players around the league, they talk about how special it is to play at Lambeau, and sometimes you might miss that or forget about that when you’re playing because it becomes so normal to have such an amazing crowd and they’re tailgating and they’re loud and they rarely sell their tickets to other teams’ fans. There’s a lot of great things about Wisconsin. I grew up there, really, and became a little more mature as an adult over the years there and had a great time and still have a lot of close friends there, a lot of fond memories.”

Rodgers did play his other former team as a visiting player last season when he made his Steelers debut and led Pittsburgh to a 34-32 victory over the New York Jets in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Rodgers was with the Jets from 2023-24 after they acquired him from Green Bay, though he missed virtually all of 2023 after tearing his Achilles tendon in the season opener.

The Steelers host the Jets on Aug. 21 in their second preseason game.

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

While none poses an immediate threat to Florida, AL92 central tropical Atlantic is increasingly likely to become a tropical depression.

TROPCIAL STORM CRISTOBAL: A recent ASCAT pass revealed an area of 35-40 kt winds southeast of the slightly elongated and exposed center, within the region of convection. While the convective organization has degraded since earlier this morning, scatterometer data indicate that the system has achieved tropical storm status, and it likely reached that threshold earlier this morning.

Therefore, advisories are being initiated on Tropical Storm Cristobal, with the initial intensity set to 40 kt. Cristobal is moving quickly eastward around 22 kt over marginally favorable sea surface temperatures near 25 C.

The storm is currently positioned between a subtropical high to the south, and a ridge extending over the north-central Atlantic to the northeast. A turn toward the northeast, accompanied by a gradual decrease in forward speed, is expected later today and tonight as Cristobal moves along the southwestern periphery of the northern Atlantic ridge. Slow weakening is forecast during this period as the storm moves over progressively cooler waters and encounters increasingly dry mid-level air and stronger northerly wind shear. Cristobal is expected to be short-lived and dissipate on Thursday. The official NHC track and intensity forecasts lie near the middle of the consensus guidance and are closest to the HCCA solution.

RED SHADED AREA: Central Tropical Atlantic (AL92) is an area of showers and thunderstorms associated with a tropical wave is located about 900 miles west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands.

Environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for development during the next couple of days, and a tropical depression will likely form while the system moves westward to west-northwestward across the central tropical Atlantic.

Formation chance through 48 hours...high...80 percent Formation chance through 7 days...high...80 percent

ORANGE AREA: A tropical wave located several hundred miles south of the Cabo Verde Islands is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Environmental conditions are forecast to be generally conducive for some development of this system during the next several days while it moves westward or west-northwestward across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic.

Formation chance through 48 hours...low...20 percent Formation chance through 7 days...medium...40 percent

One important reminder

The percentages displayed by the National Hurricane Center represent the chance that a tropical depression or storm will form—not the likelihood of a hurricane, landfall or impacts at a particular location. Right now, there is no reason for alarm in Florida, but we are entering the portion of hurricane season when tropical activity typically increases, so checking the forecast regularly is always a good idea.

Defendant Tyler Robinson's attorneys say the bullet traveled above the crowd and prosecutors have not proven that he knew others who attended Kirk's event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10 were in danger — a potentially aggravating factor under state law that would make it a capital crime.

“The only evidence presented supports that the bullet traveled above, not through, the crowd,” defense attorneys wrote in documents filed late Tuesday as the defense tries to block the case from proceeding to trial.

The defense lawyers also disputed claims that Robinson targeted Kirk over his political views. Prosecutors allege Robinson told his roommate that he killed the activist because he “had enough of his hatred." But the defense said that was not enough to prove what motivated Robinson, after searches of his apartment, computers and telephone failed to produce anything beyond that one statement.

Prosecutors last month presented what they call “overwhelming” evidence against Robinson, including DNA tests that tie him to the suspected murder weapon and apparent confessions by the defendant.

His defense attorneys during that hearing questioned the reliability of the prosecution's evidence, but they didn't offer any alternative theories for Kirk's assassination. The defense made no mention of DNA in Tuesday's filing.

Robinson has not yet entered a plea in the case. He turned himself in a day after Kirk was killed.

His defense attorneys previously tried to get the death penalty taken off the table after prosecutors were found to be in contempt of court for talking about the case to the media. State District Judge Tony Graf rejected that request.

Prosecutors have until Aug. 18 to respond to the defense arguments. The Associated Press left telephone and email messages with the Utah County Attorney’s Office seeking comment.

In documents filed last month, prosecutors said the fact that Robinson loaded his rifle with four bullets showed that he knew he could miss Kirk, “thereby putting others in danger.”

But defense attorneys said “it is just as likely that the shooter did not believe he would miss.”

Robinson faces possible sentence enhancements if prosecutors can prove he targeted Kirk because of his political views. They contend that Kirk’s strong opposition to same-sex marriage and gender transitioning stood in contrast to Robinson, who was in a romantic relationship with a roommate, Lance Twiggs. Twiggs told investigators that he had been considering transitioning around the time that Kirk was killed, according to prosecutors.

Twiggs also told investigators that Robinson sometimes talked about politics, including President Donald Trump. But Twiggs said he never heard Robinson talk about Kirk before the shooting. The defendant also did not talk much about gender issues or LGBTQ+ rights, Twiggs said.

The AP emailed Twiggs’ attorney seeking comment.

Closing arguments in the preliminary hearing are scheduled for Sept. 1. Graf will then decide if the case can go to trial and on what charges.

Preliminary hearings typically don’t last so long. Legal experts said the slow pace reflects a cautious approach by Graf and the large volume of evidence. Lawyers for Kirk’s family have asked Graf to make his decision on Sept. 1 so they case can proceed.

With Michael Penix Jr. still not cleared for team drills as he continues his recovery from surgery on his left knee, the Falcons' expected quarterback competition has been put on hold. Tagovailoa, the former Miami Dolphins starter who signed a one-year deal with Atlanta, has a clear path to the starting job as long as Penix is limited to individual work and seven-on-seven drills in practice.

Stefanski said Tagovailoa and other first-team players will play “a series, maybe 10 plays. We'll see which comes first.” Stefanski said the playing time could vary for some starters.

When asked if Tagovailoa's start means he has won the starting job for the season, Stefanski said: “As you guys know, I’m not there, we’re not there. ... We just will cross that bridge when we get to it. Obviously, I feel very good about where Tua is, where all of our guys are.”

Cooper Rush, who was signed at the start of training camp to give the team another veteran at quarterback, will play behind Tagovailoa. Undrafted rookie Jack Strand will finish the game.

Stefanski said Tagovailoa is “looking forward to getting his first action in a game in the system. There’s a lot of newness for him as well, in terms of that type of thing. It’s his first time in (Mercedes-Benz Stadium) as a Falcon.”

Tagovailoa said Tuesday he believes preseason games are important as he adjusts to the Falcons' playbook.

“Preseason plays a big role, I would say, for your team collectively,” Tagovailoa said. “You don’t have the coaches out there. You gotta go out there, you gotta make the calls, whether it’s right or wrong. You gotta live with them, and then from there you come in the next day, you watch film, you talk about it, and you go from there.”

Added Tagovailoa: “With the walk-throughs that we’ve had, you start to get more and more comfortable with the terminology. ... So getting comfortable, but it’s still something that I need to look over, need to continue to study and continue to process.”

Quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt said Tuesday Tagovailoa “is becoming more comfortable with the system” after being limited by lower back tightness at the start of training camp. “Really the last three or four days he’s really come on when you’re acclimating a quarterback into a new offense,” Van Pelt said.

While some teams hold out starters for most or all preseason games, Stefanski's decision to give his first-team players at least one series is consistent with the first-year Atlanta coach allowing players to be tackled in full-pads drills. Some coaches opt for “thud” tackles where players are not taken to the ground.

Stefanski said his goal is to have players “physically ready ... and mentally ready” for a 17-game regular season “and then more.”

“I just believe in making what we do out in the grass as close to football and as close to game-like as you can,” he said. “In order to do that, you have to practice hard. That’s just what comes with the territory of what we believe in.”

Stefanski said Penix will continue to be held out of team drills next week when the Falcons travel to Indianapolis for joint practices with the Colts.

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

The screen door, despite — or thanks to — its modest making, is fundamental to the American home, to the suburban and rural soundscape and to what remains of our collective innocence.

The door that is barely a door. Made of lightweight aluminum or wood, with a wire mesh and a latch lock that gives under a thumb nudge, it is about as shabby as a barrier gets. Its mission to let the breeze in and keep the mosquitos, pesky flies and assorted vermin out appears simple, but its impact goes beyond that.

Semi-transparent, a screen door is an invitation, allowing a peek inside. It says someone is there. In architectural terms, it means this threshold wants breaching.

The screen door creates a liminal space, a quasi-open passage where one can see, hear and even smell what nature and the local community offer on the other side.

Its sieve-like surface gives way to the semi-private backyard. It allows a grandmother to leave the sturdy, opaque real backdoor wide open, almost forgotten, until it is time to go to bed. In the meantime, she can listen to songbirds, contemplate her flowerbeds or keep an eye on her grandchildren at play.

Fittingly, there exists what appears to be an apparently apocryphal origin story of the screen door. It says it was invented by a woman in Iowa in the late 19th century. Accurate or not, it is one of those modern myths worth embracing.

As if it were a symbol of good behavior, the screen door resists being slammed. Its closing mechanism cushions the blow, gently pushing back against the tug of a human hand, wheezing as it finally gives in.

At best, the creaking of a screen door announces a loved one’s arrival. It demands our trust in the outside world. It tempers our anger, quells our suspicions.

Once shut, the quiet says you are home.

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

Scientists reported Wednesday on the radiation-shielding vest worn around the moon by a female test dummy in 2022. No one was aboard that Artemis I debut flight, which paved the way for humanity’s long-awaited return to the moon in April by a flyby crew of four.

Radiation remains one of the biggest threats to astronauts as NASA works toward a moon base. Shielding garments could keep lunar crews safe when solar storms strike and even allow them to venture beyond their shelters if necessary, the U.S., German and Israeli team reported in the journal Science Advances.

A version of the vest was previously tested on the International Space Station. It didn't travel with the Artemis II astronauts since it was a short 10-day mission with limited room, but may wind up a carry-on for future moon crews.

Meant to be worn only during high-radiation and potentially cancer-causing solar events, the vest covers the most vulnerable human organs and tissue: lungs, stomach, bone marrow, breasts and ovaries. Women are believed to be especially susceptible to radiation-induced cancer.

Artemis I carried two female manikins that spent nearly a month flying to the moon and back. Dubbed Zohar and Helga, the manikins — each a life-size 3 feet from head to lower torso — were strapped into the passenger seats of NASA’s Orion capsule.

Zohar wore the 57-pound (26-kilogram) AstroRad vest, developed by the U.S.-Israeli startup StemRad and Lockheed Martin. The companies had already tested a prototype on the space station for comfort and function, modeling it after gear worn by nuclear disaster teams.

Helga flew vest-less, but like its companion contained thousands of radiation sensors.

The study's lead author, StemRad’s Jordan Houri, called it “the largest experiment ever conducted to determine astronaut radiation exposure beyond low-Earth orbit.” NASA, the German Aerospace Center and the Israel Space Agency provided the funding. Radiation exposure is much less for space travelers closer to home, thanks to Earth's protective atmosphere and magnetic field.

Artemis I encountered no major solar outbursts. But based on measurements gathered as NASA's Orion capsule zipped through the inner Van Allen radiation belt, Houri and his team simulated how much protection the vest would provide during extreme solar particle events like those in 1972 and 1989 that detonated magnetic sea mines and collapsed a power grid.

Lucky for NASA, the 1972 solar outburst occurred in between that year's two moon landings, keeping the crews of Apollo 16 and 17 safe from potentially lethal radiation exposure.

The latest findings showed the vest could reduce an astronaut’s radiation dose by about 60% in a solar storm as fierce as the one in 1972 and by nearly 40% in a calamity mirroring 1989. That’s equivalent to 193 days and 131 days, respectively, of unnecessary deep space radiation exposure, the scientists noted.

While none of the Apollo moonshots exceeded two weeks, the moon-base stays envisioned by NASA will likely last weeks, if not months, driving up the risk of enduring a dangerous solar storm. Mars expeditions will last even longer — months, years and possibly entire lifetimes if SpaceX CEO Elon Musk achieves his goal of building a city on the red planet.

The scientists are using their observations to trim more weight from the vest without sacrificing protection. They’re also investigating how to make radiation shielding from items already aboard a spacecraft — recycling that could save the lives of crews.

Houri doesn't anticipate a need for further deep-space testing anytime soon, since Zohar and Helga “provided us with an exceptionally large, high-fidelity dataset.”

Zohar and her vest are now on display at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, where their journey to the moon began.

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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.

Everyone wanted a pope-themed hat.

“When things go bananas ... that’s when it gets really fun,” said Brooks Boyer, Chicago's chief revenue and marketing officer.

Fun is the overarching theme when it comes to stadium giveaways, and business has been good at major league ballparks this year.

An array of creative promotions — everything from the New York Mets handing out fake glasses and mustaches for a Bobby Valentine Disguise Night to the Texas Rangers giving away a Nolan Ryan bloody lip jersey — has played at least a small role in an MLB-wide average attendance of 29,618 through Tuesday's games, the highest such number for a full season since 2017.

Bobbleheads remain popular — like the Brandon Nimmo Bull Riding bobblehead in Texas, or the butter-churning Nick Kurtz “Big Amish” bobblehead with the Athletics — but it's not just those iconic figurines that are drawing big crowds. The Brewers handed out 25,000 bar dice sets to fans 21 and over on Saturday, and they had a crowd of 40,625 at American Family Field.

The pitch clock and other innovative rules introduced by MLB in 2023 are often credited for spurring fan interest. But it's clear from the long lines — and occasionally astronomical resale prices on eBay — what a clever giveaway can do for ticket sales, too.

“I definitely think across the league, there’s been an increase in demand and desire, and even necessity, to do things that are outside of the box," said Meagan Hermosillo, the director of marketing and promotions for the Arizona Diamondbacks. "For us, we can’t really do a standard bobblehead or a standard anything. It has to have some kind of unique factor if we want it to move the needle.”

Chicago's pope hats took creative — and careful — planning

The White Sox ended up giving the pope hats — shaped like the Pope’s miter, with the team’s sock logo in the middle — to everyone in the crowd of 38,113 for Tuesday night's 5-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. The tribute to Pope Leo XIV, a Chicago native and longtime White Sox fan, helped push the club's season-long attendance to 1,460,383, surpassing its total of 1,445,738 for all of 2025.

The team leaned into the theme. There were signs posted in the ballpark that read “LEO KNOWS MUNE” and “LEO KNOWS KONERKO,” referring to current White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami and former slugger Paul Konerko. Sister Mary Jo Sobieck threw out a ceremonial first pitch, and former White Sox pitcher Donn “The Pope” Pall kicked off the game with the “play ball” announcement.

“I thought it was a great idea, knowing that the Pope is from Chicago and he's a Sox fan, which is great,” said Edward Lopez, 58, a truck driver from the south side of the city.

Lopez was supposed to go to the game with his girlfriend, but she wasn't able to make it. So he went through two different gates to make sure he secured two pope hats.

“It was worth it,” he said.

Promotions for the White Sox go through a committee led by senior director of marketing and promotions Mike Downey. They throw out ideas and concepts, and they also look at samples from different vendors.

The team also is handing out wooden domino sets to 10,000 fans on Aug. 22 and magic wands to 20,000 fans on Sept. 4, a nod to the viral wand-waving dugout displays of injured reliever Mike Vasil.

“We’ve always looked to have our giveaways be something that we know people would wear or use or value because it adds value to the ticket,” Boyer said. “So it starts with that.”

While planning the pope hat night, religious sensitivities were part of the conversation for the promotions committee.

“We haven’t done items that would be Pope Leo’s likeness,” Boyer said. “We wouldn’t do that without the permission of the Vatican. ... We’ve been very careful. There is a little bit of nuance and finesse that needs to be done. And items, you know a lot of items may not be for everybody.”

Teams are eagerly jumping on larger cultural moments for eye-catching promotions

The Baltimore Orioles handed out a Tupac Shakur bobblehead in May. The New York Yankees gave out a “ KPop Demon Hunters ” bobblehead on Tuesday night, and they have a George Costanza calzone bobblehead — paying tribute to a 1996 “Seinfeld” episode — coming up on Aug. 27. Every MLB team except Toronto had a Star Wars Night this season.

Following in the footsteps of the minor leagues in many cases, it's not enough anymore to just feature a popular player for a giveaway.

“You can see that teams are doing a much better job with their understanding (of) who they’re trying to target,” said Jim Strode, an associate dean and professor at Ohio University’s College of Business. “When I think of the ‘Seinfeld’ one, I’m thinking, you know, they’re targeting Gen X, they are targeting some, you know, younger baby boomers to try to get out to the ballpark.”

There is also what Lauren Anderson, the director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon, described as the “collector chase game.” There were multiple fans looking to buy additional pope hats at Tuesday night’s game, and there were several listings for the giveaway and the “KPop Demon Hunters” bobblehead on eBay on Wednesday.

“You want something that’s unique and cool and something that you can, you know, I’m one of 5,000 people to get these, I’m one of 10,000,” Anderson said. “I mean, there is also a bit of the game of people want something that’s limited so they can flip it and sell it, like on an eBay."

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AP Baseball Writer David Brandt contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

What seemed at first like an easy idea — slapping a new tax on people who own luxury second homes in the Big Apple but live elsewhere most of the year — has instead created a lot of confusion in the city’s notoriously convoluted world of real estate arrangements.

“It seems very simple but the more you dig into it, the more nuances you look at, the more complicated it gets,” said Gary Bingel, a state and local tax expert and partner at EisnerAmper, an accounting firm.

It has also prompted pushback from both the city's very wealthy and the merely moderately wealthy.

President Donald Trump, whose gilded Manhattan penthouse could be subject to the tax since his primary residence is now in Florida, said he was looking into whether federal intervention could “avert this disaster, before it is too late.”

A group of homeowners sued over the city’s rollout of the tax, arguing that officials had not done enough to figure out who would have to pay the tax and instead made it property owners' responsibility. A judge temporarily paused the process this week, but the city moved to appeal, allowing the tax effort to continue until it’s sorted out in court.

Securing a new tax on multimillion-dollar second homes, known as pied-à-terres, was an early win for Mamdani in his quest to raise taxes on the city's highest earners to pay for his ambitious liberal agenda.

The so-called pied-à-terre tax would levy a new surcharge on one-, two- and three-family homes valued at more than $5 million, as well as condos and co-ops valued at $1 million or more, if those dwellings are not a person's primary residence.

The idea, according to officials, would bring $500 million to the city's coffers annually, paid primarily by bigwigs who get to enjoy city life but don't pay city income taxes.

That's where things start to get hairy.

It's common for high rollers to place their properties in trusts, obscuring ownership while allowing the property to pass more easily to family members. Limited liability companies can similarly shield an owner's identity, also making it hard for government officials to tell who actually lives in any given apartment.

From there, there are numerous arrangements that can complicate who would be subject to the tax. For example, letting a distant family member stay at a second home without formal documentation, or if someone owns one or more properties and rents them out, but the tenants don't have documentation that the unit is their primary residence.

“Those situations make it difficult to prove people are in there,” said Mark Limardo, a partner at the law firm Herrick in Manhattan who focuses on taxes. “The concept is simple, but the ownership rules and the documentation rules have made it very complicated.”

Outcry and litigation

City Hall, for its part, argues that it shouldn't be difficult to provide proof that someone actually lives in the city and says that its finance department is experienced in parsing tangled webs of paperwork.

Mamdani, no stranger to razzing wealthy people, debuted the tax with a video singling out hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin by standing outside a Manhattan penthouse the billionaire purchased for around $239 million. The clip sent Mamdani's supporters swooning, but Griffin later said it was “frightening” that a public official would call attention to one of his homes, especially after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the same neighborhood.

The city then published an expansive online list of property owners who it said could be subject to the tax, listing their names, addresses and property values. The list, which the city is legally required to publish, inflamed tensions between the mayor and the city's wealthy, many of whom argued the roll amounted to doxing or public shaming.

The administration has mailed notices to a much smaller group — about 17,000 properties — that it suspected would be subject to the tax, telling them they could apply for exemptions. Mamdani announced the mailers in a celebratory social media post that read: “If you have a second home in New York City worth more than $5M, check your mailbox when you’re back in the five boroughs — because you’ve got mail.”

He later pushed back the deadline for exemption requests following public outcry from people who claimed to have received the letters in error or had trouble navigating the process.

Stewart Sterk, a real estate law professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York, predicted last week's lawsuit wouldn't be the last, saying he expected many of the targets of the tax to file individual cases over denied exemptions, given the vast number of apartments at play and the various arrangements people have connecting them to their properties.

“This is going to be a subject of litigation for quite a while,” he said.

Such refuge was probably never more welcome than on the heels of this past summer.

It was just over a month ago that Kelce exchanged vows with Taylor Swift in a star-studded wedding that tied together one of the best tight ends in NFL history with the biggest pop star on the planet. At the intimate gathering in cavernous Madison Square Garden, Adam Sandler served as the surprise officiant, Stevie Nicks performed to a crowd of sports and entertainment icons, and fans lined the New York City sidewalks outside the historic venue hoping to catch a glimpse of it all.

“The wedding was the best night of my life,” Kelce said Wednesday, speaking for the first time at camp. “I appreciate everybody who came out and celebrated and had fun with us. That's about all I got for that night. It was a crazy night.”

The guest list included actors Bradley Cooper, Zoë Kravitz, Hugh Grant and Ethan Hawke; models Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss; comic Chris Rock; film director Steven Spielberg; and plenty of NFL players, including retired quarterback Tom Brady and several of Kelce's teammates with the Chiefs, like his best friend and quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.

The Swift-Kelce relationship began with his failed attempt at giving her a friendship ring at a concert. Kelce invited Swift to watch him play at Arrowhead Stadium, she took him up on the offer, and the rest of their courtship has been a celebrity fairytale.

Right down to the nuptials at Madison Square Garden, which has always captured Kelce's imagination, and where Swift has played to plenty of sold-out shows; she also turned up there to watch the Knicks play the Spurs in the NBA Finals in June.

“I always told myself I'd go for a playoff game when the Knicks were rocking, and my wife went when I was stuck in minicamp,” Kelce said with a wry smile. “It was kind of cool to live out my childhood dream to be in that venue. I can't thank the owners of MSG enough for allowing us the opportunity to do that, knowing we wanted a private event.”

Besides the wedding, Kelce has been busy pursuing several business opportunities since the end of last season, including his decision to buy a small share of David Blitzer's stake in his hometown Cleveland Guardians.

That puts him into rivalry territory with Mahomes, who owns his own small stake in the Kansas City Royals.

Yet on the field, the quarterback and tight end continue in lockstep, and never has it been more important for them to lift each other up. Mahomes is coming off a season-ending knee injury that required surgery in December, and Kelce is trying to prove that at age 36 — he turns 37 in October — he can still get it done in a young man's game.

“I still got a lot of love for this game. I still think I can go out and play at a high level,” Kelce said. “I want to go out there and prove to myself that I can play at a better level than last year. I think that's the biggest thing for me.”

There are few things that Kelce has not accomplished over 13 seasons on an NFL field. He's won three Super Bowl rings, was voted first-team All-Pro four times, and he has been invited to the Pro Bowl each of the last 11 seasons.

He contemplated retirement prior to last year, but the fact that Kansas City had just been blown out by Philadelphia did not sit well with him. So, Kelce came back for another go-around, catching 76 passes for 851 yards and five touchdowns while playing in every game — numbers that would represent a career year for most tight ends.

The Chiefs scuffled to a 6-11 finish, though. And if Kelce wasn't going out on a Super Bowl loss, he certainly wasn't quitting after a season like that.

“The fact that we didn't make the playoffs,” he said, “I moved on pretty quick.”

He moved onto wedding planning, to be sure. But also into preparing for the upcoming season, which most believe will be his last, one way or another. Kelce was ever-present throughout the offseason, whether it was voluntary workouts or mandatory minicamp, and he has been a constant source of energy during the hot, humid practices that are the hallmark of training camp.

“This is always going to be my sanctuary. I think St. Joe has a special place in my heart,” Kelce said. “You need to have these days. You need to have this time of grinding with the guys, being around them all day, starting to create that chemistry and standard for how we are going to do things. This year it's ramped up even more.

“I think that's a big thing,” Kelce added, “just enjoy these moments with these guys I've built this culture with.”

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

The trial scheduled to begin next week is expected to last six to eight weeks. Meta faces 29 states in the federal multidistrict lawsuit filed in 2023, but the Oakland trial will only include the first four — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.

Eight states, including Tennessee where a trial is ongoing, filed lawsuits in their own state courts.

The 2023 lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law.

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms,” the complaint says. “It has concealed the ways in which these platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.”

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked prospective jurors about their own social media activity, knowledge about other lawsuits Meta faces, and any strong feelings they may have about social media companies and their role regarding the allegations.

The trial is the latest in an avalanche of lawsuits against Meta Platforms and other social media companies including Google's YouTube, TikTok and Snap, over claims their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data and are deliberately designed to addict them.

Last week, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567 million to address harms to young people from its platforms in the second phase of a landmark trial.

The penalty is in addition to the $375 million in civil penalties that jurors ordered against Meta in March after determining the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

In the second phase, prosecutors asked the judge to impose fundamental changes at Meta aimed at reining in addictive features, improving age verification and preventing child sexual exploitation through default privacy settings and closer oversight.

The states are seeking heavy penalties and changes to the way Meta operates its platforms to make them safer for children. Meta has repeatedly said it has introduced dozens of features to do so. It is appealing the New Mexico decision.

“We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” the Menlo Park, California, tech giant said in a statement. “We’ve listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement, and conducted in-depth research to understand the issues that matter most. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and we’re always working to do better.”

This sale agreement is $12.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the terms who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday because neither side revealed specific details of the latest stunning development with one of North America's marquee sports teams.

ESPN first reported that Kushner and Iger are buying the NBA's most valuable franchise. The Lakers were valued last year at $10 billion — a record for a pro sports team — when Mark Walter purchased a controlling stake from the Buss family, which had owned the team since 1979.

“As lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world,” Iger and Kushner said in a statement. “We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss. Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles.”

Kushner, a venture capitalist, and former Walt Disney Company CEO Iger had been working together on landing a possible NBA expansion team for Las Vegas. By buying the Lakers, they don't have to wait until the possibility of expansion in the 2028-29 season at the earliest.

Lakers icon Magic Johnson, a partner in Walter's ownership of baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, praised the deal on social media.

“Laker fans, you couldn’t have two better owners,” Johnson wrote. “I’ve known Bob personally for over 40 years — he has always loved the Lakers and basketball and he will bring championships back to LA.”

The sale still will need approval from the NBA’s board of governors, and that process can take several weeks. The next board meeting is set for September in New York.

The $12.5 billion price tag is not only a record for U.S. pro sports but a new summit in skyrocketing NBA franchise values. Only three years ago, Michael Jordan sold his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets for a $3 billion valuation, while the Boston Celtics were sold last year to private equity mogul Bill Chisholm at a valuation of just over $6 billion.

Walter’s agreement to purchase a controlling stake in the Lakers at the $10 billion valuation last summer obliterated that mark, and now Iger and Kushner have pushed the bar even higher.

The 66-year-old Walter’s shocking decision to sell after just 10 months of official ownership is reverberating throughout the team’s massive fan base, which appeared to be uniformly excited about the purchase last year. Walter has stewarded the Dodgers into the most successful stretch in franchise history, with three World Series championships in the past six seasons as the most aggressive spenders in baseball.

Multiple media outlets last month reported that Walter’s business empire is under scrutiny from both federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission in tax fraud investigations.

The Lakers are 17-time NBA champions who won their most recent title in 2020. They've made the playoffs in each of the past four seasons, and their current roster is built around NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic, who is signed through the 2028-29 season. The Slovenian superstar has become passionate about Los Angeles and the Lakers less than two years after his arrival.

“Being a Laker means everything to me, and I’m excited to get back on the court and bring a championship to LA,” Doncic wrote on social media after hearing of the sale. “I’ve gotten used to big changes over these last few years, but I know that no matter what, there is no limit to the potential of this iconic franchise. I look forward to meeting Josh and Bob so we can get to work building something special in LA together.”

The 41-year-old Kushner has been a minority owner of two NBA teams, but he jumped into the international sports spotlight this summer when his capital holding company, Thrive Eternal, was set to be the “anchor investor” in FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in future World Cup profits. Infantino abandoned the idea on July 31.

Kushner’s older brother is Jared Kushner, son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Josh Kushner currently owns a minority stake in the Miami Heat, and he previously owned a stake in the Memphis Grizzlies.

The 75-year-old Iger became one of Hollywood’s most well-known executives while he ran Disney for two lengthy stints between 2005 and last March, when he stepped aside. Iger and his wife, former sports journalist Willow Bay, became the controlling owners of NWSL team Angel City FC in 2024 with a deal that valued the club at $250 million.

Walter’s purchase of the Lakers was approved by NBA owners last October. He originally bought a 27% minority stake in the team in 2021 before purchasing control of the team last year.

The Lakers' 17 championships going back to the franchise’s origin in Minneapolis are the second-most in NBA history behind Boston’s 18. It is a global brand, always at or near the top of the league’s merchandise-sales rankings.

This record sale price comes just weeks after LeBron James, the league’s all-time leading scorer, left the Lakers after eight seasons to become a free agent. James ultimately decided to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Walter and his team had already begun to make extensive changes to the Lakers, who were often perceived as an antiquated franchise in many aspects during their decades of Buss family ownership.

The Lakers had beefed up their basketball operations department with new hires in the front office around longtime general manager Rob Pelinka. They also boosted the business side with extensive searches for new revenue, including sales of new jersey patches and additional prominent sponsorship deals.

When Walter bought his controlling interest in the Lakers, the deal specified that Jeanie Buss would stay on as the team’s governor. With new ownership, it’s unclear whether Buss will have a continuing role in the team she inherited along with her siblings from her father, Jerry Buss, who died in 2013.

Along with the Dodgers, Walter and his various partners also have ownership interests in the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, English Premier League club Chelsea, the Professional Women’s Hockey League and the new Cadillac Formula 1 racing team.

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AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.

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

JSO said officers were called to a home on Westdale Drive near Pine Bluff Drive Tuesday around 10:45 p.m. for a report of a battery with injuries.

Investigators said a man approached an officer as she arrived and told her he had argued with his girlfriend, who was still inside the home and armed with a knife.

As the officer turned toward the home, JSO said the woman came outside carrying multiple items.

JSO said the officer told her to drop everything in her hands. The woman put some items down, but still held a large kitchen knife, according to the JSO.

JSO said the officer gave loud, verbal commands for the woman to drop the knife, but she moved toward the officer. The officer then fired one shot, JSO said.

The woman fell to the ground but did not drop the knife, and then tried to get up and again moved toward the officer, prompting a second shot, according to JSO.

A backup officer arrived and also gave loud, verbal commands to drop the knife.

Investigators said the woman eventually dropped the knife, and she was taken into custody. Jacksonville Fire and Rescue treated her at the scene before she was taken to a hospital, where she died.

JSO said five other people were inside the home at the time. The boyfriend was treated for minor injuries.

This is the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s 13th officer-involved shooting of the year, JSO said.

The State Attorney’s Office is conducting an independent investigation, and JSO said it will conduct its own use-of-force investigation after that is complete.

Domestic violence resources

Free, confidential support is available 24/7 through Hubbard House’s Hotline at 904-354-3114 and Text line at 904-210-3698.

If you or someone you know is or has been a victim of domestic violence or abuse, here’s a list of other resources available:

• The Florida Domestic Violence Hotline, which will direct you to the nearest shelter, is 1-800-500-1119.
• The National Domestic Violence Hotline is open 24 hours a day. The number is 1-800-799-SAFE.
• The Micah’s Place (Nassau County) Domestic Violence Help Hotline is 904-225-9979.
• The Quigley House (Clay County) hotline is 904-284-0061.
• The Betty Griffin Center (St. Johns County) can be reached at 904-824-1555.

Officers responded to Kings Food Mart on SW Martin Luther King Ave. around 5:30 p.m. after reports of a shooting. Inside the store, officers found 45-year-old Ean Stein, an Ocala resident and store employee, suffering from gunshot wounds.

Stein was taken to a local hospital, where he later died.

Suspect identified, arrested within minutes

Detectives learned that Stein and another individual had been involved in a brief physical altercation inside the store just before the shooting. Curnel Brown, 19, was present during the fight but was not a participant, according to police.

Investigators say evidence collected at the scene — including video footage — identified Brown as the shooter. He was located at a nearby location within minutes and taken into custody without incident. Investigators also recovered a firearm believed to have been used in the shooting.

Murder charge filed

After reviewing the evidence, detectives say they determined that the use of deadly force was not justified. Brown has been charged with second-degree murder and transported to Marion County Jail.

The Ocala Police Department released a statement following the arrest.

“Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of Mr. Stein during this difficult time,” the department said. “The Ocala Police Department is dedicated to keeping our community safe and staying transparent with the public. We thank our officers and detectives for their swift efforts on this case.”

The clashes were part of a government operation against what it calls members of “ Fitna Al Hindustan, ” a term Pakistani authorities use for Baloch separatist groups that Islamabad alleges are backed by India. New Delhi denies supporting militants in Pakistan.

The military said two soldiers were also wounded. The car bombing took place in the province's district of Surab.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but least populous province and has long faced a separatist insurgency led by the outlawed ethnic Baloch Liberation Army. The BLA has carried out numerous attacks in recent years, often targeting security forces, Chinese interests and infrastructure projects.

Balochistan has also seen attacks by Pakistani Taliban who are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban.

Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down the much smaller U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State group.

U.S. troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a presence in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi met with Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads the U.S. Central Command, on Wednesday. Al-Zaidi said in a statement afterward that he had affirmed Sept. 30 as the “fixed and final date for ending the military mission of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Iraq and completing the departure of its forces.”

A U.S. official confirmed that the U.S. expects to complete its pullout by Sept. 30, but declined to say how many troops remain in Iraq or where they would be redeployed.

“The United States, Iraq and coalition partners have achieved tremendous success in defeating ISIS and now the Iraqi security forces, including the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Kurdistan Region security forces, will lead the fight against terrorists in Iraq,” the official said.

Two Iraqi Kurdish officials said a drawdown of U.S. troops and military equipment from Erbil began about three weeks ago.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

The U.S. presence in Iraq grew to more than 170,000 troops at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. In December 2011, the final combat troops departed. But in 2014, the rise of the Islamic State group and its capture of a wide swath across Iraq and Syria brought U.S. forces back at the Iraqi government's invitation.

After IS lost its hold on territory it once claimed, coalition military operations ended in 2021. The U.S. maintained about 2,500 troops in Iraq for training and to conduct counter-IS operations with Iraq’s military.

Iraq also wants to disarm non-state groups

Iraq's prime minister has also set a Sept. 30 deadline for non-state armed groups in Iraq to give up their weapons, saying they will have no justification to carry arms once the foreign troops withdraw.

Some Iraqi militias have justified their existence by pointing to the U.S. military presence, which they describe as an occupation, although the current U.S. mission came at the invitation of the Iraqi government after IS militants rampaged across the country in 2014, seizing large swaths of territory.

It seems unlikely that the Iraqi government will meet its deadline for disarming non-state groups. Some of the country’s most powerful Iran-backed militias and have said they have no intention of giving up their weapons.

The state-run General Electricity Company said in a statement that a power substation in the city of Zawiya that links power plants to homes and businesses was completely burned down.

The city of about 250,000 people has been rattled by a series of drone strikes that hit oil and power facilities. Zawiya is home to critical energy infrastructure, including Libya’s largest oil refinery, an export terminal and a power plant.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the drone strikes.

The attacks come as tensions are rising between the government of Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah, who governs western Libya, and warlord Mohamed Bahroun, who controls the city of Zawiya. Much of western Libya is ruled by local militias loosely allied to Dbeibah’s government in Tripoli.

The country has been divided for years between rival administrations, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. Dbeibah governs western Libya and the administration of Prime Minister Ossama Hammad governs the eastern part of the country.

The power company said the attack resulted in outages across southern parts of the city, which is located about 47 kilometers (29 miles) west of the capital Tripoli. Footage shared by the company showed massive flames and fireballs erupting from the facility.

Dbeibah denounced the attacks on energy and power installations as “a serious crime and an escalation that will not go unanswered.”

“We will reach those responsible for this attack, and the accountability will be firm. No one will be protected by their position, status, or influence,” he said in a statement.

On Monday, a drone strike hit a fuel-laden tank at Zawiya's refinery, igniting a massive blaze which firefighters battled for over 15 hours. The refinery was repeatedly attacked over the weekend and on Tuesday, according to the state-run National Oil Corporation.

The power plant was hit by two drones on Tuesday, with one damaging its firefighting system while the second landed close to the facility’s main fuel storage, setting it on fire, the electricity company said.

After Tuesday’s attack on the power plant, the U.S. company General Electric withdrew its teams from the facility “until security conditions and a suitable and safe work environment are ensured,” the electricity company said. GE performs maintenance and upgrading services for the plant.

GE previously withdrew its staff from the plant over security concerns, prolonging the loss of more than 700 megawatts of the station’s production capacity, estimated at 1300 megawatts, the electricity company said.

The violence came as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Dbeibah and Mohammad Younes Menfi, chairman of the Presidential Council in Tripoli on Tuesday, before traveling Wednesday to the eastern city of Benghazi to meet with powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter.

Turkey is the main foreign backer of Dbeibah's government, but in recent years has also reached out to the rival authorities in eastern Libya in an attempt to mend ties, and as part of regional efforts to unify the North African country.

Libya, an oil-rich country on the Mediterranean, has been wracked by conflict since a NATO-backed uprising-turned-civil war toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

For those in the direct path, the sky will go dark in the middle of the day, temperatures will briefly drop, and stars will become visible for a few fleeting minutes. Viewers outside the path of totality across Europe and parts of the Atlantic will still experience a partial eclipse, where the moon covers only a portion of the sun.

NASA reminds skywatchers that looking directly at the sun during any phase of a solar eclipse — except during the brief moments of total totality — requires certified eclipse glasses or a solar viewer. Standard sunglasses are not safe for eclipse viewing.

Perseid meteor shower peaks at same time

As if a solar eclipse weren’t enough, the Perseid meteor shower is also hitting its peak this week. The Perseids are one of the most reliable and beloved meteor showers of the year, producing up to 100 meteors per hour under dark, clear skies at their peak, according to NASA.

The shower runs throughout much of August, but the best viewing typically falls between Aug. 11 and Aug. 13 — meaning skywatchers this year get a rare one-two punch of a solar eclipse by day and a meteor shower by night. The Perseids are caused by Earth passing through debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, and the meteors appear to radiate from the direction of the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky.

For the best experience, NASA recommends finding a dark spot away from city lights, lying flat on your back, and giving your eyes at least 20 minutes to adjust to the darkness. No telescope or binoculars are needed — just patience and a clear sky.

What are the Perseids, exactly?

The science behind a meteor shower is simpler than it might seem. As Earth orbits the sun each year, it passes through trails of debris left behind by comets. When those tiny particles — most no bigger than a grain of sand — enter Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, they burn up and create the bright streaks of light we call meteors, or shooting stars.

The Perseids are particularly popular because they occur during warm summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere and tend to produce bright, fast-moving meteors with long trails.

Partial lunar eclipse closes out the month

The month’s celestial fireworks don’t end with the eclipse and the meteor shower. On Aug. 28, a partial lunar eclipse will be visible for skywatchers in parts of the world, offering one more reason to look up before summer winds down.

During a partial lunar eclipse, the Earth moves between the sun and the moon, but not in a perfectly straight line. Only part of the moon passes through Earth’s darkest shadow, called the umbra, causing a portion of the moon’s surface to appear darker or take on a reddish-brown hue.

Unlike a solar eclipse, a partial lunar eclipse is completely safe to view with the naked eye — no special glasses or equipment required. It can also be seen across a much wider geographic area than a solar eclipse, making it one of the more accessible sky events of the year.

NASA encourages the public to take advantage of all three events this month as a reminder of how dynamic and awe-inspiring the solar system can be — no spacecraft required.

Cooling centers will be available at various City of Jacksonville facilities during normal hours of operation Monday through Saturday. These locations will remain open regardless of whether activation thresholds are met.

Cooling center locations

The following facilities are available Monday through Saturday:

• All 21 City of Jacksonville public libraries, offering accessible, air-conditioned spaces
• All 20 City of Jacksonville community centers, located throughout multiple neighborhoods
• All 31 City of Jacksonville pools and 18 splash pads, providing immediate cooling relief

On Sunday, Aug. 16, two primary cooling centers will be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.:

• Main Library, 303 N. Laura St.
• Legends Center, 5130 Soutel Dr.

Free rides available

Residents can also get free rides to cooling centers through the Jacksonville Transportation Authority on activation days. Riders should let their bus driver know they are headed to a cooling center when boarding.

Tips for staying safe in the heat

City officials are urging residents to take precautions if they have outdoor plans this week. The following tips can help reduce the risk of heat-related illness:

• Avoid peak heat hours. Minimize outdoor activities between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. If time outside is unavoidable, seek shade and take frequent breaks in cooler areas.
• Never leave children or pets in vehicles. Temperatures inside a parked car can rise to dangerous and potentially fatal levels quickly.
• Know the signs of heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Symptoms include dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat and confusion. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should move to a cooler environment and seek medical attention immediately.

For more information on Stay Cool Jax, visit Jacksonville.gov/StayCoolJax or JaxReady.com/StayCoolJax for a full list of cooling center locations, hours of operation and available amenities.

The operation, dubbed Operation Relentless Summer, is expected to yield additional arrests as outstanding warrants are served. Five victims — three adults and two juveniles — were recovered and connected with support services.

“These human traffickers and child predators prey on the most vulnerable in our communities, exploiting women and children for their own gain,” Uthmeier said.

“Thanks to the outstanding work of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Office of Statewide Prosecution, 116 of these criminals are behind bars, five victims have been rescued, and one trafficker is facing three life sentences. Florida has zero tolerance for this evil, and we will continue to hunt down every last one of them.”

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister emphasized the importance of the operation in protecting the community.

“Human trafficking is a crime that thrives in the shadows, and operations like this one shine a light on it,” Chronister said. “This work is not merely a job, it’s a mission, a mission to protect and preserve the very fabric of our community. Every arrest made during Operation Relentless Summer represents a predator who is no longer a threat to the families of Hillsborough County.”

How detectives closed in

Enforcement strategies included residential search warrants, dark web activity warrants, undercover online chat operations, investigations into individuals traveling to meet minors, and sex offender compliance checks. Those tactics allowed detectives to disrupt ongoing exploitation, identify individuals seeking to harm children, and dismantle trafficking networks.

Key suspect arrested at Tampa airport

One long-term investigation led to the arrest of Frank Amiekumo, a green card holder from Liberia. Detectives took Amiekumo into custody at Tampa International Airport with assistance from Tampa International Airport Police on a warrant obtained during the investigation. He is being held on a no-bond status.

Detectives began investigating Amiekumo in early April 2026 after multiple suspicious calls involving sexual activity and juveniles near a Tampa residence. ⚠️ [FACT CHECK: Confirm exact date investigation began and location of residence — city/neighborhood.]

The investigation revealed a pattern spanning approximately four years in which Amiekumo recruited women to dance at strip clubs, with some performing commercial sex acts or engaging in online sexually explicit platforms. He allegedly victimized women in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.

Amiekumo allegedly obtained fake identification cards for women so they could dance at strip clubs if they were minors or under 21, or to use on online commercial sex platforms to avoid detection. Prosecutors say he used physical violence, threats, and other means to control and traffic the women against their will.

The investigation identified five victims — three adult females and two juvenile females — who were rescued and provided support services. The investigation remains ongoing, and additional victims are expected to be identified.

“Maybe I never loved you / But anyway, I thought I did / I married you, we had a kid,” she sings in a ballad you could imagine Simon addressing to her ex-husband, James Taylor. “And maybe you never loved me / Although God knows you said you did.”

Simon announced last month that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease while recording “Comes in Waves,” and that she also had surgery to remove a cancerous skin growth. But this album feels less like an ending than a continuation of themes and events that have inspired and defined her from early in her career — yearning, discontent, desire, uncertainty, her marriage to Taylor and the loss of her father, the publisher Richard Simon, who died when Carly was in her teens.

“Howl” is the album's lead track, first single and table setter — a midtempo rocker addressed to a heartbroken friend (or to herself?) whom Simon urges to “Get it out of your system / Bang your fists and beat your brow.”

The other songs unfold as if to dramatize the album's title, as Simon's mood shifts from defiance to regret to melancholy to resolve and a willingness to try again, a cycle cushioned (to a fault) by the literal-minded production and arrangements of David Spencer, Frank Filipetti and son Ben Taylor among others.

“Comes in Waves” includes a remaster of Simon's decades-old political song “Share the End,” and elsewhere echoes moments from her previous records. “Maybe I Never Loved You,” inspired by the late playwright Tim Mayer, feels like Simon's version of “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes),” the Hoagy Carmichael standard she covered on her 1981 “Torch” album. “The Father-Daughter Dance” suggests the pain of a ballad about her father from the early 1970s, “Embrace Me, You Child.”

Simon also teases courtship (“Peaches”); celebrates parenthood (“Mother of Pearl,” a tribute to daughter and “child of divorce” Sally Taylor); and savors life's “wild ride” (“Love the Way I Do”).

The catchiest song is by a departed friend, the late Judy Belushi, widow of comedian John Belushi: “Four in the Morning” has a close-up, tiptoeing pace fitting for lyrics about an unhappy wife who slips away from her snoring husband.

Simon, who turned 83 this year, doesn't hit all the notes of her best known records, but she has lost none of her gifts for taking hold of a melody, and putting her whole self into the words. Her musical journey has always been personal, and longtime Simon fans are the most likely to enjoy catching up with her. Others may feel like they had to be there.

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“Comes in Waves,” by Carly Simon

Three stars out of five

On repeat: “Love the Way I Do,” “Four in the Morning”

Skip it: “Share the End”

For fans of: Carly Simon, most of all, and of pop torch singers in general.

The series released the locations and dates for the first eight races of the upcoming season. This will be the 17th time IndyCar has started a season at St. Petersburg.

“The start to this year’s 2026 season was action-packed, and it’s gratifying to know the stage is set for a return to that frantic pace in 2027,” IndyCar President J. Douglas Boles said. “St. Pete has become an ideal host to begin our season."

IndyCar will open 2027 racing three straight weekends with the series going to Phoenix Raceway on March 13 and the streets of Arlington in Texas on March 21. This will be the second straight year and only the fifth time in the IndyCar series' 118 years that a season starts with races on three consecutive weekends.

The series takes a break before two races in April at Barber Motorsports Park on April 4 and Long Beach on April 18. Then it's off to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the road course race May 15 and the 111th Indianapolis 500. The final race announced will be June 6 on the streets of Detroit.

Mark Miles, president and chief executive officer of Penske Entertainment, said it’s been another year of growth with 2026 being "proof of concept that our sport is fueled by an expanding presence across marquee events and destinations, and we look forward to carrying that momentum into 2027.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/apf-AutoRacing

The chance for McCarthy to lead his hometown team brought the first-year Pittsburgh Steelers coach to tears when he was hired in January. The image last April of Heidenreich walking onto the draft stage in full Naval dress uniform outside Acrisure Stadium — just a few miles from the Mount Lebanon neighborhood where he grew up — felt like something out of a movie.

Their respective homecomings have provided plenty of “fairy tale” narratives during an eventful offseason for the typically low-key Steelers. And while there will be a little bit of “hey, is this really happening?” on Thursday night when they walk onto the field for the first time as the Steelers host Green Bay in the preseason opener, they're both aware of the reality check that awaits under the lights.

“Naturally, there’s some people that might assume that it was like you said, like a hometown pick or whatever, whatever someone wants to say,” Heidenreich said. “But I’m here to play football, and that’s it.”

Good thing, because evolving from a seventh-round flyer following a record-setting career at Navy — where he set program marks for career receiving yards and receiving touchdowns — into an NFL roster spot will take some doing. Nobody knows that more than the 6-foot, 206-pound Heidenreich, who politely dismissed comparisons between himself and San Francisco 49ers running back and 2023 NFL Offense Player of the Year Christian McCaffrey.

Both are on the smaller side, sure. And yes, both are shifty. But one came to the league as a Heisman Trophy finalist and a first-round pick. And it wasn't Heidenreich.

“He’s a fantastic player and one of the best to ever do it,” he said. “And he’s just someone that I look up to and really try to do my best to model him in certain ways. But yeah, I do see the (comparisons) and I know people get pretty fired up one way or the other about them.”

Heidenreich wants no part of that discussion. He's too focused on trying to carve out a niche in Pittsburgh, where his best chance to avoid getting cut for the first time in his life will be as a contributor on special teams.

While the chance for reps at running back might be difficult to come by — though Heidenreich has basically attached himself to backfield coach Ramon Chinyoung since camp started — his elusiveness could make him an intriguing option as a kick returner.

Whether Heidenreich gets any opportunities against the Packers in front of dozens of friends and family members who will make the short drive to Acrisure Stadium is uncertain. He tweaked his hamstring recently, which limited him for a stretch, though his No. 29 was noticeable during a walkthrough on Tuesday.

Either way, it figures to be a “pinch-me” type of moment when he jogs onto the field and looks up, a point of view that will be markedly different from the one he enjoyed as a fan.

“It’s an honor to just get out there and play in that stadium," he said. “I think that’s the best way for me to put it. It’s something that I have dreamed of for a long time."

How long the dream lasts now that he's exchanged his fandom for a uniform with his name across the back is up to him.

“Preseason is really important,” he said. “So I've got to put my best foot forward and be locked in when I get there.”

The same goes for McCarthy, though perhaps for different reasons. He's walked onto the turf a handful of times during his career, but has never stood on the home sideline. He figures the significance will start to hit as he makes the drive in.

The fact that he gets to begin what is likely the final chapter of his head coaching career against the team where it all began makes it just a little sweeter.

“Obviously, having a personal and professional connection to Green Bay, that’s part of my life,” he said.

Of course, all the nostalgia will wear off once the ball is kicked. Then the more pressing needs of the moment — like figuring out how much progress his group has made during his first camp and seeing what he has to work with in young quarterbacks Will Howard and Drew Allar — will take over.

And in a way, it will be a relief. While he has embraced all the trappings of being the hometown boy made good, the Steelers didn't hire him to curry favor with the fanbase but to win games. The process starts in earnest on Thursday.

“I just want to see these young guys play," he said. "I want to see how they play connected to each other. The pre-snap of the operation, having an understanding of what’s in front of them ... This is what these games are for."

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

The number of people on board Tuesday was unclear as estimates reached as high as 153 people on a government agency-operated ferry whose capacity, authorities said, was just 90.

“Some of us survived by standing on top of the capsized hull,” one of the two crew members who survived, Anyway Chambati, told state broadcaster ZBC News. “Before it went down, passengers were screaming at us that the boat was flooding, water was pouring into the engine room and goods were spilling out.”

Chambati said he was in charge of ticketing and that he counted 153 people on board, including crew and infants, before the disaster.

Multiple witnesses told ZBC that passengers urged the captain to turn back as waves grew perilous, only to be dismissed. When water surged into the vessel, chaos erupted as frantic travelers scrambled for life jackets beneath their seats.

"We argued with him right at the harbor. We told him the waves were too dangerous," one woman said. “A bag fell overboard before we had even left, and we pointed it out, but he refused to listen.”

Passengers told the broadcaster that bags, dishes and beer bottles began toppling overboard within minutes of setting off.

“About 30 minutes in, we begged again to abort and return, more goods were falling, the wave was getting worse and water was gushing into one side of the boat, but (the captain) just said, ‘My boat has never sunk anyone.’ He even refused to call for help,” another survivor told the broadcaster.

The woman described some people floating in the water and clutching sacks of goods while help did not arrive for nearly an hour.

The captain was among the dead, the state-run Herald newspaper reported.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the incident a state of disaster to enable the government to mobilize “extraordinary measures and resources” to assist victims.

Police on X said bodies had been retrieved from the lake that forms part of the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, but they did not update how many people were injured or missing.

Zimbabwe’s disaster management agency has said the ferry was carrying at least 114 adult passengers and five crew members, and that 77 people had been rescued.

But the real number was not clear because the figures only included those who bought tickets, and children below ticketing age could have been on board. The state broadcaster reported that children were among the dead.

The ferry is used to take people from rural communities around the lake to the town of Kariba on the shore.

Mutsa Murombedzi, a local member of Parliament, posted a video Tuesday of what she said were people on shore waving at the ferry when it set off. Some of the people expressed concern whether the aging ferry could handle strong waves, according to the video.

Kariba is the largest man-made lake in the world by volume and was created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by building a dam on the Zambezi River. The huge lake is now more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) long and up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide in places.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

The Maumelle High student felt unusual movement inside his headgear following warmups last week and brought his helmet to an assistant coach for inspection. A slithering 2-foot cottonmouth was discovered behind some padding.

The pit viper was so reluctant to exit the helmet that animal control officers had to submerge the helmet in water and forced the snake out, grabbing it with tongs. Animal services technicians identified the snake as a deadly cottonmouth. It was released in a wooded area.

Cottonmouths are the second-most venomous snakes found in Arkansas.

Animal services director Chris Davis said the player wore the helmet for nearly an hour and was fortunate he wasn't bitten.

“It was unreal," Davis said. “You had to kind of be there and take pictures to say this was real.”

The player grabbed a different helmet and continued practice. But the situation caused the head coach to reiterate to his team that players should examine their equipment carefully before using it, checking for insects — or maybe something larger and more dangerous.

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

Cutting-edge drones developed by Kyiv since Moscow's full-scale invasion over four years ago have repeatedly targeted Russian ships in the Black Sea, including warships and oil tankers.

Ukraine's air and sea drones have succeeded in limiting the movements of Russia’s once-dominant Black Sea navy, Kyiv officials say, in one of the country’s biggest accomplishments of the war.

But Ukrainian officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is bent on pressing ahead with the war, despite his bigger army’s slow and costly progress on the battlefield and U.S. diplomatic efforts to find a settlement.

Putin is planning “an additional rapid mobilization of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday night on social media, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.

Those reports have said recently that Russia is expanding production of ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones, both of which are hard for Ukrainian air defenses to counter.

Ukraine also is trying to scale up its weapons manufacturing through agreements with partner countries.

Russia shows no sign of a new mobilization

Neither Putin nor other senior Russian officials have hinted at a possible major call-up of forces to fight in Ukraine. Some officials have accused Kyiv of trying to rattle the Russian public with talk of a mobilization.

Russian lawmaker Andrei Gurulyov brushed off reports of a possible autumn mobilization. “It is the enemy deliberately spreading rumors about mobilization in order to destabilize the situation inside Russia,” he was quoted as saying by pro-Kremlin online outlet Tsargrad in comments published Monday.

After the widely unpopular partial mobilization of some 300,000 men four years ago, Russia has relied on volunteers attracted by relatively high pay. However, the decree declaring the partial mobilization that Putin signed in September 2022 is open-ended, allowing authorities to resume it if needed.

Ukraine says it hit Black Sea port infrastructure

The Ukrainian military “carried out a unique operation targeting the naval base in Novorossiysk — the last major stronghold of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post Wednesday. The attack struck air defenses, piers and other port infrastructure, he added.

Russia relocated most of its naval ships to Novorossiysk after Ukrainian strikes on the main Black Sea base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula earlier in the war.

Hundreds of Ukrainian drones attacked Novorossiysk, Anapa and Gelendzhik and the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar region overnight, said Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev.

An 8-year-old child was one of three people killed in the attack on the region, Kondratyev said. He added that 24 others in the region were wounded. Dozens of residential buildings were damaged, Kondratyev said, and debris from downed drones fell on the grounds of four industrial plants.

The strikes damaged two of Novorossiysk’s three grain terminals, with one of them halting operations, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed more than 500 Ukrainian drones.

Struck Russian port is also a key oil hub

Novorossiysk also is home to the Grushovaya oil terminal, one of the largest international hubs in southern Russia for petroleum products. No reports indicated it had been hit.

In February, the U.S. State Department expressed its displeasure about Ukraine’s attacks on Novorossiysk, saying they affected U.S. oil interests in ⁠Kazakhstan.

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium operates a pipeline from the Caspian coast in northwestern Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk. The pipeline handles much of the crude exports from three major Kazakh fields in which major U.S. energy companies, Chevron and ExxonMobil, have stakes.

With the militaries of European countries boarding and detaining sanctioned Russian oil tankers at sea, hurting the country’s trade and heaping economic pressure on Moscow, Putin on Wednesday threatened retaliation for what he termed “piracy.”

Speaking on a visit to a Russian warship taking part in a naval exercise in the Pacific, Putin said Western countries are breaking international maritime law by seizing ships they say are part of Moscow’s “ shadow fleet ” of sanctions-dodging merchant vessels.

“It’s nothing but piracy and robbery,” Putin said. “If this is done, we will be forced to respond in kind.”

On the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, air defenses downed 115 Ukrainian drones over Sevastopol overnight, said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the city’s Russian-installed head. He added that 10 apartment buildings and 25 private houses were damaged.

Russian drones kill 2 and destroy a shopping mall in Ukraine

Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 138 long-range drones as well as an unspecified number of missiles during the night, with damage recorded at 16 locations.

In the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, a large-scale Russian drone attack overnight killed two people and wounded two others, said regional head Oleksandr Prokudin.

The attacks also destroyed a shopping mall in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to authorities.

Missiles and long-range drones hit fuel reservoirs and infrastructure used for unloading and storing military cargo in the port of Chornomorsk in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

A bulk cargo vessel carrying military equipment and a tanker loaded with oil for the Ukrainian armed forces also were hit in Odesa, it said.

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

“I don't know what I'm going to do without you,” the post said in Spanish, shared on Messi's Instagram. “I don't know how to keep going. All I ever did was play soccer, and now I have serious doubts about whether I'll keep doing it for much longer.”

Jorge Messi — who played a fundamental role in the soccer star's career, serving as his agent and managing his business affairs — died Saturday. He was 68.

Lionel Messi led Argentina to a runner-up finish in this summer's World Cup. In the team’s first match, against Algeria, he was visibly emotional after scoring the first of his three goals. He said later that he wept for “a reason unrelated to sports.”

“You asked me to play in this last World Cup so many times and just before it started was when you took a turn for the worse," the post said. “It was the first time you weren't going to be at the tournament. But mom kept telling me that you were going to get better and that you'd be well enough to travel. I kept telling you that we were going to make it to the final so you could travel.”

The post added that Messi “wanted to win it” for his father.

“I couldn't,” the post continued. “My legs had nothing left. This time I tried to push beyond what my body could handle, but I couldn't. I never managed to feel right.”

Messages of support for the Messi family have poured in over recent days. Messi had returned to his native Argentina and missed his MLS club Inter Miami's recent Leagues Cup match against Monterrey.

Inter Miami concludes the group phase of the tournament Wednesday night against León, though coach Guillermo Hoyos said Tuesday there is no timetable for Messi's return.

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

The Putri Yasmin ferry was traveling from Bali to the neighboring island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara province when the fire broke out at about 4:15 a.m. The ferry was also transporting 44 vehicles and 53 motorcycles.

The Search and Rescue Office in Mataram, the capital of West Nusa Tenggara province, received an emergency report almost half an hour later and immediately deployed personnel and rescue vessels.

“Our top priority is the safety of all passengers and crew members,” said Muhammad Hariyadi, who heads the Mataram Search and Rescue Office.

Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed people wearing life jackets crowding an inflatable life raft in choppy waters during a rescue operation at sea, as thick black smoke billows from the ferry.

The rescue agency said that as of Wednesday afternoon, rescuers evacuated 211 people from the burned vessel, including 2 Australian tourists, and recovered the body of a 19-year-old Indonesian woman.

Initial reports had said the ferry was carrying 131 people, including 17 crew members, based on the ship’s manifest.

However, hours after the incident, officials said more people were aboard than listed. It is common in Indonesia for the number of passengers on a boat or ferry to differ from the manifest.

Authorities have not yet explained why the number of people evacuated exceeded the total listed on the initial passenger manifest. Transportation Minister Dudy Purwagandhi said officials will look into the discrepancy.

“The findings will be thoroughly reviewed as part of the ministry’s evaluation,” Purwagandhi said. “This is a serious issue that will be thoroughly investigated.”

He said investigators were determining the cause of the fire.

Syamsurizal, head of the Lembar Port Authority in Lombok, said that survivors told authorities the blaze appeared to have started in a cargo truck before quickly spreading through the ferry. The heat forced some passengers to jump into the sea, he said.

“The response operation is ongoing, and authorities are continuing to account for all victims,” said Syamsurizal, who like many Indonesians uses a single name. He said at least two injured passengers were rushed to a nearby hospital.

Hariyadi said the rescue effort was supported by six vessels, a helicopter, two inflatable boats and two private yachts. He said rough seas with waves reported as high as 4 meters (13 feet) complicated rescue efforts.

Wednesday's incident happened less than two weeks after another Indonesian ferry, the Mutiara Sentosa 2, caught fire in waters off the main island of Java, leaving at least five people dead.

Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands where ferries are a common method of travel. Disasters occur regularly, with weak safety enforcement often blamed.

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Associated Press journalists Edna Tarigan and Andi Jatmiko in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Consumer prices increased 3.4% in July from a year ago, down slightly from 3.5% in June, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Inflation had fallen to 2.4% before the Iran war. On a monthly basis, prices rose just 0.1% from June to July.

The mild decrease is the second straight decline after sharply higher gas prices pushed inflation to 4.2% in May, a three-year high. Yet even with the pause, prices are still rising more quickly than average wages, underscoring the struggle many Americans have had paying for groceries, gas, and healthcare. And many costs grew last month, including airfares, computers, and used cars.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation slipped to 2.5% in July from a year ago, down from 2.6% in June. July’s figure matches a post-pandemic low reached in January and February, before the Iran war.

Core prices rose 0.2% from June to July. Monthly increases at about 0.2% would be low enough over time to bring inflation closer to the Fed’s 2% goal.

“America still has an inflation problem, but there are encouraging signs that price pressures outside of the gas pump are easing,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said.

Inflation report could make Fed rate hike less likely

Cooler inflation could also ease pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise their key interest rate to combat rising costs. Fed officials are sharply split over their next steps. Roughly half the members of the central bank's rate-setting committee support raising borrowing costs this year, while another half think rates are already high enough to slowly push inflation back to their 2% target.

“We're clearly not out of the woods, however it makes the Fed’s decision a little bit easier, because now you see that inflation is creeping down,” said Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade North America.

Still, oil prices remain elevated and gas prices rose in late July and August, suggesting overall inflation could accelerate next month. On Wednesday, gas averaged $4.04 a gallon nationwide, 16 cents higher than a month ago, according to the motor club AAA.

Inflation has been pushed higher by a series of shocks to the economy, including President Donald Trump’s tariffs imposed last spring, higher gas prices stemming from the U.S attack on Iran, and a surge in investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure that has boosted computer chip prices. The key question for the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve — not to mention for consumers struggling with high gas and grocery prices — is how quickly those one-time effects will fade or whether they will lead to persistently rising prices.

Some companies, however, are still struggling with higher costs from Trump's tariffs.

Julie Robbins, CEO of Earthquaker Devices, an Akron, Ohio-based maker of pedals used to create effects for guitars, said her company has paid $200,000 in tariffs this year and has had to raise prices twice to offset the costs.

Only a small amount of those tariffs have been refunded after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's emergency duties. Robbins is worried they will have to raise prices again as the White House has sought to impose new tariffs to replace the ones that lost due to the Supreme Court decision.

Her company's electric bills have also risen in recent months and the rising costs of fuel have pushed up her shipping costs.

“I am just seeing more and more costs going up all the time,” Robbins said. “The money we paid on tariffs, that easily could have paid for two or three more employees.”

Gas, grocery prices fell, while computers, airfares rose

Wednesday's report showed that gasoline prices fell 2.9% from June to July, and even grocery prices declined slightly, falling by 0.1%. Yet gas prices are 25% higher than a year ago. And groceries are 2.7% more expensive than a year earlier.

Hotel room prices dropped 2.8% from June to July, likely reflecting the end of the World Cup tournament. Clothing costs rose just 0.1%, though they are up 3.9% in the past year.

Other things are growing more expensive: Computer prices jumped 3.5% from June to July, reflecting a decision by Apple to sharply raise prices for its computers and tablets as AI spending pushes up the cost of semiconductors. Smartphone prices rose 1.1%.

Airline fares rose 2.2% from June to July as jet fuel prices spiral higher along with oil.

Price increases have stayed above the Fed's 2% target for more than five years, suggesting there is more than temporary factors at play.

The cost of services such as healthcare, restaurant meals, and car maintenance rose 3% in July from a year earlier, and they aren't particularly sensitive to gas prices or AI investment. Rising costs for services often reflect higher wages, as companies charge more to offset the cost of higher pay. But incomes aren't growing fast enough to sustain inflation, economists note.

It's a confounding situation that has left many economists — and Fed officials — seeking more information to determine where inflation is headed.

“You've got all these things that are just not the way the economy used to behave,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, said.

For many consumers, years of sharply rising grocery prices have led them to adopt a wide range of coping strategies, from comparison shopping, to couponing, to cutting back on favorite foods.

Retailers, including Walmart, have responded by rolling back food prices, a trend that could have lowered July's inflation figures. Yet many other businesses are still passing on higher costs.

Paint company Sherwin-Williams is planning an 8% price increase in September to offset higher raw material costs, CEO Heidi Petz said late last month.

“We are seeing the impact of higher oil and related cost pressures, and we expect continued volatility throughout the balance of the year,” she said.

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AP Writer Anne D'Innocenzio contributed to this report from New York.

Who knew there is a designation between Hawaiian and “Mainlander”? Interesting conversation over delicious food. The things Rance does for the River City Live Viewers...

1661 Riverside Ave.

www.makaipokebar.com

The 30-foot (9-meter) model of a Dutch Kitchenette opened to the public last month as part of the 150th anniversary celebration of Coppes Napanee, one of two companies still in existence that manufactured the popular Hoosier cabinets more than a century ago. The cabinet name was coined after its largest producer, the Hoosier Manufacturing Co.

Dubbed the world’s largest Hoosier cabinet, the replica built against a brick background is equipped with stairs leading to a loft that visitors to the town of Nappanee can look out from. It overlooks Coppes Commons, the site of the original Coppes Napanee factory that has been converted to an indoor marketplace, artisan hub and museum. The company still produces custom cabinets next door.

Wesley Mast, owner and president of Coppes Napanee, said he typically hears two types of responses when visitors first see the giant cabinet.

“There’s the one extreme where people are like, ‘Why? Why such a big cabinet?’” Mast said. “And my response is always like, ‘Why not?’

“The other response we get is like, ‘That’s so cool. Where did you get this idea? I love it.’”

Mast said the cabinet “brings us another level of attention and branding and makes this place more of a destination than just a pass-through.”

The Hoosier cabinet is a freestanding kitchen workstation and storage area that centralized and sped up food preparation. The cabinets were popular from the 1890s through the 1930s but waned after World War II as built-in, wall-to-wall cabinetry became the norm in new home construction.

A century ago, “this was the kitchen,” Mast said. “This was kind of the first piece of furniture that went into the house as a kitchen and was considered all-in-one, the kitchen itself in just one piece.”

There were 5,000 dealers of Hoosier cabinets across the country, said Mary Figueroa, curator of History at the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, which has four Hoosier cabinets in its collection.

Prior to the Hoosier cabinet, a kitchen area would have some shelves, a separate work table and a corner cupboard. “But this was a piece of furniture that kind of consolidated all of that, allowed women to save their steps and have everything that they could possibly need to make a meal right at their fingertips,” Figueroa said.

The Hoosier cabinet had space for storing items such as flour, sugar, spices, loaves of bread and other pantry supplies. They were nicknamed “kitchen pianos” because everything that was needed was within close range. They had built-in flour sifters and came with small cookbooks with recipes involving meats, soups, breads or desserts, among other things. Advertising for the cabinets even made the promise to “strengthen your marriage” and “make you more beautiful” because of the time and steps that it saved for women, Figueroa said.

Nappanee is located in Elkhart County, a region known as a top U.S. hub for recreational vehicle manufacturing, wood products production and home to the third-largest Amish settlement in the nation. It is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of Indianapolis.

And now, add Nappanee as a potential tourist attraction for the colossal cabinet.

“It’s bringing awareness,” Figueroa said. “I mean, you can’t miss it.”

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Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

The Mozarteum Foundation on July 15 unveiled 320 statuettes, barely 50 centimeters (less than 20 inches) high, showing Mozart with his dog. They were designed by German conceptual artist Ottmar Hörl.

Within two weeks, more than 80 of the polymer figures had disappeared. By Wednesday, a total of 210 were missing.

“The worst thing for an artist is when his work dissolves,” Hörl told the German news agency dpa. He said he did not believe visitors stole the works but rather that it was an “organized theft.”

Hörl intended to sell the statues for about 100 euros ($114) once the exhibition was over, meaning whoever ran away with 210 mini-Mozarts has not become an overnight millionaire.

The mini-Mozarts populated not only the garden of the composer's former house, but also his living quarters as well as several pavilions.

While the organizers put aside some spare statuettes in case of theft, there were too few to compensate for the actual losses. And in a further stroke of bad luck, the manufacturer of the statues was away on holidays, so there was no quick fix.

The exhibition of statuettes, now more widely spaced, is scheduled to remain on display until Aug. 30.

For Hörl, who is known from his sculptures made from polymer, the theft of his artworks is nothing new. At an installation in Bayreuth, Germany, a complete array of statues of Richard Wagner was stolen within 10 days.

“That’s just the nature of public space. That means when you work as an artist in a public space, you mustn’t complain about what is happening there,” Hörl said. “It ranges from destruction to theft. That’s just how it is.”

Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756, in Salzburg, where the Mozarteum Foundation offers concerts, maintains Mozart museums and supports research on him.

“I didn’t want to do a monument of Mozart. There are already enough of these. But I wanted to show his human side, that he was a normal human being despite his genius,” Hörl told The Associated Press.

To give the statues a human touch, Hörl depicted the composer with his favorite dog, Pimperl. Mozart and his family were known to take long walks with their dogs in the Mirabell Garden, next to where they lived.

“There’s a part of me which says, ‘you didn’t write that,’” he recalls of composing his debut album, “Life Is a Dream.” “What’s it called? Impostor syndrome.”

Thankfully, it did not stop him from finishing the collection of 12 compositions he crafted over six decades.

Conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra and recorded at London's Alexandra Palace in April, it will be released by Decca Records on Aug. 21.

“My first love, or vocation really, is music,” said the 88-year-old actor. “That sounds very official, but I was raised with a lot of music (of the) postwar years, and it influenced me. And I started playing the piano when I was quite young.”

He picked up the instrument at 4 and began composing years later, writing his first piece, a waltz, in 1960. He was 22 at the time.

“I find more freedom with music,” he says, compared to acting, which he labels “a discipline, you have to know your stuff. But music for me is a freewheeling kind of art form.”

And he's had his fair share of experience. Prior to the release of “Life Is a Dream,” Hopkins had composed scores for a number of films.

“The opening of ‘Shadowlands’ is my first adventure in composing music,” he said, referring to the 1993 film he starred in as “The Chronicles of Narnia” author C.S. Lewis. Then he composed for a few other movies, including 1996’s “August,” 2007’s “Slipstream” and 2020’s “Elyse.”

Hopkins' childhood informed ‘Life Is A Dream’

“It's about my childhood,” he says of the album, which shares its title with the Pedro Calderón de la Barca play. “It's basically the memories of my childhood and growing up in Wales, and my developments in life, my adolescent years,” and so on.

But he says “there’s a great sadness in it all because — don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a wonderful life — but underneath it all, there is the knowledge that life is one long goodbye. From the moment we’re born, we begin to die,” he starts to laugh. “Sounds so cheerful!”

That tension — or better put, wisdom — carries throughout the release. Take the first single as an example. “1947: Suite for Solo Piano and Orchestra: II. Bracken Road” is the middle composition in a three-part suite about a particular summer in South Wales. He says it contains a “melancholy and sadness,” a sense that arises with its cello.

“It’s the welcomed sound of nostalgia, of the strange, whimsical pain of life,” he describes the song. “All music is actually based in pain. Sounds pretty preposterous, but it is. It’s about the yearning.”

The same can be said about the song “Stella Aria” — named after his wife, director and actor Stella Hopkins — that deals with “the loneliness in all of us,” he says, but is part of a path to “sheer happiness.”

Hopkins has been reflecting for quite some time now — both in his memoir, “We Did OK, Kid,” released last fall — and on this album. “I look at my own life now, and especially this year; I’m going to be 89 at the end of the year. And I look back and I’m thinking, ‘good God, I couldn’t have planned any of this.’ From the moment I decided to become an actor, 70 years ago, I thought … ‘Why did I do that?’ I didn’t know, because I was pretty useless in school? I didn’t know what else to do. So I tried for a scholarship, became an actor instead of a musician. And suddenly I’m given a huge plate of success by some force of nature.”

“I'm without fear of mortality,” he adds. “I'm just so grateful I’ve lived this long.”

How Bradley Cooper was instrumental in the album

In a surprising turn of events, actor Bradley Cooper “passed me on to Dudamel,” says Hopkins, after witnessing Hopkins' composition a few years before with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Seal. Dudamel was on board.

But when it came time to record at Alexandra Palace earlier this year, “I’m sitting there thinking, ‘How the hell did I write this?' I have no idea,” said Hopkins. “And Dudamel said, ‘This is wonderful.’ … He is one of the most astonishing people I’ve met. He’s so full of life and so full of energy and love, and it’s quite extraordinary.”

It's a shared affection.

“The same depth of imagination, humanity and emotional truth that has defined his extraordinary work on stage and screen is present in his music,” Dudamel said in a statement. “Anthony approaches music with the heart of a storyteller and the instincts of a poet, creating sound worlds that are both deeply personal and universally resonant.”

Live performance may be on the horizon

After his debut album, live performances may be next. Top of Hopkins' list is Carnegie Hall.

“That’s where I want to go. That’s what I want,” he says.

The 1947 film “Carnegie Hall” was a formative film for him, and he has the distinct memory of his mother saying, “You play at Carnegie Hall one day.”

It is yet another dream in a life full of them.

Founded in 1934 as the first neurosurgical practice in Florida, world-renowned neurosurgeons collaborate to diagnose and treat a wide range of conditions of the spine, brain and nervous system.

Multi-disciplinary teams provide advanced, precise and personalized treatments for complex neurological conditions. To learn more on back and neck treatments, go to BaptistJax.com/Back.

With the improvements, the search giant hopes to give users a reason to buy new models and expand the number of people using its AI tools.

“Google continues to tout new software features, primarily around AI, as the reason to upgrade," said Forrester senior analyst Andrew Cornwall. He noted the company has added a way to extract photos from videos, a teleprompter, video stabilization, and an improved speech-to-text feature.

While the Pixel phones are not as popular as Apple's iPhone, Google has been steadily increasing the amount of AI on its Pixel phones since 2023.

Apple, meanwhile, has been lagging behind. It announced new AI advances in June, focusing on how the technology can help with people's day-to-day lives, with a focus on privacy and security — using Google's Gemini AI model to do so.

Google said in a presentation to reporters last week that the new phones will double the previous storage size, starting at 256 gigabytes, and feature 30 hours of battery life and faster wireless charging. The company has eliminated the 128 gigabyte Pixel 11, which had been its lowest-priced option at $800.

Beginning Wednesday, U.S. customers can order the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL, starting at $900, $1,100 and $1,300, respectively. The Pixel Pro Fold, meanwhile, starts at $1,900. That's a $100 increase for each phone from last year's prices.

New features include live translation for videos, podcasts and voice messages. In the Pro models, a tool called HiLight lets you assign a color to your favorite contacts and have the phone light up in that color when they call and your phone is placed face down. It complements Pixel's “Flip to Shhh” feature that puts the phone in “do not disturb” mode when it is placed face down.

Google is also offering a free six-month subscription to its AI Pro plan to anyone who buys the more expensive Pixel 11 Pro or Pixel 11 Pro XL models. The company is hoping to hook more people on the AI Gemini tool kit, which it assembled to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Camera upgrades include a new mode called Magic Capture, which automatically takes a series of photos and video with a single tap of the shutter button. Google said the cameras also feature improved light sensitivity and, for Pro models, Instant Night Sight captures shots in dark environments faster, so you don't have to hold your phone still while waiting for exposure.

Google also introduced a tracking device for the first time. Called Pixel Tag, it will cost $30 for one or $100 for a four-pack and is compatible with phones running Android 9 or higher.

And the way has been paved for a new type of flu shot.

Dr. Steven Goldberg, Chief Medical Officer of HealthTrack, joined us on The Morning Show to discuss the latest news concerning vaccines.

And while extracurriculars can be great for building skills and confidence, researchers say there can be a tipping point.

One recent analysis found that when kids’ days get too packed with homework and enrichment activities, the extra time may do less to help them and more to hurt their mental well-being.

“Too much of something that is really good for us can be harmful as well,” said Didem Alpaslan, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor.

Extracurriculars can absolutely be good for children. They can build confidence, skills, friendships, and routine.

The problem is when the calendar gets so packed there’s no room left for rest, free play, family time, or even sleep.

Overscheduling kids can lead to burnout. A recent study examined the link between mental health and the number of activities kids participated in.

Researchers found those who spent more time in extracurricular activities were more likely to struggle with anxiety, depression, and anger.

“Children who have really tight schedules and are always on the go, they don’t learn how to slow down and be present in the moment,” said Alpaslan.

Some signs your child is overscheduled?

They’re more moody than usual. Or they feel anxious or lose interest in things they once loved.

Some kids have physical symptoms, like stomach aches, headaches, or trouble sleeping. And their grades might slip.

So, what should you do? First: schedule some unstructured time.

“When they come home, maybe having a couple hours downtime where they can do interactive play,” explained Alpaslan.

Also model resting yourself so your child recognizes the importance of slowing down. Because sometimes the most important thing a child needs isn’t another activity, it’s a little room to breathe.

Don’t underestimate boredom. Experts say unstructured playtime helps kids build creativity, problem-solving skills, independence, and emotional regulation, all things a packed calendar can crowd out.

The country has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Asia despite its fairly restrictive gun laws. The two recent shootings, both in Nonthaburi province northwest of the capital Bangkok, have intensified calls for tighter controls on firearms.

A student opened fire at his high school and family home on Friday, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 20 before apparently taking his own life, according to police. Three days later, a former lawmaker was arrested after a shooting at a government office that killed one person and injured another.

Government spokesperson Lalida Persvivatana said the government is working to strengthen gun regulations and crack down on illegal firearms.

The ultimate goal is “to find ways to remove guns from people’s daily lives as much as possible and make Thai society safer,” she said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul ordered an urgent review of gun regulations, including a suspension of new permits to purchase firearms and a review of existing permits, according to a statement from the Government House.

He also instructed the Interior Ministry to propose amendments to Thailand's gun control laws within 60 days. The changes are expected to bolster the collection of firearms data, tighten controls on the gun trade and increase penalties for offenders.

Penalties for unlawful possession of firearms in Thailand include prison terms of one to 10 years and fines of up to 20,000 baht ($600). While the licensing laws are strict, critics say there are weaknesses in enforcement.

The measures announced Tuesday include the immediate suspension of welfare gun programs, which allowed public officials, including civil servants, police and soldiers, local officials and lawmakers, to buy guns at a discount through government subsidies. Gun control experts say the poorly regulated resale of the guns contributed to their proliferation.

Thailand’s high rate of gun ownership is second only to Pakistan in Asia, and far surpasses its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Data collected in 2017 by the groups Small Arms Survey and GunPolicy.org found that Thai civilians owned about 15 guns per 100 people, compared with less than one per 100 people in neighboring Malaysia.

Thailand had 3.49 deaths by firearms per 100,000 people, according to 2023 statistics published by World Population Review. That puts it well behind parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, but it is relatively high in Asia. Only the Philippines is higher in Southeast Asia.

While mass shootings are still rare in Thailand, the country has seen an uptick in high-profile attacks in recent years.

Michael E. Picard, a security analyst who researches arms trafficking in Southeast Asia, told The Associated Press that he hasn't seen much evidence of the effectiveness of gun control measures enacted after previous mass killings in 2020 and 2022 that each left more than two dozen people dead.

In reaction to last week's school shootings, in which the gun used was reported to be legally registered to the shooter's grandfather, he said increasing safe storage requirements for gun licenses would be an important step.

More broadly, if bribes are paid to get a gun permit, corruption in the government agency that administers licenses needs to be rooted out, he said.

The welfare gun programs also need to be scrapped, Picard suggested, adding that "the government should buy back, safely store, or organize an amnesty for the millions of welfare guns out there."

The primary area to watch is a tropical wave located roughly 800 miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands as of the 2 a.m. Wednesday advisory. Its showers and thunderstorms are becoming better organized, and environmental conditions are expected to support additional development. The National Hurricane Center gives the system a 70% chance of formation within 48 hours and an 80% chance over seven days. A tropical depression will likely form within the next couple of days as the disturbance moves west to west-northwest across the central Atlantic.

This potential system remains thousands of miles from the United States, and it is much too early to determine whether it will eventually threaten any land areas. Its long-range track will depend heavily on the strength and position of high pressure over the Atlantic, along with any weaknesses capable of turning the system farther north. For now, there is no immediate threat to Florida, but this is the system we will watch most closely over the coming days.

Farther north, Disturbance #2 is located about 1,000 miles east-northeast of Bermuda. Although satellite wind data indicate the broad low has produced gale-force winds, its circulation remains elongated and its thunderstorms have recently become less organized. A brief tropical storm could still form as it moves quickly east to east-northeast, but it should reach cooler water by Thursday, ending its opportunity for development. Formation odds remain at 50% through both 48 hours and seven days. Because this system is moving away over the open Atlantic, it poses no threat to Florida or the southeastern United States.

A third tropical wave has emerged just off the coast of western Africa. Its showers and thunderstorms remain disorganized, but conditions could allow some gradual development as it travels west to west-northwest across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic. Formation odds stand at 10% within 48 hours and 20% over seven days. This system is also a very long way from the United States and will require several days of monitoring.

One important reminder: the percentages displayed by the National Hurricane Center represent the chance that a tropical depression or storm will form—not the likelihood of a hurricane, landfall or impacts at a particular location. Right now, there is no reason for alarm in Florida, but we are entering the portion of hurricane season when tropical activity typically increases, so checking the forecast regularly is always a good idea

Of that group, 49 were retained.

Another 50 possible jurors were brought in on Tuesday morning, and 32 of them were retained, giving attorneys a pool of 82 potential jurors moving on to Phase 2, which will begin on Wednesday.

Along with individual conversations with Judge London Kite about potential hardships or knowledge about the case or the people involved, juror candidates were asked to fill out a questionnaire to narrow the jury pool.

The goal was to get a large group to choose from as they ask more detailed questions, starting Wednesday.

In the meantime, Kite has explained to the jurors that they can not look up anything about the case.

As part of the preparation for trial, Kite previously ordered that the seated jurors’ names be kept anonymous until 60 days after the trial, which is typical in high-profile cases.

Those chosen for the jury panel will hear the case against Fernandez, who is the first of three defendants to face trial in the high-profile Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case.

RELATED | Who was Jared Bridegan? A father, a creative builder, a believer — and so much more

Fernandez, along with his now-estranged wife, Shanna Gardner, is accused of hiring Henry Tenon, a former tenant of Fernandez, to shoot and kill Bridegan in Jacksonville Beach in February 2022.

Bridegan, a 33-year-old father of four, was Gardner’s ex-husband. They were in ongoing custody disputes over their twin children.

Gardner, Fernandez and Tenon are all under indictment for first-degree murder and other charges and have each pleaded not guilty.

Despite initially being indicted on four charges, Fernandez will now be tried only on first-degree murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony in the case that has garnered national attention.

Prosecutors announced during a recent hearing that the other two charges Fernandez had been indicted on -- conspiracy to commit murder and child abuse -- had been dropped.

NEW INFORMATION: Prosecutor drops bombshell in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case: Accused gunman was not alone on night of shooting | RELATED: Defense attorneys for Mario Fernandez briefly discussed plea deal with state in Jared Bridegan murder-for-hire case

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

Fernandez will go on trial first, with jury selection slated for Aug. 10-14, and his trial scheduled for Aug. 17-28.

Gardner will go on trial after Fernandez, with jury selection from Aug. 31-Sept. 4, and the trial from Sept. 8-25.

Tenon will go on trial in March 2027.

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

Prosecution bombshell

While arguing a motion at a recent hearing, Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi revealed information about the case that was new to the public.

Speaking for the prosecution, Mizrahi said the state has evidence that multiple people were involved in the ambush shooting that killed Bridegan in February 2022 in Jacksonville Beach.

Previously, the state had only said that Tenon, the alleged hired gunman, was at the scene and fired the fatal shots after leaving a tire in the road to force Bridegan to get out of his SUV.

Now, the state has indicated that Tenon was not alone at the shooting scene.

“When the victim was killed, there is a person that fled on foot and a person that fled in a vehicle. We know that Henry Tenon left his DNA behind on that tire. And we know that Henry Tenon was not driving the pick-up truck that fled the scene,” Mizrahi said, arguing that this was proof of a deeper conspiracy in the case.

It’s unclear if the state is implying that Fernandez was driving the truck that night or if it was someone else.

“If we go back to the time that Jared Bridegan was murdered, we know there were so many questions about who could’ve done this,” Schott said. “We know there are months and months and probably pages of data that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was able to gather about why and how Jared Bridegan was murdered.”

During the hearing, Mizrahi pointed to the landlord-tenant relationship between Fernandez and Tenon as evidence that the two were connected, but said the state also has evidence of communications between the two in the days, weeks and “on the day of the particular crime.”

Timeline: How we got here

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

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

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

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

A tire was in the road.

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

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

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

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

The state has since said that the shooter ran off on foot and someone else drove away from the scene in a pick-up truck.

Prosecutors also said they have Tenon’s DNA on the tire that was left in the road.

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

Eventually, detectives tracked down the man they say pulled the trigger.

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

Interactive Timeline

Alleged murder-for-hire scheme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, Tenon initially pleaded guilty, but has since withdrawn his guilty plea.

He is now under indictment for some of the same charges as Gardner and Fernandez.

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

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

State prosecutors initially said they would be seeking the death penalty against Gardner and Fernandez if they were convicted, but they have since taken the death penalty off the table, with the support of Bridegan’s widow, Kirsten, and his family.

News4JAX received complaints from people at three different schools about AC problems, all while high-heat advisories are in effect. Among those raising concerns is a mother who says her special-needs son may need to switch schools because of the conditions.

A mother’s concern

Mia Parker recorded video of her 5-year-old non-verbal autistic son, Myozjh Mason, being pulled from school Monday, visibly sweaty because she says the air conditioning was not working.

“My son is on medication. He also has allergies. If the air is not flowing, they can’t thrive off that,” Parker said.

Parker says she reached out to the school principal, district office and teachers — but still wants to pull her child from the school.

“They had all summer to fix it and they didn’t. Also, I said to her, y’all are teachers. You all are very smart around here. Why didn’t y’all move these kids to another room that had proper AC,” Parker said. “She said it wasn’t hot enough.”

Parker also questioned the district’s awareness of the scope of the problem.

“If you’re operating an elementary school, you should be aware of how many rooms are down with AC,” she said.

Complaints span multiple schools

The concerns are not limited to one school or one part of town. The News4JAX I-Team received a message from a student at First Coast High School stating the school had been operating for two days without air conditioning.

A complaint was also filed about Loretto Elementary in the Mandarin area of Jacksonville.

District responds

Duval County Public Schools sent a district-wide email to families acknowledging the problem and outlining the steps being taken to address it.

“We do want to acknowledge the intermittent AC outages that have occurred at some schools across the district. We understand how concerning these situations can be for families, and we want you to know that we take these issues seriously,” the district wrote.

The district says its HVAC team is working quickly to make repairs, and that students may be temporarily moved to cooler areas of the building while work is being completed.

“The safety and well-being of our students and staff remain top priorities. When an air conditioning problem is reported, our dedicated HVAC team works diligently to make repairs as quickly as possible,” the district said.

The district also shared a specific response about Loretto Elementary:

We are aware that yesterday, Loretto Elementary School experienced intermittent AC issues in a couple of their classrooms. HVAC staff were on site working to make the necessary repairs. Students in the affected classrooms were relocated to a room with working air conditioning while the issue was being addressed. Below is the communication the principal shared with Loretto families.

Family Communication

Hello Loretto Elementary School families,

We are excited to welcome our students back for what promises to be a wonderful school year.

However, we wanted to make you aware that a couple of our classrooms are currently experiencing AC issues.  We have notified the district’s HVAC team so they can address the situation as quickly as possible.  

Please know that the well-being of our students remains a top priority.  We are doing everything we can to keep our students comfortable while maintaining a positive learning environment.  We will continue to keep you updated as we work through this issue.  Thank you for your patience, and support.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at the school.

DCSP spokesperson

Older schools, long-term fixes

DCPS pointed to the age of its buildings as a key factor in the ongoing challenges.

“As many of you may remember, Team Duval is home to some of the oldest schools in Florida. That is why voters approved the half-penny sales tax in 2020, providing funding to address deferred maintenance and rebuild or modernize more than 140 schools, including replacing and upgrading aging AC systems. We are actively working toward that goal and continue to make meaningful progress,” the district said.

The district is encouraging families with concerns to contact their school’s principal directly, saying principals are committed to working with families and district staff to ensure concerns are addressed quickly and appropriately.

News4JAX is continuing to work to determine how many schools are dealing with air conditioning issues and how long repairs are expected to take.

Speaking on a visit to a Russian warship that was taking part in a naval exercise in the Pacific, Putin described the Western moves to detain vessels linked to Russia as a breach of international maritime law.

“It’s nothing but piracy and robbery,” Putin said. “If this is done, we will be forced to respond in kind.”

He added that the Russian response wouldn't necessarily come in the waters where the Russian ships were seized, noting that Moscow could retaliate “in any area where we see it as necessary and appropriate,” including in the Pacific.

The Pacific Fleet chief, Adm. Viktor Liina, reported to Putin that the navy was ready to start inspections of the commercial ships serving the “unfriendly nations.” He noted that many of the ships operated by British, French and other European carriers fly the flags of other nations, effectively making them a “shadow fleet.”

“We have enough assets for inspection and detention of vessels of the unfriendly nations and their shadow fleet,” Liina told Putin. “We are ready to start performing the task.”

Russia is believed to be using a fleet of hundreds of ships to evade international sanctions imposed after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

France and the U.K. have detained tankers suspected of being of Russia's “shadow fleet” shipping oil in violation of international sanctions. The EU has sanctioned hundreds of “shadow fleet” ships.

Russia has recently started deploying warships to escort its commercial vessels.

Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president in 2008-2012 to let Putin observe term limits and is now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, noted that many ships belonging to European carriers fly the so-called “flags of convenience” just like Russian carriers do.

“It means that by applying a symmetrical approach, which is only fair, Russia has the right to attack any merchant vessel belonging to hostile nations, whether in our waters or in neutral waters, provided there are reasonable grounds to suspect it is carrying cargo in the enemy’s interest, and that applies to any cargo,” Medvedev said. “There are a great many such vessels, and our military is capable of dramatically expanding operations well beyond the Black Sea basin.”

Zhu died in Beijing at around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, the official news agency Xinhua reported.

Once sent into rural exile to do manual labor for praising reforms in other communist countries, Zhu pushed through a dizzying array of changes as premier, China’s top economic post, from 1998 to 2003 under former President Jiang Zemin.

Zhu clashed with Communist Party conservatives and state industry bosses as he pushed state-owned companies to become efficient and profitable. That cost millions of layoffs, but helped propel China to overtake Japan as the second-largest economy behind the United States in 2010.

Building on former leader Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 reforms, Zhu is credited with supplying the resourcefulness and tenacity to push through history-making changes such as China’s WTO membership, which helped to transform China into the world’s biggest exporter.

Those changes helped to keep economic growth above 8% a year from 2000 to 2010, peaking at 14.2% in 2007.

A spiky personality who fought corruption and conservatives

Named premier in 1998 at age 69, Zhu became a popular figure by criticizing official bungling and graft and accepting blame when the government fell short. His demanding style earned him the nicknames Boss and Zhu Fengzi, or Madman Zhu.

“I have prepared 100 coffins here — 99 for corrupt officials and one for myself,” Zhu said in 1998, according to the party newspaper People’s Daily.

Zhu ranked No. 3 in the party hierarchy behind Jiang and Li Peng, chairman of the ceremonial legislature, the National People’s Congress. But he was a technician without his own power base. Zhu complained that allowed officials to ignore his orders.

Zhu made his name as a deputy premier in the 1990s by crushing inflation. He enforced price controls and cut off loans to money-losing state companies, rebuffing resistance by local leaders — a pattern Zhu would repeat as he fought conservatives over the pace of reform.

Zhu led efforts to secure WTO membership following marathon negotiations that began in the 1980s. That status would enshrine free trade as a national commitment, giving Zhu a tool to force local officials to stop protecting favored companies.

Zhu’s campaign was nearly derailed when he went to Washington in 1999 with market-opening concessions to win U.S. endorsement of the WTO bid. The Clinton administration rejected the offer as inadequate, while his political enemies at home accused him of offering too much, but Zhu survived and China went on to join the body in December 2001.

Zhu launched China’s home ownership boom in 1998 with an initiative to sell apartments owned by state companies. Families rushed to buy, and within a decade the majority of urban housing was privately owned.

Still, Zhu was less an advocate of free enterprise than a skilled bureaucrat who carried out party orders to whip state industry into shape.

Zhu showed no interest in privatizing the economy. He played a key role in drafting plans in the 1990s to turn banks, airlines, oil companies and other enterprises into profit-oriented corporations but to retain government ownership.

Zhu stood out for admitting official failings

Born Oct. 23, 1928, in Mao Zedong’s home province of Hunan, Zhu paid an early price for his willingness to take risks and speak out.

After a start as an economic planner, his career went into a 22-year eclipse when he was labelled a “rightist” in 1957 for praising reforms in Hungary and Yugoslavia. He was banished to the countryside during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution to do manual labor.

Rehabilitated in 1979, Zhu rose swiftly, becoming deputy Shanghai party secretary in 1987 and mayor the next year.

As mayor in 1989, Zhu gained a reputation for moderation when he placated protesters and pledged not to call in the military.

“He managed to defuse, with considerable subtlety, a tense political situation that could have developed into localized violence or worse if the military had felt it necessary to intervene,” wrote Australian diplomat Shelley Warner in the 1991 book “The Pro-Democracy Protests in China: Reports from the Provinces.”

Zhu’s boss, Jiang, would soon be called to Beijing by Deng and made party leader. Zhu was named deputy premier in 1991 and joined the party’s ruling Standing Committee in 1993.

Zhu broke with the leadership’s stance of infallibility by admitting and taking blame for official failings.

In 1998, after summer floods killed 4,150 people and officials were accused of embezzling money meant for anti-flood dikes, Zhu complained some barriers were no stronger than bean curd.

Three years later, he apologized on national television for his Cabinet’s failure to protect the public after an explosion in a schoolhouse in southern China killed at least 42 people, most of them children.

Zhu enlivened the party’s bland image by cracking jokes in public, sometimes at his own expense. Laughter erupted at a 1999 news conference when he said a recent photo “made me look like a dead man.”

One of Zhu’s proudest triumphs as deputy premier was to craft a tax system that required local officials to hand more revenue to Beijing. He said in 1996 that he deserved a Nobel Prize in economics for that.

Zhu rarely appeared in public after leaving office as premier.

Zhu was married to Lao An, a fellow Hunan native. Their son, Yunlai, also known as Levin Zhu, is a former CEO of China International Capital Corp., a government-owned investment bank.

Their daughter, Yanlai, led a charity organization supporting schoolchildren that was backed by Zhu Rongji.

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A previous version of this report incorrectly stated that Zhu died at 98. He was 97 years old.

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McDonald is a former Associated Press journalist. AP writer Kanis Leung contributed to this report from Hong Kong.

Dangerous heat remains our biggest weather story today. A Heat Advisory is in effect from noon until 7 p.m. for Northeast Florida and coastal Southeast Georgia. Highs climb into the mid to upper 90s, with heat index values between 105° and 110°.

We’ll start mainly dry, but scattered storms develop this afternoon and evening, with the highest coverage near and north of I-10.

A few storms could become strong to severe, producing frequent lightning, torrential rain and damaging wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph.

Storms gradually fade by midnight.

Thursday stays hot with highs in the upper 90s and feels-like temperatures near 109° locally.

Coastal Southeast Georgia is under an Extreme Heat Watch, where heat indices could reach 112° to 114°.

Daily afternoon storms remain possible through Friday, while near-record heat could continue into the weekend.

Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, is vying to become Wisconsin’s first Black governor and pitched himself as the candidate best positioned to win in November against Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Crowley narrowly defeated democratic socialist Francesca Hong, who was hoping to ride the wave of recent victories by progressive candidates, including Abdul El-Sayed in neighboring Michigan’s U.S. Senate race last week.

El-Sayed's win was the movement’s first major success in a purple state. It also fed fears in the party’s leaders that such candidates, farther afield and often carrying political baggage of past stances such as defunding the police, would struggle to beat Republicans and imperil the party’s hopes of recapturing control of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.

Crowley didn’t address supporters Tuesday night but was expected at a unity event later Wednesday.

“Now, David is focused on bringing people together, earning the support of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone who believes Wisconsin is at its best when we work together and deliver results,” Crowley's campaign manager Garren Randolph said in a statement.

Hong’s loss in Wisconsin may have doused the momentum, but it’s far from snuffing it out. A democratic socialist coming close to victory in a battleground state sends a clear message: There’s unignorable angst among the party’s voters.

“We have built something that will change politics forever,” Hong told supporters as the outcome of the race hung in the balance late Tuesday. “The work we have done will be remembered forever. I know we don’t have the final results right now, but what I do know is we are ready to keep fighting.”

Her campaign manager Becky Cooper said after Hong conceded that she was “proud of the race we ran.”

“Our team campaigned clean, our souls are intact and we really made meaningful change for the progressive movement,” she said.

The Associated Press declared Crowley the winner once Hong’s concession removed the possibility of a recount in the exceptionally close race.

Hong could have requested a recount since Crowley’s margin of victory was less than 1 percentage point. But because it was wider than 0.25 points, Hong’s campaign would have had to pay for it.

Sanders and other top progressives stayed out of the Wisconsin race

Progressives had wanted to notch a clear win, but national progressive leaders, most notably Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sat out the race and did not endorse.

The movement is not entirely aligned. Not all candidates are democratic socialists or have endorsements from Sanders, but they are often tilling similar voter anger with politics and the party: over military aid to Israel, the amount of money wielded in campaigns, the Trump administration’s immigration raids and the high cost of daily life.

In New York City in the June primary elections, two democratic socialist candidates and a progressive came out on top, booting two Democratic incumbents from Congress in the process. All three were backed by the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, himself a democratic socialist who framed the upsets as a question of electing “better Democrats.”

Democrats in Wisconsin are hoping to capitalize on low approval ratings for Trump in a state he won in 2016 and 2024 to retain control of the governor’s office and flip both chambers of the Legislature to earn full control of Wisconsin state government for the first time since 2010.

Wisconsin Democrats are hoping to unite after tight primary battle

Both Hong and Crowley said in the waning days of the race that they expected Democrats to come together and unite to defeat Tiffany, a congressman from conservative, rural northern Wisconsin.

“Our ultimate goal is to make sure we don’t have a MAGA extremist occupying the governor’s office,” Crowley said Sunday.

Democrat David Zimmerman, a 79-year-old retired industrial engineer professor in Madison, voted for Crowley on Tuesday. He said Hong’s chance of beating Tiffany in November “worries me a lot.”

“I think she’s going to have trouble winning,” he said.

The photo finish is just the latest twist in a chaotic primary that saw two major candidates drop out amid scandals. Crowley had also dropped out in early July, but he got back in 10 days later with Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement.

Both of them crisscrossed the state in the final week, making the case that Crowley was the better matchup against Tiffany in a swing state known for close elections where independent, moderate voters often decide the outcome.

Democratic socialist shook up Wisconsin race, fueled by national movement

Hong, a single mother and former line cook, tapped into Democratic anger with the party’s mainstream and Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

The 37-year-old known for sprinkling her comments with profanity and leaning into her edgy and sometimes humorous social media profile excited the liberal wing of the party. Hong called for free childcare and healthcare and a moratorium on artificial intelligence data center construction. But she also wrestled with her past support for defunding the police, saying at the race’s only debate that she would not support cutting law enforcement funding.

She also drew criticism for past social media posts in which she called for canceling Thanksgiving because “we should stop celebrating colonialism” and disparaged Valentine’s Day as “another day capitalism tells you how to show love.”

Hong has since downplayed the posts as her attempt at making jokes.

Chaotic Democratic primary saw candidates drop, come back in

Evers’ decision not to seek a third term created an open race for governor that initially had seven Democrats file to run.

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez appeared to be making a move to consolidate mainstream Democratic support in July, but she dropped out in the middle of the month amid a campaign finance scandal. That led Crowley, who had dropped out a week earlier and endorsed Rodriguez, to get back in the race, this time with Evers’ backing.

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who was seen as an early front-runner after nearly beating Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, bowed out less than two weeks before the election amid questions about inappropriate behavior.

In one more twist, reporting the results of about 28,000 absentee ballots from Milwaukee was delayed until early Wednesday morning after a human error related to uploading the data, the city’s election leader said shortly before midnight Tuesday.

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Associated Press reporter Jesse Bedayn contributed from Austin, Texas.

After acting to overhaul the nation’s vaccine policy and guidance, the Trump administration had recently largely stepped back from additional changes to focus on less controversial subjects, raising questions over the political impetus behind and implications of the Republican president’s renewed focus on vaccines.

For well over a decade, Trump has expressed his view — against medical groups’ guidance — that childhood vaccines should be administered in smaller doses over a long period of time. The executive order sought to bear out that discredited theory.

While the move could endear Trump to some “Make America Healthy Again” voters who want more flexibility on immunizations, it’s also already attracting attacks designed to hurt Trump’s aligned candidates in November’s midterm elections.

Jayme Franklin, a 28-year-old conservative activist who appeared with the president to promote his executive order on Monday, said she thinks the action is “going to go a long way” for MAHA mom voters like herself.

But Shaughnessy Naughton, president of the left-leaning political action committee 314 Action, which aims to elect doctors to office, said she sees the order as “one more data point” in support of Democrats’ cause.

“Our organization and our candidates are certainly going to hammer that message home — that if you want healthcare that’s accessible and affordable, if you want medical advice that is science-based, we need to have accountability in Washington,” she said.

Trump has long called for shots spread out in separate visits

Trump’s doubt in the number and cadence of vaccines dates back at least to 2014, when he posted to social media the disproven claim that combination shots can cause autism and said if he were president he would spread them out.

While he’s since shown pride in his first-term Operation Warp Speed effort to disseminate COVID-19 vaccines quickly and praised certain other shots like the polio vaccine, he also has repeatedly called for reforming the childhood vaccine schedule. While his administration released an assessment comparing U.S. childhood vaccine schedules to peer nations', several of his suggestions have come without any new scientific evidence.

“This is based on what I feel,” Trump said last September when he called for splitting the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine into three single-disease vaccines.

On Monday, he again pushed for separating the MMR shot into three, ordering the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to work on developing that option for children, since it doesn’t currently exist in the United States. Public health experts have warned that spacing out shots could increase the risk of infection with a vaccine-preventable disease before a child returns for the next visit.

Most Americans don’t see reevaluating vaccine safety as a top issue

Trump’s views have aligned him with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before he entered politics.

The president credits Kennedy’s diverse coalition of MAHA followers — whose priorities range from regulating pesticides to ending vaccine mandates — with helping him win back the White House in 2024.

Even as the Trump administration has handed several wins to the MAHA coalition, including changing the federal dietary guidelines and loosening restrictions on peptides, some in the movement have grown impatient as their other priorities remain unfinished. It’s unclear whether Trump’s action to loosen vaccine recommendations, an issue some MAHA supporters are passionate about, will be enough to shore up those voters ahead of the midterms.

Franklin, who runs a conservative magazine, said she had talked with Trump about making vaccine recommendations more flexible at a MAHA roundtable earlier this year. She was pleased when the administration informed her that her requests were coming true.

“I think it just really shows he loves to hear from everyday Americans on how his policies and his administration affect the lives of people who are raising kids in this country,” she said.

But political strategists and Trump’s own pollster Tony Fabrizio have warned that efforts to shave down vaccine recommendations may not matter much to most voters this fall.

Polls show most Americans believe children should be vaccinated to attend school, though Republicans are less likely to see vaccines as important. And as rising prices on things like groceries, gas and healthcare tighten Americans’ budgets, many view the economy as a top issue they care about.

“Nothing in America matters more than affordability,” pollster Frank Luntz said. “And anytime the administration or Republicans goes off affordability, they’re not talking about what Americans really care about.”

Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, said with most Americans viewing vaccines positively, Trump’s announcement “does not strike me as the most persuasive political message.”

Recent polling from the healthcare research nonprofit KFF suggests that even among MAHA supporters, only 10% rank reevaluating vaccine safety as their top priority for the federal government. Higher-ranking priorities included lowering health costs (42%) and restricting chemical additives in the food supply (21%).

Democrats are seizing on Trump’s message

Asked about the timing of the order with the midterms approaching, a White House official who insisted on anonymity to brief reporters said that the move was a longstanding presidential priority and that other health issues voters care about were still being addressed.

To that effect, on the day Trump signed the order, the Food and Drug Administration announced an effort to require more transparency from food manufacturers about new ingredients or additives in foods — something many in the MAHA movement had been calling for.

The administration has also touted its efforts to lower drug prices and crack down on federal health program fraud, which it argues will save taxpayers money.

Still, Democratic candidates, including doctors linked to Naughton’s group 314 Action, seized on Trump’s order in messages to voters this week.

Dr. Richard Pan, a physician running as a Democrat for the U.S. House in Northern California, reposted the American Medical Association's condemnation of Trump's vaccine falsehoods, among other fact checks. He told The Associated Press he thinks voters are deciding between electing people who choose not to hold the administration accountable and those who “stand for the science.”

Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician and Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina, pleaded with voters not to take health information from Trump in a video posted on Instagram in collaboration with the left-leaning Courier Newsroom.

“Do whatever you can to help elect scientists up and down the ballot in November, including sending me to the U.S. Senate,” she said to the camera. “I cannot think of a more urgent time for us to have a pediatrician in the room where these conversations are happening.”

The incident occurred around 10 a.m. along Tynes Boulevard in the Two Creeks area of Middleburg. The victim, an adult woman, was jogging when she passed a man she did not recognize. The two acknowledged each other before the man turned around and attacked her, the sheriff said.

“As she passed by him, the man turned around, grabbed her from behind and pulled her into the woods nearby,” Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook said.

Deputies say the suspect, identified by investigators as 22-year-old Jayson Thomas, dragged the victim into the woods, threw her to the ground and began forcibly removing her clothing. The victim was able to fight him off and run to a nearby home, where residents called 911.

Foot pursuit, arrest

Deputies and detectives responded immediately and began searching for Thomas. During the foot pursuit, they say Thomas fled the woods into a nearby neighborhood, cutting through several backyards.

At some point during the chase, Thomas changed his clothes and entered a home in the Pine Ridge area.

“The owners of that home, who did not know Thomas, confronted him, and he ran away,” Cook said.

Shortly after fleeing that home, the sheriff says Thomas was confronted by deputies and taken into custody.

Cook specifically praised one of the deputies for his relentless effort during the foot pursuit.

“He engaged in a foot pursuit, and as the suspect was jumping fences, this deputy stayed on him,” Cook said. “To have a deputy who’s so focused on catching the bad guy — this is a really bad person.”

“Once the audio comes out of the foot pursuit, I mean, this deputy was gassed. He was exhausted. And he’s going to be mad. He’s 60 years old. But he did not give up this foot pursuit because he knew how bad that guy was.”

Cook also credited an off-duty Florida Highway Patrol trooper and community members for providing key tips that helped narrow down Thomas’s location.

“It took this whole community,” Cook added. “One of my members shared with me — they said it looked like everybody in the agency was out there to find this guy, and that shows the level of commitment that we have to keep this community safe.”

Charges

Thomas was interviewed by detectives and faces four charges:

• Kidnapping
• Attempted sexual battery
• Burglary to an occupied residence
• Resisting without violence

Cook noted that Thomas had been arrested previously in Clay County, but said the existing mugshot no longer resembles him. She asked the public to wait for a recent booking photo to be released.

“My concern is if somebody is this bold at 10 a.m. to grab somebody walking down the sidewalk, we may have other victims out there,” Cook said. “I want a recent photo of him circulated so that if there are any other victims, please come forward. We need to talk to you.”

Woman’s bravery praised

The victim was transported to a local hospital and evaluated for minor injuries. Cook spoke with the victim’s mother, who said her daughter is shaken but will be OK.

“There’s no easy way to describe the courage that it takes to fight back during such a horrifying and frightening situation,” Cook said. “But our victim found that courage, and I’m so proud of her. Her strength and bravery is nothing short of remarkable, and it helped bring our suspect to justice.”

When asked what advice she would give to others who find themselves in a similar situation, Cook was direct.

“Fight, scream, poke, prod, kick, bite,” she said. “Anybody who’s — somebody’s attempting to abduct you — do not go willingly. That never ends well. And this woman did just that. She kicked and fought, and she did good.”

School placed on hold status

Tynes Elementary School was placed on a hold status during the investigation as a precautionary measure.

“I want to make this very clear — this had nothing to do with the school,” Cook said. “The hold placed on the school was out of an abundance of caution because we had a subject running in a nearby neighborhood.”

No connection to Jennings State Forest case

Cook was asked whether Thomas could be connected to a separate case in which a woman was grabbed at Jennings State Forest.

“We don’t believe those two are related,” Cook said. “That subject was described as a white male. The suspect involved in today’s incident is a black male.”

Call for tips, camera footage

Authorities are asking anyone with additional information, or residents of the Pine Ridge neighborhood who may have home camera footage, to come forward.

Tips can be submitted by:

• Calling the Clay County Sheriff’s Office at 904-264-6512
• Submitting tips through Safer Watch
• Contacting Crime Stoppers

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said a ballistic missile fired from the North's eastern coastal Wonsan area around 6 a.m. flew more than 700 kilometers (435 miles). The Japanese Defense Ministry also detected the launch, saying the weapon landed in waters outside its exclusive economic zone, between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

The launches, within days of each other, were seen as part of North Korea’s extended run of weapons tests as the country has refused to return to talks with the U.S. and South Korea for years. Experts say North Korea often uses its rivals’ military training as a pretext to boost its own testing activities.

South Korea's military said it remains ready to repel any provocation by Pyongyang in cooperation with the United States. South Korea's national security council called North Korean ballistic missile launches “acts of provocation” and urged the North to halt them immediately.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters that Japan strongly protested the North Korean launch through their embassies in Beijing. “It’s a serious problem that affects the safety of the Japanese people,” he said.

The latest launch came two days after South Korea and the United States announced they will kick off their annual large-scale military drills on Aug. 17 to beef up readiness against North Korean threats.

North Korea has previously responded to the Ulchi Freedom Shield training and other major South Korea-U.S. military exercises with provocative weapons tests and harsh rhetoric. The U.S. and South Korea have repeatedly said their training is defensive in nature.

After last year's Ulchi Freedom Shield training exercises began, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the drills showed the U.S. and South Korea's “will to ignite a war” and claimed they have grown more provocative than before, which has prompted North Korea to respond with “proactive and overwhelming” countermeasures.

On Aug. 6, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan detected the launch of a short-range ballistic missile from North Korea in what was the North’s first ballistic weapons testing activity since late June. North Korea didn’t confirm the reported launch, though it usually releases details of weapons tests a day later.

Multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from launching ballistic missiles. But North Korea has ramped up ballistic and other weapons testing activities to expand its nuclear and missile arsenals since Kim’s high-stakes diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019. Experts say Kim likely hopes to use his enlarged arsenals to wrest concessions from the U.S., such as relaxing international economic sanctions on the North.

In recent years, Kim has boosted his diplomatic footprint by strengthening cooperation with Russia by supplying troops and ammunition to support its war against Ukraine. He's also recently taken steps to bolster ties with China, the country's traditional ally and economic pipeline. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the North Korean capital Pyongyang in June for the first time in seven years.

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.