The attorneys for the family are holding a news conference on Monday at 9 a.m. to announce the lawsuit.

Vandana Joshi, filing on behalf of the estate of her husband, Tiru Chabba, 45, and their children, said the shooter, Phoenix Ikner, 20, spent months talking with ChatGPT. The lawsuit alleges the AI identified firearms from photos he uploaded, gave instructions on loading and operating guns and disabling safeties, and even offered tactical suggestions such as the best time and casualty counts likely to attract national attention.

Read the full lawsuit below.

The suit said ChatGPT acted sycophantically, reinforced Ikner’s beliefs and failed to flag the exchanges for human review or intervention. It quotes the chatbot as telling the user that “3 or more people killed” — or roughly “5‑6 total victims” — is often enough to push an incident into national headlines.

Joshi’s complaint, filed May 10 in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, names multiple OpenAI entities and brings counts including negligence, gross negligence, strict‑products liability (defective design and failure to warn), negligent entrustment and wrongful death. Battery is alleged against Ikner. The family is seeking compensatory damages and, on some claims, punitive damages, and has demanded a jury trial.

The lawsuit anticipates that OpenAI may invoke Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act but argues the company isn’t entitled to that immunity because it created and trained the model and operates it as an active conversational product rather than a passive platform.

The complaint also criticizes OpenAI’s safety practices, saying the company rushed model rollouts, shortened safety testing and prioritized commercialization amid pressure from investors and partners. The filing notes a criminal probe by the Florida attorney general into OpenAI’s role; the attorney general has said publicly that the company’s conduct is under investigation.

The complaint does not name Florida State University as a defendant.

Starmer argued that he will “face up to the big challenges” and restore hope to the country, in part by forging closer ties with the European Union, six years after the U.K.'s acrimonious departure from the bloc.

“I know I have my doubters and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will,” Starmer said during a speech in London. He vowed to prove to millions of people “tired of a status quo that has failed them” that the government is on their side.

He said Labour is in “a battle for the soul of our nation,” and warned Britain will go down “a dark path” if Reform UK, the anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage, comes to power.

Starmer is warned it's his last chance

Labour lawmaker Catherine West, who had vowed to trigger a leadership challenge if the speech didn’t mark a major turning point, said she would hold off for now, though she urged Starmer to resign by September. Dozens of other lawmakers also have urged him to announce a departure date.

Labour has been plunged into gloom by heavy losses last week in local elections across England and legislative votes in Scotland and Wales. The elections have been interpreted as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he swept to power in a landslide less than two years ago.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, a powerful lawmaker often seen as a potential challenger, said “what we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change.”

Rayner did not explicitly call for Starmer to quit, but accused him of presiding over “a toxic culture of cronyism” and said the government must “stay true to Labour and social democratic values” and ease the cost of living for working people.

“This may be our last chance,” Rayner said on Sunday.

Starmer's government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps and policy U-turns on issues including welfare reform. He has been further hurt by his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

Last week’s elections saw Labour squeezed from both right and left, losing votes to both Reform UK and the “eco-populist” Green Party. The result reflects the increasing fragmentation of British politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.

Starmer hopes to regain momentum with Monday’s speech and an ambitious set of legislative plans to be set out in a speech Wednesday by King Charles III at the State Opening of Parliament.

He told an audience of party lawmakers and activists that the government will take control of Britain's energy, economic and defense security and make the country fairer. He announced plans to nationalize what is left of the once-mighty British Steel, a move that could save some industrial jobs in an area where working-class voters have deserted Labour for Reform UK.

Starmer also pledged to put Britain “at the heart of Europe” and forge closer ties with the 27-nation EU, which the United Kingdom left in 2020. Farage, who spearheaded the Brexit campaign, and Reform UK oppose any move to get closer to the EU.

Brexit has been a drag on the British economy, and President Donald Trump's “America First” economic and foreign policy has spurred Britain to seek closer defense, security and economic cooperation with its European neighbors.

Starmer’s government has already moved to ease trade restrictions with the EU, and he said he will secure a youth mobility deal so young people can spend a few years working across the continent.

Labour supporters are largely anti-Brexit, which failed to deliver the benefits its backers promised. But Starmer has been reluctant to reopen a debate that bitterly divided the country. He has ruled out seeking to reenter the EU, or to rejoin the bloc's customs union or single market, things that would make a big economic difference.

Rivals weigh making a move

None of the high-profile Labour politicians considered potential challengers to Starmer — including Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham — has yet called for him to resign.

West, who had threatened to run against Starmer for the Labour leadership if he didn't give a barnstorming speech, said she would instead ask fellow lawmakers to back a timetable for a new leader to be elected in September.

“What is best for the party and country now is for an orderly transition,” she said.

Several dozen Labour lawmakers have already urged the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure. British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.

But some who attended Starmer's speech said kicking out the man who led them to victory in 2024 would be counterproductive.

“You can't be changing prime ministers two years in,” said Kevin Craig, a former local councilor in London. “It's really important we stay grown-up now.”

Zbigniew Ziobro was a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023. That administration established political control over key judicial institutions by stacking higher courts with friendly judges and punishing its critics with disciplinary action or assignments to faraway locations.

Ziobro announced in January that he had been granted asylum in Hungary, then led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

On Sunday, Ziobro told right-wing Polish broadcaster Republika that he had arrived in the United States the previous day — coinciding with the inauguration in Budapest of Orbán's successor, Péter Magyar, who defeated the longtime leader in an election last month. He said that he was using a document granted to him along with his right to asylum, Polish news agency PAP reported.

Current Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government came to power in late 2023 with ambitions to roll back the judicial changes made by its predecessor, but efforts to undo them have been blocked by two successive presidents aligned with the nationalist right.

In October, prosecutors requested the lifting of Ziobro’s parliamentary immunity to press charges against him. They allege among other things that Ziobro misused a fund for victims of violence, including for the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.

Tusk’s party says Law and Justice used Pegasus to spy illegally on political opponents while in power. Ziobro says he acted lawfully.

On Monday, the national prosecutor's office said in a social media post that it was investigating the whereabouts of Ziobro, and looking into whether other individuals assisted him in "fleeing and evading criminal liability, thereby obstructing the investigation into the justice fund."

Current Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said in a post on X Sunday evening that Poland had invalidated Ziobro's travel documents, including his diplomatic passport, and that Warsaw will ask the U.S. and Hungary about the legal basis for Ziobro to leave Hungarian territory and enter the United States.

Ziobro's travels raise the possibility of tension between Warsaw and Washington.

Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maciej Wewiór told The Associated Press that “we don’t want this issue to become political."

“Our relationship with the U.S. goes much deeper than what happens with Ziobro," he said. "But we do want our citizen to eventually return to Poland and face justice.”

The House, which is dominated by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s allies, voted 257-25 with nine abstentions. The two impeachment complaints against Duterte, which will now be elevated to the Senate for a trial, mark an initial setback to her plan to seek the presidency in 2028.

Shortly before the impeachment vote in the House, Senate President Vicente Sotto III, who had vowed to immediately put the vice president to trial, was ousted by 13 of 24 senators, including supporters of the vice president and her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte.

It's not immediately clear how the vice president's impending impeachment trial would be affected by the Senate leadership change, but Sotto told reporters that he and his allies in the Senate would insist that the proceedings against the vice president should be immediately taken up once submitted.

A standoff in the Senate

A tense standoff ensued when Sen. Roland dela Rosa, a supporter of former President Duterte, who is facing trial before the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, suddenly appeared in the Senate after months of absence. National Bureau of Investigation officers tried to run after dela Rosa but failed to reach him as he dashed into the Senate's plenary hall and sought the protection of fellow senators.

Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in March last year and detained in the Netherlands on charges of crimes against humanity. The charges are in connection with deadly anti-drugs crackdowns he ordered while he was in office.

Dela Rosa once served as the national police chief under Duterte, and was the first to enforce the bloody campaign against illegal drugs that left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead. Philippine police officials have summoned dela Rosa to appear before them for an investigation into his role in the Duterte-era killings.

Duterte had survived an impeachment bid last year

The vice president has generally denied any wrongdoing without answering the criminal allegations against her in detail. Her lawyers said Monday they were ready to defend her in a trial.

“While questions of constitutional significance remain pending before the Supreme Court, we are fully prepared to defend the vice president before the Senate,” the lawyers said in a statement, adding that “it is incumbent upon the prosecution to discharge the burden of proof.”

She has repeatedly accused Marcos, his wife and his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, of corruption, weak leadership and attempting to muzzle her because of speculation she may seek the presidency in 2028 when Marcos’ six-year term ends.

Last year, she was also impeached by the House but survived by successfully petitioning the Supreme Court to declare the impeachment bid unconstitutional on a technicality.

Rep. Gerville Luistro, who heads the House Justice Committee, said the impeachment complaints included several criminal allegations, like huge bank transactions over the years that Duterte has not declared as required by law and misuse of confidential funds of her office as vice president and as education secretary, a post she once held under Marcos.

Luistro also cited threats made by the vice president during an online news conference in 2024 to have Marcos, his wife and Romualdez killed by an assassin if she herself was assassinated, as their political disputes escalated. The vice president then warned that her threat wasn’t a joke.

The vice president later said she wasn’t threatening him but was expressing concern for her own safety. Her threatening remarks set off a criminal investigation and national security concerns.

“These are matters that go into the integrity and accountability and fitness of a public official occupying the second highest position in our government,” Rep. Leila de Lima, who endorsed one of two impeachment complaints against Duterte, told fellow lawmakers.

“Impeachment is not political persecution,” de Lima said in response to allegations by Duterte's followers.

The vice president's husband, Manases Carpio, has filed criminal complaints against Luistro and other legislators and officials after government records of the couple’s bank transactions were made public in a recent House hearing. They said that violated the country’s bank secrecy law.

The vice president remains popular, based on independent surveys. Sara Duterte and President Marcos were running mates in a whirlwind alliance in the 2022 election but have since had a bitter falling out.

She has accused Marcos of allowing the ICC to carry out what she described as the “kidnapping” of her father in violation of Philippine laws.

The Palatka Police Department said Lazayeus Bartley will be charged with two counts of aggravated battery and one count of aggravated fleeing and eluding with injuries. They said the incident is still under investigation and more charges could be added.

The incident, which sent multiple victims to area hospitals, began at around 8 p.m. at the intersection of North 20th Place and Eagle Street, according to the Palatka PD.

Officers said a man, later identified as Bartley, drove through the crowd, striking multiple bystanders and vehicles in the area, and officers who were working at the block party tried to stop him.

RELATED |‘I don’t wanna see nothing like that again’: Neighbors react to driver plowing through Palatka block party

Palatka PD said Bartley drove away but returned moments later, crashing into a patrol vehicle and hitting more people and other cars.

Police said that’s when officers started firing at the truck, which crashed.

Video circulating on social media shows the moments when officers fired at Bartley, who crashed the truck and was then taken into custody, according to police.

Bartley was taken to a nearby hospital, where he has since been released and booked into the Clay County jail, where he was arrested.

One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said they know Bartley and are shaken by what happened.

“When I was on my way back, the shooting started, and then I was like, worried about my kids, my grandkids, and really everybody that was going to come see what was going on, but ducking at the same time now,” the neighbor said. “It happened to be the police shooting at one of my friends, like, I don’t know what could have happened to him. Somebody might have laced him with something, I don’t know. But he don’t act like that. And I learned that it was he who was getting shot.”

Multiple other people were also transported to hospitals, though the extent of their injuries has not been released. At least one man told News4JAX that his granddaughter was one of the bystanders struck by the truck, and she suffered a broken leg, but is expected to be OK.

At this time, there are no reported injuries to any law enforcement personnel.

The crowd dispersed from the scene, with an estimated 1,000 people regrouping at the Middleton Shopping Center at 18th and Reid streets, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.

“There is a large law enforcement presence in the area, including Palatka Police Department, Clay County Sheriff’s Office, St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Highway Patrol and our deputies to disperse the crowd,” the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Saturday night.

The officer involved shooting investigation is being handled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).

The two officers who fired their weapons have been put on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation, which is standard practice.

Police said Bartley will be held on a $300,000 bond.

Passengers from the ship began flying home aboard military and government planes Sunday after the MV Hondius anchored in the Canary Islands. Personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks escorted the travelers from ship to shore in Tenerife, an effort that continued Monday.

It is the first-ever outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness. So far three cruise ship passengers have died, but health authorities continue to stress that the risk to the broader public is low.

The ship's captain, Jan Dobrogowski, issued a video message Monday praising passengers and crew for their perseverance and calling for respect for their privacy.

“I’ve witnessed your caring, your unity and quiet strength amongst everybody on board — guests and crew alike — and I must commend my crew for the courage and the selfless resolve that they showed time and again in the most difficult moments,” he said. “I could not imagine sailing through these circumstances with a better group of people, guests and crew alike.”

New cases in France, United States

The French woman tested positive for hantavirus and her health worsened in the hospital overnight, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said Monday. The woman was among five French passengers repatriated on Sunday. She developed symptoms on the flight to Paris, Rist told public broadcaster France-Inter.

One of 17 American passengers evacuated from the ship and flown to Nebraska also tested positive for the hantavirus but is not showing any symptoms, and another had mild symptoms, U.S. health officials said late Sunday. The flight landed in the early hours of Monday morning and passengers were transferred to awaiting buses and driven away from the airport.

The Americans would first be taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which has a federally funded quarantine facility, to assess whether they have been in close contact with any symptomatic people and their risk levels for spreading the virus.

“One passenger will be transported to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival, while other passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring. The passenger who is going to the Biocontainment Unit tested positive for the virus but does not have symptoms,” said Kayla Thomas, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Medicine network that will help care for the passengers.

The university medical center also has a special unit for treating people with highly infectious diseases that was used early in the pandemic for COVID-19 patients and previously for Ebola patients.

The WHO recommended close monitoring of the former passengers, and many countries quarantined them.

The planes arriving in Tenerife were to fly out passengers from more than 20 countries in an evacuation effort that was due to wrap up on Monday.

A Dutch plane expected to reach Tenerife Monday afternoon will carry passengers that were previously going to be evacuated on a plane sent by Australia, Spain’s Health Minister Mónica García said. On Monday, 54 passengers and crew remained on the ship, of which 22 were expected to disembark, while the remaining 32 will remain on the ship as it returns to the Netherlands.

Three people have died since the outbreak began, and six people have been infected, WHO spokesperson Sarah Tyler said Monday. She said one person from the U.S. showed inconclusive lab results.

The Hondius left the southern Argentine port of Ushuaia on April 1 and a Dutch passenger died on board April 11. It wasn’t until early May that the World Health Organization said it was reacting to a suspected hantavirus outbreak on the ship, which by that time was off the West African island nation of Cape Verde.

Health officials say risk to public is low

Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms — which can include fever, chills and muscle aches — usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak. “This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic.”

WHO is recommending that passengers’ home countries “have active monitoring and follow-up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility,” said Van Kerkhove, the organization’s top epidemiologist.

Numerous countries have said their people will be quarantined or hospitalized for observation.

The ship's captain, Dobrogowski, said his thoughts “are with the ones that are no longer with us, and whatever I say will not ease this loss, but I’d like you to know that they are with us every day in our hearts and our thoughts.”

___

Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed reporting.

Futures for the S&P 500 were essentially unchanged, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 0.1%. Nasdaq futures rose 0.1%.

With corporate earnings season winding down this week, rising energy prices and new U.S. inflation data will dominate the stage, along with a high-stakes summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Oil prices jumped early Monday after Trump wrote in a social media post that Iran’s response on Sunday to the U.S.’s latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!”

Brent crude, the international standard, gained $2.71 to $104 per barrel. It was roughly $70 per barrel before the war began in late February. Benchmark U.S. crude was $2.55 higher at $98 a barrel.

With the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil and gas transport, still largely closed and as the U.S. is continuing its sea blockade of Iranian ports, analysts believe oil prices are likely to remain higher for longer.

The Iran war will certainly be an important piece of the agenda during the Trump-Xi summit. China has close economic links with Iran and the U.S. has been pressing Beijing to leverage its influence to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“There remains a glimmer of hope that talks between Trump and Xi later this week could yield positive results on Iran,” ING commodities analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote Monday.

“The hope is that China can use its influence over Iran to push it closer towards a peace deal,” they said. “Clearly, this is easier said than done.” The oil market is still very much “heavily headline-driven,” the pair added.

In the U.S. on Monday, April numbers for U.S. existing home sales will be released. Later this week, the U.S. will release data on consumer and wholesale inflation as well as the latest retail sales figures.

At midday in Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 was unchanged, while Germany's DAX fell 0.2% and France's CAC 40 lost 1.1%.

In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.5% to 62,417.88 after briefly reaching another record high in intraday trading at above 63,300. Technology-focused investment holding company SoftBank Group, one of Japan’s largest stocks, fell more than 6%.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 4.3% to 7,822.24. It also hit an all-time intraday high, led by gains from tech-related stocks including Samsung Electronics and memory chip maker SK Hynix.

Technology-related stocks and growing artificial intelligence-related interest have supported markets in Japan and South Korea despite the Iran war, with the Nikkei 225 and Kospi rising more than 10% and 30%, respectively, over the past month.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged up less than 0.1% to 26,406.84. The Shanghai Composite index climbed 1.1% to 4,225.02, following official data Monday that showed China’s factory gate prices rose 2.8% in April from a year ago, the highest since 2022, as well as better-than-expected export figures released over the weekend.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.5%. Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% higher, and India's Sensex fell 1.7%.

Police said Lazayeus Bartley will be charged with two counts of aggravated battery and one count of aggravated fleeing and eluding with injuries. They said the incident is still under investigation and more charges could be added.

The incident, which sent multiple victims to area hospitals, began at around 8 p.m. at the intersection of North 20th Place and Eagle Street, according to the Palatka PD.

Officers said a man, later identified as Bartley, drove through the crowd, striking multiple bystanders and vehicles in the area, and officers who were working at the block party tried to stop him.

RELATED |‘I don’t wanna see nothing like that again’: Neighbors react to driver plowing through Palatka block party

Palatka PD said Bartley drove away but returned moments later, crashing into a patrol vehicle and hitting more people and other cars.

Police said that’s when officers started firing at the truck, which crashed.

Video circulating on social media shows the moments when officers fired at Bartley, who crashed the truck and was then taken into custody, according to police.

Bartley was taken to a nearby hospital and is being treated for his injuries. He is expected to make a full recovery, police said.

One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said they know Bartley and are shaken by what happened.

“When I was on my way back, the shooting started, and then I was like, worried about my kids, my grandkids, and really everybody that was going to come see what was going on, but ducking at the same time now,” the neighbor said. “It happened to be the police shooting at one of my friends, like, I don’t know what could have happened to him. Somebody might have laced him with something, I don’t know. But he don’t act like that. And I learned that it was he who was getting shot.”

Multiple other people were also transported to hospitals, though the extent of their injuries has not been released. At least one man told News4JAX that his granddaughter was one of the bystanders struck by the truck, and she suffered a broken leg, but is expected to be OK.

At this time, there are no reported injuries to any law enforcement personnel.

The crowd dispersed from the scene, with an estimated 1,000 people regrouping at the Middleton Shopping Center at 18th and Reid streets, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.

“There is a large law enforcement presence in the area, including Palatka Police Department, Clay County Sheriff’s Office, St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Highway Patrol and our deputies to disperse the crowd,” the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Saturday night.

The officer involved shooting investigation is being handled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).

The two officers who fired their weapons have been put on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation, which is standard practice.

Police said that once booked, Bartley will be held on a $300,000 bond.

Ukrainian authorities said Monday that Russian drones, bombs and artillery shelling struck civilian areas of the northeastern Kharkiv and southern Kherson regions, killing at least two people and wounding seven others, including a 14-year-old boy.

Russia’s Defense Ministry insisted the military has “strictly observed” the ceasefire and accused Ukraine of repeatedly violating the agreement.

Similar ceasefires announced since Russia invaded its neighbor more than four years ago also have failed to stop the fighting, and U.S.-led diplomatic efforts over the past year have come to nothing.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said data from NASA observations indicated military activities decreased but did not stop after U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy had accepted his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday.

The move was meant to mark Victory Day, the Russian celebration marking the defeat of Nazi Germany.

The ISW noted late Sunday that “ceasefires without explicit enforcement mechanisms, credible monitoring, and defined dispute resolution processes are unlikely to hold.”

Russia and Ukraine prepare to exchange prisoners of war

Trump had said there would also be an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war. Zelenskyy said the exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side is being prepared.

There are no signs that the two sides are ready to budge from their key negotiating positions, however.

Putin wants all of the Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, even though his army hasn’t completely captured it, but Zelenskyy says he won’t surrender it. Zelenskyy has offered a ceasefire and a face-to-face meeting with Putin, which the Russian leader has ruled out until a negotiated settlement is almost finalized.

Putin suggested at the weekend that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has had close business ties to Russia, could act as a mediator. But German and European officials scotched that possibility even while accepting that the European Union could take a more significant role in peace efforts after being largely sidelined by Washington over the past year.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who has a friendly relationship with Trump, said in comments published Monday that Europe needs to engage directly with Moscow.

“It’s time to start talking to Russia,” Stubb was quoted as saying in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas cautioned the bloc must get its objectives straight before attempting to negotiate with the Kremlin.

“Before we discuss with Russia, we should discuss amongst ourselves what we want to talk to them about,” she told reporters in Brussels.

US remains engaged in diplomacy to end the war, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha joined EU foreign ministers for the Brussels meeting. “We have mainstream peace talks under the leadership of the U.S., and we need this track and we need U.S. leadership. But Europe could play also its role,” Sybiha said.

Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukraine has “nearly daily communication” with Trump administration representatives. Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council chief, in recent days met with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the United States, according to Zelenskyy.

“Importantly, America remains engaged in diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said on X.

Sybiha noted that in recent months Ukraine has improved its performance on the battlefield, reducing the bigger Russian army to a slow and costly slog on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line, while using its domestically developed long-range drones and missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia.

“We have a new reality on the battlefield … Ukraine became stronger after the most difficult winter,” Sybiha said.

Almost 20 countries seek Ukraine's drone technology

Cutting-edge drone technology has been one of the main drivers of success for Ukraine's short-handed army. It has also drawn other countries' attention, enhancing Ukraine's international standing.

Zelenskyy said nearly 20 countries in the Middle East and the Gulf, the South Caucasus and Europe are at various stages of entering into deals with Ukraine for battle-tested drones. In return, Ukraine is getting fuel and money.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was the latest senior European official to visit Kyiv, arriving Monday on an unannounced visit set to focus on furthering defense cooperation between the two countries.

Germany has become the world’s top provider of security assistance to Ukraine, accounting for roughly one-third of all aid the country receives, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Monday, according to Ukrainian media.

Germany has helped provide an “unprecedented package” of air defense missiles for Ukraine, Fedorov said, and has begun financing the production of medium- and long-range strike drones, which he described as critical for deep-strike operations.

___

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

He chose to be an infertility specialist to help people. Thirty years later, scientific advancements made that easier than ever but created more ethical dilemmas.

As co-director of a fertility clinic in suburban Washington, D.C., Gordon grew troubled over helping create surplus embryos, which would often languish in storage or be discarded. With the expansion of genetic testing, couples could choose the sex of their baby. They could screen out painful or fatal diseases, but also milder impairments like hearing loss.

“It’s too morally problematic,” Gordon thought. “I don’t know where you draw the line.”

In 2018, his wife pushed him to change how he practiced. They both believed in the sanctity of embryos as part of their Christian faith. But as Allison Gordon looked around the home where they had raised four children, their comfortable life now seemed bought by “ill-gotten gains.”

John Gordon soon bought a practice in Knoxville, Tennessee, and aligned it with his evolving faith-based views. His Rejoice Fertility clinic does not discard viable embryos, genetically test them or donate them to science. It also limits how many embryos it creates.

His career pivoted alongside a growing debate over in vitro fertilization. Recent legal decisions have prompted questions about IVF, from the U.S. Supreme Court ending federal abortion rights to the Alabama Supreme Court designating embryos as children. IVF remains popular in polling though, and President Donald Trump has taken steps to expand access.

Trump’s conservative Christian base is less supportive of IVF. The Catholic Church has long opposed IVF, and evangelicals are increasingly grappling with it. In 2024, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, called for IVF restrictions when it destroys “embryonic human life.”

Gordon believes his practice addresses many moral concerns. He was 55 when he made this intimidating shift: “I don’t like changing toothpaste brands.”

But, he said, “I need to practice in a way that I can live with the decisions I’m making.”

The discarded embryo dilemma

Rejoice draws patients from around the country. Evangelical brochures and a wooden cross sit in the waiting room. Outside the recovery area, a Bible verse reads: “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

In January, Maggie and Cade Lichfield, Latter-day Saints in Knoxville, held an ultrasound photo, their second since a pregnancy was confirmed after three failed embryo transfers. They understand IVF’s controversies but appreciate that Rejoice does not genetically test or discard embryos.

“You’re still letting God be God,” Maggie Lichfield said. “He is in control.”

Domenic and Olivia D’Agostino thought they would forgo IVF for religious reasons until they found Rejoice, nearly two hours by car from their Tennessee home.

They didn’t know a non-discard facility existed. “That was the biggest one for me because in my eyes there’s not much difference between discarding an embryo and abortion,” Domenic D’Agostino said. “We just weren’t really willing to do that.”

It felt providential. Gordon shares the couple’s interest in Reformed theology and the idea that God is sovereign over all things — including the vagaries of fertility treatments.

“My favorite thing that he does is he prays with us before transfers,” Domenic D’Agostino said. “He focused in on the sovereignty of God in it and submitting to God’s will in this process.”

A conversion experience

Gordon was raised Jewish outside Boston, the son and grandson of physicians. He received a premier education: prep school followed by Princeton, then medical school at Duke and residency at Stanford.

He met his wife at Duke, where she earned a doctorate in engineering. Allison Gordon grew up Christian in a small North Carolina town. A minister and a rabbi presided at their wedding; for years they maintained an interfaith marriage.

It wasn’t until their oldest son was in third grade and hospitalized with a life-threatening ailment that Gordon had a conversion experience. “I got down on my knees, and I said, ‘OK, you’ve got my attention, Lord.’”

After their son recovered, the couple joined a mainline Presbyterian church, where Gordon was baptized in 2000. Today they are part of the conservative evangelical Presbyterian Church in America. Elders of their church, Christ Covenant, support Rejoice’s mission.

Rejoice does not require employees or patients to share Gordon’s religious beliefs. Sarah Coe Atkinson, Rejoice’s senior embryologist, said, “I don’t necessarily believe in everything he believes in, but I believe in what we’re doing in terms of helping these embryos become lives.”

She oversees the lab, which accepts almost any embryo, no matter its condition. “Sometimes the ugliest embryos make the prettiest babies,” she likes to say.

When a couple received a donated embryo that had been frozen for nearly 31 years, Rejoice provided their care. The child, born in 2025, broke what is believed to be a record for the longest-frozen embryo to result in a birth.

To train others, Atkinson created a library of antiquated embryo storage devices and how to open them, cataloged in a binder with plastic sheet protectors. Instructions for an old glass ampule recommend a face shield with the warning: “Might explode.”

A Christian approach to IVF

Medical experts estimate about 1.5 million frozen embryos are stored in the U.S., though advocates say that number could be higher.

Gordon strives not to add to that. He tailors treatments around patients’ ideal family size. He specializes in offering IVF cycles with less fertility medication, which is more affordable and generally results in fewer eggs. Patients can also fertilize fewer eggs. Other clinics offer these options but Rejoice is unusual in prioritizing them.

The downside is if patients go through their small number of embryos and need another IVF cycle, which typically costs between $8,000 and $10,000 at Rejoice. Despite that expense, Gordon said his patients largely want to create fewer embryos because of their beliefs.

Emily Martin is haunted by the handful of embryos she has in storage. “I would wake up in the middle of the night just like, ‘Oh, what have we done?’ And just this heaviness,” she said.

An anti-abortion Christian in Knoxville, she wishes she had found Rejoice before making more embryos than she would use at another clinic. “That portion is something that’s not being talked about enough,” she said.

In rare cases when his patients have unused embryos, Gordon asks them to be placed for adoption. Embryo donations are known as embryo adoptions within conservative Christian circles, which view embryos not as property but as children.

The clinic recently launched Rejoice Embryo Rescue, which Gordon calls an “orphanage.” Rejoice stores donated embryos and works with agencies, most of them Christian, that specialize in coordinating embryo adoptions.

Adrienne and Colby McKnight had considered traditional adoption before they heard about adopting embryos through their homeschooling community in Augusta, Georgia.

They adopted an embryo they named Gloria, which had been frozen 11 years. When the embryo transfer did not end in pregnancy, they grieved but remained grateful.

“Really it’s just giving her a chance at life and just freeing her from being frozen,” Adrienne McKnight said. “Either way she gets to continue on. She gets to be with the Lord.”

Through Rejoice, they recently adopted two more embryos.

Bridging the worlds of IVF and religion

“It’s hard to be torn between your faith and your work,” Gordon said. Invoking a biblical passage, he said Christians are called to show “faith through our works.”

Rejoice has allowed him to reconcile those two things, though it’s been challenging. His relationship with the physician he bought the clinic from deteriorated, resulting in legal disputes.

Gordon has also faced criticism from other Christians and anti-abortion activists who believe any form of IVF is unethical.

“He’s moving in the right trajectory,” said Matthew Lee Anderson, a Christian ethicist at Baylor who opposes IVF. “It’s impressive that he’s taken the steps that he has to change how he is doing business, and I hope for more.”

Gordon does not regret starting over and plans to bring on more doctors.

One Sunday after church, he was back at the clinic. In the lab, Atkinson prepared a North Carolina couple's frozen embryo so it could be transferred that afternoon.

As the embryo thawed, it unfurled in a culture dish, its cells plumping with rehydration. There in the lab was a chance at life, soon to be sent off with hope — and at Rejoice — a prayer.

Four weeks later, there was welcome news: The patient was pregnant.

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

The volatility could tip the Middle East back into open warfare and prolong the worldwide energy crisis sparked by the conflict, with Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and America’s blockade of Iranian ports still in place. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to use a trip this week to China to urge Chinese President Xi Jinping to pressure Iran into making concessions and end the limbo. Beijing is the biggest buyer of the Islamic Republic’s sanctioned crude oil, giving it leverage.

But getting to any deal likely remains tough work. Iran insists it wants to see the American blockade end and sanctions lifted before beginning negotiations over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The U.S. — and Israel — want that material removed since it could be used to eventually build a bomb, should Iran choose to do so. Tehran insists its program is peaceful, but it has enriched uranium beyond the levels needed for civilian power generation.

Israel insists enriched uranium must be taken out of Iran

Trump said Sunday that Iran’s response to his latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Ending the U.S. blockade before discussing Iran’s nuclear program would eliminate a major point of leverage.

In the meantime, the standoff over the strait, a key transit point for the world's oil and natural gas exports, has sent fuel prices skyrocketing and rattled world markets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war with Trump on Feb. 28, insisted that the conflict was “not over,” telling CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday that a critical goal is getting the nuclear material out of Iran. If that can't be accomplished with negotiations, Netanyahu said that Israel and the U.S. agree “we can reengage them militarily.”

Netanyahu also said the current Iranian government's "days are numbered — but it could take a lot of days.”

The U.S. and Israel have killed dozens of high-ranking Iranian officials, including the country’s supreme leader in the opening salvos of the war, and the conflict has inflicted heavy damage to Iran’s economy, but its theocracy maintains its grip on power.

Iran and the US blame each other for the impasse

Trump quickly rejected a new Iranian proposal sent Sunday to him via Pakistan. In it, Iran demanded war reparations from the U.S., full Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions and the release of its seized assets abroad, Iranian state television reported.

Iran also called for an immediate end to the war, including the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — which have repeatedly exchanged fire though technically in a ceasefire. That conflict has seen Israeli strikes in Lebanon, its occupation of Lebanese territory and deadly Hezbollah attacks, including one that killed another Israeli soldier, the Israeli military said Monday.

“We did not demand any concessions — the only thing we demanded was Iran’s legitimate rights," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Monday. “The American side still insists on its one-sided views and unreasonable demands.”

Iran did, however, offer to dilute part of its highly enriched uranium and transport the rest to a third country, and called for 30-day negotiations to finalize details, two regional officials involved in the negotiations told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy taking place.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to take the uranium from Iran.

Russia runs Iran's sole nuclear power plant at Bushehr and also took some of Iran's uranium stockpile in Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which the U.S. later withdrew from under the first Trump administration.

Asked Monday about Putin's comments, Baghaei said: “At the current stage, our focus is on ending the war."

Iran continues with its executions

Meanwhile, Iran executed another man it accused of spying for both the CIA and Israel's Mossad intelligence service. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency identified the prisoner as Erfan Shakourzadeh, saying he had worked on satellite communications and relayed classified information to those intelligence services.

Iran has carried out a string of executions since nationwide protests swept the country in January. Activist groups have long accused Iran of carrying out closed-door trials during which defendants are unable to fully defend themselves. Iran's judiciary chief has repeatedly said that Tehran would increase the speed with which it carried out hangings to fight back against its enemies at home and abroad.

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Magdy reported from Cairo.

RELATED: Can Downtown Jacksonville’s development boom deliver homes people can actually afford?

But business owners said the bigger goal is creating that same kind of activity on an ordinary weekday.

At Dorothy’s, a Louisiana-inspired restaurant near the Florida Theatre named after Executive Chef Marvin Barnes’ grandmother, her Creole recipes helped inspire the menu. Barnes said downtown businesses survive by giving people more reasons to stay.

“I think we all work together downtown,” Barnes said while working in the kitchen. “You’ve got to work together if you plan on surviving.”

Dorothy’s opened nearly a year ago as part of downtown Jacksonville’s ongoing wave of development, which includes billions of dollars in projects planned, under construction, or proposed throughout the urban core.

But business owners said downtown still needs more consistent day-to-day activity.

“It could be better. We need more people,” Kyle Goings said, the lead bartender at Dorothy’s. “It’s getting the facelift that’s much needed in a long time.”

Downtown Vision CEO Jake Gordon told News4JAX’s Reporter Briana Brownlee and Jesse Hanson downtown Jacksonville is still in a transition period as it adjusts to changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and shifts in the traditional office work environment.

Gordon said downtown leaders are now focused on creating more “walk traffic,” the kind of consistent foot traffic that supports smaller businesses and encourages people to spend more time downtown outside of destination events.

“It’s the smaller places that you just have to walk by and get your coffee from,” Gordon said. “It’s really the walk traffic that we are really trying to increase.”

Goings said another way to build that consistency is by adding more family-friendly attractions and daytime destinations downtown.

“What I think we are lacking is more museums, more art, even an aquarium,” Goings said. “We need more family-friendly.”

Despite some storefronts still sitting empty downtown, Gordon said the long-term momentum is moving in the right direction.

“There are all of these cranes you are seeing and these things being built,” Gordon said. “I think you can be cynical of the street-level experience, but the future of downtown is bright.”

For many downtown businesses, the hope is that Jacksonville’s ongoing growth eventually translates into more people spending time downtown not just during major events, but throughout the week.

The destination and expected duration of the deployment have not been confirmed.

The USS Cooperstown’s departure follows recent deployments of two other Mayport-based ships — the USS Mason and the USS Donald Cook — which left port back in March.

The USS Mason made headlines just days before the USS Cooperstown’s departure after navigating the Strait of Hormuz. The ship was among two Navy destroyers that entered the Persian Gulf after encountering what the U.S. military described as an Iranian barrage.

News4JAX spoke with retired Navy Commander Richard Kolko about the capabilities of the ships and the sailors aboard.

“Well, they go to general quarters and they have to be prepared for every threat again, and as we’ve seen, the threat can be air-based, surface-based, and they’re aware and they’ve got their defensive systems up and running at all times. It is stressful. It is tiring,” Kolko said.

Families and friends gathered at Naval Station Mayport on Monday morning to say goodbye to the crew of the USS Cooperstown. At this time, details about the ship’s mission and timeline remain undisclosed.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is on scene. The fire was reported around 6:30 a.m., and drivers should expect major traffic delays while crews work to clear the roadway.

It’s not yet clear what caused the fire or whether anyone was injured. Drivers are urged to avoid the area and use alternate routes until the scene is cleared.

This is a developing story and will be updated as we learn more.

Trump in December authorized an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan — the largest weapons sale ever to the island — but has not yet moved forward with delivery and even acknowledged that he's discussed the sale with Xi. He's groused that Taiwan “stole” America’s semiconductor business and called on Taiwan to pay the U.S. for protection.

All the while, Trump has, with the threat of hefty tariffs, prodded Taipei to agree to massive investments in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and to purchase billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. liquefied natural gas and crude oil.

Trump's rhetoric is fueling speculation in Beijing, Taipei and Washington about America’s commitment to help the island defend itself and whether the Republican president could be persuaded to cede ground on the long-standing U.S. posture toward the island.

Taiwan’s backers are concerned that Taipei will be “on the menu” when Trump and Xi sit down for talks, said retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery.

“I do worry that we have a transactional president and a transactional opportunity could arise, and then we would have a challenge,” said Montgomery, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that supports robust U.S. backing of Taiwan.

Rubio says US policy is unchanged

The Chinese have signaled they intend to make Taiwan a central part of the talks between Xi and Trump this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi raised Taiwan during a call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare for the trip, and urged the United States to “make the right choices” about its policies toward the island in order to safeguard “stability” between the two nations, according to a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

But Rubio said U.S. policy has not changed. “We don’t want to see any forced or compelled change in the situation,” he told reporters in Rome on Friday, saying it “would be destabilizing to the world.” He noted that Taiwan would not be “a feature of our trip, but it’ll certainly be an item that’s discussed.”

White House officials have underscored that Trump, who also approved $330 million in aircraft parts for Taiwan's military in November, has already approved more in military sales for Taiwan in the first year of his second term than the roughly $8.4 billion that Democratic President Joe Biden approved over his four years in office.

Taiwan has been under pressure from the Trump administration to increase its defense spending, and on Friday its lawmakers broke months of gridlock to approve $25 billion in arms purchases. It was significantly less than the $40 billion proposal put forward last year by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te. A senior Trump administration official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said it was disappointing that the parliament did not fully fund Lai's proposal.

Taiwanese government officials have expressed concern about China's rhetoric ahead of the summit, though they've also taken some comfort from Rubio's measured comments.

“(China) may attempt some maneuvering during the talks, but the U.S. has repeatedly reiterated, through both public and private channels, that its policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged,” National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen told reporters.

Xi may look to loosen US-Taiwan ties

The key question, China experts say, is just how far Xi will try to go in his effort to prod Trump closer to Beijing's view.

China sees the self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province, to be annexed by force if necessary. It prohibits countries it has diplomatic relations with from having formal ties with Taipei. Since establishing diplomatic relations with modern China in 1979, the U.S. has managed to stay within the framework of Beijing’s demands while maintaining informal support for Taiwan and providing it with arms.

As part of the U.S. ambiguity on Taiwan, Washington acknowledges Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China but does not explicitly endorse it. The U.S. has also historically stated it “does not support” Taiwan’s independence and opposes unilateral changes to the status quo between Taiwan and China.

But analysts say Xi could seek to persuade Trump — who already has demonstrated a willingness to blur the lines of traditional diplomacy — to loosen ties with Taiwan through curbs on U.S. arms sales or with informal limits on visits by prominent U.S. officials to the island. In February, Trump suggested he broke from longstanding U.S. policy and consulted with Xi on arms sales to Taiwan.

“Even if we don’t see something as dramatic as a formal shift in declaratory policy, this time around, there is always a risk that President Trump may make an off-the-cuff remark given he’s not necessarily somebody who appreciates the nuances of longstanding policy language,” said Patricia Kim of the Assessing China Project at Brookings Institution in Washington.

White House sits out Japan-China rift

A row between U.S. ally Japan and China has also raised speculation about the strength of Trump's commitment to Taiwan. In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a Chinese attack on Taiwan was of concern to the region and could constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for Japan, requiring the use of force.

Trump made back-to-back calls with Takaichi and Xi that same month, though he's remained largely silent about the spat.

“I know they have a little bit of an edgy relationship,” Trump said as he hosted Takaichi for talks in March. He added, “I’ll be speaking Japan’s praises when I’m in China with President Xi.”

Additionally, Trump’s backing of Taiwan faced scrutiny after the 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy omitted direct mention of the island.

The best-case scenario for Taiwan

One card Taiwan holds is its robust semiconductor sector, the world’s largest, which the U.S. relies on to maintain an edge in its advanced-technology race against China.

“Trump at the very least realizes the role that Taiwan plays in the U.S.’s economic growth,” said Lev Nachman, a political science professor at National Taiwan University. “So I think that is sort of the main silver lining in thinking that nothing drastic will change in terms of policy toward Taiwan.”

While Trump is known for his transactional nature, his administration has not viewed difficult aspects of the U.S.-China relationship as “fungible” issues that can be traded, said Edgard Kagan, a former senior State Department official who served under Trump and Biden on East Asia policy issues.

“The president understands leverage. My experience of being in meetings with him, he has a very, very acute sense of how to use it,” said Kagan, who is now the China Studies chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “And so I think that the idea that there’s going to be a trade where the president sort of sacrifices U.S. interests in Taiwan in order to get other things — I think it’s unlikely based on my own experience of how he operates.”

In the end, whether the island comes out of the Xi-Trump summit on a stronger or weaker footing will likely be judged by the leaders’ public statements.

After his last face-to-face encounter with Xi in October, Trump claimed that Xi hadn't broached the issue and that Chinese officials “know the consequences” of taking military action against Taiwan.

“I think the best-case scenario Taiwan can hope for is that Taiwan is not talked about publicly or, at the very least, in a minimal way,” Nachman said.

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Mistreanu reported from Taipei. Associated Press writer Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

I want to give you a heads up right away—today Jacksonville is under a level one marginal risk for severe weather, and it’s going to be an active afternoon and evening. These storms are expected to move through the area from the coast all the way to the I-95 and US 17 corridors, with timing likely from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. in different areas.

The main concerns? Wind gusts, the chance for small hail, and a brief tornado can’t be completely ruled out. It’s a low threat, but worth keeping an eye on. Based on the latest outlook from the National Weather Service and The Weather Authority’s Exact Track 4D, the mix of heat and instability today could strengthen some storms as they roll east to west this afternoon.

Big drop in temperatures ahead

Heat will stick around for now, with highs reaching about 88 degrees. A few glimpses of sunshine are possible, but showers and storms are more likely to shape the afternoon. Once the storms move through, expect a noticeable cooldown—temperatures are forecast to drop by about 10 degrees, with highs on Tuesday near 78 degrees.

Things don’t stay cool for long! By Thursday, highs will be climbing right back into the upper 80s, with lows hovering in the 60s and 70s. Rain chances stick around at 40 percent for today and tomorrow, but should fall quickly after Wednesday, with a dry stretch expected as we head into the weekend.

Safety reminders and community support

With the heat on tap, don’t forget about the pups! At 3 p.m., sidewalks can get hot enough to burn your dog’s paws, so try to walk them earlier in the day or on the grass. If that’s not possible, just do your best to keep them safe and comfortable.

I know many in our community are keeping spirits up, checking in with each other and sharing positive attitudes—that makes a difference for everyone as we get through these stormy days.

Want to share your weather photos or videos? Send them to SnapJAX at https://www.news4jax.com/snapjax/.

Key takeaways for your week

Today’s storms could bring quick changes—and a drop in temperatures—so keep an umbrella handy and check The Weather Authority’s updates on Exact Track 4D throughout the afternoon. After Wednesday, it’s expected to be drier and much warmer as the week wraps up. I’ll keep you posted with the latest info to help you stay weather-ready all week long.

Republicans' rush to gerrymander congressional districts across several Southern states after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling hollowed out the Voting Rights Act is confusing voters and creating logistical headaches for local election officials. The changes are hitting while primary season is in progress.

The chaotic upheaval to an election season that could determine which party controls the U.S. House is the latest fallout from an intensely partisan gerrymandering battle initiated by President Donald Trump last year to protect Republicans' slim majority.

The Supreme Court's decision last month severely weakening the Voting Rights Act required Louisiana to reconsider a map drawn in 2024 with two majority minority congressional districts that elected Black representatives. The GOP-controlled Legislature could eliminate one or both in a state where roughly 30% of the population is Black.

The ruling also encouraged Republicans in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee to consider eliminating four Democratic districts among them, three represented by Black lawmakers. Florida has a new map meant to cost Democrats four of their eight seats, out of 28.

In Louisiana, 66-year-old New Orleans resident Sallie Davis voted early last week. Her ballot allowed her to vote for Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, but a sign at her polling booth showed his race crossed off with a ballpoint pen. She was confused and frustrated — especially when a poll worker told her to go with what the sign seemed to convey. She's now worried that her entire ballot will not be counted.

"I was supposed to believe a piece of paper with an X on it marking out the person I wanted to vote for,” she said, her voice breaking as she recounted her experience later. “I think I have been disenfranchised. I think my vote, that I just voted on, it's not going to count or something. I think it's illegal.”

Primaries postponed, deadlines compressed

Louisiana's primary is on Saturday, and a week of early voting there began May 2, two days after the Republican governor declared an emergency and suspended congressional primaries to give lawmakers a chance to draw a new map.

Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry's office said nearly 179,000 primary ballots had been cast as of Friday, including about 53,000 absentee ballots returned by mail. She said the ballots included U.S. House races, but votes in those contests won't be counted.

In Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, Republicans justified pursuing new maps by saying that electing more Republicans would better reflect their states' conservative values. Alabama lawmakers passed legislation Friday allowing a do-over of congressional primaries.

Alabama’s primary is May 19, and voting in congressional races will occur then as planned, but with the old districts. Those votes would end up not counting if a court allows the switch to different districts.

Mississippi held its primaries in March, but a federal court has ordered it to redraw its state Supreme Court districts, and Trump is pushing Republicans to redraw the state's four congressional districts.

A special session of its Legislature is set for May 20. Renovations of the House chamber will force members to meet at the Old State Capitol, where, decades ago, Mississippi lawmakers passed Jim Crow laws suppressing Black voting.

“Modern-day voter suppression relies on election administration errors and chaos, and that’s what we’re going to see play out in all of these states,” said Amir Badat, a Jackson, Mississippi, voting rights attorney and activist.

Tennessee continues yearlong fight

Tennessee was the first state to enact a new map since the U.S. Supreme Court decision, but Trump's push for redistricting started in Texas last year. Democrats countered in California and tried but ran afoul of the courts in Virginia.

Before Tennessee’s GOP-controlled Legislature passed a new map last week, the state’s elections coordinator told county officials in a memo what that would mean: reprogramming election systems, retraining poll workers and possibly adjusting precinct boundaries, meaning some voters’ polling places could change.

Tennessee's congressional primaries still will be held Aug. 6 as planned, and candidates have until Friday to qualify for the ballot. Those who qualified previously will get a pass if they can run in a new district with the same number.

In South Carolina, lawmakers could move all the state's June 9 primaries to August, or just the congressional races. While mail balloting is limited because the state requires an excuse to do it, more than 6,800 mail ballots already had been sent to voters — with 260 returned — as of Friday, according to the state Elections Commission.

Holding a separate election for congressional primaries would cost $3 million and the time for preparations would be compressed, Conway Belangia, the commission's executive director, told lawmakers Friday.

“It will be difficult, but it will be possible,” he said.

Activists see problems ahead for voters

Michael McClanahan, president of the NAACP's Louisiana State Conference, is hearing “total confusion” as voters call him and ask, "Is there an election?”

“People say, ’I ain’t going to vote because the governor’s suspended the election,'" he said. "But he didn’t, he only suspended one aspect of it.”

In Alabama, Senate Democratic leader Bobby Singleton said he has been fielding calls from public officials who also are confused.

“These are the people who are the head of elections,” he said. "They don’t know what to do.“

Voting rights activists see problems that arose in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2022, when Republican legislators divided the state's capital city into three congressional districts to take a seat from Democrats, as a harbinger of what Memphis voters could face this year. A state report said more than 3,000 Nashville-area voters were assigned to incorrect districts and more than 430 cast ballots in the wrong races in the November 2022 election.

“It’s going to be really hard for the election commissions to be able to keep up with this short timeline,” Matia Powell, executive director of the voting rights nonprofit Civic TN, said during a conference call Friday with other voting rights activists in the South.

Some fear confusion will lead to distrust and apathy

Anneshia Hardy, executive director of Alabama Values, which provides support to voting and civil rights groups, said people will lose trust in elections if they believe the rules can change every two years.

“Once people stop believing that the process is stable and fair, disengagement is going to increase, and that's one of the biggest dangers here,” she said. “Democracy doesn’t just depend on voting systems existing but really on people believing that their participation matters.”

At least a few Democratic voters who went to the Louisiana Capitol on Friday to protest the gerrymandering expressed doubt about whether they still have a political voice.

Davis came to the State Capitol in Baton Rouge and had a bullhorn with her for a protest in which she yelled, “Whose vote? Our vote!”

David Victorian, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran from Baton Rouge, said: “I’m concerned for the survival of the democracy that we’re supposed to be living in.”

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan. Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., and Kim Chandler, in Montgomery, Ala., contributed.

Senate Republicans added the money for White House security to a spending bill that would restore funding for immigration enforcement agencies that Democrats have blocked since February. The steep security proposal was put forward after a man was charged with trying to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month.

Republicans are using a partisan budget maneuver to push the spending legislation through Congress without any Democratic votes. But in a letter to colleagues Monday morning, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats will fight it in other ways, including by pushing the Senate parliamentarian to strike the ballroom security money from the budget bill and offering amendments forcing Republicans to vote on it.

“The Republican-controlled Congress is preparing to answer this moment with a deficit-busting, party-line bill that pours billions more taxpayer dollars into a rogue ICE operation and a billion-dollar ballroom, while doing nothing to end the illegal war in Iran or ease the Republican affordability crisis bearing down on working families,” Schumer wrote in the letter.

It’s unclear if the security money will even have enough backing among Republicans. The House has not released its bill yet, but the Senate is expected to start voting on its version of the legislation this week.

While most GOP lawmakers have remained quiet on the proposal as they spent their recess out of Washington, some have publicly questioned whether they would support it.

“I’m going to look at it very carefully and make sure those things are in the national interest,” said Rep. Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican who was in the Capitol last week to briefly gavel in a pro forma session of the House.

“I want to know the exact nature of the expenditures that would go there for security. So I think it’s a little premature to look at that and say, you know, yes or no to it," Wittman said.

Wittman wants to better understand the details of the Senate proposal and “how it’s part of what the total construction cost is," he said.

Trump has said the ballroom's construction would cost $400 million and use private funds, but he had not proposed a number for security costs.

The Senate bill would designate the money for the U.S. Secret Service, including for “security adjustments and upgrades” related to the ballroom project, which Trump and other Republicans have been pushing since Cole Tomas Allen was charged with storming the April 25 media dinner at the Washington Hilton with guns and knives.

The legislation says the money would support enhancements to the ballroom project, “including above-ground and below-ground security features,” but specifies it may not be used for non-security elements.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle praised Republicans last week for including the money for the “long overdue” project, saying it would “provide the United States Secret Service with the resources they need to fully and completely harden the White House complex, in addition to the many other critical missions for the USSS.”

The White House has said in court documents that the East Wing project would be “heavily fortified,” including bomb shelters, military installations and a medical facility underneath the ballroom. Trump has said it should include bulletproof glass and be able to repel drone attacks.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to block construction of the project, but a federal appeals court said last month that it can continue in the meantime.

Apple Corps Ltd, the company founded by the Fab Four, announced Monday that it will open a new seven-floor fan experience at the company's early headquarters. The building is the place where the band's “Let It Be” album was recorded and its rooftop was the site of the Beatles' last public performance on Jan. 30, 1969.

The attraction at 3 Saville Road in central London will allow fans access to the rooftop, studios and extensive Beatles archives.

“It was such a trip to get back to 3 Savile Row recently and have a look around. There are so many special memories within the walls, not to mention the rooftop. The team have put together some really impressive plans and I’m excited for people to see it when it’s ready,” Paul McCartney said in a statement announcing the attraction.

“Wow, it's like coming home,” Ringo Starr said in a statement.

An opening date for the attraction has not yet been announced.

Interest in the Beatles remains high, with four biopics in production. Peter Jackson's 2021 documentary series, “The Beatles: Get Back,” relied heavily on footage filmed during the “Let It Be” recording sessions and of the farewell rooftop performance.

In 2023, artificial intelligence helped create the final Beatles recording, the song “Now and Then,” which relied on recordings by the original Beatles.

But Paris is expected to use the two-day Africa Forward Summit, which it is co-hosting, to push a new Africa policy that focuses more on English-speaking countries and offers what it calls a “partnership of equals." Its new defense agreement with Kenya marks the direction it hopes to go.

France has long maintained a policy of economic, political and military sway over its former colonies dubbed Françafrique, which included keeping thousands of troops in the region. But after years of criticism from leaders and opposition parties in those countries over what they described as a demeaning and heavy-handed approach, France has been forced to withdraw most of those troops.

The summit — France's first in an English-speaking African country — will be attended by more than 30 heads of state and government, including from Francophone countries. On his arrival Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France may disagree with West African governments but “never disagrees with the people.”

Kenya’s newly ratified defense agreement with France has been criticized by civil society groups for granting too much immunity local law to French troops, a sensitive issue in a country where a similar agreement with the United Kingdom has left a trail of hard-to-prosecute crimes against locals.

At a time when many African nations, particularly in the Sahel region, are reducing or expelling foreign military presences in what they say is a quest to reclaim their sovereignty, Kenya is hosting a growing international military presence.

The Kenya-France Defense Cooperation Agreement was signed on Oct. 29, 2025, by Kenya’s Defense Minister Soipan Tuya and French Ambassador to Kenya Arnaud Suquet and ratified by parliament on April 8. The same month, it also ratified defense agreements with countries including the Czech Republic, China and Italy.

While defending the defense agreements, parliament defense committee chair Nelson Koech said Kenya's treaties with advanced militaries provide training and intelligence-sharing opportunities that will make its defense stronger.

Koech said the agreements were not a “surrender of sovereignty,” adding that newer agreements guarantee that foreign troops will be tried in Kenya in the event of serious crimes such as murder.

A month ahead of the summit, a contingent of around 800 French troops arrived in Kenya aboard a navy ship.

The agreement grants visiting French forces primary jurisdiction over their personnel for on-duty offenses, echoing broad legal protections in past UK pacts that shielded British soldiers from Kenyan courts amid scandals like the 2012 murder of a young woman named Agnes Wanjiru and the deadly 2021 Lolldaiga ranch fire.

A British soldier is due to be extradited after Kenyan courts found him answerable for the 2012 death of Wanjiru, who was last seen alive in his company near the British troops’ training grounds in Nanyuki, central Kenya.

But Beijing’s deep economic ties to Iran, as well as trade tensions over tariff threats stretching back to Trump’s first term, could crimp the good feelings when Trump flies to Beijing this week — even though the Republican president has for years effusively praised Xi, making it clear he sees China’s leader as a competitor strong enough to warrant his respect and admiration.

Trump lately isn't very fond of long plane rides or extended stretches away from the White House or his properties in Florida and New Jersey. He arrives in Beijing on Wednesday night and the next morning will take part in a welcome ceremony and meet one-on-one with Xi before the two leaders tour the Temple of Heaven — a religious complex dating to the 15th century symbolizing the relationship between Earth and heaven.

Trump will attend a state banquet on Thursday evening and then have a tea and working lunch with Xi on Friday before leaving, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Sunday. She said they will discuss creating a new Board of Trade to keep their countries talking on economic issues, as well talking up key industries like energy, aerospace and agriculture.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday that Beijing is willing to work with the U.S., based on equality and mutual respect to expand cooperation, manage differences, and add stability to a turbulent world. The diplomacy between the leaders “plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role” in the bilateral relation, he said.

There will be plenty of ceremonial splendor, but the grandeur is not expected to rival Trump's first visit to China in 2017, which Beijing dubbed a “state visit-plus.”

“Even before this whole conflagration with Iran, they weren’t going to go state visit-plus like last time, just because things are tense,” said Jonathan Czin, a former director for China at the National Security Council during the Biden administration.

Xi's ‘better understanding’ of Trump

On Trump's first-term trip, China rolled out the red carpet for his arrival, with a band playing military music and children waving flags and chanting “Welcome.”

Xi offered a tour of the Forbidden City. Trump and first lady Melania Trump even had a private dinner there. Trump was the first foreign leader since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 to experience what was once reserved for emperors.

The following morning brought another welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People and featured a military parade. There also was a state banquet in Trump’s honor with video highlights from the Chinese leader’s previous visit to Florida and a clip of Trump’s granddaughter Arabella singing in Chinese.

Ali Wyne, senior U.S.-China research and advocacy adviser for the Washington nonprofit the Crisis Group, said the “Chinese delegation will likely do its utmost to ensure that Trump leaves Beijing believing that he has just concluded the most extraordinary state visit of his two presidencies.”

But, he said, the “pomp and circumstance would serve a different role now than they did when he first visited Beijing” because “Xi has a much better understanding of Trump, and the administration’s own national security strategy and national defense strategy recognize China as a near-peer.”

Expectations for what gets accomplished could be lower this time, said Czin, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He predicted that the Chinese may not offer major breakthroughs on trade or anything else because they are “working backward from our midterm elections” with the theory that the closer they get to Election Day “the more leverage they are going to have.”

The GOP is focused on retaining control of Congress, even as polling shows most Americans are unhappy with Trump’s economic policies and believe that the United States went too far in Iran. Still, the White House argues that Trump's previous firm hand with Beijing on tariffs — which the Supreme Court subsequently struck down — means the U.S. will remain in a strong position.

“President Trump cares about results, not symbols,” Kelly said. “But even still, the president has a great relationship with President Xi, and the upcoming summit in Beijing will be both symbolically and substantively significant.”

Trump and Xi may see a lot of each other this year

Trump could meet with China's leader four times in eight months.

After his visit to Beijing, Trump plans to host Xi at the White House. Trump might also attend the November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Shenzhen, China. And Xi could come to the Group of 20 summit the following month at Trump’s resort in Doral, Florida.

Czin noted that Xi also is not very fond of travel, meaning not all of the planned encounters may happen. He said China's leader also does not “do personal connections” like the kind Trump relishes, noting Xi led a Chinese military purge in January that included replacing officials with long-standing personal ties to his family.

Wyne, though, said Xi also “appreciates that he is unlikely to deal with another U.S. president who admires him as greatly and embraces as narrow a view of strategic competition.”

That means Xi may “attempt to pocket as many economic and security concessions from Trump as possible,” Wyne said.

Trump has long praised Xi

Trump told The Wall Street Journal's editorial board in 2024 that Xi “was actually a really good … I don’t want to say ‘friend.’ I don’t want to act foolish. ‘He was my friend.’ But I got along with him great.”

Trump even suggested at the time that military force might not be required to ensure that Chinese troops do not encroach on Taiwan, simply because China’s leader “respects me,” despite Trump more recently discussing potentially selling arms to Taiwan.

Trump has continued to praise the bilateral relationship since returning to the White House, even after his Beijing visit, originally scheduled for March, was postponed due to the early stages of the Iran war.

He unsuccessfully prodded China to get involved in reopening the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian forces choked it off and disrupted global economies. But China did use its leverage as the largest purchaser of Iranian oil to encourage Iran to agree to what has been a fragile ceasefire.

The White House says it expects Trump to apply pressure on China with regards to Iran. Beijing has strong economic ties to Tehran, and the war could hurt its economy, which was already projected to grow more slowly. If China can help establish lasting peace, though, that might boost its standing in negotiations on trade issues with the Trump administration.

Trade issues a sticking point

During his 2017 visit, Trump announced $250 billion in nonbinding trade deals, some of which never materialized. A round of trade deals announced in 2020 and worth $200 billion mostly never came to fruition before Trump's first term ended.

More recently, Trump’s announcement last year of steep global tariffs prompted China to cut off purchases of U.S. soybeans and clamp down on exports of rare earth minerals needed by American factories.

Tensions have eased somewhat since the U.S. reached a trade truce last fall that has limited tariffs on both sides. The White House says there have been more recent discussions about extending the trade truce, and that both sides support doing so.

Trump “doesn’t travel anywhere without bringing deliverables home to our country,” according to Kelly. “Americans can expect the president to deliver more good deals for the United States while in China,” she said.

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Associated Press writer E. Eduardo Castillo contributed from Beijing

San Francisco-based startup Andon Labs has put an artificial intelligence agent nicknamed “Mona” in charge at the eponymous Andon Café in the Swedish capital. While human baristas still brew the coffee and serve the orders, the AI agent — powered by Google’s Gemini — oversees almost every other aspect of the business, from hiring staff to managing inventory.

It is not clear how long the experiment will last, but the AI agent appears to be struggling to turn a profit in Stockholm’s competitive coffee trade. The cafe has made more than $5,700 in sales since it opened in mid-April, but less than $5,000 remains from its original budget of $21,000-plus. Much of the cash was spent on one-time setup costs, and the hope is that it eventually levels out and makes money.

Many cafe patrons have found it amusing to visit a business that's run by AI. Customers can pick up a telephone inside the cafe and ask the agent questions.

“It’s nice to see what happens if you push the boundary,” customer Kajsa Norin said. “The drink was good.”

Experts worry about AI's role going forward

Experts say ethical concerns abound, ranging from technology's role in humankind's future to conducting job interviews and judging employee performance.

Emrah Karakaya, an associate professor of industrial economics at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, likened the experiment to “opening Pandora’s box" and said putting AI in charge can cause many problems. What might happen, he said, if a customer gets food poisoning? Who’s to blame?

“If you don’t have the required organizational infrastructure around it, and if you overlook these mistakes, it can cause harm to people, to society, to the environment, to business,” Karakaya said. “The question is, do we care about this negative impact?”

Founded in 2023, Andon Labs is an AI safety and research startup that says it focuses on “stress-testing” AI agents in the real world by giving them “real tools and real money.” It has worked with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Claude’s Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Elon Musk’s xAI, and the startup says it is preparing for a future where “organizations are run autonomously by AI.”

The Swedish cafe is billed as a “controlled experiment” to explore how AI might be deployed going forward.

“AI will be a big part of society in the future, and therefore we want to make this experiment (to) see what ethical questions arise when we have AI that employs other people and runs a business,” said Hanna Petersson, a member of Andon Labs’ technical staff.

The lab previously held pilots that put Anthropic’s Claude AI in charge of a vending machine business and a San Francisco gift store. The vending machine simulation revealed some worrying traits: The AI agent told customers it would issue refunds but never did, and it also intentionally lied to suppliers about competitor pricing to gain leverage.

AI agent struggles with inventory orders

Mona got to work after it was prompted with some basic instructions, Petersson said. The team told it to try to run the cafe profitably, be friendly and easygoing, and figure out operational details by itself but ask for new tools if needed.

From there it set up contracts for electricity and internet, and secured permits for food handling and outdoor seating. The agent then advertised for staff on LinkedIn and Indeed, and set up commercial accounts with wholesalers for daily bread and bakery orders. It communicates with the baristas via Slack, often messaging them outside of working hours, which is a workplace no-no in Sweden.

Other problems have arisen, particularly related to inventory.

The AI agent has placed orders for 6,000 napkins, four first-aid kits and 3,000 rubber gloves for the tiny cafe — plus canned tomatoes that aren’t used in any dish the cafe serves.

And then there’s the bread. Sometimes the agent orders far too much, while other days it misses bakeries’ daily deadlines, forcing the baristas to strike sandwiches from the menu.

Petersson said the ordering issues are likely due to the AI assistant’s “limited context window.”

“When old memory of ordering stuff is out of the context window, she completely forgets what she has ordered in the past,” Petersson said.

Barista Kajetan Grzelczak said he isn’t worried about being replaced by AI just yet.

“All the workers are pretty much safe,” he said. “The ones who should be worried about their employment are the middle bosses, the people in management.”

His African American studies professor lectured about what is known today as the Tulsa Race Massacre — the days in 1921 when white mobs carried out a scorched-earth campaign against an outnumbered Black militia protecting the fabled Black Wall Street, a prosperous all-Black community.

“I actually told a teacher, ‘I’m from Tulsa. That’s not true,’” Solomon-Simmons recalled. “And of course, I was wrong.”

That day planted a seed for the then-aspiring attorney, who went on to lead a reparations campaign for the living survivors of the massacre and their descendants. Nearly 105 years later, no one has been compensated for what they lost, and none of the culprits have been held accountable.

That fight for reparations is the subject of Solomon-Simmons’ first book, “Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America,” which is intended as a blueprint for justice in historic atrocities that Black Americans endured but never received reparations for. The book hits shelves Tuesday.

After the massacre, more than 35 city blocks of the neighborhood known as Greenwood were leveled in fires, an estimated 191 businesses were destroyed, and roughly 11,000 Black residents were displaced. The state of Oklahoma declared the death toll to be only 36 people, although many historians and experts who have studied the event put the death toll between 75 and 300.

Greenwood, founded in 1906, had been a bustling city within a city, with Black-owned grocery stores, soda fountains, cafés, barbershops, a movie theater, music venues, cigar and billiard parlors, tailors and dry cleaners, rooming houses and rental properties.

“If you can ignore Greenwood, which was the beacon of Black prosperity and Black progress in the history of this country, then you can ignore Black people in general,” Solomon-Simmons recently told The Associated Press. “I think that’s why people around the nation are so focused on the work that we’re doing, because they understand what it means to all of Black America.”

Solomon-Simmons’s book comes just months before the United States will mark 250 years since its founding in 1776. That was 89 years before the institution of chattel slavery — meaning an enslaved person was held as legal property of another — was abolished. The civil rights attorney questions the idea that Americans can truly celebrate the country's accomplishments when it has yet to pay reparations, which historians say informs modern day disparities in wealth between Black and white people.

“We cannot talk about what America has been and will be, without making sure that these issues are discussed and we get reparatory justice for both” slavery and the Tulsa massacre, Solomon-Simmons said.

'America has never had a soul'

In 343 pages, Solomon-Simmons does more than recite the history of the massacre or make a legal thriller out of his reparations campaign. For him, securing justice for the survivors and descendants of the massacre is also about healing a nation whose earliest promises of equality for all rang hollow.

“When I speak of repairing America’s soul, I do not mean restoring something that was once whole,” Solomon-Simmons writes in the book. “America has never had a soul. … There was no moral center to recover.”

He suggests that America's soul cannot be repaired if it is forced to choose between rebuilding the nation or repairing Black America. They must do both, he says.

“The struggle for justice in Greenwood is not about returning to a mythical past. It is about proving whether America can build a soul at all through truth, through justice, through repair.”

Reparations for slavery and other historical racial injustices has been debated in the U.S. since Reconstruction, through the Civil Rights Movement and for much of the 21st century. Jennifer L. Morgan, a professor of history at New York University, said such debates are complicated by the question of exactly who pays the reparations and exactly who receives the payment.

“I don’t think that we’re talking about individuals who owe anybody else reparations. I think we’re talking about states, about institutions, about the nation,” Morgan said. “America is still grappling with reparations because America is still grappling at the legacy of slavery, racial discrimination, Jim Crow, and violent exclusion of Black people from the body politic."

Some opponents of reparations argue there are no living culprits or direct victims of enslavement, much less people with verifiable claims of harm that can be presented in a court of law.

Solomon-Simmons disagrees.

“We know who did the massacre — the perpetrators are still living in Tulsa,” he said referring to the city and the chamber of commerce, which plaintiffs alleged had a hand in obstructing Greenwood's recovery.

There is one remaining massacre survivor involved in the reparations lawsuit: 111-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle.

“If we cannot get her reparations while she’s alive, for the massacre, it’s gonna make it that much harder for us to get reparations for enslavement, Jim Crow, redlining and all those things that we are owed,” Solomon-Simmons said.

Fight for Tulsa reparations continues

In the book, Solomon-Simmons reflects on what committed him to the reparations fight.

While in law school, he was introduced to high profile civil rights attorneys working for the Reparations Coordinating Committee – the late Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree Jr., who mentored Barack and Michelle Obama; and the late Johnnie Cochran, who is widely known for defending O.J. Simpson during his trial for murder of his ex-wife. Solomon-Simmons became a law clerk for the committee.

After witnessing Ogletree argue a Tulsa reparations case in federal court in 2004, Solomon-Simmons said the practice of law stopped being just a credential for speaking, writing, or teaching. It became a calling.

In 2020, Solomon-Simmons led a lawsuit on behalf of 11 plaintiffs, including the last three known living survivors of the massacre, against the City of Tulsa and seven defendants. The suit was the first of its kind in state court and the first to get far enough to see a judge. In 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. In the final days of the Biden administration, the Justice Department released a report saying it had determined there is no longer an avenue for criminal prosecution over the massacre.

But the fight continues, Solomon-Simmons says, for cash payment to Randle and other descendants, as well as the return of land stolen after the massacre and during a period of urban renewal in Tulsa.

In 2025, the city’s first Black mayor, Monroe Nichols, endorsed a broad proposal dubbed Project Greenwood, which calls for financially compensating Randle, funding a scholarship program for descendants of victims, and designating June 1 as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day.

Solomon-Simmons also runs the nonprofit Justice for Greenwood, which he founded a year before the community marked the centennial of the massacre in 2021.

“One thing I’ve learned from this work, and as a lawyer in general, is that people want justice,” he said. “People want reparations, but people (also) want acknowledgment. They want to be seen. They want people to understand that something happened to them and their family, and they want an apology.”

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Aaron Morrison is the race and ethnicity news editor at AP.

“I think we upgraded a couple years ago and connected the computer to a TV,” Quinn says. “I wouldn’t want to do it any different.”

Quinn has good reason to keep any good luck charm. In all six of those awards ceremonies, Neon has won the Palme, the prestigious top honor of the Cannes Film Festival. It’s an unparalleled streak for one of the most sought-after prizes in movies, second only to the best picture Oscar. No other studio has ever come close to anything like it.

“No one ever believes it, but we’ve never gone to Cannes thinking we were going to win the Palme d’Or,” Quinn says. “It’s been a surprise every single year.”

When the 79th Cannes Film Festival gets underway Tuesday, Neon — a 60-person company founded in 2017 — rides in as an unlikely heavyweight. It’s backing more than a quarter of the 22 films in competition for the Palme. Its odds of making it seven in a row are good. Some of the most hotly anticipated titles — including Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi's “All of a Sudden,” Korean auteur Na Hong-jin's “Hope” and James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” — are Neon’s.

Altogether, the indie distributor has nine films in Cannes. All, Quinn notes, they signed on for before the films' Cannes invite.

“I hate to break it to everyone but don’t hate us for our good taste,” says Quinn. “Who’s chasing who here? Thierry (Frémaux, Cannes artistic director) is going to make up his own mind and we’re going to make up our own mind. It just so happens that we agree.”

Big studios are absent at Cannes, but Neon is everywhere

When Frémaux announced the lineup of this year’s festival, he lamented the almost nonexistent presence of Hollywood’s major studios. “When the studios are less present in Cannes, they are less present full stop,” he said.

While studio releases like Warner Bros.’ “One Battle After Another” and Universal’s upcoming “The Odyssey” can be major Oscar players, a wide swath of the most original movies of the past decade have been released by specialty labels like Neon and A24.

Both have risen to prominence at international film festivals like Cannes and at the Oscars by focusing on filmmakers, not IP.

“It’s not rocket science and there’s nothing secret about it,” says Quinn. “It’s pursuing the directors and films we want to be a part of.”

Quinn had worked at Samuel Goldwyn Films and Magnolia Pictures before, in 2011, launching Radius, a boutique label with Harvey Weinstein. Though, at Neon, Quinn expected A24 to be his chief competition, he found himself often bidding against Netflix, on movies like Neon’s first acquisition, the Margot Robbie-led “I, Tonya” and Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

“We did not outbid them but we out-passioned them,” says Quinn.

Neon does produce films (like the upcoming “I Love Boosters”), but it largely sticks to distributing movies in North America, often with awards campaigns attached to their releases. It has boarded its Palme d’Or winners — “It Was Just an Accident,” “Anora,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Titane” and “Parasite” — in a variety of ways.

Some were acquired in Cannes. Some, like “Parasite,” Neon boarded at the script stage. Quinn signed up for the body horror freak-out “Titane” even though the script made no sense to him. He just believed in its writer-director Julia Ducournau. In that way, Neon is the ultimate anti-algorithm studio.

And yet faith in filmmakers and good taste have carried Neon to the greatest heights of Hollywood. Both “Parasite” and “Anora” won best picture at the Academy Awards after winning the Palme. Neon nearly swept the best international Oscar category last March, with four of the five nominees: the winning “Sentimental Value,” “Sirāt,” “The Secret Agent” and “It Was Just an Accident.”

Breaking subtitle barriers

“Parasite” famously became the first non-English-language film to win best picture — a triumph for the “1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles,” as Bong Joon Ho noted in his acceptance speech.

Neon, majority owned by Dan Friedkin’s 30West, is far from competing with studio blockbusters at the box office. (Its biggest ticket seller thus far was Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs,” with $75 million.) But Neon has proved there’s a larger audience than many would have expected for daring, often international cinema.

They are, Quinn says, “agnostic” about where its titles come from, and the company’s small size means they can give each movie a bespoke rollout. And by the end of the year, Neon will gather its releases into a DVD box set, even though many voters don’t have DVD players anymore.

“Audiences are desperate, desperate for creativity,” Quinn says. “Films are not packaged goods. The idea that this art form that is so subjective is treated as a P & L (profit and loss statement), I don’t know how you can make good creative decisions when you’re dealing with billions of debt looming at your door.”

Neon’s slate in Cannes is typically wide-ranging. Also up for the Palme is Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord,” with Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve; Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Sheep in the Box”; and “The Unknown,” by “Anatomy of a Fall” cowriter Arthur Harari. It also has Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Her Private Hell”; Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri’s “Clarissa” and William and David Greaves’ already lauded documentary, “Once Upon a Time in Harlem.”

Some of the movies that escaped Neon’s grasp still irk Quinn. He missed out on Kore-eda’s “Shoplifters,” the Palme winner in 2018.

“The idea that we would have won seven Palmes in a row is completely outlandish,” Quinn says. “But that’s a huge regret.”

That's the message from a leading pediatricians group, which just released the first new guidance in 13 years about this unstructured time at school and how it needs to be protected.

The updated policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics comes after years of shrinking recesses and worsening children’s health.

The group "has always supported play – free play for kids – but it’s been increasingly threatened over time,” partly by the drive for higher test scores, said Dr. Robert Murray, a lead author. “It has a very powerful benefit if it’s used to the fullest.”

The new guidance, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is similar to the previous policy statement but cites the latest research on why these breaks are essential for kids’ academic success and mental, physical, social and emotional growth.

For example, new evidence shows that kids need pauses between concentrated bouts of learning so the brain can hold and store the information. Researchers also say recess gives kids a chance to navigate relationships and build confidence, which is just as important for older kids as younger ones.

Murray and his colleagues also stressed the importance of physical activity in preventing obesity, a condition that now affects about 1 in 5 U.S. children and teens.

Given these benefits, they recommend that recess be protected and never withheld for academic or punitive reasons, as sometimes happens in schools.

“If the child is disruptive or rude and disrespectful, recess is one of the things that teachers use to punish kids,” Murray said, adding that students struggling with behavioral issues or grades are often the ones who need recess most.

But those students aren’t the only ones losing out. Recess has been waning for all kids. Since the mid-2000s, up to 40% of school districts nationally have reduced or eliminated recess, according to data from the group Springboard to Active Schools in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Today, the duration of recess varies widely across U.S. schools, ranging from less than 10 minutes to more than an hour a day, the pediatrics group said. Older kids generally get less time than younger ones.

Ideally, studies show, kids should get a minimum of 20 minutes a day and multiple breaks. In other countries such as Denmark, Japan and the United Kingdom, students get breaks after every 45 minutes to 50 minutes of classroom instruction.

“They should get a long enough period of time where they can de-stress and blow off steam and prepare for the next class,” Murray said.

Dr. Lauren Fiechtner, a childhood obesity expert at Mass General Brigham for Children in Boston, said she’s glad about the updated recess recommendations. She’s seen the importance of recess as both a doctor and mother of two. She recalled how her 8-year-old son learned how to play basketball at recess and now loves the game.

Fiechtner, who wasn’t involved in creating the guidance, agrees with the recommendation that middle and high school students need recess, too.

“As kids get older, they’re more on their screens. So it’s really helpful, I think, for outdoor activity and recess to be happening,” she said. “Recess is great. We all kind of need recess.”

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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.

With one frustrated swing of his right elbow on Sunday night, Wembanyama changed the course of Game 4 — and perhaps the series.

Ejected after striking Timberwolves center Naz Reid in the throat early in the second quarter, Wembanyama was confined to watching his teammates admirably overcome his notable absence before fading down the stretch in a 114-109 defeat that evened the series at two games apiece.

“It was a whole lot of grabbing and pushing and shoving, but that’s a part of the game,” said Spurs rookie Dylan Harper, who matched his career high with 24 points. “The next man has got to step up. I think we all did a great job of controlling what we can control.”

Wembanyama was swarmed by Reid and Jaden McDaniels after grabbing an offensive rebound following a missed 3-pointer. With McDaniels tugging on his left arm, Wembanyama snapped and jabbed his right arm back toward Reid — and struck him square in the neck.

Television replays showed Harper behind the scrum with a stunned expression, his mouth agape. McDaniels quickly bearhugged Wembanyama to try to avoid escalation, and the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama took a seat on the bench while the officials reviewed the video with the fans at Target Center chanting, “Kick him out!”

The foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 2 for excessive contact above the neck. That penalty triggers an automatic ejection, immediately swinging the balance of a pivotal game in the series toward the Timberwolves. The Spurs had the lead after their 115-108 win in Game 3 on Friday.

When the penalty was announced, Wembanyama appeared to ask teammate Harrison Barnes, "What does that mean?” He slapped hands with each of his Spurs teammates on his way off the floor, with the arena sound system blaring Michael Jackson's “Beat it!”

Wembanyama finished with four points, four rebounds and three fouls in 13 minutes.

“I’m glad he took matters into his own hands. Not in terms of hitting Naz Reid — by all means, being very clear about that,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “I'm glad Naz Reid is OK, and I didn’t want him to elbow him, but he’s going to have to protect himself.”

Johnson raised a concern beyond simply how the Timberwolves have been playing Wembanyama, who was the first overall pick in the 2023 draft.

“The level of physicality that opponents have been trying to impose on him since his first days in the league, combined with the lack of protection from the referees, is really disappointing,” Johnson said. "And to a certain extent, it’s starting to become downright nauseating.”

With Reid, Julius Randle and McDaniels in their frontcourt, the Timberwolves have had plenty of muscle and tenacity to send at Wembanyama, even if he's been good enough offensively to overcome it. He had 39 points on 13-for-18 shooting from the floor in Game 3.

“You never want anyone to get hurt, but you could see the frustration. I could see where he's coming from,” Harper said. “We've got his back, and I think he can learn from that, and he just knows not to do that again.”

Now the series shifts back to San Antonio for Game 5 on Tuesday, with the league certain to assess the play for potential further punishment, but Johnson dismissed any concern about a suspension.

“There was zero intent," he said. "I think it would be ridiculous.”

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

One the 17 American passengers evacuated from the MV Hondius tested positive for the hantavirus but is not showing any symptoms, U.S. health officials said late Sunday.

Earlier, one of the five French passengers developed symptoms on their flight home, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in a statement, and all were put into strict isolation with plans to be tested.

Passengers were evacuated off the MV Hondius following its arrival in Tenerife, the largest island in the Spanish archipelago off the West African coast.

Earlier, officials from the Spanish Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions had said none of the more than 140 people who were then on the Hondius had shown symptoms of the virus.

The aircraft carrying the Americans was due to arrive in Omaha, Nebraska, early Monday.

The Americans would first be taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which has a federally funded quarantine facility, to assess whether they have been in close contact with any symptomatic people and their risk levels for spreading the virus.

The medical school also has a special unit for treating people with highly infectious diseases that was used early in the pandemic for COVID-19 patients and previously for Ebola patients.

“One passenger will be transported to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit upon arrival, while other passengers will go to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring. The passenger who is going to the Biocontainment Unit tested positive for the virus but does not have symptoms,” said Kayla Thomas, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Medicine hospital that will help care for the passengers.

From the ship, all of the passengers were escorted to shore by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks. Spanish passengers were the first to leave, flown to Madrid and taken to a military hospital. Hours later, a plane that evacuated French passengers landed in Paris, where it was met by emergency vehicles.

The planes arriving in Tenerife were to fly out passengers from more than 20 countries in an evacuation effort that was expected to last until Monday.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry said a Japanese national arrived in Britain on a chartered flight arranged by the British government and will be under health monitoring by British authorities for up to 45 days.

Three people have died since the outbreak began, and five people who left the ship earlier are infected with hantavirus.

Health officials say risk to public is low

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak.

“We have been repeating the same answer many times," he said. "This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic.”

Even so, those disembarking and workers at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife wore protective gear during the evacuation process, including hazardous-materials suits, face masks and respirators. Video obtained by The Associated Press showed passengers on the tarmac donning similar suits and being sprayed with disinfectant.

Passengers were relieved to be on their way home, another WHO official said. “It’s been great seeing all the buses coming out and people really happy to be on land again and being repatriated,” said Diana Rojas Alvarez, the WHO health operations lead, who is on Tenerife.

Authorities have said the disembarking passengers and crew members will be checked for symptoms and will be forbidden from having any contact with the local population. They were to be taken off the ship only when evacuation flights are ready. Tedros and Spain’s health and interior ministers are supervising the operation in Tenerife.

Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, and the disease is not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Passengers and disembarking crew members left behind their luggage and were allowed to take only a small bag with essentials, a cellphone, a charger and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, Spanish authorities said.

The journey to Rotterdam takes about five days, the cruise company said.

Passengers will be monitored

The WHO is recommending that passengers' home countries "have active monitoring and follow-up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility,” said Maria van Kerkhove, the organization's top epidemiologist.

“We are leaving this up to the countries themselves to actually develop their own policies,” she added. “But our recommendations are very clear.”

Numerous countries have said their people will be quarantined or hospitalized for observation.

In the U.K., for example, authorities have said passengers will be hospitalized for 72 hours of quarantine, followed by six weeks of self-isolation.

The French had planned a similar protocol, but after Sunday's flight, the prime minister said the five passengers would be kept in the hospital "until further orders."

A Dutch evacuation plane touched down Sunday evening in the Netherlands city of Eindhoven, with disembarking passengers wearing masks and carrying belongings in white plastic bags. The 26 aboard included eight Dutch citizens, as well as people from India, Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, Guatemala, the Philippines and Montenegro, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.

The Dutch citizens were being taken home by medical transport and will self-quarantine for six weeks. Local health services were arranging quarantine locations for others.

The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, said Americans would first be flown to the University of Nebraska. After that, he told CNN’s “State of the Union,” they will be given the choice of staying in Nebraska or going home, where their conditions would be monitored by state and local health agencies.

He made the comments before the report one passenger had tested positive.

He noted that seven Americans who left the cruise have been in the U.S. for roughly two weeks, and they are living across the country.

Australia is sending a plane, expected to arrive Monday, to evacuate its people and those from nearby countries, such as New Zealand, and unspecified Asian countries, said Spanish Health Minister Mónica García, who added that the evacuation flight was expected to be the last to leave Tenerife.

Norway sent an ambulance plane to the island with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.

British medics parachute into remote territory

Elsewhere, British Army medics parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of hantavirus.

The patient was a passenger on the MV Hondius and disembarked last month.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said a team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians jumped Saturday from a Royal Air Force transport plane, which also dropped oxygen and medical equipment.

Tristan da Cunha is Britain’s most remote inhabited overseas territory, about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the nearest inhabited island, St. Helena. The group of volcanic islands has no airstrip and is usually accessible only by a six-day boat voyage from Cape Town, South Africa.

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Naishadham reported from Madrid. Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris, Jill Lawless in London and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

The gap between young and older Americans' views of the job market now is greater than in any other country among the 141 surveyed, according to the Gallup World Poll. In the United States, 43% of those aged 15-34 believe it’s “a good time” to find a job in the area where they live, well below the 64% of those aged 55 and over who say the same.

Around the world, it's the opposite. Globally, the median share of younger people who say it’s “a good time” to find work in their local job market is 48%, compared with 38% among older people.

The findings reveal a generational rift in Americans' views of economic opportunity, with young people feeling increasingly downtrodden about job prospects, while older people still largely think it's a good time to find work. The schism is likely to continue fueling generational divides in politics, where younger voters have focused on economic issues such as housing costs and have registered less faith in institutions.

“It’s an incredibly new phenomenon,” Benedict Vigers of Gallup said of young Americans' pessimism. He added that last year was the first time in Gallup’s decades of polling that young Americans were more pessimistic about the job market than their peers in other developed countries. “Has this happened in most other advanced economies? The answer is a resounding no.”

Younger and older Americans differ on how easy it is to find a new job

Young people, with fewer physical limitations and family responsibilities — along with an ability to adapt more quickly than older counterparts — normally are more optimistic about their ability to land work.

But the new Gallup analysis finds the U.S. is one of only five countries where younger people are at least 10 points more pessimistic about the availability of work than older ones, joining China, Hong Kong, Norway, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates.

Among the 141 countries surveyed, younger Americans ranked 87th in job market expectations. Even that is striking, Vigers said, because young Americans have long stood out globally for their optimism about job opportunities. Other countries, such as New Zealand and Canada, had lower levels of optimism among the youngest group, but there was no significant generational divide.

The divergence between younger and older Americans happened suddenly. Every U.S. age group registered a drop in confidence in the job market after 2023 — following a post-COVID rebound in 2021 and 2022 — but those 34 and younger saw the largest decline in recent years. The share of younger Americans saying it was “a good time” to find a job plunged by 27 percentage points from 2023 to 2025. That's comparable to the rate of decline for young people during the 2008 global financial crisis, which also saw a drastic drop in confidence for older Americans. But that hasn't happened in the last few years. In fact, older Americans’ views have barely dropped.

Older Americans also have a sunnier view of the economic landscape more generally, according to recent AP-NORC polling. About 8 in 10 adults under 35 describe the U.S. economy as very or somewhat poor, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. Only about 6 in 10 adults 55 and older say the same, although a majority still see the U.S. economy negatively.

John Della Volpe, a pollster who regularly surveys U.S. youth for the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, said young people are frequently frustrated at how prior generations don't understand their current economic challenges.

“It's just another thing that drains their mental health — 'my parents don't understand that their pathway at this stage in life that I'm in was so much easier,'” Della Volpe said.

Job market optimism among younger adults approaches Great Recession levels

Younger Americans’ job market views now register close to the level they did in 2010, when the country was still deep in the Great Recession. This is not the first Gallup poll to find striking levels of pessimism among young Americans — they also register notably high levels of anxiety about pocketbook issues compared with people their age in other countries.

A separate Gallup survey on perceived U.S. job prospects found pessimism emerging at the end of 2024 and continuing into 2025. That coincides with the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term and the rise of artificial intelligence, which many fear will transform the labor market and eliminate many entry-level jobs.

The new poll finds the most frustrated groups of young people are those who haven’t secured a first job yet, college graduates and young women. But the heightened pessimism spreads across all subgroups of younger Americans, including men and those who haven't attended college.

“Whoever they are, they are more pessimistic than they were three years ago,” Vigers said of young Americans.

The older Americans who have a less dire view of the job market are themselves more likely to be retired and not looking for work. They’re also more likely to own their own homes, a longtime building block of American prosperity that has increasingly seemed out of reach to younger people.

Day-to-day financial concerns were a key issue in the 2024 election, particularly for younger voters, and Trump improved on his previous performance among this group as he ran on a platform of economic prosperity, fighting inflation and affordability. But like other groups that were important parts of Trump's 2024 coalition, some younger Americans have soured on the president as inflation continues, recent AP-NORC polling finds.

About 8 in 10 adults under 35 disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy and the cost of living, the recent AP-NORC poll found, compared with about 6 in 10 older adults.

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The Gallup World Poll results are based on telephone interviews conducted among approximately 1,000 U.S. adults from June 14 to July 16, 2025. The margin of error is ±4.4 percentage points for the U.S. sample.

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Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: The Netflix true crime documentary “The Crash,” pop-punk paragons The All-American Rejects return with their fifth studio album and Season 2 of Stanley Tucci's gastronomic tour “Tucci in Italy” lands on Disney+

New movies to stream from May 11-17

— Théodore Pellerin slyly infiltrates the inner circle of Archie Madekwe’s pop musician Oliver in the psychological thriller “Lurker,” streaming on HBO Max on Friday, May 15. The film explores the parasocial relationship of internet fandoms, and the power dynamics within the entourage of an on-the-cusp star. It was written and directed by Emmy-winner Alex Russell (“The Bear,” “Beef”), who looked to “obsessive thrillers” like “Whiplash” and “Black Swan” for inspiration.

— The Netflix true crime documentary “The Crash” looks into a 2022 car crash in Ohio, in which 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla slammed her car into a brick building at 100 mph, killing her boyfriend and his friend, and the conflicting narratives around that night. It begins streaming Friday, May 15. Also coming to Netflix? “Black Phone 2,” streaming on Saturday, May 16, which sees the return of Ethan Hawke’s The Grabber (who, yes, was killed in the first movie) who is intent on getting revenge against Mason Thames four years later.

— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

New music to stream from May 11-17

— On Friday, May 15, a new collection from the Colombian superstar Maluma, titled “Loco x Volver,” drops. It’s a celebration of his culture and then some: from the reggaetón/dancehall hybrid “Pa’ la seca” with Ryan Castro to “Con El Corazón” with the late great Yeison Jiménez and everything in between, these are songs that celebrate his roots while modernizing folkloric sounds.

— Pop-punk paragons The All-American Rejects are back, preparing to release their fifth studio album and first full-length in nearly 15 years, since 2012’s “Kids in the Street.” Expect what they’re known for: Big hooks, big chords, big choruses and bigger fun.

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

New series to stream from May 11-17

— “Pop Culture Jeopardy!” has a new home for its second season. The game show, hosted by Colin Jost, makes the jump to Netflix beginning Monday, with a new episode dropping each weekday through June 5. Sample categories include “bummer movie endings,” “Broadway on the big screen” and “TV of the 2010s.” If trending topics make up your FYP on TikTok, this one’s for you.

— Stanley Tucci is fresh off a world tour to promote “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and now he’s taking us to Italy for season two of “Tucci in Italy.” In the new episodes, the actor visits regions like Sicily, Campania and Sardinia to meet with locals and eat food native to those areas. Travel along on Disney+ and Hulu beginning Tuesday.

— Fans have to wait until 2027 for a new season of “Heated Rivalry” but there’s another series available in the hockey romance genre. “Off Campus” debuts its first season on Prime Video on Wednesday. It’s about the love lives of a group of college hockey players. Each season follows a different relationship. The leads of Season 1 are Belmont Cameli and Ella Bright, while Season 2, starring Antonio Cipriano and India Fowler, begins filming very soon.

— Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser’s long-awaited “Yellowstone” spinoff debuts Friday, May 15, on Paramount+. “Dutton Ranch” takes place one year after the events of the series finale of “Yellowstone” and characters Beth and Rip have relocated to Texas. They’ve got a new ranch now but if we’ve learned anything from the other shows, owning land can be very dangerous. Annette Bening and Ed Harris also star.

— Alicia Rancilio

New video games to play from May 11-17

— U.K. developer Supermassive Games has built its reputation on horror gems like “Until Dawn” and “The Quarry” that evoked classic movies like “Friday the 13th.” For its latest thriller, “Directive 8020,” the inspiration appears to be “Alien” and “The Thing.” You are 12 light years from Earth when your colony ship crashes on Tau Ceti f. The organisms there aren’t happy to meet you, and they are quite adept at imitating their prey. Can you trust your crewmates? Can you prevent the predators from hitching a ride when you try to return home? Things start getting squishy Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

— Lou Kesten

Naz Reid took the fateful elbow to the neck from a frustrated Wembanyama and finished with 15 points and nine rebounds to help the Timberwolves finish strong after some shaky stretches.

“Pain is weakness in the body,” Reid said. “That’s it.”

Edwards hit a 27-footer to bring the Wolves within 94-91, turning to shout at the crowd for some help down the stretch as the Spurs. His catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from the wing with 5:12 left put them up 98-97, their first lead since midway through the third quarter.

Then the big men went to work without Wembanyama patrolling the paint. Rudy Gobert, who had 11 points and 13 rebounds, converted a three-point play with 3:02 left off a high-low feed from Reid and later threw down a dunk for a 107-101 lead with 1:56 to go after a slick pass from Julius Randle.

Reid’s follow shot with 40 seconds left gave the Wolves a seven-point lead, before Dylan Harper had a rebound, a drawn foul, a steal, and two free throws to help the Spurs pull within three.

After managing to corral a full-court baseball toss from inbound passer Jaden McDaniels as De'Aaron Fox undercut his leaping catch and caused a loose ball, Ayo Dosunmu drew a foul and sank two free throws with 9.8 seconds left to put the game out of reach and tie the series at two games apiece.

San Antonio hosts Game 5 on Tuesday, with Wembanyama’s status to be determined by the league following the Flagrant 2 foul call and automatic ejection he was levied for the excessive contact to Reid.

Harper and Fox each scored 24 points and Stephon Castle added 20 as the Spurs guards unflinchingly took the baton from their 7-foot-4 superstar and turned the rest of the night into a mid-range clinic with an array of pull-up jumpers in and around the paint.

“Just trying to be what the team needed me to be,” said Harper, the second overall pick in the NBA draft last year. “I think I did OK. Obviously the main goal is to win. We didn't get that done.”

The crowd at Target Center went wild when Wembanyama walked off the floor with Minnesota leading by two, but the Wolves never fully took advantage of the gift created by his absence. They've long had a tendency of losing their edge, particularly defensively, when an opponent's star player is missing.

“When every team is missing their best player, everybody plays free. They get more shots, more confident,” Edwards said. “So I think it was a lot harder on us.”

After committing six turnovers in a 20-point third quarter, the Wolves found themselves in another eight-point hole early in the fourth following Fox's 3-pointer before delivering another clutch finish.

“We have a resilient group of guys. No matter the circumstances, we are going to keep fighting and give everything we have and keep trusting one another,” Gobert said. “Just making the right play. That’s who we are. We might not be always consistent with that, but I feel like when it matters, we raise our level.”

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

The 53-year-old father of four fears the strain will worsen if the war drags on, saying long hours waiting for fuel have sharply cut his income and made it increasingly difficult to support his family in Dhaka, the nation's capital, including a daughter at university and a son in college.

“My family was managing fairly well through ride-sharing," he said. “But after the fuel shortage began, I would buy fuel one day and run the bike for two days. As a result, I had to sit idle for one day, which reduced my income.”

The strain in Islam's household reflects a broader squeeze in Bangladesh, heavily dependent on imported fuel, where energy shortages have disrupted daily life, slowed industrial output and raised concerns about economic growth as global tensions push up costs and strain supplies.

Conditions have eased slightly in recent days, with shorter queues at fuel stations after the government increased supplies, but concerns persist across sectors.

Across Asia, governments are facing similar strains as the war-driven surge in energy prices rattles economies dependent on imported oil and gas.

The continent is exposed because it relies on imported fuel, much of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for about a fifth of global oil and natural gas trade.

Higher fuel costs are leading to inflation and squeezing household budgets, while industries from manufacturing to transport are facing rising operating costs and supply disruptions.

The Asian Development Bank in late April cut growth forecasts for developing Asia and the Pacific, warning that war-driven energy disruptions would slow economies and fuel inflation. It now expects growth of 4.7% in 2026, with inflation rising to 5.2% as oil prices climb and financial conditions tighten.

Many are hoping for a quick end to the conflict and a return to normal.

“If this situation continues, we will have to move back to our village and find some other way to earn a living,” Islam, the struggling father said. It is not possible to survive in Dhaka by doing ride-sharing under these conditions.”

Energy crunch weighs on Bangladesh’s economy

Rising energy prices are also expected to strain Bangladesh’s finances, with the government likely to spend an additional $1.07 billion on LNG subsidies in the April-June quarter alone if global prices remain high.

Bangladesh has sought supplies from its big neighbor India, which has responded positively as it has diversified sources, including Russia, of fuel.

Already, authorities have imposed austerity measures to manage the crisis as global lenders warn of slower growth in the nation of more than 170 million people. Gas and diesel shortages have triggered more frequent power cuts in industrial zones.

The government has also shut fertilizer factories to divert gas to power plants, restricted evening hours for shopping malls and introduced fuel rationing.

The World Bank said in April it expects growth in Bangladesh to slow to 3.9% in the fiscal year ending in June 2026, warning that a prolonged Middle East conflict could fuel inflation, widen the current account deficit and strain public finances through higher energy subsidies.

Jean Pesme, the World Bank’s division director for Bangladesh and Bhutan, said the economy already faced “pre-existing vulnerabilities and challenges, in particular on the economic and employment front.”

The rising costs now are “obviously making the fiscal situation more difficult.”

He also warned that authorities should be cautious in raising fuel prices, saying higher costs could hurt farmers and agriculture.

Bangladesh garment industry is hit as exports slow

The energy crunch is also driving up costs and threatening Bangladesh’s garment exports, the backbone of its economy, business leaders say.

Anwar-Ul Alam Chowdhury, president of the Bangladesh Chamber of Industries, said exports to Europe and the U.S. could face a significant setback. Shipments have fallen between 5% and 13% in recent months, he said. He worries that customers could lose confidence in Bangladesh’s ability to deliver and that competitor nations such as India, Vietnam and Cambodia could gain market share if the crisis persists.

Chowdhury said factory output has dropped by 30% to 40% for various reasons and that the situation has worsened since the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran, while business costs have risen by about 35% to 40%.

Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China, earns about $39 billion annually from the sector, which employs around 4 million workers, mostly women from rural areas.

Alvi Islam, director of Arrival Fashion Limited, said manufacturers are facing higher costs for petroleum-based materials such as sewing threads, poly bags — plastic bags used in packaging — and cartons, while spending more on diesel generators to cope with frequent power cuts.

His company, which exports products worth about $40 million annually, now runs generators at least four hours a day during production.

“For that reason, the cost of doing business for exporting garments has increased quite significantly in past one month,” he said.

Workers worry about livelihoods

Garment worker Mosammet Runa, 35, said she fears for her family’s future if the war continues.

“Millions of people like us depend on this industry. It is how we survive,” said Runa, who, along with her husband, earns about $400 a month to support their family of six.

She said a prolonged conflict could wipe out jobs and called for an end to the fighting.

“We are innocent people. The world should not make us victims," she said.

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AP journalist Al Emrun Garjon contributed to this report.

A crowd of about 300 supporters and political allies gathered outside the Klong Prem Central Prison to greet the 76-year-old billionaire populist.

Thaksin was a telecommunications magnate who founded his own political party in 1998 and served as prime minister from 2001 until a military coup ousted him in 2006 while he was abroad. His ouster triggered nearly two decades of deep and sometimes violent political polarization, while his political machine staged several comebacks even as Thaksin himself stayed in self-imposed exile to escape what he said was political persecution through the courts.

His three children, including former prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and other family members also arrived early to welcome him.

Thaksin emerged from the prison gate in a white polo shirt and blue pants and was embraced by his family. He smiled brightly as he walked around to greet his supporters who chanted “we love Thaksin,” and gave red roses to him. He then left without speaking to reporters.

He arrived at his residence in western Bangkok about an hour later. In a video streamed by Thairath News, Thaksin was seen rolling down the car window to greet a small group of supporters waiting at his home, responding to reporters' shouted questions that “I was in hibernation, I can't remember anything now.”

Thaksin was the first elected prime minister in Thai history to serve a full four-year term. Policies like a national healthcare scheme and projects to build roads in less developed parts of the country drew devoted support from the poorer segments of society, particularly in the rural north and northeast, but his popularity and sometimes high-handed style created deep fractures between his base and the country’s urban elites, royalists, and military.

He was charged with abuse of power over allegations including using his position to benefit his own business interests and illegally approving a state lottery project that caused losses to the government.

Thaksin was convicted in absentia, but returned to Thailand to be sentenced in 2023 as the Pheu Thai Party, his most recent political vehicle, formed a government. He was widely believed to have reached a secret accommodation with the traditional royalist establishment. He was originally sentenced to eight years in prison, but it was commuted to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, which he was granted permission to serve from a suite in Bangkok’s Police Hospital on medical grounds.

After protests that he had received unwarranted special treatment, the Supreme Court in September 2025 ordered Thaksin to serve his sentence in prison.

A Justice Ministry panel agreed last month to grant him parole as part of a review of more than 900 eligible prisoners’ cases, citing his good behavior in prison, his age and the low risk that he would repeat his offense.

After his release, Thaksin will be on probation for four months, during which he must reside at his declared home in Bangkok, wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, and report regularly to probation officials.

Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn became the country’s youngest prime minister in 2024 but was removed from office by the Constitutional Court in August 2025 after a recording was released of a compromising phone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

The Pheu Thai party managed only a third-place finish in this year’s general election.

Iranian state television reported that Tehran rejected the U.S. proposal as amounting to surrender, insisting instead on “war reparations by the U.S., full Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions, and the release of seized Iranian assets.”

Washington’s latest proposal addressed a deal to end the war, reopen the strait and roll back Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump's rejection of the Iranian response included no details. In an earlier post, he accused Tehran of “playing games” with the United States for nearly 50 years, adding: "They will be laughing no longer!"

Trump is giving diplomacy “every chance we possibly can before going back to hostilities,” the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told ABC earlier.

Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard publicly since the war began, “issued new and decisive directives for the continuation of operations and the powerful confrontation with the enemies” while meeting with the head of the joint military command, the state broadcaster reported, with no details.

Drone attacks target Gulf Arab nations

The fragile ceasefire was tested when a drone ignited a small fire on a ship off Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait reported drones entering their airspace. The UAE said it shot down two drones and blamed Iran. No casualties were reported, and no one immediately claimed responsibility.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry called the ship attack a “dangerous and unacceptable escalation that threatens the security and safety of maritime trade routes and vital supplies in the region." The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center gave no details about the ship's owner or origin.

Kuwait Defense Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al Otaibi said forces responded to drones but did not say where they came from.

Iran and armed allied groups such as the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group have used drones to carry out hundreds of strikes since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28.

Iran says it's on ‘full readiness’ to protect nuclear sites

Trump has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran does not accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear program. Iran has largely blocked the strategic waterway that's key to the global flow of oil, natural gas and fertilizer since the war began, rattling world markets.

The U.S. military in turn has blockaded Iranian ports since April 13, saying it has turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four. On Friday, it struck two Iranian oil tankers it said were trying to breach the blockade. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy says any attack on Iranian oil tankers or commercial vessels would be met with a “heavy assault” on U.S. bases in the region and enemy ships.

In an interview posted late Saturday, an Iranian military spokesperson said forces were on “full readiness” to protect sites where uranium is stored.

The U.N. nuclear agency says Iran has more than 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons grade.

“We considered it possible that they might intend to steal it through infiltration operations or heli-borne operations,” Brig. Gen. Akrami Nia told the IRNA news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with CBS that aired Sunday said the war isn't over because the enriched uranium needs to be taken out of Iran. “Trump has said to me, ‘I want to go in there,’ and I think it can be done physically,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow’s proposal to take enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a settlement remains on the table.

The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely at its Isfahan nuclear complex, the International Atomic Energy Agency director-general told The Associated Press last month. The facility was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war last year and faced less intense attacks this year.

Iran warns against French-British effort in the strait

Iran's deputy foreign minister warned against a planned French-British effort that aims to support maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz after hostilities are over.

“The presence of French and British vessels, or those of any other country, for any possible cooperation with illegal U.S. actions in the Strait of Hormuz that violate international law will be met with a decisive and immediate response from the armed forces,” Kazem Gharibabadi said on social media.

French President Emmanuel Macron responded by saying it won't be a military deployment but an international mission to secure shipping once conditions allow.

Several attacks against ships in the Persian Gulf have occurred over the past week, and a U.S. effort to “guide” ships through the strait was quickly paused.

South Korea announced initial findings from an investigation that said two unidentified objects struck the South Korean-operated vessel HMM NAMU about one minute apart while it was anchored in the strait last week, causing an explosion and fire. Officials have yet to determine who was responsible.

Netanyahu denies telling Trump the war would cause regime change

In the interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” the Israeli prime minister denied New York Times reporting that he made a hard sell for Trump to start the Iran war by saying it would bring about regime change.

“We both agreed, you know, that there was both uncertainty and risk involved,” Netanyahu said. “And I remember that we — I said and he said — that the danger, there’s danger in action, in taking action, but there’s greater danger in not taking action.”

Asked whether he said in that February meeting that Iran would be so weakened it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, he said “the problem” of the vital oil shipping corridor “was understood as the fighting went on.”

“I don’t claim the perfect foresight," he said.

Netanyahu also said he wants to “draw down to zero” the military aid provided by the U.S., which he said now stands at $3.8 billion per year.

Israel has been a leading recipient of U.S. military aid for decades, but the war in Gaza, with its high number of civilian casualties, has caused that aid to come under greater scrutiny as American public support for Israel declines.

Netanyahu, however, offered an extended timeline, saying he wants to see the aid cut off over the next decade.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

In all, the SEC got 12 of its 15 teams into the field.

Regional play starts Friday, with the top 16 seeds hosting. The eight teams that get through super regionals the next week will play in the Women's College World Series, which starts May 28 at Devon Park in Oklahoma City.

Alabama (49-7) didn't catch a break in the seeding — the Crimson Tide could face Belmont superstar pitcher Maya Johnson in regional play. Johnson leads the nation with a 0.66 earned run average and was the No. 3 overall pick in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League draft.

Texas (42-10) returns pitcher Teagan Kavan, who was the Most Outstanding Player of the Women's College World Series last year and led the Longhorns to the SEC Tournament title this season. The Longhorns beat Alabama in the SEC championship game.

Oklahoma (48-8) is the No. 3 overall seed, despite losing in its opening game at the SEC Tournament. The Sooners have won four of the past five national titles and reached the semifinals last year. Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso, also the USA national coach, has won eight national championships.

Nebraska is seeded fourth. The Cornhuskers (46-6) beat UCLA to win the Big Ten tournament title on Saturday. Nebraska's Jordy Frahm led Oklahoma to a national title in 2023 as Jordy Bahl before transferring, then later getting married and changing her name.

The SEC has Arkansas (42-11) as the No. 5 seed, Florida (48-10) at No. 6 and Tennessee (42-10) at No. 7.

UCLA (47-8) is the No. 8 seed. Megan Grant just set the single-season record with 38 home runs. Jordan Woolery, who bats behind her at third in the lineup, has 107 RBIs and was the Big Ten Player of the Year.

Florida State (49-8) is No. 9 overall. The Seminoles won the national title in 2018 and were runner-up in 2021 and 2023.

Texas Tech fell all the way to No. 11 overall, despite a 52-6 record. Star pitcher NiJaree Canady led the Red Raiders to the championship series last year. She has more help this year, including pitcher Kaitlyn Terry.

The other top 16 seeds that will host include No. 10 Georgia (38-18), No. 12 Duke (39-14), No. 13 Oklahoma State (38-15), No. 14 Oregon (40-12), No. 15 Texas A&M (36-17) and No. 16 LSU (37-17).

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

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia-based Aramco said it successfully shifted some oil exports to a pipeline to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, which has been disrupted by the war.

On Sunday, the price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.58% to to $103.91 per barrel. That’s below its heights above $119 during the war, but it’s still much more expensive than its roughly $70 level from late February before the fighting began.

Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser said the company's East-West Pipeline, which runs across Saudi Arabia from its Eastern oil fields to the Red Sea, is now operating at its maximum capacity of 7 million barrels of oil per day. Nasser said the pipeline is “helping to mitigate the impact of a global energy shock and providing relief to customers.”

Still, that’s only a fraction of Aramco’s typical production. Aramco produced 11.1 million barrels of oil per day in the fourth quarter of 2025, for example.

Aramco reported a profit of $32.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31, up 25% from the same period a year ago. The state-owned company reported a 12% decline in annual profits in 2025.

Before the war, 20% of the world’s traded oil typically flowed through the strait every day, as well as large supplies of natural gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products. Iran effectively seized control of the critical waterway after the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28. A U.S. naval blockade imposed last month also complicates its use.

“Recent events have clearly demonstrated the vital contribution of oil and gas to energy security and the global economy, and are a stark reminder that reliable energy supply is critical,” Nasser said in a statement. “Despite these headwinds, Aramco remains focused on its strategic priorities and is leveraging both its domestic infrastructure and its global network to navigate disruption.”

The front will linger near our area early next week, which will keep showers and storms in the forecast Monday through Wednesday. Temperatures for the most part will remain in the 80s

This system will clear our region on Wednesday. Sunshine will return later in the week thanks to drier air overhead.

In terms of rainfall, the front will bring beneficial rainfall to our area with some spots picking up around an inch or more of rain. We will certainly take anything that we can get due to the drought.

Regarding the drought, the latest drought monitor reflects the overall pattern over the past few months. Most of our area remains in an extreme drought. An exceptional drought classification remains over the same locations.

TONIGHT: Mostly Cloudy. Patchy Fog. Low 70.

MONDAY: Mostly Cloudy. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 88, Low 68.

TUESDAY: Partly to Mostly Cloudy. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 78, Low 65.

WEDNESDAY: Sun & Clouds. Isolated Rain & Storms. High 84, Low 66.

THURSDAY: Sun & Clouds. High 88, Low 65.

FRIDAY: Sun & Clouds. High 85, Low 67.

He never followed through, instead sticking with his goal of winning tournaments.

He's glad he did.

The 28-year-old PGA Tour rookie from Norway shot 2-under 69 on Sunday to earn a two-shot win over Rickie Fowler and Nicolai Hojgaard at the Truist Championship for his first victory on the PGA Tour.

Reitan, who chose golf over soccer at a young age, won twice previously on the European Tour but this week proved to be his breakthrough moment. He finished at 15-under 269.

“I don’t have any words, to be honest,” Reitan said. “This is way more than I expected and for it to happen this quickly is just unreal. Yeah, a dream come true.”

Reitan said stepping away from the game for a bit after losing his DP Tour card helped him gain perspective.

“It helped me find my game again,” Reitan said. “It helped me discover my talents again. Yeah, that was something really important to me, which I try to remind myself of every single day. So that was definitely a huge thing for me getting back and starting to play some good golf again.”

Alex Fitzpatrick, the third-round leader, finished three shots back after shooting 73.

Reitan started the round one shot behind Fitzpatrick, but was even par for the day after 13 holes and one shot behind Fowler, who had surged to the lead after shooting 30 on the front nine.

“The first nine was ‘let’s go have a good day,’ and back nine was, ‘hey, we actually are in a spot where we can go win this,’” Fowler said.

But Fowler, who started the day seven shots behind, couldn’t sustain the momentum.

Playing four groups ahead of the leaders, Fowler missed a 6-foot birdie putt on 16, opening the door for Reitan, Fitzpatrick, and Hojgaard to pull into a four-way tie for the lead after all three made birdie.

Reitan took the lead for good when he hit his iron on the par-5 15th onto the green and two-putted for birdie.

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick’s wedge got caught up in the thick rough and his chip barely made the fringe, leading to a par and dropping him back one shot.

Hojgaard made bogey on 16 to fall two back.

Fowler’s chances ended when his approach shot on the 18th hole landed in the deep rough on the left side of the green and his chip came out short leading to bogey. He finished with a round of 65.

Fitzpatrick was the last man standing in Reitan's way, but he faltered again on 17 as his chip from the deep rough never made the green and he made double bogey.

Reitan played the final three holes of the Green Mile in even par and secured the win with a par on 18.

Reitan’s best previous finish was a tie for second last month at the Zurich Classic when he and playing partner Kris Ventura lost by one stroke to Fitzpatrick and his brother, Matt.

When he was young, Reitan had two loves — soccer and golf.

He realized pretty quickly he was better at golf, and his parents would take him to Spain every Christmas to give him a place to practice. On Sunday, he thanked them for making that investment in him.

“They have made golf a very, very high priority in our household,” Reitan said. “They have definitely made a great, great effort to at least help me get to the place I am today and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

It was a disappointing day for Cameron Young, the world's No. 3 player.

Looking for his second straight PGA win after a victory last week at Doral, Young started the day just two shots off the lead but had a double bogey on the second hole and never recovered with just one birdie the rest of the day.

He finished with a 74 and tied for 10th, six shots behind.

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

Deuce McBride started in place of the injured OG Anunoby and hit seven 3-pointers, going 4 for 4 in the first quarter when the Knicks had another record with 11, and scored 25 points. Brunson had 22 points and Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns each scored 17 in the Knicks' latest lopsided playoff victory.

The Knicks' 19.4 point-per-game margin of victory is the largest through two rounds since the playoffs went to 16 teams in 1984.

“It's just us being very locked in to the moment,” Towns said.

The Knicks advanced to the East finals for the second straight season and will play the winner of the Cleveland-Detroit series. The Pistons lead 2-1.

The Knicks last season reached the conference finals for the first time in 25 years before losing to Indiana. The Knicks then fired coach Tom Thibodeau and replaced him with Mike Brown, who has guided them to seven straight playoff wins, starting with the last three games against Atlanta.

“Our guys tried to take it to another level with their focus on the details and their energy and effort level,” Brown said. “That's a lot of the reason why we're playing pretty good basketball.”

Knicks fans made a habit of scooping up tickets by the thousands at the Sixers' arena for playoffs games over the years, and in Game 4, they may have made the loudest statement yet. They raised brooms outside the arena and waved “Always Knicks” towels once inside, all while noisily neutering the few Sixers fans that didn't make a few extra bucks on the secondary market and stuck around.

The 76ers' franchise failed to stop Knicks fans in their effort to buy tickets.

The 76ers were greater failures in trying to stop the Knicks on the floor.

Game 4 was a laugher from the tip, with the Knicks using the 3-point arc as a starting point for their personal pop-a-shot game.

With Knicks fans on their feet and exclaiming “Deuuuce," McBride hit one, two, three, four — four! — 3-pointers in succession for a 20-6 lead and the Sixers were already on their heels. McBride became the first Knick (since play-by-play tracking began in 1997) to hit four 3s in the first quarter of a playoff game.

New York's 3-point records were just heating up.

Brunson added two in the period (six total) to help make the Knicks 11 of 13, which tied the NBA mark for most makes in a quarter.

The Knicks totaled 18 3s in the first half to score 54 points off the long ball, compared to 57 total for the 76ers. Overall, that was an 81-57 lead and helped power the Knicks toward their first best-of-seven series sweep since the 1999 East semis against Atlanta.

The Knicks scored 80-plus points in the first half twice in five road playoff games this season.

The second half was a mere formality, and the Sixers are headed home after a gutsy 3-1 series comeback to beat Boston in the first round.

“The energy was a big gap between their energy and our energy, I thought," Sixers coach Nick Nurse said.

Joel Embiid ended another injury-riddled season with 24 points, Tyrese Maxey had 17 and the Sixers still have not advanced out of the second round since 2001.

“I came into this year not knowing where I was going to be (with health), how long I was going to play, if I was even going to play based on how the knee was the last few years,” Embiid said. “I came in just hoping for the best and I feel like we're in a position where we figured out the knee. It hasn't been an issue.”

Towns had 10 assists. Hart hit four 3-pointers and celebrated by stripping off his jersey and tossing it to a woman in Sixers gear.

“My right hand remembered that the goal was to make 3s,” Hart said. “Happy to have her back.”

If the sweep and the Knicks' fan takeover didn't saddle the Sixers with enough bad news, there was one final cutting blow to the ego — Philadelphia's two first-round 2018 draft picks are still playing: Mikal Bridges and Landry Shamet, of course, for the Knicks.

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

But the Trackhouse Racing driver was in another league Sunday, schooling the stars of the Cup Series at Watkins Glen International.

Starting from the pole position, van Gisbergen scored his seventh Cup Series victory — all on road or street courses — and his second consecutive on the 2.45-mile track by leading 74 of 100 laps in his No. 97 Chevrolet.

“We weren’t very good in practice, and then qualifying was amazing, and then today, what a race car,” van Gisbergen said. “And then (crew chief) Stephen (Doran) made great calls. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, and then to run them down like that, it's very, very special to do two in a row.”

Pitting from the lead under green with 24 laps remaining, van Gisbergen emerged in 24th and was nearly 30 seconds behind leader Ty Gibbs.

Extending his Cup record of wins by a driver born outside the United States, the New Zealand native needed only 17 laps to retake the lead from Gibbs, winning by 7.288 seconds over Michael McDowell.

“He’s made it pretty clear, especially at these tracks, he likes to be on offense, so we put him there and just let him go do his thing,” Doran said of the call to make a late stop for four tires instead of pitting earlier and conserving fuel as many others did.

Gibbs finished third, followed by Chase Briscoe and points leader Tyler Reddick.

McDowell, who started second, also had to charge through the pack after falling to 27th on his last pit stop. He occasionally thought he could keep pace with the race winner but soon realized van Gisbergen was playing possum.

“It felt like he was just pacing himself off me, and he’d take back off,” McDowell said. “We still got a little work to do, but it’s a good building block.”

Dating to Mexico City last June, van Gisbergen has now won six of the past seven races on road or street courses in Cup.

“It’s not easy,” van Gisbergen said. “Everyone’s really good. McDowell was good. Connor (Zilisch) was good. Tyler Reddick. There were some really good guys and a lot of pressure. So just stoked to execute every facet of our game. And speechless. This is so cool.”

Trackhouse sweep

The win by van Gisbergen came a day after a win in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series by rookie teammate Zilisch, who finished 20th Sunday after a tire problem late in the race. It still was a strong showing for Trackhouse, which qualified all three of its cars in the top five after compiling only four top-10 finishes in the first 11 races.

“Just frustrating because we had a really good day going,” Zilisch said. “At worst, we were going to get ourselves our first top five and walk out of here with something. But congrats to Shane, Trackhouse and everybody who makes this happen.”

Stumping for his uncle

Chase Elliott is known for avoiding public stances on NASCAR topics, but the eight-time Most Popular Driver concluded a Saturday media availability by volunteering a strong opinion.

With the vote on the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2027 set for May 19, Elliott made an impassioned plea to elect his uncle Ernie Elliott, who built engines for Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, Chase’s father. Ernie Elliott is on the ballot for the first time this year.

“I don’t talk about this stuff a lot, but you don’t have to dig very far into the Elliott racing story to recognize how much of a family effort it was,” Chase Elliott said. “I don’t think the story has the same ending, throughout the course of the 1980s and even leading into my career, without Uncle Ernie and what he meant to all of us. He’s meant a lot to my career. There are a lot of very, very deserving names on the list, but he is one of the very deserving that doesn’t get talked about enough for the credit that he deserves.”

One and done

The first May race at Watkins Glen might mark the only time that NASCAR runs the road course in the spring. NASCAR has already announced a September 2027 return to the Glen on a date to be determined. The 2024 race was held Sept. 15, and the other 42 Cup races at Watkins Glen were held in July or August.

NASCAR won’t unveil next year’s schedule for a few more months, but new CEO Steve O’Donnell reaffirmed on the Fox prerace show that Homestead-Miami Speedway, which will take over from Phoenix Raceway as this season’s finale, likely will be the final race in 2027.

Up next

The All-Star Race will make its debut May 17 at Dover Motor Speedway. Christopher Bell is the defending winner of the exhibition event, which was held the past three years at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway.

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

Her transfer comes after days of pleading by her family and others who described her condition as critical. Her foundation said she has been granted a prison sentence suspension on bail. It was not clear for how long her sentence is suspended, the foundation said.

Mohammadi had been imprisoned since December in Zanjan prison. She lost consciousness twice and was transferred to a local hospital on May 1.

A statement from her foundation, shared with The Associated Press, said the suspended sentence is not enough and that Mohammadi needs “permanent, specialized care.”

The statement added that “we must ensure she never returns to prison to face the 18 years remaining on her sentence. Now is the time to demand her unconditional freedom and the dismissal of all charges.”

Mohammadi’s Iran-based lawyer Mostafa Nili said on social media the transfer order was issued following the decision of the Legal Medicine Organization — government-appointed medical examiners — “which stated that, due to her multiple illnesses, she needs to continue treatment outside prison and under the supervision of her own medical team.”

There was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities.

Mohammadi’s brother Hamidreza Mohammadi, who is based in Oslo, Norway, had said medical examiners previously recommended her transfer to Tehran but the decision was blocked. He blamed Iran’s intelligence agency.

“I’m relieved now. I can breathe lightly,” her brother told the AP in a message.

The 53-year-old rights activist and champion of women’s rights was awarded the Nobel in 2023 while in prison and has been jailed repeatedly throughout her career. Her current imprisonment began when she was arrested in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad.

Mohammadi’s family said her health had been deteriorating in prison, in part because she was heavily beaten during her arrest. She had a heart attack in March and has a blood clot in her lung since before her imprisonment that needs blood thinners and monitoring to manage it.

Since being taken to the Zanjan hospital’s cardiac care unit, Mohammadi’s blood pressure had been swinging between extremely low and extremely high, and she was receiving oxygen to breathe and can’t talk, according to her brother.

The Nobel committee had called on Iranian authorities to immediately transfer Mohammadi to her dedicated medical team in Tehran, saying that “without such treatment, her life remains at risk.”

Barcelona beat Madrid 2-0 at Camp Nou just a few hours after the club announced the death of Flick’s father.

“I will never forget this day," Flick said. “It was a tough day for me. It starts with this (news that) my father passed away, but here, my team is fantastic.”

Flick's father reportedly died overnight. The club did not give any additional details.

“FC Barcelona and the entire blaugrana family wish to send all our love to Hansi Flick after the passing of his father,” Barcelona said in a statement. “We share in your sorrow and our thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time.”

Barcelona and Madrid players wore black armbands and there was a moment of silence before kickoff.

Barcelona entered the last clasico of the season leading Madrid by 11 points with four rounds remaining in La Liga. It comfortably defeated Madrid with first-half goals from Marcus Rashford and Ferran Torres.

“Flick has been very important for us,” midfielder Frenkie de Jong said. "He has very clear ideas, but inside there is a lot of freedom for the players. This way we can show our quality.”

Barcelona players threw Flick up in the air during the title celebrations.

“This is like a family and they gave everything today and I’m really proud,” Flick said. "It’s amazing, in this stadium, and also in the clasico against Real Madrid, to win La Liga.”

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

Let's explain: Winger, the president of Monumental Basketball, was the Wizards' representative inside the sequestered room where the NBA draft lottery was taking place Sunday. The first ball was 4, the second ball was 2.

“I knew it was us,” Winger said.

He was right. The third ball — 1 — made it official. The fourth ball was a 13, which meant nothing. The 4-2-1 combination ensured that the Wizards had won the lottery and earned the right to pick No. 1 in next month's draft, a huge step forward for a team that finished with the league's worst record this season. And for the next 45 minutes, before the rest of the world found out during a television broadcast, Winger was essentially stone-faced.

“I could have celebrated by myself, looking around for somebody to high-five,” Winger said. “There wouldn't have been anybody there.”

The celebrations came later. Winger, Wizards great John Wall, vice president of player personnel Travis Schlenk, coach Brian Keefe and assistant coach David Vanterpool posed on stage after the lottery ended, all smiles. There haven't been a lot of moments worth smiling about in Wizards-land over the last three years. That may be changing.

“It’s our fans that have endured the most," Winger said. "And to me, this No. 1 pick is for them. It's a reward for hanging in there with us. It’s a reward to continue to support us despite sometimes really bad basketball. They knew and they supported a multiyear teardown, a multiyear reinvention of the franchise.”

It will be Washington's first time with the No. 1 pick since they chose Wall in that spot in 2010. Wall was the Wizards’ on-stage representative for the lottery.

“They could be a team that I feel should be in playoff contention next year,” Wall said.

Washington had a 14% chance of winning the No. 1 pick, tied with Brooklyn and Indiana for the best odds. The Wizards had basically a 50-50 chance of getting either a top-four pick or the No. 5 spot.

But three consecutive years of losing — the three worst seasons in the franchise’s 65-year history — paid off for a team that went 17-65 this season and even allowed Miami’s Bam Adebayo to score 83 points for the league’s second-highest single-game total ever.

The Wizards swung deals to land All-Stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis earlier this year, and now they can add whichever college player they want.

“This is another step in our journey," Keefe said. "Obviously, it’s a great day and we’re looking forward to going through the process and finding who we’re going to take with that pick, but I’m just thrilled for everybody that works with the organization and most importantly the community.”

Winger brought a photo of his family with him into the lottery room, perhaps the bit of luck he needed. And there is a certain symmetry to how the 4-2-1 combination was what delivered for the Wizards; those numbers add up to 7.

“The day I was born,” said Keefe, born April 7, 1976.

Utah will pick No. 2, Memphis will pick No. 3 and Chicago will pick No. 4.

The Los Angeles Clippers got the fifth pick — via a trade with the Pacers, who were shut out of the draft entirely — followed by No. 6 Brooklyn, No. 7 Sacramento, No. 8 Atlanta, No. 9 Dallas, No. 10 Milwaukee, No. 11 Golden State, No. 12 Oklahoma City, No. 13 Miami and No. 14 Charlotte.

The draft begins June 23 in New York. The draft combine in Chicago starts on Monday.

No. 1 pick possibilities

There are four candidates that generally are considered front-runners to be the No. 1 pick, all coming out of college after one year.

— BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, who led the nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game.

— Duke’s Cameron Boozer, the AP player of the year who averaged 22.5 points and 10.1 rebounds.

— Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, who averaged 20.2 points in 24 games.

— North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, who averaged 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds on 58% shooting.

“Obviously we’re going to find out on June 23 where I’m going to land," Dybantsa said. "I’m betting on myself to be a No. 1 pick. I think I’m very adaptable, I can play anywhere.”

It's now possible that Boozer could be selected by the Bulls or the Jazz — two teams that his father, Carlos Boozer, played for in his NBA days.

“It could be surreal, for sure," Cameron Boozer said.

Last of this format (probably)

This was the eighth, and likely final, year of this version of an NBA draft lottery, with the worst teams having a 14% chance of winning.

Framework fell into place last month on changes meant to further discourage tanking, and the league’s Board of Governors is expected to ratify that plan in the next few weeks — with general managers meeting in Chicago on Tuesday to discuss them presumably for one last time.

The three worst teams, starting next season, would have a 5.4% chance of winning — with the next seven teams all having an 8.1% chance of winning. The lottery would grow from 14 to 16 teams if the plan, as expected, is approved.

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AP Sports Writer Andrew Seligman and freelance reporter Scott Held contributed to this report.

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

Pulisic felt a problem in Friday’s training session and it was determined on Sunday that it was too serious to even have him on the bench. Italian media reported Pulisic will undergo medical tests on Monday.

The 27-year-old is a doubt for Milan’s penultimate match at Genoa next weekend but could be back for the final game of the season, at home to Cagliari, the following week.

Pulisic hasn’t scored in a career-high 17 league matches since Dec. 28. He has also gone scoreless in eight games for the U.S.

Milan lost 3-2 at home to Atalanta on Sunday — and was 3-0 down until the 88th minute — to leave it at risk of not qualifying for next season’s Champions League.

The Rossoneri are fourth, the final Champions League qualifying berth, level on points with fifth-place Roma and just two above Como.

Pulisic is not thought to be a doubt for the World Cup.

The U.S. has friendlies against Senegal on May 31 and Germany on June 6, then starts Group D against Paraguay on June 12 in Inglewood, California. The Americans play Australia a week later at Seattle and conclude the group stage on June 25 back at SoFi Stadium against Turkey.

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

Goals by Marcus Rashford in the ninth minute and Ferran Torres in the 18th gave Barcelona the victory and an insurmountable 14-point advantage over its fierce rival with three rounds remaining in La Liga.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick was in the dugout for Sunday’s clasico following the death of his father, which Barcelona announced hours before kickoff. Players from both teams wore black armbands and there was a moment of silence before kickoff.

A draw would also have been enough for the Catalan club to seal its third league title in four seasons.

Madrid, which remains the most successful club in the league with 36 trophies, is ending a second consecutive season without a major title. Sunday’s defeat at Barcelona capped an embarrassing week for Madrid, marked by altercations between players in training that led the club to fine Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni 500,000 euros ($589,000) each.

Rashford opened the scoring for the hosts with a wonderfully taken free kick, curling the ball over the wall and into the top corner. Torres added to the lead from inside the area after a flick from Dani Olmo.

‘This is like a family’

Flick’s father reportedly died overnight. The coach celebrated Barcelona’s goals and looked emotional after the final whistle.

“I will never forget this day. It was a tough day for me. It starts with this (news that) my father passed away, but here, my team is fantastic,” Flick said. “I really love it, this is like a family and they gave everything today and I’m really proud. It’s amazing, in this stadium, and also in the clasico against Real Madrid, to win La Liga.”

There was a brief scuffle between players in the 51st minute after Olmo confronted a Madrid player. Olmo was shown a yellow card.

Madrid’s Jude Bellingham had a goal disallowed for offside in the 63rd.

Brazil forward Raphinha replaced Rashford in the 64th to return from a long injury layoff.

Barcelona has been playing the final league games without the injured Lamine Yamal, its biggest star. Yamal was on the field lifting the trophy along with his teammates.

No Mbappé

Madrid was without the injured Kylian Mbappé, the league’s leading scorer with 24 goals. The France forward failed to recover from a left-hamstring ailment that has kept him sidelined since late April.

Mbappé last week addressed a fresh wave of criticism of him in Spain, insisting he was fully committed to the club and to recovering from his latest injury. Some Madrid fans had expressed concern that the France forward was saving himself for the upcoming World Cup. He posted a story during Sunday’s game while it was being shown on a television, along with supporting words for the club and a white heart.

Madrid was also without Valverde, who hurt his head in the altercation with Tchouaméni after allegedly accidentally knocking his head on a table. It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training last week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.

Arbeloa under fire

The loss in Sunday’s clasico is likely to increase criticism of coach Álvaro Arbeloa, who was promoted from Madrid’s reserve team when Xabi Alonso was fired in January. The rumors of a possible return of José Mourinho to the club were only likely to increase.

“There's not a lot we can say," Arbeloa said. “We understand how frustrated and dissatisfied that the fans must be. The only thing we can do is work and look to the future, learn from everything that we have done badly this year. Real Madrid is always back, we have fallen many times and we have risen many times.”

Singer-songwriters Olivia Rodrigo and Nathy Peluso were among the celebrities at the stadium. Rodrigo, an American multi-Grammy winner, had her logo appearing in the team’s jersey as part of the club’s partnership with Spotify.

Barcelona this season also won the Spanish Super Cup. It has won 11 consecutive games in the league.

Concerns over Nico Williams

Spain forward Nico Williams had to be substituted before halftime in Athletic Bilbao’s 1-0 loss to Valencia at home, prompting more concerns ahead of the World Cup.

Williams appeared to suffer a hamstring injury, and was replaced by brother Iñaki Williams in the 37th minute.

Nico Williams had already been sidelined for several weeks earlier this year because of another injury.

Athletic did not immediately release details about Sunday’s injury.

The 23-year-old forward has been a regular in Spain’s squad, playing in attack along with Yamal.

Other results

Also Sunday, Mallorca stayed two points clear of the relegation zone after a 1-1 draw at home against third-place Villarreal.

Last-place Real Oviedo moved closer to returning to the second division after a 0-0 draw with Getafe at home.

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

Pitching two years and a day after his mother, Jina, died following a nearly eight-year battle with colon cancer, the 23-year-old Tolle wore his pant legs near his knees showing his pink socks on Mother’s Day.

When his start was rained out Saturday, Tolle had a lot more time to think about what pitching the next day would be like.

“This week is really tough for me. I’m not going to lie to you,” he said, holding back tears after Boston’s 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. “It’s a tough weekend. I think yesterday would have been just as hard. I try to … it’s tough.

“So, I try to get away from it as much as I can but at the same time it’s life,” he said. “It’s part of it. Some things are bigger than baseball in that aspect.”

Jina died on May 9, 2024, at 48 and Payton had a song in mind that he was holding for a certain day.

He took the mound, warming up for his start with the song “Mother” by the band Danzig playing in the background. He’s changed his song many times before he’s pitched but decided this was the one to honor his mom.

“There’s a little of a joke with my dad,” he said, cracking a bit of a smile. “Just that song, I’ve had it in the back pocket for a long time, so I think it’s a pretty good walk-out song. You’ve got to roll with it.”

Tolle (1-2) gave up three runs in five innings, with seven hits and four strikeouts. He was coming off his first big league victory in his previous start, when he gave up a hit and struck out eight at Detroit on Monday.

What would his mom say after this start?

“Suck it up and do better,” he said, smiling.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Betts hasn’t played since April 4, when he was hurt in a 10-5 win at the Washington Nationals. Manager Dave Roberts said he would have Betts hit second or third in the batting order though he was batting .179 with two home runs and seven RBIs in eight games before the injury.

Roberts did not say who would be sent down to free up a roster spot for Betts, a four-time World Series champion and the 2018 American League MVP. Hyeseong Kim, Alex Freeland and Santiago Espinal have platooned effectively to help fill out the middle infield in Betts’ absence.

“It’s a good problem in a sense of where we’re at, but it’s a potential tough conversation,” Roberts said Sunday before the finale of a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves.

Betts completed a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City on Saturday, going 2 for 5 with a walk in two games.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

The International Court of Justice in The Hague is holding a series of hearings with the South American neighbors which both claim ownership of Essequibo — a territory of nearly 62,000 square miles rich in gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources, located near massive offshore oil deposits.

Venezuela has considered Essequibo its own since the Spanish colonial period, when the jungle region fell within its boundaries. But an 1899 decision by arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in favor of Guyana.

Venezuela argues that a 1966 agreement sealed in Geneva to resolve the dispute effectively nullified the 19th-century arbitration.

The final court hearing, with Rodríguez's appearance, will take place on Monday. The court is likely to take months to issue a final and legally binding ruling in the case.

After landing at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, Rodríguez — who assumed power in January following a U.S. military operation that ousted Nicolás Maduro — said her country has "demonstrated at every historical stage what our territory has meant since we were born as a Republic.”

The case of Essequibo was brought to the ICJ in 2018 by Guyana to confirm before international authorities that the 1899 ruling — and not the 1966 agreement — is the one drawing the border lines. Venezuela has warned that its participation in the hearings does not mean either consent to or recognition of the ICJ’s jurisdiction.

At the opening of the hearings, Guyanese Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd told the international judges that the dispute “has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the beginning” and indicated that 70% of Guyana’s territory is at stake.

The State of Senior Emotional Health in Florida reveals that a significant number of older Floridians are facing mental health challenges that remain unrecognized and unaddressed, even as hospitalizations and diagnoses climb.

More than 12% of Floridians 65 and older are diagnosed with depression. Hospitalizations due to mental disorders rose 16% between 2022 and 2024 for that same age group — a sharp increase that signals a deepening crisis.

The data also shows disparities across gender and ethnicity. Older women are diagnosed with depression at twice the rate of men — 17.6% compared to 8.1%. Hispanic seniors face higher depression rates than their White counterparts, at 18.5% vs. 12.7%.

Geography plays a role as well. While 1 in 12 seniors statewide experience frequent mental distress, that figure rises to 1 in 10 in rural areas, highlighting the added burden facing Floridians outside of major metro areas.

Danielle Neveles-McGrath, the Humana Foundation’s Chief Impact Officer and co-author of the research, says the findings demand urgent attention.

“Too many Florida seniors are struggling with mental health challenges that go unseen and untreated, with social isolation often fueling both psychological and physical decline,” Neveles-McGrath said. “As the state’s population ages, we cannot afford to treat this as anything less than a growing public health crisis.”

The report doesn’t just identify problems — it offers a roadmap for change.

Among its key recommendations: prioritizing older adults in Florida’s broader mental health efforts and involving seniors and their caregivers in community needs assessments; strengthening access to age-appropriate mental healthcare, particularly in rural and underserved communities; investing in community support that reduces financial stressors, such as emergency stabilization programs that help older adults cover unexpected expenses; and scaling technology solutions and data systems designed to improve mental health outcomes and social connections among seniors.

Held for the first time in an Anglophone country, the summit is expected to draw reactions to the withdrawal of French troops from West Africa that was completed last year amid France's waning regional influence in recent years.

Since the independence of France's former African colonies, France had maintained a policy of economic, political and military sway dubbed Françafrique, which included keeping thousands of troops in the region. But leaders in those countries — and opposition figures — have often criticized France over what they described as a demeaning and heavy-handed approach to the continent.

Macron’s host, Kenyan President William Ruto, said both leaders expect the summit to be a “turning point” toward a better partnership.

Macron commented on the changing geopolitical landscape, saying France can “disagree” with West African governments but “never disagrees with the people.”

The two-day summit, which starts on Monday, is expected to welcome 30 heads of state. Ten have arrived so far.

Kenya’s opposition leader Kalonzo Musyoka slammed the choice of Kenya as a venue, describing it as country where democracy remains under threat, the opposition is under attack and human rights are being violated even as it prepares for the 2027 general election.

“There will be an air of pretense that we are a cohesive nation," Musyoka said. "We know that is far from the truth.”

Ruto on Sunday said Nairobi seeks to nurture a wide array of relationships and was “neither looking East nor West” but “looking forward.”

Also Sunday, Kenya and France signed 11 agreements involving investments in various sectors, including an ambitious nuclear energy plant, modernized transport, and sustainable agriculture.

Macron said the investments were aimed at strengthening “human capital,” in line with the summit’s focus on innovation and Africa’s growing young population.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia was neither observing the truce nor “even particularly trying to,” adding there had been no calm in front-line areas despite a lull in large-scale attacks and pledged that Ukraine would retaliate to any aggression shown by Moscow.

“Yesterday and today, Ukraine refrained from long-range retaliatory actions in response to the absence of large-scale Russian attacks,” Zelenskyy said in evening statement, stressing Ukraine's increasing ability to hit targets far inside Russia.

“We will continue to respond in the same mirrorlike manner, and if the Russians decide to return to full-scale warfare, our response will be immediate and significant,” he said.

Ivan Fedorov, head of Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, said one person was killed and three others wounded by Russian artillery and drone attacks in the last 24 hours. Another 16 people were also wounded in attacks across other regions of Ukraine, local officials said.

Russia's defense ministry, meanwhile, accused Kyiv of committing more than 1,000 ceasefire violations, state media reported, citing a daily briefing. The ministry said Ukrainian forces had attacked civilian targets in several Russian regions and carried out strikes against Russian military positions on the front line.

Russia's military had “responded in kind” to the ceasefire violations, the ministry said.

Two people were injured by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the area’s Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Russia and Ukraine had bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday to mark Victory Day, the Russian celebration marking the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Trump said there would also be an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who had said Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” during the May 9 parade in Moscow, followed up on Trump’s statement by mockingly declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes to allow the Russian parade to go ahead. The Kremlin shrugged off the comment as a “silly joke.”

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Sunday he expects U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner — who have both taken a leading role in negotiations to end the war — to visit Moscow “soon enough.”

However, he stressed that Moscow would not move from its demand that Kyiv's troops withdraw from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. “Until (Ukraine) takes that step, we can hold several more rounds, dozens of rounds (of negotiations), but we’ll be stuck in the same place,” Ushakov was cited by the state news agency Tass as saying.

Previous ceasefires, most recently at Orthodox Easter, have failed to produce any tangible results amid deep mistrust between Moscow and Kyiv more than four years after Russia launched its invasion of its neighbor. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the war have also largely stalled.

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

Guests can visit the zoo for just $10 per person every other Tuesday, with no advance ticket purchase or promo code required. Discounted admission is available for purchase at the zoo entrance on event days.

“$10 Tuesdays is a great way for families to experience everything the Zoo has to offer at an accessible price point,” said Nikki Smith, Chief Philanthropy and Marketing Officer at Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens.

“We’re excited to welcome guests throughout the summer for a day of discovery, connection, and fun.”

The zoo is home to more than 2,000 animals and 1,000 varieties of plants, featuring immersive exhibits such as Range of the Jaguar, Land of the Tiger and the new J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Manatee River habitat.

Visitors can also upgrade to a Total Experience package for additional access to the 4D Theater, unlimited train and carousel rides, animal feedings and more. Upgrades are available for purchase at the zoo.

Stephanie Chain, owner of Sweet Luncheonette in St. Marys, said her daughter’s autism diagnosis inspired her to create more than just a bakery. She wanted to build a place where her daughter would always feel supported, included and connected to the community.

“Sweet Luncheonette was inspired by creating a safe space and a space of beauty for my daughter after she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of four,” Chain said.

Over the last decade, Chain has grown the micro-bakery into a destination for custom wedding cakes, wine tastings and community events.

But she said the business was always rooted in one goal — creating a future her daughter could fall back on as she grows older.

“My hopes were just to have something that my daughter could fall back on,” Chain said. “I didn’t want her to go into adulthood not knowing or not feeling that she would have somewhere to belong.”

Now, Chain said she is beginning to see her daughter take an interest in the business by shadowing employees and learning hospitality skills.

“Now we’re seeing her starting to take an interest,” Chain said.

Chain hopes her family’s story encourages other families raising children on the autism spectrum.

“There is beauty in the imperfections,” Chain said. “You should still be able to create and love and find things that are great to you and share them with other people.”

As Sweet Luncheonette continues to grow, Chain said she plans to expand community partnerships, host more events and continue creating art through her cakes and desserts.

Her message to others is simple: “Just create and love.”

The remains were those of 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., a 14A Air Defense Artillery officer who was one of two U.S. soldiers who fell off a cliff during a recreational hike in Morocco while off duty. He was 27 years old.

The two were reported missing May 2 after participating in African Lion, an annual multinational military exercise held in Morocco.

“A Moroccan military search team found the Soldier in the water along the shoreline at approximately 8:55 a.m. local time May 9, within roughly one mile of where both Soldiers reportedly entered the ocean,” U.S. Army Europe and Africa said in a statement.

The two went missing around 9 p.m. near the Cap Draa Training Area outside Tan-Tan, a terrain characterized by mountains, desert and semidesert plains, according to the Moroccan military.

Their disappearance triggered a search-and-rescue operation involving more than 600 personnel from the United States, Morocco and other military partners. The operation deployed frigates, vessels, helicopters and drones.

Search efforts will continue for the missing second soldier, a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly on the issue.

The official said a U.S. contingent remained in Morocco after the war games ended Friday to provide command and control and to continue search and rescue operations.

Key was assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, the army said. His decorations include the Army Achievement Medal and Army Service Ribbon.

He entered military service in 2023 as an officer candidate and earned his commission through Officer Candidate School in 2024 as an Air Defense Artillery officer. He later completed the Basic Officer Leader Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, according to the statement.

African Lion 26, is a U.S.-led exercise launched in April across four countries – Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana and Senegal – with more than 7,000 personnel from over 30 nations. Since 2004, it has been the largest U.S. joint military exercise in Africa.

In 2012, two U.S. Marines were killed and two others injured during a helicopter crash in Morocco’s southern city of Agadir while taking part in the exercises.

The plane, which was heading to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” according to a post on the airport’s official X account.

Passengers were evacuated via slides, and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. An airport spokesperson said 12 passengers received minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.

Concerns about evacuation

Some people on board expressed concern about the evacuation, including being stuck in the plane for several minutes as smoke filled the cabin and left on the tarmac in the cold once they were out. Video also showed some passengers coming down the slide with what looked to be their carry-on bags.

“We are gathering information about the emergency evacuation to determine if it meets criteria for a safety investigation,” NTSB spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick said early Sunday, adding that the agency might have more details in a few hours.

Frontier Airlines didn’t respond early Sunday to a request for information about the evacuation.

Unanswered questions

A spokesman for the Denver Police Department said Sunday the investigation into the incident was ongoing and that the identity of the person on the runway will be confirmed and released by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.

The CEO of the Denver airport, Phil Washington, said he “knows” there are questions still to be answered.

“As this is an active investigation with numerous other agencies involved, it is going to take some time as we are still confirming what information we can share at this time,” Washington said in a statement. “This was a horrible and preventable tragedy that has affected many due to the actions of one person who apparently trespassed at an airport and lost their life as a result.”

Two minutes after jumping a fence, the person crossed the runway and was hit. The only details the airport has released was that they do not believe the person was an airport employee.

Pilot alerts control tower

“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”

The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”

The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”

Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.

The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.

“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.

Passengers detail chaotic scene

Passengers said panic took hold on the flight after an engine caught fire and the cabin began filling with smoke.

“Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” passenger Mohamed Hassan told Colorado’s 9NEWS.

“A lot of people next to me were screaming and crying. I just closed my eyes,” he said. "At that time, you’re not really thinking of anything, you know? Because we were just about to take off and I heard that boom, so I wasn’t sure what happened. I just thought something really, really bad happened.”

Passenger Nikil Thalanki told local media outlets that he felt “this jerk” as the plane was about to take off, adding that it felt like the wheels had left the ground but then came back down.

“There was fire on the engine. There was lots of sparks that are happening. Immediately came to a stop,” Thalanki said. "As soon as we saw the sparks on the flight, smoke filled the cabin completely. It was super hard to breathe.”

Kimberly Randle said passengers were panicking and desperate to get off the aircraft.

“In a few minutes, they finally opened the door. People were running to get out of the plane," he said. "It was chaos everywhere.”

Evacuations on NTSB radar

The NTSB has for years expressed concerned about evacuations, especially passengers leaving with their carry-ons. In an April report on the evacuation aboard a United Airlines flight at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the NTSB described a troubling scene.

Passengers were evacuated via slides and stairs last year from the jetliner after an engine problem during takeoff caused smoke and fire on the right wing.

Despite the flight attendant telling passengers to remain seated, several began shouting, “fire on the engine, let me get out!” That trigged “widespread panic" and prompted many passengers to get up and start retrieving their belongings. Some climbed over seats and began obstructing the aisle.

Three large men insisted the evacuation occur, pushing past a flight attendant and going down a slide before it had fully deployed — causing it to deflate and become unusable.

“Cabin crew training emphasizes assertive command presence and passenger control during evacuations; however, this event demonstrates how rapidly escalating passenger behavior can affect evacuation dynamics even in the absence of confirmed fire or smoke conditions,” according to the report.

The incident in Denver came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident or the name of the employee.

“We are focused on extending our full support to family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred.”

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AP reporter John Raby contributed from Charleston, West Virginia.

The son of Ohio State football coach Ryan Day announced his decision this weekend on social media.

"Excited for the next step and ready to get to work," Day posted in a message thanking coaches and family.

Chip Kelly is the offensive coordinator on coach David Braun’s staff at Northwestern after serving in that role under Day when the Buckeyes won the national championship in the 2024 season. Kelly was also the offensive coordinator when Ryan Day played QB at New Hampshire and set nine school records.

RJ Day plays at St. Francis DeSales High School in Columbus, Ohio.

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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

The ADL said in a statement that it “deeply mourns the loss of our longtime national director,” without providing details about where and when Foxman died.

Over 28 years as head of the ADL before retiring in 2015, Foxman counseled presidents and diplomats, CEOs and celebrities. He took on prominent figures over antisemitic remarks or representations and accepted any ensuing apologies on behalf of an entire community.

“Abe’s voice was heard –- and listened to -– by popes, presidents, and prime ministers, a voice he used wherever Jews were at risk,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL's current director, said in a statement. “Abe Foxman spoke on the global stage with moral authority and clarity and was relentlessly dedicated to his pursuit of a world without hate.”

Born in 1940 to Polish Jews in what's now Belarus, Foxman survived the Holocaust after a nanny had him baptized as a Catholic to conceal his Jewish identity. He was reunited with his parents after the war and the family moved to New York.

After earning a law degree, Foxman joined the ADL as a staff lawyer. He spent his entire 50-year career with the group, becoming a leading national voice against antisemitism and hate. He was named the organization's national director in 1987.

Upon his retirement, Foxman told The Associated Press that he worried that the internet was giving bigots a way to spread their beliefs “not only anonymously but at the speed of light."

The ADL was founded in 1913 with a mandate to fight antisemitism and all bias. But the emphasis differed over time depending on who was in charge and the issues of the day.

Foxman faced criticism that the ADL put too many resources into non-Jewish issues. Under him, the organization built a formidable research arm into white supremacists and other extremists, advocated for immigrant and gay rights, conducted diversity training for law enforcement and developed programs for schools on issues ranging from the Holocaust to the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the impact of bullying.

Foxman long endured objections that he overreacted to perceived slights against the Jews and was too quick to condemn. Yet he was also chided for too easily forgiving and embracing those who repented their anti-Jewish remarks.

Foxman said it was essential to accept apologies, especially from those who can serve as prominent allies for Jews.

“If you don’t let them change, then you become the bigot.”

A 1-0 win over relegation-threatened West Ham restored Arsenal’s five-point lead over second-place Manchester City and came with a huge dose of controversy.

Leading thanks to Leandro Trossard’s 83rd-minute goal, Arsenal looked like it would be throwing away two crucial points — and losing its slim advantage in the title race — when West Ham substitute Callum Wilson lashed a shot over the line following a corner in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

Arsenal’s players complained and there was a long video review, which spotted West Ham player Pablo had his left arm across the face of David Raya as the Arsenal goalkeeper attempted to get to the ball after the corner was swung in.

The referee, Chris Kavanagh, looked at the incident on the pitchside monitor and chose to rule out the goal.

“I saw the replay now,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said, “and I think it's an obvious decision.”

West Ham's players felt aggrieved, with Tomas Soucek complaining that video reviews were only brought in to look for “big errors.”

“For football, this is a disappointing moment,” Soucek said, “and for every fan this is not what we want — we want goals, we want celebrations. Not to wait 10 minutes for a small foul.”

West Ham captain Jarrod Bowen added: “I get that you can’t wipe a goalkeeper out and there’s arms there but the keeper’s come out to try and grab the ball so ... he’s got to expect some contact. It’s a corner kick, it’s physical, it’s the Premier League — there’s going to be contact and tussles.”

It was a big call with huge ramifications.

It left Arsenal two wins from a first league title since 2004, with games to come at home to already-relegated Burnley and, in the final round, away to a Crystal Palace team that might field a weakened lineup due to having the Conference League final three days later.

It also left West Ham a point adrift of safety, in third-to-last place with two games remaining, while guaranteeing another season in the Premier League for Nottingham Forest and Leeds.

Fourth-to-last Tottenham can move four points clear of West Ham with a win over Leeds on Monday. It's now a two-team fight for survival between West Ham and Tottenham.

Man City's chances fade

It was a huge blow to City, which has three games left — against Palace at home on Wednesday, Bournemouth away on May 19 and Aston Villa at home on the final day.

Even three wins might not be enough for City to pull off a seventh title success in Pep Guardiola's 10-year reign.

Arsenal is still in sight of a Premier League- Champions League double, having reached the final of Europe's top competition against Paris Saint-Germain on May 30.

For Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard, beating West Ham under so much pressure was a “big moment for us.”

“We had to dig deep — to try and try and try — and we got there in the end,” he said.

Villa not sure of top-five spot yet

Aston Villa still has work to do to secure Champions League qualification after being held 2-2 at already-relegated Burnley.

That kept Villa in fifth place, behind Liverpool on goal difference and four points above sixth-place Bournemouth in the race to finish in the top five and get into Europe's top competition.

All three teams have two games left, with Villa and Bournemouth still having to play Man City.

Villa's players have another possible route into next season's Champions League: By winning the Europa League.

If they do that and finish fifth in the league, then the team that places sixth — currently Bournemouth, though Brighton is only two points further back — would also qualify.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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

The block party at North 20th Place and Eagle Street was drawing neighbors together when the situation turned violent.

But according to neighbors who witnessed the incident and asked not to be identified, police had already intervened after fights broke out.

RELATED: Palatka block party ends in chaos, police shooting after driver plows through crowd, injuring several bystanders: police

“Cops had to come and stop them two or three times,” one neighbor said.

He said his granddaughter was working as a vendor at the party when she was struck, suffering a leg injury.

“Stopped right near my brother, the truck right there, towards my grandbaby, the tent and all that stuff,” he said. “Happened so fast.”

Despite the chaos, he said she was holding up.

The force of the impact left visible damage on multiple vehicles parked along the street. One truck had a shattered taillight — with broken pieces spread across the road — and a front bumper bent outward.

The owner of another truck says he was on the back of his own vehicle and jumped off just moments before it was struck.

“I didn’t even know if [the driver] was going to make it through there, but he did,” the witness said.

The impact was powerful enough to physically move the truck, according to the neighbor.

“After he hit my truck, he backed up, went on through the crowd,” he said. “I don’t wanna see nothing like that again.”

Police say the investigation is active and ongoing.

Now the Hurricanes — the only undefeated team left in the NHL playoffs — are set for another a lengthy wait to get started in the third round.

Carolina beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 in overtime on Saturday night, becoming the first team to sweep through the first two rounds since the league went to best-of-seven series in all four rounds in 1987. That has them back in the conference final for the third time in four seasons and fourth time in the current eight-year playoff run under coach Rod Brind'Amour.

The Hurricanes will face the Montreal-Buffalo winner, a series running through at least Thursday. The East's top seed had nearly a full week off after sweeping Ottawa in Round 1.

“I think it's probably going to be an even longer break this time,” veteran forward Taylor Hall said after Saturday's win in Philadelphia.

“The big positive is we're on to the third round relatively unscathed and healthy. You don't want to see injuries per se, but we hope these series go far and these teams have battles. That's the advantage we're going to have. ... Rod, our strength staff, all of our staff, do a good job of making sure that we're ready athletically to play. And from there, we get our footing pretty quickly.”

The Hurricanes have done exactly that since winning the first game of the NHL playoffs on April 18. They already have proven they can start quickly after a long break, opening the Flyers series with a dominating first period on the way to a 3-0 win.

“We had a plan, and clearly it was OK,” Brind'Amour said, "so we can follow that and run with it."

Time to recharge

Carolina’s game plan relies on grinding effort and energy: an aggressive forecheck to pressure opponents into mistakes, possessing the puck in the offensive zone and staying there and firing chances at goaltenders and chasing rebounds — all of which minimizes scoring chances going the other way.

That's why the benefit of fresh legs and recharged minds has mattered more than the risk of rust so far.

Consider veteran goaltender Frederik Andersen. The 36-year-old Dane had started 32 playoff games for Carolina the past three years and the question lingered as to how much to lean on Andersen with 31-game winner Brandon Bussi also available.

But Andersen has been the best goaltender of the playoffs so far, with a 1.12 goals-against average and a .950 save percentage. He has two shutouts and has faced 25 or fewer shots in five of his eight games. Now he'll get another break to stay fresh.

As Andersen put it: “You don't really want to add extra games if you can avoid it.”

Or there's the case of defenseman Sean Walker.

It was in the hours after Thursday's Game 3 road win that he got the call from wife Taylor back in North Carolina that their first baby was on the way. So, he hopped an early morning flight home for the arrival of a daughter just in time for Mother's Day. He ate his pregame meal in the hospital cafeteria, then flew to Philadelphia around 2 p.m. Saturday ahead of the 6:15 p.m. puck drop.

“I didn’t want to get on the boys and tell them we better win tonight, but I’m really appreciative that everybody dug in,” Walker said. “The sweep's huge for everybody. But to take this time to just be with my family is going to be really special.”

Familiar roadblock awaits

Carolina has been elite on the penalty kill, a recurring strength, shutting down 38 of 40 chances (95%) while getting a shorthanded goal in Game 3 at Philadelphia. Offensively, the second line of Hall, Logan Stankoven and Jackson Blake has been dominant, with 14 goals and 31 points through eight games.

That's more than offsetting a quiet start for the Sebastian Aho-Andrei Svechnikov-Seth Jarvis top line, as well as a power play that is just 5 of 37 (13.5%) in the playoffs after ranking fourth in the regular season at 24.9%.

Still, the Hurricanes never trailed in their first five postseason games, and have won their last five games with a chance to close out an opponent.

Next comes a familiar roadblock.

Boston swept a happy-to-be-here Carolina team in the 2019 East final after the Hurricanes ended a nine-year playoff drought in Brind'Amour's first season. Florida swept Carolina in 2023 with four one-goal wins, then beat Carolina in five games last year.

Now the Hurricanes get another shot.

“The season is so long and there's that 82-game season we talk about that no one really gives much credit to, and yet this team’s played well for eight months," Brind'Amour said. "They didn’t just get hot at the end. It’s been night in, night out like this. And that’s the biggest takeaway for me. Probably the thing I’m most proud of about this group is that.

"And now, here we are. We've got to find a way to get that next step.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

A suicide bomber and several gunmen detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the post in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, late on Saturday, senior police official Sajjad Khan said. The attack triggered a shootout, and some officers were killed in the exchange, while others died later after the building collapsed.

Rescuers searched for hours and used heavy machinery to retrieve bodies from under the rubble, Khan said, adding that three police officers were wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, hundreds gathered at the Bannu police headquarters for the funerals of the slain officers. Uniformed colleagues stood in silence as coffins, draped in the national flag, were carried past grieving families. Some relatives broke down upon seeing the coffins. A Muslim cleric led funeral prayers under tight security

Security forces have launched an operation to track down the perpetrators.

A newly formed militant group, Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to reporters. While the group claims it was formed by splinter factions of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, authorities have accused it of being a front for the TTP.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the TTP, a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Islamabad often accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing sanctuary to the TTP, a claim that Kabul denies.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack and expressed their condolences to the families of the victims. Zardari instructed local authorities to assist the wounded and residents whose homes were damaged in the attack.

Zadari said that militants find safe havens in neighboring Afghanistan and also vowed to target “their facilitators and sponsors.”

“Terrorists operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan under the Taliban administration and supported externally are targeting civilians and law enforcement personnel in Pakistan,” he said.

Tensions between the two neighbors have persisted, and both sides have engaged in fighting that has killed hundreds of people since late February.

In early April, Afghan and Pakistani officials held peace talks mediated by China. However, despite the talks, sporadic cross-border clashes have continued, though at a lower intensity than before.

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Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Starmer plans to use a speech on Monday to argue that he can change tack and revive his government’s fortunes. But his position is fragile as rivals weigh their options. One lawmaker, Catherine West, said she will try to trigger a leadership contest if she doesn’t like what she hears in the speech.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, often seen as a potential challenger, said the party “needs to change,” though she did not explicitly call for Starmer to go.

She said “the prime minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs.”

Starmer is trying to regain momentum after heavy losses for his center-left party in local elections across England and legislative votes in Scotland and Wales. Last week’s elections were widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he swept to power in a landslide less than two years ago.

His government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps and policy U-turns on issues including welfare reform. He has been further hurt by his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

Last week’s elections saw Labour squeezed from both right and left, losing votes to both the anti-immigration Reform UK and the “eco-populist” Green Party. It reflects the increasing fragmentation of British politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.

Still, Starmer told The Observer newspaper on Sunday that he wants to remain in office for a decade. He’s pinning his hopes on Monday’s speech and an ambitious set of legislative plans to be set out in a speech Wednesday by King Charles III at the State Opening of Parliament.

A key policy is closer ties with the European Union, which the United Kingdom left in 2020, four years after the “leave” side narrowly won a membership referendum. Starmer’s government has already moved to ease some of the trade restrictions that have burdened British businesses since Brexit, and he says he will secure a youth mobility deal so young people can spend a few years working across the continent.

“Brexit has held back our young people,” Starmer told The Observer, adding that “we have to be closer to Europe.”

Labour campaigned to stay in the EU during the 2016 referendum campaign, but has been reluctant to reopen a debate that bitterly divided the country. Starmer has ruled out seeking to reenter the EU, or to rejoin the EU’s customs union or single market, two things that would make a big difference to U.K. businesses.

Starmer’s future hangs in the balance

None of the high-profile Labour politicians considered potential challengers to Starmer — including Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham — has called for him to resign.

But a growing number of Labour lawmakers urged the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure. British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.

Josh Simons, a formerly loyal Labour lawmaker, wrote in the Times of London that Starmer “has lost the country” and “should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister.”

West, a former junior minister, is trying to hurry the process along, vowing to try to trigger a leadership contest unless Starmer delivers a barnstorming speech on Monday. West acknowledged she does not have the support of 81 colleagues, needed to force a contest, and her move appeared to be an attempt to force more high-profile contenders to make a move.

“Working people sent us a message,” West said. “We have to listen to that, and we have to change and we have to do it quickly.”

This weekend had wide variety of newcomers playing in wide release, including the family-friendly whodunnit “The Sheep Detectives” and a James Cameron co-directed Billie Eilish concert film.

But it was the holdover that triumphed. “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which has grossed $433.2 million worldwide in its first 12 days in release, helped push The Walt Disney Studios over $2 billion globally for the year. It’s also surpassed the total grosses of the first film, which earned $327 million globally in 2006, not accounting for inflation.

Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Comscore, said Mother's Day might have helped “Prada” get the advantage over the newcomer and have such a modest 44% dip in weekend two.

“The release date was perfect,” Dergarabedian said. “This may be the new blueprint for how to start a summer."

“Mortal Kombat II” provided some gendered counterprogramming in the second weekend of Hollywood's summer movie season. Warner Bros. opened the movie in 3,503 locations where it drew a heavily male audience. According to PostTrak, 75% of the ticket buyers were men. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” had almost the exact opposite gender breakdown on its first weekend.

The first movie in this series, “Mortal Kombat,” was released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in April 2021 as a part of Warner Bros.’ pandemic-era day-and-date strategy. Reviews have been mixed for the sequel, as was its B CinemaScore. It also earned $23 million from 78 markets internationally, adding up to a $63 million global debut.

“Michael” landed in third place in its third weekend with another $36.5 million over the weekend, down only 33% from last weekend. The Michael Jackson biopic has now earned $240.5 million in North America, surpassing the total domestic grosses of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and $577.4 million globally.

Fourth place went to Amazon MGM Studios' “The Sheep Detectives” which brought in $15.9 million in its first weekend in 3,457 theaters. The quirky, all-ages murder mystery features a starry ensemble including Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson and Nicholas Braun, as well as the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Regina Hall and Patrick Stewart as the sheep who try to figure out who murdered their shepherd. Audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore. The movie cost a reported $75 million to produce.

Rounding out the top five was “Billie Eilish—Hit Me Hard & Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)” an immersive concert experience which Cameron shared co-directing credits on with Eilish. Paramount released the movie in 2,613 theaters, where it earned $7.5 million in North America and $12.6 million internationally. The movie was very well reviewed by critics (93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences, who gave it an A CinemaScore.

“Project Hail Mary,” in its eighth weekend, and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” in its sixth weekend, are still going strong as well — adding up to a weekend that is up significantly from the same weekend last year. Dergarabedian said the films that seem to be doing well and drawing new and repeat audiences week after week are the ones offering “pure, escapist entertainment.”

“This is playing out very well for movie theaters right now,” he said.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” $43 million.

2. “Mortal Kombat II,” $40 million.

3. “Michael,” $36.5 million.

4. “The Sheep Detectives,” $15.9 million.

5. “Billie Eilish—Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour,” $7.5 million.

6. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $6.6 million.

7. “Project Hail Mary,”$6.1 million.

8. “Hokum,” $3.3 million.

9. “Deep Water,” $780,274.

10. “Animal Farm,” $663,624.

The incident, which sent multiple victims to area hospitals, began at around 8 p.m. at the intersection of North 20th Place and Eagle Street, according to the Palatka Police Department.

Officers said a man drove through the crowd, striking multiple bystanders and vehicles in the area, and officers who were working at the block party tried to stop him.

Palatka PD said the man drove away but returned moments later, crashing into a patrol vehicle and hitting more people and other cars.

Police said that’s when officers started firing at the man to stop the truck, which crashed.

Palatka police said the driver was taken to a hospital, where he is currently being treated for injuries and is in police custody.

Multiple other people were also transported to hospitals, though the extent of their injuries has not been released. At this time, there are no reported injuries to any law enforcement personnel.

The crowd dispersed from the scene, with an estimated 1,000 people regrouping at the Middleton Shopping Center at 18th and Reid streets, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.

“There is a large law enforcement presence in the area, including Palatka Police Department, Clay County Sheriff’s Office, St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Highway Patrol and our deputies to disperse the crowd,” the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has been notified and is actively investigating the officer-involved shooting, as well as processing multiple crime scenes associated with the incident, Palatka PD said.

This information is preliminary and remains part of an active investigation. Police said additional details and updates will be released as they become available.

San Diego-area police said the assault happened April 30 near a 7-Eleven in La Mesa. Officers responding to reports of a woman lying unconscious and bleeding from the head found 38-year-old Kaitlyn Kurn with serious injuries, according to police.

Investigators said surveillance video showed a man following Kurn moments before the attack. Police arrested 22-year-old Alexis Moreno-Magana, who was booked into the San Diego County Jail on a charge of attempted homicide.

LuAnne Collins, Kurn’s mother, said she was notified the next day and learned her daughter had been attacked after walking into the store and leaving.

“She just walked in a 7-Eleven convenience store and went out and was attacked,” Collins said. “It’s just shocking that this could happen to her.”

Collins said video appears to show the suspect following her daughter inside the store. She said her daughter walked about 400 feet away when the suspect attacked her with a large rock, striking her repeatedly in the head. Collins said her daughter also suffered a broken arm while trying to defend herself.

Police said Kurn was found face down in a parking lot and was taken to a hospital, where she remains in intensive care.

Collins said her daughter did not know the suspect, and she believes it was a random attack on an innocent bystander.

Despite her daughter’s critical condition, Collins said her family is leaning on faith and hoping for a Mother’s Day miracle.

“They’re not seeing that much improvement, but I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe in miracles,” Collins said. “And I firmly believe that with God’s help, she will make it through this.”

Collins said she hopes her daughter recovers and that she can bring her closer to home in Northeast Florida.

Dallas television station WFAA posted a clip from the Byron Nelson Junior Championship in 2009. Scheffler was 13 and wearing pants, of course, in the heat of a Texas summer. Spieth was about to turn 16, the star attraction who shot 62 to win by 11 shots.

Fast forward 17 years and both are one leg away from the career Grand Slam.

Spieth gets his 10th crack at golf's most elusive club when the PGA Championship starts Thursday at Aronimink. Scheffler seems much closer to it, even though his first chance at winning all four majors is still a month away in the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.

“He's three years older than me," Scheffler said. "When I was growing up, he was always the best junior. When I got the chance to compete against him, I would watch and see what he did well. He was a great junior player. He was always a step ahead of me and a little bit better for the most part.”

The roles are reversed now. Scheffler passed him for good in the world ranking at the end of 2021 and the gap now is more like a chasm.

The last of Spieth's 16 worldwide wins was four years ago in the RBC Heritage. Scheffler has won 19 times since then, including an Olympic gold medal in Paris and twice at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. He has been PGA Tour player of the year the last four seasons. Tiger Woods is the only player to win the award more consecutive times.

Spieth says he occasionally will be jealous of others' success, but not when it comes to Scheffler.

“It's like, man, I want to pay attention to what he's doing and figure out how to do it,” Spieth said. "A lot of times when guys are doing better, I think at my best I can do what they've done. Obviously I've never driven the ball like Rory (McIlroy). But with Scottie, I feel like at my best I can hit any shot. I don't think I've ever gotten to his level of iron play — not that anybody has.

“But I've started to ask more questions,” Spieth said. “I didn't ask questions for a long time. But I'm interested in learning from him.”

They compete regularly, just rarely on a golf course with ropes, scoreboards or world ranking points. Scheffler, Spieth and Si Woo Kim are part of a regular game that can include former NHL player Brenden Morrow and NFL quarterback Tony Romo, retired tour pros and club champions.

There's typically a five-man game of “Wolf,” along with head-to-head matches among the pros. Spieth and Scheffler play $100 a hole, no presses.

Scheffler would appear to be No. 1 in those money games, too.

“He calls me ATM,” Kim said.

There's plenty of banter, and Scheffler was asked who was better at giving the needle.

“Ask Jordan. That's my answer — ask him,” Scheffler said with a smile. “I think I'm keeping him up at night right now.”

Spieth said as much when he looked ahead to the PGA Championship, his next opportunity to become the seventh player to win the career Grand Slam. He would love to get there first, even if recent form would indicate the odds favor Scheffler.

“You ought to think a U.S. Open fits his game really well. I think he’s going to get there really soon,” Spieth said. “It would be fun to get there first. Because he needles, and it would be fun to get the needle back. When we play our games, I used to have needles back. I don’t have them anymore.”

Spieth does not feel as far off as the results would indicate. He had good finishes without having a real chance at winning a few times last year during his return from wrist surgery. He's had three finishes in the top 12 this year, all of them marked by bad finishes or a few bad shots that invariably bounce into trouble instead of into the fairway.

Spieth feels a small measure of momentum in the big picture. It's round-by-round that he seems to lose whatever gains he is making.

He twice had double bogeys to end rounds at The Players Championship. He played his three closing holes at the Valspar Championship in 6-over par. At the RBC Heritage, a tee shot bounced off a spectator's shoulder toward a cart path and rolled 2 inches out-of-bounds.

It's something every week.

“A couple of bad swings at the wrong time have prevented me from teeing off Sunday and feeling like I had a chance,” he said.

Spieth was runner-up in the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in 2015, the year he was three shots away from a chance at all four majors. But he hasn't had much success in the only major he's missing since winning the 2017 British Open. His lone top 10 was in 2019 at Bethpage Black, where he went into the final round nine shots behind Brooks Koepka.

Any major is difficult. Even harder is when it's the only one missing for a career slam. McIlroy went through that for 11 years until finally winning the Masters.

"You know that you’re not just trying to win another tournament, you’re trying to become part of history, and that has a certain weight to it,” McIlroy said.

Easing some of that pressure are results that suggest Spieth isn't one of the big favorites. He's not likely to have as many eyes on him as McIlroy had every year at Augusta National, and as Scheffler is sure to have at Shinnecock Hills next month.

For Spieth, his biggest challenge is being patient. He compares it with going through a bad run of cards at blackjack, knowing a good hand is around the corner. It's a matter of which corner.

“It feels like we have a bad shoe at the blackjack table,” he said. “You have to keep playing until it turns around. It's like I'm playing the right way. It's been a weird run of cards.”

___

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

At 10 p.m. on Saturday, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded to a welfare check at a home on Sherman Hills Parkway West, off Chaffee Road South.

JSO says when officers got there, they met with a man who said he was worried after seeing his neighbors’ garage door open all day and all of the lights turned off in their home.

He said he knocked on the door and called his neighbors, but received no response.

Police say the man then called his neighbors’ daughter, who came to the home and let the officers inside to check on her parents.

The officers found her parents unresponsive inside the back of the house and called paramedics. But the couple had already died.

According to the sheriff’s office, this appears to be an isolated incident with no outstanding threat to the community, and homicide detectives will continue to investigate.

This is an active investigation.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500, JSOCrimeTips@jaxsheriff.org and/or Crimestoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS.

Before this year, there were 18 teams that started an NBA postseason with a 7-0 record. Of those, nine went on to win the championship, and nine didn't.

The Thunder are the 19th member of that club after beating the Los Angeles Lakers for a 3-0 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series on Saturday night.

The nine teams that started 7-0 and went on to win the title: Minneapolis in 1949 and 1950, the LA Lakers in 1982 and 2001, Philadelphia in 1983, Detroit in 1989, Chicago in 1993, Cleveland in 2016 and Golden State in 2017.

The nine that didn’t win it all: the Lakers in 1989, Indiana in 1999, Miami in 2005 and 2020, Detroit in 2007, Cleveland in 2009 and 2017, Orlando in 2010 and San Antonio in 2012.

On Sunday, there are two games but three outcomes to follow: New York will be in Philadelphia looking to finish off a sweep, San Antonio will look to take a 3-1 series lead at Minnesota and the NBA draft lottery is being held in Chicago.

Sunday's schedule

— Game 4, New York at Philadelphia, 3:30 p.m. EDT (ABC)

Series: New York, 3-0.

Odds: New York by 1.5.

The Flyers got swept out of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Saturday. The 76ers will look to keep Philly fans from seeing it happen again on Sunday. For whatever it's worth, the 76ers and Flyers have never been swept in the same year.

— Game 4, San Antonio at Minnesota, 7:30 p.m. EDT (NBC, Peacock)

Series: San Antonio, 2-1.

Odds: San Antonio by 4.5.

Victor Wembanyama is averaging 21.9 points, 11.4 rebounds and 5.0 blocks per game in these playoffs. Nobody has ever done that over an entire postseason. It's not a must-win for Minnesota on Sunday ... but it feels like a must-win for Minnesota on Sunday.

Monday's schedule

— Game 4, Detroit at Cleveland, 8 p.m. EDT (NBC, Peacock)

Series: Detroit, 2-1.

Odds: Cleveland by 3.5.

Cleveland knows what's at stake in Game 4. The Cavaliers are 5-0 at home so far in these playoffs, and 0-5 on the road. Detroit put together yet another big run in Game 3 — this one being a 26-7 burst in the third quarter — to erase a 17-point deficit but couldn't find a way at the end.

— Game 4, Oklahoma City at LA Lakers, 10:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Oklahoma City, 3-0.

Odds: Oklahoma City by 10.5.

The Lakers won the first half, again, in Game 3. The Thunder rolled through the second half, again, in Game 3. Such was the trend in Game 2 as well, and now the dreaded 0-3 deficit is staring LeBron James and the Lakers in the face. If OKC wins Monday, it'll get a week off before the Western Conference finals start.

Saturday's recap

— Cavaliers 116, Pistons 109 to cut series deficit to 2-1. Harden was the closer.

— Thunder 131, Lakers 108 for 3-0 series lead. Ajay Mitchell on a roll for OKC.

— Steve Kerr is coming back to the Warriors.

When Donovan Mitchell is right ...

Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell had the fourth game of his career with at least 35 points and 10 rebounds in the Cavaliers' win over Detroit on Saturday.

All four of those games for Mitchell have come since he joined the Cavs, all of them were home games — and as might be expected, Cleveland is 4-0 in those contests.

Awards watch

A breakdown of this season's NBA awards:

— Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year: DeAndre Jordan, New Orleans.

— Hustle Award: Moussa Diabaté, Charlotte.

— Defensive Player of the Year: Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio.

— Clutch Player of the Year: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City.

— Sixth Man of the Year: Keldon Johnson, San Antonio.

— Sportsmanship Award: Derrick White, Boston.

— Most Improved Player: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Atlanta.

— Rookie of the Year: Cooper Flagg, Dallas.

— Executive of the Year: Brad Stevens, Boston.

Among the announcements still to come:

— Most Valuable Player: Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver's Nikola Jokic.

— Coach of the Year: Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson or Boston's Joe Mazzulla.

Betting odds

Defending champion Oklahoma City (-160) is favored to win the NBA title, according to oddsmakers.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+300), New York (+700), Detroit (+1800), Cleveland (+6000), Minnesota (+8000), the Los Angeles Lakers (+40000) and Philadelphia (+40000).

Key dates

— Sunday: NBA draft lottery.

— Monday through May 17: NBA draft combine.

— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.

— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).

— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft.

— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft.

Quote of the day

“They're pretty damn good from top to bottom, and they don't let their foot off the gas.” — Lakers star LeBron James, on the Thunder.

Stats of the day

— The Thunder have won 76.2% of their regular season and playoff games over the last three seasons, the best three-year run in the NBA since Golden State won 79.5% of its games from 2015-16 through 2017-18.

— There have been four playoff triple-doubles in Pistons history — two by Isiah Thomas in 1989 and two by Cade Cunningham. He had one last season and had 27 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists against the Cavaliers on Saturday.

___

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

The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” according to a post on the airport’s official X account.

A spokesperson for the airport said the person, who jumped a perimeter fence, has died. They said the unidentified person was hit two minutes after entering the airport. The person is not believed to be an airport employee.

“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”

The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”

The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”

Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.

The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.

“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.

Passengers were evacuated via slides and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. The airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.

One passenger, Jacob Anthens, posted video showing people sliding down with their backpacks. He also posted photos of what looked like a damaged engine.

“As we were lifting off the engine of the plane exploded. There was so much smoke we couldn’t even see 1 ft in front of us,” Anthens said on his Facebook page, adding that passengers had to wait for over a hour on the runway and “still no transport or help with the cold.”

Other video shows passengers calmly walking down the aisle of the plane and using the slide to evacuate. They were told to step away from the plane.

Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board had been notified and that runway 17L, where the incident took place, was closed amid an investigation. It reopened Saturday around 11 a.m.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the person “breached airport security at Denver Int’l Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway.”

He added: “No one should EVER trespass on an airport.”

The incident came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident or the name of the employee.

“We are focused on extending our full support to family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred.”

The Democratic-controlled Legislature raised the state gas tax and a range of fees last fall as a way to pay for road improvements and plug a hole in the state’s transportation budget. Republicans responded with a petition to repeal the increases, leading to a referendum that will land before voters just as the Iran war is causing the price of gas to skyrocket around the United States.

“It is a hell of a time to be raising gas taxes on people,” said Jeanine Holly, filling up her tank on a recent morning in Portland.

The gas tax repeal on the state’s May 19 primary ballot comes amid widespread disruptions in the oil industry from the war with Iran started by Israel and President Donald Trump. Discontent is high among U.S. consumers across the political spectrum, with the price of gas topping $4.50 a gallon nationally on Friday and averaging about 80 cents more per gallon in Oregon.

The referendum will give voters a chance to weigh in on a hot-button issue hitting them directly in the pocketbook at a time when prices remain elevated for everything from housing to groceries. Nationally, Democrats have focused on the affordability concerns similar to those that helped propel Trump to victory in 2024. Some of their candidates have even proposed ways to cut taxes as a way to promote their agenda and counter a traditional GOP strategy.

“It’s difficult to imagine a worse situation for ... a gas tax increase than right now in American politics,” said Chris Koski, professor of political science and environmental studies at Portland’s Reed College.

Republicans sense an opportunity

Republicans wasted no time in appealing to voters after the Legislature and Democratic governor signed off on the tax increase, which also included a higher payroll tax for transit projects and a boost in vehicle registration and title fees.

They needed 78,000 voter signatures to qualify the referendum for the ballot. They quickly got 250,000.

“That is a remarkable number,” said Republican strategist Rebecca Tweed.

Republicans in Oregon have countered Democrats’ affordability messaging by portraying the tax and fee increases as further fueling the high cost of living.

“Do Oregonians want to pay more? The answer is no,” said GOP state Sen. Bruce Starr, who helped lead the referendum campaign. “Everything they’re looking at is expensive.”

Under the legislation, Oregon’s gas tax would rise from 40 cents to 46 cents a gallon. That would make it tied with Maryland for the eighth highest gas tax of any state when factoring in other state taxes and fees, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

At the Portland gas station, Michael Burch said he used to spend $70 to fill three-quarters of his pickup truck's tank, but now pays $80 for just over half a tank.

“I'm sick and tired of taxes,” the 76-year-old retiree said. “Gas is certainly dampening the spirits and the coffers of folks that aren't as well off.”

Hannah Coe, a 30-year-old student, said she was not sure how she would vote on the primary ballot referendum.

“I think I would be in favor of it if it was going to go to the things that it was saying it was going to go to, such as fixing our roads,” she said. “I also kind of feel like that’s just a grab at trying to get more money from the people who live here.”

Democrats blame the Iran war

Oregon Democrats spent much of last year fighting to pass a transportation funding bill to help raise money for services such as road paving and snow plowing. The debate came amid projections of declining gas tax revenue as more people adopt electric, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars.

They finally passed a narrower version of their plan during a special session called by Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek.

She recently acknowledged the challenging timing of the referendum.

“Certainly, the conversation at the ballot this year ... is a tough sell right now, because I think everyone is feeling a pinch on their household budgets,” she told reporters.

But she and other Democrats said the root cause of the spike in gas prices is Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. She suggested the federal government consider reducing the federal 18 cent-a-gallon gas tax if it wants to provide relief at the pump for Americans.

Some Oregonians are receptive to the Democrats’ reason for passing the legislation last year. Kurt Borneman, 68, said he would support the gas tax increase, even though he's now paying at least $10 more to fill up his tank.

“I realize that money’s tight and roads need to be improved,” he said at the Portland gas station. “I want less government, but I also want nice roads.”

Democratic state Rep. Paul Evans said his party lost the battle over how to frame the gas tax increase to the public. So far, there has been no organized effort from Democrats and their allies to oppose the ballot referendum.

“When anything is reduced to, ‘Do you want a tax or not?’ Most people are going to say no,” he said. “The messaging got away from us, and it became focused upon the price instead of the value.”

Heating across the region will be the main driver of storm development this afternoon to early evening. Areas with greater warming, mostly in northeast Florida, will see the best chance of strong to severe storm activity, with damaging winds and hail as the primary threats.

High temperatures are forecast to reach the upper 70s to mid-80s, which will help to fuel the afternoon storms.

Evening storms, then a quiet night

As the evening rolls in, the storm threat doesn’t disappear immediately, but it does begin to wind down.

Scattered showers and storms will weaken, shifting their focus south into central Florida. By 11 p.m. to midnight, activity should become more isolated.

Patchy fog is likely to develop overnight. Lows will be mild, settling in around 65 to 70 degrees.

The bodies of the men, aged 30 and 27, were located a few meters (yards) from where the first victim, an Indonesian female hiker, was found dead on Saturday, Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency’s spokesperson, said. All three had been about 50 meters (165 feet) from the rim of the main crater.

The men's bodies were covered by thick layers of volcanic material, Muhari said, adding that the densely packed material had complicated evacuation efforts and significantly slowed progress.

“The bodies were buried under deep, densely packed volcanic material that is difficult to dig through,” Muhari said, “Rescue teams must proceed cautiously to ensure safety.”

The trio were among 20 hikers who set out to ascend the 1,355-meter (4,445-foot) volcano, in North Maluku province, in defiance of safety restrictions. They became stranded when Dukono erupted early Friday, spewing a thick ash column that rose about 10 kilometers (6 miles) into the air.

Seventeen people were safely evacuated hours after the eruption, including seven Singaporean nationals. Ten of those evacuated had suffered minor burns, while two were able to join the rescue operation and provided information to help locate those missing.

Search teams involving nearly 100 personnel faced extreme terrain and continuing volcanic activity, according to Muhari.

Iwan Ramdani, heads of the local search and rescue department, said the evacuation efforts on Sunday had been monitored by volcanology officials as the volcano continues to spew ash, hot material and glowing rocks.

“The search operation was repeatedly disrupted by Mount Dukono’s continued volcanic activity,” Ramdani said, “Teams must be extremely careful during the evacuation process.”

The bodies of the three victims were transported to an emergency response post before being taken to Tobelo Regional Hospital for identification and further handling, Ramdani said.

The National Disaster Management Agency said the search and rescue operation was now closed.

The agency urged residents, tourists and tour operators to comply with safety regulations and avoid restricted areas.

Authorities have banned all activities within a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) danger zone around the crater, in line with recommendations from Indonesia’s volcanology agency.

Mount Dukono is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

The two, Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, were among dozens of activists intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Crete. Both are members of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee, whose mission is to break Israel’s naval blockade and bring some humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the two activists in a post on X on Sunday “professional provocateurs,” saying ”Israel will not allow any breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza."

At the time of the arrest, Israeli authorities said the two had been detained for questioning, and that Abukeshek was “suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organization” and Ávila was “suspected of illegal activity,” without providing evidence. No formal charges have been publicized against the two, the last activists who were held in Israel.

Spain and Brazil have condemned“the kidnapping of two of their citizens in international waters by the Government of Israel" in a joint statement at the time. The two activists’ detention sparked solidarity protests in several countries.

After arriving in Athens, Abukeshek insisted that he would continue protesting Israel’s blockade of Gaza and what he said was the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

“We have to continue mobilizing. We can’t forget the Palestinian prisoners,” he said in a video comment posted on the Global Sumud Flotilla's X account.

In all, 22 boats and 175 activists were intercepted by the Israeli navy. Activists said Israeli forces stormed their vessels, smashed engines and detained some of those onboard. The incident occurred hundreds of miles (kilometers) from Gaza and Israel overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.

Israeli officials said they needed to take early action against the flotilla before it reached Israeli waters because of the high number of boats involved.

The flotilla’s latest attempt to reach Gaza comes less than a year after Israeli authorities foiled a previous effort by the group. That attempt involved about 50 vessels and around 500 activists, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, and several lawmakers.

Israel arrested, detained and later deported the participants, including Ávila, who claimed Israeli authorities abused them while in detention. Israeli authorities denied the accusations.

Israeli strike kills two in Gaza

In Gaza, an Israeli strike hit a vehicle, killing at least two people, including a Hamas police officer, according to the Nasser hospital, which received the casualties.

The vehicle was struck late Sunday morning in Al-Amal neighborhood in the southern city of Khan Younis, said the civil defense, a first responders’ agency operating under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

The two killed included Col. Wessam Abdel-Hadi, who heads the police investigation department in Khan Younis, the hospital said.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing the strike.

The fatalities were the latest among Palestinians in the coastal enclave since an October fragile ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the shaky ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire.

Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military- held zones, killing at least 850 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.

Israel's military said Sunday it destroyed two tunnels in Israeli-controlled areas in central Gaza and that troops found several hideouts and weapons in the tunnels. It shared footage of what it said were the hideouts. The footage couldn’t be independently verified.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain contributed to this report.

The Knights won the final event of the week, clocking a 3-minutes, 49.33-second time in the 4x400 relay to edge St. Thomas Aquinas by two points for the team title (47-45). Creekside excelled in the relays, taking second in the 4x800 and the 4x100. Shot put athlete Suin Crowley was also state runner-up.

Flagler Palm Coast’s Karina Marcelus had an excellent meet, winning the triple jump (40-8.75), and finishing as runner-up in the 100 hurdles.

For the boys, Creekside’s Josh Howell was runner-up in the 200, and Flagler Palm Coast won the 4x400 relay to headline a sixth-place team finish.

Class 4A state track and field meet results

Girls

Local team scores: 1. Creekside, 47; T14. Flagler Palm Coast, 18; 20. Bartram Trail, 15.5; T30. Oakleaf, 9; T33. Fletcher, 8; T33. Nease, 8; T48. Sandalwood, 3; T53. Atlantic Coast, 1.

Individuals (locals finishing in top six shown)

Pole vault: 2. Selena Gregory (Nease), 11-9.75; 3. Camille Andrews (Creekside), 11-3.75; 6. Hannah Hinson (Creekside), 9-10.

Shot put: 2. Suin Crowley (Creekside), 40-7.75.

Triple jump: 1. Karina Marcelus (Flagler Palm Coast), 40-8.75.

4x800 relay: 2. Creekside, 9:08.80; 6. Bartram Trail, 9:26.27.

100 hurdles: 2. Karina Marcelus (Flagler Palm Coast), 13.69.

1600: 3. Avery Hartley (Bartram Trail), 4:51.76.

4x100 relay: 2. Creekside, 46.28.

400: 3. Zyaire Thomas (Fletcher), 54.62.

400 hurdles: 6. Paetton Perez (Sandalwood), 1:02.65.

800: 6. Sarah Rose (Creekside), 2:12.25.

3200: 4. Avery Hartley (Bartram Trail), 10:35.53.

4x400 relay: 1. Creekside, 3:49.33.

Boys

Local team scores: 6. Flagler Palm Coast, 29; T13. Oakleaf, 13; T16. Creekside, 11; T18. Fletcher, 10; T23. Tocoi Creekside, 8.33; T32. Atlantic Coast, 6; T38. Mandarin, 5; T47. Bartram Trail, 4; T52. Nease, 3; T61. First Coast, 1.

Individuals (locals finishing in top six shown)

Long jump: 4. Elijah Dailey (Tocoi Creek), 23-4.5

Pole vault: 3. Ramell Walley (Atlantic Coast), 14-9.

Shot put: 5. Micah Scott (Bartram Trail), 50-6.5.

Triple jump: 3. Jalani Thomas (Fletcher), 47-2.5.

Javelin: 4. Ladarius Simmons (Flagler Palm Coast), 177-9.

4x100 relay: 3. Oakleaf, 40.95.

400: 2. Jordan Haymon (Flagler Palm Coast), 47.82; 4. Jace Kemp (Mandarin), 47.89; 5. Jaidyn Haywood (Fletcher), 47.91.

200: 2. Josh Howell (Creekside), 21.14; 5. Logan Jacobelli (Flagler Palm Coast), 21.27; 6. Emmanuel Souffrant (Oakleaf), 21.29.

4x400 relay: 1. Flagler Palm Coast, 3:14.35; 5. Oakleaf, 3;17.99.

Strickland won two scorecards 48-47 while Chimaev took the other scorecard at 48-47 in front of a crowd of 17,783 fans at the Prudential Center.

Strickland, the second former middleweight to regain the title, mimed putting the belt around his waist after the fifth round ended to wrap a fight where neither fighter ever seemed in serious danger. He had help with his shiny new fashion accessory when Chimaev did the honors for him inside the cage.

“I should be a better (expletive) example when I try to sell these fights for you,” fans, Strickland said.

UFC beefed up security at hotels, public events and around the cage for this one following one of the more loathsome displays — specifically, Strickland — of trash talk in recent fight history. Strickland threatened to shoot Chimaev and labeled him a terrorist because of his ties to Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chimaev, who lost for the first time in 16 pro fights, is of Chechen ethnicity and fights under the United Arab Emirates banner, had countered by saying he would “take off” Strickland’s head.

UFC CEO Dana White — who expressed confidence Conor McGregor would return to fight this summer — said Chimaev told him after the fight he wanted to move up in weight class.

The fighters tapped gloves to start the fight to prove they were professionals and the prefight hostilities never spilled over into the cage.

The 35-year-old Strickland, who won the 185-pound belt in September 2023 and lost it in his first title defense, apologized after the fight to fans of all ethnicities and acknowledged he “went too (damn) hard” in weaponizing stereotypes to sell the fight.

“I respect all you guys,” Strickland said, rattling off Christians, Muslims, and also races.

Van retains flyweight title in co-main event

Joshua Van mauled Tatsuro Taira into a bloody mess in the co-main and successfully defended his 125-pound championship in the first title fight in company history contested between two Asian fighters.

Van dominated with elite boxing and won via stoppage at 1:32 of round five and had the crowd roaring in his first title defense since he beat Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323.

Van (17-2) seized control in the second round with a violent right hand to the jaw for the knockdown and he repeatedly bashed Taira (18-2) in the face. Van failed to finish the round but continued to rip shots the rest of the rounds to the face and body that left Taira’s face and chest smeared with blood.

Van and Taira marked the first time UFC has a title fight with both competitors born in the 2000s.

The 24-year-old Van, of Myanmar, has won seven straight fights and 10 of 11 since he signed with UFC — and few bigger than in the co-main event of UFC’s 11th stop in Newark.

Taira failed in his try to become the first Japanese fighter to become UFC champion.

UFC held its last major card before its June 14 show at the White House to fete President Donald Trump, a proud proponent of cage match politics. The show — what White dubbed a “1 of 1 event” — is timed for Trump’s 80th birthday and as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Trump, who frequently attends major UFC events, did not attend Saturday night at the Prudential Center.

In other fights of note on the main card, Sean Brady defeated Joaquin Buckley via unanimous decision; King Green chocked out Jeremy Stephens; and Alexander Volkov defeated Waldo Cortes-Acosta via unanimous decision.

White said the company was aware of abnormal betting patterns ahead of the Brady fight but found nothing wrong.

“It's not surprising when a card is this good, and a fight like that, the line will move,” White said.

Miller win first fight since teenage son beats childhood cancer

On the undercard, 42-year-old Jim Miller used a submission victory to boost his record totals for UFC fights and career victories in his first return to the cage since his teenage son beat a rare form of childhood cancer.

A New Jersey native, Miller defeated Jared Gordon in a lightweight bout at UFC 328 with a rear naked choke at 3:29 of the first round and his family cheering him on from the Prudential Center. Miller extended his record with 28 career wins in 47 fights under the UFC banner.

Miller, who signed a new five-fight deal Saturday, also earned his 20th finish, second most in UFC history.

Wyatt Miller, 14, was diagnosed last year with rhadbomyosacroma, a rare type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells in soft tissue and is more common in childhood. Wyatt underwent two courses of chemotherapy and five weeks of proton radiation at Rutgers University Cancer Institute and was eventually given a clean bill of health.

“My son went through some really difficult times the last couple of months,” Miller said inside the octagon. “He ended up kicking the (heck) out of cancer. He’s all good today. He’s cancer free. One of the things I told him when he first got diagnosed was, Millers have been called a lot of names over the years, but fragile’s never been one of them. He fought his way through it.”

His son’s cancer scare kept Miller out of the cage for 13 months, an eternity for a fighter who made a habit of competing multiple times a year. Miller lost to Chase Hooper in his last fight at UFC 314 in April 2025.

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AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

The Wild went on to win 5-1 and hand the Avalanche their first loss of this postseason.

“I thought Wedgie was playing hard. I think maybe he looked a little like too aggressive on a couple of those,” coach Jared Bednar said. "It just felt like they had all the momentum and the steam early in that game, and we needed to do something to kind of get our guys fired up and going, and I was hoping that would be part of it.

Wedgewood made nine saves before yielding to Mackenzie Blackwood, whose last game action was on April 14. With Wedgewood getting 43 starts and Blackwood making 36 starts, the Avalanche goalies shared the William M. Jennings Trophy given to the team with the best goals against average during the regular season.

Wedgewood, a career backup who took advantage of an early-season injury absence for Blackwood and wound up leading the league with a .921 save percentage and a 2.02 goals against average, entered Game 3 with a 6-0 record and a 2.12 goals against average with a .923 save percentage in the playoffs.

But some defensive breakdowns and undisciplined play in front of him set Wedgewood up for a struggle.

Kirill Kaprizov scored on a four-on-four situation after Colorado's Parker Kelly and Minnesota's Ryan Hartman took roughing penalties for their scuffle.

Then a hooking penalty on defenseman Devon Toews gave the Wild more than a minute of four-on-three play that Quinn Hughes capped with his slick toe-drag goal from the top of the slot, when he circled around the left wing before sliding into the wide-open middle.

In the second period with the Wild on another power play after Kelly was called for holding Hughes, Hartman batted in an airborne shot to make it 3-0 and prompt Bednar to make the switch.

Blackwood, who played the whole first-round series for the Avalanche when they lost to the Dallas Stars in seven games last year, finished with 12 saves.

So now what? Back to Wedgewood for Game 4 in Minnesota on Monday? Bednar wasn't ready to declare.

“We’ll have a decision to make, but there’s a decision to make every night. Some of them are easier than others,” Bednar said.

After backstopping the Wild to a six-game win over the Stars in the first round this year, rookie Jesper Wallstedt was the natural pick to start this series against the Avalanche. After the Wild lost the wacky opener 9-6 on Sunday, coach John Hynes went to Filip Gustavsson for Game 2.

Gustavsson, who has been the team's primary goalie for the last three seasons and made 49 starts during the regular season to Wallstedt's 33, didn't look sharp in the 5-2 loss on Tuesday. So the Wild went back to Wallstedt for Game 3 — with a favorable outcome. Wallstedt made 35 saves.

“I had no doubt he was going to be back — just kind of who he is,” Hynes said. “He’s a competitor. He’s got confidence. He’s been very solid, and I just thought he got right back to his game tonight. He’s proven throughout the playoffs that the moments don’t get too big for him.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The next impressive player to rise from the Thunder's bottomless depth and onto the national stage is Ajay Mitchell, who has seized the spotlight while replacing injured teammate Jalen Williams during these playoffs.

After delivering career playoff highs of 24 points and 10 assists with no turnovers in the Thunder’s 131-108 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday night, the Belgian guard is the latest cog in general manager Sam Presti's formidable machine to prove he's ready to contribute to Oklahoma City's aspiring dynasty.

Perhaps only his teammates aren't surprised.

“Yeah, he’s a gamer,” MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Works super hard. He’s never shaken by the moment. It might be a shock to the world, but it’s no shock to us. We knew who Ajay Mitchell was the day he stepped foot in our building, and he’s just showing it to the world.”

The Thunder are unbeaten in the postseason after taking a 3-0 series lead in the second round, seemingly making their advancement to the Western Conference finals a mere formality.

That's largely thanks to Mitchell, who swiftly stepped up to shoulder an increased offensive load five games ago following Williams' hamstring injury. In the second round, Mitchell has also stepped up to make up for the Lakers' strong defensive effort against Gilgeous-Alexander, who has been limited and erratic by his formidable standard.

“I know what I can do, and when I go out there, I just want to compete and help this team win and play freely,” Mitchell said. “Every time I step on the court, I want to be a winning player and help my team. That’s really what’s been on my mind every time I play.”

Mitchell did that impressively in the second half of Game 3, with 18 points and seven assists in the half while largely taking charge of the game at the start of both quarters. He led the Thunder's 21-6 run out of halftime on the way to a third straight blowout.

Mitchell is averaging 20.7 points per game against the Lakers while hitting 53.3% of his shots and committing only three total turnovers. He has 20 assists while also playing strong defense.

After Williams went down in Game 2 of the first round against Phoenix, Mitchell moved into the starting lineup for Game 3 and promptly went 5 for 20. His teammates remained solidly behind him — and Mitchell has been outstanding ever since.

“He’s just finding his footing,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. "It’s his first run in the playoffs, and it’s obviously a different ballgame. He’s just getting more and more comfortable as the game goes on, as the series goes on. ... I was never worried that he wasn’t going to figure it out, and he’s shown that.”

After growing up in Europe, Mitchell spent three collegiate seasons about an hour away from downtown Los Angeles at UC Santa Barbara, and he was a second-round pick in 2024.

Mitchell played as a rookie last season, albeit sparingly: He contributed 6.5 points per game in 36 regular-season contests, earning an early role in the Thunder's rotation before missing nearly the entire second half of the regular season with turf toe.

He averaged just 8 minutes per game during the postseason title run, but Presti and coach Mark Daigneault saw enough to re-sign Mitchell to a three-year, $9 million contract — a deal that looked like a ridiculous steal even before this playoff emergence.

Mitchell has proved he can be a creator and a scorer, but he earned Daigneault's trust by contributing on defense. Daigneault recognizes Mitchell's inexperience in the postseason, but it hasn't stopped the coach from putting Mitchell at the center of their effort.

“He doesn't have a ton of basketball (playing time) in the NBA,” Daigneault said. “The growth curve of players young in their career is steep, and he’s a guy that’s hungry, (but) he’s also humble. So he grows from all of his experiences. He's been great in the postseason so far, but he hasn't been wholly efficient yet. I think that's a little bit the intensity of the games, the physicality, the length. ... And yet he stays aggressive and he just keeps playing.”

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

The Cote d’Azur spectacular will play host — starting on Tuesday — to some of the most anticipated movies of the year in a constant parade of red carpets and megawatt premieres. This year, Hollywood studios are mostly on the sidelines. But for more than 78 years, Cannes has been an unparalleled showcase, and sun-dappled circus, for some of the best in cinema.

Last year that included Oscar nominees like “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent” and “It Was Just an Accident.” This year is just as likely to produce a crop of contenders. In recent years, movies like “Parasite” and “Anora” have launched at Cannes and gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

Presiding over the jury deciding the Palme this year is South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. At the opening ceremony Tuesday, Cannes will also bestow an honorary Palme d’Or on Peter Jackson. Later, Barbra Streisand will get one, too.

So there will be much to keep an eye on at this year’s Cannes, including “The White Lotus.” The HBO series has come to the Croisette — the Mediterranean city's famous promenade — to shoot its fourth season.

On the screen, these are some of the movies that should stir Cannes.

‘Hope’

Na Hong-jin isn’t as well known as some of his fellow Korean filmmakers, but he may be poised for a breakout moment this year. His latest is a long-gestating sci-fi thriller that Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux said “constantly changes genres.” The cast has both Korean and Hollywood stars, including Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell.

‘Paper Tiger’

Though not initially announced as part of the festival competition slate, James Gray’s latest Queens-set drama was subsequently added. And it instantly became one of the most anticipated and star-studded American films at the festival. Gray, the filmmaker of “Armageddon Time” and “The Immigrant,” tells a story about two brothers (Adam Driver, Miles Teller) who become mixed up with the Russian mafia. Scarlett Johansson co-stars.

'Fjord’

The Romanian director Cristian Mungiu is a heavyweight of European cinema because of films like the 2007 Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and 2022’s “R.M.N.” Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star in his latest as a Romanian-Norwegian couple who move to the wife’s remote Norwegian hometown.

‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’

Jane Schoenbrun has quickly established themselves as a vital voice in contemporary American film with 2024’s “I Saw the TV Glow” and 2021’s “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” Playing in the Un Certain Regard section, Schoenbrun’s new one stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in a movie about the making of a slasher film.

‘Fatherland’

Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is best known for a pair of black-and-white, powerfully succinct period dramas: “Ida” and “Cold War.” His latest makes it three. It stars Hanns Zischler as the German author Thomas Mann on a road trip following World War II. Accompanying him is his daughter, played by Sandra Hüller.

‘All of a Sudden’

The Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi makes his French-language debut. Hamaguchi’s 2021 opus “Drive My Car” made history as the first Japanese film nominated for best picture. His 2023 follow-up, “Evil Does Not Exist,” was also acclaimed. “All of a Sudden,” starring Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, is about a nursing home director and a terminally ill Japanese playwright.

‘Sheep in the Box’

Long revered for his delicate humanism, the Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda will unveil his latest. Kore-eda has already won the Palme d’Or, for 2018’s “Shoplifters.” But his three decades of moviemaking have made him a never-to-be-missed filmmaker of exquisite tenderness. The sci-fi “Sheep in the Box” is about a couple, grieving the loss of their son, who adopt an infant humanoid robot.

‘The Man I Love’

Before Gray’s film entered the competition, Ira Sachs ’ “The Man I Love” was the sole American selection. Coming quickly on the heels of Sachs’ “Peter Hujar’s Day,” with Ben Whishaw, “The Man I Love”’ stars Rami Malek as a an actor with a life-threatening illness in 1980s New York, preparing for what could be his final performance.

‘The Unknown’

The French filmmaker Arthur Harari three years ago co-wrote the Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” with his partner, Justine Triet. In “The Unknown,” Harari directs and cowrites a film about a photographer who, after photographing a woman at a party and then following her, wakes up in her body. Starring Léa Seydoux.

‘Minotaur’

The Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev has been behind some powerfully potent dramas, including 2014’s “Leviathan” and 2017’s “Loveless” — both of which were Oscar nominated. After a near-death experience during the pandemic, Zvyagintsev returns to Cannes with a business executive in crisis in rural Russia.

’John Lennon: The Last Interview’

Steven Soderbergh ’s documentary about John Lennon’s final interview, granted at the Dakota in New York just before he was killed, drew headlines after Soderbergh acknowledged using artificial intelligence to illustrate some of Lennon’s more philosophical musings. But the film, playing in Cannes as a special screening, promises to lend unparalleled intimacy with the great Beatle.

‘Bitter Christmas’

Pedro Almodovar is among the most regular filmmakers in Cannes. This festival, he'll debut “Bitter Christmas,” a multilayered melodrama about filmmaking, grief and aging. After making his English-language debut with “The Room Next Door,” starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, Almodovar is back in his native Spain with one of his most personal films yet.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 23 points and nine assists for the Thunder, who coolly improved to 7-0 — both in these playoffs overall, and in their seven games this season against LeBron James and the Lakers. Oklahoma City is the NBA's sixth defending champion to start 7-0 in the following postseason after three wins over short-handed Los Angeles by a combined 59 points.

Game 3 was remarkably similar to Game 2 in many respects: The Lakers again had to fight desperately just to keep up with the champs into the third quarter, only for the Thunder to run away with their usual merciless efficiency when LA finally faltered. Chet Holmgren had 18 points and nine rebounds for Oklahoma City, which outscored the Lakers 33-20 in the third quarter and wasn't threatened at all down the stretch.

“I think (the first half) wasn't our best half, and in the locker room we just talked about it and knew that we had to adjust and be better,” said Mitchell, who continued his postseason emergence by scoring at least 14 points for the sixth consecutive game. “I think we did a great job coming out of the half.”

Game 4 is Monday night in Los Angeles.

James had 19 points, eight assists and six rebounds, while Austin Reaves had 17 points and nine assists. But both stars struggled from the field to a combined 12 for 32, and 21 points from Rui Hachimura weren't enough to keep LA in contention with the champs.

“We had moments in the first half that were really good for us,” James said. “In the third quarter, we didn't knock down shots, we didn't defend or get stops and allowed them to take us out of the game.”

Gilgeous-Alexander had his highest-scoring game of the series despite missing nine of his first 11 shots amid another concerted defensive effort by the Lakers on the NBA MVP, albeit with fewer double-teams than in the series' first two games.

“These obviously haven't been my best performances,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But I think I've been able to help the team win, and that's most important. If the rest of the playoff run or the rest of my career looked like what it looked like the past few games, I'd be OK with it, because we won games.”

Luke Kennard added 18 points for the Lakers, who have lost five of their last six games since midway through the first round against Houston.

“They're an incredible basketball team,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Third straight game we're right there after 2 1/2 quarters. We tried different lineups, different coverages. Still lost those minutes. Again, we've got to be better, but I'm not giving up on the series. We're going to go try to win on Monday. We're going to try to extend the series.”

NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic missed his 14th consecutive game for the Lakers since straining his hamstring April 2 in Oklahoma City. He is not thought to be close to returning from an injury that often requires two months of recovery.

Except for Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder all began Game 3 in another shooting groove. Los Angeles still surged to a small halftime lead behind 16 points from Hachimura.

Oklahoma City erased that lead with a methodical surge out of halftime, going up by 13 in the third quarter.

Third-leading scorer Jalen Williams missed his fifth straight game for the Thunder with a strained hamstring.

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

The Senators swept St. Thomas Aquinas 3-0 to win the first title by a local program in area history. Fletcher finished 20-0. Fletcher finished as state runner-up last year.

The Senators pulverized every team in the playoffs, sweeping four of their five opponents. Only Venice managed to win a point on the Senators in the postseason, sneaking in a 2-1 win at the fifth spot.

Elina Adhikari, Leila Brummel, Sofia Ventimiglia, Ashton Kirton, Lila Waite, Ramsey Langton, Jaylin Sahkno, Karsyn Smith, Amelia Richter, Kiley Brummel, Channing Wooten, and Keely Pou are the players on Fletcher’s state championship team.

Quinn Hughes followed Kaprizov's four-on-four score late in the first period with a four-on-three goal less than two minutes later. Ryan Hartman batted in a deflected power-play shot with 4:23 elapsed in the second period to prompt an early departure for Avalanche goalie Scott Wedgewood, who was replaced by Mackenzie Blackwood.

Nathan MacKinnon got the Avalanche on the board on a power play later in the second period before Brock Faber answered just 20 seconds later by deflecting a puck past Blackwood.

Matt Boldy added an empty-net goal and Jesper Wallstedt made 34 saves in his return to the net for the Wild after a 9-6 loss in the unhinged series opener prompted a start for Filip Gustavsson in Game 2.

The Avalanche will take a 2-1 lead into Game 4 in Minnesota on Monday, before the teams return to Colorado for Game 5 on Wednesday.

The Avalanche faced their first multigoal deficit of this postseason after they had 12 different players score over the first two games of this series, an NHL record.

Faber had two assists and has nine points in nine playoff games. Mats Zuccarello, who took the shot that Faber tipped past Blackwood, also had two assists and has 10 points in seven playoff games.

Wedgewood, who led the NHL in save percentage and goals against average during the regular season and had matched the franchise postseason record with six consecutive victories, made nine saves. Blackwood had 12.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The Spartans and Tigers swept their regional finals on Saturday, while the Conquerors roared back to edge Bishop Snyder in Game 3 to win Region 1-2A.

The state semifinals are over the next two weeks in Fort Myers. Clay could make it four teams in Fort Myers, but the Blue Devils’ game in Region 1-4A at Choctawhatchee was postponed until Sunday.

The Spartans beat St. John Paul II 10-5 to win Region 1-1A for their fourth trip to the final four in the past five years.

St. Johns has reached the state semifinals all but one year since 2021 (lost in the 2022 regional finals). The Spartans won the state championship in 2024, and finished runner-up in 2021, ’23, and ’25. Gavin Coffey had nine strikeouts, Brayden Harris and Hunter Rodgers both had three hits and St. Johns cruised. Hudson Dantzler, Preston Cole, Harris and Rodgers all homered for the Spartans.

Jordan Martinez blasted two homers for the Conquerors in Game 2, his third multi-homer game of the year. Ethan Wheeler whiffed 11 in 6.1 innings, and Romy DeCenzo got out of a bases-loaded jam to top Snyder. In the clincher, the Conquerors pushed four runs across in the bottom of the sixth to wrap up the series with a 5-3 win. Jarod Flowers broke the tie with a two-run single that put Trinity ahead for good. Martinez added his 12^th homer of the year in the third game.

Trinity won its only title in 2015. The Conquerors have gone to the state semifinals (2018, ’19, ’24) and played for a state championship last year.

In the Rural class, Union County walked it off in the bottom of the eighth inning for an 8-7 win over Lafayette. Jasen Sullivan had three hits, Westyn Miller drove in a pair of runs, and Nate Robertson homered for the Tigers.

Regional finals

Friday, May 8/Saturday May 9 (best of 3 series)

Region 1-4A

Game 1: (3) Clay 1, (1) Choctawhatchee 0 (9-2)

Game 2: (3) Clay (18-13) at (1) Choctawhatchee (25-7), postponed to Sunday

Game 3: TBA

Region 1-3A

Games 1/2: (1) South Walton 2, (3) Suwannee 0 (2-1, 10-0)

Region 1-2A

Game 1: (2) Bishop Snyder 8, (1) Trinity Christian 2

Game 2: (1) Trinity Christian 6, (2) Bishop Snyder 4

Game 3: (1) Trinity Christian 5, (2) Bishop Snyder 3

Region 1-1A

Game 1: (1) St. Johns Country Day 5, (3) St. John Paul II 1

Game 2: (1) St. Johns Country Day 10, (3) St. John Paul II 5

Rural

Game 1: (1) Union County 14, (3) Lafayette 3

Game 2: (1) Union County 8, (3) Lafayette 7

Regional semifinals

Region 1-6A

Friday, May 1 (best of 3); games 2 and 3 (if necessary) on Saturday

(1) Pace 2, (5) Tocoi Creek 0 (12-2, 7-2)

(2) Buchholz 2, (6) Oakleaf 0 (5-3, 7-1)

Region 1-4A

(1) Choctawhatchee 2, (5) St. Augustine 1 (2-3, 4-1, 4-1)

(3) Clay 2, (7) Escambia 0 (5-0; 8-1)

Region 1-3A

(3) Suwannee 2, (2) Fernandina Beach 1, (12-0, 3-4, 5-1)

Region 1-2A

(1) Trinity Christian 2, (4) Trinity Catholic 0 (5-0, 9-6)

(2) Bishop Snyder 2, (3) Bolles 0 (8-5, 10-0)

Region 1-1A

(1) St. Johns Country Day 2, (4) University Christian 0 (4-2, 8-2)

(3) St. John Paul II 2, (7) Covenant School of Jacksonville 0 (7-6, 7-2)

Rural

Friday, May 1 (best of 3); games 2 and 3 (if necessary) on Saturday

(1) Union County 2, (4) Madison County 0 (7-6, 10-7)

Regional quarterfinals

Region 1-7A

Friday, April 24 results (single elimination)

(8) Lake Mary 6, (1) Creekside 3

(4) West Orange 4, (5) Sandalwood 1

(2) Spruce Creek 11, (7) Flagler Palm Coast 1

Region 1-6A

(5) Tocoi Creek 2, (4) Tate 1

(2) Buchholz 12, (7) Mandarin 2

(6) Oakleaf 12, (3) Bartram Trail 2, Thursday

Region 1-5A

(1) Chiles 5, (8) Ponte Vedra 3

(2) Niceville 3, (7) Beachside 2

(3) Mosley 5, (6) Columbia 2

Region 1-4A

(1) Choctawhatchee 9, (8) Baker County 0

(5) St. Augustine 10, (4) Arnold 6

(7) Escambia 3, (2) Bishop Kenny 1

(3) Clay 4, (6) Wakulla 0

Region 1-3A

Saturday, April 25 results

(1) South Walton 13, (8) Wolfson 0

(4) West Florida 1, (5) Baldwin 0

(2) Fernandina Beach 10, (7) Bay 0

(3) Suwannee 12, (6) West Nassau 1

Region 2-3A

(4) South Sumter 12, (5) Palatka 0

Region 1-2A

(1) Trinity Christian 6, (8) Florida High 3

(2) Bishop Snyder 9, (7) Providence 5

(3) Bolles 6, (6) Pensacola Catholic 5

Class 1A

(1) St. Johns Country Day 15, (8) Rocky Bayou Christian 0

(4) University Christian 6, (5) North Florida Christian 2

(7) Covenant School of Jacksonville 10, (2) St. Joseph 5

(6) Christ’s Church Academy (13-13) at (3) St. John Paul II (15-8), postponed to April 27

Kerr has reached an agreement in principle on a two-year contract to continue coaching the Warriors, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations. Kerr still must sign his new deal, the person told The Associated Press on Saturday night, speaking on condition of anonymity because the contract must be finalized.

The Warriors missed the playoffs for the second time in three years, earning the 10th seed in the Western Conference and eventually losing at Phoenix in the play-in tournament.

Kerr's 12-year coaching run with the franchise has featured four championships and six NBA Finals appearances alongside Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, including five straight from 2015-19. Kerr shared an embrace with those two stars near the end of the loss in Phoenix, saying afterward he knew it could be their final time together.

He has a career record of 604-353 and a 104-48 playoff mark, with Golden State winning its last championship in 2022.

The Warriors were 37-45 this season while dealing with numerous injuries, including losing Jimmy Butler to a season-ending right knee injury in January and Curry's 27-game absence with a right knee injury of his own.

ESPN first reported Kerr's new contract.

Kerr, 60, got his first coaching job in 2014-15 and immediately guided Golden State to the franchise's first title in 40 years. The Warriors would then begin the next season with a record 24-0 start without him as assistant Luke Walton led the way as Kerr missed the initial 43 games as his team went on to a record 73 victories. Kerr took a leave of absence to recover from debilitating complications following two back surgeries, then missed time again in 2017 with Mike Brown filling in as Kerr underwent a procedure to deal with a spinal fluid leak.

Green had predicted on his podcast once the season ended that Kerr wouldn't return.

Throughout his coaching career, Kerr has used his platform to speak out against gun violence and social injustice among other prominent issues. He lost his father, Malcolm, president of the American University of Beirut, when he was murdered in Beirut when Kerr was 18 and a freshman at the University of Arizona.

In March 2018, Kerr took part in the Oakland March for Our Lives. Earlier that same month, he joined Democratic Congressmen Ro Khanna and Mike Thompson — then-chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force — and students from throughout the South Bay during a town hall at Newark Memorial High School to discuss gun violence in schools and cheered the efforts of youth nationwide.

Kerr has said it isn’t hard to do double duty as a basketball coach and a voice as a public figure for those who don’t have one.

“I think in some ways the balance is presented to us, given what’s happening around the country,” Kerr said. “I know that when I played, players and coaches were never — maybe not never — rarely asked about politics and voting.”

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

Sheriff Michelle Cook said deputies were originally called to assist DCF when a routine check of names at the scene revealed one individual may have had an out-of-state warrant.

“While deputies were trying to confirm the out of state warrant, the subject of that potential warrant actually armed themselves with two knives, became confident, confrontational,” Cook said.

The confrontation moved to the backyard of the residence, where the suspect knocked down a fence and continued into a neighbor’s yard.

“A short time later, we had a single deputy shoot the subject that was at the time armed and the subject was deceased at that time,” the sheriff said.

No deputies were injured in the incident. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office have been called in to conduct an independent investigation.

“I know there’s a large police presence in the neighborhood and everybody’s been very cooperative,” the sheriff said. “We appreciate their cooperation.”

FDLE and the State Attorney’s Office said they will release more information as it becomes available.

Frederik Andersen made 15 saves for Carolina, which has not lost in eight playoff games.

Alex Bump and Tyson Foerster scored for the Flyers.

Taylor Hall and Jaccob Slavin assisted the winning goal. Blake's shot from the slot bounced off Dan Vladar's glove and over the goal line.

“Once I saw it go in, just excitement,” Blake said.

Vladar stopped 37 shots for Philadelphia.

Carolina will play the winner of Buffalo and Montreal in the Eastern Conference finals after the NHL’s first 8-0 start in the playoffs since 1985.

“Everyone is chipping in; everyone is doing their job,” Hall said.

Andersen has started every game in the postseason, winning them all.

“He's just playing lights out,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said.

The Hurricanes, who reached the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four years, are looking for their first Stanley Cup since 2006. Carolina is the 24th team in league history to win eight or more consecutive games during a playoff run. Eighteen of them have won the Stanley Cup.

“For me, it's just fun to sit back there and watch it, to be honest,” Brind'Amour said.

Philadelphia scored just five goals over the four games. After an unlikely berth in the playoffs, fans saluted the home team when it was over with chants of, “Let's go, Flyers!”

“I can't ask for more,” Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said.

Bump scored 5:52 into the third period to tie the game at 2-2.

Stankoven’s seventh tally of the playoffs 4:13 into the third period gave Carolina a 2-1 lead after he finished a beautiful cross-ice pass from Hall with a one-timer from just outside of the crease. Philadelphia evened the score 1:39 later when Bump shot past Andersen’s glove side from the slot after a setup from Travis Konecny from behind the net.

Blake tied it at 1-1 with 7:25 remaining in the second when his wrist shot from along the boards caromed off Philadelphia defenseman Jamie Drysdale and past Vladar. It appeared as if Carolina went in front just 28 seconds later when Mark Jankowski beat Vladar, but the goal was overturned following a challenge by Tocchet when officials ruled that Carolina’s William Carrier interfered with Vladar.

The Flyers had a pair of good chances late in the period to take the lead but could not convert. The best opportunity came in the final seconds of the period when Christian Dvorak’s wrist shot from close range went off the post on Andersen’s glove side.

Carolina finished regulation with a 36-15 advantage in shots.

Russian winger Matvei Michkov was a healthy scratch for the Flyers. Michkov, 23, was the No. 7 overall pick in 2023 by Philadelphia and was heralded as an important piece for the rebuilding franchise’s future. But the right wing has struggled thus far in his first playoff experience, garnering one point while accumulating a minus-3 in eight games. It is the second time he has been a healthy scratch this postseason, following Game 5 against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL

Hours after their boys team won their second championship in program history, the girls put an exclamation point on an unforgettable season with a 13-7 win over Oviedo to win the Class 2A championship in Naples.

The double dip marks the first time in lacrosse history that a school has swept both boys and girls titles in the same season. The championship comes after two state runner-up finishes (2014-15) and also in the first season of head coach Kara Koolage’s tenure. Ponte Vedra finished 17-3 and ended the season on a nine-game winning streak. Oviedo finished 21-2.

This one was decided in the opening half. Ponte Vedra scored three times in the first and never looked back, thanks in large part to a defense that put the clamps on the Lions.

The Sharks’ defense was top-notch, holding Oviedo to just a goal in both the first and fourth quarters.

Harden hit three big shots and Strus came up with the steal and go-ahead basket in the Cavaliers' 116-109 victory on Saturday to cut the Pistons' lead to 2-1.

“We know how important it is to get this first win to make it a series. So, really a team win where a lot of guys contributed tonight,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said.

The Cavaliers will look to even the series when they host Game 4 on Monday night.

Donovan Mitchell led Cleveland with 35 points and 10 rebounds, while Harden finished with 19 points and Jarrett Allen scored 18.

There were 11 lead changes, with the final one occurring with 2:28 remaining when Strus jumped to snare Cade Cunningham's inbound pass to Daniss Jenkins near midcourt. Strus then drove past Cunningham and Jenkins to make a layup and give the Cavaliers a 106-104 advantage.

Atkinson called it the winning play of the game.

“That was a game changer right there. It gives us a lead, get a couple stops and a couple buckets and that’s the game,” Harden said.

Strus said it was about 3-4 seconds into the inbound play that he timed his jump and made the play.

“My job is to help win in any form or fashion,” said Strus, who finished with seven points, five rebounds and one steal. “Some nights it’s going to be shooting. Some nights it’s going to be defense. Some nights it’s going to be rebounds. The ball didn’t find me tonight, but I don’t care. As long as our team wins, I just want to make an impact and find a way to win.”

It was also the first of three straight turnovers by Cunningham, who had his second career postseason triple-double with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, but also committed eight turnovers.

“I don’t want to say they were careless turnovers because I care about it a lot. They were just bad turnovers,” he said.

Harden, who drew plenty of criticism for turnovers in the clutch in the first two games, kept the Cavaliers in front with big shots. The 17-year veteran hit a 16-foot step-back jumper to extend the lead to 108-104. After a driving dunk by Cunningham, Harden made a floating 7-footer to put the lead back up to four.

Cunningham responded with a 3-pointer before Harden provided the decisive blow with 25 seconds remaining on a step-back 3-pointer while being guarded by Harris to make it 113-109.

Mitchell reached 2,000 career postseason points in his 73rd game, tied for third-fastest among active players and ninth in NBA history. He said Harden's performance showed why he wasn't worried after two tough games in Detroit.

“I think the biggest thing is just he’s always consistent. He’s not result based. I think the biggest thing is we’ve seen him thrive and for me and for the group just continue to be like, ‘Hey, we know who you are. Keep being yourself.’ We’ve seen him play at a very high level, so we have no doubt that he’s going to continue to be great,” Mitchell said. “Every game might not be that way for him, for me, for whoever. But it’s just how do you continue to stay even keel and find ways to impact the game.”

Tobias Harris added 21 points for Detroit, which had its five-game playoff win streak snapped.

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

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is headed to Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife early Sunday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, arrived on the island Saturday to coordinate the disembarkation of passengers and some crew.

“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a statement to the people of Tenerife.

“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now,” Tedros added.

The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said nobody on the Hondius is currently showing symptoms of the virus.

Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.

Some Tenerife residents say they don't want the ship there

Some on Tenerife say they are worried. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have voiced concern about being stigmatized.

“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else, why bring it to the Canary Islands?”

Others said they empathized with the boat's passengers, but were still concerned.

“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero. She added: “We feel a bit unsafe, we don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”

Passengers can take only limited belongings and will be isolated

Garcia said passengers and some crew would disembark in Tenerife “under maximum safety conditions.”

The ship will not dock but will remain at anchor, with people ferried off in small boats. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms and won't be taken off the ship until a flight is already in Tenerife waiting for them, Garcia said during a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.

Authorities are aiming to complete the evacuation flights on Sunday and Monday, the director of the WHO's Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a briefing Saturday.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.

All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, Garcia said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.

Those disembarking will leave behind their luggage, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands where it will undergo disinfection, the minister added.

A medical evacuation plane will be on standby

According to a letter sent by the Dutch foreign and health ministers to parliament late Friday, Spain has activated the EU civil protection mechanism for a medical evacuation plane equipped for infectious diseases to be on standby in case anyone on the ship becomes ill. That person would then be transported by air to the European mainland.

The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the ship company to arrange repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. Those without symptoms will go into home quarantine for six weeks and be monitored by local health services.

As the ship is Dutch-flagged, the Netherlands may also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, it said.

Countries scramble to track passengers who disembarked

Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.

Dutch public health authorities have been monitoring people who were on a flight that was briefly boarded by a Dutch ship passenger who later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people who were on the flight and had symptoms have all tested negative for hantavirus, Dutch National Institute for Public Health spokesperson Harald Wychgel told The Associated Press on Saturday.

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Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press reporters Angela Charlton in Paris and Helena Alves in Tenerife contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the name for Maria Van Kerkhove, from Kerkove in earlier versions of the story.

He waited for the perfect moment to set up a daring outside move with 18 laps to go, then nudged his way past David Malukas through three sweeping turns on Indianapolis Motor Speedway's road course and sped away from the field to win the Indianapolis Grand Prix.

Now he's going to find out if it helps him in the Indianapolis 500.

The Danish driver snapped a 47-race winless streak, beating Malukas to the yard of bricks by 4.763 seconds for the second win of his career and first in nearly three years. It gives the Arrow McLaren team a boost of confidence heading into IndyCar's biggest race of the season.

“At the end of the day, I had nothing to lose,” Lundgaard said. “I had so much unfinished business here. For me, it wasn't that I wanted to win. I have enough second places in the past year and a half, I wanted to win and I was kind of willing to do whatever it took.”

Lundgaard drove like it, though he won't be celebrating long with the Indy 500 looming.

There's still a plenty to fine-tune before Tuesday's first practice session. Each of the 33 drivers will receive an extra boost of horsepower Friday, with four-lap qualifications set for next Saturday and Sunday. The race is May 24, Lundgaard's mother's birthday.

While success on Indy's 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course doesn't usually translate into success on the Brickyard's more famous 2.5-mile oval, Lundgaard thinks this win helped him turn the corner.

“I know I can beat anyone and I'm sure 95% of the field will say the same thing,” he said. “To finally get it, I think we've come close many, many times, and I think we've unlocked the door now and am pretty confident there will be many more.”

Four-time series champ Alex Palou knows exactly what it takes to pull off the May sweep.

The Spaniard won both Indy races last year and despite failing to join seven-time world champ Michael Schumacher as the only drivers in Brickyard history to win the same event four consecutive years, he still managed to extend his points lead over Kyle Kirkwood to 27 points. Schumacher won Formula 1's U.S. Grand Prix each year from 2003-06.

Palou finished fifth, more than 14 seconds behind Lundgaard, because of a poorly timed caution period that prevented him from cycling back up the leaderboard. He's won three of the first six races and finished second at Arlington, Texas.

A handful of other drivers also are looking forward to the 500 after strong results Saturday.

Malukas led a race-high 27 laps and remains third in the standings.

Third-place finisher Graham Rahal reached the podium for the second time in three races as he resumes the quest to join his father, Bobby, in the 500 winners club.

But the biggest moment came as Malukas and Lundgaard ran side by side through the middle of the road course, battling for the lead. The difference came down to a minor hiccup.

“We were having some moments, and I could see him trying to set up the undercut and we ended up having some little issue and he managed to stick it around the outside,” Malukas said. “I probably could have been a little bit more aggressive, but I thought it was fair racing and it was a proper move, a very good move.”

Lundgaard had shown signs he was about to make a move after finishing third at St. Petersburg, seventh at Arlington and second at Alabama. But now the question is whether he can keep it up on the oval when Palou tries to become the seventh driver to claim back-to-back 500 titles.

Palou has been almost untouchable since the start of last season, winning eight of 17 races with four runner-up finishes in 2025. He's continued to dominate this year.

But perhaps that's about to change.

Lundgaard is coming off a career-best seventh in last year's 500, his first with Arrow McLaren, after failing to crack the top 13 in his three previous starts on the oval, all with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The hopes for Arrow McLaren are soaring after Pato O'Ward, the Mexican who is Lundgaard's current teammate, qualified second for the grand prix.

“In many, many ways, I live to win races,” Lundgaard said. “I don't live to finish second. I don't live just to be in this race, and I think that's how I was always taught, growing up, that I don't just compete to compete. I compete to win.”

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

The victims of the April 19 shooting in Shreveport included seven siblings who were shot by their father in an attack that also killed their cousin.

The service on Mother’s Day weekend at Summer Grove Baptist Church began with a long procession of mourners slowly filing past eight white caskets with large photos of the children next to them. Gold crowns and bouquets of white flowers were placed on top of the closed caskets. A choir behind the altar and individual singers performed throughout the service.

“In spite of how you may be feeling today, we still need to know that God is still good,” Bishop Bernard Kimble, senior pastor of the Mount Olive Baptist Church, said in opening remarks.

The funeral's pamphlet contained tributes to each of the children, who ranged in age from 3 to 11. Some of them had affectionate nicknames: 3-year-old Jayla Elkins was called “Jaybae”; Kayla Pugh, 6, was “K-Mae”; and Mar’Kaydon Pugh, 10, was “K-Bug.”

Six-year-old Khedarrion Snow had “a sweet and loving heart,” and “though his life on earth was short, his light was mighty,” according to the pamphlet. Layla Pugh, 7, was “bright, intelligent, bold, and full of love” and enjoyed making TikTok videos with her siblings and cousins.

Pastor and gospel singer Kim Burrell reminded family and community members trying to make sense of the shootings that “God is still on the throne.”

“To ask the question, 'Why is this fair, God? How could you, Lord?' He’s still God,” Burrell said. “The same God that healed you from the stuff that you don’t want to tell nobody about. But he is a God that doesn’t have to give us all the clues. Just know that he makes no mistakes.”

The children’s father, Shamar Elkins, used an assault-style weapon despite a 2019 felony firearms conviction. His wife, who was seeking a divorce, and another woman were wounded in the shooting that stretched across two houses in a Shreveport neighborhood.

Elkins died after fleeing and a police pursuit. It was not clear whether he was killed by officers who fired or from a self-inflicted gunshot, according to police.

An investigation remains ongoing into the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. in more than two years.

During the service, other speakers included Shreveport Councilwoman Tabatha Taylor, who acknowledged that “there are no words sufficient to ease this pain,” while Councilman James Green implored audience members to collectively “take off our funeral face” because “this is a celebration” of the children's lives.

Indeed, churchgoers often stood clapping their hands in response to singers and speakers. The children's names were read or shown several times throughout the service, where Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux expressed the city's condolences.

“May we honor them by carrying forward the gentleness, joy and love they so freely shared,” Arceneaux said.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry ordered U.S. and state flags to be flown at half-staff over the next week at the Capitol and state government buildings. A message read from Landry said the victims “were the light of their homes and the heart of their classrooms. They were full of promise and found joy in the simplest things, such as dancing, playing outside and sharing laughter with family and friends. Their futures were bright and held great promise.”

“It is incumbent upon us to honor the memory of those lost by standing together against such senseless violence.”

Among those in attendance was former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, whose political career was cut short by a 2011 assassination attempt.

“She just wanted to come and just let the family know that this pain is not just in Louisiana,” said U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Louisiana. “This pain is all across the nation.”

Buses were made available afterward to transport mourners to a graveside burial. At the conclusion of the church service, Kimble prayed for healing to begin.

“Help us as we move from this spot,” he said. “Because we know, oh God, grief is only temporary. And if we'll put our hands in your favor, you'll lead us through this.”

Seeking to win back-to-back events, Young threatened the course record at Quail Hollow on Saturday before settling for an 8-under 63, leaving him two shots behind Alex Fitzpatrick at the Truist Championship.

Fitzpatrick was at 14-under 199 through 54 holes, one shot ahead of Norway's Kristoffer Reitan after each shot 64.

Young, who won last week’s Cadillac Championship at Doral by six strokes, needed to play the final two holes in 2 under to break Rory McIlroy’s course record of 10-under 61, set in 2015.

But his birdie putt on No. 17 stopped inches from the hole and his drive on the 18th settled in pine straw behind a tree, forcing him to punch out and leading to his only bogey of the day.

“I know (the record was) 10 under and I knew I was at nine,” Young said. “But that wasn’t my thought. I was just trying to hit it somewhere right of the hole on 17 and hit a couple good shots on 18. Unfortunately had one of my few bad swings of the day on 18.”

Before that, Young had sent his shot from a fairway bunker 238 yards away to within a few feet of the hole on No. 7 for eagle. He seized that momentum to birdie six of his next nine holes.

Matt Fitzpatrick was one of the favorites to win the Truist Championship — but it turns out little brother Alex is the one to watch this week.

Alex Fitzpatrick, who only earned his PGA Tour card two weeks ago when he teamed with his brother to win the win the Zurich Classic, rebounded from his only bogey of the day with a tee shot to 8 feet on the par-3 17th hole for birdie to reach 14 under.

Matt Fitzpatrick is a former U.S. Open champion who's currently ranked fourth in the world, and Alex said having his brother to lean on has been invaluable.

“I feel like he’s been and done everything that I want to do in the game — whether that’s Ryder Cup and win majors,” said Alex Fitzpatrick, who tied for ninth last week at Doral. “So having him being around and me being there for all of that, I felt like I got a really good sense of what it takes and what the atmosphere is like.”

Reitan, also a rookie, made some noise at the Masters before going 73-77 over the weekend to finish tied for 41st. He closed Saturday with four birdies over the final six holes to surge into second place.

“Just the opportunity to be near the leaderboard on a Sunday at a PGA Tour event, you know, rookie season — I’m just over the moon about that,” Reitan said.

Nicolai Hojgaard was four shots behind along with second-round leader Sungjae Im, who struggled down the stretch and shot 70.

Im skulled a bunker shot on the 15th hole, and the ball hit a grandstand and rolled back across the green before settling not far from where he began. It was one of two bogeys for the South Korean over the final four holes.

Justin Thomas, J.J. Spaun and Tommy Fleetwood were five shots back.

Rory McIlroy, the world's No. 2 player and four-time tournament champion, had a disastrous day, shooting 75 to fall out of contention.

Playing in his first event since winning his second Masters, McIlroy looked like he might make a charge up the leaderboard after bombing his drive down the middle on No. 1 and hitting his approach within a few feet for birdie.

But he didn't make another birdie until the 15th hole, with six bogeys in between on one of his favorite courses. He fell 13 shots off the pace.

Fitzpatrick could have a challenge holding the lead on Sunday.

Young has won three of his last 14 starts, including the Players Championship in March, to move to No. 3 in the world.

“I’m playing great,” Young said. “There is not a ton going on in my head, which is I think a very good thing. There is all kinds of stuff, but it’s nothing complicated. I’m thinking about shots and I’m thinking about my execution and that’s mainly where my head is at.”

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

Cox died in Marietta, Georgia, according to the Atlanta Braves. He had a stroke in 2019 and heart issues that complicated his recovery.

“Bobby was the best manager to ever wear a Braves uniform. He led our team to 14 straight division titles, five National League pennants, and the unforgettable World Series title in 1995. His Braves managerial legacy will never be matched,” the Braves said in a statement.

Cox took over a last-place team in June 1990 and led the Braves to a worst-to-first finish in 1991, losing the World Series to the Minnesota Twins in seven games. That was the start of what was to become a record 14 consecutive division titles, a feat no professional team in any sport had accomplished.

He managed the Braves for 25 years and led Atlanta to its first World Series title in 1995, retired after the 2010 season and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

Cox ranks fourth all-time with 2,504 wins, fifth with 4,508 games, first with 15 division titles including a record 14 in a row, first with 16 playoff appearances and fourth with 67 playoff victories. Only Connie Mack, John McGraw and Tony La Russa had more regular-season wins than Cox.

“He was the first one to the park every day," Atlanta manager Walt Weiss said of Cox. "He’d have his spikes on at 12 o’clock. I never saw a manager wear spikes, but that was one of Bobby’s trademarks. He just loved the game. He loved the game, and he loved leading a group of men trying to win a championship.”

Cox also was first in being ejected from 158 regular-season games. Weiss, who called Cox instrumental in bringing him back to the Braves as a bench coach, was asked if he might get tossed in Cox's honor.

“It’s a different game now, you know, a very different era,” Weiss said. "Nobody can do it like Bobby, believe me.”

Cox's death came four days after that of fellow Atlanta icon Ted Turner, who as owner of Braves lured Cox back to the team in 1990.

The Braves retired Cox’s No. 6 jersey in 2011, when he joined the team’s Hall of Fame.

“RIP my second father,” Andruw Jones wrote on social media. The 10-time Gold Glove winner with Atlanta in July will become the sixth who played for Cox with the Braves to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Cox spent 29 seasons as a major league manager, including four with Toronto. He managed 16 postseason teams. He brought an old-school approach to the dugout. He always wore spikes and stirrups, and his fatherly demeanor inspired loyalty from his players.

Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux said players around the league always wanted to know what it was like playing for Bobby Cox: “The first word that comes to mind is respect. He had that from players. When Bobby talked, we listened. We wanted to play for him.”

Cox was the first NL manager to win at least 100 games in a season five times. He was Manager of the Year four times and the only one to win in consecutive years (2004, 2005). He also had close ties with his successors, Fredi González and Brian Snitker.

He regularly attended games and spring training before a stroke in 2019 that affected his speech and movement. Cox recovered enough to visit the Braves later that season, watching a game from the press box level. His wife, Pam, said in 2020 that heart trouble slowed his recovery from the stroke.

His long marriage survived a 1995 confrontation in which he was accused of hitting his wife in the face. He was charged with simple battery and in custody for an hour. The following day, Bobby and Pam appeared at a news conference and each denied he hit her in the face.

Cox said the couple would seek counseling. The charge was eventually dropped.

Despite all his regular-season success, Cox won only the one World Series title in five tries. He led the Braves to Atlanta’s first major professional sports championship in 1995, beating the Cleveland Indians in six games to win the World Series. Cox said critics usually focused on the World Series losses instead.

The Braves lost in 1992 to Toronto in six games and in 1996 in six to the New York Yankees before being swept by the Yankees in 1999.

“It’s a game of breaks when you get down to a four-game, must-win series,” Cox said. “We’ve played well. We’re proud of what we’ve done. They always ask that, though. It is irritating, to be honest with you.”

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 21, 1941, Cox graduated from Selma High School in California in 1959 and attended nearby Reedley Junior College before signing with the Dodgers for a $40,000 bonus.

He spent seven years in the Dodgers’ farm system before being traded to the Braves’ organization, playing one year at Richmond (1967). He was traded to the Yankees for Bob Tillman and Dale Roberts and played third base for his only two seasons in the majors (1968-69) before bad knees forced him to retire at age 30.

Cox began the first of six years as a minor league manager in 1971. He returned to the majors in 1977 as a first base coach for the Yankees, who went on to win the World Series.

His first major league managerial job came with the Braves in 1978. The best season of his first stint in Atlanta was an 81-80 finish in 1980, and he went 266-323 in four seasons.

The Toronto Blue Jays hired Cox in 1982, and he led them to their first American League East championship in 1985, in his fourth and final year there. He was lured back to the Braves as general manager by Turner, their outrageous owner and visionary media mogul, in 1986.

As GM, his Atlanta teams never had a winning season. Cox did develop players key to the Braves’ success in the ’90s: Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Jeff Blauser, Mark Lemke, Dave Justice, Javy Lopez and Ron Gant. He also had two No. 1 draft picks who excelled, Steve Avery and Chipper Jones.

Cox returned as field manager on June 22, 1990, after Russ Nixon was fired.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman played the first 12 seasons of his career with the Braves. He recalled Cox giving him 80 plate appearances in spring training when he was 19. Freeman has a jersey signed from Cox saying, “To Freddie, keep on hitting.”

“He lived a great life,” Freeman said. "Everyone loved him in baseball. Braves country loved him.”

Cox usually shied away from the limelight and was uncomfortable when talking about himself.

“Honestly, I’m just doing my job. I let everything else fall where it may,” he said.

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AP freelance writer Dan Greenspan contributed from Los Angeles.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

That's why the two-time Gold Glove-winning catcher was not shocked when he learned from Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey after Friday night's game against Pittsburgh that he was being traded to the Cleveland Guardians.

The trade, in which the Giants received minor league left-hander Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and the 29th pick in the 2026 amateur draft, was announced Saturday afternoon. Bailey took a cross-country flight from San Francisco to Cleveland and arrived before the Guardians faced the Minnesota Twins.

Bailey was listed as a pinch-hitter on the pregame lineup card. The game did not start on time due to a rain delay.

“A little bit surprised, but at the same time you can kind of see the writing on the wall a little bit there with my time,” Bailey said. “Just felt like I was losing opportunities, losing at-bats and obviously Jesús (Rodríguez) and Sus (Daniel Susac) had been playing really well. When you stop playing, you get a feel for what’s going on.”

Bailey has been regarded as one of the top defensive catchers in the game thanks in part to his elite pitch-framing skills since being called up in 2023. He leads the majors since 2023 with 69 catcher framing runs and 42 defensive runs saved over the past two-plus seasons.

But his hitting has been an issue and bottomed out this season. Bailey was batting .146 with one homer and five RBIs in 89 plate appearances. His .396 OPS ranked last among 286 players with at least 75 plate appearances this season.

Bailey had become expendable for the Giants with Susac and Rodríguez expected to handle most of the catching duties, with Eric Haase as another option. Those players have provided much more offense for the Giants, who enter the day last in the majors in scoring with 3.16 runs per game and tied with the New York Mets for the worst record in the National League.

“I think it’s more the confidence that we have in Jesús Rodríguez and Daniel Susac and just the strides that we feel like as an organization they’ve made defensively,” Posey said about the trade before Saturday's game against the Pirates.

Manager Tony Vitello pointed to Susac and Rodríguez's offense as another reason.

“You get competitive at-bats. You don’t always get the result you want but they’re both versatile. I mean, we could use either of those guys in a pinch-hit spot, a DH position and Jesús in particular, in different spots,” he said.

Besides acquiring Bailey, the Guardians made another surprising move by optioning Bo Naylor to Triple-A Columbus. Naylor has been the Guardians' regular catcher since 2023.

Cleveland general manager Chris Antonetti said before Saturday night's game against the Minnesota Twins that the organization has had interest in Bailey for a long time, but the right opportunity didn't happen until this past week.

“We didn’t set out necessarily to acquire catching, but this was an opportunity that we felt made sense because it, in our view, will help us win games and help us pursue our goal of winning a World Series,” Antonetti said. “About a week ago, we had some initial dialogue with the Giants and it seemed like for the first time there might be the opportunity to overlap."

Bailey, who turns 27 later this month, won Gold Gloves at catcher in 2024 and 2025. He is a career .224 hitter with a .611 OPS. He also becomes teammates with Austin Hedges, who is a close friend, and David Fry.

The Guardians entered the day with a 21-19 record and in first place in the AL Central.

“Kind of excited about a fresh start here. Super confident in my ability to hit. I know I’ve shown spurts of being a really good hitter and I’m confident that’s going to show up," Bailey said.

Manager Stephen Vogt, a former catcher, said bringing in a new backstop can be a learning curve for everyone involved, and that the first couple days will be a bit of a whirlwind.

“It's difficult. You’re coming overnight to a place that’s already rolling, 13 pitchers, other catchers game planning, how’s their stuff working that the teams aren’t always familiar that you’re playing," he said. "So it takes a lot of work and your first few days are very busy. It’s a lot of information, a lot of conversations, trying to get those relationships going.”

Naylor had a .237 batting average as a rookie in 2023 but has struggled offensively the past two-plus seasons. His .143 batting average this season is last in the majors among the 29 catchers with at least 90 plate appearances.

His .192 batting average since 2024 is next-to-last among catchers with at least 200 games played.

“That was probably my least favorite conversation I’ve had since getting this job (in 2024),” Vogt said of the conversation with Naylor about being sent down. “We still believe that Bo has a bright future with us, but any time you send somebody away from here, it’s the worst. But that one, especially.”

The 23-year-old Wilkinson pitched for Canada in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year. He has made six starts this season at Double-A Akron, going 1-2 with a 1.59 ERA with 36 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings.

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Freelance reporter Kenzo Fukuda contributed to this story. Dubow reported from San Francisco and Reedy from Cleveland.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Activity will be most widespread in the afternoon and evening. If you have any outdoor plans for Mother’s Day make sure to keep an eye on the sky.

An isolated strong to severe storm will be possible as well as we head into Sunday afternoon and evening. Gusty wind and small hail will be possible in any storm.

The front will linger near our area early next week, which will keep showers and storms in the forecast on Monday and Tuesday. Temperatures will remain in the 80s

The front will clear our region on Wednesday. Sunshine will return thanks to drier air and temperatures will not be as warm, in the mid to upper 70s.

In terms of rainfall, the front will bring beneficial rainfall to our area with some spots picking up around an inch or more of rain. We will certainly take anything that we can get due to the drought.

Regarding the drought, the latest drought monitor reflects the overall pattern over the past few months. Most of our area remains in an extreme drought. An exceptional drought classification remains over the same locations.

TONIGHT: Mostly Cloudy. Low 68.

MOTHER’S DAY: Mostly Cloudy. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 86, Low 70.

MONDAY: Mostly Cloudy. Scattered Rain & Storms. High 86, Low 68.

TUESDAY: Partly to Mostly Cloudy. Isolated Rain & Storms. High 78, Low 65.

WEDNESDAY: Sun & Clouds. High 84, Low 66.

THURSDAY: Sun & Clouds. High 88, Low 65.

FRIDAY: Sun & Clouds. High 87, Low 67.

“I believe every kid should play little league baseball,” Walk Off Charities founder Frank Frangie said.

“Seeing a little 8 year old who doesn’t know if he’s right handed or left handed get a chance to put this beautiful glove on and have these great coaches coach them, it’s overwhelming,” Frangie continued. “I’m really blessed and excited.”

Since launching in 2017, Walk Off Charities has helped kids learn and play baseball while creating unforgettable experiences. Once a month during the school year, 200 third graders from across Jacksonville take part in the camps with help from high school coaches and local college baseball teams volunteering their time.

Security was tight in Moscow as Putin and several foreign leaders attended the parade, which was scaled down even as a U.S.-brokered three-day ceasefire eased concerns about possible Ukrainian attempts to disrupt the festivities.

Putin, in power for more than a quarter-century, has used Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, to showcase the country’s military might and rally support for his military action in Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, declaring that they “face an aggressive force that is armed and supported by the entire bloc of NATO," and are fighting for a “just cause.”

“Victory has always been and will be ours,” Putin said, as columns of troops lined up on Red Square.

Talking to reporters later, he accused Western “globalist elites” of arming Ukraine to defeat and break up Russia and declared that “I think the matter is coming to an end.”

But in a notable shift this year, the parade took place without tanks, missiles and other equipment put on display every year since 2008, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.

Officials explained the change of format by the “current operational situation” and the threat of Ukrainian attacks. The authorities also ordered restrictions on all mobile internet access and text messaging services in the Russian capital on Saturday. Putin told reporters after the parade that it didn’t feature heavy weaponry because the military needs it on the battlefield in Ukraine.

For the first time, Saturday's parade featured troops from North Korea, a tribute to Pyongyang that sent its soldiers to fight alongside Moscow forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Earlier ceasefires failed to hold until Trump stepped in

Russia declared a unilateral ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a truce that was supposed to begin on May 6, but neither held as the parties traded blame for continuing attacks.

Fears about the festivities' security eased Friday, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine have bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9, followed up on Trump's statement by declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes and mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, a move that the Kremlin shrugged off as a “silly joke.”

Putin told reporters after the parade that Trump offered to broker a ceasefire after Russia informed the U.S. and others that it would launch a massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv fraught with collateral damage if Ukraine attempts to disrupt Saturday’s festivities.

“We just described the situation to our friends, colleagues and partners: We don't have any intention to exacerbate or worsen relations with anyone, but it could happen because all control and decision-making centers in Kyiv are located close to diplomatic missions,” Putin said. “When we started such a dialogue with the U.S. administration, we warned them about this, pointed out the possible consequences and asked them to do everything necessary to ensure the security of their diplomatic mission.”

He noted that Russia immediately welcomed Trump's offer that was driven by humanitarian motives and “respect to our common victory over Nazism.”

Putin has used Victory Day celebrations to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in 1941-45 in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche and remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule.

Putin says he could meet Zelenskyy when a peace deal is ready for signing

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military has been making slow but steady gains along the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) front line. Ukraine has hit back with increasingly efficient long-range attacks, striking Russian energy facilities, manufacturing plants and military depots. It has developed drones capable of reaching targets over 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) deep into Russia, far beyond its capabilities before 2022.

Zelenskyy has proposed to meet with Putin to negotiate a peace deal, but dismissed the Russian leader's suggestion that he come to Moscow. On Saturday, Putin said he could meet with Zelenskyy in another country, but only to endorse a comprehensive accord.

“A meeting in a third country is also possible, but only after a peace treaty aimed at a long-term historic perspective is finalized,” Putin told reporters. “This should be a final deal, not the negotiations.”

Putin praises foreign guests, Merz criticizes Fico

Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko attended the festivities in the Russian capital.

Putin hailed the foreign guests who attended the parade for “personal courage,” noting that they had decided to come to Moscow before the ceasefire brokered by Trump defused security concerns.

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, a European Union member, laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial just outside the Kremlin walls but stayed away from the Red Square parade. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized Fico’s trip, saying, "I deeply regret this, and we will discuss his visit to Moscow with him.”

Speaking at a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, Fico bemoaned what he called a new “Iron Curtain” in Europe that hampered trade, and emphasized the importance of Russia's energy supplies to Slovakia. Putin hailed the Slovak leader for conducting a “sovereign” foreign policy and honoring the memory of fallen Red Army soldiers.

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

More than 20 foxhounds, a breed specifically trained to run alongside horses and hunters, took to the turf course Saturday to kick off the race day as fans cheer and take photos and videos.

The huntsman and his team, who are called whippers-in, has the sometimes difficult task of keeping the hounds on course, especially when they can get distracted by the tens of thousands of spectators in the infield and all their delicious tailgating food.

One hound loved the attention from the fans so much that she veered off course, said Charles Montgomery, a master and huntsman with the Mells Foxhounds, the hunting group that runs their pack in the steeplechase. “She had the best time. She loved going into the beer tents,” Montgomery said.

She loved it so much, she ran to the beer tent again the next year, so now she's not invited back to the race, Montgomery said.

The Iroquois Steeplechase is one of the premier American steeplechase races, with a total of $730,000 awarded in purses, on a grass turf course with hurdles that opened in 1941 as a Works Progress Administration project. The Nashville race was founded by members of the Hillsboro Hounds, another fox hunting club in the Nashville area.

Steeplechase racing and fox hunting are wedded together, said Stephen Heard, one of the trustees of the Iroquois Steeplechase and a member of the Mells Foxhounds group. The tradition came from the British Isles, where horses were raced from church steeple to church steeple and trained to jump obstacles like fences while hunting with dogs.

"Many of the horses that we use fox hunting are ex-steeplechase horses, Heard said.

With 25,000 spectators who are eating and drinking in tents and in the stands, the dogs need some time to adjust to the noise and smells.

“I took one dog last year and he heard the speakers and he said, ‘This is not for me,’” Charles Montgomery said.

“It's high pressure,” said Boo Montgomery, one of the whippers-in. When a child held out a fried chicken leg through the rails one time, it was a temptation no hound could resist. “You couldn't fault Brightly for stopping and having a snack,” she said, of one of the foxhounds.

Charles Montgomery said he usually will bring the veteran hunting hounds who can guide the younger ones along the course. On the morning of the race, the hounds bounded off their trailer, eager to sniff grass and chew on sticks and roll in the clover.

The hounds wear GPS-equipped collars whenever they hunt and when they come to the racetrack. That came in handy last year when a dog got spooked and took off into the wooded park nearby.

While the racetrack is not their normal working environment, the hounds seem to enjoy the challenge that comes with kicking off the horse races, Boo Montgomery said.

“It's a great exposure for hunting to get to see these hounds and the horses,” Boo Montgomery said. “It's nice to be able to show off.”

The homes were flattened just hours earlier as storms spawned at least three tornadoes across the bottom half of Mississippi, injuring a dozen at the trailer park in the rural community of Bogue Chitto.

Lemley had no idea where the kitten was, but he was determined to find it. After a few minutes, the meowing stopped, and Lemley feared the worst.

Then, five minutes later, he heard it again.

“I said, ‘Oh, he’s still alive!’” Lemley told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Lemley quickly dug under insulation from a flattened wall until his flashlight beam found the kitten — wet, scared and hiding between two wooden posts.

Lemley captured the moment on video: “Oh my goodness, I found him!" he says to the camera. "Are you OK? Come here – it’s OK. … We’ll get you cleaned up, baby. Don’t you worry.”

Lemley held the kitten in his arms for a few minutes before handing it off to the commander of the United Cajun Navy, a volunteer disaster-response group, who dried it off and took it to safety. Lemley marveled that it didn’t appear to be injured.

“I’ve been in these situations so many times,” said Lemley, who has been chasing storms since 2010. “I don’t try to get overly emotional. But it is very heartbreaking to see any type of animal or human go through something like that.”

Lemley says there’s already a lot of interest from people who want to adopt the kitten if its owners are not located. Some, he said, want to name it Tornado.

It won’t be coming home with him, though: Lemley is allergic to cats.

Emergency personnel from JSO and JFRD appeared to be on scene earlier this afternoon, based on camera footage.

According to JFRD, their response to this incident is in relation to a fuel leak.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

The Sharks held off St. Thomas Aquinas in a 9-8 thriller to win the Class 2A state championship in Naples on Saturday. It’s just the second time an area boys team has brought home a title. Ponte Vedra also won in 2019.

This time, it was head coach Chris Polanski leading Ponte Vedra to a title. They’d been close before. The Sharks were runners-up in 2022 (13-12 loss to Aquinas) and again last year (13-4 loss to Aquinas).

The Sharks found themselves in a 5-all game going into the final quarter before going up 7-5, and then watching Aquinas rally to knot things at 7-all before Ponte Vedra muscled up. The Sharks scored with 2:51 to go to take an 8-7 lead, then had JP Dolan put one into an empty net with 61 seconds remaining. That Dolan goal was huge.

Aquinas found the net with 26.8 seconds left and then had a hard-charging possession on the Sharks’ side of the field as time finally ran out. Will Cavanaugh had three goals for Ponte Vedra. Jack Larkin, Dolan, Luke Greco, Matthias Schultz, Hudson Hauseman and Carson Gunnell added goals for Ponte Vedra.

The street banners dotted the downtown landscape, the handmade signs were visible from any vantage point inside the sold out arena and, of course, Caitlin Clark jerseys and T-shirts remained a trendy favorite. And why not live it up as Clark's 10-month wait to play a meaningful game on her home court finally ended with the weekend's featured matchup between Clark and the Fever and Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings.

Yet even with the anticipation of seeing two of the league's most popular players and the last four No. 1 draft picks squaring off in Game 1, nobody was more excited to get started than Clark.

“I think there's a different juice inside your body when you're putting on your uniform and you're mentally locked in to go and play a basketball game,” she said before tipoff. “Like I was excited for my teammates last year, 100% I was their biggest fan. But it's not the same, it just isn't. I missed having the butterflies in my stomach before a game. Like I love that, and that means you're ready.”

The WNBA schedule makers certainly gave fans what they wanted following an offseason filled with collective bargaining agreement negotiations and uncertainty about this year's action.

By Friday night, it was all in the past. Two old rivals, the New York Liberty and Connecticut Sun, played the first game of the league’s 30th season with two potentially budding rivals, the Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries, capping the night in the third and final game. In between, fans got their first glimpse of the expansion Toronto Tempo against Washington.

That set up Saturday’s nationally televised matinee between Clark and Bueckers, and it didn't disappoint.

Clark scored 10 of her 20 points in the third quarter to help the Fever rally from a 60-51 halftime deficit, but she missed a logo 3-pointer that would have tied the score at 107 with 4.5 seconds left in the game. The former Iowa star finished 2 of 9 on 3s as the Wings held on for a 107-104 victory.

She also had seven assists, five rebounds and joined the 1,000-point club while Bueckers finished with 20 points despite missing two free throws with 1.6 seconds left. Azzi Fudd, this year's No. 1 draft pick, took only two shots in 18 minutes, making a 3 for the only points in her regular-season debut.

Clark also gave fans another injury scare. She briefly left the bench twice in the second half to have her back worked on but managed to finish the game, something she did not do in last week’s preseason game against Dallas after banging her kneecap hard on a fall.

“I feel good, started off a little slow I think just the anxiety of the first game,” she said. “Felt like I was literally just a couple of buckets away from putting together a really, really good game and getting a win.”

The result didn't temper the fanfare surrounding this game, though.

Clark and her teammates walked down the stairs and through the crowd to the court for player introductions with the loudest roar, naturally, reserved for Clark.

“I'm getting chills right now just thinking about where we are as a league," Fever coach Stephanie White said. “I mean this is what we dreamed about, right? From the time I was a rookie in this league to the time we won a championship in 2012 (with the Fever) when we were seeing sold out arenas only in championship games or in Finals games to becoming mainstream.”

While Clark played a big role in making sellouts the norm — in college and the WNBA — it's not just about Clark anymore.

Saturday's crowd included a small group in UConn jerseys, a nod to both Bueckers and Fudd, while another had a cutout of Bueckers on a sign saying she'd skipped her prom to attend the game. And there was a smattering of Bueckers fans dressed in Dallas jerseys, too.

“It's huge. I watched a lot of the games on YouTube TV las night so to be able to play on national television where a lot more people have access to it,” Bueckers said. “There's way more accessibility to it than when I was growing up watching the Minnesota Lynx. There wasn't as much national television coverage, you didn't see shows about it, you didn't so much on social media.”

But the addition of Bueckers, last year's WNBA Rookie of the Year, and the return of Clark, the 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year, from a season-ending groin injury have the league poised for potentially its biggest season yet.

And the opening weekend fanfare had a little bit of everything — David Letterman and NBA All-Star Tyrese Haliburton sitting courtside, a moment to honor some of the pioneers from the Women's Professional Basketball League and Fever players walking through the crowd to the court during player introductions with the two biggest roars reserved for Clark and Bueckers.

“I think it's great for women's basketball more than anything,” Clark said referring to the four No. 1 picks — Fever center Aliyah Boston in 2023, herself in 2024, Bueckers last year and now Fudd. “And you know this might be the first time this has ever really happened in sports — having two No. 1 picks on both sides. I think it speaks to the young talent in this league, how excited fans are about them and how excited they are about these two teams having us match up in the first game of the season."

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball