Category: U.S. News

This week brings a wave of fresh entertainment across streaming services, from a Paul Simon concert event to a new horror film and the return of a beloved video game franchise. Here’s a rundown of what’s new and noteworthy, as curated by Associated Press entertainment journalists.

Film Picks

Filmmaker Ian Tuason makes his feature debut with “Undertone,” a stripped-down horror film centered on a paranormal podcaster. The film relies heavily on sound design to build dread and begins streaming on HBO Max on June 26. AP film writer Jake Coyle praised the approach, writing that “it’s a testament to Tuason’s evident filmmaking talent that, with these bare bones, ‘Undertone’ swells into a gripping and unsettling experience. This is a movie that summons many of its scares with a sudden boost in audio levels, the thunderous tick of a clock or the scream of … a tea kettle. It’s even rated ‘R’ not for bloodcurdling violence or satanic ghouls but, simply, ‘language.’”

On Netflix, John Cena stars as a tightly wound real estate agent whose orderly world falls apart when his wild “little brother,” portrayed by Eric André, suddenly resurfaces. The comedy, titled “Little Brother,” arrives June 26 and features an ensemble cast that includes Michelle Monaghan, Christopher Meloni, and Caleb Hearon. Also landing on Netflix, on June 24, is Julian Schnabel’s “In the Hand of Dante” — a polarizing “literary gangster” film starring Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, and Al Pacino.

Peacock is also getting in on the action with “Strung,” a psychological thriller produced by Tyler Perry and Jason Blum, available June 26. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee, the film stars Chloe Bailey as a gifted violinist who accepts a tutoring position with a high-profile family.

— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

Music

Paul Simon fans have something to look forward to this Friday: a brand-new two-hour concert special titled “Paul Simon: The Quiet Celebration Concert,” streaming on both Disney+ and Hulu. Recorded live at McCaw Hall in Seattle, the special features deep cuts, reimagined arrangements, and classic hits. The performance also carries a meaningful personal story — Simon has been navigating hearing loss and is rediscovering his footing on stage.

English rock band Muse is also releasing a new full-length album called “The Wow! Signal.” According to a statement, the title references “a powerful 72-second radio burst detected in 1977 originating from the constellation Sagittarius with a bandwidth and intensity that suggested a possible extraterrestrial source.” The album blends retro-futuristic synthesizer tracks like “Nightshift Superstar,” science-inspired cuts such as “Cryogen,” and guitar-driven anthems including “Unraveling.”

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

Television

The live-action adaptation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” kicks off its second season on Netflix this Thursday, June 25. The series is set in a world split into four nations — each tied to one of the four elements — where a young Avatar named Aang is the only person capable of controlling all four. Season 2 continues his journey to fully master those abilities.

For younger viewers, “Camp Snoopy” returns for its second season on Apple TV on June 26. The animated series follows Snoopy — a beagle scout, naturally — along with Charlie Brown and their friends as they spend the summer at Camp Spring Lake.

Comedy fans will want to check out “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” a new historical sketch comedy starring Larry David, premiering June 26 on HBO Max. David portrays various historical figures alongside a star-studded guest roster that includes Jon Hamm, Kathryn Hahn, Vince Vaughn, Bill Hader, Jerry Seinfeld, J.B. Smoove, and Isla Fisher. Much like his long-running series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the show is largely improvised and leans into David’s signature gloomy, observational comedic style. The series is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground company.

— AP Writer Alicia Rancilio

Gaming

Star Fox is back. After Fox McCloud’s recent appearance in “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” Nintendo is capitalizing on renewed interest in the character with a revamped version of his classic 1997 Nintendo 64 adventure, rebuilt for the Switch 2. The aerial combat game takes players across multiple planets as they work to protect the Lylat System from a villainous enemy. Players can team up with friends on cooperative missions or compete in 4-vs.-4 online battles. The game launches Thursday, June 25.

— Lou Kesten

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A new investigation by The Associated Press has shed light on a troubling revelation: the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration knowingly allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to be distributed across New Mexico as part of a strategy aimed at building larger federal criminal cases.

AP journalists Jim Mustian and Joshua Goodman spent months combing through hundreds of internal DEA documents and speaking with current and former agents — including a whistleblower who says the agency took dangerous risks with public safety and broke U.S. Justice Department guidelines regarding the seizure of the deadly synthetic opioid. The White House previously labeled fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.”

The investigation began when Goodman discovered a whistleblower complaint alleging that the DEA had let fentanyl reach the streets of New Mexico. The complaint had been sent to the White House in September but went largely unnoticed by the media. Like many government documents, it was heavily blacked out — hiding both the whistleblower’s identity and the quantity of fentanyl that was never seized.

However, there was a small but critical mistake in the redactions. Reporter Mustian noticed that the final letter of the whistleblower’s name — the letter “l” — had been left visible. Using that clue, Mustian reached out on LinkedIn to DEA agents whose names ended in “l” and who had been stationed in Albuquerque. That effort eventually led him to the whistleblower: David Howell. Mustian later flew to New Mexico to meet with him in person.

At the center of the story is fentanyl’s extreme danger. The DEA’s own “One Pill Can Kill” campaign warns that just a tiny amount — roughly enough to fit on the tip of a pencil — can be lethal to an average adult. The fentanyl in question typically comes in counterfeit pills made to look like legitimate prescription painkillers, manufactured by cartels in Mexican labs with unpredictable dosages.

One particularly striking example from the reporting involved a 2023 fentanyl delivery that DEA agents tracked to an Albuquerque mobile home park. Agents had gathered enough intelligence to document that 74,000 pills had been dropped off — yet they chose not to intervene. Howell compared that decision to “providing one fentanyl pill to each person at a football stadium,” noting it came at a time when fatal overdose deaths were at their highest point nationally.

Federal officials pushed back on the criticism. Alex Uballez, who served as the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque at the time, acknowledged that law enforcement does sometimes allow drug shipments to proceed in order to catch a “bigger fish” — a tactic he argued ultimately saves more lives than trying to stop every delivery.

The DEA also defended its conduct. In a written statement, the agency said that “public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.” Spokesperson Amanda Wozniak added in an email that “the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.”

For the reporters, the story underscores a significant gap between what law enforcement agencies do behind closed doors and what the American public is allowed to know — even when it comes to something as serious as the nation’s drug crisis. Federal agents operate with wide latitude and make daily choices that directly affect communities, often without public scrutiny.

The records uncovered in this investigation would not have been released through a standard Freedom of Information Act request. Among the revelations: even as Howell’s complaint raised alarms about fentanyl being allowed to circulate, the Justice Department quietly rewrote its internal — and non-public — rules to give law enforcement even more flexibility in deciding whether to seize the drug.

Howell, who spent 19 years with the DEA, filed a formal whistleblower complaint in late 2023 with the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that shields whistleblowers from retaliation. Along with his complaint, he submitted DEA reports, emails, and text messages — including one in which fellow agents discussed a 100,000-pill transaction they witnessed but chose not to stop.

The Office of Special Counsel initially found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” and took the rare step of asking the Justice Department to open an investigation. However, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility — essentially the department’s internal affairs division — concluded in 2024 that the DEA and the U.S. attorney’s office had acted reasonably and that their decisions to let drugs go unseized did not pose a “specific danger to public health.”

Howell and others who have raised concerns say that internal review missed the bigger question: whether the DEA permitted enormous quantities of fentanyl to reach the public in the first place.

Government records and accounts from three current and former federal drug agents reveal that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to flow into New Mexico communities between 2023 and 2025 — even as the nation grappled with its deadliest drug crisis in history, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Rather than intercepting drug shipments, DEA agents repeatedly stood by and watched fentanyl deliveries take place, choosing not to make seizures while federal prosecutors worked to build larger cases against major drug trafficking organizations. The synthetic opioid was designated a “weapon of mass destruction” by the White House last year.

Agents and outside experts warned that the approach was a dangerous gamble with public safety that may have put communities in and around Albuquerque at risk — and may have run afoul of U.S. Justice Department rules designed to protect the public.

“We poisoned our community to make cases,” DEA Special Agent David Howell told the AP during a series of interviews in New Mexico. “Through our own willful blindness, we get to say, ‘We don’t really know what happened to the drugs.’ But we 100% got people killed.”

While the DEA has long maintained that seizing every drug shipment is not realistic, the scale of fentanyl allowed onto the streets alarmed several seasoned agents who spoke with the AP.

Over the past decade, eliminating illicit fentanyl — produced primarily in Mexican laboratories — became the DEA’s top priority as overdose deaths climbed sharply. But the drug’s extreme potency, capable of killing the average adult with just a few grams, forced a rethinking of traditional tactics used against drugs like cocaine and heroin. Those older methods often involved letting drug deals proceed so agents could track narcotics through supply chains. Because fentanyl is so lethal, the Justice Department created specific guidelines urging agents to seize it whenever “practicable.”

Albuquerque, home to a neighborhood so overwhelmed by drug activity it has earned the nickname “War Zone,” sits at the center of New Mexico’s fentanyl crisis. While overdose deaths across the country dropped 14% last year, New Mexico saw a 21% increase, according to government data.

Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from 2022 through last year, acknowledged that authorities sometimes allowed drug shipments to go unconfiscated as part of broader efforts to gather intelligence and pursue major traffickers. He cited limited resources and his belief that targeting larger criminal organizations ultimately saves more lives than stopping individual transactions.

Last year, the DEA recorded the largest fentanyl seizure in its history, in Albuquerque.

“The bigger fish are worth catching,” Uballez said, “and that will save more lives.”

The DEA issued a statement defending its actions, saying “the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.”

DEA spokesperson Amanda Wozniak wrote in an email that descriptions suggesting the agency “knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.” She said the investigations involved court-authorized wiretaps used for real-time surveillance and intelligence gathering against larger trafficking organizations.

In some instances, agents had detailed enough intelligence to determine precise pill counts from drug deliveries, according to reports reviewed by the AP.

In one case from June 2023, agents decoded coded cellphone conversations and closely watched a drug transaction at a mobile home park in Albuquerque, according to a 66-page report reviewed by the AP. Agents documented that traffickers delivered 74,000 pills during that deal — a number later confirmed by federal prosecutors in court filings.

Just days before that incident, another DEA report showed agents watched the same trafficking ring deliver a spare tire concealing a suspected fentanyl shipment, which also went unconfiscated.

“We did nothing, but sit back and watch,” said Howell, who filed an official whistleblower complaint in 2023 raising concerns that the tactic endangered public safety.

Federal authorities did not move against the traffickers until months later, and Howell — who took part in the surveillance — said investigators today cannot account for those unseized shipments.

“It’s outrageous to put that many lives at risk in hopes of making a big case,” said Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group that has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General to look into Howell’s allegations.

A former DEA supervisor, who spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation, said he and fellow agents in Albuquerque allowed “millions” of pills to go unconfiscated during a multi-state investigation last year. Howell’s whistleblower disclosures reported that agents on that case permitted at least 1.8 million fentanyl pills to be delivered.

That investigation ultimately led to the largest fentanyl seizure in DEA history — a takedown announced in May 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi that resulted in the capture of more than 3 million pills.

“The amount we ultimately seized was hitting the streets every month while that case was going on,” the former supervisor said, adding that the DEA could have shut down the organization six months sooner.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque declined to answer specific questions about the unseized shipments but noted in a statement that the conduct Howell flagged occurred under the previous administration. “The current leadership of this office is focused on aggressively investigating and prosecuting fentanyl trafficking and disrupting the criminal organizations responsible for distributing these drugs,” wrote spokesperson Tessa DuBerry.

Uballez, the former U.S. attorney, questioned the reliability of pill count estimates derived from intercepted phone calls. “I don’t think I’d contest that drugs are ‘walked,’” he said, referring to the tactic of allowing contraband to move unseized to advance an investigation. “How much and how frequently — and with what certainty — is incredibly difficult to answer in retrospect.”

As fentanyl overdoses escalated into a national epidemic, the Justice Department developed internal protocols for confronting the deadliest drug to cross the Mexican border. Those protocols accompanied the DEA’s public “One Pill Can Kill” campaign, which sought to educate Americans about fentanyl’s extreme dangers.

The department’s two-page “Fentanyl Protocols,” adopted in 2017 and not previously made public, directed agents to “seize or otherwise prevent the distribution” of fentanyl “as soon as practicable,” stating that “protecting public safety is paramount” regardless of whether seizures might compromise investigations.

In 2024, the Justice Department revised those rules to give law enforcement greater flexibility, allowing investigators to “exercise discretion in determining whether to take action to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl” while weighing public safety risks against the potential benefits of keeping an investigation intact.

The DEA’s own agent manual describes taking drugs off the street as “the usual course of action” but acknowledges “there may be instances where the investigative objectives can be better achieved by not doing so.” The agency has historically used “controlled deliveries” — keeping drugs under constant surveillance and often swapping them with fake narcotics before moving in for a takedown.

Several current and former agents compared the decision to let fentanyl reach the streets to the notorious “Operation Fast and Furious,” a 2011 scandal in which straw buyers smuggled roughly 2,000 assault weapons into Mexico in an attempt to trace them to cartel leaders. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives faced sharp bipartisan criticism after two of those weapons turned up at the scene of a Border Patrol agent’s fatal shooting, leading the Justice Department to explicitly ban agents from allowing firearms to be trafficked.

Howell grew so troubled by the DEA’s failure to seize fentanyl that he began tracking overdose deaths that might have been connected to the very pills the agency allowed to reach dealers. Among those cases was a 15-month-old toddler who died after ingesting burned fentanyl residue in Española, a New Mexico town struggling with deep poverty and addiction.

Howell, a 19-year DEA veteran who spent a decade in the Navy before joining the agency, brought his allegations to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. That agency, which is charged with protecting whistleblowers, initially found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” and requested a Justice Department investigation.

In early 2024, Howell told the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility that DEA agents had observed — without seizing — separate deliveries of 150,000 and 50,000 fentanyl pills. He warned that DEA and federal prosecutors “are placing themselves in a precarious position where they will not be able to prove that the fentanyl they could have stopped did not result in the death of a person.”

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded in 2024 that the DEA and the U.S. attorney’s office had made reasonable decisions in allowing drugs to go unconfiscated and that their inaction posed no “specific danger to public health.” The Office of Special Counsel, which critics say seldom challenges agency findings, accepted that conclusion as reasonable.

Howell faced professional consequences after speaking out. The DEA assigned him to desk duty for more than a year and downgraded his performance evaluations, according to Howell and DEA records. Internal records also show that prosecutors blocked him from testifying in federal court, citing his “pattern of refusing to heed” directives to allow drugs to go unconfiscated during long-term investigations.

Pointing to the DEA’s own “One Pill Can Kill” public awareness campaign, current and former agents said they struggled to understand how watchdog officials concluded that the tactics posed no public danger — especially given that the drug is so hazardous it must be handled in specialized laboratory settings.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military launched another strike against a vessel accused of carrying illegal drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Thursday, killing two people on board while six others survived, as part of an ongoing campaign targeting alleged drug traffickers in Latin America.

This latest attack is among more than 60 such strikes conducted since the Trump administration began going after those it labels “narcoterrorists” in early September. The cumulative death toll from these boat strikes has now surpassed 210 people.

It remains unknown whether the six survivors from Thursday’s strike — or the two survivors from a separate strike carried out on June 16 — were ever rescued. In both incidents, U.S. Central Command stated that the U.S. Coast Guard was notified. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about the outcome.

As has been the case with most of the military’s announcements regarding strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command stated that it targeted suspected drug traffickers along known smuggling corridors. No evidence was provided by the military that the boat was actually transporting drugs.

A black and white video shared on the social media platform X showed a boat moving quickly through the water before a visible projectile struck it, causing the vessel to erupt in flames.

President Donald Trump has characterized the situation as the U.S. being in “armed conflict” with cartels operating in Latin America, framing the attacks as a necessary step to reduce the flow of drugs into the country and prevent fatal overdoses among Americans. However, his administration has provided little evidence to back up its assertions that those killed were “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have raised concerns about both the legal basis for these strikes and whether they are actually effective. A central argument against the campaign is that fentanyl — the drug responsible for many deadly overdoses in the United States — is generally smuggled overland from Mexico, where it is manufactured using chemicals imported from China and India.

On Thursday, members of Congress called on the Pentagon to release “unedited video” of the very first military strike, following reports that the U.S. carried out a second strike on survivors of that initial attack. Two men who initially survived the first strike — which killed nine others — were holding onto the wreckage when the boat was hit again, killing them both. The White House confirmed the follow-up strike took place, arguing it was done “in self-defense” to ensure the vessel was destroyed and that it was consistent with the laws of armed conflict.

Some legal experts, however, have argued that striking survivors a second time would have been unlawful under any circumstances, regardless of whether an armed conflict designation applies.

The Pentagon’s internal watchdog announced in May that it intended to examine whether the military followed an established targeting process when conducting the strikes. That review, according to the inspector general’s office, is focused specifically on what is known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and does not address the broader question of whether the strikes themselves are legal.

The U.S. military announced Sunday that it attacked a vessel in the Caribbean Sea, leaving two people dead. According to officials, the boat was being operated by what they described as “designated terrorist organizations,” though they did not name the specific groups involved.

U.S. Southern Command confirmed that none of its military personnel were injured during the operation. The two individuals who were killed were described by officials as “male narco-terrorists,” with no further details provided.

Six men survived the attack. U.S. Southern Command said it alerted the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct search and rescue efforts for those survivors.

In a post on X, the military stated: “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

The strike is the latest in a series of similar actions that the Trump administration says are targeting so-called “narco-terrorists.” Human rights organizations have condemned these operations, calling them “extrajudicial killings.”

Analysts note that using military force to target suspected drug-running vessels marks a significant break from how the United States has traditionally handled such situations.

James Mercer, the frontman of beloved indie rock band The Shins, is taking a moment to look back on how fatherhood has transformed both his personal life and his approach to making music.

Mercer is among a generation of indie rock artists who built their careers singing about rebellion and independence — themes that can take on a whole new meaning once children enter the picture. Now a parent himself, Mercer has been reflecting on how that life change has influenced who he is and the music he creates.

It has been nearly five years since a beachfront condominium in Surfside, Florida suddenly collapsed, taking the lives of 98 people in one of the deadliest structural failures in American history.

The catastrophic event left communities across the country grappling with serious questions about how states monitor and enforce the structural safety of residential buildings — and whether enough is being done to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.

CHICAGO — Seven people are dead and at least 38 others were wounded following a wave of shootings that erupted across Chicago beginning Friday evening, according to city police. The violence has reignited calls from President Donald Trump for the federal government to step in militarily.

Taking to Truth Social on Sunday morning, Trump directed a pointed message at the state’s top official: “Why isn’t Governor Pritzker calling me for help. I could make Chicago a safe City in ONE MONTH, in ONE YEAR, it would be one of the safest!!!”

The office of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — considered a possible contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination — did not respond to a request for comment. Pritzker has repeatedly turned down Trump’s proposals for military involvement in the city. The Trump administration has already sent National Guard troops on crime-reduction missions to other Democrat-led cities, including New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee.

Chicago Police Department figures show a modest increase in shooting incidents compared to the same stretch last year, though overall violent crime in the city has been on a downward trend in recent years, mirroring patterns seen nationally.

According to preliminary data from police, at least two dozen separate shooting incidents occurred after 5 p.m. Friday. Among those killed were a 21-year-old shot in the chest on Sunday, an 18-year-old shot in the armpit Saturday evening, and a 50-year-old shot in the chest on Friday.

One of the most alarming incidents took place Friday evening when an SUV pulled up to a group of people gathered on a Chicago street and two occupants opened fire, striking at least 12 people. The eight men and four women in the group ranged in age from 17 to 47 and were taken to four different hospitals for treatment. Police said a separate man sustained unknown injuries but declined medical care.

The mass shooting occurred on Juneteenth, the federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the United States. Earlier that same day, former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama had welcomed the first visitors to his presidential center on Chicago’s South Side.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responded to the violence in a post on X on Saturday, writing: “What should have been a night of celebration and community reflection for Juneteenth was shattered by a horrific act of violence. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones.”

The mayor added: “Violence has no place in our city, and those responsible will be held accountable.”

Moviegoers proved they still have plenty of love for Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang this weekend, as “Toy Story 5” opened to a record-breaking $160 million in domestic ticket sales.

Studio estimates released Sunday confirmed the fifth installment in the Pixar series not only set a new franchise record, but also claimed the title of the year’s biggest opening weekend. The previous best debut in the franchise belonged to “Toy Story 4,” which opened to $120 million back in 2019.

The film arrived in theaters 31 years after the original “Toy Story” first debuted. Overseas audiences were equally enthusiastic, with $152 million in international ticket sales during the opening weekend, pushing the global total to an impressive $312 million.

The “Toy Story” franchise ranks among the most financially successful properties owned by The Walt Disney Co. Before this latest entry, the series had collectively earned more than $3 billion at the box office, with billions more generated through merchandise sales.

While many felt the story wrapped up with “Toy Story 3” in 2010, the decision to bring the franchise back — though controversial at the time — has proven to be a very smart financial move. “Toy Story 4” crossed the $1 billion mark in global ticket sales, and the fifth film appears well on its way to doing the same.

Among all animated films ever released, only “Incredibles 2” from 2018 — which opened to $182.7 million — had a stronger debut than “Toy Story 5.”

The production came with a hefty price tag of $250 million, not counting marketing costs. The film brings back a familiar voice cast, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, and Joan Cusack as Jessie. The story follows the toys as they find themselves pushed aside when Bonnie receives a new tablet. Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, who previously directed “Finding Nemo” in 2003 and “WALL-E” in 2008, helmed the project. The film also features a brand-new song by Taylor Swift titled “I Knew It, I Knew You.”

Reviews have been strong, and audiences handed the film an “A” CinemaScore rating, a sign that word-of-mouth should keep theaters busy for several more weeks.

In second place this weekend was Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day,” which brought in $17 million in its second weekend of release. That represents a 61% drop from its opening frame — a steeper decline than distributor Universal Pictures had hoped for. The $115 million production, which stars Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, and Colman Domingo, has now earned $160.4 million globally in two weeks. Despite the significant drop, the film is expected to remain the top option for adult moviegoers in the weeks ahead.

The new releases this weekend struggled to make much of an impact against “Toy Story 5.”

A24’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” a dark and violent reimagining of the classic legend, stumbled at the box office with just $2.6 million from 1,762 screens. The film stars Hugh Jackman and was directed by Michael Sarnoski. Made for a modest $20 million, the movie received mixed reviews and a “C+” CinemaScore from audiences.

Neon’s “Leviticus” edged it out slightly, earning $2.7 million from 1,076 theaters. Written and directed by Adrian Chiarella, the low-budget horror film — made for just $3.5 million — follows two teenage boys who meet at a conversion therapy program. The film generated strong buzz ahead of its release, and its opening is considered a solid start for an indie production. However, it faced stiff competition from the ongoing horror hits “Obsession” and “Backrooms.”

“Obsession” continued to dominate the horror category. Now in its sixth weekend, the microbudget film from 26-year-old director Curry Barker nearly matched its original $17 million opening weekend from mid-May. The Focus Features release, which cost less than $1 million to produce, added $14.2 million this weekend, bringing its domestic total to $215.8 million and its global earnings to $333.3 million.

The combined strength of “Toy Story 5” and “Obsession” is helping push the overall summer box office up 15% compared to the previous summer, according to Rentrak. Even more remarkably, this summer’s ticket sales are nearly on par with the record-setting summer of 2019 — trailing that benchmark by just 1.9%, not accounting for inflation.

Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends for Rentrak, believes Hollywood may be heading toward its best summer since before the pandemic. He credits the season’s success to a diverse mix of films rather than just big franchise titles.

“To me, this is a hybrid summer and this could be the new blueprint for how you build the perfect summer box-office beast,” Dergarabedian said. “You throw in a mix of very eclectic films and not just the usual suspects — the big franchise films, the known brands — but also films like ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ and original films like ‘Disclosure Day.’”

Here is the full top 10 for the weekend, based on estimated domestic ticket sales at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:

1. “Toy Story 5” — $160 million
2. “Disclosure Day” — $17 million
3. “Obsession” — $14.2 million
4. “Backrooms” — $7.3 million
5. “Scary Movie” — $6.7 million
6. “Masters of the Universe” — $5.6 million
7. “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” — $3.9 million
8. “Leviticus” — $2.7 million
9. “The Death of Robin Hood” — $2.6 million
10. “Michael” — $2.2 million

NEW YORK — A 51-year-old man died Saturday night after falling from an elevated area inside Madison Square Garden during a live concert, according to New York City Police.

Officers arrived at the scene following a 911 call placed at approximately 9:51 p.m. and discovered the man unconscious and unresponsive. His injuries were consistent with a fall from a height, police said in an official statement.

The man was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. Authorities have not publicly identified him.

The rock band Goose was on stage at the time of the incident. Following the tragedy, the band released a statement on Facebook, saying it was “deeply saddened and heartbroken to learn of the tragic event that occurred.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into a near-collision between two commercial aircraft at Boston Logan International Airport that occurred Saturday morning.

A Delta Air Lines flight originating from Dallas was forced to perform what is known as a go-around — an aborted landing — after an American Airlines aircraft departed from a runway that crossed its flight path, according to the FAA and flight records.

The crew aboard Delta flight 2351 worked with air traffic control to carry out the go-around safely, a Delta spokesperson confirmed. There were 129 passengers and six crew members on the flight, and the plane ultimately landed without incident and passengers exited normally, the spokesperson added.

Both American Airlines and Boston Logan Airport directed media inquiries to the FAA for comment.

The FAA notes that go-arounds are considered safe and standard procedures, carried out either at the pilot’s discretion or at the direction of air traffic controllers.

This close call follows a string of aviation accidents in recent days. A founder of a gaming company lost his life in a plane crash in France on Saturday. Earlier in the week, a business jet went down in Laredo, Texas, claiming one life.

On Monday, a B-52 bomber crashed during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, killing all eight people on board. The previous Sunday, a plane carrying skydivers crashed in Missouri, resulting in 12 fatalities.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass officially declared a local state of emergency on Saturday in response to a large warehouse fire that has continued to burn for multiple days in the city.

The fire broke out on Wednesday in the historic Boyle Heights neighborhood, located near downtown Los Angeles, and has proven difficult to extinguish in the days since.

As part of the emergency declaration, Mayor Bass called on the state government to fast-track access to state and federal resources, as well as disaster relief programs that could aid in the response effort.

The mayor also asked that state officials waive certain regulations that could slow down or interfere with recovery and response operations.

To help residents dealing with smoke and fumes from the ongoing fire, both the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County have established relief locations where affected families can seek assistance.

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington may need to have most of its water emptied so that repair work can be carried out.

Trump took to social media to address the situation, saying that numerous arrests had been made in connection with what he characterized as disgraceful vandalism of the landmark site.

“Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote.

He added that a meeting with contractors had already taken place and that draining the pool appeared to be the likely next step. “We met with contractors today, will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs, but will have them done as quickly as possible,” Trump stated.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass formally declared an emergency on Saturday, aiming to ensure the city has the resources necessary to battle a massive warehouse fire that has been sending enormous clouds of smoke into the sky.

“The city and county have opened spaces for families seeking relief from the smoke, and we will continue working around the clock and doing everything possible to put this fire out completely,” Bass stated in a news release announcing the emergency declaration.

The blaze broke out Wednesday at a privately owned cold-storage warehouse located in the city’s Boyle Heights neighborhood. The fire prompted officials to issue shelter-in-place orders throughout the surrounding area due to the threat of dangerous air quality. Residents were instructed to seal all windows, doors, and vents, shut off air conditioning units, and move people and pets to an interior room.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore addressed reporters at a news conference, stating that crews have addressed the hazardous materials portion of the fire and are now tackling the biohazard challenges that remain.

“We have 85 million pounds of frozen food inside of this facility and the way the building has been laid out, it’s very difficult for us to get in there because there’s zero visibility inside,” Moore explained. “Our firefighters are not able to just go in there and start moving pallets.”

Mayor Bass’s emergency declaration calls for recovery assistance under the California Disaster Assistance Act. She has also requested that the state fast-track access to resources and additional relief programs.

Bass emphasized that the top priority is protecting the health and safety of those affected by the fire. Officials are working to secure the assistance needed to remove toxic materials from the area and dispose of them in a manner that prevents a serious environmental disaster.

“So this is about prevention,” Bass said. “This is about protecting your public health.”

Frisco, Texas — Newly released footage from a police officer’s body camera and a stadium surveillance camera is giving the public a look at what unfolded in the moments after a teenage athlete fatally stabbed a fellow teen from a rival team during a high school track meet last year.

Karmelo Anthony, 19, was found guilty of murder on June 10 in connection with the death of Austin Metcalf, 17, and was handed a 35-year prison sentence. Jurors rejected Anthony’s argument that he acted in self-defense. The footage was among a collection of evidence made available by the Collin County court after the trial wrapped up.

The surveillance recording shows the track and bleacher area on a rainy day. Without warning, a figure in a gray sweatshirt appears from behind a yellow tent and sprints down the bleacher steps. The footage contains no audio.

The individual reached the bottom of the bleachers, stumbled and fell, then continued running along a fence line that divides the bleachers from the track. He briefly paused, glancing back as if someone were following him, before continuing to run.

After traveling partway around the track, an unidentified person joined him. The two stopped, spoke briefly, and then embraced. They resumed walking and were soon met by a third person. After additional conversation, Anthony made his way toward the fence, where he appeared to encounter a waiting police officer.

The officer placed Anthony in handcuffs and walked him to a patrol car. Anthony complied with the officer’s instructions before breaking down in tears.

“He put his hands on me,” Anthony said in a tearful, broken voice. “I told him not to. He put his hands on me.”

Officers then escorted Anthony to the police cruiser and placed him inside.

When George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, the city became the center of a national reckoning. Now, a new book is taking a deeper look at what that moment revealed about the city — and about America as a whole.

Author Justin Ellis has written ‘The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis is the Story of America,’ a work that examines what he describes as a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Minneapolis: a city known for its progressive, liberal values that at the same time harbors some of the most significant racial disparities in the country.

Ellis argues that this tension — between the friendly, welcoming reputation often associated with Midwestern culture and the harsh realities faced by communities of color — makes Minneapolis not an outlier, but rather a mirror for the rest of the nation.

Chicago police are investigating a drive-by shooting that wounded at least 12 people on Friday night on the city’s South Side.

According to authorities, the incident took place near Princeton Park, where a red SUV pulled up alongside a large crowd. Two occupants of the vehicle opened fire into the group before driving away from the scene.

Of the 12 people struck by gunfire, two are in critical condition, police confirmed.

Investigators have not released any information regarding potential suspects in connection with the attack.

Good news to report: Dana Parker has been found safe, and the Gold Alert that was issued for Parker has been canceled.

Officials confirmed the alert is no longer active following Parker’s location. No additional information was released at this time.

Opal Lee has earned a special title among those who cherish the history and meaning of Juneteenth — she is called the Grandmother of Juneteenth.

In 2024, Lee sat down with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly to discuss her lifelong commitment to activism surrounding the holiday and to share what she hopes lies ahead for the celebration of freedom it represents.

Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas learned they had been freed, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Lee has long championed the holiday’s recognition and has become one of its most beloved and recognizable advocates.

Chicago is welcoming the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, but not everyone in the surrounding community is celebrating without reservation.

For many supporters, the new center represents a meaningful investment in a neighborhood that has long been overlooked and underserved. They see the development as an opportunity to bring resources and attention to an area that has historically struggled to attract them.

However, not all reactions have been positive. Long-time residents and community members have raised concerns that the center’s arrival could fuel gentrification — a process in which rising property values and outside investment push out the people who have lived in a neighborhood for years.

The tension reflects a broader debate that often surrounds major development projects in urban areas: how to balance economic growth and revitalization with protecting the communities that already call those neighborhoods home.

Horse-drawn carriage rides through Central Park have been temporarily suspended, at least until Tuesday, while officials and industry leaders review safety procedures following the tragic death of a teenage tourist who leaped from a runaway carriage.

Alexander Kemp, administrative vice president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, released a statement Friday expressing grief over the loss of Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old visitor who died after jumping from a four-wheeled carriage as the horse galloped through the park uncontrolled and without its driver.

“Words can’t express the enormity of this tragedy,” Kemp said. “We are taking the first steps towards addressing safety issues.”

Kemp added that the review would include examining how drivers can better maintain control of their horses at all times.

According to both the labor union representing the carriage industry and the Central Park Conservancy, which oversees the 843-acre (341-hectare) park, Mahajan is believed to be the first person ever killed in a horse carriage accident since the rides were introduced to Central Park more than 150 years ago.

Mahajan had come to the United States from India with his family to mark his recent high school graduation. The family chose to take a ride on one of the park’s well-known decorated carriages — a decision that ended in disaster. According to his father, who spoke with The New York Times, the carriage driver stepped off the vehicle to photograph the family near a fountain when the horse suddenly took off at a sprint. Romanch’s mother fell from the carriage, and the teenager jumped out in an effort to help her.

The Central Park Conservancy had called for a suspension of the carriage industry as early as Thursday, arguing that stronger protections must be put in place before rides resume. The group noted that Mahajan’s death was the eighth horse-related incident in the park over the past 13 months.

The conservancy contends that horses can no longer safely navigate park roads that are crowded with joggers, cyclists, pedestrians, and motorized scooters. They also pointed out that other U.S. cities — including Chicago and San Antonio — have recently eliminated similar carriage ride programs.

Carriage industry leaders pushed back, arguing the fatal incident highlights the need for stronger safety measures rather than a complete ban on the beloved attraction, which many see as a connection to New York’s storied past.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani reaffirmed his desire to end the industry altogether, pledging to work alongside the city council, carriage operators, and animal welfare advocates to “deliver a just transition that protects workers while ending horse-drawn carriages in Central Park once and for all.”

This is not the first time a New York mayor has taken this position. Mayor Bill de Blasio famously promised to shut down the carriage industry on his very first day in office, but faced years of opposition from the city council. Mayor Eric Adams, who preceded Mamdani, also came out against the industry near the end of his term.

The union said Friday it was committed to working with the city to improve safety and prevent future incidents. It expressed support for increased oversight of drivers, including regular checks within the park and enforcement of rules requiring drivers to remain seated while passengers board, ride, and exit. The union also said idle horses should be kept tethered.

Animal welfare advocates have long raised concerns that carriage horses are overworked, prone to being startled in busy city environments, and housed in substandard stables — and that drivers frequently ignore city regulations. The carriage and horse owners have consistently denied these claims, maintaining that their animals receive proper care and that the stables meet appropriate standards.

CHICAGO — Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama made an unexpected appearance Friday, personally welcoming the very first 100 people to walk through the doors of the newly opened Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

Joining the Obamas was former “Reading Rainbow” host LeVar Burton, and together the three read Maurice Sendak’s classic “Where the Wild Things Are” to a group of 25 schoolchildren at the Chicago Public Library branch located inside the center. When Barack Obama read Sendak’s line about being “king of all the wild things,” Michelle Obama drew applause by chiming in with, “Although there were no kings.”

Guests were then treated to an unforgettable moment, shaking hands with the former president and first lady in front of a stunning 38-foot-tall mural depicting a colorful map of Chicago stretching from floor to ceiling. The artwork draws inspiration from Carl Sandburg’s 1914 poem about the city, which describes Chicago as “stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.”

Once the last of the initial group of visitors had passed through, the Obamas slipped away and the center opened its doors to the remaining guests.

The center’s debut fell on Juneteenth, coming on the heels of a high-profile dedication ceremony where the Obamas delivered passionate speeches before an audience that included three former presidents, their former first ladies, and a wide array of politicians, celebrities, musicians, and athletes. Thousands of additional supporters watched the event via livestream from a nearby park.

A full weekend of activities is planned at the expansive campus, which sits on Chicago’s South Side near the neighborhood where the Obamas once lived and where Barack Obama launched his political career. The grounds are adjacent to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in a lakefront park and are located not far from the University of Chicago.

Tickets for the general public are already sold out through the end of November, but those who managed to secure passes for opening day received an unexpected bonus — a face-to-face meeting with the Obamas themselves.

The campus is home to a soaring museum chronicling both the political legacy and personal lives of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. Public amenities on the grounds include a Chicago Public Library branch, a playground, an athletic center, basketball courts, and a picnic area complete with grills.

The museum tower’s architectural design is intended to represent four hands joining together in solidarity. Wrapped along one side of the structure are 5-foot-tall concrete letters spelling out an excerpt from Barack Obama’s 2015 speech marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. The passage begins with the words, “You are America.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Actress Anne Hathaway is expecting her third child, and she made the announcement in a characteristically charming way.

The 43-year-old Oscar winner took to Instagram on Friday, posting a video in which she flashes a smile while showing off a visible baby bump before darting off screen. She paired the clip with the caption “Baby, I’m yours” and set it to the Barbara Lewis song of the same name.

When a reporter reached out for official confirmation, a spokesperson for Hathaway kept it simple: “I think the video is pretty obvious.”

Hathaway and her husband, Adam Shulman, are already parents to two boys — Jonathan Shulman and Jack Shulman. The baby news comes at a particularly hectic stretch for the actress, who has three films releasing this year: “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” “Mother Mary,” and “The Odyssey.”

CHICAGO (AP) — Former President Barack Obama commemorated the opening of his presidential center with a major celebration in Chicago, drawing an impressive lineup of notable guests from across the country and around the world.

The event brought together former presidents, international leaders, well-known celebrities, and prominent athletes to mark the milestone occasion.

The following images, selected by AP photo editors, capture the highlights of opening day at the Obama Presidential Center.

NEW YORK (AP) — The vast majority of parents who work full time say they regularly find themselves doing both jobs at once — handling work tasks while with their kids, and dealing with family matters while on the clock. They also share a deep frustration about missing important moments in their children’s lives. But when it comes to who handles the housework and how parenthood affects career growth, mothers and fathers often tell very different stories.

These findings come from a newly published Pew Research Center study that surveyed 2,242 working parents between March 2 and March 15.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the share of two-parent households where both partners work full time has been climbing steadily. A decade ago, 46% of married or cohabiting families with children under 18 had both parents working full time. Back in 1975, that figure was just 31%.

Much of that growth has been fueled by mothers who hold bachelor’s or postgraduate degrees, during a period when women have surpassed men in earning college credentials. In 2025, about 56% of mothers with bachelor’s degrees and 69% of mothers with postgraduate degrees worked full time — up from 50% and 59%, respectively, in 2000. Meanwhile, the share of mothers without college degrees working full time has remained relatively flat at 43%, compared to 46% in 2000.

Across all family types — including single, divorced, and same-sex partner households — 89% of fathers and 59% of mothers with children under 18 are employed full time.

The survey found that 81% of full-time working mothers said they handle parenting tasks while at work at least sometimes, compared to 62% of fathers who said the same. Meanwhile, 63% of moms and 57% of dads reported taking care of work responsibilities while spending time with their children.

Luona Lin, a research associate at the Pew Research Center who co-authored the study, described one of the report’s central takeaways: “One of the major findings we have from this study is just a large share of parents who experience these blurred boundaries between family and work. And we find that moms often carry more of the mental load that comes with trying to balance what their family needs with what their work demands.”

Nearly all full-time working parents — about 9 in 10 — said they felt upset when their job caused them to miss a child’s concert, game, or other event. That included 55% who described themselves as “extremely” or “very” upset. However, the emotional impact hit mothers harder: 65% of full-time working moms said they were “extremely” or “very” upset in those situations, compared to 45% of fathers. About 31% of mothers said they were “somewhat upset,” while 42% of dads used that description.

Lin noted, “It’s not to say dads aren’t experiencing any of the challenges in balancing work and family lives. It’s just that moms are experiencing more of it.”

Finding time for personal wellness is also a bigger challenge for working mothers. While 65% of full-time working moms said they lacked enough time to exercise, 52% of dads reported the same. Mothers were also more likely than fathers to say they had too little time for hobbies, socializing with friends, relaxing, and spending quality time with their spouse or partner.

One of the sharpest divides in the survey involves household chores. Among full-time working mothers, 63% said they personally handle most of the housework. But among working fathers, 50% said chores were split equally, and only 25% acknowledged that mothers take on most of the burden.

A similar disconnect showed up around daily parenting duties. About 63% of moms said they handle the majority of day-to-day parenting tasks, but only 41% of fathers agreed with that assessment. Instead, 47% of dads believed those responsibilities were divided equally.

Career advancement is another area where perceptions diverge. About 52% of full-time working mothers said parenthood made it “a lot” or “somewhat” harder to move up in their jobs or careers, while only 38% of fathers felt the same way. And 61% of mothers said their jobs made it harder to be a good parent, compared to 45% of fathers who shared that view.

Feelings of not being fully present — either at work or at home — were also more common among mothers. About 52% of full-time working moms said they felt they couldn’t give 100% at work due to the demands of balancing family and career, compared to 38% of fathers. At home, 67% of mothers said they felt they couldn’t give their full effort, while 50% of dads said the same.

Despite higher rates of workforce participation and college education among women, they continue to lag behind men in wages and career advancement. Researchers have long pointed to the so-called “motherhood penalty” as a key driver of the ongoing wage gap between men and women.

When asked about the overall trade-offs of having both parents work full time, opinions were mixed. About 83% of parents in that situation said it had a “somewhat” or “very” positive effect on the family’s finances. About half — 49% — said it had a positive impact on their children’s well-being. Still, only around 22% said it had a negative effect on their kids, while about 29% said it had neither a positive nor negative impact.

The city of Annapolis, Maryland is facing a wave of raised eyebrows and social media ridicule after its Office of Emergency Management released a preparedness guide designed specifically for LGBT residents.

The guide argues that natural disasters and emergencies present “unique challenges” for members of the LGBT community that differ from those faced by the general public.

Among the more attention-grabbing recommendations in the guide is advice directed at transgender individuals, encouraging them to keep a supply of hormones on hand — medications used as part of gender transition. The guide also suggests stockpiling items such as “chest binders and wigs” as part of an emergency kit.

The release of the guide has sparked significant online reaction, with many social media users expressing surprise or mockery at the nature of the recommendations coming from a government emergency management office.

A group of law students at Emory Law School is asking the nation’s highest court to take a closer look at how the federal judiciary handles misconduct among its own members.

The student-led organization has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the justices to examine the system federal courts currently use to police bad behavior within their own ranks.

At the heart of the effort is a push to bring stronger workplace protections into the federal court system — standards that many other workplaces are already required to follow.

The move puts a spotlight on questions of accountability and fairness within an institution that itself serves as the final arbiter of justice for millions of Americans.

A touching new segment from StoryCorps shines a light on a family’s deep connection to Juneteenth history in Kansas City, Missouri.

The feature follows a woman who is the descendant of the man credited with organizing the first-ever Juneteenth celebrations in that city. Now, she has taken it upon herself to continue the tradition her father built from the ground up.

The StoryCorps piece explores how his legacy has shaped both his family and the broader community, and how one person’s commitment to commemorating this important moment in American history can echo across generations.

Barack and Michelle Obama stood at the heart of a high-profile ceremony marking the official dedication of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, delivering remarks that blended optimism with quiet commentary on the state of democracy and the ideals that define the United States.

The star-studded event brought the former first couple back into the spotlight as they presided over the opening of the long-anticipated center, which has been years in the making. Both Obamas used the occasion to share personal messages of hope with those gathered for the milestone celebration.

Woven into their remarks were subtle references to the future of American democracy, offering what observers noted as understated but pointed reflections on the current direction of the country and its core values.

As communities across the country come together Friday to mark Juneteenth, former President Barack Obama’s presidential center is welcoming its first public visitors in Chicago.

Situated on a sprawling campus on Chicago’s South Side, the center dedicated to the nation’s first Black president was built with a mission to inspire visitors to drive change in their own communities — a theme that resonates deeply with the spirit of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America.

Juneteenth honors June 19, 1865, the day Union troops arrived in Texas at the close of the Civil War carrying an order declaring that enslaved people in the state were free with “absolute equality” — a full two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had freed enslaved people in the Confederate South.

“Juneteenth represents not just a commemoration of the end of slavery but it’s also part of the ongoing struggle for absolute equality and that ideal in American life,” said W. Caleb McDaniel, a Rice University professor and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Sweet Taste of Liberty.”

The grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center has been marked by several days of festivities, including a dedication ceremony held Thursday. The public opening arrives at what many see as a symbolic moment — a meeting point of legacy and liberation — as the country wrestles with deepening political divisions and renewed debates over racial progress, particularly following Supreme Court decisions that have weakened the Voting Rights Act and threatened Black political representation in Congress.

The campus spans nearly 20 acres and includes a museum with a life-sized replica of the Oval Office, a garden designed by former first lady Michelle Obama that features lettuce and strawberry plants, a professional basketball court, a picnic area equipped with grills, and a new branch of the Chicago Public Library.

Beyond spaces meant to bring people together, the campus — which organizers expect to attract up to one million visitors each year — is also designed to encourage personal reflection. Louise Bernard, the museum’s director, has described the experience as “inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large.”

Visitors can explore high-tech and hands-on exhibits tracing Obama’s campaigns, significant moments from his presidency, and everyday life inside the White House.

This year marks the fifth Juneteenth since former President Joe Biden, who served as Obama’s vice president, signed legislation designating the day as a federal holiday. The celebration, however, has deep roots in Black American culture, with origins in Texas before spreading nationwide. Traditionally, the day is spent with family and friends at picnics and cookouts.

The holiday’s name blends “June” and “nineteenth,” marking the day U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his soldiers arrived in the Texas port city of Galveston carrying General Order No. 3, which declared freedom for enslaved people.

As the Civil War entered its third year, President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring freedom for “all persons held as slaves” in Confederate states still in rebellion. For many, however, that proclamation did not bring immediate freedom — it was a promise that depended on a Union victory.

“It really required the force of arms and the success of U.S. armies to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation,” McDaniel said.

Roughly six months after Granger’s troops reached Galveston, the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery, was ratified.

Galveston, recognized as the birthplace of Juneteenth, is holding a full day of festivities at a local park, including music, fireworks, a parade, and a worship service at a historic Black church. Nearby Houston is hosting a lineup of musical performers and a domino tournament at Emancipation Park, which was established in 1872 by a group of formerly enslaved men.

Celebrations across the country over the long weekend include a parade in Atlanta, a bike ride in Los Angeles, and a festival on Martha’s Vineyard.

A number of cities will also host walks named in honor of Opal Lee, the Texas woman who campaigned for years to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Walkers will cover 2.5 miles, symbolizing the two and a half years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to be enforced in Texas. Lee, widely known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” is turning 100 this year.

Black Texans embraced the anniversary of Granger’s arrival as a day of celebration, and by the 1880s, McDaniel noted, “it was difficult to find a significant community in Texas where it wasn’t being marked by African Americans.”

“They made it a community celebration, they made it a celebration of not only freedom but also a demonstration of community empowerment and institution-building,” he added.

Corey D. B. Walker, dean of Wake Forest University’s divinity school, said Juneteenth gives Americans an opportunity to acknowledge the country’s “complex history” and reflect on the meaning of citizenship — particularly as President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to challenge how Black history is taught and remembered.

“I think it really reminds people the importance of understanding a fuller, more robust portrait of our nation’s history and the many contributions of many individuals who have contributed to America’s experiment with democracy,” Walker said.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military carried out an attack Thursday on a boat suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in three deaths. The strike is part of an ongoing campaign by the Trump administration against individuals it labels as drug traffickers operating throughout Latin America.

With this latest strike, the total number of people killed in U.S. military boat attacks has climbed to at least 211 since the administration began going after those it refers to as “narcoterrorists” in early September.

Following the pattern of most military announcements regarding operations in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command stated that the vessel was targeted along established drug smuggling corridors. However, the military did not provide evidence confirming the boat was actually carrying drugs. Footage shared on X showed the vessel moving rapidly through open water before being hit and engulfing in flames.

President Donald Trump has characterized the situation as an “armed conflict” between the United States and Latin American cartels, framing the attacks as a necessary step to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into the country and curb deadly overdoses among Americans. Despite that justification, the administration has provided little evidence to back up its assertions that those killed were “narcoterrorists.”

The strikes have drawn criticism over both their legality and their actual impact. Skeptics point out that fentanyl — the drug responsible for a large share of overdose deaths — typically enters the U.S. by land through Mexico, where it is manufactured using chemicals sourced from China and India.

On Thursday, a group of U.S. senators called on the Pentagon to release “unedited video” of the attacks. Democratic lawmakers and scholars who specialize in military law have raised serious concerns about the strikes. The very first strike carried out in early September drew especially sharp criticism from some members of Congress and those who study the legal boundaries of military action.

That initial strike killed nine people aboard the vessel, but two survivors were left clinging to the wreckage — only to be killed when the boat was struck a second time. The White House defended the follow-up attack, saying it was carried out “in self-defense” to ensure the destruction of the vessel and that it complied with the laws of armed conflict.

Some legal scholars, however, argued that striking survivors a second time would have been unlawful regardless of whether the situation was classified as armed conflict.

The Pentagon’s internal watchdog announced in May that it intends to examine whether the military adhered to an established targeting process when conducting the strikes. The inspector general’s office clarified, though, that the review will focus specifically on what is known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle — not on whether the strikes were legal.

A report released Thursday by the Texas Legislature has found that Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls, had no written emergency evacuation plans in place and failed to adequately train its staff — failures that contributed to the deaths of 27 people in a devastating July 4 flash flood in 2025.

The 115-page report, authored by two investigators commissioned by the legislature with cooperation from the camp owner’s family, concluded that if proper evacuation plans and counselor training — as required under state law — had been in place, there would have been enough time for campers to walk safely to higher ground before the waters became deadly.

Instead, teenage counselors followed instructions to shelter in place as floodwaters filled the cabins in the middle of the night. Twenty-five girls, all between 8 and 10 years old, were swept to their deaths, as were two 18-year-old counselors and the camp’s owner, Dick Eastland. The century-old camp sits along the Guadalupe River in flood-prone Kerr County.

The report found that at least 39 adults were present at the camp that night, any of whom could have been “tasked to assist with an orderly flood evacuation” had they received proper training.

Investigators also faulted camp leadership for failing to use the public address system to issue evacuation orders and for not equipping counselors with walkie-talkies, even though cellphones were prohibited in the cabins.

According to the report, only Eastland and a night watchman remained awake after severe flash-flood warnings were issued by the National Weather Service. Just before 2 a.m., Eastland woke his adult son, Edward Eastland, to help secure boats. Neither believed the campers’ cabins were in danger of flooding until approximately 2:30 a.m., when two teenage counselors whose cabins were near the river “ran through the storm to the main office, reported water entering the cabins, and asked for help.”

“From the 1:14 a.m. Flash Flood Warning until this time, if all campers had been instructed to evacuate their cabins by foot, there still was ample time and opportunity for them all to move the very short distances to reach higher and safer ground,” the report stated. As late as 3 a.m., only about an inch of water covered the road nearby.

The report describes Eastland and his son using their SUVs to evacuate only a few cabins at a time as water levels continued to rise. By Eastland’s third round of evacuations — when he reached the Bubble Inn cabin — it was too late. With water rushing around him, Eastland managed to get all 14 girls and both counselors into his vehicle just before it was swept into the Guadalupe River.

Other girls perished in nearby cabins as water rose to the ceilings. Some attempted to escape by swimming beneath the churning water through windows or doors, according to the report. The bodies of two of the young victims have still not been recovered.

Camp Mystic, which failed safety inspections required before it could reopen this summer, did not respond to a request for comment.

EDGEWOOD, N.M. — On the exact five-year anniversary of the day Navajo elder Ella Mae Begay vanished from her home in a remote part of Arizona, the man who admitted beating her, taking her truck, and abandoning her on the side of a road has walked out of federal prison.

Preston Tolth entered a guilty plea for robbing Begay and was sentenced on May 8 to five years behind bars, with credit for three years he had already served. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was released this past Monday.

Begay’s family had believed Tolth would remain incarcerated until at least 2028 and were caught completely off guard when they received the news. Her eldest child, Gerald Begay, found out about the release while finishing up his shift at a construction job — a moment already heavy with the weight of his mother’s unsolved disappearance.

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Ohio’s law forcing children under 16 to get their parents’ approval before signing up for social media platforms must be reinstated.

The Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the 2-1 decision, dealing a significant blow to NetChoice, a trade organization that represents major tech companies including TikTok, Snapchat, and Meta. The group had previously succeeded in blocking similar laws in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Georgia, but the Ohio ruling bucked that trend.

NetChoice argued the Ohio legislation was too broad, too vague, and placed an unconstitutional barrier on free speech when it filed suit against the law in 2024. The majority of the three-judge panel rejected that argument, finding the law constitutional and sending it back to a lower court to lift the existing block on enforcement.

Writing for the majority, Judge Eric Clay described the law’s core requirement in straightforward terms. “At bottom, the Act imposes a parental consent requirement,” Clay wrote. “That requirement constitutes a marginal burden that precisely targets the multi-faceted problem that Ohio has identified: Children’s unsupervised assent to terms and conditions for use of platforms that take advantage of and harm them.”

Judge Alice Batchelder agreed, adding that “a statute is not vague just because it has a wide berth.”

The legislation, formally called the Social Media Parental Notification Act, was included in an $86.1 billion state budget bill that Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in July 2023. Beyond requiring parental consent for social media and gaming apps, the law also mandates that companies share their privacy guidelines with families so they understand how content on their child’s profile would be filtered or managed.

When the measure was being promoted, then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted — now a U.S. senator — described social media as “intentionally addictive” and harmful to young people. The administration framed the law as a tool to safeguard children’s mental health.

Republican Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson celebrated Thursday’s outcome, calling it “a win for Ohio families.”

“The court agreed that parents — not social media companies — should get a say in what kids see online,” Wilson said in a statement. “We have an obligation to keep our children safe, and today, the most dangerous place for our kids is the internet. This decision gives parents the tools to be involved and provide oversight.”

NetChoice pushed back on the ruling, saying it contradicted a “clear national consensus” established in other court decisions. Paul Taske, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, vowed to continue the legal fight. “An unconstitutional law protects no one, and we remain focused on ensuring the First Amendment rights of Ohioans are protected,” Taske said.

A federal judge has ordered immigration authorities to release the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque from custody, ruling Thursday that Salah Sarsour had presented a credible claim that his detention was retaliation for exercising his right to free speech in support of Palestinian rights.

Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident who has lived in the United States for decades, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 30. While federal officials have described him as a foreign policy threat, his legal team argues he was targeted specifically because of his public statements against Israel.

U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon — nominated to the bench by Trump in 2018 — ruled that attorneys representing ICE and the Department of Homeland Security failed to provide sufficient evidence to counter Sarsour’s retaliation claims. The judge also noted the government offered no explanation for why Sarsour was suddenly deemed a threat in 2026 after more than 30 years of legal residency.

“The mere invocation of foreign relations concerns does not automatically trump First Amendment rights,” Hanlon wrote in his decision. He ordered Sarsour freed from the Indiana county jail where he had been held and permitted to return to his Milwaukee home while his immigration case continues.

Sarsour walked free just a few hours after the ruling came down.

“I am so relieved to be with my family. For 80 days, I haven’t been able to step outside and breathe fresh air,” Sarsour said in a prepared statement. “This experience is a reminder to all of us that we must fight together for our right to be a voice for the silenced. I will never stop speaking for Palestine and humanity, wherever I am.”

Sarsour, who lives with Type 2 diabetes, lost more than 30 pounds — roughly 14 kilograms — during his time behind bars. His attorneys reported that his blood sugar was only being monitored once a month while incarcerated, a situation they said put him at serious risk of organ failure or death. Malak Saleh, communications manager for the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which assisted with the case, confirmed he was released Thursday afternoon.

Sarsour’s legal team expressed relief in a statement, saying he never should have been detained at all. They also warned that the case carries broader implications, writing that the ruling serves as “a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr. Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement calling Sarsour “a terrorist who was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails” and denied that any ICE agents acted with discriminatory intent.

Sarsour has no criminal record in the United States. He was convicted by the Israeli Ramallah Military Court in 1989 for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail and stones at Israeli army forces, and again by the same court in 1995 on charges of attempting to possess weapons and ammunition. Sarsour has denied committing either offense. Israeli military courts have faced criticism over allegations of limited due process and unusually high conviction rates among Palestinians — claims Israel disputes.

Judge Hanlon noted that the U.S. government has been aware of those foreign convictions for 25 years and had reviewed them at least four times when considering Sarsour’s applications for citizenship. Despite that history, he was not arrested until 2026.

Government attorneys argued that Sarsour, as a non-citizen, does not hold the same First Amendment protections as U.S. citizens. Hanlon rejected that argument, writing that individuals who enter the country lawfully are entitled to the same constitutional rights as anyone within U.S. borders.

The judge also weighed Sarsour’s strong ties to his community, including his spouse, six children, and nine grandchildren — all U.S. citizens — as well as his deteriorating health, in deciding to order his release.

“We’re getting our dad back!” his son, Kareem Sarsour, said in a prepared statement. “This experience has been a nightmare to wake up to every day, with his health at risk in a cruel basement cell simply for speaking up for Palestine. But we know who my dad is, he’s a voice for the voiceless and the heart of our family and our community. I can’t wait to hug him, and I hope everyone like him will be released.”

A separate investigation by KFF Health News and the AP found that hundreds of immigration detainees across at least 33 states have filed federal lawsuits raising similar claims of medical neglect.

Luigi Mangione, the 28-year-old charged with killing a health insurance executive on a New York City sidewalk, has for now abandoned plans to argue at trial that he was in the grip of a severe mental health crisis when the alleged shooting took place. The move was revealed in a court filing submitted Friday.

Mangione stands accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel in the early morning hours. Thompson was leading UnitedHealth Group’s insurance division at the time. The killing drew widespread condemnation from public officials, yet also became a symbol of public anger over rising healthcare costs and the practices of the health insurance industry. The graphic nature of the crime and a five-day manhunt for the suspect turned the case into a major media story and social media phenomenon. Mangione was ultimately taken into custody in Pennsylvania.

In December 2024, Mangione entered a not guilty plea to state-level murder, weapons, and forgery charges filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. His state trial is scheduled for September before Justice Gregory Carro in Manhattan.

In a letter addressed to Justice Carro on Friday, Mangione’s defense attorneys stated they were withdrawing — “at this time” — their intention to argue that Mangione had lost control of his behavior as a result of an extreme mental health episode. His legal team declined to offer any further comment.

New York law allows defendants in murder cases to present what is known as an “extreme emotional disturbance” defense, which can persuade a jury to view the defendant’s actions with greater leniency. If successful, such a defense can result in a murder charge being reduced to manslaughter — a lesser offense that does not carry the possibility of a life sentence. Justice Carro would have the final say at trial on whether there was sufficient evidence to allow for that reduction.

Legal analysts noted that the defense would have faced an uphill battle given evidence suggesting the killing was carefully premeditated and that Mangione took deliberate steps to avoid capture afterward.

On the federal side, Mangione entered a not guilty plea in April 2025 to murder, weapons, and stalking charges brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. In a surprising January ruling, a judge dismissed the murder and weapons charges on legal technicalities, eliminating any possibility of the death penalty. However, Mangione could still face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted on the stalking charge. Jury selection in that federal case is set for September, with opening statements planned for November.

The chief engineer aboard the cargo ship Dali — the vessel that struck and destroyed Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024 — has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the federal government, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Karthikeyan Deenadayalan, a citizen of India, admitted that he knowingly failed to report a hazardous condition to the U.S. Coast Guard. Specifically, he was aware that the 984-foot ship was relying on an unsafe fuel supply pump but did not disclose that information to authorities. Under the terms of the agreement, Deenadayalan will serve 36 months of probation. If he fulfills all requirements, he will not face criminal prosecution.

The collapse of the bridge killed six construction workers and, according to the Justice Department, caused at least $5 billion in damage as well as significant harm to the environment.

Last month, federal prosecutors indicted two foreign operators and a shoreside superintendent in connection with the disaster. The Dali’s operators — Synergy Marine Pte Ltd, headquartered in Singapore, and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd, based in Chennai, India — along with Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, 47, an Indian national who served as technical superintendent for the vessel at both companies, were all charged. Prosecutors believe Nair is currently in India.

In a statement, the two Synergy companies said they intend to fight the charges. Synergy Marine expressed concern that the Justice Department has kept the Dali’s crew members in the United States for more than two years, calling it unjust given what it described as “evidence that their actions were timely and reasonable under the circumstances.”

Prosecutors allege that the defendants used a flushing pump — not designed to automatically restart after a blackout — to supply fuel to two of the ship’s four generators. Without a functioning fuel supply, the generators could not operate. The indictment claims that had proper fuel supply pumps been in use, the ship would have recovered power in time to safely pass under the bridge.

The National Transportation Safety Board previously determined that a single loose wire in the ship’s electrical system caused a circuit breaker to trip unexpectedly, setting off a chain of events that led to two blackouts and the vessel losing both propulsion and steering.

Maryland reached a $2.25 billion settlement last month with Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd, the owner and operator of the Dali. However, the state has not yet resolved its claims against the ship’s builder, Hyundai Heavy Industries.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday presented the Medal of Honor to three military veterans, recognizing their remarkable acts of bravery that saved lives and drove back enemy forces during combat in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

The nation’s highest military honor was awarded to Marine Corps Maj. James Capers Jr. and Army Maj. Nicholas Dockery. A third medal was presented posthumously to Marine Corps Col. John W. Ripley, who passed away in 2008.

“These are great men, great people,” Trump said during the ceremony. “We thank you and we will never, ever forget you.”

Capers, now 88 years old, earned the honor for putting his own life at risk to protect fellow Marines after their unit was ambushed during a mission in Vietnam in 1967. What began as a reconnaissance operation to locate a suspected North Vietnamese base camp quickly turned into days of brutal combat in thick jungle terrain, according to his official citation.

On the fourth day of fighting, enemy forces ambushed his team, and Capers suffered a broken leg and serious abdominal wounds from a mine explosion.

“After a shot of morphine, Jim asserted command of the firefight,” Trump said, recounting the events. “He took over like nobody’s ever seen before.”

Despite his injuries, Capers coordinated air support to push back the attack. When a rescue helicopter finally arrived, he made sure every wounded Marine was loaded onto the aircraft before boarding himself.

Trump shared a personal moment with Capers at the ceremony, carefully pinning the medal around the veteran’s neck and adjusting it by the shoulders to ensure it hung properly. Capers had held a stoic expression throughout, but broke into a wide smile when Trump grinned at him.

Col. Ripley was honored for a daring solo effort to stop the advance of North Vietnamese forces by destroying a critical bridge in 1972. According to his citation, a force of more than 30,000 enemy soldiers and 200 tanks was closing in on a bridge in the village of Dong Ha when Ripley single-handedly positioned 500 pounds of explosives to bring the structure down.

The effort took five hours, during which Ripley repeatedly climbed along the bridge’s steel beams while exposed to enemy fire to place the explosive charges.

“John completed not one, not two, but five such trips,” Trump said, describing Ripley as a “very strong guy.”

After saying a prayer, Ripley detonated the bridge, collapsing it into the water and stopping the North Vietnamese advance, Trump recounted. Ripley’s three sons and other family members were present at the ceremony to accept the honor on his behalf.

Maj. Dockery’s medal recognized his actions in 2012, when his platoon was guarding a compound in Afghanistan’s Kapisa Province and came under attack by an estimated 150 Taliban fighters. Dockery sprinted across open ground to regroup his scattered soldiers and then went searching for missing members of his unit, according to his citation.

After carrying a wounded soldier out of the line of fire, Dockery spotted two enemy combatants moving toward another injured American soldier in an alley. He eliminated both threats before performing CPR on the wounded soldier to restore his breathing. Dockery then called in mortar support and used his own body to shield the injured soldier from the blasts.

After hours of close-quarters urban combat, Dockery used smoke grenades to mark enemy positions for American gunships overhead. He refused to leave until every wounded soldier had been safely evacuated.

“You were the last man to depart the battlefield that day,” Trump told Dockery, “and you left it a legend and a hero.”